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Game mechanic ideas you wish had been better implemented

the_shadow

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I've noticed that quite a few RPGs have a 'morale' system, where enemies will break and run if they are scared enough (eg. Baldur's Gate, Skyrim, Avernum/Exile). Usually you break morale due to massive level differences, or getting the enemy to a very low hit point %.

I really like the idea of such a system, but unfortunately it has never been very well implemented. If a 5 foot 7 human encounters a 12 foot ogre, they should be shitting themselves (or at least a little un-nerved). Likewise, being covered in acid or flames can't be great for your morale. I'd love to see an RPG which actually fleshes out morale, and considers factors such as size differences between combatants, numerical superiority, damage rates, and spell effects.

The mechanics of magic vs combat are usually pretty shit, too. I hate that magical spells are fueled by 'mana' that can be conveniently recovered by potions, allowing you to spam fireballs ad infinitum. The 'memorisation' system in Forgotten Realms games isn't much better.

The way I see it, channeling and shaping magic is mentally straining. Therefore the number of spells you can cast should be a function of willpower, where 'mana' is replaced by mental fatigue. Buff and summoning spells would constantly increase mental fatigue, and having more than one buff/summon at a time would incur a penalty to mental drain (multitasking is hard!). Once you hit the maximum allowable mental fatigue, your caster drops to the ground in a coma. This seems like a sensible way to stop magic from being OP'ed.
 

Perkel

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Story mode in Fallout Tactics. I mean combat system is only second to JA2 and filled with shiton of weapons and mechanics.
Get more locations on map make it completely open world and you have fucking amazing game.
 

Carrion

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Firearms in RPGs are almost always implemented like shit. Usually higher skill allows you to fire more accurately and maybe deal more damage on successful hits (which of course is retarded), but it doesn't affect your weapon handing or other important aspects of using a gun in any way. It's not actually hard to hit a target the size of a human being from 150 yards out with an assault rifle even if you're a total novice, as long as you have enough time and the conditions are good, like at a shooting range. It gets harder if the target is moving, if you have a limited amount of time in which to take the shot, if you have to fire from a non-optimal position like standing up, and so on. Then there's of course stuff like reloading in the middle of combat, fixing a weapon jam, weapon maintenance and other things where a novice might fail spectacularly or at least waste a lot of time compared to an expert. Still, in RPGs weapon skill usually just comes down to accuracy and/or damage, which just isn't very interesting. It's quite funny that the simplistic and honestly pretty bad weapon skill system of Deus Ex was some kind of an exception, because it managed to simulate some of these other aspects rather well (although in a very abstracted way) with the shrinking reticule, which also led to notable gameplay differences between skilled and non-skilled characters (for example, an assault rifle expert could just run into a room and empty a clip into someone's face, whereas a novice would be better off taking his time and shooting short bursts or single shots from a stationary position). Then there's of course JA2.

Charisma obviously sucks too, pretty much in every game. I'd like to see a game which at least tied it more closely to the loyalty of your party members and NPC followers. For example, in BG your party members will abandon you if you do stuff that they find abhorrent, but it'd be cool if an exceptionally charismatic character could do horrible things while still maintaining the loyalty of his followers, possibly even changing their alignment in the process. Of course there are a ton of possible things you could do with it, like failing a speech check and spouting out a bunch of nonsense but still managing to convince someone that you're right. What you don't want to do with Charisma is to go full retard and tie it to combat mechanics or something just to make it not-a-dump-stat.
 

Lonely Vazdru

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Resting is always crappy, you push a button and voilà... at worst you just reload. I would like to see a game in which you decide on a "taking turns at guarding the campfire" routine and then the game shoots his "random encounter" routine. If your rest is interrupted, whichever character is currently awake guarding at that time should then be making skill checks/fighting/waking the others....
The only time I got to wake other party members in a game were in the M&M and Wizardry games, and it was to counter the "Sleep" spell. And I don't remember fighting any "rest interrupted" fight in any game except for grinding purposes. Yet, I'm sure those fights and the "waking other party members up" could be made interesting.
 
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No Great Name

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The huge discrepancy between the real-time and action point-based combat systems in Arcanum could've been better. One gives obvious advantages over the other depending on your build.
 

Immortal

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The huge discrepancy between the real-time and action point-based combat systems in Arcanum could've been better. One gives obvious advantages over the other depending on your build.

Fixing the different modes of combat in Arcanum to be more balanced would be like polishing a rusty can at the local city dump.. I love the game so much but I have no illusions what a sloppy mess it is. :lol:

AFAIK.. no game has ever attempted that dual combat system before and since with good reason.. You can't take a AP-Centric Turn based game engine and flip it into RtWP with no changes to abilities or combat pacing without breaking something. (Everything)
 

Grimwulf

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AFAIK.. no game has ever attempted that dual combat system before and since with good reason..

Come on. Perkel just a couple posts earlier already mentioned Fallout: Tactics. It had switchable type of combat and it was implemented BRILLIANTLY. Besides, almost any of active-pause-type of combat games, both old and new, actually fit the criteria too. You give ur orders to everybody and wait for "turn" to end, then pause that shit and give new orders. Or you don't pause and play it real-time.

As for the topic of dat thread:
1. Lockpicking. A shitload of games has some lockpicking involved. It's either some % of success or boring/tedious/funny minigame. Why something so potentially interesting always left unattended?
2. Horseriding. Only Mount&Blade has a decent, although not perfect, horseriding system. Still doesn't give me The Feel tho.
3. Slashers. Not a single one since Blade of Darkness, which was absolutely brilliant. Rune is no more a slasher than Skyrim. Die by the Sword is bullshit. As for Demon/Dark Souls series - played them all with all DLC's, many times. Still prefer BoD - coz BLOOD AND GORE.
4. True first-eye perspective. When you look down and see your fucking chest and legs and everything. I know that some games have it, like Dark Messiah and some others, but it's still VERY fucking rare. And rather roughly implemented too.
5. Medieval life sim. Not a single one exists, except for The Guild series. The first one is ancient, the second remains unplayable even today. And don't even mention Sims 3: Medieval or I'll go medieval on you!

Err, seems like I'm getting carried away from RPG genre. Time to stop posting.
 

Immortal

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AFAIK.. no game has ever attempted that dual combat system before and since with good reason..

Come on. Perkel just a couple posts earlier already mentioned Fallout: Tactics. It had switchable type of combat and it was implemented BRILLIANTLY. Besides, almost any of active-pause-type of combat games, both old and new, actually fit the criteria too. You give ur orders to everybody and wait for "turn" to end, then pause that shit and give new orders. Or you don't pause and play it real-time.

Not even close..
 

Grimwulf

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AFAIK.. no game has ever attempted that dual combat system before and since with good reason..

Come on. Perkel just a couple posts earlier already mentioned Fallout: Tactics. It had switchable type of combat and it was implemented BRILLIANTLY. Besides, almost any of active-pause-type of combat games, both old and new, actually fit the criteria too. You give ur orders to everybody and wait for "turn" to end, then pause that shit and give new orders. Or you don't pause and play it real-time.

Not even close..
Close to what? To Arcanum? Well, thank god it's not close to Arcanum. What Fallout: Tactics did really good is it made the player think, when to play real-time and when to go turn-based. When you lay a comlex ambush, which involves several squad members and traps, you want real-time. When you fight a full-scale WAR, using a lot of different covers and maneuvers - you want turn-based. Moreso, the game is actually possible to complete in one mode only if that's your fancy. Now that's a good work. Shit, I really missed that system in JA2.

Arcanum? It just had an utterly broken combat. Period.
 

Raapys

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Jun 7, 2007
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Magic.

It essentially gives developers free reins to do whatever they want, a place to pour all their excess creativity and ideas. But what do we get 99% of the time? Either a copy-pasted D&D system(but with fewer spells and more restrictions than in PnP), or the "archer with glowing arrows" type. There are so many possibilities for interesting magic systems and spell effects that you could explore it in dozens of mage-exclusive games, both RPG and not, and still not exhaust all the possibilities.
 

Leonorai

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1. Lockpicking. A shitload of games has some lockpicking involved. It's either some % of success or boring/tedious/funny minigame. Why something so potentially interesting always left unattended?
How would you handle it if you were a developer? It makes at least some sense to either completely abstract it with percentages or try and fumble with a tumbler simulation. Don't see how you could make it any more exciting/engaging for what it is.
 

Surf Solar

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Resting is always crappy, you push a button and voilà... at worst you just reload. I would like to see a game in which you decide on a "taking turns at guarding the campfire" routine and then the game shoots his "random encounter" routine. If your rest is interrupted, whichever character is currently awake guarding at that time should then be making skill checks/fighting/waking the others....
The only time I got to wake other party members in a game were in the M&M and Wizardry games, and it was to counter the "Sleep" spell. And I don't remember fighting any "rest interrupted" fight in any game except for grinding purposes. Yet, I'm sure those fights and the "waking other party members up" could be made interesting.

Expeditions:Conquistador had something like that
 

Jools

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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Insert Title Here Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
I mentioned this before, but:

CITIES. For Christ's sake, cities in RPG are the most dumb and unrealistic thing. This applies to most (all?) games. At best they have 50, maybe 100 (?) named citizens or so, and I have the feeling I'm being generous. That's barely a hamlet, population-wise, and yet they got castles and walls and an "army" and everything. 99% of the buildings is just cardboard scenery, 99% of the "walking" npcs are just cardboard cutouts without any use/life/interaction. The geography is extremely distorted in most cases too, with 90% of the few buildings being shops or commercial/governance venues.

Yes, I wanna pick every door and stalk/rape/kingcomrade every citizen in their sleep. To its credit, size-wise, Assassin's Creed (1/2.1/2.2/2.3) did an awesome job at that. Strip away the silly parkour, add interiors, peroper NPCs and there you go. Even the smallest city in AC would be large enough to support a plot/quest/game of dozens of hours, if "exploited" properly by the devs. Oh, I would so love such a game.
 

Grimwulf

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1. Lockpicking. A shitload of games has some lockpicking involved. It's either some % of success or boring/tedious/funny minigame. Why something so potentially interesting always left unattended?
How would you handle it if you were a developer? It makes at least some sense to either completely abstract it with percentages or try and fumble with a tumbler simulation. Don't see how you could make it any more exciting/engaging for what it is.
I guess I stated my thoughts the wrong way. I like and appreciate when devs try to make it, well, something more than just a chance of succes/fail. Like minigames in late TES series. I absolutely HATE shit like "click left/right/up/down ir correct order and start again if you fail", like it was in Gothic series. Or was it Risen series? Maybe both. My memory is kinda glitchy. That's exactly why I hate it.

What I would do? Ok, so you are an adventurer guy. You found chest. You click on chest and get a big picture / full description. You get a lot of options how to roll with it.

1. Most of the chests in yer average RPGs are FUCKING WOODEN. Did you ever think of how stupid it is to search for them keys or picking locks, when you can just smash the lock/chest with an axe?
2. Checking for traps coud involve the player. You can look at it close-up from all sides (Skyrim had it tho - little thingies that gave you visual hints on chest traps). Or knock on different sections and listen to sounds it makes. Or try to shake it a bit.
3. Assuming the chest is tricky to bruteforce it open and seemingly not triggered, you are given an option to pick that lock. As you are now fully concentrated on the lock, the mobs / guards / enemies can creep up on you. So the game should provide you with a "turn around and check" option, which you should do from time to time during picking dat lock up.
4. Different locks should be fucking different. And demand different approach. Ones are easier to pick with a knife, others require something long, thin and fairly flexible (like wire), third something short, wavy and solid, like a hairpin. A pro locksmith should identify the type of lock on sight. Novice should make it with trial and error. Or bring some candles and magnifying glass to examine it first.
5. The visual part of the lockpicking process doesn't need a genius to implement. We've seen it in TES series.
6. Lockpicks are just not your thing? And the chest is solid metal? Try some alchemy acid potion thingie. Maybe it will melt the lock! I don't even mention obvious magic, coz it's widely implemented already. But I'll mention fire and explosives. Coz it's not seen as often.
7. Playing some modern setting? Well, we have all kind of tools to deal with locks - just look at them criminal bank-robber movies. I want to crack open a safe with a blowtorch, what game allows me to do that?
8. Everything else fails, but you just GOTTA open that chest? Haul it to the blacksmith then. Let the game make it really slow and punushing for overall health, but give me the goddamn option!

Smth like that. But I know, modern games and gamers are against complexity. Never gonna happen. Sigh.

I mentioned this before, but:

CITIES. For Christ's sake, cities in RPG are the most dumb and unrealistic thing. This applies to most (all?) games. At best they have 50, maybe 100 (?) named citizens or so, and I have the feeling I'm being generous. That's barely a hamlet, population-wise, and yet they got castles and walls and an "army" and everything. 99% of the buildings is just cardboard scenery, 99% of the "walking" npcs are just cardboard cutouts without any use/life/interaction. The geography is extremely distorted in most cases too, with 90% of the few buildings being shops or commercial/governance venues.

Yes, I wanna pick every door and stalk/rape/kingcomrade every citizen in their sleep. To its credit, size-wise, Assassin's Creed (1/2.1/2.2/2.3) did an awesome job at that. Strip away the silly parkour, add interiors, peroper NPCs and there you go. Even the smallest city in AC would be large enough to support a plot/quest/game of dozens of hours, if "exploited" properly by the devs. Oh, I would so love such a game.
Ever tried Daggerfall?

Agree on Assassin's Creed in matters of size-wide. But still, buildings are unaccessible and all citizens are pretty much the same. You could play GTA, Saints Row, Prototype, Watching Dogs and get pretty much the same result. It's fake.
 

Leonorai

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Smth like that. But I know, modern games and gamers are against complexity. Never gonna happen. Sigh.
Good stuff, you've had time to think it through i see. As you folks say, updated my text or something.

No seriously though, updated an actual text file should i ever manage to make something.

As for why stuff like that's not in yet in any title, you'll have a hard time explaining to an exec that you want such an in depth lockpicking system in the game just for shits and gigles/completion. They'll either try and turn it into the main focus of the game or laugh you out.
 

AbounI

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Resting is always crappy, you push a button and voilà... at worst you just reload. I would like to see a game in which you decide on a "taking turns at guarding the campfire" routine and then the game shoots his "random encounter" routine. If your rest is interrupted, whichever character is currently awake guarding at that time should then be making skill checks/fighting/waking the others....
The only time I got to wake other party members in a game were in the M&M and Wizardry games, and it was to counter the "Sleep" spell. And I don't remember fighting any "rest interrupted" fight in any game except for grinding purposes. Yet, I'm sure those fights and the "waking other party members up" could be made interesting.

Blade of destiny does that pretty well.Mages can even use "awaken" spell to avoid their sleeping companions being hit before they can stand up.
And of course, benefits of resting for those who had "guard turns" is decreased : less health and/or mana restored if there is no night encounter

One thing I was thinking concerning a better game mechanic is the time management of events.
IE, Viconia.Whenever I arrive near her for the 1st time in BG2, she's always about to be hanged, whatever the day of adventure it is.It could be day 1 or day 49, this first encounter is allways managed in the same way.Why she's not hanged before I arrive?Can't I arrive too late to save her?
Why the beggers asking for my generosities when I pass along them?Can't they die of starving instead, can't I come too late?Why this travelling trader always in need when I'm travelling along this road?Can't he be attacked before or after my passage?So, random events are not so random.Time management is a must in a persistant/dynamic world
In this, I put good hope in Battle Brothers, as its random events seems to be well managed in their dynamic world

Just as the worldmap and all the tactical battle maps are procedurally generated and will never look the same, so are contracts procedurally generated and don’t follow a scripted linear order. Importantly, though, contracts aren’t just random missions thrown at you. They are the result of what really is going on in the world
 
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Daemongar

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Resting is always crappy, you push a button and voilà... at worst you just reload. I would like to see a game in which you decide on a "taking turns at guarding the campfire" routine and then the game shoots his "random encounter" routine. If your rest is interrupted, whichever character is currently awake guarding at that time should then be making skill checks/fighting/waking the others....
The only time I got to wake other party members in a game were in the M&M and Wizardry games, and it was to counter the "Sleep" spell. And I don't remember fighting any "rest interrupted" fight in any game except for grinding purposes. Yet, I'm sure those fights and the "waking other party members up" could be made interesting.

Expeditions:Conquistador had something like that
So did Ultima IV.
 

Grimwulf

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I know that chances that somebody played and remember Kagero are pretty much zero, but still.

There one was Deception game series, from which the second game, Kagero: Deception 2 was simply astonishing. I still play it on espx emulator actually. So, the idea is the following: you control that girl who basically can't do SHIT, except running. She can't fight, talk, jump, crouch - nothing, but running. And - here comes the drumbase - triggering traps. So the game starts in a mansion where different folk come for different reasons. You may trigger it with traps however you like. The goal is to lure people in those traps, preferably combining them for mmmaximum effectiveness. Stand on top of the staircase and wait for enemy to ascend high enough. Trigger hidden blinding explosion. Then make a rock fall from the ceiling and roll down the staircase. As the guy will roll down the stairs with dat rock, trigger arrows from walls, spikes from floor, let the gas fill the room - all your sadistic fantasy desires. The game was pretty violent and atmospheric, it made you think creatively. I miss that whole concept.

Good stuff, you've had time to think it through i see. As you folks say, updated my text or something.
Well, that's mighty good to know!
:updatedmytxt:

Edit: I take it all back, apparently there is a fourth part of Kagero (Deception IV), which recently came out on PS3. Looks freaking awesome, don't know how I missed it.
 
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Villagkouras

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All game mechanics that after the 20th time you see them in a game make you want to die from boredom.
 

Daemongar

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I'll just throw these out as I like each and were good, but I've seen too many poor implementations:

* Realistic health systems. Some games have nuances that move beyond healing potions/spells that bring a person from deaths door to perfect health, but most have to take shortcuts to get things back to normal. The original Wasteland is a game that strikes me as having a health system that seems... close enough. There are healers in town, but you have stabilize the injured if they are unconscious, etc. Wasteland had its faults as well, but it was closest to what I am looking for.

* Others also seeking what you are looking for, competing adventurers and they not being cookie-cutter evil. Wizardry 7 had others looking for maps and such, and some D&D games had other parties with their own motives, but most are just another encounter to fight. There is the underlying thought that if we are both good, and vying for the same reward, either a) my party will kill the other party or b) the other party will be killed by bad guy. Would be nice to see some other options for a change. Wizardy 7 does this best, but it kind of ... fell by the wayside.

* Factions that aren't all obviously good and obviously evil. For the evil playthrough, join x. For the good playthrough, join y. You can also join all the factions that are good, even if it makes no sense. For this, I liked FO:NV and while the NCR was the most evil, they still had their own good points, like the farming outside Vegas and... well, I'm sure there is more. This I would like to see more of or further developed, but I'm sure it's a bitch to implement.
 

Jools

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Sneaking is another "meh" aspect: it often lacks some grey areas between "get spotted by cyber-eyed goon wjos looking the other way, 25 km away in the mist" and "stand in front of goon while dancing and humming the teletubbies theme without actually being noticed".
 
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Lilura

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Story mode in Fallout Tactics. I mean combat system is only second to JA2 and filled with shiton of weapons and mechanics.
Get more locations on map make it completely open world and you have fucking amazing game.

u forreal?

If Fallout: Tactics was "second" to JA2 it would be a squinting distant second even for an eagle, in which case lets not stand and applaud for silver... But this isn't the case, we all know Silent Storm is the respectable second to JA2, not "Tactics".

Tactics is an unholy union of run n gun popamole in CTB, or insomnia-curing TB. Formations, pathfinding, skills and guns are abysmal. Music, VOs and SFX are shit. Visuals are bland and uninspired and the UI is... unclean. Encounters are repetitive. Climbing and destructible environments were obviously too hard for these devs to implement, and there's basically so much wrong with the game that Redux can't fix one thing without breaking another. Lets not get into lore.

So calling it "fucking amazing" if there was "open world with more locations" - I mean, really?
 

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