What are you tired of seeing in RPG Maker games?

[Seacliff]

I'm going to take a different approach for this thread, or at least post how I thought this thread was intending to ask before reading the comments.
These are things I that I either don't find inherently bad, just overdone. Or decent intentions that are misunderstood.

-Linear weapon power progression tied to the pacing of the plot.
The next town you visit in the story always conveniently has stronger weapons than the prior village and weaker weapons compared to the next village. The last town you visit will have, at the very least, the second-or-third best set of equipment you can possibly find in the game.

Some of the strongest weapons in the world. Casually sold in a shop.

I think it's a lost art in JRPGs to tie the power to a weapon with its rarity. This style isn't going to work for everything, but finding powerful weapons because you took the agency to look for them, either in a hidden dungeon or from a hard-to-find merchant, is a lot more memorable and rewarding than simply buying it from the local retail.

-Believing that because the battle system is unique, combat itself is unique.
You can create a dozen different ways for me to execute a basic attack command, but if that's all I'm doing in battles anyways nothing has been achieved from a game design standpoint.

Engaging combat is created by the variety and options of your personal skillset (mechanical depth) combating that of the enemy's (situational depth), any other battle mechanic is just the icing on the cake. If you struggle to make the default battle system interesting, especially with the aid of a few skill-based plugins, adding arbitrary rules isn't going to help.

-Healers
I would like to see more turn-based games that lack the typical healing classes (Cleric/Priest/Medic/etc). Their role in combat is very one-dimensional, but are still required for the sake of balance. I'm guilty of this myself, but it's because I did that I came to this conclusion: I don't find the concept of healers constantly using the 'heal-all' skill nearly every turn to keep the party afloat.

I think there are more ways to make it interesting (as long as the game itself is balanced around it). Healers that use TP so they can't spam it every turn, Healers that have to damage enemies to increase the power of their healing spells, or maybe lack a healer altogether and have the party members rely on consumables for healing (might be interesting if combined with other item-managements systems).

I'm not going to quite a game with standard healers... I wouldn't be playing any games otherwise, I just think the archetype has stagnated for over twenty years.

 

[Aesica]

-Healers
I would like to see more turn-based games that lack the typical healing classes (Cleric/Priest/Medic/etc). Their role in combat is very one-dimensional, but are still required for the sake of balance. I'm guilty of this myself, but it's because I did that I came to this conclusion: I don't find the concept of healers constantly using the 'heal-all' skill nearly every turn to keep the party afloat.

I think there are more ways to make it interesting (as long as the game itself is balanced around it). Healers that use TP so they can't spam it every turn, Healers that have to damage enemies to increase the power of their healing spells, or maybe lack a healer altogether and have the party members rely on consumables for healing (might be interesting if combined with other item-managements systems).

I'm not going to quite a game with standard healers... I wouldn't be playing any games otherwise, I just think the archetype has stagnated for over twenty years.

This one is actually pretty tricky--arguably one of the trickiest things about balancing a combat system. While I'll agree that spamming mass heal every round is pretty dull gameplay, we as developers need to be careful not to swing too far the other way. A fair amount of RM games I've sampled end up doing just this by excessively gimping their intended healing character(s) while leaving the player few tools to compensate.

While I don't mean to go too far off-subject, things like reliable offensive debuffs (reduce atk/mat) vs foes, defensive buffs (increase def/mdf) for the party, elemental resists (gear, buffs, or both), a tank-type who can mitigate much of the incoming damage, etc are all good ways to de-emphasize the "spam Curaja every turn" style of gameplay. I mean, if I can maintain buffs/debuffs and my tank is being managed properly, I won't need as much healing, right?

 

[TheoAllen]

I never get bored/tired with a one-dimensional healer. But I'm not saying that you should stick to create a one-dimensional healer. I mean, it isn't really that bad to have one, just probably not a good design, but also not a thing that turns me off. In fact, I always appreciate healer(s) because I'm quite lazy to manage items and supplies. If I can get rid of item management that probably has nothing to do with the actual battle challenge, that would be good.

My attempt to fix this is to make my healer have the second role. In fact, every character in my game has a double role. My current healer has another role to actually deal damage to enemy and other utilities like dispel enemy buff and has an attribute to ignore enemy's armor (and make the fellow ally to have the similar attribute). So if you need my healer's another role, the healing is on cooldown, and you need to heal the party, you would use another character to use an item.

Speaking of items, let me add some:

• Item stacks and the feeling of "I'll probably need this later" then 99x potion until the game finished.
• A crafting system that I have no idea where I get the ingredients.

To be fair, I'm also guilty in the first point and I'm trying to find the way to get rid of the feeling. I'm also interested to see if someone managed to solve it.

 

[XPKobold]

Well for me while i am not tired for the standard five equipment slots. (Weapon, Shield, Head, Body, Accessory.) I actually do wish for some more equipment slot variety which by now in MV is possible to do i can give a pass for the older makes (2000/2003/XP/VX/Ace)
Also for weapon types make they do something different for each weapon raise a specific stat boost or effective against certain foes.

Some attempts i think would work for this would be equipment sets you see in some rpg games. where there's a bonus effect just for having the set fully equip. this could also work well for accessories. Considering there's so many accessories to choose from but one slot for an accessory i think having at least four accessory slots for customization have them unlock at specific points of the story.

 

[Aesica]

• Item stacks and the feeling of "I'll probably need this later" then 99x potion until the game finished.

To be fair, I'm also guilty in the first point and I'm trying to find the way to get rid of the feeling. I'm also interested to see if someone managed to solve it.

I think I have a solution that sort of works: Make the stack sizes a lot smaller. I'm only allowing potions/consumables to stack to 20 for now, but might even lower it to 10 or even 5 for certain really valuable consumables, such as the powerful Phoenix Pinion (raises all dead party members with 50% health) and Megalixir (100% hp/mp restore for the entire party)

That way, as your stack size reaches the maximum on these things, you'll be faced with some choices: start using them, sell them, let them go to waste.

 

[ex0rc1sm]

I can't really get behind games with characters, classes, and plots I've seen 100 times before...
Usually save the kingdom from the big bad with a humble team consisting of warrior, rogue, mage & healer.
Minus more points for:

• The villains goal being either destroying the world (to appease some evil god) or world domination.
• The party, although unqualified, are the only ones capable of stopping said villains, usually with the power of friendship etc
• We have to find all four crystals or something

I don't think that predictable is always bad, but the real deal breaker is often lack of creativity for me.
I love seeing these tropes subverted a little by having things like villains with more depth, who don't see themselves as dark or evil.
A party who are either very qualified to combat the villains, or instead of fighting them head on, simply help aid in their defeat.
Classes that are more than just the generic four.
Deeper worlds that aren't centred around the protagonists. The world shouldn't be written around the characters, rather they should be thrown into an already abundant setting.

Buuuut that being said, if a dev just wants to have fun and express themselves, there is no reason they can't do any of these anyway

 

[Conflictx3]

To take things a little left, the thing im most tired of seeing isn't even within the game itself, and thats the POOR PROMOTION

i can't stand seeing fully assembled games on steam/google play or even in the commercial games thread here and its the same 4 screenshots of the random town ("EXPLORE THE WORLD OF _____" *WOOOSHH*) the random battle ("DEFEAT POWERFUL MONSTERS" *SKKEEEEE*), the shop ("CRAFT WEAPONS AND ARMORS" *ZOOOOOM*) & we can't forget that completely random mini game ("THE PLANET WILL BURN IN 11 DAYS IF YOU DON'T SAVE IT, BUT LETS PLAY A QUICK ROUND OF DUEL MONSTERS ON YOUR JOURNEY" *FWOOOSHHH, TRAP CARD, FACE DOWN*)

thats not going to pull anybody in, tell us about the unique quirks that give your game character, not broad strokes about an "amazing story inspired by classic JRPGs" , what will i be doing as the player? specifically? am i saving the world by purifying oceans to stop a man intent on biological warfare?, am i on a journey to retrieve my memories only to find out i'm the villain?, am i killing monsters? or am i "purifying" corrupt people and thus every "kill" is a soul saved?

i know you don't want to spoil your project's story or features but you can give us something intriguing and then make sure the journey is just as fun. if your terrfied of giving away that one surprising plot twist or that cool battle mechanic its most likely because thats all your project has going for it.