Best/worst ideas used in a rpg

[Drakon]

mechanics gameplay etc....

I'll start this off with my personal favourites

chrono trigger: double and triple techs. Now that's just one great idea. Combination spells. I know they dabbled in that a bit in games like ff4. But chrono trigger just completely took it to the next level.

final fantasy 4: people learning magic and abilities the old fashioned way. What do I mean by this? Simple. You don't buy magic spells/abilities in a store. You don't learn stuff from some glowy rock that you found somewhere. You just have characters who study one particular field each. And as they gain experience they learn better abilities on their own. To me this just makes more sense. In other games it feels like I'm taking a car mechanic and teaching him how to be a relationship advisor. I don't get why rpg players want the ability to customize the characters in the game like a freaken barbie doll.

earthbound: instant kill when you become a high enough level. Brilliant idea. No more engaging battles that will end in 1 hit when the game figures it out for you and just skips the time consuming thing. When people see me playing rpgs and just hitting "a" button over and over I always have to explain that yes I am infact actually playing the game.

bad idea(s):

ff7: Long attack animations: Like Sephiroths attack that blows up a bunch of planets. Great...animation looks cool. But there's a few problems. a: the planets come back to be blown up again whenever he decides to do this attack. and b: it takes like 5 minutes to do the stupid attack. I would literally go to the kitchen, get some food, come back, and the animation still wouldn't be finished. There's other attacks in the game that create annoying long animations of non playing.

ff7: 50 versions of bahamut: It was cooler when there was just 1 rare bahamut to be found. But in ff7 for some reason they turned him into a superstar. Now you have so many different bahamuts you're not even sure which one to use anymore. And they all do pretty much the same thing. Again I feel like I'm customizing the game like a barbie doll. I want to play the game, not make do whatever I want.

[arion]

A few not so good ideas

The whole Draw system in FF8 sure you can get used to but it is too time consuming.

Oblivion made leveling up next to pointless just train your skills and stay at level 2.

And one good one

The open endend rpg system used in the Fallout games.

[fox099]

ff8 was my first rpg ever, and i thought the draw system was really cool. going back through and playing it again, i realized that it was revolutionary. i wish more games tried to do the same thing.

terranigma had the cool jewlery box. sure it was just a hidden item list, but it was a neat approach to something noramlly mundane.

ffx introduced swapping out players in battle. i found that great for a person that really enjoys having a diverse group of characters with specialties instead of a bunch of tanks that destroy everything.

grandia 1/2 have the cancel function in the attack window. why havent more rpgs taken from this???

all rpgs suffer from a similar problem: having redicilous hidden secrets that you would never find with out a strategy guide. ex: the secret seller in ffxii in the necrohol of nabudis. how on earth would you find him normally? why would you ever speak to a random corner? or finding the zodiac spear? dont open some boxes, but open others, how would you ever know?

summons: sometimes they are useful, sometimes not. i dont think i ever used a summon in ff6 or ff12. in 6, it was just to learn abilities

weapon types: most games never clearly explain the advantages of having a sword over a spear over a dagger, etc. it kinda sucks, and makes me seek outside sources.

[General Chaos]

A lot of my likes and dislikes can be captured in the divide between exp leveling and skill leveling systems.

I much prefer the skill leveling that you see in games like Oblivion (which I actually don't like that much on the whole). The quintessential example of skill based leveling was in Ultima Online. You used a skill and it leveled, and in the early days there was even atrophy, so that if you didn't use a skill it would slowly erode over time--very realistic but also extremely rewarding and intuitive.

I can pull other examples of things I like from Ultima Online. The crafting system is still the greatest in any game to this day. Basically what made UO so great was that item spawns actually meant something (nearly every one of them) and each little part went into a larger product.

To make a clock you needed springs and a frame. To get the springs you needed to smelt ore to get ingots which you needed to tinker into the springs, and then combine with the frame and a few other parts. The frame required you to use boards or raw lumber that you would have to chop an actual tree to get. Hell, lumberjacking was FUN in Ultima Online. I could go on and on... it was just an amazing system and I still tinker with my own server today b/c it's just such an open and rewarding world.

A more recent skill leveling system can be found in Contact for the GBA, and it's also quite rewarding. Somewhat similar to Oblivion, even running around will raise your skill in movement and make you faster. Each weapon type raises in the same way and the crafting/fishing/thief skills ALL work the same way. The badge/sticker system is also very creative and fun. In my opinion Contact is one of the most underrated RPGs.

Apart from the leveling structures, some other things I have liked in RPGs are:

-Too Human's auto-salvage system (saves a lot of time and tedium)
- Tactics Ogre's (GBA) badge system and the intuitive "help" option in all of the Ogre games.
- Randomized weapon stats
- The ability to name weapons and equipment in Revenant Wings
- Shining Force 3's relationship system
- CIMA: The enemy's relationship system (where people favored you more if they witnessed you performing heroic acts.


Okay, I've already said too much. Perhaps I'll post some dislikes later.

[corn619]

Bad idea, Unlimited Saga the concept sounds cool but the execution was just a failed experiment.

[RemyC]

Not about mechanics, but i always get a giggle out of it:
"the grand list of RPG cliches"
http://project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

[lisalover1]

Good ideas:

Golden Sun- Djinni. Such a good idea, like special attacks, but more useful. The fact that they stored power for summons was equally awesome.

Golden Sun- Weapon Unleashes. It was nice to have the chance for your weapon to do something cool, like extra damage, or a status effect. It happens more often and is more useful than critical attacks, so I thought it was great.

Bad Ideas:

Dragon Warrior- Single Fighter Battles. I don't care if technology was limited at the time; I never liked single-fighter battles.

[General Chaos]

Bad Ideas:

Dragon Warrior- Single Fighter Battles. I don't care if technology was limited at the time; I never liked single-fighter battles.

That reminds me of one "idea" in an rpg that I did like. Dark Savior for the Saturn has 1vs1 battles but they're real time fighting-esque. It doesn't feel at all like the Tales battles to me but it just seems to work in another way. That whole game is just generally awesome though.

[Ack]

Relying too much on card games in RPGs. I usually can't stand those things, and the way some of the 3D Final Fantasy titles used them....ugh. Also, inaccurate health bars, say like in Breath of Fire, where you'd drain the bar on a boss and they'd still have more health. That pissed me off.

I gotta agree with the General about UO though. Absolutely brilliant game. I had a lot of fun running around in black robes with a skull helmet and a chaos shield. My only regret was that I got into it too late so there was no room to build a house anywhere. I worked my way up to the biggest yacht in the game, then sailed off into the sunset and canceled my subscription. Best way to get out of an MMO I've ever played.

[General Chaos]

Relying too much on card games in RPGs. I usually can't stand those things, and the way some of the 3D Final Fantasy titles used them....ugh. Also, inaccurate health bars, say like in Breath of Fire, where you'd drain the bar on a boss and they'd still have more health. That pissed me off.

I gotta agree with the General about UO though. Absolutely brilliant game. I had a lot of fun running around in black robes with a skull helmet and a chaos shield. My only regret was that I got into it too late so there was no room to build a house anywhere. I worked my way up to the biggest yacht in the game, then sailed off into the sunset and canceled my subscription. Best way to get out of an MMO I've ever played.

Oh do I ever have some boat stories from UO, but I just have far too many stories from that game in general. I was fortunate enough to have played in the "early days" with some very good RL friends. Sadly I don't think I'll ever be able to match that experience insofar as gaming is concerned.

I completely agree w/ you about the card concept as well. I'm actually fairly sick of so many new RPGs throwing in these card collecting/using systems. Ironically though, I do like Culdcept, which is based entirely on Card collecting.