i Love rpgs. But i don't know anything about how they be made. Numbers go up. Maybe the go down. why not sideways?
We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams.

to the anon above this post - either you think in the 4th dimension or ur high lol, words cannot descibe my fucking confusion confusion

>>3854185
>what are things that you dislike in most rpgs
These games
>earthbound, deltarune/undertale and mario rpg
and any games inspired by them.

>>3854418
this anon is correct
le quirky randumb indie pozzed pixelslop is cancerous and you shouldn't do that

>>3854453
I'm more interested in what it would mean to be incorrect. Did the government plant a chip in your brain? So your thoughts and opinions aren't actually your own? And how would another anon know that?

File: ering.png (8 KB, 256x256)

8 KB PNG

>>3854185
>What tropes/things do you dislike in rpgs and wish for different?
I'd be in the minority here, but I dislike having a massive party. If I had to choose between a lively world of characters and just one I'd rather spend 100 times longer getting to immerse myself in a single character or narrative rather then then playing 100 short unique quests.

>I am also making an RPG, here are some questions for vrpg:
-What is your favorite RPG and why do you enjoy it?
-Is there a "most important element" of an RPG?
-What do you think kills most indie RPG's?
-Where is the line in the sand for what gets qualified as an RPG. Battle Mechanics? Narrative? Perspective?

I'm in a similar boat with making a game.
I worry that people wont like the style or story.
The idea I have in my head is very stylistically unique and unlike a lot of other games on the market. I've been working on a rendering pipeline and tools for years and feel like it might not grow to the scale I'd like. I wonder if going smaller scale with an arcade title or a puzzle game might be a better first dip into game development...

>>3854185
Decide if you want heavy character investment or a large cast. The worst is when an RPG gives you a ton of characters but disincentivizes you from using them.
>earthbound, deltarune/undertale and mario rpg
Don't worry about making something for everyone, because you won't.

Same here I'm also a dev working on a turned based rpg. How would you guys improve turned based combat and make it more fun? Timed attacks are really fun, but what else can be added?

Advice I'd give as to what kills most indie rpgs, too many indie rpgs try too hard to be quirky like UT/DR and add useless party members for added fluff. Focus on what makes your world special rather than trying to be like those that came before you.

>>3854185
Make a shounen-type game. There's almost none that aren't about jerking off the pre-written plot, so playing in your own is (somehow) niche. Aura Clash gave me a hunger for more.

>>3854513
I love mother 3's rhythm based attacks that pair with the games music. Having something that is already baked into your combat system be dual purposed it super cool to me.
Here's a few suggestions:
>Make menu traversing into it's own battle.
I.e the player can still be hit by attacks while navigating menus and needs to time an action to go damage free.
>A possession mechanic, in which an enemy swaps places with the player. Stats and all.
The player and enemy will switch for one turn and use their opposing move sets to damage one another. After one turn, they swap back.
>A multi directional 3d battle screen
Rather then having one direction of action, the player rotates the enemy and can hit it from any angle, and vice versa.

Include the option to create a full custom party of generics.

>>3854185
>tropes
Hi esl sar. You sure you understand what trope means? Tropes aren't "bad" or "good", they just are.

>>3854489
>I worry that people wont like the style or story.
Wrong approach. I suggest you finish a script (1-2 pages) and finish systems, battle mechanics aso. Then you can start level design and after a while finish a screenplay. Don't start the screenplay first, this will never work out.

Party size is important to me.
I want four. Not one, not two, not three, not five, not six, FOUR. no more, no less. You can start as one guy and gain your party, swap out a party member every now and then for story reasons, go without someone for a bit, but at the end of the day, your game should be 4 niggas in a row.
Second is buildcrafting/party setup. I want to be able to customize my party meaningfully at almost any point in the game even mid-dungeon, through whatever systems are available. FFIII/FFV job system? sure. A really in depth equipment and weapon system where gear aren't just blocks of stats but tools with upsides and downsides? cool with me. Doesn't matter, just give me the ability to make each playthrough different gameplay and strategy wise.

>>3854641
Really? Strong dislike. If everything can be changed on a whim, why bother with choices? This kills games.

>>3854643
I understand the concern, but in practice I disagree. FFV is a very strong example. There's a million ways to break the game in half, and the more knowledge you have the easier it is to break, but on the first few playthroughs without looking anything up, it strikes a good balance between freedom and challenge. Being able to change the jobs of all of my party members mid-dungeon at no point felt like it was trivializing the game, and changing setups on the fly to account for weaknesses I can take advantage of (Using geomancer in a dungeon full of pitfall traps, using bard and white mage for dungeons with prominent undead enemies, ect.) is very satisfying, and being able to more easily plow through some areas because of good planning is a good reward for good thinking and planning, as long as things aren't too trivialized.
The problem is, this sort of balance is quite hard to achieve.
I'm also a fan of only being able to change in certain areas, but having those areas always accessible should you do some backtracking. Having to prepare in advance of an expedition is it's own fun, but I hate being locked into countless hours of game with the same setup that I have no power to really modify meaningfully.

>>3854657
>being able to more easily plow through some areas because of good planning is a good reward for good thinking and planning
I am a low IQ individual

>>3854657
Middle ground would be that class change on a whim is available starting ng+.
>>3854658
Keke, who isn't nowadays?

>>3854643
For me it's narrative hard commitment C&C with tactical flexibility akin to this anon's example >>3854657

>>3854185
Wicked Silksong fanart bro

>>3854639
What would a script pertain, just a generalized game document covering mechanic idea's and concepts?

I already have the limitations baked into my project by the hardware I'm using. The one thing holding me back from developing an RPG over other types of games is the time requirement. I worry that I will spend far more time developing a larger scoped game than if I had chosen another genre. Which could heavily backfire if it doesn't catch on. I already have experience with a platforming title that took over 4 years to complete on the same hardware and I want to try and minimize the total development time for the sake of those following the project as well as my own sanity. Are shorter RPG's with smaller worlds and less characters still interesting? I feel like I could make a great narrative with unique visuals and interesting gameplay (at least for the NES). I just worry that the general public wont care at the end of the day.

File: 16597978306310.png (211 KB, 487x420)

211 KB PNG

>>3854185
>Sup. im makin an rpg, inspired by jrpgs like earthbound, deltarune/undertale and mario rpg
*deep sigh*

>>3854638
He probably meant to use the term "cliché" but he doesn't know the difference between a trope and a cliché.

Here, let me help: A trope is like "term". It's a word, a symbol which invokes a concept you share in common with your audience. If you and your audience do not share a common lexicon between you, then you cannot communicate. Thus, all tropes rely upon sharing some culture with your audience. If you and your audience don't have cultural experiences you share in common, you won't be able to use tropes referencing those components of culture, just like you can't use words that someone else doesn't know because they literally do not know what those words mean.
A trope is more complex than a word. You might consider by analogy that a word is like a single page or even just a paragraph explaining what the word means. That is to say, the word is a symbol which stands for that paragraph / page of definition. But a trope is more expansive in scope than that. A trope doesn't just have a definition, it assembles a synthesized meaning from the component elements which comprise it. In that sense, a trope doesn't exactly just have a simple definition, it is instead of a specific "method" of assembling inputs in a reliable manner to produce an output. And this "method" has a cultural basis because it relies upon the vast - and nebulous - array of cultural concepts in order to construct its meaning.
A cliché, on the other hand, is a specific concept (which might be a trope) that has been so thoroughly analyzed and understood that it has nothing new or interesting left to say to the culture of the audience. If it's novel to the audience, it's not cliché. There's a related concept called "kitsch". Kitsch is like camp, except unlike camp, it isn't self-aware. Kitsch lacks subtlety and is immature accidentally. Camp is self-aware and intentionally performing itself satirically for an ulterior purpose.

>>3854513
>How would you guys improve turned based combat and make it more fun?
I have a great idea, but I'm saving it for myself lol

>>3855295
I think you're confusing tropes with memes or some kind of coded subtext.

The maid and butler "As you know..." conversation is a trope. There is no cultural basis for it, because people don't talk like that in real life. It's exposition.

>>3855334
Tropes are essentially a type of meme thoughever

>>3855258
Ok, what kind of an RPG do you actually want?
I've heard soo much of these enthusiast basher types that hate on what's popular. What is your perfect RPG bucko?

>>3855647
none of the games you listed are even rpgs lil bro, even with that they're like the most entry level baby shit, I've had no idea that real people besides woman and children can be fans of these

>>3855652
I'm not OP and you haven't answered the question. I personally don't care for the popular stuff, but am annoyed at the elitists snobs who's goal is to just call the current landscape of RPG's baby's first RPG or retarded goy slop for trying something different. I want to know what your perfect RPG is. Some super difficult, obscure and off the wall game "le hidden gemme? The exact same game made in the 1990's but with a graphical swap of fat tittied anime children? What exactly do you want out of the modern RPG developer?

>>3855334
"Meme" is a scientific term. It's a psycho-cultural equivalent of "gene". Literally every thought in your head is a meme or composed of memes (a "memeplex" is a combination of multiple memes which produce a new concept emergently that no single component is capable of encoding on its own).

Don't try to interject to talk about things when people who actually know what they're talking about are speaking.

>>3855700
>not mentioning that it's a portmanteau of "mental" and "gene"
You done goofed, professor buttsworth.

>>3855652
So you have absolutely nothing to add?
Then don't throw shade at people who actually tried.

>>3854185
Itt: the biggest greaseballs you know recoil in agony at the thought of someone enjoying Nintendo rpgs.

>>3855652
Based af

>>3855664
>The exact same game made in the 1990's but with a graphical swap of fat tittied anime children?
what are you even on lmao, I just took a leak on jrpgs and you imply I like them? And what does game graphics have to do with mechanics?

>>3856288
That's a normal reaction though. The vast majority of people shudder when they hear someone enjoy consuming shit.

>>3856540
Again for the third time I ask, what do you actually want? Do you even like RPG's? I'm getting the feeling you don't actually know what one even is.

I get not liking the indie scene and it's "muh childhood" enjoyers, who want games that are the same as _____ (insert RPG title here but sexy). There are the "hardcore elite gamers" that want another 400 hour grind game with extremely niche and difficult to understand mechanics and constant losses. At the end of the day I could not care less.
I simply want to know: what do you, random anon on this basket weaving website actually want out of the game space.

I honestly think you have nothing to say at this point. You don't like RPG's. Hatred for hatreds sake. If not, then answer my question and stop stalling.

>>3854185
I hate being railroaded. If I'm forced into making "decisions" I don't want to make and have basically no agency over the story, I'm apt to drop the game almost immediately.

Another thing I hate is sequencing. Its a horrible mechanic. Just have everybody attack in the same order in turn.

>>3855171
What system are you developing for?

>>3856702
NES

doesn't matter. make it how you want. that is artistry.

>>3856679
what the fuck are you even talking about? Where did I even made an argument on indie games specifically? First meds, then post, and learn to read

Make it a bullet hell turn based fusion, i dont think it will be derivative of deltarune, it's not a gimmick that you should be afraid of stealing, its just generally a smart design choice that's fit for being iterated on

>>3854185
add a non human party member that is actually major to the story and the party instead of just being there and that you can romance

>>3854185
Also working on an RPG and it's very much born out of various small frustations I had across different games.

>Fake Choices // Missing Choices
It's bad in the story, but far more prominent in gameplay. I'm talking about things beeing balanced so poorly that you feel like an idiot for picking the cool thing, or when the RPG systems have been "refined" to the point removing most of your options. You know the deal: on paper there is a lot of weapons/skills/items, but they're distributed across the level curve so that you will have at most three available at at time.
Right now I'm playing a game where, 8 hours in, there are only two choices of weapon upgrades: one that boosts wind attacks, one that boosts earth attacks. Not only has the wind one higher stats, there are no earth attacks available at this point in the game. So of course everyone gets the wind one and by the time earth attacks become available, that sword is outclassed by higher level ones.

>Presumption of Familiarity // Anti-Exploration Design
This is mostly for D&D derived games: systems set up in such a way that you should know all your choices at character creation, where in hour 40 you realize you made a fatal mistake at hour 2. Pick Favoured Weapon Katana, no such weapon in the game. Made a wizard, all story relevant loot is for fighters. That sort of stuff.
I like figuring things out as I go along and react to cool stuff I find, and this kills it.

>Item/Trash hoarding
Natural loss aversion makes us overly cautious with consumables ant too often items are just replacement spells. When the game is easy we ignore them, when it's hard we save them for an encounter that never comes. Similar thing for materials: Crafted loot is often useless compared to some hand-placed endgame items. When it is the core progression, you eventually hit some bad luck and need to stop.
Take away that fear of loss or make items an optional choice with stuff like an Alchemist class.

>>3859855
>Railroaded Beginnings
An RPG has choices, I want to replay it to see the choices I didn't make. So don't make a multi-hour intro that contains zero choices in story or gameplay. If you absolutely need it for new players, give me an NG+ that starts me after that.

>Overly long game
See above. Instead of making a 100 hour campaing, make two 50 hours ones that branch based on my choices. Pathfinder really goes overboard here and a lot of the bloat comes from repeating similar encounters over and over again(and not even having good rare loot on those or letting you grind by your own pace).

>Evil = Murderhobo
I know it's easier to implement the evil path as "Pay me more" and "Bored now, skip cutscene and kill them all", but it makes evil playthroughs pretty boring. Let me lie, steal and manipulate people, and make longer questlines or recurring NPCs so that I can see the outcome of my actions.

>Team Good and Team Evil
Related to above. Because evil paths aren't that popular they tend to get less support, so evil companions need to support the entire spectrum from street criminal to crazed serial killer and future dictator. That can make it so that people that by all rights should hate each other work together and trust each other, as if they were aware of the Alignment on their character sheet. Same issue applies to Good companions to a lesser extend. People disagree on what is good and not having that just seems like a wasted opportuninity for interactive dialog.

>>3859855
I'm working on my own RPG and have a few questions about your frustrations
>Fake Choices // Missing Choices
What are your thoughts on games that follow a single storyline? I know a lot of older RPG's like Dragon's Quest let the player take on extra missions but keep the main plot the same. I feel like as a player I enjoy exploration and think that people might get lost in limitless potential options.


>Presumption of Familiarity // Anti-Exploration Design
100% agree, also having obtuse or obscure solutions that require a guide being mandatory to beat the game. I think having secrets is fun, but locking the game behind them is not.

>Item/Trash hoarding
As a player I feel like naturally I've gained the hoarders mentality of "I'll need this later, I'm sure of it". I feel like the best way to level items out is to give items the same progression as the character. For example, give items a decay rate. Like making health drops produce and having it rot over time so they have to use the item when it's "ripe".

>Railroaded Beginnings
I'm honestly not as bothered with them. I think you can be invested in a story without giving it a thousand possible options to replay through. Mechanically I think you could add more variation but making the story set so you can "do anything" often tends to weaken the narrative imo. Crafting 100 bland stories vs investing your time into 1 great one.

>Overly long game
Question, how short is too short? Does having optional extra unlockables (like a 2 player arena or time attack) decrease the overall playability of the game in your opinion?

>Evil = Murderhobo
>Team Good and Team Evil
I feel like a lot of games gloss over what the "hero's" of an RPG actually do. Casually desecrating family gravesites, murdering wildlife, stealing off of murdered "enemies". I'd love to see the Evil vs Good trope used to outline more than fashion sense and a morality system.

>>3859950
>What are your thoughts on games that follow a single storyline?
I'm neutral on it. It's not a selling point of a game for me, but at least it's not false advertisement like fake choices.

>Question, how short is too short?
Depends too much on each player and type of game to give a meaningfull answer. I'm an adult with a job and making my own game is essentially building a company, so I just don't have much time. A student or someone with gaming as the main hobby will think differently. I guess you could always look up at similar games and see what their statistics are.

>Does having optional extra unlockables (like a 2 player arena or time attack) decrease the overall playability of the game in your opinion?
No, why should it? If you make things optional it's always possible that players skip it, but I don't think that will generate any ill will. If anything players seem to like discovering that there was more than they knew before and hate it when the game feels like they're a dog being led around on a leash.

>>3854185
Here's an idea I had for mine but you can use it.
Make all alignments rewarding as long as you follow them.
Most people RP as goodish but will break alignment easily for rewards.
They will also easily RP out of character for rewards if they depend on dialogue.

My idea is to reward consistent in-character choices.
If you RP your class-alignment, down the road you get some kind of massive rewards.

>i hate its tropes
tropes aren't inherently bad
almost all RPGs are based on the most ancient trope humanity has, which has existed even before writing did

the hero journey

tropes are invaluable if you want to make something worthwile

I suggest reading some Karl Jung and learning what the basic "tropes" of the human psyche are, which he calls "archetypes"

E.g. the wise old man (mentor)
the trickster
the shadow
the outsider
etc.

to make a good RPG you first need to master these tropes

>>3860097
I see some of the more popular RPG's have what I'll call "stop gaps" for lack of a better term. Where there is room for a player to stop playing and come back at a later time. For instance a quest has a short beginning, middle and end a player can complete in a short time. Which when completed becomes a good point to save and leave. The same goes for things like dungeons or other parts of an environment. I think having shorter stop gaps is good, rather than longer ones a player might have to stop halfway.
This leads me into two questions:
>A. How long do you play an RPG's for before calling it quits?
My usual play time is between 1-3 hours. But can go as low as 10-30 minutes depending on the context. Mobile games (like my DSi) have frequent shorter play sessions, PC games and consoles have longer and more infrequent ones.
>B. How do you re-engage a player after a long stop gap story wise?
Sometimes I put down a game for so long I forget the story/mechanics. What would be a good way to get players re-invested after a break?

>>3860260
>to make a good RPG you first need to master tropes
Question, which has higher value to you? Story or Gameplay and why?
Personally I'd rather have great mechanics and a poor story than a great story yet terrible mechanics.

>>3854185
Big damage numbers suck and start to be meaningless over time.
Going from doing 2 damage at the start of the game to doing 10 damage by the end feels way more impactful than starting off doing 20 damage and ending doing 12389003 damage.

>>3860279
>Story or Gameplay and why?
Atmosphere

>>3858726
NTA but answer the question or you're a non-entity.

>>3859855
>>3859861
These are good points. If I were to sum them up they mean basically to have a well-rounded game where playing it in a different intended way should still be fun. I don't mean playing it in unintended ways like with challenge runs, but different paths or optional content that are means to be tried out at some point.

>>3860279
Combining diegetic gameplay with a great story is the peak of design.

File: MakeSomething.jpg (26 KB, 256x320)

26 KB JPG

>>3854185
>2 Threads
>No progress
Goose? More like chicken!

>>3864265
When I want to see progress I just contact the devs directly.

>>3864273
Most of the time indie games fizzle out as most people aren't full time devs and irl things get in the way

>I hate tropes
Your game is going to be shit. People want to be the good guy doing good things and being rewarded for it. We do not want your subversive demoralization masquerading as uniqueness.

>>3854513
Fuck you fuck you fuck you. The combat is the result of the gameplay. You are ignoring the entire exploration, looting and character building to myopicly focus on one part of a genre you obviously have no interest in.

>>3865117
Not OP, but I have a few questions for you.
>How to games use subversive demoralization incorrectly?
I see a lot of hardcore RPG fans harking on games that have a sense of moral ambiguity. Or ones that have a clear message they present to the player. Ala Moon
>Which tropes do you consider bad?
What grinds your gears and why? I want to try and understand the gripes and frustrations people have with RPG's to become better as a developer.
>Are games that cover sad, disturbing or otherwise heavy subjects inherently worse then positive ones?
Do characters need a happy ending? What about characters that did evil actions getting redemption? Where is the line drawn?

>>3865118
Do all three points need to be balanced for an RPG? Would say, removing every NPC character except the one you play as make a game not an RPG?

>>3865166
>I want to try and understand the gripes and frustrations people have with RPG's to become better as a developer.
Focusing on writing when the writing is shit. Focusing on characters when the characters are shit.
>Do characters need a happy ending?
Not necessarily, but avoid the cliched "everything is SHIT and GRIM and every ending is various shades of DARK GREY because FUCK YOU"
>What about characters that did evil actions getting redemption?
This is theoretically possible, given sincere repentance, although almost never done well.
>Where is the line drawn?
Pure trad succubus virgin waifu

>>3865166
As a matter of genre taxonomy, "exploration" and these other verbs are player actions, not a design of the game. It's not a skill or challenge in the sense of ludology. Playing dress up is "playing", but it's not a "game".

At least in a title like Skyrim putting a bucket on an NPC's head has a strategic advantage. And there's motor skills required to perform that action with a controller in a virtual space.
But categorically that's "Action" not "RPG".

>>3865169
>although almost never done well.
What would be the greatest falling point for that trope? Say, someone in game who committed horrible actions atone with the ghosts of those they wronged. Would that be good enough?

>>3865174
I see a lot of RPG aficionado's state the base level of an RPG is choice over exploration. A lot of so called "walking sims" have no choices but have neat worlds to explore and characters to talk to with an interesting story.

From my limited perspective boiling down the "RPG element" would be the combination of choice and player impacted progression. Do this and something else happens because of it. But I see so many games labeled RPG it's difficult to say, I think all the developers wanting to subvert expectations have to understand what those expectations are in the first place to do it properly.

>>3865180
>Say, someone in game who committed horrible actions atone with the ghosts of those they wronged. Would that be good enough?
I shall wait for you in death's halls, my love... my love... my love...

>>3864273
>>3865114
"Hello Goose, please show me your progress. If you don't, I'll become a gamedev just to spite you. Love ~anon"

>>3867663
I'll quit to watch you fail to satisfy yourself.

>>3859855
>Natural loss aversion makes us overly cautious with consumables ant too often items are just replacement spells
This annoyed the shit out of me in Portrait of Ruin. You find a long sword early in the game and also moldy bread, both of these are useless but there's a quest a bit later where you can trade them in for a sword that inflicts poison.

If you decide to sell either for being useless, not only do you miss out on the weapon but you also miss out on an infinite MP ring which is a reward for completing all quests.

File: animeta-0019-024-3d-head.jpg (513 KB, 1125x1600)

513 KB JPG

>>3854185
Indies tend to neglect art and music.

I think non-Japanese indie (JRPG) games focus too much on gameplay and content (amount).
They didn't realize how much of a turn-off deviant art-tier amateur art is.
Also compare western pixel art and jrpg pixel art. World of difference.

Undertale owes a lot of its sucess to its music. True for a lot of other rpgs too, indie or not.

Also jrpg (game) writing is very different from writing a novel. You need to focus on vibes and atmosphere. Not just written dialogs and narration.

>>3854185
I dislike the RPG trope

>>3868148
>Also jrpg (game) writing is very different from writing a novel. You need to focus on vibes and atmosphere. Not just written dialogs and narration.
A good 60% of JRPG dialog is worth reading or directly pertaining to the story. My brother and I used to get drunk taking turns playing Final Fantasy and if we got tails we would just straight up skip the cutscene or in-engine cutscene and we still knew what was going on.

>>3854185
Make an H JRPG in RPGmake, thanks.