ITT: We fix flawed/bad cRPGs to make them great

[Sigourn]

Only games that are decidedly bad or flawed in this thread, because I know there will be some fuckers otherwise that would claim "this thing could have made X classic game so much better".

THREE changes allowed. Try to be reasonable with your suggestions, for example, "change the combat altogether" doesn't count, but "change these particular things regarding the combat" (like Requiem) does count. As a rule of thumb: if it wasn't technically achievable, it's out of the question.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

1. Schedules for NPCs. Everything feels static in the vanilla game, because it just is.
   
2. NPCs aren't walking encyclopaedias anymore. They have fleshed out personalities, but not to the point of them all being Mary Sues like in the LGNPC project.
3. More unique dungeons. In Morrowind, once you've entered any cave or tomb, you've basically visited them all. Skyrim's dungeons, while fairly linear, at least had the "wow" factor going on for them because of how intrincate they were in their otherwise linear layout.

 

[racofer]

Fallout 1:

1. Gamebryo
2. Todd Howard
3. 

 

[undecaf]

Morrowind

Better response for hits and misses through animation. Possibly add an (optional) active player controlled target lock mechanism to mitigate the double gated (player twitching + character skills) action.

 

[Jimmious]

FO3:

1. Erase it from memory and existence
2. Turn back time and give money to Black Isle Studios/Interplay
3. Profit

 

[ilitarist]

Divinity Original Sin.

1. Keep elemental interactions in check. Characters that bleed poison and heal from said poison are overkill. Shorter battles in general.
2. Reduce dialogue expositions and keep journal to the point.
3. Make all puzzles optional and remove pixel hunt.

 

[hivemind]

Pillars of Eternity:

1. Game is turn-based

 

[Shinji]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

1. Add a reason to close Oblivion gates other than loot ( e.g. if you ignore closing the Oblivion gates, it will be dangerous to explore the area around it due to the amount of daedra that have spawned. Also, the towns could get invaded by one or two daedra once in a while, with the chance of non-important NPC's getting killed, adding a sense of consequence for not fullfulling your duty)

2. Remove quest markers or turn them into "zone" quest markers. So if I have a quest that tells me that I have to go to Anvil, it will mark the entire city or area surronding the city, and not mark the exact x,y,z coordinate that I have to go. This is especially weird if you consider that quest markers in Oblivion/Skyrim follow people 24/7, as if they have a GPS installed on their butts. Zone quest markers would force me to gather information and explore the world, which I think is the point of the Elder Scrolls series.

3. Respect the player's role playing class and give a purpose to skills. I mean, what if I want to play as an Alchemist? You're giving me the choice, so that means I can choose to play as an alchemist and everything will work just fine right? Can I create some sort of exploding potion to attack enemies? Can I make a potion to make them temporarily blind? And what if I want to play as an Acrobat? Is the level designed in such a way that a character that can jump higher will have some benefits (e.g. hidden treasure, inaccessible locations for those that can't jump as high)?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Vagrant Story

1. Reduce the sliding box puzzles in half
2. Profit

 

[Sigourn]

Vagrant Story

1. Reduce the sliding box puzzles in half
2. Profit

3. Add a quick-menu to change your equipment without leaving the main game screen.

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

Pillars of Eternity:

1. Game is turn-based

Definitely agree with you on this one.

 

[buffalo bill]

fallout 2

1 player gets control of NPCs in combat
2 make combat hard (aiming for eyes is not always best option, better AI, enemies more deadly)
3 cut 90% of jokes and pop culture references

there's probably some mod for the first two flaws that I'm not aware of

 

[Baron Dupek]

most RPGs these days

1. reduce amount of collectable items to stop cluttering in the inventory
2. remove crafting
3. no level scaling, you make your game with RPG tag then don't use this shit

 

[undecaf]

1 player gets control of NPCs in combat

I dunno. Party based combat is fun, but I did like it in Fallout 2 that the companions - or followers, which ever way - felt like companions (with their faults and all) rather than my puppets and pawns.

 

[buffalo bill]

I dunno. Party based combat is fun, but I did like it in Fallout 2 that the companions - or followers, which ever way - felt like companions (with their faults and all) rather than my puppets and pawns.

That's a good point, but I'm pretty sure followers almost always end up being more of a nuisance than help even with the fine-tuning settings. Maybe it could be OK if their AI was way better, but for me I think I'd just prefer a more tactical combat experience instead of hoping the follower AI does something useful. Especially if the combat were harder, which it should be.

 

[Lostpleb]

Shadowrun: Returns (including Dragonfall and Hong Kong)

1. Make the campaigns longer. There is nothing more disappointing than an RPG whose systems are interesting enough to pull you in, yet ends before you really get to turn into a motherfucking god and enjoy yourself.
2. More equipment and incentives to fiddle with what's available. I think I used the same sword, shotgun and spells for half the game - in an RPG with a tabletop background, this is completely inexcusable.
3. More boss fights. In general, Shadowrun was never really big on throwing dragons and tarrasques at the players, but at least provide us with some more "OH SHIT!" moments so that we actually care about the progression of our characters.

fallout 2

1 player gets control of NPCs in combat
2 make combat hard (aiming for eyes is not always best option, better AI, enemies more deadly)
3 cut 90% of jokes and pop culture references

You just killed Fallout 2.

 

[buffalo bill]

fallout 2
1 player gets control of NPCs in combat
2 make combat hard (aiming for eyes is not always best option, better AI, enemies more deadly)
3 cut 90% of jokes and pop culture references

You just killed Fallout 2 for 13 year olds.

fixed

 

[DragoFireheart]

Fallout: New Vegas.

Give it turn-based combat like in Fallout 1. That's it.

 

[StaticSpine]

Fix Arcanum's battle system

 

[undecaf]

Fallout: New Vegas.

Give it turn-based combat like in Fallout 1. That's it.

Also remove the lockpicking and hacking minigames and the skill thresholds for them.

 

[skyst]

fallout 2
1 player gets control of NPCs in combat
2 make combat hard (aiming for eyes is not always best option, better AI, enemies more deadly)
3 cut 90% of jokes and pop culture references

You just killed Fallout 2 for 13 year olds.

fixed

Which is strange, considering tons of us were in that age range when FO2 released and loved the references. It was an innocent time before smartphones and the Google, where getting the references and explaining them to friends made you cool.

And NPC control is an iffy thing. The characters in FO2 have relatively few lines of dialogue, at least compared to the lore dumping that NPCs do these days. A lot of their defining characteristics come from how they act in combat. You all know that Sulik is a fearless warrior, that Cassidy is a hardass gunfighter and that Myron is a cowardly bitch. Even their weapon proficiencies reinforce their characterizations. If you haven't learned by now not to give them burst weapons then I don't know how to help you.

 

[canakin]

NWN 2
1- Redesign all combat encounters. Way too much easy to kill orc and skeleton hordes.
2- More side quests with multiple solutions that impact main quest.
3- Turn based.
4- More turn based.
5- Based turns.

 

[racofer]

NWN 2
1- Redesign all combat encounters. Way too much easy to kill orc and skeleton hordes.
2- More side quests with multiple solutions that impact main quest.
3- Turn based.
4- More turn based.
5- Based turns.

6- The camera!

 

[canakin]

NWN 2
1- Redesign all combat encounters. Way too much easy to kill orc and skeleton hordes.
2- More side quests with multiple solutions that impact main quest.
3- Turn based.
4- More turn based.
5- Based turns.

6- The camera!

I think NWN camera problems is something of a meme at this point. I replayed it recently with latest patches and camera was not an issue after tweaking the camera settings a bit. Still, I can see how it can be annoying if you don't bother fine tuning it.

 

[sser]

Skyrim -- remove the level scaling and the world instantly becomes more engrossing, mysterious, and dangerous. That you walk 10mins out of poverty and shackles and slay a dragon is mindblowingly stupid.

 

[shihonage]

Mass Effect: remove all combat and dialogue, and rename to "Elevator Simulator".