The basic thing is, are we talking about a role playing game or a fighting game? With all due respect to those of you who want an intricate and highly reactive combat system, the main emphasis in any RPG truly deserving of the name is characterisation & story - not having many and varied ways you can hit things.
There are plenty of good games out there where the point is to go around and shoot or hit things, and I've played a ton of them myself so I'm certainly not against them - but they are not RPGs.
Yes, there is a ton of fighting in most RPGs, but fighting should never be the main point of it.
Well the point of most people here is the same one you are making. And I'm just trying to say, if we have to fight make it interesting and challenging.
Does a "good fighting system" (different for all of us I guess) mean the game has to be all about fighting ? Offcourse not...
You said yourself that there is a ton of fighting in most RPGs, so wouldn't you want the fighting to be a positive point instead of a negative one ?
We can also be pretty sure that fights will take place in this new RPG. So if they are gonna put time into it, why shouldn't they try to make it fun.
I do realize that we are talking too much about this subject and we should better be thinking about other things as well.
Because there are some other ideas in this thread worth talking about.
for example NeroJB's post about property
A fight can be interesting and challenging without lots of button mashing.
The main problem though from my POV is balancing out the approaches so that someone who chooses to play as a spellcaster or sneaky-type is not seriously disadvantaged compared to a warrior.
The best example of the kind of system you are talking about that I have seen is TDK's Conan game, which involves a truly incredible number of moves using multiple mouse clicks in combination, plus the space bar and a couple of other keys. It's a fantastic game, but it's entirely based on Conan being a barbarian who goes around hitting everything until it falls over.
While it would be possible to create a single character RPG using such a system, it would only work as long as everyone played a warrior-type character because that is all the system is designed for.
It certainly wouldn't be possible with a party-based game, either, unless the computer controlled every other character, which would render it utterly pointless having a party in the first place.
Not that there's anything wrong with single character RPGs, it must be said, my own preferences aside. And if anyone can think of a way to have an intricate fighting system for warriors and an equally good system for spellcasters, rogues, etc, I will naturally withdraw all objections - and indeed applaud your ingenuity, because I can't think of a way to do it.
That all said - you're right that this is one of many issues, and there are plenty more also worthy of discussion.
I like the idea of property, too. Especially if you can pay builders to upgrade it or something <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> You could start with a cottage and upgrade it to house, keep, small fort... a whole building tree, with each stage having more storage or other story advantages. Maybe the princess won't marry you if you don't have an impressive enough looking house or something <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It would be a good money soak and could add some advantages, like a large cottage might come with a herb garden which will produce stuff you can use with the Alchemy skill. One level could have a free hospital area which would improve your popularity/reputation with the locals... The possibilities are endless, and each would only really be a case of replacing one building with another. Or maybe modular add-ons. I'm no programmer nor even close, but that doesn't sound terribly complex to me, though I don't doubt it would involve a fair amount of work to implement...
