Favorite game mechanic you wish more RPGs would use?

[crufty]

sad that a lot of this stuff was present in magic candle, ultima, dragon wars etc. from 20 yrs ago.

 

[denizsi]

Bonus to rolls on repeated success - XP / skill gain on failure.

You want to improve, you need to find and fight people of better ability. Until then, grinding only means you become more efficient at your current level.

 

[Unradscorpion]

Phase-/turn-based combat.
Party-based combat.
Pre-combat auto-saves.
Permadeath.
Abundance of recruitable PCs.
Not being teleported into the arms of bossmonsters just because a stealthy PC got too close to some shitty script trigger.
Meaningful combat mechanics: as in not mindlessly hitting attack, and not being limited to casting the same 5 spells 5 times per day.
Vision & time that matters.
Story branches that utterly & irrevocably change the game world, or no story lines at all.
Skill-based dialogue that isn't labelled as such.
Getting nicked for nicking stuff.
Riddles.
Puzzles.
Traps that are more than XP dispensers for rogues.
Religious zealots and/or gods that actually do stuff.
Competing adventuring parties.
Objective-driven factions.
Randomly generated dungeons and wilderness.
Random encounters.

...

I'm just going to stop here, because.. It's getting depressing.

Actually that is depressing

 

[Bluebottle]

A crafting based spell system, á la Ultima VIII. Another great idea that has yet to be expanded upon, or even imitated. The closest is alchemy in TES, but that still misses most of the point.

 

[Severian Silk]

Also, heightfields for terrain and terrain that actually matters in combat.

 

[Phelot]

A crafting based spell system, á la Ultima VIII. Another great idea that has yet to be expanded upon, or even imitated. The closest is alchemy in TES, but that still misses most of the point.

You liked that system? I did as well, it made magic more sensical and... magical. I liked that you had to prepare before battles with creating the spells rather then just depending on a never ending supply of mana. It was also fun that every magical sphere had a different manner to cast spells.

It's a shame most games take magic for granted and never try to explain why it exists or how it's done. All that's ever really mentioned is that mages "have years of learning"

 

[markec]

Romances

 

[Flatlander]

Phase-/turn-based combat.
Party-based combat.
Pre-combat auto-saves.
Permadeath.
Abundance of recruitable PCs.
Not being teleported into the arms of bossmonsters just because a stealthy PC got too close to some shitty script trigger.
Meaningful combat mechanics: as in not mindlessly hitting attack, and not being limited to casting the same 5 spells 5 times per day.
Vision & time that matters.
Story branches that utterly & irrevocably change the game world, or no story lines at all.
Skill-based dialogue that isn't labelled as such.
Getting nicked for nicking stuff.
Riddles.
Puzzles.
Traps that are more than XP dispensers for rogues.
Religious zealots and/or gods that actually do stuff.
Competing adventuring parties.
Objective-driven factions.
Randomly generated dungeons and wilderness.
Random encounters.

...

I'm just going to stop here, because.. It's getting depressing.

What she said.
Actually anything that games 20-30 years ago got right.

 

[Severian Silk]

I don't like phase-based, my short-term memory is fucked.

 

[ElectricOtter]

A training system like Exile, where got skill points when you leveled up, but you had to go to a trainer to spend them and they cost gold to raise. It was actually a really balanced system and one of the best ways I've seen training done in a RPG.

 

[Sckarecrow92]

I would very much like another game with failable quests like in Din's curse.

 

[Elzair]

Environmental Interaction

In other words, baking some muthafuckin' bread!


This reminds me that I need to try Haven and Hearth.

 

[deuxhero]

e.g. drinking a mana potion would not only restore your mana but also burn your health. But I don't know of any RPG that uses such a concept.

The jRPG Breath of Fire 2, mostly an annoyance, mostly because the basic MP healer, which was the only one not super limited, drained 10 hp and gave you 20 mp, both were pretty much neglibble after the first few parts of the game (where free healing was plentiful...).


Most of the stuff in this thread and unique worlds. I'm tired of middle earth ripoff 25255 and generic fiedom 42352.

 

[Fucking Quality Poster]

- Permanent death (as done in Arcanum and FO1 and 2)

- Isometric POV (not necessarily a 'favorite mechanic' but one I would like to see more, FO3 should have been isometric, for example)

- Mature themes (brothels, moral ambiguity, violence unimpeded by real world political correctness, etc..)

- Nearly impossible to beat fights, not necessarily a 'boss', for example if you are storming a gang hideout, you should have a hard time staying alive

- Dealing with the consequences of failing a quest and not just having to reload the game

- Injuries both temporary and permanent. For example if you are blinded in one eye you should have to deal with that for the rest of the game.

- Make everybody in the game kill-able.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

- Nearly impossible to beat fights, not necessarily a 'boss', for example if you are storming a gang hideout, you should have a hard time staying alive

I think that most of fights when you are attacking any reasonably powerful organization should be practically unwinnable unless you have good leadership skills and good allies/mercenaries.
A single character or a small group of characters shouldn't be able to destroy whole bases of slavers/raiders.

 

[Sceptic]

drinking a mana potion would not only restore your mana but also burn your health. But I don't know of any RPG that uses such a concept.

Funnily enough Bioshock did this. Cigarettes do +mana -health while... something (alcohol I think?) does +health -mana.

Hard To Be A God had a huge number of healing items. The best ones (potions) restored either health or stamina, but some restored one at the expense of the other. Even better, there were plants that did this permanently, so choosing which one to go for wasn't always obvious.

I guess canisters in Geneforge series are also an interesting way to do this kind of tradeoff. They'll give you power but use too many and you lock out the best endings.

 

[Donkey Balls]

Speaking of +mana -health concepts, DA:O has a specialization (Blood Mage) that allows you to use your health as mana.

 

[Fucking Quality Poster]

Speaking of +mana -health concepts, DA:O has a specialization (Blood Mage) that allows you to use your health as mana.

It's a knock off from WoW.

 

[Donkey Balls]

Really?

 

[Sceptic]

Speaking of +mana -health concepts, DA:O has a specialization (Blood Mage) that allows you to use your health as mana.

It's a knock off from WoW.

The entire spellcasting system of BAK worked like this, 17 years ago.

 

[Zeus]

More eerily malnourished 50 Cent avatars.

Games need this.

 

[visions]

Barter system similar to Fallout, which would allow you to barter with most npc-s. It would be an extra nice touch if you could occasionally rip some stupid npc-s off by selling them worthless shit as "magic items".

"Yell" button in first person games with dumb npc-s and tight areas, like in MM 6-8.

Something that would give a reason for you to dress properly in towns and cities instead of running around in heavy armor, like the smoking suit in Arcanum.

A system that would allow you to scribe bits of dialog that you deem interesting/potentially useful into your journal, like in Geneforge.

Enforced food and resting requirements.

Dungeons and caves that are actually dark and force you to use torches, like in Eschalon.

Day and night cycle affecting gameplay, like in Arcanum (easier to hide and pickpocket, harder to hit enemies). Also the orc gangs that would spawn at night in Tarant was a nice touch. Make the game play differently at day and night.

Good turn-based combat.

Open world.

Relatively free-form and vague parts of main quest which would require you to explore the world and gather information, like "find the waterchip".

Possibility to miscast spells with unexpected consequences that could be either harmful or beneficial like in tabletop Warhammer.

Different rivalling factions.

Rivalries between different non-hostile settlements.

Different reputation for the pc in different areas/with different factions.

 

[soggie]

Barter system similar to Fallout, which would allow you to barter with most npc-s. It would be an extra nice touch if you could occasionally rip some stupid npc-s off by selling them worthless shit as "magic items".

Instead of this, I'd rather a game have a true economic system tied to the game world. Collapse a mine? Yeah you kill the rebels hiding in it and bankrupt the mafia lord in the city but in return you can sell them basic shit for a fortune due to the screwed up economy. Help a big city kill off dissenters? Too bad, economy becomes better, stuff becomes cheaper... which includes YOUR stuff too.

And the thing is, system like this would be even better in a barter system.

"Yell" button in first person games with dumb npc-s and tight areas, like in MM 6-8.

This. One push of a button and the crowd parts before me like the red sea. You know what's better? Don't make me push that button at all. Make them walk away automatically.

Something that would give a reason for you to dress properly in towns and cities instead of running around in heavy armor, like the smoking suit in Arcanum.

A system that would allow you to scribe bits of dialog that you deem interesting/potentially useful into your journal, like in Geneforge.

No comment on these. Not something I'd notice in an RPG, unless it has some big implications like no armor allowed in a noble's house.

Enforced food and resting requirements.

Yes and yes. But make food consumption automated. I'm actually using the hunger mechanism as a replacement for "invisible walls" or "invisible cities" on the worldmap to discourage players from wandering too far from where they're meant to.

Dungeons and caves that are actually dark and force you to use torches, like in Eschalon.

Day and night cycle affecting gameplay, like in Arcanum (easier to hide and pickpocket, harder to hit enemies). Also the orc gangs that would spawn at night in Tarant was a nice touch. Make the game play differently at day and night.

Weather cycles, seasons and their effects. Like a dude telling you to come back during spring and won't sell you potions before that.

Good turn-based combat.

Open world.

Relatively free-form and vague parts of main quest which would require you to explore the world and gather information, like "find the waterchip".

Possibility to miscast spells with unexpected consequences that could be either harmful or beneficial like in tabletop Warhammer.

Different rivalling factions.

Rivalries between different non-hostile settlements.

Different reputation for the pc in different areas/with different factions.

Ditto.

 

[visions]

A system that would allow you to scribe bits of dialog that you deem interesting/potentially useful into your journal, like in Geneforge.

No comment on these. Not something I'd notice in an RPG

This would be good imo since it would make the player try to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant by himself, instead of relying on automatically generated journal entries.

 

[soggie]

This would be good imo since it would make the player try to distinguish relevant information from irrelevant by himself, instead of relying on automatically generated journal entries.

Which is what I don't really understand. For me, I would rather have the journal record EVERYTHING. Like, the entire conversation related to the quest. Like how you can review chat histories in your favourite chat programs.

But I do agree that having the extra flexibility of allowing the player to jot down notes and annotations on a quest entry would be great for detail-oriented players - especially if the quest itself is of a complex nature with many important details hidden in a haystack of unimportant (or even intentionally misleading) data. It'll be interesting in a detective kind of RPG.