Anyone else hate RPGM games?

[W65]

RPG Maker really benefits strongly from being expanded upon. The attraction is that it's easy for a non-coder to put together a functional RPG with the tools provided by the engine's GUI. To really do different things with it takes some JS experience (with MV--dunno how folks did it in VX/Ace) that I don't think a most developers have. After all, for at least some devs, the whole attraction of the RPG Maker package is being able to create a functional RPG without knowing how to code.

I guess there're also community-developed extensions like that one key configuration one so many MV games show up with. However, the Japanese have a leg up on this, I think, so it's really the Japanese RPG Maker devs who produce most of the more experimental or envelope-pushing work in RPG Maker. That, or I'm just completely ignorant of the English-language RPG Maker scene (which is pretty much true).

 

[obibobi]

Not at all, I get why some people dislike them but you say they take you out of the experience but there's so many things that can be done, travelling, fighting, moving around buildings that can be done in RPGM without wasting a backbreaking amount of time animating or just skipping over.

RPGM is great when you want to create a world for your game. Not so great when you just want to tell a more confined story.

 

[NandabaCanti]

Heh, I have an ancient copy of the original

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collecting dust here somewhere (which I suppose wasn't exactly the original, I think it may have been like the 3rd entry into the series, but the first for the PSX). I think the appeal for RPGM is that it provides about 90% of what you need to get a basic JRPG made, including most of the non-CG assets. They make pretty crappy engines though - in terms of performance. And from what I understand projects quickly turn into a real clusterfuck when you try to stray from the path of least resistance and do any sort of interesting/original mechanics that the engine itself hasn't provided.

I generally haven't cared much for most of the RPGM games I've played, though I do have a nostalgic place in my heart for JRPGs mostly thanks to my childhood spent with my NES and a fair bit later the first Playstation. I think once I got a computer and started playing more action RPGs, MMOs and sandbox games back in my early 20s I kinda started to lose most of my interest in JRPGs. I still can't bring myself to play any that feature much of any grinding and other timesink tactics.

For those thinking of making an RPG and have the skills to provide their own assets, Godot would make a far better engine choice. It's pretty easy to pick up and you can prototype most of the core mechanics for such a game within a week or two once you know what you're doing. There's also a fellow who goes by

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on YouTube who's done a bunch of tutorials on most of the important mechanics you'd need for either a turn-based or real time action RPG over the past several months. He has a lot more content locked behind a premium class hosted elsewhere, but all the project code ends up on his github page and most of the important bits are covered on his channel.

 

[ItsEricBoi]

Nope, some of my favourite games are RPGM.

I love RPG's and games like Roundscape Adorevia, Daughter of Essence, Renryuu Ascension, Queen Opala and Last Sovereign take up hundreds of my hours.

On the other side of that coin there are very few Ren'py games I enjoy.

I'll stick with my RPG's and RPGM.

Been finding it hard to find the non-grind games- any other you can recommend me, friend?

 

[Avaron1974]

Been finding it hard to find the non-grind games- any other you can recommend me, friend?

Last Sovereign has no grind but it is a long game and still being developed but mobs don't respawn and quests are relatively simple. The main issue people have with it is the sex scenes are text only but the writing for the game itself is really good.

I don't find Roundscape Adorevia very grindy but, again, it is a long game.

I don't know what to suggest really, I don't find RPG's grindy. If i'm enjoying myself it's not a problem and I like RPG's so they don't feel grindy to me.

 

[NandabaCanti]

When I think grindy, I think of classic JRPGs, stuff like the old pre-PSX era stuff, especially for the NES and SNES. The original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games were my first exposures to the genre and those were grindy as fuck. Back then most mobs had fixed levels, so grinding through trash mobs to level up enough to take on the next task was just a fact of life. Considering how tiny they were, it is a bit crazy that they typically took around 20-40 hours to complete 100% and about 70-80% of that time was dumped on straight up grinding.

Even though Square mostly learned their lesson by FF7, by making the enemies scale to match the player level, you still had to grind the shit of it if you had any hope of getting 100% since the Ruby and Emerald optional superbosses were designed with a fixed high level of difficulty. A trend I think they kept up with at least for the next few games after that as well, 9 was my last FF game though, so no idea after that.

I'm fine with a lot of exploration, as long as the world is full of life and interesting things to discover and lore to uncover. I also generally like having to fight everything the game offers and it's fine to throw the same enemies at me as I pass through their region. I just can't stand spending hours walking back and forth in the same little area fighting the same trash mobs over and over again to gain the levels I need to move on to the next area and repeat it all over again after maybe 10-15 minutes of actual content between grindfests, that's a lazy game design crutch that should be purged from existance.

 

[rogosh]

"Combat", next game..

 

[Glad]

Kind of. But as it turns out, it's more game design problem, rather than RPGM problem. Excluding pure VNs, nine out of every ten porn games suck gameplay-wise. And it has nothing to do with RPGM. Some not completely and just have glaring holes in one aspect or another. And the combat... Especially in the games, where losing unlocks routes and scenes, but it's so easy that you have to make yourself lose. I'm looking at you Meritocracy of Oni and Blade.

I probably hate Ren'Py games, that stray too far from VN and don't put enough effort into gameplay, more. Clickity-click-click motherfucker.

In all likelihood the problem lies in the fact that most porn games are made by artists. Also, the demand in the niche is usually all about porn and fetishes, so artists are the ones to contribute the most there, with everything else falling by the wayside and ending up half-assed. Doesn't help that it's easier than ever to make a game.

 

[u z i]

i used to hate rpgm too...then i played 'Peasant's Quest'
i think it boils down to the mechanics of the game and how the developer uses rpgm. definitely does not go well with all type of games.

 

[FoxLust]

Yes i hate them so much just like Renpy games

 

[Cainhurst]

As some other folks have said, don't blame the tools for bad workers. A dev might pick the wrong engine for their game, or might not know how to use the engine to best advantage for their game, but you really can't blame the engine for that.

Except RAGS because fuck that engine and its shitty horse it rode in on. It's like trying to play a teletype.

And I guess Unity is pretty hard to optimize or whatever, which is why you get so many 2D Unity games that I guess run at a zillion FPS and burn up badly-cooled laptop hardware.

... Okay, so I guess sometimes it's fair to blame the engine. But, specifically, I think RPG Maker is attractive to devs because of the very low barrier to entry. You can kinda mock something up that works like an actual RPG fairly quickly. The default maps probably give folks their sense of scale, maybe. Heck, as far as that goes I've seen more than one RPG Maker MV game that doesn't even USE the map engine, which feels kinda like missing the point--unless it's using MV for its native multi-platform support. I dunno. I feel like it'd take a lot of customization NOT to use the walking-around parts of MV at all, but the Japanese apparently are pretty good at doing that.

Remember that RPG Maker is Japanese in origin, and there are I guess still plenty of old-school RPG fans in Japan. So maybe walking around accomplishing nothing is a more acceptable gaming trope to them? I dunno. Wolf RPG is kinda the same story--I've seen games in that engine that just don't use the walkabout parts at all, although most of them do. However, I don't think I've ever seen a Western dev even trying to use Wolf, so that's kinda neither here nor there.

Yeah I find Unity to be really irritating with most games running terribly. RPGM isn't bad honestly but most of the games are poorly made which has lead to the revulsion

Last Sovereign has no grind but it is a long game and still being developed but mobs don't respawn and quests are relatively simple. The main issue people have with it is the sex scenes are text only but the writing for the game itself is really good.

I don't find Roundscape Adorevia very grindy but, again, it is a long game.

I don't know what to suggest really, I don't find RPG's grindy. If i'm enjoying myself it's not a problem and I like RPG's so they don't feel grindy to me.

The Last Sovereign is the game that made me have faith in RPGM games again. It uses the engine really well to build its world. Another great use was Summer Memories Plus which made visual use of the engine really well

 

[rayminator]

I don't mind rpgm games at all but the only thing is the battles specially the first battle

 

[Gambitf95]

Nope, RPGM are dope! But for VM. Renpy can be OK too.

 

[khumak]

My only real gripe with RPGM isn't actually with the engine itself. Nearly every RPGM game I've ever tried has a terrible UI. Not all of them do though. Wicked Rouge for instance, I find the UI is fine. I suspect RPGM probably comes with some bad UI default options that most RPGM devs are using rather than replacing with a good UI. THAT is my only real problem with RPGM games.

The default UI for RenPy by contrast is actually pretty decent. I've certainly seen some devs improve on it with their own customized UI, but even if they don't it's good enough not to bug me.