Western RPGs kind of suck nowadays. How can they be fixed?

Western RPGs kind of suck nowadays. How can they be fixed?

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Expand your search OP. Why do they suck? What needs to be fixed?

Modern Western RPGs tend to have a very narrow narrative focus (usually stopping some big bad guy/thing) but get bogged down in too much other crap that has no ultimate effect over the main story. JRPGs avoid this by focusing almost entirely on the main narrative, with sidequests only existing to gain experience, grab better loot, etc. I feel like many WRPGs kind of exist in a weird middle ground that ultimately leads to an unfocused finished product. Western developers include things like joining factions/guilds, romance, and morality systems, but these elements ultimately do not contribute to the overall na.rrative (aside from maybe binary good and evil endings)

In short, an RPG should either be a tight narrative structure or a sandbox to play around in, but trying to do both kind of ruins the experience.

Just my opinion, though.

>leave RPGkino to me

I think you're pretty much right on the money. There are good WRPGs out there, like Age of Decadence, but sadly it seems they're few and far between. It's been a hell of a long time since we've had something on the level of Gothic 2 or Arcanum.

I think the first thing that needs to be done is increasing complexity rather than dumbing shit down like Bethesda seems to be hell-bent on doing. A greater focus on choice and consequence for the sake of rich storytelling and player agency rather than "will you be a nice guy or a dick" a la Mass Effect would contribute a great deal towards improving shit as well. RPGs, when you get right down to it, should be all about choice, and choice is meaningless if it doesn't have consequences. Wildly different outcomes based on the choices you make, with the choices available to you dependent upon what kind of character you have made and what choices you've made in the past.

I'd also like it if we had some WRPGs that actually took place in an interesting world rather than the same old Tolkien knockoffs we see time and time again. Give me some fucking mantis-men to play as instead of the same old orc elf dwarf etc. Make humans something other than the baseline "diplomatic" race. Or if you're going to base your world on a period of history, do something other than medieval Europe. Gimme some Renaissance, gimme some ancient Mesopotamia, gimme some post-American Revolution frontier shit. Show me something I haven't seen a million fucking times.

Don't cater to the lowest common denominator.

Agreed, fed up with generic medieval shit.
I feel like one of the reasons why morrowind is still so highly regarded is how unique it felt in each area, and it didn't rely on generic tolkin which bethesda then fell into with Oblivion.

JRPG's aren't doing much better family.
I think Western RPGs would benefit a lot from making a return to actual roleplaying. Also, having plenty of dialogue options like the old school Fallout games would help WRPGs greatly.

I think JRPGs would be much better if they rounded up all the JRPG writers/character designers and put them in gas chambers. Also, JRPGs can improve being less linear.

The Souls series is Japanese developed, so there's still hope.

There are so few RPGs from either side that really break the mold and stand out, especially recently. I think more RPGs need to focus on gameplay and put storytelling second. RPGs are about playing a role and experiencing a world firsthand, not necessarily being led through a grand narrative.

That's why Demon's Souls was so mindblowing, it built up the world well but the player was free to explore the story and surroundings at their own pace.

I never really considered the Souls series an RPG but I guess I can agree.
It has some really nice environments and the way it goes about telling it's story is refreshing to see, as opposed to watching 5 hours of cutscenes or mashing through walls of text.

>JRPG's aren't doing much better family.
good joke
Enjoy your dead genre

I've never really understood RPG purists who seem to only see D&D style RPGs RPGs, it makes it feel like there's two completely different meanings of the word. Souls is definitely an RPG series to me, you have stats and level up and use a variety of weapons and magic.

For me it feels like every single game is getting RPG elements so it can claim it has longer play time, regardless of what genre it's from. If we say a game is an RPG just because you gain expreience and level up stats then every game in the last 4-5 years is an RPG.
I just choose to draw a line somewhere so I don't confuse myeslf.
Enjoy your Backstreet Boys simulator then. It's not like anything else is coming out that isn't weeb bait.

Witcher 3 is fucking amazing, guy.

It singlehandedly saved WRPGs and set a new standard.

but dark souls came out last month and was fantastic

japs made that game user

>Western

i liked skyrim.

Please stop falling for that meme guys.

Spoiler: everyone who calls Souls wrpgs knows exactly what they're doing

yeah, i'm sure

Souls series are action games before they are rpg, lets face it, there isn´t much of "roleplaying" going on there.

I'd say they're about a 50/50 split between action and RPG, but you're right that they aren't "true" RPGs.

abandon the open world meme

>casuals thinking witcher 3 isn't casual trash

enjoy your ass creed combat, map, and horse controls senpai

By making their women not look like trolls, mannequins, or literally men-with-tits is a good starting point.

Maybe, but what i mean´t was that in most Souls games (Bloodborne most of all), having good reflexes and manual dexterity is more important than managing your character equipment/attributes, a good low-level player will mostly win against any higher level but mediocre player.

And it may be a eastern produced game, but it is a mostly western themed one, albeit there are some japanese quirks in it, it is mostly a highly evolved Diablo-esque game.

dumb waifufag

>he likes visually appealing female characters
>"lollers he must be a waifufag!"
It's past your bedtime, user

Stop playing AAA ones

I still like small budget JRPGS.

>He thinks the biggest issue about wrpg are the character models
dumb waifufag indeed

Depth. Like...any. I enjoyed Skyrim but I never felt like any skill choices mattered very much. At least the quests were fairly interesting.

FO4 was so bland in every way that nothing felt finished. Like 2 quests were worth paying attention to, the weapon and armor mods were kinda meh, enemies are still mostly dumb, and the world is so damn condensed it feels like you aren't exploring so much as going around the rides at a carnival. It lacked soul.

We've reached a point where even Invisible War seems complex. Where I crave a game as shallow (though amazing) as NOLF just because the writing was so good.

I think it's also bad that RPG makers have started making action games with RPG lite elements. I love leveling and such but if all it does is up my health fuck off. Bioware were gods and now they make dating sims with blood and call it an RPG. I miss NVN at this point. It felt dumbed down at release but shit, it's damn near an overly complex masterpiece by today's standards.

Nowhere in my post did I say character models were the biggest issue. I said for a start, they could do better, especially since that's the complaint I hear the most about wRPGs.

My biggest gripe with the genre is huge but empty worlds and samesy towns.

You mean NWN? And honestly it's more complex than 2E games (and i hate the feat system for that).

Is a morality system that makes you play through the game twice if you want to see both endings 'depth'?

u still like dick too

My biggest gripe with WRPGs to this day is the fact that I rarely ever feel like I'm mechanically progressing. The exact same style of play I used at the beginning of the game is precisely how I'll be playing at the end of the game. When I was playing Skyrim, using a SUPER AMAZING DAEDRIC GREATSWORD didn't feel even the slightest bit different than the Iron one, only I could now tout that my greatsword was Daedric. Endgame Fallout just turned "Shoot that guy with THIS gun" into "Shoot that guy with this BIGGER gun".

When I started out playing Bravely Default, the initial couple of classes had me use basic skills, gauging BP carefully so as to not leave myself too exposed or vulnerable, and rarely, if ever, going heavily into the negative. Endgame Bravely Default turned that into
>Wait a few turns to get maximum possible BP
>FREE LUNCH - AMPED STRIKE - AMPED STRIKE - AMPED STRIKE / AMPED STRIKE x4
>RAGE (Using one attack 5 times at the cost of 1/5th of your HP each time until you reach 1 HP) - DRAIN BLADE (All my physical attacks drain enemy HP with each hit) - RAGE - RAGE / REPEAT

All the while my healer is also completely negating all party damage, has every buff conceivable on my entire party, and removes debuffs as soon as they come, and my tanky character went from "She can survive a lot of attacks" to "The entire party is now shielded from all forms of damage, AND she can counterattack when any party member is about to take damage.

There's just this wild sense of game-breaking progress from beginning to end in Jap games. The Souls games initially had me keeping my shield up at all times to mitigate damage. Endgame, I rarely ever used my shield to deflect damage, because dodge was a greater defensive option overall, and parry is a superior blocking command.

I just wish more Western games gave me a sense of actual strategic/mechanical growth rather than just seeing numbers climb on the exact same actions as the beginning of the game.

Play Gothic 1 and 2

>Modern Western RPGs tend to have a very narrow narrative focus (usually stopping some big bad guy/thing) but get bogged down in too much other crap that has no ultimate effect over the main story.

Uhhh couldn't this be considered worldbuilding, if done right? Side quests aren't inherently a bad thing and serves to round out the game a bit.

To this day I wonder why no major developers have ever tried to create a roguelike with decent graphics. I'm sure there's an audience for it.

There's a pretty famous roguelike with non ASCII or tile graphics

Because they always try to make them Roguelites to capture a wider audience, and if they make a proper Roguelike with good visuals, the mechanics wind up clashing with the visuals very awkwardly.

...

I don't have a problem with sidequests and miscellaneous activities, but 99% of the time it's absolutely pointless. A good bad example is the option to get married from Fable, which had zero effect on the outcome of the game. The guilds from Oblivion were much the same, as joining them had no impact on the narrative.

I'd be fine if we even got a WRPG set in the present day 2bh

Might be cool

>IT'S SU REEEEEEEEL
There's nothing less interesting in video games than realism, and it has never, historically, made for a good video game that wasn't simply mechanically strong enough that the realism elements were drowned out. Even massive-scale 4X/Grand Strat titles would do well with fantastical reskins, but they are based directly in historical settings.

dragon's dogma is a WRPG done by the Japs

and it's fucking great

This guy was the project leader on Morrowind. What happened?

that feel when there will never be a 2

But you just got your 2

>if they make a proper Roguelike with good visuals, the mechanics wind up clashing with the visuals very awkwardly.

I'm not so sure. If the turn based aspect was done in a style similar to XCOM it could be cool.

How about generic, western fantasy bullshit gets thrown in the garbage for a few decades? The only western RPGs I like at all are Deus Ex and System Shock 2.

JRPGs might have some retarded plot progression and characterization, but at least they have a larger variety of settings and scenarios than western slop.

if u mean dark arisen...thats been out forever

Blame Americucks and Eurocucks for obsessing over Realism rather than uniqueness.

that looks like shit

I couldn't give half a shit. It's better than another generic fog-grey armored "warrior" with an axe and brown padded leather clothing.

>nowadays
Wizardry is the only good WRPG series.

Nah, there's also Mountain Blade and the Gothic games, but I agree. There's very, very few WRPG series that are good. Only a number of peppered games within other series.

Ultima was pretty good, too.

What's so good about Wizardry?

ALL rpgs suck these days, because they arent RPGS, they are action games with pointless leveling system thrown in

>Western RPGs kind of suck nowadays.

Wasteland 2, Divine Divinity, Pillars of Eternity, etc. I'd say we're living another golden age.

>Western RPGs kind of suck nowadays. How can they be fixed?

We must combine Western RPGs and Eastern RPGs, to make the ultimate SUPER RPG:

Dragon's Dogma 2

What is an RPG then?

its a poor mans skyrim and vastly overrated, boring empty world, boring monsters, shit quests, people only like it vocally because its relatively unknown

Western and Eastern RPGs are literally opposites. It's impossible to combine them.

PoE was pretty shitty. The mechanics were mediocre at best, the music was awful, the writing went from pretty good to fucking abhorrent in the end, and the characters are all insanely boring beyond the ones most relevant to the plot, and the game forces you to side against the one who was the most correct.

>Not playing Southern RPGs

old crpgs

think about modern "rpgs" like dark souls - it doesnt actually need leveling, games like die by the sword and nightmare creatures managed just fine without it. fallout 4 didnt need it either, since it is at this point just an open world fps, kinda like stalker, just much worse. I feel like developers stick leveling system into fucking everything these days and they arent actually making their games any better, they are making both action games and rpgs worse

The leveling in Dark Souls lays credence to unique builds and setups. It absolutely needs them, or it wouldn't be remotely the same experience.

I wouldn't be able to be a high Strength high Faith character who uses Sunlight Greatsword on a Greataxe and rip fuckers apart with that the same way if it was just a specific build setup game. It's just as relevant as leveling in a turn-based game, especially considering it forces players in PvP to keep on their toes with the potentially varied enemies they will encounter and how many different strengths and weaknesses they need to gauge on the fly.

Shit like Fallout doesn't need it, but that's because build variety amounts to "Shoot with this "gun better" against "Shoot with that gun better".

How do you make games better then?

It's a JRPG. The first action RPGs were made by the Japanese anyway.

...

Bring back linear RPG's instead of forcing open-world into every game. I'm so sick of it and it's making me hate a genre I once loved.

The west hates linear RPGs, go play JRPGs if you want linear.

Woah.
What'd that guy say to piss George off so much?
I heard he was always an asshole about criticism but not like this.

Take out and gas the bitter old farts who keep poisoning the well of good WRPG devs that still remains

Thanks to them, we going to get "2deep4u" (just liek them best sellers WL2 and AoD woo woo!) story in DivOS2 that we never wanted at all

>the witcher
>saving anything
>there are people on Sup Forums that unironically believe this

The genre needs a lot more variety is what it is. The industry has homogenized practically everything into one messy jack of all trades. Where no genre now truly excels within it's genre because it mixes too much things from other genres.

Ya dig ma nig?

>skyrim looks pretty good and runs great
>fallout 4 looks worse and runs like shit

Bethesda can't stop getting worse, can they?

show examples of different as you mention, nigger

Why is this board full of Witcher 3 haters like reddit? Witcher 3 is the best rpg ever made to date, it already saved WRGPs. I can't think of a single Jrpg or Wrps good as Witcher 3.

>fallout 4 not even maxed, looks like skyrim
>go into almost PS2 tier detail city
>FPS drops below 20

>AssCreed Unity
>maxed out graphics
>one of the best graphics and highly detailed city, 1000 AIs on screen
>never drops below 30fps

How in the fuck?

I can't make out what he's saying

youtube.com/watch?v=A45FQvlfU6Q

Need to remove voice acting for everything other than greetings. That way actual branching and in depth dialogue can be worked on.

AssCreed Unity runs worse than Fallout 4. I used to get 40 fps on my gtx 970 and i5 2500k (ultra-detail). Fallout 4 stays at 60 fps most of the time, drops to 50s in cities.

What was so great about Bethesda in the first place?

>show examples of different as you mention

All what they need to do is go back to the past is all. Look at what they did right there and apply it to now with necessary tweaks of course.

It's not hard. The problem is they keep dumbing down there games to make sure everyone can beat it and making sure to include a bit from many genres because that is what casuals like.

It was a staged thing, not real

Dumb camcorder ripper.

> the past

in the past, all they are making is a grindy RPGmaker games, some with Doom view edition and with only a few reskins of the fluff.

today there is more variety than ever

Shut the fuck up and stick to your gook games because WRPGs are clearly not for you.
I fucking hate JRPGs because their worlds feel like nothing exists outside the main narrative. They almost never bother to give any depth to the universes they create.
I like my RPGs having things to explore outside the main narrative, it makes the world feel more alive and coherent.

>literally WRPGS the post
There's a reason JRPGs aren't for you.

>today there is more variety than ever

No there isn't. Most games these days are basically light RPG's. Why shouldn't a game like the new Mirror's Edge for example be classed as a western rpg? It actually has elements from it now.

The only popular western RPG's now are also shit like Witcher, TES, Fallout and Mass Effect. Let us be for real here. These games are all also very similar to one another. Especially noticeable with how minimal the reading is. Instead going for as much voice acting as possible.

Is this a bait thread? I can't think of a single good Japanese RPG, most jrpgs have garbage quests like collect 30 items or something, no detail to the game world, cringe main story and horny character that 12 year olds fap to, short as fuck, etc.

Wrpgs are miles ahead and better. Take Witcher 3 for example.

I know, that's why I don't play them.
I wish weebfags would just do the same and shut the fuck up about how WRPGs should be more like nipshit.

>The only popular western RPG's now are also shit like Witcher, TES, Fallout and Mass Effect

Do you literally have autism? These games win 100s of GOTY awards and are praised world-wide. How are they shit?

I'm craving science fiction RPGs.

I don't mind fantasy, not even cliche settings, but I really want to see some good writing in them and that's just not happening all that often nowadays.

Here's hoping Torment: Tides of Numenera doesn't suck ass.

By the by, is Wasteland 2 DC now patched from all those memory leaks and shadow issues?

Make them even more shitty so that modders can make them great again. It's a proven strategy.