The Drunken Lizard Pub

We're deep in development of our next RPG and have reached the point to ask: what do you think makes a great RPG?

You can select three options from the poll, or if I missed something, leave a comment.

Playing a lot of RPG, I have to give my pet peeves;

Exploration, question etc repetitive

Which ties into

Above not rewarding - when a quest is generic fetch / kill quest # 345 and the combat is so bland you can do it with mindless klicking (especially in a JRPG with enemies spawning every 10 steps) and then the reward is "broken fork with shit stats only useful for selling" (but really, you are already a millionaire by the standards of the game world you live in) then its just... you know... dull.

Funnily enough, I'd say the Witcher 3 actually did handle this well, you know, making quests unique, keeping gear interesting, making enemies progressively more challending etc. Yet, I still never actually finished Witcher 3 because the game is just to damn big and somewhere along the road I just lost interest.

The key to fun, I think, is to make every quest unique, offering rewards that even if they wont fit your build still feels worthwhile, and - as much as this goes against, I suppose, the dogma of our time - do not make the game huge, for the sake of making the game huge. Obviously, I actually think Eschalon Book I and II did this well. Also Book III, but, liek I said b4, it was actually TOO small. So, there is a... hmmm... golden ratio there. Things need to happen and often, but not so rapidly that you soon run out, well, gameplay and finish the game. And not so slowly that you dont get to engage properly.

Speaking of which, Oh yeah, now I remember another thing RPGs should do; sell you the world, so that you get engaged. Again, witcher 3 and Eschalon did this brilliantly, but for witcher 3 it was just TOOO much, and for Eschalon 3 it was just TOOO little. Also, I wouldnt mind seeing some more JRPG classical format in games; introducing a big bad villain, show who the villains is, why he / she / it needs to be stopped, then shit goes down and goes wrong because you were arrogant / hasty / didnt properly understand the world youre in etc, you see things from a new perspective and then fight the original villain but for the right reasons or a surprise villian or something like that. ANyways, JRPGs plays out like soap operas or Shakespear plays. Sometimes its cheesy or over the top or whatever, but I mean, you can borrow the best elements fro CRPG storytelling and mix freely with JRPG storytelling.

Finally, a good way to avoid the power creep and linear feel to games - something Eschalon I did excellently, BTW - is to not write the player on the nose "Dont go there, its to dangerous", but subtly suggest it (such as a NPC saying "Ive heard you cant simply walk into Murrrdurrr"), and, if a player decides to try it anyways, they will be repelled - or not! With the best items etc an impossible challenge can become possible. Hmm... kind of lke I beat the spider house in Eschalon II using potions despite being quite underleved. A common way to do this is that by now tired elements match, like, wind beats water, water beats earth, earth beats fire, fire beats wind or whatever. However, this kind of "stone, rock, scissor" approach doesnt have to use the tired elements and it actually works quite well for keeping a game engaging - OH this is actually doable using this gear / strategy / whatever. This also ties into making quests interesting. Aha, so in the deep lake I can find the water lance and with it I can beat the mud golem. Oh wait, I forgot, I can actually breathe underwater. So first I need to talk to the mermaids. Or maybe I can find a bell of the deeps by talking to that loony inventor. You know, something like that. Keep quests solveable in many ways, and its up to the player to figure out how.

Oh, and also scarcity or consequences from some of the best loot - but I do go on. So sry for the long rant. But I really do have quite a lot of both CRPGs and JRPGs under my belt, so I kind of feel like my opinion is at least somewhat relevant, from a players perspective, what does and does not work. Really, a game I would recommend to study, if you have the time (which I think from other posts of yours that you do not have, but..), is actually Icewind Dale 2. I mean, its obviously quite linear, and only have a little bit of "rock-paper-scissors", but otherwise its a hidden pearl. The way it makes new loot interesting, keeps the combat challenging, tell a somewhat JRPG:y soap opera story etc and have length that hits that goldilocks spot where it is not to short and not to long (which keeps you thirsting for more - so you can make an IWD 3 which they never did, but whatever). Try playing it with a team of 2 or 3 chars instead of 6 for extra fun times.

P.S. A good way to handle difficulty levels (you know, easy, normal, hard, make me toss the NES controller) is to NOT just up the stats of everything you meet. Rather, the two best ways is to A) increase the number of enemies in encounters (because in games with good balance, every extra adversary really does increase the difficulty level) and B) make the combat AI progressively smarter. The only exceptions from "upping the stats" which are good is more HP, and more diverse abilities (so they can make better counters to your plays).

Story, exploration, strategy/puzzles. That's what I voted for. That's what I enjoy most.

I would also have selected single player, if I could. I like to proceed at my own pace and not have to deal with other players who want to go faster or do other things than I want.

But one of the other things I appreciated about the Eschalon games was character-building. I liked being able to craft my own character and replay as a mage or a stealthy sniper or a barbarian that just plows through the enemy ranks and smashes everything. Great fun, and forced me to approach situations differently.