RPG Maker has gotten progressively worse since XP

[MetalRenard]

Let's face it, they've been taking stuff out since 2k3. I honestly believe that 2k3 with Cherry's mods applied is the only way to go.

[KDC]

Let's face it, they've been taking stuff out since 2k3. I honestly believe that 2k3 with Cherry's mods applied is the only way to go.

I tried that once. I wonder if the official English version can use Cherry's mods.

[Son_Rukiri]

Let's face it, they've been taking stuff out since 2k3. I honestly believe that 2k3 with Cherry's mods applied is the only way to go.

I tried that once. I wonder if the official English version can use Cherry's mods.

DynRPG doesn't work and I doubt his other plugins work.

[KDC]

Let's face it, they've been taking stuff out since 2k3. I honestly believe that 2k3 with Cherry's mods applied is the only way to go.

I tried that once. I wonder if the official English version can use Cherry's mods.

DynRPG doesn't work and I doubt his other plugins work.

Darn! Oh well.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

Toss me with the people that claim that RM peaked with XP.

Of course, maybe I'm biased because XP is the one maker I have the most experience with (I dabbled a bit with RM2000 but didn't go far due to losing my old computer to the ravages of time).

For what I could gather, though, I'm not missing a lot of stuff by not trying the newer entries. Specially for someone whose strength is map making.

Is that because of mapping? If that's the only reason than MV does have a tiled plugin, now I haven't really had much experience with it and you have to use a tile_resize script as well.
There is a movement script that does bring over polygon collisions which is great if you're working on a zelda style game as you do have diagonal tiles you can walk against.

But, it still baffles me because even recently people still port over the ace engine to XP!   I haven't looked at Ruby RGSS code in ages and would have no idea in how to do zelda style tile collisions, I know the math just not the method for rgss.

You do have to own both Ace and XP for that to work,  but this does bring over ruby 1.9 and 2.0 functionality :) 
The cool editor stuff that was added to ace will have to be done by script sadly..   But ace is still a good rpg engine to use, just feels better with XP with it's better mapping system though, is a shame you do lose the cool event nodes...  

If Regal does become a thing, allow for users to honestly start from scratch IF they want to as that's my main issue with RPG Maker especially considering I mainly only work on A-RPGs which is why I find Game Maker a superior tool for that genre (it is really, not even a question about it) GMS2 made mapping heavenly and is even more advanced than XPs system!  However, tile based collisions are a bit messy, it's still best to go with sprite based collisions (this is what I'm doing) but I do expect some slowdown but not enough for games to not be over 60fps. 

I wasn't aware of the existence of that MV plugin.

Still, I've been working with XP for nearly five years so I'm not really inclined to jump on another engine. Not to mention that porting my project would be a herculean task.

I understand your point about ARPGs. The RPG Makers are not really suitable for developing such games, no matter how much the engine is revamped/modified. There will always be that omnipresent jankiness.

[DerVVulfman]

Well, a couple people here and there believe that ARPGs are a dying breed, or at least someone named Gigapants over at MMO-Champion.Com believes (Linkie right [HERE).

Now if you're wondering about... jankiness? Really, that's a word? Did anyone notice that Diablo was a very popular ARPG hack-n-slasher using an isometric map tile-based engine? That includes the targeting/collision system. Hell, it operated on a 640x480 resolution system. I guess it's all about how well a reaction time you can get out of your game. I've seen fast. I've seen slow.

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

I'd say that that turn based RPGs are the ones that are slowly becoming an endangered species, at least as far as the game companies and the general public is concerned. Seriously, aside from some outliers like Dragon Quest and Pokemon, I can't think of any big RPG series that still use vanilla turn based combat nowadays.

Some franchise jumped ship and changed to an action oriented combat, like Final Fantasy. Hell, the FF7 remake is looking that way.

As for the "jankiness" (I came up with that word. Bear with me), I've based on my own experience playing the ARPGs available for RMXP. What I've always noticed is that hits do not carry any weight, you cannot stun an enemy by attacking repeatedly. This makes you rely in hit-and-run tactics to survive. Not to mention some really odd hiboxes that makes things rather frustrating.

But again, maybe it's because I expect those games to play like AJRPGs (think of Kingdom Hearts and the Mana series) that causes that rather weightless combat to annoy me.

[Son_Rukiri]

Most RPGs releasing have a real-time combat system, not a turnbased one.
So, Turn-Based systems are the dying breed...

Real-Time ATB combat systems are a compromise and I think this is what the FF7 remake is doing.
I'm torn, deciding on a Real-Time ATB system (it's technically still turn based like Chrono Trigger but you can freely move around and attack) or just a real-time battle system with no atb functionality.

[Mel]

I think more RPGs should go back to turn based combat. In my opinion no real-time combat system is able to reach the complexity when it comes to strategy that turn based fights can have. Most real time combat systems end up in hit&evade or some endless combo spamming. Or you just have the usual button mash games like The Elder Scrolls.
And even tab-targeting real-time combat in MMORPGs doesn't work too well in a single player RPG where you have a party whith 4 - 6 members. In the end you only control one hero and the others do everything on their own with an AI behaviour. These CRPGS like Pillars of Eternity have real time combat where you can pause the cpmbat at any time to give orders but is that really real-time anymore?

I really enjoyed the battles in the two Divinity: Original Sin games. They showed how awesome turn based combat can be.

For a complex party RPG I would always prefer turn-based combat. But that's just me.

[DerVVulfman]

I wouldn't disregard the Elder Scrolls for an ARPG. I don't consider it as button mashing, you do have to be aware of your environment in combat, and watchful for those archers with good aim. Granted, you may have enjoyed the first two where you kept the mouse button depressed and moved the mouse, thus moving the sword in the direction your mouse had been moved (literally swinging your sword via the mouse).

Tactical systems... get very little love it seems. Controlling your party on the map, trying to circle around other enemies and flank them to get better combat opportunities is rarely seen in RPGs. It is almost akin to chess. I know of a couple Tactical systems in RPGMaker XP, but the last JRPG I saw that used such... might have been Ranma RPG or Tenchi Muyo RPG for the SNES!!! But then there was also Baldur's Gate which used it nicely... a real time Tactical system.