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[baconman]

How about no magic at all?

Anything you'd normally use magic for, you have to use disposable items for instead. Now, rather than generic MP-recovery items, you actually manage your in-game economy instead. Go get a taste of your dungeon to see what you should stock up on, then go back to town to buy it? Or forecast it ahead of time and see if your item-strategy works.

Also, drop the incremental gear/armors - manage player growth ENTIRELY via level-ups. Perhaps allow the player to 'buy' levels in towns too, and maybe even include a couple of intentional difficulty spikes where doing so is not only a valid thing to do, but the correct one.

[Graham-]

Decay would therefore be a positive (because it increases liquidity) whereas fabrication becomes risk.  In that case, you may want to increase the ability to risk (by making fabrication possible anywhere) but limit decay.  Maybe rather than be on a clock, there should be specific places where you can melt stuff back down.  There's a neat game tension there, similar to the traditional RPG tension ("do I have enough HP/MP to get to the next rest-point?") but with a different mechanical question.

So I have some immediate thoughts here.

A typical circuit of play for a JRPG is this:
 1. Fight a bunch of mindless battles, perfecting your sense of how your party should fight.
 2. Fight a boss and fail.
 3. Repeat until you've won, adjusting your build/strategy as you go.

To make liquidity an actual issue it needs to be true that a player can "sense" what is coming up next in some way - foreshadowing (say by the area boss hinted at by his minions) - and it must also be true that conversion of raw product into actual items is limited by the design of the game, so that the player has increasingly limited choices in what he can fashion as he approaches the next big challenge.

In simpler terms:
 1. 1 boss every 2 hours of game time.
 2. 30 "units" of item fashioning per hour of "leveling."

Now a party has to prepare incrementally, for a boss.

I also like "leveling" towns; leaving your mark on the world is a great feeling.  The Suikoden games were great for that.  But then there's the question of going to a new town and "losing" your progress, which the Suikoden games (by keeping all such leveling to one town) avoided.

What would be neat is if your most important contributions to these towns enabled advances in transportation and communication, so that (mechanically) your achievements in one town are still available in others and (thematically) so that by the end you see isolated towns start to interact and affect each other.  Maybe by the end you've forged a nation.  That's a good feeling.

There's actually two problems that can be solved here, both tropes! (I love how we come back around):
 1. Re-using towns.
 2. Creating a sense of "ownership" over the world.

One of the cool things about the old-school Zeldas is how the player is forced to understand the entire map. He learns shortcuts, and where each shop is etc. This property is one of the perks of Dark Souls, and even more so old Zeldas (because they have more backtracking). More than once I've seen a thread on TIGs that compares the value of old Zeldas vs the New. The fans of the old say that one of their favourite bits was being able to revisit old places. You weren't forced to follow a linear path playing those games. You had to forge one, by mastering the entire world that was there.

Suddenly things like airships become more meaningful. OMG.

Take any JRPG, cut the number of towns in half, and beef up the existing ones, and have them change in some way as the player progresses. With the same amount of content you will have a much more interesting game. And now we get the "NPCs react to your behaviour" change for free. 3 tropes for one!

[Graham-]

I was thinking the decay/item making ideas would be mutually exclusive, actually. I don't see how I could make them work together, plus they both solve the same problems anyway.

How come? Decay forces you to think long-term in a limited fashion, for items, and shorter terms in increasing amounts. So I have to think a little about the future, and a little more about the near future, and a little more about right now.

Without decay we get item buildup, and long menus. I have 42 tonics left over half way through the game that I will never use. What the fuck?

Item building does two things:

1. We aren't penalized for not using an item that decayed (well, we are penalized a little bit, because the pure resource left over by a decayed item is less than what it took to make it, probably, depending on design).

2. We have a separate economy for item building. We can control this economy however we want. Now the player is forced to use approximately 10% of items in this battle. He doesn't have to choose between armor and items every purchase - since pure resource can be limited by item type (i.e. armour vs consumable). Each town can specialize in creating items from a particular sub-resource. And so on.

As an example, since we already brought it up, Minecraft has the item making but not the decay.

I was actually thinking there'd be a handful of kingdoms that would support you against the evil bad kingdom if you helped them out enough, sort of like how (and this is second-hand knowledge, since I've yet to play it) how you had to convince the various governments to support you against the bad guys there.

As an aside, I love building up a massive team, and making lots of friends, and bringing everyone together to fight the final big battle. That's pretty JRPG. That's a trope I love.

[Graham-]

Baconman, I am going to bring up Grandia II here. In Grandia II you get 4 kinds of resources at the end of battle:
 1. XP
 2. Gold coins.
 3. Special coins.
 4. Magic coins.

Really. I love Grandia II. The XP is for straight leveling, and you basically ignore that; it just makes numbers go up. Gold is for shops. Special coins buy you abilities - either within equip-able skills, or permanent skills. And magic coins level up your spells.

I really enjoyed that system. Having these separate economies, balancing them, controlling the kinds of drops different mobs give etc. They give the designer so much more control, and the player so much more freedom. And some of the annoying choices are removed.

[Graham-]

One trope for the mix. I hate having to work my butt off to get a new character, get invested in his/her story line, and then their story just dies after I "get" him/her (or some short time after).

[JWK5]

I don't like long-term rationing mechanics in scripted, play-once games.  Short term rationing -- minimizing HP/MP expenditure so you can go longer without tenting/towning -- well, that's the gameplay itself.  But I don't like the decision to use or hold back on powerful one-use items, because I don't know, hours from now, whether there's a huge boss or difficulty spike I'm going to need them for. That choice is never fun for me -- there's an optimal strategy but I can't know it -- so I tend to avoid item use altogether.  (If all items, even powerful ones, replenished when tenting/towning, then everything becomes short-term rationing.  Maybe your invaders bring a matter-duplicator (and in the process collapse the gold economy) and instead of getting an item the player upgrades their duplicator capacity, to be able to "hold" one more of that item.)

What's even worse is when you do hold on to that powerful one-use item for a long time and then before you get to use it it's become obsolete (i.e. it is now a sub-par item by comparison to the enimies rather than a powerful one). The later Final Fantasy games are rife with that.

Another thing that is irritating is when equipment is so close in function and so close in stats that they become obsolete before you even find them. For example, you have a sword that does 10 damage and in town you buy a sword that does 15 damage but in the dungeon you are currently in you find a sword that does 12 damage which is now essentially useless (other than to sell) because you already have a 15 damage sword.

Just as obnoxious is buying a 13 damage sword for a bunch of gold and then finding a 14 damage sword in the dungeon. When the "progression" of item utility is done in baby steps all it is really accomplishing is screwing over the player and watering down the excitement of finding new loot.

[Graham-]

All the FFs are rife with that.

The equipment upgrade path used to bother me in the same way it bothers you. Then I played Diablo II. Half the fun in that game is deciding whether new loot is good or not, and what you want to find.

There needs to be a separation from loot drops that are always useful - say items that upgrade existing equipment - or loot drops that might suck (but are still fun to deal with).

edit: Also a system for de-making bad drops (into raw materials) can help here.

[JWK5]

There needs to be a separation from loot drops that are always useful - say items that upgrade existing equipment - or loot drops that might suck (but are still fun to deal with).

One way I can see around that is to have old gear used to improve new gear. So maybe your 13 damage sword can be used to upgrade that 14 damage sword to a 16 damage sword or transfers various properties (armor-piercing, elemental damage, etc).

There are a few RPGs that rather than giving you money after fights give you various pieces (poached animal parts, broken equipment chunks, etc.) and you in turn sell these to get your money. I always liked those setups over the standard "get X money for Y enemies" setup, and those setups can easily be expanded to have shifting markets where certain vendors in certain towns pay more or less for specific items and you have to watch the ebb and flow of the markets to get the most money out of it.

EDIT: This could also tie into town NPCs where you have to ask around town to gain clues about the state of the markets (i.e. figuring out what might sell good where before you get there) which gives NPCs a little more usefulness than just relaying whatever standard messages they give.

[Graham-]

What JRPGs need is a good crafting system.

Selling stuff for gold in various ways, as you've mentioned, is a crafting system with a single resource type.

See Minecraft for good crafting. I've seen lots of crafting systems attempted in games, and lots fail.

[JWK5]

Atelier Iris had a fun crafting system, as did Star Ocean 2. I probably spent as much time crafting in Star Ocean 2 as I did playing the game just because it was fun to see all the weird things you'd create.

[baconman]

Spiral Knights is a cool adventure game with crafting in it; although definitively different than a JRPG. And considering even combat actions are nothing but a list of menus, I really don't think a crafting system in a JRPG would be any more fun or interesting than that.

Plus, what utility do you get from stuff you craft? Crafting weapons or armor is one thing, but the reason crafting in Minecraft or Terraria is interesting is because it is effectively making a toolset that allows you to DO more, and also allows you to craft more.

Table > Furnace, Loom
Furnace > Ores, Anvil
Anvil > Chains
Table + Chains > Table Saw


In a bit of an antithesis tangent to the thread, there is this:





It looks and smells like FF XIV, except I can actually tell what the flick is going on in it. This needs to become real. And also, it's not horridly paced. One boss for every TWO HOURS? GTFO. A boss every twenty to thirty minutes is bad enough! (And seems the actual par for the course.)

[Graham-]

Craft items to win battles to get more crafting (better) shit. Same thing.

Mine faster = battle faster.

[JWK5]

BATTLE: Poached items (bones, hide, claws, etc.)
ENVIRONMENT: Wood, Metal, etc.
CRAFTING STATIONS: Anvil, Workstation, Smelt, etc.

Use materials gained to craft at crafting station.

You could settle with just making weapons, armor, items, etc. but suppose each crafting station is tied to a specific structure (weapon/armor crafting at the smithy, a cooking pot in the inn, etc.) and suppose you can use materials to improve each structure (thus improving the crafting stations). The more the crafting structure are improved the more items can be made with the crafting stations and the more items the shops have for sell.

You could extend this to other buildings as well (a la Azure Dreams). By improving homes and such around town you open up various NPC dialog options, new shops, new paths, etc.

[Graham-]

If you want to do a thread on building/analyzing crafting systems I'd join you.

As an aside, city planning/development would be cool in an RPG. You make town decisions. You go adventure. You return to the town and see what has changed (as a consequence of your decision making). This lets us count our town count down even further.

[Graham-]

based on what is here.

combat/related

grind
linear paths for character development
 - lack of interesting choices about builds
 - lack of strategy in builds
lack of strategy in combat
weak magic/items (making them useless)
status effects useless
useless loot drops - from monsters/treasure
item problems:
 - hoarding
 - many are useless, or become useless over time
 - only a small fraction are regularly used
poorly balanced challenge curve:
 - difficulty spikes
 - plateaus
 - uncomfortable patterns
party juggling for experience
equipment upgrade choices are "calculations," linear, routine


world interactivity

slow opening
world does not react to your actions
unresponsive menus
environments not interactive
mini-games not integrated well
side-quests aren't approachable (should be easy to access, within reason)
random battles
towns are one-stop shops. instead see:
 - upgrading shops
 - changing characters in the town
 - characters react to the things you do
 - long-term changes based on decisions you make about that town


writing

inconsistent story
 - weakens part-way through the game
 - falls apart for certain characters after their "bit" is over
 - does not tie the world together
bad writing
linear story
 - must be explored in a predictable pattern
 - cannot branch, either by decisions made or challenges succeed/failed at
exposition: too much or poorly paced

[valrus]

As an aside, city planning/development would be cool in an RPG. You make town decisions. You go adventure. You return to the town and see what has changed (as a consequence of your decision making). This lets us count our town count down even further.

If the world progresses through the age of rail, it'd be great to influence the decisions about the track routes.  That would really make changes to the world.  Whichever sleepy village the track goes through becomes a city, and you come back to see that so-and-so's the mayor and so-and-so's running the inn.  If you've got iron and coal on the rail network, a steel industry develops (and you can get steel items).  If the rail goes through a holy site it makes enemies out of a previously friendly village.  If the rail goes through a monster migration route, no monsters on the other side anymore.

[Graham-]

Yeah, this "vibrancy of the world" thing is what JRPGs need.

--

Shilcote, I've realized that we've mostly focused on fixing traditional JRPG problems, instead of subverting expectations. A "subversion" would be more like starting with a new party 4 times through the game... or making all leveling quest based instead of XP based. Are we on the right track?

[James Edward Smith]

I hate hit points and mana points.

[Graham-]

What do we replace them with?

[JWK5]

Damage could be dealt on a percentile range.

A knife might inflict a random amount of damage between 1-5% which is added into the character's lethal damage total. Each attack you make a check generating a random number between 0 and 99 (%), if it is less than the character's total lethal damage he is slain. Armor reduces the damage dealt by weapons.

Some weapons can deal both lethal and non-lethal damage. For example a wooden club might deal 1-5(%) lethal damage and 2-8(%) non-lethal damage. A successful non-lethal check knocks the target out rather than killing them.

With magic, each spell used could deal mental exhaustion. So each time you use a spell you add X% of mental exhaustion and then make a check after the spell is cast, failure results in the caster passing out.

In this way combat becomes a little more unpredictable because you could potentially be slain very quickly or get the luck of the "roll" and survive incredible odds.

EDIT: Various status effects or physical states could also play into a system like that. Bleeding might cause a 1% lethal loss each round for example. You could employ Dungeon & Dragons styled wild cards where a "roll" of 100% always succeeds and a roll of 0% always fails or something.