Been wanting to do this for quite some time. Please keep in mind this is just my opinion. I have no problem with you disagreeing, but please try and keep this thread as intelligent as possible. If you aren't going to read this, please don't try and act like you have. This is mainly addressing people that may make RPGs.
RPGs in Blockland are flawed greatly. I have never seen one that I can consider 'good'. I've thought for a bit and come up with some major issues I see happen. This thread may be done in a way very similar to
this particular rant.
1. Features Added Most features added into the game with the RPG mod don't seem to change the game much at all. It doesn't make me feel like I'm playing an RPG. It makes me feel like I'm doing RPG-related stuff in Blockland. Mostly it's just that there aren't many elements added that make it seem like an RPG. I'll explain some things said here later on.
Try adding more features. Add as many as you can. Don't stop. Don't be satisfied. Keep improving it. And don't just add them, add them
well. Do a good job. If you're capable of adding them at all, you're capable of adding them in a way that's good. I'm not saying to add every single tiny thing that pops into your mind, but
make sure people have a lot to do. Basically, you should make your mod do a complete overhaul on the game to make it an RPG.
2. Combat Systems Combat in general is done very very poorly. This isn't necessarily a problem with the RPG, sometimes it's just Blockland's combat that's to blame, but that's an entirely different (less interesting) rant. Most combat seems to be based around the point of attacking the monster with a normal attack a bunch of times to kill it then moving on. Bad. A lot of the time, there's no feeling of accomplishment for killing something really intimidating. Bad. Spawning patterns of monsters is generally not good. For instance, spawning a monster randomly near the player. Bad. Because of those things, fighting things feels very repetitive. And also, any sort of PvP systems are generally pretty terrible.
One easy way to fix this is simple. Add combat-related skills. Magic, buffs, something. Don't just rely on standard weapons. Make things have certain weaknesses and have armour systems. Things that are completely different should
feel like they are completely different. Fighting should be an actual threat, and when they overcome that threat, (and you'll hear me say this a lot in this rant) they should be rewarded for it. Spawn monsters in a way that the player can expect the enemy will be there, but can't expect how exactly it will approach. And PvP shouldn't be so open. Restrict it a bit. One major complaint I see that makes people angry at RPGs is being killed constantly by other people. I'll touch more on PvP later on.
3. Leveling Up/Skills This one is a bit tricky. One major part of an RPG is leveling up. That's obviously going to be one main focus of the mod. If this is done badly, the entire everything will probably suffer. Something that happens which is pretty bad is making the usage/training of the skill feel the same throughout the entire game. This means that the player will end up doing the same thing repeatedly. Eventually, they lose interest in doing that. For instance, skills based around the idea of walking around and hitting things with a tool for hours on end.
Leveling up skills sometimes seems to basically just allow access to an upgraded version of the last thing they could access. Not good. This means that the player will be leveling up skills solely for the purpose of having the best gear. It makes the game easy, uninteresting, and redundant.
Leveling up should actually contribute to gameplay in some way instead of just allowing the player to have better stuff. Some games do this by allowing access to certain areas. Not that that's necessarily a good idea. Basically, I mean that when a player levels up, they should be rewarded in some way that allows access to more parts of the game, every 'step' of a certain skill should be interesting. And you should also allow players to choose, in some shape or form, how they level up. As an example, Skyrim's skill tree system. Also, don't force people to grind to level up.
4. Player Interaction Most of the time, there is absolutely no reason for other people to exist in RPGs. There's no benefit, no bonus, no buffs, nothing. One thing I dislike quite a bit is when there is a lack of these systems:
- party
- 'guild'
- trading
- 'family' (this one is kinda eh)
- good pvp
Basically, it's as if everyone is playing their own one-man adventure. Which would be fine if that were nearly as enjoyable when the concept of player interaction is basically being dangled in front of you and pulled away like a cat chasing a laser pointer.
Support for player interaction is integral. That's it. Without it, it's very easy for people to lose interest. The chat system, a lot of the time, is the only interface for socialization. Have a party system at the very least. Give people bonuses for working together. This is an issue with a lot of things in Blockland, the lack of incentive to cooperate. One way to do this is to make the game actually harder to play alone. Not meaning you should make everything overpowered and require two people to even try to do.
5. Quests Most RPGs either have a terrible quest system or a complete lack thereof. Call it any name you want, quest, task, 'can you do me a favour', 'please find my lost cat Stan', 'give me the french fries', it's part of an RPG. Not only does it provide more interesting gameplay, it can make the players feel rewarded and also make the game easier. It's just a good thing to have. But if you are going to have one, make it good. Don't have quests that force you to grind (i'm looking at you, grand chase) or do tedious stuff like walk fifty thousand bloody miles across a dangerous wasteland with no easily accessible way to make the trip easier (i'm looking at you, runescape).
Just have a quest system. It's that simple. Avoid badly done quests, maybe have a storyline. It can really help out the success of your RPG.
6. Donation Perks Now this is just asinine. The entire concept of allowing people to break the game because they have you five dollars is stupid. Don't do it. It's fine if you have a donation system that gives them silly stuff like accessories or something, but don't let them
ruin the game for other people. Have a donation system if you want it, so long as it doesn't allow people to be completely stupid.
7. Incentive Why? Why do stuff? What makes me want to do that? Your RPG shouldn't make people ask those questions. People feel more motivated to do something when they actually have a reason to do it. Everyone knows that. A reason could be a promise of a reward in the end. If you don't supply incentive, you can't expect people to supply interest.
Subtly give people rewards. By this I mean things that place the basic "hey, good job mate." in their subconscious. Make the game and the promised rewards more interesting. Something like, "Do this and neat stuff will happen!" would work fine.
8. Client Modifications One big complaint about DRPG was that a prerequisite for participating was to download a mod. Now, that's arguably not a big deal at all. But you still shouldn't force people to do it unless absolutely necessary. DRPG could have easily done without a client mod. If there's a client mod, odds are there may not be a serverCmd alternative (there obviously would be serverCmds, but they may not be usable very well by the player). Sometimes the GUI isn't even interesting. It's just bars and buttons. And checking the GUI may take longer than it would take to just type in a command to check.
GUI is fine. You just shouldn't force people to use it, have an alternative serverCmd interface. And if you do have one, make sure to make access to it fairly passive. Add a health bar or something. Some kind of heads-up display that shows them some kind of thing. Maybe let the player pin things to the playGUI to keep track of.
Just to clarify, I have absolutely nothing against client modifications. I prefer to have them.
Without a GUI, gameplay can be extremely tedious and boring. Not only that, but having good GUI could probably immerse the player more.
9. Freedom/Taking a Break One thing RuneScape does very well is providing lots of things to do besides the main game. By this, I mean minigames. In the case of Blockland RPGs, a more appropriate name may be mini-minigames. Generally, there's no officially supported way to entertain yourself with things other than the main RPG elements.
Another thing is that people can feel restricted by walls. It's inevitable to need them at some point, and it's hard to make a wall seem like anything except a wall. Having gigantic walls of 64x cubes is not good. It can ruin someone's immersion and make them feel trapped.
Adding games within the RPG would probably be a pretty good idea. Especially things that add to the idea of PvP. A CTF game or something would be wonderful to see in an RPG. Supply extra unnecessary entertainment. Comic relief is one of my personal favourite things about Portal 2.
If your RPG is on terrain, have more plain-type terrain. Open fields can make you feel pretty free. Make the 'end' of your terrain seem like something other than the end of the terrain, if that makes sense. Maybe your RPG takes place on a gigantic floating island!
10. GRINDING One of the biggest issues. The grand daddy mc flobbendoopensheen.
Grinding is a very big deal. Doing the same thing over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over. And it's not just the fact you have to do it, it's the fact that sometimes it seems the
entire mod is based upon grinding. This can exist in everything. Combat, leveling up, quests, exploration, tons of fundamental RPG elements. Grinding is what makes many many games bad. Repetitiveness is bad. It makes people lose interest pretty quickly. Fixing it can be fairly simple though.
Just have more things available to do. And not only that, make the game easy enough so that it's not necessary to grind as much. It's inevitable that some people will do it anyway, but as long as it's not required to play the game, it's fine.
And now the final thing.
11. Evented RPGs Evented RPGs aren't bad if you know what you're doing. That's not what I'm trying to say here. I'm trying to say that the general quality of the RPG can suffer because you aren't using events to their full potential. It can be because you aren't adding nearly enough features to satisfy people or that it's just done very poorly. Big Brother managed to make some pretty good CityRPG stuff with events. And if you're using events to make the basic parts of the RPG, why not use them everywhere? Use them to make the world interesting. Add lots of interactive stuff. Be creative!
Events should be used enough that you can probably consider it one of your game's gimmicks. "Come here to see crazy stuff with events!" would get me to play at a server. The events system is pretty flexible if you know what you're doing. Don't just set and access values on a client or player.
And so that concludes the rant. If you need me to elaborate, just say so. Remember this is just my opinion. I will not give a tl;dr. That would ruin the entire point of explaining the, er, points.
Feel free to debate this
calmly.
