[General Discussion] An Ideal RPG?

- Ideal Battle System cont.
Real-time. Maybe more in-depth control over the AI, but 3D battlefields and maneuverability make the battles at least interesting. Whether they're on a map or take place in a battle sequence, it's more interactive and fun to play real-time.
- Main Character in depth
-Male Characteristic - and ideal character
-Female Characteristic - "
I don't really mind the gender. Generally you'll have many character to choose from, so I'd like to be able to choice who I control. As for lead protagonist, either is fine. Maybe you could have both genders to choose from, both with different personalities and storylines, or they could have the same story and just be equally important. Even if they aren't, I don't really think it takes the fun away from the game.

Protagonist characteristics: Hopefully the protagonists won't be too ambitious or perservering. Character faults make them more realistic and fun, as long as they aren't annoying or distracting. I'm tired of generic cold or distanced party members or protagonists, or worse, silent ones. They'd also have to be logical. I get annoyed when they make irrational decisions or dialogue in cutscenes or such. Some decent personality traits would be ill-tempered, sarcastic, or arrogant.

- Party System - Ideal Number to characters - what's to little or to many
3 or 4 party characters at a time are fine. As for playable characters, hopefully no more than twice as much that can fit into a party. Variety is nice, but no matter how big the game is, I don't think they can give in depth personalities to a ton of characters without becoming repetitive.

I likes in Tales of the Abyss how the party formation could be screwed up when ambushed, or in Golden Sun 2 where if one party died the other party members would come in. Some faults with that, though, would be if you get ambushed and your other members are low-leveled. Characters should still earn EXP out of party. As for switching groups when the first party is killed, that can make the bosses too easy, and make it so the dead ones can't earn EXP if you finish the battle. Both of those features would have to be revamped.

- Music Genre? Score Composition if you want to talk about it.
The genre would have to be understandable for the setting and theme of the game. I personally wouldn't want any new age genre to go with it, like rock, rap, metal, or anything. Just typical RPG music would be fine, as long as it wasn't too simple or bland. Rather than just a few repeating notes, I think the music should be as detailed as possible, maybe each track having about 4 minutes of song that doesn't just repeat every 30 seconds.

- Life Topics - to drown out the save world main plot as it were - what life topics would you talk about in the rpg. obviously it would have to link in with the story (like tales of symphonia and racism)
Racism was actually really good. Maybe loyalty, respect, and trust would be a few good main points in the game's storyline.

- Do you find in RPGs that sometimes they go a bit over the top with dungeons (should they be short with a decent puzzle, or just keep to a plain long dungeon) What dungeons would you have - locations you thing would make good dungeons and what kind of enemies would roam there?
I like a big variation in them. Maybe huge dungeons for main bosses, short ones that you can breeze through just for getting from one place to another. Maybe mini-bosses in them could make them more fun. The dungeons should have some good, in depth puzzles too. Not stuff that you would never figure out without good ol' GameFAQs, but things that consume some time and require thought.

The dungeons should have many different landforms. Deserts, forests, plateaus, caves, watery areas, swamps, plains, mountains, snowcaps, and even indoors (maybe like palaces, temples, houses, barns, lighthouses, skyscrapers, anything really). The enemies should be a challenge, but battling shouldn't take forever. The enemies should also correspond with the place (i.e. no man-eating shark encounters while strolling through the forest).

- Shops - what shops - lots or little
Inns, equipment, and item shops. There should be a wide variety of towns or villages, and a shop in almost each of them. With a lot of shops, there's plenty of variety in equipment and items (healing, battle, etc). Maybe the stuff in shops will get better in towns further in the game, or based on if they're rich places. Still, you should also be able to find other items, preferrably better ones, in dungeons, probably with puzzles needed to obtain them as well.

- Change the way you level up a character? Make it more interesting?
Experience points are pretty fair. I guess having a choice to raise certains stats is good, but experience points are fine too since the amount required to level increases based on your level, the stats increase every level, making battling possible against harder enemies, and distribute to everyone.

However, I think stat increases should be granted to individual characters based on their mood. They could go away or be even for each character by the end of the game, but they should change often.

- "RPGs are basically interactive story books" is this a good thing?
Definitely.

- Back to incrypting genres - Wild Arms 3 had horseriding battles - did this work well - could you do some other customised genre battle?
I think some customization, or certain scenarios changing due to battle can be great. Granted, because some people don't like them, they should be optional or one-time only.

- Final Battle - Something big and all powerful, epic location, abilities and skills??
Not necessarily, but it should be the main antagonist, or at least related to the antagonist. Should definitely be powerful, but it's not really too important who or what it is, as long as it has an important place in the storyline. The location should be epic too. It could be an amazing dungeon, or a simple place. It should give you chills when you finally go there, or maybe when you revisit the place. It should be a long dungeon, and the final boss should be very challenging, with a wide variety of skills and abilities, hopefully that rival the protagonist's.

- Save anywhere, and scrap savepoints?
Save anywhere is all right, but savepoints make you more anxious and determined to find one. However, challenging battles in the middle of nowhere, far from savepoints makes it really annoying to start over if you lose, which I guess goes with the next point.

- Boss Retries (referring to Baten Kaitos and Skies of Arcadia) - if it comes to game over, should you be given the oppertunity to restart the battle and try again instead of having the annoyance of going through events and location to get to it again?
Only if you can't save immediately before the battle.

Jam it back in, in the dark.