8 Ways We’d Like to See Gameplay Change in 2016

The new year is always a time to look forward and talk about what we hope we’ll see in the coming months. New games, new concepts, and in some cases, a return to concepts from the past are thrown around as options. Sometimes they happen, and sometimes they don’t, but we don’t care if they’re implemented right now. We just want to show off some of the best ideas.

Many thanks to Level 7 Dragon for starting the thread!

Have a great idea of your own? Tell us what it is in the forums!

Highly flexible RPG class system
Suggested by: Mister K

Instead of a classic RPG where you choose a class and then level up, Mister K envisions a system where you choose to gain a level of any class each time you level up. This would let you build out a massively customized character, made up of bits of multiple classes, much like you can do in tabletop gaming. Your fighter might have a couple of spellcaster levels and a cleric level as well, just for utility’s sake.

Smaller map files
Suggested by: Squilookle

This is less about gameplay and more about facilitating gameplay, but it is still such a good idea that it needs to be mentioned. Instead of massive map files that you have to wait to download, Squilookle proposes a flat file, little bigger than a notepad text file. This file would contain the parameters for the map, and the game would interpret those parameters and generate the map. Yeah, it’s a little wild, but it would make joining servers with custom maps a breeze.

This one is a bit complex. We’re not talking about a difficulty slider here. Instead, Zhukov is proposing that each facet of a game have its own dedicated slider. You could set the combat slider to hard, the hacking slider to easy, and the puzzle difficulty to normal. This would allow players who like really hard combat, but just want to breeze through other challenges, tho play the game the way they want. It would also let those who love puzzles but aren’t fond of combat do the same. It might be a bit more work on the back end, but games like System Shock have done it, so why not everyone else?

While it’s been in vogue to move to fully voice-acted games in recent years, nomotog is looking for some games to take a step back. Voice acting is cool and all, but it can be limiting because the time and expense involved means there are a finite number of possible responses for characters. A sprawling, text-only RPG could have many more dialog options, story paths, and the like thanks to not being limited by how much recorded voice work is available.

How much time have you put into your character in your favorite game? Maybe it’s your version of Mass Effect’s Shepard, or your Dragon Age hero, but whatever game it’s in, you’ve spent hours getting them to look just so. Then something happens, or you want to start a new playthrough, and you have to do it all over again. Casual Shinji wants to do away that sort of thing by encouraging developers to include the option to save your character designs in the character builder, so you could easily pick that configuration when playing through again. Hey, I’m all for it.

This is a big one that I know many people are wishing for. Although games have gotten better over the years at depicting interpersonal relationships, romances and friendships are still largely bland. Listen to a few lines of dialog, hand over a few gifts, and bam, you’re either married or at least intimate. Strangely, your new spouse is basically exactly the same person after your marriage as they were before. This does somewhat tie into the return to text-based dialog option, as many of these limitations on spousal character development are likely based around voice acting expenses.

Shadow of Mordor was one of the best games of 2014, a distinction largely due to its Nemesis System. This system gave life to the enemies you were fighting, attributing motives, goals and fears to each of them. Imperioratorex Caprae wants to see that sort of system expanded even further, so that it encompasses not only the enemies you fight, but the NPCs you interact with, This could be super cool. Just imagine the reaction of shopkeeper who now knows just how bloodthirsty you are when you walk in his shop. He may beg you to put a bucket on his head.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was a great game series, and one of the things that made it so was the “A-Life” system. This system basically gave the non-player characters in the game their own lives, and let them lead them regardless of what the player was doing. This created a world where the NPCs were trying to find the secret of “The Zone” (The irradiated area the game takes place in) just as much as the player was. What Charcharo would like to see is an updated version of this, where every character in an open-world game has their own life to lead, and the player is just another soul passing through. It would make for much more believable game worlds.