Fastest core gameplay in an RPG?

[NotAI]

How fast is fast?

Can you make a deep RPG while making it faster paced than the fastest paced action game with no RPG mechanics?

Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim largely implemented learning by doing, unlike Arena and Daggerfall, to eliminate most time spent in menus, allocating points. This made more people play it, who don't like time spent looking at menus. Whether this was ideal for an RPG is a different question. Gothic also has few menus...you have to find trainers and talk with them...which seems the best solution.

Can you make an RPG with hordes of enemies and the ability to skip as much dialogue as you want, but that is as complex as Arcanum if you just play it differently?

Most Diablo-likes and hack and slash barely count, IMO. I can barely play them, fast paced but boring, didn't solve the problem, depth not there in the end.

Deus Ex is sort of like that, but apparently not fast paced enough for the mainstream market. Too much stealth, so waiting. I like it, and also like menus just fine, but apparently too many people don't? Replacing menus with stealth didn't go anywhere in the end, alternatives?

[Tadeusz]

What do you mean by deep RPGs and complexity? The fastest RPGs are Diablo-likes probably but what do you find lacking in them?

[asf]

you can just liek speedrun it and finish it in 2secs and then make a ******** utube video

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Ys games, but those are pure action combat.

Trails of Cold Steel and Trails Through Daybreak's combat on nightmare/abyss difficulty if you keep pressing the button to skip the cutscene attacks and use turbo mode to make it even faster. You can be flipping through a turn every couple seconds, as fast as you can input them.

[J1M]

How fast is fast?

Can you make a deep RPG while making it faster paced than the fastest paced action game with no RPG mechanics?

Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim largely implemented learning by doing, unlike Arena and Daggerfall, to eliminate most time spent in menus, allocating points. This made more people play it, who don't like time spent looking at menus. Whether this was ideal for an RPG is a different question. Gothic also has few menus...you have to find trainers and talk with them...which seems the best solution.

Can you make an RPG with hordes of enemies and the ability to skip as much dialogue as you want, but that is as complex as Arcanum if you just play it differently?

Most Diablo-likes and hack and slash barely count, IMO. I can barely play them, fast paced but boring, didn't solve the problem, depth not there in the end.

Deus Ex is sort of like that, but apparently not fast paced enough for the mainstream market. Too much stealth, so waiting. I like it, and also like menus just fine, but apparently too many people don't? Replacing menus with stealth didn't go anywhere in the end, alternatives?

Vampire Survivors.

/thread

[Arilando]

It depends on what you mean with "fast". Roguelikes can be played very fast, faster than a lot of action games, because player turns are instant (ending soon as an action is taken) and all NPCs take their turns instantaneously after the player's turn. If you only consider action RPGs, endgame Path of Exile 1 gameplay is incredibly fast, but the combat itself at that point isn't particularly deep. The RPG systems in the game itself remain fairly deep.

[Torus]

Stranger of Sword City and probably many other games from that developer has an extremely fast "repeat last action for everyone" option you can use on trash encounters. It also skips most/all animations so the whole encounter takes a few seconds. Really appreciated that.

Also, many rpgs waste a lot of your time on inventory management. So if you can cheat your way to infinite carry capacity it will be very noticeable. Then you can just "take all" and keep the flow of the game going until you feel like looking at the giant pile of trash you have. And sorting through it will be more efficient when you only need to do it occasionally.