What do you hope to see in the future of the genre?

[Wolf Kanno]

What do you hope to see more of? A return to heavy narrative/character focus? More character creation and player agency? Turn-based combat or action elements? Maybe something no one was thinking? The point is, what do you hope to see the genre do in the next five years?

[Del Murder]

Things I'd love to see:

• More variations of the classic turn based model, things like Bravely Default, Octopath Taveler, Radiant Historia. It's time for Pokemon to evolve from the same formula it had in RBGY. It would be nice to see that in the Persona and Dragon Quest series too, though I did like the most recent games in those series, mostly for other aspects.
• For open world games, keep streamlining how quickly you can travel. One reason I liked FFXV so much was that it was very easy to travel, either on autopilot in your rad car or a simple fast travel for a trivial amount of gil. And you could easily choc up on land.
• For action games, give me some more variety in how you use your character. As much as I love Witcher and Kingdom Hearts, for most battles you employ the same strategy to make them trivial. One thing I liked about the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series is that you can make your character play very differently and there isn't just one way to win.
• I love me some grid-based tactical RPGs but the most recent Fire Emblem game felt a little stale. So I would like to see some evolution of that classic subgenre.
• For stories, I understand it is hard for an RPG to get away from the 'heroes team up to save the world from ultimate evil' trope, but I would like to see more twists on it. FFXV had a good angle of the brotrip (though the rest of the story was too convoluted), Witcher 3 was a lot more focused on saving Ciri and Geralt's relationships with the other characters, Mass Effect 2 had the suicide mission aspect. More nice, tight, focused stories with good writing is what I want.
• More super innovative RPGs! TWEWY, Indivisible come to mind. Games that take bits and pieces of the subgenres and try something different.

[Spuuky]

It would be nice to see that in the Dragon Quest series too

No, it wouldn't. There are tons of RPGs that do different things. Please let my one series with its one game every decade do what it does.

[Lord Golbez]

I echo that sentiment for Persona. There are already too few traditional turn based RPGs out there, and the Persona series has a particularly winning formula that they began in Persona 3. I want them to continue to expand on that formula, as they did with P4 and P5, not throw it out and start anew. However, I would like to see them move out of the high school setting for once. You know, the calendar aspect (which I don't want to see them do away with) could also work for a job, and I think an office setting could work well for an eerie supernatural mystery.

[Vyk]

We could use some more games where you play as a nobody that gets called to a higher purpose. Like a blacksmith or innkeeper. Doesn't even have to be fantasy; whatever modern equivalent would be fine too. I'd also like a few more companies to take a crack at the concept that you are not the chosen one. Maybe you work for the chosen one. Maybe the chosen one actually gets killed. And I would love some legitimate JRPGs with adults. Too many high school coming of age stories. And I'd honestly rather more companies hire actual writers or editors, at least for consultation, so they can stop relying on tropes and exposition dumps and have a professional around to help them punch up the pacing and believability of dialog and personalities

Edit: Wow, conned into a necro by a bot. Go me. Weird choice for them to advertise in an old topic

[Dr. Acula]

We could use some more games where you play as a nobody that gets called to a higher purpose. Like a blacksmith or innkeeper. Doesn't even have to be fantasy; whatever modern equivalent would be fine too. I'd also like a few more companies to take a crack at the concept that you are not the chosen one. Maybe you work for the chosen one. Maybe the chosen one actually gets killed.

I would love to play as a sidekick or something. Though I suppose that happens with some FFs already (Vaan is definitely a sidekick).

[Christmas]

Think MMORPG answers to the sidekick thing. Usually we end up as sidekick to NPCs.

And they give us tasks to grind and grind!