Your ideal game ideas.

[Morphic Tide]

My biggest issue with the described backstabbing Xenos situation is that the trigger is their listed loyalty, rather than being part of a mechanic that describes your trust in them. So ruthless pragmatists looking over it see the bar for the xenos' loyalty to them go up, and get backstabbed for making the xenos' loyalty to them too high, with nothing actually signaling duplicity.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Granted, I haven't played many RPGs, but this reads like a subversion of standard companion design. In the RPGs I've played, the only difference between a paladin who has sworn an oath to complete your mission and a thug who was kicked out of the thieves guild for grand scumbaggery and not paying his dues is... flavor text. They act the same. They stick with you no matter the danger, until you finish the mission. You can always trust that companion to be there no matter what he says.

The biggest subversion I can think of is Wrex in the first Mass Effect game, who can turn on you if you rush through the game and not do his loyalty mission. Mass Effect 2 also has the option of companions being taken out of the game, but that's true for everybody. The crewmates who were there when you took down Sovereign are just as loyal or disloyal as the psychotic lab experiment with a hateboner for your sponsor organization.

Oh, yeah, Original War did it too. That was pretty neat.

A game where you have to think about your companions' motives in order to keep them loyal would be pretty good, especially if there are curveballs thrown at you.

One companion is your standard RPG companion. He stays with you no matter what, and he will be extra loyal if you do his mission. Probably should be a few of these. Just so that the game isn't full of bastards.

Another companion is a Paladin, and though he is sworn to slay the dark lord, he will leave you if you cross too many lines and fail the come-to-Jesus moment.

A third companion is a thief who vanishes into the shadows whenever the fighting in a mission gets too intense. As the game goes on, he gets second thoughts about the quest, and disappears with a lot of loot. The only way to keep his loyalty is to betray him and hold blackmail over his head.

A fourth companion is a swordsman from a desert tribe who swears he will fight the Dark Lord if you free his tribe from bondage, but he also often quotes that "Me against my brother, me and my brother against the outsider" phrase. If you don't complete that sidequest, he abandons you... but he also abandons you if you free his tribe. He got what he wanted, and if you push him to honor his word, the whole clan will attack you. The only way to keep him is if you do his loyalty mission and fail, so that he swears revenge for his lost kin.

The fifth companion is a sorceress who sees the world in power dynamics. This is a poor justification for the fact that she is power-thirsty. She will betray you to become the Dark Lord's apprentice. You need to talk her out of her worldview *and* shield her from a lot of temptation to keep her loyalty.

Honestly I think in a world like that, I would either just work alone or straight up turn into vulture.

"don't you ever, ever interfere with my business Cause if you do, I'll kill you, and everyone that you love. I'll kill you dead. That's what I'll do to protect my family."

I'd be the bad guy that just happened to save the world from a world ending lovecraftian horror.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

also new idea. a Real Steel: Robot Boxing type game. build a robot and increase your fame and wealth by participating in robot boxing tournaments, from back yard and underground to international championships. Best part, no gimmicks no mirco transactions or timed energy cores, just Robot Boxing. Sorry, i'm just ticked at how grindy and whale enabling the official Real Steel Mobile game is.

 

[Bassoe]

Granted, I haven't played many RPGs, but this reads like a subversion of standard companion design. In the RPGs I've played, the only difference between a paladin who has sworn an oath to complete your mission and a thug who was kicked out of the thieves guild for grand scumbaggery and not paying his dues is... flavor text. They act the same. They stick with you no matter the danger, until you finish the mission. You can always trust that companion to be there no matter what he says.

The biggest subversion I can think of is Wrex in the first Mass Effect game, who can turn on you if you rush through the game and not do his loyalty mission. Mass Effect 2 also has the option of companions being taken out of the game, but that's true for everybody. The crewmates who were there when you took down Sovereign are just as loyal or disloyal as the psychotic lab experiment with a hateboner for your sponsor organization.

Oh, yeah, Original War did it too. That was pretty neat.

A game where you have to think about your companions' motives in order to keep them loyal would be pretty good, especially if there are curveballs thrown at you.

One companion is your standard RPG companion. He stays with you no matter what, and he will be extra loyal if you do his mission. Probably should be a few of these. Just so that the game isn't full of bastards.

Another companion is a Paladin, and though he is sworn to slay the dark lord, he will leave you if you cross too many lines and fail the come-to-Jesus moment.

A third companion is a thief who vanishes into the shadows whenever the fighting in a mission gets too intense. As the game goes on, he gets second thoughts about the quest, and disappears with a lot of loot. The only way to keep his loyalty is to betray him and hold blackmail over his head.

A fourth companion is a swordsman from a desert tribe who swears he will fight the Dark Lord if you free his tribe from bondage, but he also often quotes that "Me against my brother, me and my brother against the outsider" phrase. If you don't complete that sidequest, he abandons you... but he also abandons you if you free his tribe. He got what he wanted, and if you push him to honor his word, the whole clan will attack you. The only way to keep him is if you do his loyalty mission and fail, so that he swears revenge for his lost kin.

The fifth companion is a sorceress who sees the world in power dynamics. This is a poor justification for the fact that she is power-thirsty. She will betray you to become the Dark Lord's apprentice. You need to talk her out of her worldview *and* shield her from a lot of temptation to keep her loyalty.

Honestly I think in a world like that, I would either just work alone or straight up turn into vulture.

"don't you ever, ever interfere with my business Cause if you do, I'll kill you, and everyone that you love. I'll kill you dead. That's what I'll do to protect my family."

I'd be the bad guy that just happened to save the world from a world ending lovecraftian horror.

I imagine the trick would be to make it so you don't have the power to win if you don't have allies, however temporary their loyalty.

 

[LindyAF]

My biggest issue with the described backstabbing Xenos situation is that the trigger is their listed loyalty, rather than being part of a mechanic that describes your trust in them. So ruthless pragmatists looking over it see the bar for the xenos' loyalty to them go up, and get backstabbed for making the xenos' loyalty to them too high, with nothing actually signaling duplicity.

Yeah, I'd label it "relationship" or "affinity" or something like that to avoid explicitly lying to the player, but yes, this is intentionally pretty bastard. There would be explicit warnings about the xenos though - there would be stuff with other companions expressing concern and accusing them of being in suspicious locations or something (with the xenos having a reasonable-sounding excuse), with the only way to get perfect affinity being to dismiss the concerns.

Another thing here is that the xenos is always a traitor in my idea as well as Husky's - the only question in mine is if they think they can successfully backstab you at this juncture - I was thinking that in the sequel if they did not backstab you in the first, they do in the second (although it's less hard hitting).

 

[Laskar]

I imagine the trick would be to make it so you don't have the power to win if you don't have allies, however temporary their loyalty.

The more people you have, the more options you have. The thief can get you into rooms that you can't otherwise find, the sorceress changes combat and exploration with her magic, and the swordsman can access high society with his charm and his fat wads of cash.

Alternatively, these characters are necessary for a renegade playthrough, when your good-aligned companions won't sign on or won't stay with you. So yeah, you don't have the power to win if you don't have allies.

 

[LindyAF]

A game where you have to think about your companions' motives in order to keep them loyal would be pretty good, especially if there are curveballs thrown at you.

One companion is your standard RPG companion. He stays with you no matter what, and he will be extra loyal if you do his mission. Probably should be a few of these. Just so that the game isn't full of bastards.

Another companion is a Paladin, and though he is sworn to slay the dark lord, he will leave you if you cross too many lines and fail the come-to-Jesus moment.

A third companion is a thief who vanishes into the shadows whenever the fighting in a mission gets too intense. As the game goes on, he gets second thoughts about the quest, and disappears with a lot of loot. The only way to keep his loyalty is to betray him and hold blackmail over his head.

A fourth companion is a swordsman from a desert tribe who swears he will fight the Dark Lord if you free his tribe from bondage, but he also often quotes that "Me against my brother, me and my brother against the outsider" phrase. If you don't complete that sidequest, he abandons you... but he also abandons you if you free his tribe. He got what he wanted, and if you push him to honor his word, the whole clan will attack you. The only way to keep him is if you do his loyalty mission and fail, so that he swears revenge for his lost kin.

The fifth companion is a sorceress who sees the world in power dynamics. This is a poor justification for the fact that she is power-thirsty. She will betray you to become the Dark Lord's apprentice. You need to talk her out of her worldview *and* shield her from a lot of temptation to keep her loyalty.

This is definitely the sort of thing I'd like to see in bioware-style RPGs. At least my impression is that the companions are the thing players most care about in the typical bioware style RPG, so more complicated storylines and more interaction would be great.

The xenos traitor companion actually goes a bit against the grain here I think though... unlike the standard companions the xenos is always a traitor - the only question is if he thought he could betray you now, or if he's still biding his time (unless you catch him or never take the companion in the first place).

Alternatively, these characters are necessary for a renegade playthrough, when your good-aligned companions won't sign on or won't stay with you. So yeah, you don't have the power to win if you don't have allies.

Maybe it's just me but I feel like a lot of games don't have enough renegade companions (or alternate companions for renegades).

KOTOR picking the evil ending you lose half your companions, whereas you lose none for the good ending. Mass Effect struggles because "not liking aliens" is "renegade" so always being maximally renegade will put you on bad terms with even the renegade-leaning alien companions. IIRC Fallout 4 the more renegade companions got mad at you for doing like half of the quests because they got mad at you for helping people.

 

[Bassoe]

I like the idea that your character is basically useless in a fight, you've got to motivate your team of untrustworthy types with contrary goals to collaborate long enough to win and hopefully get killed by the enemy before they can turn on you.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

I want a game with a crafting system taking the same principles as FF14's (crafting is always useful, putting more effort in gets more reward out), A combat system that either uses X-Com alike Turn Based combat, or an action based system with a comfy skill floor and a skill ceiling high enough to do Dark Souls style "naked lvl 1 run" stuff, and an economy that is worth engaging with but straightforward.

Also, PvE, with PvP as an optional side thing.

 

[Typhonis]

Take the best parts of Saints Row Two, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and other games.


Gameplay Saints Row 2, Open world of GTA San Andreas on amap the size of Just Cause 2 with three or four main cities, a dozen smaller towns, and plenty of hole in the wall places.

Work your way up to being Godfather of the area. You run missions to set up illegal activity rings, bribe police and federal law enforcement. Fight rival gangs for turf among other things.

 

[Typhonis]

As an addendum to the above idea.

Crimes have a cool down period. Yes you can commit crime aftercrime but unless you bribe people the pressure remains. Thus you can experience some down time or do side missions.

5 levels of police response
1 star= lowest level. Someone sees you commit a crime. Police investigate , escape the area to loose it. Maybe have a ring on minimap to show where police are looking?

2 stars patrol car comes after you. You hurt someone while you are commiting a crime, note if you stop a crime get $50.

3 stars. SWAT team dispatched. Kill a cop or fire an automatic weapon to gain this level.

4 Stars FBI inbound. Kill a Swat team to get this level or appropriate property damage.

5 stars. Nat Guard sent after you. Chances for arrest drop the more stars you gain.

Bribery
Beat cop 1-2 stars ignored for a game week
Police Chief 3 stars ignored
FBI 4 stars ignored or they put pressure on the other gangs so their aggression to you is lowered.

Gangs have their own aggression level. The more you fuck with their turf, properties, and kill members the angrier they get until they hit your turf and such. Agression can be lowered by bribing them, destroying a property, which takes a game week to rebuild , or bribing the FBI.

Maxing out criminal enterprises gains the player cheats to use. Free ammo, extra health, etc.

 

[Husky_Khan]

I'd like to see a Kaiju fighting game in the style of any sort of top tier fighting game such as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat or Tekken or whatever. And of course I'd like to see it be a crossover style game like Marvel v. Capcom, Super Smash Bros. or the upcoming Multiversus concept from Warner Bros.

Besides awesome, highly KINETIC gameplay and numerous distinctive giant monsters and other biggies you can portray who have their own extensive repetoire of strengths, weaknesses, attacks, combos and finishing moves as well as voice acting and sound effects, and of course the obligatory multiple different skins and versions etc... the game will also have utterly unique arenas with DESTRUCTIBLE and interactive environments.

Yes you can fight in Hong Kong. Yes you can throw shipping containers at people or have buildings topple upon them or trip them up into the powerlines or attempt to drown them into the bay! Maybe you can even pick up a tree and smack or choke a Kaiju!

Obviously the game will have multiplayer, it's a fighting game after all but I'd also like to see a few campaign style options. One mega campaign story mode like you've gotten with recent Mortal Kombat games which touch on every character but also maybe mini-campaigns for each character where they can fight other giant monsters but also something simple, like puny NPC enemies such as the military or whatever.

And maybe different battlemodes like a survival wave based one where you (or teammates in coop) battle ever increasing hordes of NPC's and an occassional rival Kaiju or the like every few waves, or a free for all/Battle Royale mode etc etc.

As for Kaiju to include in the game... here's sixteen I can think of.... *takes a deep breath*

Godzilla, MechaGodzilla, Gamera, King Kong, King Ghidorah, Smaug, the Iron Giant, Shai Hulud/Sandworm, Cronus or Atlas etc, Harbinger (Mass Effect), the Icon of Sin, Tiamat (DnD), Diamond Weapon (FF7), Cherno Alpha, Cthulhu and some flavor of Kraken!

 

[Lord Sovereign]

A game I would quite like to see (as someone who likes strategy) is one with the "skeleton" of a Civ game, but with the politics of a Paradox title, and the battles of Total War.

 

[ShadowsOfParadox]

not Real Time or quite the same scale battles as Total War, or quite as in depth politics and Paradox Titles... buuuuut

Age of Wonders: Planetfall is pretty close... Humankind too...

 

[Aaron Fox]

Super Robot Wars but with Front Mission and Battletech. That would be awesome.

On that note, another Front Mission game of the RTT style... but given the IP owner, that won't happen at all.

 

[King Krávoka]

Start with a fairly traditional simcity-style game, only with extra options for dickishness, even by Paradox Interactive's standards. Turn the inhabitants of cities your city devours into slaves or soylent green, hire an out-country bounty hunter to assassinate dissidents, etc. Pretty standard behavior for a canonical Lord Mayor. Then layer on a Kerbal Space Program-style interface to let you build and redesign your city, acquiring new components from your prey. And on top of that, add a racing game with procedurally generated environments* in which you can chase and yourself be chased by your fellow predator cities.

Then make it Fun™ in the Dwarf Fortress sense of the word. You're going to die. A lot. Get overthrown by a revolution among your citizens, run out of resources, get eaten by a bigger city, have some piece of Old Tech you were experimenting with catastrophically malfunction, etc.

This is literally the core inspiration of my forum game.

 

[Bassoe]

Glowie management simulator where you manipulate a bunch of dissidents into very nearly staging terrorist attacks which you can foil in the nick of time, then use as an excuse to acquire more authority to deal with the threat. Also has a popular DLC, fan mod or cow level where your revolution accidentally wins and you have to purge your former bosses, patsies and true believers as a totalitarian dictator before they can do the same to you.

 

[TheRejectionist]

Simple.

1. No DRM
2. No shenanigans to get it to work
3. At least 20/50 hours of content

 

[Bassoe]

From a discussion on themes of colonialism in horror over on sufficientvelocity, an Alien: Isolation style panicked hiding simulator where you play as an eighteenth century british redcoat facing off against nigerian Anyoto leopard men cultists who've actually got the supernatural powers their legends claimed.

 

[Husky_Khan]

From a discussion on themes of colonialism in horror over on sufficientvelocity, an Alien: Isolation style panicked hiding simulator where you play as an eighteenth century british redcoat facing off against nigerian Anyoto leopard men cultists who've actually got the supernatural powers their legends claimed.

I feel like that could work on well enough on its own merits even independent of any sort of Leopard Men.

There was a 1965 film called The Naked Prey which was about this group of Hunters going trekking through Africa and the leader of the hunters refused to pay the local tribe for passage rights, so the tribe attacked their camp and had a grand ol' time torturing them all to death with the exception of the main character, whom they decided to hunt for sport to see if he could make it to British held lands or not or whatever.

Kinda similar to Apocalypto if you've seen that movie. Anyways... not only was the guy being hunted by a group of hunters but he had to contend with Arab Slavers and Wildlife and other tribes and dangers and the like as well.

Make the game its own thing, add a lot more distinction to it even if its inspired by Alien Isolation.