This might sound rude, but i have to ask for what reason you are making this... Are you making it so that you tailor a game for a larger market in other words... How to make more money. Or are you asking how to make a great rpg.
Also are we talking about "rpg's" or "action rpg's" "adventure rpg's", "RTS/RPG hybrids", Games with minor rpg elements?
Anyway i had a look at the list and the first thing i notice is that the listed games are... Well lets just say a very interesting choices. Alot of BAD and average games... It would have been a lot more interesting survey with more choices and for the list to be abit more balanced in how rare / old / good / new the rpg is.
1)Then we get to the other questions... Is visual information important? It depends on how you want to make the game. Do you want to hold the players hand or should the player figure it out himself? also why is the question "cooldown" based? Loooots of older rpg's dont have cooldowns in the same way that new games have.
2)Then the question is about allowing the player to change how hard the game is. And... That also depends on what kind of game you want to make. If you are making a very unforgiving game that is very very hard... Do you want to allow the player the ability to change the difficulty level? Most likely no. However in general sure... Why not in the context of games that allow it. My general problem is however that people do it "stupid hard" instead of "true hard". i will take the shit game Dragon Age 2 as a example... The ai is dumb as shit. If you increase to the hardest difficulty level all that happens is that you have to attack the boss for whatever time you had before increased by 15 times. Do that make it hard? No... Its mindless and boring and all it do is fill out the time on how long the game is.
3)And then the next question is about items and the ability to "customize" the item itself... And guess what... It depends on the kind of game you want to make. Do you have a lot of variety in loot? Then you might not need to allow players the ability to customize the items. Do you have less? Maybe you should? Maybe you dont have loot at all in the game?
4)Next question is another question that is like "umh but this also depends on the game". Oh well.
5)The next one is about voiced vs text. One thing i hate with games made this gen is that it have to be "voiced" its the new cool thing that devs spend shit tons of money on. What do it add? Imersion maybe? What do it remove? Money (and lots of it), makes it harder to change things at a later date / bug testing and so on / limits creative freedom / Less content within the game (atleast if you want quality on the voice work).
Overall i like text more then voice. Text allow the player to get more information, the writers can add more content, more information / lore / story to the game.
6)Then the next question is about controls and if you should be able to change them. Short answer is yes. Allowing people to customize their experience is always better. Even more so when you consider the fact that a lot of time the controls and key bindings dont make sense for more complex games... And it dont mater if its a rpg or not... This is true for ALL game types.
7)Not all rpg's have companions or have any kind of ai input for them at all. Its kinda a question that make no sense. But i guess if i pick i would have to say limit the ai, make the game system better and allow the player more freedom and make it easier to control more then one character with for example a good pause function, queue abilities and so on.
8)Save at any time? Depends on the game you are making.
9)OP? Depends on the game you are making. Some allow OP characters, some need to be balanced because they are on rails, some are fine with people breaking the game....
10)Menu at any point. Yes
11)What? I dont understand this question at all... Pop ups? For what? Advertisements? Cookies? Turtles? Random windows spawning on the screen for no reason? I what? How? When?
12)Depends on the game... unless ofc you mean menu pausing... Then yes the game should pause (if its single player) when you enter the main menu.
13)Waypoints and mission description (are we talking about rpg's here or fps games?), Anyway a good way is to implement a easy to use journal that updates with important information for the quest or task at hand. I dont like "waypoints"
Waypoints is the stupid persons help tool. What you mean walk out the game and turn right by the huge ancient tree and then continue down to the lake on your left side? I mean wtf who do you think iam? I dont want to think everything should have it pinpointed to centimetre. Kinda reminds me of the quest... where a npc said "blablablabla i lost the family hairloom i dont know where it is" You accept the quest (not that you had any choice) and then... The npc mark where he lost it on your map? Is that retarded or what?
14)yes not only that... All options should be there including draw distance, textures, res, vsync, detail level, model level, shadow, weather and so on... The more the better.
15)Depends on the... Yeah you get the point. If you have 6 ways to complete a quest are you going to write every single way for a player to complete it? What kind of game are you trying to make? One where the game bash you on the head if you dont hold the games hand?
16)Yes... If you have loot like that you should be able to... Why? Because its good ui design. something that TW2 for example failed with is making a good proper pc ui... Its very clunky.
Overall you should make it easy to use and tailor it for whatever version you are trying to make... If you make a pc and console game then you should take the time to make a proper pc ui and a proper console ui... They have different needs and it puts you on better foot with the community as it show them that you care enough to give the players the best experience.
17)yes
18)Depends on the game... Some games have enemies that can cast invis on themself... Are you going to have a huge arrow over their head in that case
?
19)Power what? Im trying to think of a game that had powerups beside some arcade, platformers and action / adventure games... *thinks* *thinks* No i cant think of a single one. Anyway you should never make a "BLOODY SCREEN SO REALISTIC" ui... If you get hit you dont see blood. Overall you could have some kind of hit indication but they should NEVER be in the way. This go for anything.
20)You asked this before... -.-
21)Depends... If you go by this generation of games you will find that they are all dumbed down to the level of rock paper scissor. If you go back to older games you can have enough abilities / spells / choices that you will have a hard time using all of them. Anyway to make a proper rpg you need character skill... Not player skill. If you (the player) is the one deciding how good your character is then its a action game or adventure or whatever you make. If its the players abilities / stats / limitation that decide it then its a rpg.
22)Always. The player should always have the ability to skip any kind of cutscene / cinematic / movie or whatever.
23)What is this... I dont even... What? How? When? Are we talking about the failure that is Dragon Age 2 here? Just thinking about that game give me shivers down the spine... What a mess of a game...
How about... I dont know... Allowing your characters stats / skills decide what conversation options you have? If your character is a very charismatic person then he might have the ability to "talk" or "charm" their way around a problem... if you are a strong brute then why not have the option to bash the other characters head during a conversation.
If you allow the player to pick the conversation option it will end up like this: "NPC: Oh great herroooo, you have to save my daughter that got captured by the evil bandit lord van Dervic" Player "Charm: yes, Angry; No... But yes, Joke: Yes"...
24)The question you are asking is... Should the UI be bad or good? Is there ever going to be a person that say "OMG GUYZZZ I WANT A BAD UI PLXZZZ" Dumb question.
25)Why do you have trash items... What is a trash item a item that is not a upgrade? Filler items? I dont like filler items. Then the question is... Should the ui be good... or bad(AGAIN!?), the ui should be good ofc
26)Pew pew i fire my lazors in this action rpg... I guess thats what the OP want to talk about... Not rpg's so far by the looks of the questions... heck the inspiration for the questions seem to be meh games even... Its abit sad...
Anyway it depends on the game... not every game need the ability to switch weapons to create "AWESOME" effects
27)If you can change the ui, resize, move windows around then yes there should be a option to "restore to default". It should not even have been a question... its so obvious and common sense that i suggest you hit any person that ask this question on the head with a rolled news paper.
28)What kind of question is this? If you are making a text based game the game is going to have the majority of feedback done in... Gasp text. If you are making a action adventure game with minor rpg elements (like the op seem to be). Then you need visual feedback, smooth animations, to have the attacks connect and so on.
29)The next question is "should the camera controls be good or bad"... Honestly are you for real?
30)Depends on the game... depends on how many choices you have, depends on a lot... You can have a obvious "THIS IS A MEAN CHOICE" ofc you should not have a visual feedback that say "THIS HAVE DEVIL HORN SO THERE FOR ITS = EVIL"... it should be within the player and character choices. No need to mark blue = good and red = mean... You can mix it within the game depending on what kind of game you are making.
31)Action / adventure game with minor rpg elements (like leveling or stats that dont change gameplay)... Hmm well if we change the top to action / adventure game it would more more sense... Yes when you make a action/adventure rpg you want a good targeting system. Nothing worse when playing a action / adventure game and your character twitch around and go flying in the wrong direction due to bad targeting system.
32)... trolololo?
33)No they should be so hard that every time you change to a companion you want to cut your wrist... Wait a moment here...
34)Errr... We are not talking about a conversation wheel here are we? That is one hell of a abomination that should be killed with fire, revived killed with fire, buried in lava... have the lava picked up when it turn to stone and sent to outer space and into the sun. Anyway if its not conversation wheel then... I guess the text... Should show it... Depending on how you ask it. No no hand holding i guess.
35)Depends on the game
36)Why allow the player to pick a name at all then?
37)Sure why not?
38)I dont understand... Ai can be more then just if player within range = true then "find path", if within range then attack.
You should make a good ai that can ambush and work together hell even "learn" so that if you have a enemy that run away into another group he can then "tell" that group what kind of setup you have and maybe counter it by ambushing, targeting the right characters and so on.
39)Depends... What is easy? Is the profession system hard and complex can you even make it easy without dumbing it down?
Overall the UI should always be good. Then its up to the player to learn the profession system itself.
40)Depends on the game you are making... If you have more ways to complete a task do you want to have every option pointed at with a huge arrow? God im so bored of this generation of games
...
41)Depends on ... wait we are talking about action adventure games here... Right umh why not? However lets talk rpg's... You character should in most cases not have the ability to "unlearn" what (s)he have trained most of his/her life.
Beside that? There should not be item limits and so on... If you want to make a mage that wield a huge 2hand sword then why not allow it?
42)Good god... What the hell.... Wtf? First you ask... Do you want the controls to be smooth / good and responsive and then you talk about 1 button for multiple functions...... I ... i ... i... .... ok *deep breath*... 1 button = lots of actions is a plague upon gaming. Its twitchy, unresponsive, annoying, badly done in 99.999999% of the games. 1 action = 1 key is the way to go.
43)Another action game question with rpg elements thrown in... Well the question is... Should the UI be good... Or bad...
Guess what i think?
44)Depends on the game... Depends on what you are trying to do... What options do the player have within the game can your companions revive you?...
45)... yes?
This is going to sound harsh now... But this survey will do NOTHING to help make a good rpg. Not only is it more about action / adventure games with minor rpg elements. Overall it look like its made for games in general that is made this gen... Dumbed down, hand holding and lack of any kind of inovation.
Oh well
