A good Town/Training/Dungeon ratio for RPGs?

If we divide a traditional RPG into these three phases:

1. Town -> Phase where player talks to NPCs, gathers information, and sees some story cutscenes. You can also call this phase Story, but I chose to call it Town cause otherwise these three make for not so great acronym. :D
2. Training -> Phase where player buys new weapons, spells, skills, and does training mini games or grinds for the purpose of becoming stronger/leveling up. Battles here are done on explored ground and not on new territory.
3. Dungeon -> Phase where player explores a new hostile location, battles, gets loot, and defeats bosses.

What would be a good TTD ratio for a fun game? Equally 33/33/33? Combat heavy 10/10/80? Narrative heavy 50/10/40?

Obviously, this is rather generic breakdown and not all RPGs will fit into this. Also obviously there are great games that utilize wildly different ratios. For discussion purposes, what's fun for you? Best if you can also list an example that demonstrates your ratio.

I think the best rpgs start out with a more combat/training heavy approach so the player can experience the actual gameplay quicker.

As the game progresses, you get more and more invested in the story (hopefully). At that point you can switch to a more story focused game with longer cutscenes between combat.

I would start out with maybe 75% combat/training and gradually shift to 50/50 or even 75% story as game progresses.

One of the biggest mistake I usually see with rpg maker games is that they frontload too much of the story.
Nobody really cares about the 200 page world creation story 1 second after the game started.

I'd personally probably go for something like a 20/5/75 ratio.

25 in Towns, because it's important to have some down time between action, and give out some story.
5 in Training, because this for me is always the least fun part of an RPG. I don't enjoy buying stuff or grinding for exp in RPGs, so I'd keep it to a bare minimum.
75 in Dungeons, because I like combat, exploration and challenges to be the main meat of the game.

I just want to say narrative is not limited to towns always! I guess you're talking about NPCs specifically though? As you can expand a story to have scenes in training areas and dungeons too, it doesn't have to be all in the towns themselves.

Edit: Didn't think of it a the time, but of course you can have NPCs in dungeons too, or in fields nearby or at entrances, anything creative really so long it fits the game and isn't just force in. Just have to edit this to be clear they're not limited to towns.

As for the ratio, it would depend on the type of game really. I love games that mix and match all of those differently.

So all I can do is share what I have in my current project and that's something like

Town 35% Training/Dungeons 65% (Not including "story" in town but both Town and Dungeons.)

But I have draft "plans" for two other projects and they are the following.

Second project plan. Town 20% Training 20% Dungeons 60% (Again, not including "story" in town but both Town and Dungeons.)

Third project plan. Town 25% Training 30% Dungeons 45% (Yet again not including "story" in town but both Town and Dungeons.)

I like giving the player a few different all still useful options when it comes to equipment and I count treasure chests containing equipment and accessories in dungeons as part of training here.

tbh, I don't see how you can separate out story as only happening in towns. Are you suggesting that there is no real dialogue as the party goes through a dungeon? That nothing is ever said in battle which might shed light on things? That no comment is ever made when a chest is found and opened? etc. etc. etc. If so, I personally would find that rather tedious and immersion breaking. People do comment on what they see, what they are doing, and why they are doing it, so I expect my party to do the same. It follows, therefore, that I think separating all these things off into exclusive areas would lead to what for me would be a boring game.

Frankly I don't think you can set a "golden median" as it were, because what would be ideal for one game, might be completely wrong for another.

Furthermore, I don't see why you feel these are necessarily three distinct categories. In almost every RPG game I've played a rather significant amount of the story happens in the dungeons. Not to mention, skills, weapons, & items the player receives while dungeon delving.

To use my own project as an example, I have a random loot generator mechanic that evaluates the player's level, & then uses RNG to determine what the player finds. It's entirely possible even likely to be honest, for them to level up over a loot tier benchmark by killing monsters in a dungeon, & then to receive higher tiered weapons & armors then they could purchase in town while exploring the dungeon.

Also, my characters unlock ability points on the level up, which lets them unlock new skills, & apply new tactics. So the Dungeon is actually even more likely a place for the player to develop new abilities. Especially since the trash mobs will hit their respective level caps, while dungeon monsters will largely scale to the player levels.

Then are three other mechanics that I am working on "Legendary", "Nemesis", & "Party Chat" which are only partially implemented.

"Legendary" refers to a set number of single instance Legendary monsters that migrate from map to map, based on an RNG Mechanic. So they are hard to hunt down if you want to find them; but on the other hand you could be beating up on the usual slime trash mob, & walk right into a high dragon.

"Nemesis", is of course derived from Resident evil, where I got the idea for it. Where if the player's actions make a faction sufficiently hostile towards you, they effectively send an elite kill team after you, who tracks you through the world overtime. I haven't decided if they will be able to attack you in town yet.

(Uses corny Russian Accent)
"In my game, boss raid you!"

& party chat, is exactly what sounds like. A mechanic for your hero to engage you fellow party members in conversation, while out & about. So NPC conversations & story development can happen in field maps & dungeons, just as easily as in the town tavern.

So even for my own project, I wouldn't even know where to say the "golden median" is, because too many of my game's elements blend the edges as it were between them. Rather than retaining the more classical demarcations between elements of traditional JRPGs.

Simply put, it really is a case by case analysis, of how all the elements come together.

That seems to be part of "town" to be honest, with the rest of 2 being "optional". Kitting out with new gear from a town is just a part of being there, and it doesn't (well, shouldn't) take long.

Now, if keeping "town" and "dungeon" distinct, older rpgs seem to be roughly 40/60, but that doesn't mean it's a good amount. That's also assuming traveling on the world map includes encounters. Without that it'd basically end up 50/50, since there's usually a town for each dungeon and vice versa.

@Kes makes a much better point; the separation isn't really necessary to think about. Fights happen in towns (or they might also be dungeons), story happens often in or with important fights, and many games even have the "campfire" set up, allowing a location in dangerous places to allow for interparty communication.

@Kes I think whether story happens in the Dungeon does depend on the game. Let me clarify. I am thinking of story that happens in Towns and story that happens in the Dungeon could feel different. A classic game that has a clear division is Diablo: most of the story elements happen in the town, and in the Dungeon part you basically just fight and get stuff. Or Dungeons and Dragons, whether the live action version or the computer games, there is usually a "Town" part (It could be a camp or house what not. Basically "non-hostile environment") and "Dungeon" ("hostile environment") part. In games like these, the player usually gets the quest and story in the Town section while the Dungeon is reserved for combat and the occasional boss fight+story.

On the other end of the spectrum you have games with no clear separation. Some FPS games come to mind, such as Bioshock or Deadspace. I guess there's no actual Town in games like these. All story happens in the "Dungeon" part, and the Battles themselves are usually part of the narrative.

I want to say more about the "Training" phase, as in phase with purpose of making player stronger. This is an often overlooked phase. I think a relatively new genre can help us think about this phase in a new light: the Sandbox games.

Here I refer to two popular pixel based games: Terraria and Starbound. For those who haven't played, basically they are platformer RPGs but with heavy emphasis on crafting and building your base. If you've played, you know that the majority of the time is spent in "Training". Crafting, building, and organizing your stuff is the most fun part of the game, while advancing the story is more of an afterthought.

Another example with good "Training" phase is the Suikoden (and RPG Maker community's own Legion Saga) games. The most fun part of the game is building your base and collecting new heroes to make your team stronger. Building your base doesn't necessarily advance the story and
many of the hero recruits and base upgrades are entirely optional, but one can't help but wanna collect them all.

What I want to say is that we might not have to think of Training as strictly boring grinding. It could be made fun, and even become a centerpiece if done right.

I think it heavily depends on the Aesthetics of Play (and their corresponding Dynamics) that you are trying to provide your player.

1. Sensation - Go heavy on Town or Dungeon.
2. Fantasy - Possible with any type, but generally go heavy on Training (depth of content: item creation, minigames, etc.)
3. Narrative - Go heavy on Town (as others mentioned, narrative can take place elsewhere too; by your definition though it's 'Town')
4. Challenge - Go heavy on Dungeon
5. Fellowship - Rarely seen in RPGs, but games like Harvest Moon and Persona achieve this aesthetic by going heavy on Town
6. Discovery - Training for mechanical discovery; Dungeon for physical discovery
7. Expression - Go heavy on Training
8. Submission - Go heavy on Training

An RPG that views itself as an amazing world to explore and overcome is going to go heavy on stuff like Sensation, Challenge, and Discovery, and therefore should be 'Dungeon'-heavy (including Overworlds, open dungeons, etc.). An RPG that views itself as a relaxed, immersive flow for the player to fit into will focus on things like Fantasy, Expression, and Submission, meaning that it should be 'Training'-heavy.

There's no single ideal ratio that makes a good game, but knowing what types of feelings you want to provide your player with will lead you in the right direction.

I don't really like the split into town/training/dungeon.
I'd prefer this distinction which is similiar but a bit different:
1) Plot - main story advancement, dialogues, cutscenes, character interactions
2) Downtime - free-roaming, non-combat exploration, shopping, upgrading gear/skills/browsing menus
3) Dungeon - fight-heavy sequences where you have to solve problems to reach a specific goal

You can have almost any split depending on your game style.
1) Narrative-heavy Game - 50/10/40
2) Balanced / Classic RPG - 30/30/40 or 30/20/50
3) Dungeon Crawler or Boss Rush - 10/20/70
4) Adventure/VN - 70/30/0

I would geneally prefer the balanced approach since I think most games like FF6 and CT used it to great effect.

:headshake:

can't 'training' be split and merged into 'town' and 'dungeon', though?
I mean, any combat done in not-new territory would be training, but to get that not-new territory at any given point, you'd have to had come from a previous not-new territory, which would make the present not-new territory a former 'new' territory, thus, dungeon.
........right?
Diablo 2, for instance.
it's all 'dungeon', essentially.

Currently for the Legion Saga DX remake we are favoring the approach of alternating Town then Dungeon then Town then Dungeon etc etc. This isn't quite hard lined as there are some areas or story elements where this approach wasn't practical. That is, of course, in addition to the War Battles and Duels that break up aspects of the story. Additionally as stated in another post you have the recruitment drive that is an additional aspect that helps the player take a break from some things.