What do you want out of PS4/XBone RPGs?

[Der Jermeister]

I just want good quality gameplay from next-gen RPGs, and can look past dreadful stories, and typically expect them mostly from JRPGs since they're still written for younger audiences in Japan.

[Aeolus]

It really sounds like most of us want design changes more than anything else.

Pretty much. Xenoblade was an excellent step in the right direction but there are still ways to further improve RPGs.

[MeshGearFox]

You were still limited on the amount of summons you could do in a battle in FFVII if I remember correctly it was FFVIII where you could spam them endlessly even if that wasn't an optimal tactic to be used in other games where it was just a glass cannon I guess they're strong attacks in like 5 but it's not consistent damage over time while being able to heal matters.

It's like the MTG meta.

You were limited up until you got Master Summon but the limits still didn't justify Bahamut ZERO taking 4 minutes a shot just to ram the damage cap when a basic attack could do the same not long after. FF endgames devolving into ramming the damage cap and becoming a hunt for the actions with the highest number of repetitions has been a problem since FFVI and has never gotten better (sure they've increased the cap to 99999 but that doesn't mean you can't eventually ram that instead (or find a limit break that hits for 18 times a shot)). It doesn't help that Square/Squeenix's only solution to increasing challenge has always been to throw more numbers at it and turning fights into battles of attrition rather than skill.

I actually had no idea what I was talking about I was just trying to create a really long run-on sentence. Although I think I will note that attrition generally doesn't work in the SaGa games since most of the bosses have a fuck-you attack that they'll throw at you if you try it.

[Lard]

Oh, I remembered something else I'd like.

More dynamic battle themes, ala Skies of Arcadia.  GUST tried to do them recently in Ayesha, but their presence is not nearly as common in RPGs as I wish they would be.  We definitely need more themes that change depending on current circumstances in the battle.

Yeah, this is a good point.

With blu-ray, there's more room for audio and a chance for a little more variety. We don't need to hear the same battle theme for 40 hours.

I would say I want little tweaks more than huge design changes.

And if we can be specific, I want Suikoden VI. :P

[Aeolus]

You were still limited on the amount of summons you could do in a battle in FFVII if I remember correctly it was FFVIII where you could spam them endlessly even if that wasn't an optimal tactic to be used in other games where it was just a glass cannon I guess they're strong attacks in like 5 but it's not consistent damage over time while being able to heal matters.

It's like the MTG meta.

You were limited up until you got Master Summon but the limits still didn't justify Bahamut ZERO taking 4 minutes a shot just to ram the damage cap when a basic attack could do the same not long after. FF endgames devolving into ramming the damage cap and becoming a hunt for the actions with the highest number of repetitions has been a problem since FFVI and has never gotten better (sure they've increased the cap to 99999 but that doesn't mean you can't eventually ram that instead (or find a limit break that hits for 18 times a shot)). It doesn't help that Square/Squeenix's only solution to increasing challenge has always been to throw more numbers at it and turning fights into battles of attrition rather than skill.

I actually had no idea what I was talking about I was just trying to create a really long run-on sentence. Although I think I will note that attrition generally doesn't work in the SaGa games since most of the bosses have a fuck-you attack that they'll throw at you if you try it.

Yeah, but then the SaGa series has always been a nearly completely different beast from Final Fantasy (or pretty much any CRPG outside of something like Metal Max). And of course, SaGa games are generally so anti-attrition that they punish you for trying to out-grind the game's difficulty curve.

Oh, I remembered something else I'd like.

More dynamic battle themes, ala Skies of Arcadia.  GUST tried to do them recently in Ayesha, but their presence is not nearly as common in RPGs as I wish they would be.  We definitely need more themes that change depending on current circumstances in the battle.

Yeah, this is a good point.

With blu-ray, there's more room for audio and a chance for a little more variety. We don't need to hear the same battle theme for 40 hours.

I would say I want little tweaks more than huge design changes.

And if we can be specific, I want Suikoden VI. :P

And speaking of attrition, I want to see more attrition mechanics in my RPGs beyond how many days of food I have left or how much MP do I have left. For instance, show some wear and tear on your ragged team of rugged adventurers. Have the guys grow facial hair and the gals grow leg hair, have long cloaks and skirts grow frayed and tattered as time passes, have characters get wet if they jump into a river to escape a badguy, or look dirty and smelly after the requisite sewer dungeon, have characters put on appropriate attire for climbing mountains, traveling across deserts, trudging across tundras, have your characters get soaked in mud and blood and grime while clashing on a battlefield in the middle of a heavy downpour. Have weapons chip, rust, dull, and stick when poorly maintained, have shields splinter or have arrows stuck into them, and have arrows stick into characters even after they take their health potions, and have armor dented, rusted, or straight up missing chunks.

You know some days, it feels like the game industry has made great strides in the last 25 years, and in others it feels like we haven't gone anywhere at all, and occasionally it feels like we've gone backwards to a certain degree.

[Jotacon]

Have the guys grow facial hair and the gals grow leg hair, have long cloaks and skirts grow frayed and tattered as time passes...

So you want them to be a fetish simulator for me? Awesome.
Honestly, for most games those little details would be pointless. Sure they would look nice, but I'd rather this generation veer away from superfluous graphical additions in exchange for a better understanding of gameplay/story integration or segmentation. I have no problem with the story and gameplay being separated as long as the abstracted elements are presented properly. That being said, those things are kind of cool and I can see why a certain game (or games) could really benefit from it. I still want real-time shaving in a game so yeah...

The only thing I want out of a new generation other than less of a focus on graphics is to have the current multiplicity of styles of RPGs to expand. There is nothing wrong with a 10 hour RPG nor is there anything wrong with a 60 hour one, I just want to see all kinds. Even if they aren't all something I like. I love the handheld experiences of this/last gen particularly because of how diverse the RPG offerings have been.

[Aeolus]

To be fair, if Deadly Premonition could pull off the growing out facial hair and stankifying to the point of allowing you to roam the town like a crazy hobo, I can't see why a not budget title couldn't also pull it off.

[MeshGearFox]

I think at one point I would've wanted more exploration in next-gen RPGs, because you have the processing power to pull off big, explorable areas, except lately I've realized that pretty much any game that lets you explore is just going to be tedious as hell about it.

You get this huge world. You get a map of it. And you know you're just going to end up methodically exploring all of it. And probably backtrack a lot.

I'd really like... airier games. Exploration is fun if you just have a big, genuinely open setting to explore -- something that you can run from one end of to the next quickly. When you start having Metroidvania-style mazes or Morrowind-style... double-backing valleys, it gets tedious.

[Sagacious-T]

And then there's fast travel which kind of breaks the experience.

[MeshGearFox]

Fast travel breaks immersion until you quit caring about immersion and just want to get to wherever you're tryna' go.

[ZshadeZ]

I think at one point I would've wanted more exploration in next-gen RPGs, because you have the processing power to pull off big, explorable areas, except lately I've realized that pretty much any game that lets you explore is just going to be tedious as hell about it.

You get this huge world. You get a map of it. And you know you're just going to end up methodically exploring all of it. And probably backtrack a lot.

I'd really like... airier games. Exploration is fun if you just have a big, genuinely open setting to explore -- something that you can run from one end of to the next quickly. When you start having Metroidvania-style mazes or Morrowind-style... double-backing valleys, it gets tedious.

I love how Gothic and GII handled this. The world was relatively large, but *full* and almost entirely open so it was very worth exploring and it actually felt rewarding to do so. The teleport runes made sense in the world and didn't break immersion as there were few places you could actually get to with them and you were almost always going to still end up huffing it a ways.

[Sagacious-T]

Fast travel breaks immersion until you quit caring about immersion and just want to get to wherever you're tryna' go.

WE CAN'T SLAP AIRSHIPS ON EVERYTHING MESHGEARFOXD

[ZshadeZ]

Fast travel breaks immersion until you quit caring about immersion and just want to get to wherever you're tryna' go.

WE CAN'T SLAP AIRSHIPS ON EVERYTHING MESHGEARFOXD

Well duh, airships don't fit in to every world. That's why we have cryo-sleep spaceships, teleportation enabled wizards, giant robots that cover ground quickly, giant robots that can fly once you upgrade them or find out they're secretly an ancient relic and so clearly super advanced, and big talking birds that have nothing better to do than cart you around. Clearly these fit in everywhere and are always realistic and never make the plot questionable or break world immersion.

[Aeolus]

Fast travel breaks immersion until you quit caring about immersion and just want to get to wherever you're tryna' go.

WE CAN'T SLAP AIRSHIPS ON EVERYTHING MESHGEARFOXD

Well duh, airships don't fit in to every world. That's why we have cryo-sleep spaceships, teleportation enabled wizards, giant robots that cover ground quickly, giant robots that can fly once you upgrade them or find out they're secretly an ancient relic and so clearly super advanced, and big talking birds that have nothing better to do than cart you around. Clearly these fit in everywhere and are always realistic and never make the plot questionable or break world immersion.

Don't forget things like Dragon Gods, Bird Gods, Hotair Balloons, Ocean Palaces that look like the Fourth Angel from NGE, Time Machines with wings slapped on, Floating Islands, Flying Rocks, Pterodactyls, Escape Pods, Air Bikes, Magic Brooms, Magic Carpets, Magic Beds, and so on.

[MeshGearFox]

Ocean Palaces that look like the Fourth Angel from NGE

Wait which game was this. This sounds familiar.