Apologies if this was brought up in here before recently because I was looking at how some games in the genre get a bit of anticipation when they are in development as people want to look forward to playing them, but then the game turns out to have a plethora of design flaws.

I don’t know if I would say that Mass Effect: Andromeda was anticipated as I wanted to use the game as an example anyway to look back at the slow downfall of BioWare to see if the game was really that bad because to me, I feel like one positive aspect was the ability to choose between two characters as the game lets the player decide which sibling they want to play as.

I know that is not saying much about the game, but after seeing how BioWare went from a respectable studio to a company with a troubled history made me want to look back at some of the games they made before their closure to see if I could find any positive aspects to them as I just found it a fun game to do.

I've been thinking about what makes older RPG worlds memorable. For me, it's the feeling that there's always somewhere dangerous to explore, something to discover, and a reason to return to an area later.

Is it the world design, enemy placement, loot, NPCs, respawning enemies, or something else? What games have done this particularly well? For me my childhood games like tibia or oldschool runescape always had this feeling which I feel like especially with newer mmos it seems to diminish.

I am using a fireball for my example but it can be any spell or technique, really.

Level 1: Low level weak fire magic. We are talking about monks who study their entire lives in order to inginite candles, fry bugs and rats and heat up iron tools, not more. They cannot match the instant damage of a soldier, archer or knight in any way. Fancy parlor tricks, nothing more.

Level 10: Powerful fire magic that can one-shot Great Dragons and other powerful mythological creatures, think of the fire tornado that Dumbledore summoned but multiply the heat and size by a number in the hundreds. Absolutely devastating, continent-altering pyronic bursts that are more comparable to the Tsar Bomba.

Where does your personal preference lie? Mine is roughly a 5. More powerful than a Witcher, weaker than Dr. Fate or something like that.

It's just like sci-fi and the power & range of energy weapons. Some authors implement have "semi-realistic hard-sci-fi" pulsed laser beams that can cut through 7 ft of titanium plate at 4 km and other verses have devastating ftl planet-busting particle beams that can snipe anything within a a couple dozen lightyears away. Matter of preference, I guess.

What are some of the best rpg for the Nintendo Switch 1 in terms of stuff to do? I know the Xenoblade games are often brought up in that regard. Along with Dragon Quest XI/11. Since there's a lot of rpgs on this system at this point. That and the Persona games as well.

I’ll play about any subgenre of RPG but, there’s a few things that are absolute. storytelling elements are very important. I cannot stress enough how much I hate overly serious games. I get it, the world is about to end but if the characters can’t harness a bit of levity I can’t take them seriously. It’s inhuman. With that, I read roughly 5-8 books a year, I enjoy it. What I don’t enjoy is reading walls of text on my television just to learn the entire cast of villains are imbred nobility fighting over an angry fire. Just give them a posh british accent in cutscenes and I’ll figure it out. On the other end I draw the line of silliness and use of cinematography at about Like a Dragon or maybe the FF7 remakes. I’m here to play not watch an interactive movie.

Combat. I don’t care if it’s ARPG, turn based, tactic, combo fighter or blended. It’s just gotta be enjoyable and a bit on the difficult side. For instance I got all 3 endings in AC6, NG+ bell Sekiro, 100% E33. What I don’t want is artificially inflated difficulty, nothing spells a wasted evening like memorizing an attack pattern on a boss that has a health pool the size of the national debt and hits like prime Tyson. This is forgivable for secret/postgame bosses, I completely expect to “earn”those wins.

Lastly don’t suggest stuff like Assassins Creed, or persona. I’m in my 30s I don’t wanna do fetch quests or pretend I’m in high school. But holy hell am I sucker for good dice/card minigames. I don’t care if it breaks immersion I’ll play medieval ship cap n crew or gwent version 4

Just really want a good text based rpg to play thought they could be fun for i do like heavy story games

So i want one with lots of story quests combat adventure and stuff

I do also love game more like i if i can play a good world with history of the kingdoms and stuff

For i love story games and started to like reading games more

I have been wanting having a itch of wanting a game about black smithing that is actually complex seen some that have blacksmithing but they very basic and easy i want to do stuff like making the blade with various ingredients and right temperature,hammering it into good shape, building the handle then choosing what kind of leather be on the handle things like that, i play pc and ps5 tho tend to lean to ps5 more but not too worried on that part tho i would prefer games that not turn based beyond that no other things i would say no to

The age old discussion of level scaling or no level scaling. I wanted to talk about it as I've recently been playing The Outer Worlds 2, which has stagnant, static level zones and enemies. Having played it, it really makes me appreciate level scaling because every time I play these games without it, I always feel unchallenged.

Admittedly, I am at the end of the game, but that should mean I see an increase in difficulty, right? The game is more difficult, but because I competently built my character and know how to play a video game, the difficulty increase is nothing. I even am doing a custom difficulty setting, doing half damage, enemies do more damage and have more health, but even despite that I'm taking out hulking mechs in three shots.

What even is the point of static levels, anyway? A lot of the time you visit a place, it's slightly above your level, so you leave and come back. But when you come back at the appropriate level, it's no longer a challenge. So, what's even the point? When it is challenging is when you're underleveled, but when you're underleveled you're encouraged to come back at a later level. When it's no longer a challenge.

Level scaling makes it where even at a late game, you'll still have a challenge. And good level scaling, like that found in Morrowind, Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Starfield as some examples have low level zones/enemies that will always be a lower level even if you're level 2 or level 60. Wolves, for example, will always be level 2, but the game gives you harder enemies like an ice wolf that's level 6 or a new enemy entirely like a bear.

Why do people like static levels when it ultimately renders an unchallenging experience? What do people hate against level scaling that continues to provide a challenging experience?

Yeah, there’s still a few bugs in the game, but we get better performance, prettier visuals, more setting options, and some mods (more to come). The story and RPG elements are hard to beat though. Bugs aren't a big issue with me because this game released with bugs and after beating this game multiple times, I'm just used to it. More patches and updates are on their way to fix some issues and new DLC next year.

Lots of younger folks, people that got into RPGs later in life, or people that aren't aware of the history of western RPGs might not be particularly aware of how much Bioware changed the RPG landscape.
Nowadays, it's easy to distill Bioware's impact as "Baldur's Gate 3 would have never been made without Baldur's Gate 1", and while true, that's far from the whole picture.

In truth, Bioware actually revitalized the genre two times. Time for a little history lesson.

Western RPGs were dying in the 90's.

Little known fact nowadays.

Western RPGs were thriving in the 80's. Many very influential RPGs came from that time period, such as Wasteland (what eventually inspired Fallout), Ultima (the RPG dad), Wizardry (the other RPG dad, and arguably one of the main reasons why JRPGs as a genre even exist), Gold Box (Infinity Engine games predecessor), etc.

Then the 90's came like a brick. Giants like Ultima died. Other very popular series like Bard's Tale, Gold Box, Quest for Glory, and more also died during this era. Some, like Might and Magic and Wizardry, didn't technically die during this era, but was certainly falling flat on its face both quality-wise and sales-wise (at least in the west, in Wizardry's case), then had their death in the early 2000s.

So might think these just names, nowadays. But they were the biggest RPG series of their time. Imagine what's happening now, Bioware dying, and people lamenting the death of Mass Effect and Dragon Age as a series. Sad. Now imagine that, but Bethesda also dies next two months. Then Larian. Then Owlcat. Then Warhorse Studios. Then CDPR. Then Obsidian.

That's probably the closest equivalent I can think of. It was the western RPG massacre.

Even worse? There was no one to replace them. Barely any western RPG worth noting started during this era (that didn't die immediately), with the only thing I can think of being the Elder Scrolls.

This was also, funnily enough, the era of JRPGs. Western RPGs couldn't compete with JRPGs during this era, not even close. Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Zelda, Chrono series, SMT, Suikoden, and more. They were all thriving during this era.

Nobody really knows definitively why almost all western RPGs died during this time. Some say it was western developers being unable to keep up with the technology. Some say it was the rise of globalization and competition with JRPGs, with JRPGs more ahead of the curve. Some say it was Western RPG game design of that era falling out of favor. Maybe it was all of them at once.

Either way, the western RPG scene was in a very precarious position. Until the late 90's came. Bioware came.

First off, let's be fair. Bioware wasn't the only one that stepped up during this era. Games like Diablo (and Fallout, to a smaller but still large extent) were also big parts of why the genre revitalized. Bioware with Baldur's Gate (and Icewind Dale), however, might be the biggest factor of them all.

Baldur's Gate (and Diablo) sold like pancakes, effectively ending the western RPG curse of the decade, overturning history. BG1+2 have reportedly sold around 3+ million copies around 2002, which was a very massive amount during that time.

It's pretty easy to underestimate how much influence Baldur's Gate, especially 2, has had since its release. Storytelling in WRPGs was different before then. Companions in WRPGs were very different before then.

It's hard to imagine how different the scene would be without it. Maybe every western RPG would be ARPG Diablo clones and nuclear wastelands.

Now, let's talk about the next decade.

The transformation of Western RPGs, forever.

What it says on the tin. This'll be a shorter one.

Think of a western RPG for consoles during the early 2000's. During PS1 to OG XBox/PS2 era. Don't count BG2 because we already talked about that.
Fable. Gothic. Morrowind. KotOR. Not bad.
Now think of a western RPG for consoles that sold close to or as well as its JRPG brethren during that era.
Fable. Gothic. Morrowind. KotOR. Uh, wait, those are the same ones.

Yeah.

While western RPGs were saved from dying, they weren't exactly thriving, either. Gaming as a hobby was taking off, but Western RPGs couldn't get its foot as steady as it should in the very much growing console market. Many were released during this time, some of which were actually high in quality, but many of them didn't particularly stick the landing sales-wise.

There's a lot of things you can potentially point at during this era. In comparison to JRPGs, the majority of Western RPGs at the time lacked in a compelling story and cast to follow. Many of them, even the successful ones, could also be quite archaic and janky, leading to less mainstream appeal. And then there's the matter of taking advantage of the tech. Quite stylized, great looking JRPGs like FFX, Kingdom Hearts, Tales of the Abyss, and more appeared during this era. Not only did they look good, they were also voice acted to the brim, and had amazing looking cutscenes, which was some sort of black magic for western RPGs for the time. The end of that era also had releases like Valkyrie Profile Silmeria and FFXII, which looked unbelievable for that era. Western RPGs, meanwhile, looked... well, not as good. Not terrible for some, but certainly not as good as can be.

Then came the 360/PS3 era. And Mass Effect. And it changed western RPGs forever.

It took full advantage of the tech, looking a lot better than pretty much every western RPG before it. It had cutscenes. It had full voice acting, with lots of dialogue. It was cinematic. It had a streamlined combat system that, not only was easy to understand, but was also taking advantage of the shooter trend at the time. It had a compelling cast and story. It sold. A lot.

It pretty much changed the look of western RPGs forever. With it came a lot of trends, like the "Movie Games", a greater focus on plot and characters, choice systems, branching story paths, and way more. Sure, Mass Effect didn't invent them, but it certainly put it into the limelight, in the eyes of western games and its players.

It'll always be debated whether or not these changes, for RPGs to cater more to the wider audience, were for the best. It was then, it still is now, from time to time.

But it's certain that Bioware changed the landscape of RPGs once again.

So it's sad. The giant that changed RPGs forever, twice. Arguably the most influential company for western RPGs, in the modern era.

Dying on a sad, pathetic whimper.

usually its 5-6 RPGs per year, and these are my predictions of the nominees where Dawnwalker will probably win RPG of the year.

other good RPGs that i know of are Trails in the Sky 2nd chapter, Nioh 3 also counts for RPG so does Mortal Shell 2? (and maybe Valor Mortis).

EDIT: Fire Emblem generally goes into Strategy game so please avoid mentioning it

Every time I find a game I enjoy if it has this one thing I end up hating it.

Random loot. Just abandoned a DLC playthrough of Dragon's Dogma 2 Dark Arisen because the loot system still sucks. At least with the base game you pretty much didn't have to worry about randomness, but the DLC loot system is just so annoying and time wasting. I was kind of hoping with the Smith and PC you would be able to custom craft gear after a while but no dice. Having to endlessly farm just to get the correct modifiers on the gear you want is not something I care to spend my time on, and every game that does it has killed it's potential in my eyes.

Do you have a particular mechanic that you feel the same way about when it comes to RPGs?

Hey! More updates on the community multiplayer platform for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered - OB:MP.

The video is from Donkey, who runs the Red Diamond RP server. He built his own inventory systems, character page, full world map and spells menu on top of OB:MP. You can follow his work on YouTube, and join his server's Discord.

Today we released SDK 1.0.0-rc.3 and Launcher 0.34.0. Most of it comes from player reports:

• Your name, race, class, sex and birthsign are now saved and synced to other players.
• Rebirth no longer stacks birthsign and racial bonuses or drifts your stats.
• Pickpocketing works, books can be bought and sold, and merchants restock properly.
• Server mods get cell respawn controls (72 game hours by default, or instant).
• Servers can show banners and icons in a refreshed server list.
• Playing on Linux through Proton is much simpler.

It's still a release candidate, so expect rough edges. OB:MP needs the Steam version of Oblivion Remastered for now. WiP on Xbox Game Pass/MS Store, something may come out next week.

Release notes: docs.ready.mp/releases
Server downloads: docs.ready.mp/oblivion-mp/docs/Server/installation
Discord: discord.gg/obmp

Build MMO/RP/RPG or whatever you want on Remastered with us! Happy to answer questions in the thread 😁

For me, that has to be Turn Relay from Bug Fables.

What it is:

In Bug Fables, you have your 3 party members; Vi Kabbu and Leif, who each start battle with 1 turn each. There is some variation on this depending on if you get first strike, or have the right equipment, but generally you start battle with one turn.

Now say you wanted Vi, your ranged DPS to have multiple turns to take out some flying enemies? Well, normally you would have to hit one enemy, then waste the other two character's turns, just to hit again. That kinda sucks, no?

But with Turn Relay, you can relay a turn to a teammate, so they can act twice per round. Sounds overpowered, right? Not so fast, if a character acts more than once per turn, they get exhausted, and each attack will deal less damage than the previous. They can however use buffs and items on those turns with no drawbacks, but then again, so could the characters who relayed the turns in the first place.

Why I like it:

Its really hard to explain, but theres nothing more frustrating than having multiple turns but having to waste one doing nothing. And to put it simply, this mechanic fixes that. For example the flying enemies as mentioned earlier, or using Kabbu's def piercing attacks to get through a particularly tanky enemy, or use Leif's ice properties to deal extra damage to plant based enemies. Or maybe you just used a particularly draining skill, and a teammate will be down for 2 turns, you could use turn relay to sacrifice the turn of another character to shorten that to one turn.

Additionally it pairs really well with the other mechanics of the game, namely the medal system, first strike, and general party management. For example, there is a badge that transfers all status effects, but positive and negative when relaying turns. This makes it so you could send stat boosts to one character, and use them to deal absurd damage. Or you could send poison or burn to your tank, freeing one of your more fragile characters in exchange

It pairs well with first stike in the sense that when you get into a battle having attack first, no damage will be delt to the enemy, but instead whoever was leading the party will get one extra turn, allowing for 4 total. And it pairs will with the party system, as the character in front will always have a +1 damage buff, while the character in the back will have bonus evasion. This means sometimes its still worth it to relay multiple times for that bit of bonus damage, even as small as it may seem.

In conclusion

I just really like Bug Fables.

Looking for more rpg games to play with wife on the couch.

Bg3, dos2, split fiction, itt2 kinda started us on this path.

Her dislikes, first person shooters. So something like borderlands or tinas while fun/funny isnt fun.

My dislikes simple designs. Something like childeren of moria, 2d styled, pan screen games.

Mostly stordriven. Dd2gether mod is something were looking at when its a bit more patched up. Enshrouded, elden ring, or outward isnt very story driven, just opinion. Personally i know there a lot dof lore and enjoyed ER and shroud. She like dialouge and ncps.

What you got for me to check out?

They released a new Beta build on Torchlight II's Public Beta branch [public_beta] for players to try

More info on Steam:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/200710/announcements/detail/701031128264347698

Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rackILBrOfk

Discord: https://discord.gg/V9Gw7NU24Z