I want better combat in RPGs yet I hate SRPGs. They try to be RPG but really are just half-baked S. Regular RPGs have you move in a world that seems more or less alive, interact with other people, go through a story and of course fight. SRPGs kick the whole non-combat stuff out and leave you with a menu system to represent a whole town. Moving around is done on a battlefield and after the battle is over the field is left. Combat differs from a TBS only in that you have to level and equip your characters instead of just using strategy. This is totally the wrong approach for the issue with RPGs having too uninteresting battles.
What needs to be fixed about RPGs is the combat, not the rest of the game. The combat in an RPG needs more strategy but the RPG still needs worlds to explore and such, otherwise the "roleplaying" done is just stat tweaking.
There's so much to combat that isn't modeled in regular console RPGs yet, things like position are completely ignored and I have yet to see cover being used in any way in an RPG. I don't mean adding some action elements to the combat, e.g. fighting game mechanics, I mean adding some actual tactics in there and having fights be more than a silly standoff with PCs and enemies slugging it out round for round. Really, why can't we have something like Fallout's combat system in a console RPG? Why can't we have a party that can move like a squad in an FPS and when combat starts you can move them around to optimize your position advantage? Kinda like turning the current area into an ad-hoc battlefield for SRPG gameplay and returning to regular RPGing after the battle is done?
Topic: Ranting about RPGs (Read 3759 times)
