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Incline Things in RPGs that make you happy

Scruffy

Ex-janitor
Patron
Joined
May 16, 2008
Messages
18,150
Codex 2012 Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014
the first time i played arcanum
i was really liking the game, but i've also always been an explorationfag
so i start to explore. I wanted to cross that mountain range. So i start clicking in all the places on the map where it looks like there's a "gap" one could go through. Eventually i find Hardin's Pass. Now I'm going south, and there's a river, and I can't cross it. So I just start from where the river begins from the mountains and just keep going (for a looooong time) west thinking "If the in-game map really is the whole world, eventually I'll come across a crossing, or a bridge, or something". And, lo and behold, I came across the bridge at the wyvern sighting place. I was very happy.
 
Self-Ejected

Drog Black Tooth

Self-Ejected
Joined
Feb 20, 2008
Messages
2,636
Grinding for the best gear and min maxing the shit out of your character seems oddly satisfying.

I especially enjoy playing a glass cannon build on the hardest difficulty.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
-Decoupling skill and level advancement. An example would by Tyranny, where leveling lets you boost your stats but skills go up through use. Or FF Tactics, where you had separate character levels and job levels. Basically make is so gaining XP isn't the one sole thing that advances my abilities.

-Small choices affecting content (rather than just story/dialogue with the same missions). Front Mission 3 has two story paths with about 60% unique content on either path, made from one seemingly inconsequential choice near the beginning. Also Valkyrie Profile, where playing on Hard mode opens up 50% all-new dungeons.

-The opportunity to grind.

-A plot summary/log of events. If I stop playing and start again later, it helps to pick up the story
 

prodigydancer

Arcane
In My Safe Space
Joined
Feb 16, 2015
Messages
1,399
NPCs that actually have a personality and some kind of plausible goals/dreams/agenda. AoD shows that filling the game world with well-defined and yet believable NPCs is quite possible. I hope more developers will try to achieve that.

Quests that make sense. Lately, the developers often mistake complexity and novelty for quality when it comes to quests. Of course, nobody likes fedexes or MMO-style "kill X of Y", but in many cases I'd prefer a relatively simple and common task over an unnecessarily convoluted and illogical one. There also should be a good reason why the quest exists at all, i.e. why the questgiver cannot or would not do it themselves and ask a complete stranger for help instead of somebody they know and trust.
 

Parsifarka

Arcane
Joined
Dec 31, 2014
Messages
1,022
Location
Potato field
+Useful non combat skills and spells; M&M is paramount in this when it comes to exploration: walk on water, wizard eye, teleport, etc.
+Insanely powerful spells; again M&M comes to my mind because of the Meteor Shower, but even when less visually impressive it's always enjoyable to find the right spells which totally breaks the enemy, such as sound based attacks against bats and psy blast agains humans in Grimoire.
+Good music and sound -this is VERY important, even a rather mediocre game like Hard to be a God became an obsessive quest mainly because of its soundtrack.
+Beautiful graphics (apparently easier to achieve with 2D drawings than 3D engines).
+Turns in combat and first person exploration.
+Parties with specialized classes.
+Secrets, secrets, SECRETS. Secret chests, secret doors, secret areas, secret NPCs, secret easter eggs, secret power-ups, secret everything!
 

King Crispy

Too bad I have no queen.
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2008
Messages
1,876,560
Location
Future Wasteland
Strap Yourselves In
It used to be that moment when you finally get the game home, carefully remove its plastic shrink wrapping, and slide open the top to reveal the pristine installation disks, thick manual, and cloth maps inside.

:negative:
 
Joined
Nov 3, 2016
Messages
425
Location
Georgie's shitter
A truly compelling storyline with deep writing, fleshed out with characters that really colour the world you are in. Immersion is such an important thing and so few games that hit the market in today's world of gaming, seem to have forgotten how to immerse the gamer into their world. Game mechanics are secondary, but my preference has always run towards turn-based, for a more "statisfying" fix.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I just love the little eureka moments when you figure out a course of action that hasn't been spoon-fed to you through dialog or CYOA sequence. Can be a lot of things - a puzzle, a way to avoid a tough battle, a quest solution, a path to previously unreachable area etc. - as long as it involves hunting for clues and connecting the dots.
 

bloodlover

Arcane
Joined
Sep 5, 2010
Messages
2,039
The ability to talk my way out of situations. Or sneak past certain enemies. Basically whatever it takes to not fight and kill everything that moves.

Small decisions that have impact. Usually there's some major shit happening where you have to pick a camp/guild/side whatever and that has consequences on the entire game. Yeah it's nice to have that option but I want to see my small actions have consequences too. Things like conversations with peasants or helping merchants with small tasks. Having a different reward if you decide to cross some merchant, or maybe have his stock expanded.

Interacting with random things in the world. Things like drinking from wells, sitting on benches, dancing, playing dice. There doesn't even have to be a reason to do it, I mean everyone that played VTMB at some point went into the Asylum and danced for no reason.

Last but not least, small quests. Everything is so bloody epic these days, you can't take a shit without a golden turd coming out of your hero's ass. I honestly love simple quests given by simple NPCs even if the reward is not worth it. Save some sheep, buy a pan for someone or pick up rice (Gothic 2), serve dinner for someone while working undercover, cook things, repair some random item etc.
 

duanth123

Arcane
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
822
Location
This island earth
Multi-floor dungeons,; preferably, a single labyrinth that regularly strikes in you the fear of God as you realize how far from a save point or rest spot you are and the bastard monsters that stand between you and it.

Also, some good T&A; pro tags who don't live in a sexless world and can actually fuck the romantic interest, ala real life and most certainly in the brutal, short-lived worlds that many RPGs inhabit.
 

eggdogg

Learned
Joined
Dec 31, 2016
Messages
102
KOTOR2: that point when you finally get a light saber AND you get access to fully upgraded speed AND you pop into your prestige class. Every time I play KOTOR2 those three things always happen in the span of about 20 minutes. It may be unbalanced or OP but its fun and makes me happy.
 

Quigs

Magister
Joined
Sep 16, 2003
Messages
1,392
Location
Jersey
I've always been partial to Strongholds/Housing. The majority of time in an RPG you're off solving other people's problems. Fallout is a great example of this, you're given one problem (We're out of water) and it's immediately taken away once you're out of the vault. You no longer need water, you need to get water for others. You then walk through a world of other folk's issues as a transient drifter. Strongholds change the focus. Any stronghold problems are your problems. Maybe it's the assholes who had it before you, or the problems you have in building and maintaining it, but they're all centered around you. I like that.
 

bloodlover

Arcane
Joined
Sep 5, 2010
Messages
2,039
I've always been partial to Strongholds/Housing. The majority of time in an RPG you're off solving other people's problems. Fallout is a great example of this, you're given one problem (We're out of water) and it's immediately taken away once you're out of the vault. You no longer need water, you need to get water for others. You then walk through a world of other folk's issues as a transient drifter. Strongholds change the focus. Any stronghold problems are your problems. Maybe it's the assholes who had it before you, or the problems you have in building and maintaining it, but they're all centered around you. I like that.

Strongholds usually turn into a sim game though. Housing is a good idea but at the end of the day it's either used to store extra loot or it's a time consuming pain in the ass that requires you to do a lot of things for it without many results.
 

duanth123

Arcane
Joined
Mar 22, 2008
Messages
822
Location
This island earth
Have you thouroughly enjoyed riding the bull?


cg01024.jpg

Wrong.
 

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