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[SantaC]

I love a good single player RPG, but you often experience the same kind of formula. I mean it might be perfectly fine that way, but how would you fix some of the problems for a more unique experience?

These are some of the cliches you often see:

• Having an open world with lots of empty content.
• The classic town-> dungeon-> town formula
• In every town there is an inn, weapon and armor shop selling marginally better stuff than your last town.
• Repetitive sidequests that have no impact on the mainstory.
• Copy and paste NPCs to pad a town. 90% of them are useless to talk to.
• Story about an evil empire

 

[EDMIX]

Easily, make it about some crystals that a bad guy stole and must be taken back to restore order in the kingdom........

elementals.... (I'll see myself out)

 

[Ten_Fold]

Get rid of the 12-16 year old main characters (sometimes younger).

The 5 super young heroes with 1 adult taking down a country with ease.

 

[Durask]

I think the problem is that most people say they want "something different" but they actually don't. They want something that is 90% old and 10% new.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[The Hamburglar]

Easily, make it about some crystals that a bad guy stole and must be taken back to restore order in the kingdom........

elementals.... (I'll see myself out)

I agree. Ff15 really was dog shit.

 

[Mamofish]

Survival gameplay that is focused on travel and making use with what you come across, including random travel NPC's and what they have for trade. I'm thinking like a more approachable rougelike except it takes place in the outside world rather than a dungeon, randomly generated landscape.

 

[EDMIX]

I agree. Ff15 really was dog shit.

That story was so bad, I wish it was just a classic cliche story, that shit was just horrid.

I would have been ok if they were like "yo evil uncle killed your dad, said you dead too so we have to be on the run and in hiding and can't use your incredible wealth" lol

This dumbass is some prince and barely any NPC's even ran over to him wondering what the fuck he was doing playing some mini games at a bar after his dad died..... You can't even cough without someone posting that shit on twitter talking about "is Price Noctis spreading the Rona?" lol

 

[MarlboroRed]

Stop putting big exclamation marks over NPCs that have got something for you to do, or provide services. Make quests organic to the journey, quality over quantity. Allow players to explore and find adventure themselves.

 

[Captain Toad]

You make an overly complicated story with tons of weird concepts that make very little sense.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

At this stage it's really more about execution. Those are the things that make the game an RPG.

The "use" of most npcs is to make a town feel populated, nothing more. You don't talk to every person you walk past in real life so it's difficult for developers to know the right amount of resources to put into them, but it really does suck when they feel super shallow and like no effort has been made at all. You can tell when a lot of thought went into the town and the npc dialogue, whether it's trying to be creative and atmospheric and set the scene and when it's filler nonsense.

Or whether time was spent to not make side quests repetitive. Often they are meaningless but sometimes they are done right and provide character development for the supporting cast. Sometimes they even save a game when it has the kind of typical main story you're talking about.

The more rpgs we play, the harder it is for developers to impress us...Developers shouldn't churn them out because no one is gonna be happy with that.

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

I think the problem is that most people say they want "something different" but they actually don't. They want something that is 90% old and 10% new.

You think you do but you don't.

Spoiler

 

[Bakkus]

• Having an open world with lots of empty content.
• The classic town-> dungeon-> town formula
• In every town there is an inn, weapon and armor shop selling marginally better stuff than your last town.
• Repetitive sidequests that have no impact on the mainstory.
• Copy and paste NPCs to pad a town. 90% of them are useless to talk to.
• Story about an evil empire

This is more of a problem with newer 'AAA' games.

Yeah, although there have been some decent twists on this formula here and there.

Yeah this is a bit cliched, but it's kind of hard to do this anyway different without it being confusing for most players on how to upgrade your gear. What's usually the most annoying thing about this is that the upcoming dungeon has the same equipment in a chest as what the town sells...

Agreed. But this is certainly not reserved for just RPGs!

Yup, but older games did not have the RAM to do anything differently.

Yeah and having to save the world and all that. Make it more personal.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

I remember reading in Edge iirc that when Dragon Quest fans ask for a "New" Dragon Quest game, they really want an "Old/Traditional" Dragon Quest game.
I dunno, I sometimes like clichés if done well. I think Dragon Quest is a good example of this.

 

[Kumomeme]

massive aundience especially casuals still love and thirst over these cliche stuff. medieval, damsel of distress princess, evil kingdom, magic, dragons etc. even if we looking at film, tv series or even anime trend, this kind of stuff still get massive attention. all of this even swing backforth, inspire or influence each others between tv/film/anime with videogames.

try to change that is huge challenge and i love to see any devs did that despite on the risk of backlash from audience.

but for me as long the writing is good and 'fresh' its fine. better than having unusual cool setting but the writing is terrible.

 

[yurqqa]

Get rid of the 12-16 year old main characters (sometimes younger).

The 5 super young heroes with 1 adult taking down a country with ease.

I agree. But I think it's more about cliche personality than age.
For example, first Trails in the sky was breath of fresh air, despite mostly young main cast (although Schera and Olivert played a huge role in the overall feeling). Then it went downhill with secret society and teenage drama of Trais of cold steel.
Persona 4 was also great.

Just make your main cast behave more like people and less like 1000s other characters in games. Everybody are just bored to death with the same personalities.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Vash (aged 14) learns from the village Elder that he has the bloodline of the ancients coursing through his veins.
He has untapped potential that can only be harnessed once he has collected the 7 orbs of power. Meanwhile, said orbs are sought by the evil Emperor Obsidian morlock von dread, who requires them for his evil scheme to rule the world. Vash learns that as "The chosen one" he and his ragtag group of companions (a cold aloof princess, a spunky tomboy inventor, a cocky arrogant yet likable skilled warrior who at first was a foe, and an annoying creature/pet that says meef meef! at opportune moments) must thwart the Evil Emperor and bring the light back to Crystania.
There ya go, positively overflowing with mold breaking ideas!

 

[Pantz]

For JRPG's:

More adult characters, less teens and kids for starters.

More survival horror like Parasite Eve.

 

[Soodanim]

I’m fine with the classic formula, because it’s full of gameplay considerations that stop the game from being terrible and unplayable. But I like the idea of switching it up. Problem is, that’s hard to do and keep balance, so I’ll have to sit back and wait for good ideas.

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Make it so you have to knock and be given permission to enter villagers homes rather than just strolling in, smashing pots, rifling through possessions, stealing whatevers lying about and yet still be greeted cordially with phrases like 'Oh ho ho, I hear tell of an enchanted wood to the North"
rather than "Who are you?, how the HELL did you get in here?!! , what's that in your pockets? FRANK! GET IN HERE! SOMEONES STEALING OUR GOLD!!"

 

[Woo-Fu]

The cliches are the genre. It's the same reason most fantasy novels are absolute drivel.

 

[EdBennett]

Plots with complex structure. The more variety in the passage, the better

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Make finding your destination as sort of a quest.

Like TES Morrowind. But more polished and easier to find places.

Make world a mysterious place. Fill it with NPCs who would guide you to your destination. Don't specify it.

 

[chriskun]

it seems like we are mostly talking about jrpgs here, so get rid of all the loli shit. Would love a story with adult characters and more nuanced, mature themes.

 

[Editaur]

Getting rid of sighing in JRPGs would be a nice start.

 

[Physiocrat]

Stop putting big exclamation marks over NPCs that have got something for you to do, or provide services.

Wrong. It is a pain having to talk to all the NPCs to find quests. There may be a less intrusive way of doing it but don't make me search and find filler most of the time. I agree on quality over quantity though

 

[DGrayson]

• Having an open world with lots of empty content.
• The classic town-> dungeon-> town formula
• In every town there is an inn, weapon and armor shop selling marginally better stuff than your last town.
• Repetitive sidequests that have no impact on the mainstory.
• Copy and paste NPCs to pad a town. 90% of them are useless to talk to.
• Story about an evil empire

This game sounds dope

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Call me a boomer but Gothic II did almost everything right in this regard. The world felt extremely cohesive and the sidequests only helped to increase that cohesion, almost every conversation with an NPC felt meaningful, the progression felt natural because you could attack the game from basically any angle you wanted, there were just a handful of main quest progression blockers which never felt intrusive imo. Only the main quest plot felt a bit lame (go kill dragons durr) but since everything else was great it didn't really bother me that much.

Nowadays everything feels so generic. Sad.

 

[EekTheKat]

Less padding quests, more quests with multiple outcomes. In a single player RPG quests should have an impact on the subsequent quest behind it. Cut all the fluff and padding out of it and make an actual RPG with consequences instead of a sequence of loosely tied experiences that has no depth.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Deus Ex series is nothing like the rpg you described, so i suppose it could be a good reference?

 

[D.Final]

Just with creativity

 

[Fugitive Sex]

Call me a boomer but Gothic II did almost everything right in this regard. The world felt extremely cohesive and the sidequests only helped to increase that cohesion, almost every conversation with an NPC felt meaningful, the progression felt natural because you could attack the game from basically any angle you wanted, there were just a handful of main quest progression blockers which never felt intrusive imo. Only the main quest plot felt a bit lame (go kill dragons durr) but since everything else was great it didn't really bother me that much.

Nowadays everything feels so generic. Sad.

As if anyone else here knows about the Gothic series, let alone would be able to get through them. Look at the rest of the responses in this thread.

 

[Zannegan]

I love a good single player RPG, but you often experience the same kind of formula. I mean it might be perfectly fine that way, but how would you fix some of the problems for a more unique experience?

These are some of the cliches you often see:

• Having an open world with lots of empty content.
• The classic town-> dungeon-> town formula
• In every town there is an inn, weapon and armor shop selling marginally better stuff than your last town.
• Repetitive sidequests that have no impact on the mainstory.
• Copy and paste NPCs to pad a town. 90% of them are useless to talk to.
• Story about an evil empire

I think it's much more helpful to focus on adding new elements than limiting the old. Worrying about cliches and tropes will just paralyze a creator. Whereas, if you focus on adding one new concept, and really follow through, you'll find something fresh that still feels like part of the genre, and the unnecessary tropes/cliches will naturally fall by the wayside.

 

[D.Final]

I think it's much more helpful to focus on adding new elements than limiting the old. Worrying about cliches and tropes will just paralyze a creator. Whereas, if you focus on adding one new concept, and really follow through, you'll find something fresh that still feels like part of the genre, and the unnecessary tropes/cliches will naturally fall by the wayside.

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