The RPG Maker series is the most user-friendly, by far. No scripting knowledge is necessary, yet scripting (in Ruby) is possible. The user community is fairly robust, and there are hundreds of scripts available to copy-paste into your project to do the things the default program won't do.
With other, more open (and arguably more powerful) engines such as Game Maker, learning particular scripting or coding is mandatory.
People like to bash RPG Maker, often without particular knowledge of the product. Given that you can customize the battle system (with scripts) and replace all art and sound assets, RPG Maker VX Ace, for example, is a tool capable of creating games exactly like any given 2D Final Fantasy title (or for that matter Dragon Quest, Breath of Fire, Lufia, etc.)
You should know that the PC line of RPG Maker software does have some hard limits which are difficult if not impossible to surpass. For example, they specialize in 2D. If you're interested in making a 3D game, this series would be more work than it's worth. Also, the software has some unfortunate resolution limitations which can only be modified slightly with scripts.
I own VX Ace myself, and am very pleased with its capabilities.
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