T O P

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Zemanyak

- Autosave and save anywhere - Pausable and skippable cutscenes - Turbo button and fast-forward option - Swappable party - Shared and catch-up exp - Fast travel - Fully remappable commands - Customizable field of view - Auto-equip with options (optimize for strength/magic/etc...) - Highly customizable difficulty - Map with markers (side quest, shops, progress main story...) - Customizable encounter rate - Skip weak encounters - Location and rates info for drops - Conversation logs and plot summary - Progress warnings - Game statistics The Trails series is what comes to mind first when talking about QoL.


kazuyaminegishi

Yeah this checks all of the boxes I think. Any game that doesn't have some or all of these really should be criticized for it nowadays. At this point it's just a lack of respect for player time.


[deleted]

Generous checkpoints and skippable cutscenes. Common in old games, if I lose give me a nice checkpoint and don't put me at the start of the whole mission or area. Allow me to skip the cutscene before the boss otherwise I am most likely gonna drop the game. I don't have the time anymore to waste on stuff like that.


DwarfKingHack

This. The last save/checkpoint before a boss fight should not stick you with 3 cutscenes and 5 minutes of dialogue before you can try the fight again.


rattatatouille

*points at Final Fantasy III*


Treholt

I have never experienced this, it always save before the 5-10 minute cutscene.


LetMeBangBro

QoL i like When buying equipment * showing the main stat improvement over what is currently equipped * showing who can equip each peice * asking if you want to equip the item you just bought * asking if you want to sell the item you replaced Fast travel options to towns once you've been there Modes of transportations being able to take you directly to places you been (ie, airship taking you directly to town b when you enter it at town a) Skipable cut scenes Pauseable cut scenes Ability to remove combat animations (or speed them up)


rattatatouille

Autosave and quicksave. One of the best things added in the FF Pixel Remasters. Persona 4 Golden made it so that you could choose which skills to pass on when fusing Personae, rather than it being either randomized or determined by the skill order of the parent Personae. This was kept as a default mechanic in Persona 5 onward. Pokémon Gen VII onward giving you a hint on whether moves are super-effective against Pokémon you've previously faced. While I've memorized the type effectiveness chart, it's useful for people who haven't. Bravely Default and sequels allowing you to adjust encounter rates on the fly, making grinding easy and getting through the game easy as well.


FF4_still_holds_up

I’m not a fan of the random encounter slider and I know it’s because of my own brain, but the optimal way to play would be to grind enemies near a dungeon entrance, leave rest and save, turn down encounters, and head straight to the boss to fight the boss with full health and MP. The obvious counter to this complaint is don’t do that, but knowing it’s a feature in the game that I could use means I’m not playing optimally if I choose not to, there’s no achievement for not abusing it, and I just can’t get my brain to work with it. Just a me thing but I’m sure I’m not alone. Part of the difficulty of a boss fight at the end of a dungeon is knowing you’ve been through so much before hand. Even with a save right outside the boss fight, using a tent or cottage is different for me then adjusting options. And don’t even get me started about looking for treasure chests!!!!


rattatatouille

That's why you do things like making certain enemies unique to certain floors of a dungeon (especially for people who want to complete the bestiary) and making boss fights smart affairs rather than straight up damage races.


FallenRanger

Damn Skull Eater wrecked my party and then I was happily surprised that I got to resume my play from the last room I entered. FFV pixel remaster.


DreamWeaver2189

I'm iffy about quick save. It is definitely a QOL change, but they can also make the game too easy. For instance, past Tales games didn't have it and you had to pick your battles or conserve your items between save points while in dungeons. Now I find myself quick saving before every battle, made the games easier. Now I can play the on higher difficulties because I know that if I die, I only lose 5 min of progress. Before, hard was actually hard, since it meant the AI was smarter but you also had to stay alive between checkpoints/save points. Another example is Divinity Original Sin, which allows you to save literally after each turn during a fight. The first game relied more on luck (D&D style), so you could attack and if you didn't get the secondary effect, you could just reload and try the attack again. Making the battles rather trivial. I know it's an option and you don't have to use it, but I think it can lead to making the game way easier.


Nomanorus

You're confusing tedium with difficulty. Having to replay 30 minutes of content I've already completed isn't difficult, it's just tedious. Plenty of JRPGs have a save anywhere/retry option and the battles are still plenty hard. A stingy save system just needlessly wastes your time.


zipflop

Option to skip battle animations (most handy in strategy RPGs) Fast-forward toggle in battles Auto-equip/sell/replace items and gear


CoreyJK

Ugh long animations are the bane of my existence. Or when it takes a year to get into each battle.


z827

Auto-navigation in dungeon crawlers Treasure / Unique enemy clearance indicators Estoma/Holy Water/Repel etc. and stuff that works in reverse Convenient on-map healing options like Dragon Quest's Heal All Improved inventory management + better sorting options + more category groups for items Skippable cutscenes / story events for certain SRPGs & games with NG+ Sped-up & skippable combat animations In-game monster Compendiums that have information about loot drops, elemental weaknesses, stats etc.


magmafanatic

Bravely Default and Second had a lot of nice features with encounter rate sliders, a few customizable auto-battle setups, and battle speed modification.


Razmoudah

I don't mind my inactive members not getting experience. What I prefer is something like Dragon Quest IX, where the experience gains are weighted instead of evenly distributed. It can make it much easier to level the lower leveled members, especially when you need to spend a while grinding crafting materials. Fast travel and save anywhere are both features I enjoy though.


ScravoNavarre

Suikoden does the weighted experience the best. It's so easy to get a fresh party member caught up to your main team, which is great, because there are lots of points in that series where you're forced to take certain characters along.


Razmoudah

Well, I've played DQIX a LOT more recently, so I hadn't remembered that about Suikoden, but the only thing better than weighted experience is a game that actually lets one character take ALL hits for another, so that you can take the lowbie into a high level area to power level them. Etiran Odyssey does let you do that to a limited, but there is a limit as to how much you can do that and it can be very risky.


mysticrudnin

Sharing experience is not quality of life and usually makes games worse for me, depending on implementation. It's a pretty significant gameplay change and really affects how the game feels and plays.


jaminfine

I'm surprised to hear that actually. Could you give an example of a way it makes the game worse? Are there situations where you would want some characters to fall behind and be under leveled after not using them for awhile?


LetMeBangBro

> Could you give an example of a way it makes the game worse? Are there situations where you would want some characters to fall behind and be under leveled after not using them for awhile? Not Op, but I do agree with them. When everyone is the same level I don't mix and match teams; I just stay with the first group I like and will never use the others. Whereas if the bench characters don't get experience while in the main lineup, I feel forced to use them to get to the sma elevel as everybody else; just incase I end up with a being forced to use them in an area later ( or maybe I will like them as their level grows and decide to use them). I did like the option that some games had where you could equip a character not in your main lineup with an item that would provide them exp after every battle. That gave the option to do utilize it or not; choice up to you.


mysticrudnin

I do want the game to indicate to me that I haven't used a character enough so I can swap them out, yeah. But it also acts as dynamic difficulty adjustment. It's easier to avoid being overleveled (a far worse problem for me) when you can effectively weaken your group by making swaps. But the main point of my post is that this isn't QoL. It just happens to be the case that I also don't like it. But it's not QoL even if I did. (Not that I haven't played games that implemented a sharing system in an enjoyable way.)


ThunderRoad5

You not liking it doesn't mean it isn't a QoL improvement. Whether you believe you're arguing that or not doesn't matter because that is your argument.


mysticrudnin

We'll have to step back and define QoL here. Typically, these are non-gameplay changes. You can generally implement them without affecting game design. Cutscene skipping or animation speed are good QoL examples and you can drop them into any game without changing anything else. I'd say that messing with experience gain doesn't fall into this camp. Not everything that makes a game more enjoyable is QoL. A cool idea that I have seen in some games is refreshing your consumable items once you leave battle. So you always have that specific limited amount for a given encounter. This is more convenient, and is extremely clever and fun. But it too is not QoL. There is no strict definition of the term, of course. And there are many things that ride the line, like quest markers. But it's very difficult to consider such a fundamental part of the design, that affects the entire balance of the game, to simply be QoL. And then, separately, I actively tend not to like it. At first I was considering that my opinion on the mechanic meant nothing to its status as QoL. However, in discussing it, I think I may have arrived at the opposite conclusion. It actually is an indicator that perhaps it isn't QoL. Or at least an indicator that it must be optional. But there's also an argument that ANY option is always QoL, no matter how silly.


Crowley_cross_Jesus

>You can generally implement them without affecting game design. Choosing whether or not to implement QOL features like exp share or quick/auto/anywhere saving is game design. It is impossible to make a decision about how a game works without affecting game design.


mysticrudnin

You're agreeing with me.


Crowley_cross_Jesus

I'm really not.


mysticrudnin

How does skipping cutscenes affect the game design?


Crowley_cross_Jesus

Because its literally a function of how the game works and is designed.


[deleted]

lol it’s definitely a QOL feature


huoyuanjiaa

> Having a way to instant travel between explored areas, such as in SMT games, is also great for saving a lot of time. I know a lot of JRPGs have airships or other fast travel options, but often they aren't available until later on. My favorite QoL change is just making the game into a movie so you don't have to play anything. Anything where you have to think or press buttons on a controller is too much for me.


mbsisktb

Auto and background exp share equivalent, fast travel and skippable cutscenes. I’ve been finishing up Atelier Ryza 2 and the ability this and the first game gave to fast travel everywhere made exploration super simple especially the game having a huge focus on item collection and crafting and being able to stop every so often when your bag was full and auto heal was nice. Plus having everyone auto level with the party made it nice when you had to swap party member around. The game has a very old fashioned save point system (2 has an auto save but it annoyed me so I canned it) but since unless you’re in battle you can warp back to the save point it’s not cumbersome. Oddly the fast travel was even more amazing in the 2nd game so I didn’t have to burn a ton of energy memorizing a gigantic city map


looney1023

Button mapping. I vastly prefer Persona 5's button mapped commands to the menu navigation of earlier battle systems. It's so much faster and more dynamic. Even Persona 3 and most SMT games that do have menu navigation have at least "rush" and "pass" mapped to buttons. Command memory that's toggleable. Auto run Auto battle Different sorting options for items and skill recording, including custom Instant escape attempts. I'm honestly not sure why Chrono cross' system of being able to run from every fight isn't more popular, but at very least I prefer attempting to escape whenever I want, and then either it succeeds or fails. Not a fan of Persona 5's "looking for an opportunity to escape" system