What elements of R.P.G.s do you like? / post a wish list of R.P.G. features

What elements of R.P.G.s do you like? / post a wish list of R.P.G. features

WithinAmnesia's picture

What I like about vanilla World of Warcraft:

    - Large interconnected / near-seamless world that feels larger than the player to explore and the world feels bursting with content and adventures to journey upon.
    - Deep progression of player character via item tiers and different difficulty levels where a player can choose to skip content in areas to progress other areas deeply.
    - Player choice of gameplay and (general) support of player made specialization builds (to a point); like taking a niche build all the way to the very end of end game.
    - Multiplayer epic scale battles / raids (good luck since Flare is single player XD).
    - Good enough sound design; cool trailer music.
    - Colour coded item and creature rarities are cool.
    - Children, Women and Old People play these games, yet it does not feel too childish nor pandering to a wider audience, yet contrived lack of mature themes.

What I like about the original Baldur's Gate (+ pieces of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons):

    - A more realistic art style and approach of storytelling, a grounded world initially based upon real life and mythology; less is more story telling and world building.
    - Multi-character player party (perhaps something like this could done in spirit like having Flare use better mercenaries like Diablo II?)
    - A huge world with most all areas of the world functioning like historical medieval areas with bits of magic and adventure added in; a mostly non-contrived world.
    - An whole ecosystem of player choice and outcomes on the world and game play; some elements are interactive story telling tools but still choices can be impactful.
    - The item descriptions and small details and grounded nature of the content and nuance of world building really benefits the medieval fantasy experience.
    - Cool sound effects and voice acting, battle music is cool and the small audio 'juice' is very cool and not seen in most games; also the atmospheric sounds are cool.

What I like about the original Old School RuneScape:

    - The big expansive world
    - The deep progression system
    - The wide array of player progression skills and adventure grinds
    - How every skill can be progressed by every player for there are no strict classes; open character builds
    - Interlinked relevant skill progression content tied to wide fields of world adventuring content; every item is relevant to help usually help progress somewhere.
    - Standardized item material quality tiers, Bronze, Iron, Steel etc. to make a world feel connected to player progression to world history / resource availability.
    - Less is more to content; wide arrays of relevant context spread all around the world; almost everywhere in the world is useful for something for progression.
    - 1,000 and 1 ways to play the game; no strictly 'wrong way' to play. Thousands of combinations of relevant world content for a player to choose to progress.
    - Relaxed gameplay as default and high skill opportunities for voracious players demanding more depth in player progression / ability. Opportunity for skill wins.
    - Nice quirky music.
    - Children, Women and Old People play these games, yet it does not feel too childish nor pandering to a wider audience, yet contrived lack of mature themes.

What I like about Classic Everquest (Project 1999):

    - The world fights against the player, yet the player is made stronger and is rewarded with a path for major player power and fulfillment if they survive the grind.
    - Want a map? Get wrecked go make one, want a dungeon that does not actively try to kill you with traps? Go play a different game, the world is alive.
    - The wide array of cultures, fantasy races, warring factions, bands / groups of entities with plots and intrigues that populate a world more mature than most.
    - The game is hard, slow and makes the thin butter spread of content go A lonnnng way, you get some player power you really feel like you earned it.
    - Multiplayer epic scale battles / raids (good luck since Flare is single player XD).
    - Realistic-ish art style and grounded nature of the content and world building; more close to most medieval fantasy expectations and stays on theme usually.
    - The music is kind of cool.

What I like about Diablo I and Diablo II:

    - The action combat is great, you fight a bunch of monsters and can feel like a beast
    - Wide array of player choice in build, all player choices can be at least end game viable with no 'wrong choices'; this makes the game more free to tinker with.
    - The theme of the demons, undead and monsters in very cool, the dark gothic themes are very good at giving a sense of danger and mystery; fear of the dark.
    - The mature / dark and gritty / 'cursed' world makes it feel like hell thematically as well. Nothing is quite 'right' and it feels like the player is needed in world.
    - The cathedral, catacombs, crypt, moors, desert, tombs, caves, jungle, hell, snow and temples are just really cool; they give a real sense of horror and mystery.
    - Gore, blood and guts, full tilt horror and liberty to tell a really dark and twisted story in a grim dark part of the world in need of sword and sorcery.
    - Colour coded item and creature rarities are cool.
    - Cool 12 string guitar and haunting atmospheric music and sound effects, cool voice acting and effect taken to give small elements audio 'juice'.

What I like about the classic Legend of Zelda games (1980's - 1990's):

    - The music and sound design are really cool if a bit 'exotic' at times, very polished sound work went into these games, original and iconic sounds
    - Puzzles and some minor mysteries to solve, a darker world underneath or quite literally a 'dark world' just out of sight verses the 'light world' is kind of cool.
    - Most all the items are relevant or very useful somewhere, albeit only like 5-7 are really used frequently; still the focus to make items open up the world is cool.
    - The boss fights can be pretty cool; especially with the cool music blaring and battle to properly manage limited resources.
    - Cool area themed dungeons and most all areas have many layers of content like caves, hidden puzzles, options content, backtracking content and area polish.
    - The combat can be pretty banging in some games with real time button press attacks and action combat system blaring away for the player to make skill win.
    - Mostly optional ways to progress and the player can pick and choose where they explore and usually has more than one path to take in most parts of the game.
    - The world theme is constant and unique, an original and charming feeling is made when playing these games.
    - Children, Women and Old People play these games, yet it does not feel too childish nor pandering to a wider audience, yet contrived lack of mature themes.

What I like about the original Path of Exile:

    - It is a bigger scaled Diablo II.
    - All items can be converted into trading items that can be recycled / remade into new potentially useful items.
    - Colour coded item and creature rarities are cool. Maybe a bit much and or contrived in some parts of the game but over all it is cool too see deep progression.
    - Wide array of player choice in building characters for the early and mid game and still most builds can beat end game. Yet max health > anything is dumb.
    - Tons of items and lots of ways to play the game; almost like RuneScape in terms how many different ways a player can progress yet near end game it is linear.
    - Cool monsters.
    - A huge array of world biomes and themes of zones to explore and play in; a bit contrived in parts but still big and expansive in some parts. A bit samey kinda.
    - Cool sound design and some voice acting, effort can be seen in sound design which is cool.
    - You get a ~house to customize. Yet it is in a ~bubble so it feels a bit weird but still cool.

What I like about Mount and Blade Warband and Bannerlord:

    - The combat is the best I have ever played in an R.P.G.
    - The world is actively contested and the player can fight in medieval themed wars in a low fantasy setting that is almost like a medieval war simulator.
    - Sieges are cool, take over a castle, make your own faction, take over other peoples stuff, raise an actual army, use real life battle tactics, mongol war wins.
    - The art style is great, real life practical designs, not perfect but 9.5/10 for myself. It looks the way a medieval war should probably look minus the ~'boring bits'.
    - Lots of items to upgrade and fuel player progression. Most all of the typical medieval weapons are supported and they operate pretty close to real life; great.
    - The sound design is pretty good, I like the battle shouts and the barbarian primal roars; I find them funny and realistic XD.

What I like about Minecraft + Terraria:

    - You get to shape the world with voxels. A true sandbox, you can change the world you are in, every block (all of them if you are a nerd). Voxels are king.
    - Chill cool music, theme, game play and it is just relaxing to wander around and do what ever you think is cool, there are almost no wrong ways to play.
    - The Minecraft world is ~7 times larger than earth, you can make your own realm and think you are king / queen but the AI is too stupid but still fun.
    - The caves and Underworld and super cool. The game is basically never ending but once you have seen all of the major gameplay progression loop; its samey.
    - Technically all items are relevant and very few pieces of game play are almost irrelevant. Almost infinite ways to play the game minus the main progression.
    - Action combat is cool.
    - Day / night cycle is kinda cool.
    - Farming and and non-combat and just living life are main pillars of gameplay and thus a person can play without even fighting, just like real life; lots of choice.
    - Multiplayer epic scale battles / raids (good luck since Flare is single player XD).
    - Children, Women and Old People play these games, yet it does not feel too childish nor pandering to a wider audience, yet contrived lack of mature themes.

What I like about Oblivion:

    - A big world that kinda makes some sense in story telling themes. Lots of exploration is offered to the player; it may feel a bit thin at times but still cool.
    - Lots of items.
    - Action combat.
    - Lots of player progression skills
    - Different area ~biomes can be pretty cool; like the oblivion gates, the town are pretty neat as well.
    - Good sound design, 7/10 voice acting
    - The Player makes there own 'class' and is very much a sandbox with even the main quest feeling like it is optional.
    - Mysterious little Easter eggs and small fine details and funny Easter eggs dotted around the world.
    - The world tries to make sense with it self.
    - Pretty close to the typical realistic art style of classic medieval fantasy but with some oddities and fails sprinkled in for the memes.
    - You get to buy and customize player housing.

What I like about Age of Empires I and II:

    - You get to take control of a sizable region of the world and build up an army in hopes to counter and conquer your foes on the other side.
    - Player decisions and time management are huge, it captures the idea in real war history of a good enough solution now is better than a perfect one late.
    - Many different cultures and interesting differences of a variety of different strengths and weaknesses and seeing how that plays out is very cool.
    - Geo-strategic resources being extremely important and faction territory control are taught to the player naturally and it reflects real life history and politics.
    - Player planned, built and captured infrastructure is relevant.
    - Cool sound track and some neat sound effects.

Harvest Moon + Stardew Valley (and other ~Farm R.P.G.s)

    - Vast array of player progression, farm, mine, fish, trade, develop land, make friends, gossip, explore, plan, make mistakes, learn, build a farming empire.
    - Seasons matter, the world has cycles of content and reflects aspects of real life world realities like winter is hard to live in / make money in.
    - The player develops the land around them to advance further in the game.
    - The player gets a house they can customize and upgrade.
    - Get to nurture cute things and doing so makes the world go round.
    - Farming is hard wired into the human brain and it is not a slaughterfest like most R.P.G.s (Women player base is quite substantial; that is rare in most R.P.G.s)
    - Play at your own pace, make friends, have a family, chill, do what you want and make your own fun. Very close to a typical real life play through but less boring.
    - Children, Women and Old People play these games, yet it does not feel too childish nor pandering to a wider audience, yet contrived lack of mature themes.
    - Pretty good sound tracks and good sound effects.

What I like about the Civilization series:

    - You run an empire and see how large scale world building takes place
    - If you run on slow speeds it you can see large scale non-modern wars and practicalities take place with geopolitics.
    - It is really fun fighting over a map and using strategy to win wars.
    - Tech tree for ages and having resources and upgrade opportunities be tied to the world map makes different factions prioritize different technologies over others.
    - Different cultures fighting and using different asymmetric fighting to win or lose make the world feel more large and diverse.
    - Geo-strategic resources being extremely important and faction territory control are taught to the player naturally and it reflects real life history and politics.
    - Player planned, built and captured infrastructure is relevant.
    - Cool sound track, voice acting and audio 'juice'.

What I like about J.R.R. Tolkien's and G.R.R. Martin's works:

    - A written dream of grand worlds that run by themselves with each creature a small piece of a larger picture.
    - Lots of depth and world building that takes many aspect of real life and show some examples what a creative mind can turn from real life into medieval fantasy.
    - An exploration of abstract ideas and large colossal world building themes being played out in a mundane and reasonable way that brings magic to history.

What elements of R.P.G.s do you like and why?