Great storyline with lots of twists, Unique world with unique characters. Battle system which is unique and of cource great leveling system. And more you can spend time in itthe better.
I have proven new mathematic formula to be true...
A story driven RPG is all about the characters, they have to be interesting and believable. A character must always be pushing forward in the story while always being inconvenienced. I.e the hero must goto the castle, but the bridge is broken so he must find a way around. It must of course have a great story with twists and turns along the way.
Diablo style RPG is not so much story based as it is all about the loot.
NPC's (Quest Givers) are the objective, always pointing you in the direction, letting you know where you should be questing until they lead you to the next area you are meant to go. As mentioned loot is very important, as its the reward of playing. No one wants to play for 4 hours and not get anything good, you want to be sure the player gets a nice sword or piece of armor now and then making them feel stronger and more powerful. These style of games must be designed for high replayability but must try and keep the player occupied without them feeling the need to grind.
I think cutting down on grind while still including lengthy playtime is what makes an RPG great, but it's very difficult. In fact, the best I've really seen is covering up grind or giving you so many things to upgrade that you're always getting better at something, just not always gaining levels.
For example, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams lets you gain levels, but you get points to upgrade individual attacks. Upgrading those to certain levels unlocks new abilities. This relies on an attack system that utilizes combos, though, whereas most PC action-RPGs are just click-click-click or call it a day after three consecutive hits. This engine seems geared towards that style, but I think you should consider having more attacks. You could mix Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe's systems. PSO had a three-step attack, but you could decide whether each attack would be normal, heavy (more damage, knockback, less accuracy, slight delay before attack), or special (if the weapon had a special ability like fire damage or stealing HP, same delay as heavy attack, even less accuracy). This was balanced by making each attack in the combo more accurate than the last, so you'd be encouraged to finish combos with heavy or special attacks. PSU took out that system and had regular weapon combos, but you could tie a special attack skill into your regular attacks and turn five hits into eight or more.
In addition to leveling your character in Onimusha, you could also upgrade the level of your weapons and armor by absorbing soul energy from enemies. How much energy you got was dependent on how you killed them; the very difficult counter-attack earned you the most, hacking away earned you the least. The problem in this case was that it undermined the combo system, but it's an easy fix if you know it's an issue. Upgrading your weapons to certain levels unlocked new abilities (better magic, increased %damage, enemies give more souls/experience, etc.) and your armor gained another accessory slot every 10 levels. I never really felt that I was grinding.
So what I'm really saying is that action-RPGs can be far less engaging and more grindy without a good action system to use all that RPG loot with. Seeing as this is open source, I'd recommend building the basis for cutscenes and dialogue. Writing is really up to the people that use the engine, right?
On another note, interesting environments help a LOT. As much as I love PSO, the forest area feels more like a dungeon than a forest. However, even game dungeons seem too focused on the corridor + rectangular room design. I think interesting room designs should be a big factor in this engine. Look up Andrew Doull's dungeon design articles; he's put a lot of thought into the process. In fact, the Ascii Dreams blog has a lot of articles that ask important questions and give several possible solutions.
Grinding should be kept at a minimum by keeping the player engaged, not just by a linear storyline and sequential quests, but suppose level 10 Jack is in town collecting a new level 10+ quest and stops to talk to another NPC, who's got another quest for him; but wait, he's not level 20+ yet! The player can always move around the map to places they've already been to complete objectives they were not yet strong enough for.
In general, it's nice to have a world where even if you reach level 50, there's still something for you to do back where you were when you were only level 20. Eg a large mob you couldn't defeat before so you moved on .. but further along someone requests you return to vanquish it.
I think that level grinds should be avoided at all costs... well, mandatory anyways. Some enjoy it. In any case, I always like an rpg that gives me the chance to strategize instead of just attack/Item/Run/Guard. I think that the easiest way to do this (coding wise) is to look at the leveling system for Final Fantasy II. The game gave you experience in certain areas instead of a collective pool. For example, the more times you get hit in combat, the more your defence and max hp increases. The more you cast black magic, the greater your mp and intellect. White magic would increase mp and wisdom. In addition, the weapon types (sword, greatsword, axe, dagger, bow, staff, shield, and unarmed) each had their own xp bars, increasing proficiency. That way, it actually made sense to use guard actions once in a while. Depending upon the magic available, that level of customization would allow for any possible strategy. Imagine the FFtactics ability learning system with that...
Vegeta? What does your mother say about my power level?
It's hard to say, really. IMHO, RPGs have always.. sucked. But they're fun. Haha. They're doing a lot of things wrong, but it's worth the trouble.
1. Interaction. It's Role-Playing, so having great characters, feeling like your there is good.
2. Growth. Growing from being a feeble little guy to a powerful hero is one of the best things about the game. A lot of people stop playing when their character gets too powerful for this reason.
3. Feeling significant. Guys like it when their character is noticed. Make it possible to be a powerful leader, or own a castle. Maybe the character gets knighted, given land. Or if he's a powerful wizard, then he gets a research lab or something. Baldur's Gate 2 seems to be the only game that did this the best, and with all the flaws in it, it's still one of the best games ever.
4. Story too. Mostly a story that mixes the last three points. But story is a bit twitchy - it's fun the first time, but gets repetitive on more than one time. Roguelikes also get along well without a proper story.
Grinding is a vital part of every RPG. It's in the mechanics. You feel happy knowing that it took a while for your character to get so powerful. The longer it takes to grind, the more satisfying it is to have a powerful character.
That's why permadeath games usually have a very low grind. In roguelikes, you could go up 5 levels on the same floor, but as you get more powerful, the rate of leveling is slower, because you'll be able to defeat most enemies.
But games where you live forever have a lot of grinding. Since this is a single player game, I think the best thing would be to go with minimum grinding (roguelike rate), but make the enemies much tougher and satisfying to kill. But that's what I prefer. Sometimes it's good to go up slowly - you get a lot of satisfaction being at the same power level.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Then again, leveling up in roguelikes is more like a buffer compared to most RPGs. Knowledge is really king in roguelikes, but "knowledge" in console RPGs is really "grind to this level, bring this equipment". That's why most interesting weapons/abilities in those games end up being novelties whereas roguelikes actually make different equipment a hard choice.
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Jason Orme
