/v/ - Video Games

Etrian Odyssey series except for 2 Untold.

>>16155588

Dragon Quest my man. Money is always an issue, the most efficient way to play the game is to melt your MP bar in dungeons until you can't get any further and must return to town to rest/restock/upgrade. Perfectly balanced RPGs. Some of the ports are dumbed down though so be wary.

Fallout 1. Unless you max out Barter early and steal everything that isn't bolted down, you'll have money problems. Enemies keep getting bigger and badder and meaner as the game progresses. If you're not playing on pussy normal mode, said enemies remain a threat to you, even with a min-maxed build. But it's not unfair, and you never feel like you need to go grind.

Neverwinter Nights: HotU is another somewhat decent example. Fights keep getting harder and harder. Most classes will plateau pretty hard early on in the expansion: your OP as fuck build that went through the OC like a hot knife through butter is going to get its shit pushed it towards the end of it. The game throws money at you, but you everything costs ludicrous amounts of money, and there's an event where you can read: need to spend money to make the last boss bearable.

The early versions of the Final Fantasy Tactics Hard Type mod had the enemies scale up to your level, and have actually good skill setups and team synergy. And bosses had better stat scaling than any of your characters did. And Orlandu was nerfed. And lot of cheesy shit was taken out, same with exploits. It started hard, got harder, and then went completely insane. And it was oh, oh so good.

>>16155588

The Growlanser games to a pretty good job of getting around this. Skies of Arcadia might as well, but it's been a long time since I played it so I can't say for sure. Also, how is Class of Heroes? I've wanted to play for awhile but never got around to it.

>>16155588

Tri-Ace RPGs were better than average at this. In Valkyrie Profile 2 and Resonance of Fate you can avoid all damage if you know what you are doing and play well. They reward skill.

Radiata Stories is not one that does this, it is a stalking game like Majora's Mask. The battles are easy and not the main point. Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean 4 are shit and the latter is a complete exception to this rule. It is very easy to power level in SO4 by accident, absolute trash.

>>16155733

This. DQ games are especially well- balanced with money. It is best to buy only what you want most and move on instead of trying to grind for it all until the end of the game. The original NES version of Dragon Warrior 2 is much harsher than the later games.

Puzzle quest is a great game but it's a puzzle game.

>>16155733

The most efficient way to play Dragon Quest is to seperate leveling from dungeons. Grind somewhere safe then for dungeon run from everything. This massively reduces or eliminates grinding because you aren't using all your resources getting to bosses. Don't even start with non-random visible encounters, why even have enemies at that point?

The problem you have OP is the content of a game being longer than it takes to explore the mechanics of it. This seems better than the opposite to me. Only a few games really stand out as just being too big that they get repetitive. Kingdoms of Amalur and all Elder Scrolls. Multiclassing or remorting or even just being able to do half the game on one character then another half on a brand new character would all help.

>>16155874

>grind somewhere safe

>this eliminates grinding

Kinda missing the point here. I don't think I've ever had the need to grind in a DQ game except for postgame super bosses (I've finished up to DQ7)

Also grinding beforehand and then running from everything kinda fucks up the pacing of the game, I used to do that with every jrpg as a kid and I don't know how the fuck I managed to have fun doing that.

>>16155769

CoH 1 is as bland as an old cougar, 2 is somewhat decent but still suffers from the problems mentioned by OP.

>>16155588

>plays shit games

>complains about "attack attack attack"

Gee, I don't know, maybe don't play grindy gookshit that revolves around grinding and spamming the same shit over and over? You didn't post a single roleplaying game. Do you even know what kind of game genre you're interested in? If you say "JRPG", you deserve playing grindy gookshit.

>>16155733

>Dragon Quest

>roleplaying game

>>16155955

>If you say "JRPG"

He didn't. You're the one who brought it up. Anon did well gathering roleplaying games which use hybrid systems: i.e. Puzzle Quest has spells, equipment, mounts, crafting, citybuilding on top of match 3 infrastructure.

>>16155972

>gathering roleplaying games

What roleplaying games? Those games don't have a shred of roleplay.

>>16155979

What does he want then? Are we playing broken phone?

Stop playing JRPGs, those are heavily stat-driven so they suffer from this problem the hardest.

>>16156139

funnily enough, there's a speedrun that just uses what amounts to fairly light RNG manipulation and then just brute forces everything using moku.

>>16155955

>>16155981

Roleplaying is for nerds who have to live vicariously through a fictional character they invented to escape the horrors of their pathetic lives. The Japanese were able to salvage the genre and create games that people who aren't filled with self-loathing could play. We just kept calling JRPGs roleplaying games to mess with autistic NEETs.

>>16156242

This is very poor bait. I think JRPGs are the autistic neets preferred genre.

>>16156242

>salvage the genre

Don't kid yourself, they're just reskinning Wizardry and Sword & Sorcery every time.

Well, my point is that OP has no clue what a roleplaying game is, to which his RPG "examples" are proof. What the hell am I supposed to recommend? Grindy gookshit, but without the grindy gookshit? There's literally nothing left if you take that away.

If I had to recommend some actual RPGs without grind I'd list Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, D:OS2, Underrail. The last two are far from being as much of an RPG as PS:T, but they're good and most importantly the gameplay is great and challenging (D:OS2 requires a handicap by playing solo though).

I regret typing this up in a thread with (1) and done OP.

>>16156291

Actual rpgs are impossible outside of pen and paper with real people.

>>16156298

Alright, actual roleplaying video games. Obviously you can't have the real thing. 99% JRPG plots aren't even interactive in any way.

>>16156202

which one? The ones I've seen cheese with Youmu instead. Well with RNG manipulation it's not a big deal, but playing it blind…

>>16156242

Way to project there champ.

rpgs are inherently easy, once you learn the basic mechanics (couple hours) the games become trivial and you can just auto-attack through most of them mindlessly.

>>16156491

what a sperg

>>16156514

That's not even remotely a wall of text.

t. writing a 19k+ words review on DUSK

>>16155697

It just so happens I've just finished Etrian Odyssey 1, and it does suffer from this problem heavily. The beginning is perfect as usual, then it turns into routine kill mobs, get money, warp to town, buy items, come back. I liked the game so I will check out the later installments anyway.

>>16155733

I will see to it but from your description it doesn't sound like what I want.

>>16155756

Thanks for the suggestion, will check out F1.

>>16155769

Will check those out.

>>16155874

Fights are a puzzle but it has all the other RPG stuff. And I still don't know any game that requires focus and thoughtful choices even at the end.

>>16155949

Agreed CoH is terrible; suffers from what I've talked about and much more (such as fucking tedious menuing).

>>16156472

Any kind of RPG is fine. Will check out Underrail.

>>16156899

Didn't Beamdog pull some shady shit with the Baldur's Gate remaster?

Thanks for all the responses!

And let me now describe in detail what I actually want. Take Pokemon - one of my favorite series. Now make it so:

- Starter choice actually matters. Used to be the case in earlier installments, not so much in the later ones. But let's take it further. Let's make GRASS-FRIENDLY, WATER-FRIENDLY, and FIRE-FRIENDLY areas. So two paths are "blocked" for your starter since the contain high-level pokemon which will kick Charmander's ass, but the Grass route is all yours. Of course you can come back later…only to realize that the mons there leveled up too. So you will need another pokemon to beat them, like a grass type for the water route, etc.

- Items cost more. You have to decide whether you want to buy TMs, pokeballs, stat boosts or potions. Not all of them. This allows several playthroughs like the healer playthrough all the kids know (get hurt, spam potions, repeat). But also the "catch more mons" playthrough and the "one stupidly strong mon" playthrough.

- Paid pokemon centers, or time-limited ones. None of the "beat one trainer, get hurt, heal, go back" is possible now. You don't get to gain experience just like that. Now you have to consider whether you want to challenge a trainer instead of beating everyone blindly.

- Tougher gym leaders, using tactics instead of types.

- Maybe some legendary "traveling trainers" you can fight that are actually really tough and you'd need to be at the top of your game to beat them

- Optional tougher areas (more of an open world style instead of go here now, then there…). Make GSC Sprout Tower 5 levels higher - why not?

- Reputation system that goes down when you lose a fight?

And on and on…now apply this to other games, and you'd get what I mean. Thanks for reading my blog ^_^

I'm surprised no one mentioned Last Remnant yet. It starts difficult and gets far more. Can never get away with just brute forcing through and have to plan out a ton of stuff.

>>16155981

>trying to define roleplay

Oh boy here we go again!

>>16157306

>>16157252

>I grind until encounters in rpg games become repetitive because my stats are high enough and my wallet so bloated I can win without thinking or using unorthodox strategy

>We should fix video games by making them even more derivative and forcing you to make multiple playthroughs just to see one or two mildly different areas.

>Thanks for reading my blog ^_^

Most autistic thread on /v/, at least you're self-aware of it I guess. You would probably unironically benefiit from attempting to speed run/low day count/low step count games because you're clearly grinding like an idiot instead of trying to smash through shit with the absolute bare minimum (which is usually what makes rpg games fun).

>>16157364

>trying to smash through shit with the absolute bare minimum

Isn't that every any% speedrun though

>>16158747

Can't you destroy Dragon Quarter with the NG+ mechanic and/or some simple exploitable thing from the fairy village? I can't remember what it was, but I recall completely breaking the game in a relatively short amount of time once I reached the point it could be done.

>>16158768

>Can't you destroy Dragon Quarter

Yes. You can just SOL: Restore at any save point which resets everyones level, but also resets your D-counter which is the thing that leads to game over if it reaches 100%. Doing so lets you spam your dragon form as much as you want and you can patch up the lost levels for everyone else with the party xp you get for combat.

I never did the fairy village stuff but there are exploits for that I've heard.

>>16158776

It involved SOL: Restoring, but I don't think I abused dragon form.

>>16158768

Fairy village is broken because of the high tier equipment you can get from there, and basically infinite money from fucking with stocks in the bank; also easily farming for Gold EXPs with the item houses. SOL Restore can be abused to farm bosses for as much Party exp as you want. But aside from that the game is very challenging in the first run, specially if you're going in blind (which you should in any game really)

>>16157364

What makes RPGs fun is that the player has to decide whether it's better to beeline straight through or spend time/resources improving. Do I buy the club with the 100g I start with or grind 20 slimes to afford the sword first? This has been completely lost on the newer games made by marketers and egotist designers who think story is what matters.

This thread had some much potential until this autistic westaboo fagot came in here.

>>16159382

You sure showed those damn westaboos how to make a valuable contribution to the thread :^)

Skyrim with the DLC tried to avoid it

>>16155697

actually I experienced what OP is talking about in 4

>>16156793

I remember the original didn't have the issue OP is talking about either

Baten Kaitos. As the game progresses actually attacking takes more thought. Your max combo chain gets longer and longer so you actually have to think ahead and set up chains of cards.

Over the Nexus pretty much is an RPG as much as it is a Duel Monsters simulator. Enemy decks at the start are nothing more than basic monsters, but late game they all have competent strategies. This forces the player to build a competent deck to take down late game foes.

Many Pokemon romhacks have steep difficulty curves. Vega comes to mind as an example that's only slightly easier end-game than at start. If you've never played a Pokemon hack (or at least one beyond tweaks like all version exclusives) before, Vega is a great one to start with and one of the best.