Incline Greatest mechanics based ideas in cRPGs

[vivec]

In this thread list the cRPG mechanics that you found not only novel but also fascinating. To motivate the thread, ONE example could be, and your mileage may vary; the Spirit meter. This mechanic keeps track of the spirit hunger all the while controlling how you spend time as a resource. Also, it is modulated by a lot of quests giving the PC a variety of ways to regulate how it behaves. At the same time, it provides a drive for the story to progress; the PC is ill in a tangible way and that illness can drag your abilities down.

 

[canakin]

I like how D:OS factors environment into combat situations and gives you ability to manipulate them in your benefit. Burning poison gas clouds, breaking water barrels and using the pools of water to put out ground fires or shocking enemies etc. I haven't really been following D:OS 2 news but I hope that they will let us explore more with these stuff.

 

[pippin]

I like how D:OS factors environment into combat situations and gives you ability to manipulate them in your benefit. Burning poison gas clouds, breaking water barrels and using the pools of water to put out ground fires or shocking enemies etc. I haven't really been following D:OS 2 news but I hope that they will let us explore more with these stuff.

The first Blackguards game did something similar, and it was actually quite helpful during some fights.

 

[Terpsichore]

From my experience, in most cases all those cool mechanics end up being irrelevant gimmicks since they're either not needed or there are simpler ways to get things done.

 

[Mustawd]

I thought the Drama Stars in Frayed Knights was p. interesting. Basically it gives you bonuses for not save scumming.

 

[octavius]

Being able to Sweep low level low life in the Gold Box games.

 

[laclongquan]

eh, Spirit Meter made and still make a lot of players ragequit like a bunch of noobs that they are~ Even for veteran gamers.

Anyway, I'll bite.

Prince of Qin's elemental system in item craft.

In essence, there's 5 type of magic element in both offense and defense. By crafting, you can create weapon provide more damage of one system, and buff of that kind. Like creating a wooden staff of Wood system and you got extra poison damage in wood element, +% regen rate. Or a wooden staff of Fire system provide more fire direct damage and +% of burning status. In armor, it's raising damage threshold for that system, and buff of that type. For example, a flat 30 point of metal defense. It mean a -30 point to damage of metal, earth and water attacks aim at you, -15 point at fire damage because fire overwhelm metal, and -45 point in wood damage because metal overwhelm wood element.

So you create different set of item based on which kind of element you want to specialize in. A wood witch focus on poison and entangle spells, for example, will need wood element set of items. But a fire witch will need fire element items.

It make the game continuously changing because at low level you might want to use low level water spell, but higher level you change to wood spell, for example.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Realms of Arkania world map movement (focused on resource management, planning, camping along the way with risk/reward elements, dangerous terrain, etc..)

Drakensang "free for all" experience pool. Want to increase Strength instead of one of your Skills? Go for it. The experience pool could be used on anything (with balance factored in for each attribute, of course.)

Morrowind Blight Disease vs. Common Disease. Simple mechanic but combined with lack of fast fast-travel, could impact the game in various ways.

Oblivion's Speechcraft system. Totally silly all around, but strangely addictive and fun as well.

Dungeons & Dragons: Tactics with exploration on the tactical maps themselves. You could explore "side dungeons" in the combat map itself, even exit the map to new areas with secret encounters, rare loot, etc..

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. The fact that story-based NPCs could join and even leave if they didn't agree with your decisions.

To round it off to a neat 7, Lords of Xulima's movement-as-a-resource (Food) style. Very intriguing and promising for future hardcore RPGs.

 

[Krivol]

Oblivion's Speechcraft system. Totally silly all around, but strangely addictive and fun as well..

Just

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

It's just fun. It's completely silly, yes, but the simple puzzle nature of it is interesting to me. I generally prefer less "player skill" in RPGs and more stat-based skill checks, but that is one exception. Maybe a slightly more complex puzzle + higher impact from character stats would be even better.

IMO, it's also better than removing the system altogether as they did in Skyrim...

 

[Krivol]

But you know it's considered to be the worst minigame ever? I know it may look fun for the first 3-4 times (but I know million better casual games, like punch your dick with the hammer, or shower with your dad), but there are about 1000 NPC's in Olblivion...

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Hmm, no. I find it fun many times after the first 3 or 4 times. It's oddly fascinating to me.

Yes, it's a simple "puzzle", but the fact that the wheel can randomize the placement of the 4 levels of "power", i.e. small, average, good, great, at least gives a bit of fun factor to it for me. I also like that there is a time-based element, i.e. the disposition lowers the longer you take to make the responses.

It's not some game-changing element by any means, but I think if they developed it more it could be even better.

 

[octavius]

The Speechcraft mini game makes no sense, since it's totally random, with your Speechcraft skill just a modifier.

 

[waveplay]

I don't know if you can count it as a mechanic as such, but Gothic's character advancement being tied to seeking out trainers in the game world was great fun. When you invest more skill points into swordfighting, you'd actually have better animations for swinging, which is awesome. I also loved how there were few items, but each improvement was noticeable. On top of that, the way that armor was directly tied to faction reputation/rank advancement really tied it up nicely. Haven't seen anything like this in other RPGs which is a crying shame.

 

[Haplo]

I don't know if you can count it as a mechanic as such, but Gothic's character advancement being tied to seeking out trainers in the game world was great fun. When you invest more skill points into swordfighting, you'd actually have better animations for swinging, which is awesome. I also loved how there were few items, but each improvement was noticeable. On top of that, the way that armor was directly tied to faction reputation/rank advancement really tied it up nicely. Haven't seen anything like this in other RPGs which is a crying shame.

 

[Carrion]

Fallout's time limit is pretty much the simplest thing in the world, yet it still solves many of the most common problems that are related to cRPGs. It heavily discourages certain behavior that usually would be easy to abuse, like resting after every battle to regain full health, or making several trips to a vendor in order to be able to sell every item you find in the game world. It actually gives you a reason for doing side quests, as spending some additional time at a single location exhausting every possible lead is preferable to blindly heading out into the desert and possibly wasting weeks of valuable time wandering around aimlessly. It also makes it important to actually keep your focus on the main quest, unlike so many other games where you're told to hurry but will more likely spend most of your time running errands to other people and saving the actual super important quests for dead last. The time limit also adds another layer of decision-making into the game, as poor choices may lead to an actual game over, which is of course utilized very well with the water merchants, for instance.

Admittedly a poorly thought-out time limit could potentially even ruin a game, but when it's done correctly (meaning that it's lenient enough that you can take your time with the game, but not too lenient to make itself pointless), it can really make a game better. The Spirit Meter is good for some of the same reasons, although it's of course a very different and more complex mechanic.

 

[buffalo bill]

The stealth system in Underrail is pretty unique and works pretty well compared to stealth in most RPGs.
The rune-based magic system in Ultima Underworld is pretty cool, even if the combat in that game isn't so great. Also the lizard language is a neat idea that's pretty well implemented.
The virtues system in Ultima IV is a good alternative to typical RPG design.

 

[Dorateen]

Hovering at Death's Door

Characters reduced to 0 hit points are rendered unconscious, but can be killed in subsequent attacks or falling to a set number of negative hit points. Even better if there are feats like in Temple of Elemental Evil or Elminage Gothic that can allow a character to keep fighting when they would otherwise be incapacitated.

 

[deama]

I liked Arx fatalis' magic drawing system. It needs refinement though (kinda buggy, and kinda annoying to use), but the idea is pretty nice.

I liked Divine Divinity's 2D graphics and Heroes of Annihilated Empires's story-book-perspective, does that count?

 

[laclongquan]

Fallout's time limit is pretty much the simplest thing in the world, yet it still solves many of the most common problems that are related to cRPGs. It heavily discourages certain behavior that usually would be easy to abuse, like resting after every battle to regain full health, or making several trips to a vendor in order to be able to sell every item you find in the game world. It actually gives you a reason for doing side quests, as spending some additional time at a single location exhausting every possible lead is preferable to blindly heading out into the desert and possibly wasting weeks of valuable time wandering around aimlessly. It also makes it important to actually keep your focus on the main quest, unlike so many other games where you're told to hurry but will more likely spend most of your time running errands to other people and saving the actual super important quests for dead last. The time limit also adds another layer of decision-making into the game, as poor choices may lead to an actual game over, which is of course utilized very well with the water merchants, for instance.

Admittedly a poorly thought-out time limit could potentially even ruin a game, but when it's done correctly (meaning that it's lenient enough that you can take your time with the game, but not too lenient to make itself pointless), it can really make a game better. The Spirit Meter is good for some of the same reasons, although it's of course a very different and more complex mechanic.

And I think there's a lost opportunity in Fallout 1 back then. After hiring a company to send water caravan to the vault, you should have opportunity to join as guard. Battle encounters like usual. and end up at the vault, you also can take the caravan to go back to the Hub(?). EACH time you join and complete the quest safely extend the deadline for tripple the time from when you accept, to when you are back at the Hub.

 

[V_K]

In otherwise horrible Arcatera, the Patience meter that limited how many things you could ask an NPC before they get bored with you and go their own business.
The wounds system used instead of HP in UnReal World.
TES alchemy system, based on systemic qualities of reagents rather than rigid recipes.
Spellmaking system in Trazere duology, which was a sort of a "scripting language" of runes. It had both the systemic flexibility letting you write your own spells, and was very immersive in that you didn't just combined effects but mixed together runes and reagents. I also loved how the level design utilized this system for puzzles.

 

[valcik]

One that doesn't exist yet - smell meter. Think of how Morte was referring to TNO's foul smell all the time, yet TNO could've sneaked around other characters completely unnoticed. Dear developers, add smell meter (a.k.a. nose) to these stinky dudes FFS!

Wound system in JA2 putting limits to characters' combat abilities - less action points with missing hit points, more noise generated resulting in easier interrupt action for adversaries, and so on. Neat! (D&D character with 1 HP left swinging his zweihänder still with the same effectivity? Gentlemen, please..)

I liked Divine Divinity's 2D graphics and Heroes of Annihilated Empires's story-book-perspective, does that count?

What surely does count is object shifting in DD. Secret passages or levers hidden behind furniture, very clever.

 

[Visbhume]

Engagement in Pillars of Eternity. A nice way of making positioning count more in an RTWP game. Admittedly, PoE fights can be hard to "read", but that's a different problem.

 

[V_K]

One that doesn't exist yet - smell meter.

It actually does exist, only in not as complex form. In Drakensang certain monsters and spells could give you the status effect "Rotten stink" that lowered you Charisma score. You had to use soap to get rid of it.

 

[Outlander]

Gothic's character advancement being tied to seeking out trainers in the game world was great fun. When you invest more skill points into swordfighting, you'd actually have better animations for swinging, which is awesome.

Not only better looking animations, but more effective, fluid and faster swings. And new combos.

In order for this progression to work, the initial untrained combat moves are not only slow and limited, but also deliberate clunky, and that's why there were plenty of retards complaining about the 'horrible combat system', because they didn't play enough to improve fighting skills.