Decline Shit in RPGs that piss you off

[Zombra]

Is there anything worse than having a boss battle, you mopping the floor with the boss in seconds because your build is OP as fuck, only to lose in a cutscene for retarded plot reasons? Why even include the boss battle in the first place? Just make it a cutscene and nothing of value will be lost.

Backwards. Remove the cutscene and have the boss be super strong so you can be beaten through gameplay. Then when you level go back to beat them through gameplay it will be that much more satisfying.

Cutscenes in general are cancer. Game writing by and large has no handle on the value of brevity, and acted scenes are a billion times worse than text, which can at least be skimmed. You can still have your precious voiceovers happen while I am playing the damn game.

 

[Zombra]

Enforced "replayability" as in "you can go to either level A or level B but not both because we've got to peddle it how superreplayableseventimes our game is".

Can't hit Disagree hard enough. Choice and consequence. If I blow up the refinery I shouldn't be able to do the refinery level. If I side with Blue Team I shouldn't also be able to join Red Team. The solution is not "don't let the player blow up the refinery". Without choices an RPG is nothing but a long meaningless checklist. "Nothing the player does has any impact" is not a great design pillar.

My character can't speak with animals because I didn't pick a useless trait that let him speak with animals, this choice locked me out of some quests that I could have done.

Getting locked out of quests because of character/party build is major incline. Choice and consequence. If every party can always do everything, why bother making a build or playing an RPG at all. The ideal RPG has so many quests you could never do them all, and then you choose the ones you want to do based on build and preference. Unless of course you play them because yay Checklist Quest.

Lack of clear direction to progress main quest. At least add a note to the journal or something.

Not sure if trolling as this smacks a little bit of "quest compass", but I agree. The story to your 80 hour RPG is fascinating, but I stopped playing for a few weeks and I can't remember what the hell I'm supposed to be doing.

 

[Sacred82]

I agree except for

The ideal RPG has so many quests you could never do them all, and then you choose the ones you want to do based on build and preference. Unless of course you play them because yay Checklist Quest.

If you have so many quests that you can't do them all you probably have enough quests to powerlevel every possible build. Not a good idea IMO as you're taking babysteps to power and shit is going to be easy no matter what your build is (as long as it's not stupid).

 

[ColonelTeacup]

One dialogue option during conversations, especially for created characters. It forces character development in a certain way, when they could have easily added in a few different responses that garnered the same response or a slightly different response.

 

[Zombra]

I agree except for

The ideal RPG has so many quests you could never do them all, and then you choose the ones you want to do based on build and preference. Unless of course you play them because yay Checklist Quest.

If you have so many quests that you can't do them all you probably have enough quests to powerlevel every possible build. Not a good idea IMO as you're taking babysteps to power and shit is going to be easy no matter what your build is (as long as it's not stupid).

Well ... that's a valid complaint - I hate games where doing side quests trivializes the MQ - but there are a lot of ways to prevent this. Geometric progression on leveling. Maximum level gates for quests (you're level 500, I'm not going to ask you to find my cat.) Build-related gates for quests (you must be this tall in the Ranger Guild to ride this ride, druids can never take this quest, etc.) Reduced xp for overlevelled fights/quests (rats give 0 xp after level 5). Exclusive decision making in builds (learning assassin abilities locks out paladin abilities and vice versa). These are just off the top of my head.

 

[tindrli]

What a great topic, let me share my toughts while im sitting in my dark corner.
My Name is Wulfric, im playing rpgs since late 80'a...

As i love whole crpg genre to the bone, both fantasy / steamp. / distopian like fallouts / etc. i love to play all kind of titles, even those called mediocre.

I really HATE, when my planned HOLY GAMING SESSION afterwork, while kids are sleeping already, along with good drink, some crap food, few hours of complete dive in to rpg universe etc.
is brutally broken by my fucking wife interruption of so called fucking important stuff talking, and for the fucking fuck sake yellin bout some freaking fucking shit like motherfuckin house cleaning,
more helping, more everything , more. more... more... fucking moreeee..... then i wish to have magic teleport out of this fucking world of misery straight to game world grab that oversized fucking
monster axe and made my "wife never changes" quest complete... ekhm.. hm.. hm.... myuaha. muahahahahahah...... muaahauhauhauahua............. muahuahauhauahuahauhauahauhauahuahauha.............. [run away naked to the outside, howlin to the moon ]

you are not the only one Bro....

 

[Sacred82]

I agree except for

The ideal RPG has so many quests you could never do them all, and then you choose the ones you want to do based on build and preference. Unless of course you play them because yay Checklist Quest.

If you have so many quests that you can't do them all you probably have enough quests to powerlevel every possible build. Not a good idea IMO as you're taking babysteps to power and shit is going to be easy no matter what your build is (as long as it's not stupid).

Well ... that's a valid complaint - I hate games where doing side quests trivializes the MQ - but there are a lot of ways to prevent this. Geometric progression on leveling. Maximum level gates for quests (you're level 500, I'm not going to ask you to find my cat.) Build-related gates for quests (you must be this tall in the Ranger Guild to ride this ride, druids can never take this quest, etc.) Reduced xp for overlevelled fights/quests (rats give 0 xp after level 5). Exclusive decision making in builds (learning assassin abilities locks out paladin abilities and vice versa). These are just off the top of my head.

well yeah, there are ways to prevent it being too easy. It still seems pretty gamey though. I think the Fallout's had a nice quest density for builds - there were some specialized quests, but you also usually did some other stuff that didn't pertain exactly to your build.

I guess what you suggest works better in sandboxes. Like, in Daggerfall, when you made a character that was very resistant to cold, I wished for some way to take my character to some place where this would be generally useful.

 

[Naraya]

Inventory micro-management.

 

[Dorateen]

Accessibility.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Inventory micro-management.

What RPGs have you played where this doesn't occur?

How did you become so familiar with RPGs if something as inherent as Inventory Management pisses you off to the point where it's the thing you mention in a "pisses you off thread"?

 

[Zombra]

I guess what you suggest works better in sandboxes.

True. My assumption is that most RPGs have an unfocused, sandboxy quality, but it's good to remember that narrower RPGs are awesome too.

Which brings me to a serious peeve:
Story design and game design that don't fit together.
How many times have we seen a villain about to destroy the world, and then some villager asks us to go look for their missing nephew? I don't have time for side quests, fuckface ... and yet if I don't do any side quests, I won't have enough xp to actually defeat the villain, so I end up hanging out wasting a bunch of time pretending nothing's going to happen until I get there anyway (which of course it isn't).
If the story is supposed to be urgent, cut down on the sandbox/exploration design.

Inventory micro-management.

What RPGs have you played where this doesn't occur? How did you become so familiar with RPGs if something as inherent as Inventory Management pisses you off to the point where it's the thing you mention in a "pisses you off thread"?

There's a difference between inventory management and inventory micro-management. I hate too much of it too. Some RPGs let you equip a bow and call it good, fine, you have arrows, whatever. Some track how many arrows you have and make you buy more. And some have 15 different types of arrows with slightly different stats, and you have to go into inventory before every combat to make sure you have the optimal type equipped for this enemy - and in a battle with multiple enemy types, you need to reequip during combat!

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

There's a difference between inventory management and inventory micro-management. I hate too much of it too. Some RPGs let you equip a bow and call it good, fine, you have arrows, whatever. Some track how many arrows you have and make you buy more. And some have 15 different types of arrows with slightly different stats, and you have to go into inventory before every combat to make sure you have the optimal type equipped for this enemy - and in a battle with multiple enemy types, you need to go back into inventory several times throughout.

Indeed. The reason I play PC games is because I enjoy micro-management. Solid loot variety that is actually important for different enemies is what separates good games from shit games, most of the time. Micro-managing your characters during a battle is what makes battles interesting.

The only annoying thing about Inventory Management is when the game floods you with quest items of unknown potential use, like keys that don't evaporate after use but have you go through lots of doors without ever alerting you to whether any of them used the key you picked up.

 

[Zombra]

Indeed. The reason I play PC games is because I enjoy micro-management. Solid loot variety that is actually important for different enemies is what separates good games from shit games, most of the time. Micro-managing your characters during a battle is what makes battles interesting.

I completely respect that point of view without sharing it.

The only annoying thing about Inventory Management is when the game floods you with quest items of unknown potential use, like keys that don't evaporate after use but have you go through lots of doors without ever alerting you to whether any of them used the key you picked up.

I hate this too. Of course I'm sure there are people out there who love it. Just goes to show that everybody has a point where greater detail becomes clutter.

 

[Master]

Enforced "replayability" as in "you can go to either level A or level B but not both because we've got to peddle it how superreplayableseventimes our game is".

Can't hit Disagree hard enough. Choice and consequence. If I blow up the refinery I shouldn't be able to do the refinery level. If I side with Blue Team I shouldn't also be able to join Red Team. The solution is not "don't let the player blow up the refinery". Without choices an RPG is nothing but a long meaningless checklist. "Nothing the player does has any impact" is not a great design pillar.

My character can't speak with animals because I didn't pick a useless trait that let him speak with animals, this choice locked me out of some quests that I could have done.

Getting locked out of quests because of character/party build is major incline. Choice and consequence. If every party can always do everything, why bother making a build or playing an RPG at all. The ideal RPG has so many quests you could never do them all, and then you choose the ones you want to do based on build and preference. Unless of course you play them because yay Checklist Quest.

Yes its good if your decisions have some weight but at the same time this complete gating bothers me. Many times when i play a good guy for some reason i always want to make a complete 180 degrees turnaround. But why cant i do that? Why cant i say "allright bitch ill kill all my party members and bring you their heads on a platter. Can i join the Dark side then?" Somehow i can never do that and even if i could the Bad Guys just wouldnt care and would try to kill me anyway.

 

[Zombra]

Yes its good if your decisions have some weight but at the same time this complete gating bothers me. Many times when i play a good guy for some reason i always want to make a complete 180 degrees turnaround. But why cant i do that? Why cant i say "allright bitch ill kill all my party members and bring you their heads on a platter. Can i join the Dark side then?" Somehow i can never do that and even if i could the Bad Guys just wouldnt care and would try to kill me anyway.

I think alignment systems can be fascinating. Simplistic good/evil isn't too thrilling, but look at a game like the upcoming No Truce with the Furies. [Codex thread] If you act like a fascist a lot in that game, you get the Fascist tag and new options and NPC responses appear (and others are closed off). In my opinion that elevates role-playing - now your behavior and personality have actual game consequences and aren't just "all in your head". I actually think it's interesting and cool that if you save 1000 kittens, it becomes hard coded that you are a good person and literally incapable of murder. Of course we all want all options all the time, but what we want moment to moment doesn't always translate into good gaming. Receiving hard behavioral limitations as feedback for previous actions is really interesting in terms of design ... as long as there are still enough options to continue making meaningful decisions. (Even established good guys shouldn't have all options except "Save kitten" greyed out.)

 

[Master]

Yes alignment systems are how they usually do it. Its a good idea in theory but in practice it leads to all kinds of stupid shit. The worst implementation was in F:NV which actually gets praised for this. I can kill that entire camp (Mcclaren?) for the Legion and still they hate me because i stole something way back. They just wont forget it no matter what i do, no matter what legendary shit i pull off. The game compares some numbers on some scale and i dont check out. All those people killed for nothing.

But it was good in Arcanum with the reputations. If you do a specific thing like steal from shopkeepers or run around naked the game recognizes it. Yes more of this please. Try and anticipate certain things the player would do instead of just automating it and calling it a done deal.

 

[Zombra]

Its a good idea in theory but in practice it leads to all kinds of stupid shit.

This should be the t-shirt for this thread. Actually for life in general.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Inventory micro-management.

What RPGs have you played where this doesn't occur?

How did you become so familiar with RPGs if something as inherent as Inventory Management pisses you off to the point where it's the thing you mention in a "pisses you off thread"?

Any game with a group inventory and a handy sort function solves this problem. JRPGs often do this. Wizardry 8 was a good compromise, with a group inventory, a sort, and even a filter function. Main problem was it displayed too few items at once.

Basically if a 16 bit console game from the 90s can solve this issue there's no excuse for it anymore.

 

[mondblut]

Can't hit Disagree hard enough. Choice and consequence. If I blow up the refinery I shouldn't be able to do the refinery level.

Proper answer is do the refinery level, THEN blow it up.

Without choices an RPG is nothing but a long meaningless checklist.

With choices an RPG is nothing but two or more meaningless checklists, each only marginally shorter than the long one - when, for the most part, even one is one too much.

"Nothing the player does has any impact" is not a great design pillar.

Great design pillar is arranging the mutually exclusive things in such a way that a smart player can find his away around the gating. Sure, if you complete a quest to kill Dildo McAnus, you can't receive further quests from Dildo McAnus. So fucking do the quests from Dildo McAnus first, ffs! If quest design is all about "kill Dildo McAnus for Anus O'Dildo VS kill Anus O'Dildo for Dildo McAnus", it is shit design.

Or, you know, you can actually apply brains to quest design and add clever ways to fake and imitate their completion to satisfy both parties, like it was done in 7.62.

Getting locked out of quests because of character/party build is major incline. Choice and consequence. If every party can always do everything, why bother making a build or playing an RPG at all.

Consequences-shmonsequences. Good RPGs have multiple solutions and a plenty of redundancies. Use mage to cast knock, use thief to pick a lock, use warrior to bash down the door. That's what makes an RPG - not having "a warrior's tale" and "a thief's tale" standalones stuffed into one executable.

The ideal RPG has so many quests you could never do them all, and then you choose the ones you want to do based on build and preference.

Who are you kidding?

 

[pippin]

What a great topic, let me share my toughts while im sitting in my dark corner.
My Name is Wulfric, im playing rpgs since late 80'a...

As i love whole crpg genre to the bone, both fantasy / steamp. / distopian like fallouts / etc. i love to play all kind of titles, even those called mediocre.

I really HATE, when my planned HOLY GAMING SESSION afterwork, while kids are sleeping already, along with good drink, some crap food, few hours of complete dive in to rpg universe etc.
is brutally broken by my fucking wife interruption of so called fucking important stuff talking, and for the fucking fuck sake yellin bout some freaking fucking shit like motherfuckin house cleaning,
more helping, more everything , more. more... more... fucking moreeee..... then i wish to have magic teleport out of this fucking world of misery straight to game world grab that oversized fucking
monster axe and made my "wife never changes" quest complete... ekhm.. hm.. hm.... myuaha. muahahahahahah...... muaahauhauhauahua............. muahuahauhauahuahauhauahauhauahuahauha.............. [run away naked to the outside, howlin to the moon ]

Play D:OS coop with your waifu. You must playing it holding hands like the characters from the box tho

 

[Zombra]

Can't hit Disagree hard enough. Choice and consequence. If I blow up the refinery I shouldn't be able to do the refinery level.

Proper answer is do the refinery level, THEN blow it up.

Or in other words, do the quest, then kill the quest giver for xp because you can. Don't need to explain why that's a crap way to play and not worth designing for.

 

[eggdogg]

Its a good idea in theory but in practice it leads to all kinds of stupid shit.

This should be the t-shirt for this thread. Actually for life in general.

 

[Alex]

While I don't mind having the game cut me off content for this or that choice, I think that almost always when this happens, it is a deliberate decision of the designer rather than something that happens naturally. It feels like the game designers decided to brainstorm about "ok, what is the big conflict in this area?", came up with two or three sides in a conflict and designed the game around the players choosing one of them to help and being cut off from the rest.

My problem with this is that this takes away your own agency, casting you as a pawn into a pre-made plot you must follow if you want to get anywhere. I understand, of course, the limitations of a computer RPG, but even with these limitations, your game doesn't need to be "plot oriented". Your quest design doesn't need to be about where you want the story to go next and which choices the PC get to make (out of a list), but it could be about "what can the PC do at this point?".

I was watching today a movie called "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", an old suspense movie with Vincent Price. It is a nice movie although it makes lots of dumb mistakes. But I mention it because one particular brand of dumb mistake it makes is that the people killed by Dr. Phibes and the policemen trying to stop him all don't seem terribly concerned in making an effort to stop him. Right in the beginning of the movie, one of his victims dies in bed devoured by bats. Bats that are clearly not all that big and which he could probably kill very easily if he wanted. Even though you frequently feel like it would be very easy to escape the situations the movie present, or that you would at least have a fighting chance if you wanted, the characters in the movie seem consigned to their fate. They know their place in the story and they just want to get it over with, it seems. That is how I feel about a lot of modern games. Why can't I use my illusion spells to fool the crime syndicate lord into hiring me and letting me infiltrate his organisation? Why can't I use a fireball spell to break through a locked door when I've used it to destroy a much larger and more resilient golem? This kind of stuff makes the game seem more about the game designer's characters, not about yours. For instance, New Vegas allows you to follow the "independent" path in the main quest. Only that, rather than being your own faction, it is just about being an anarchist.

Anyway, one thing I hate in RPGs are systems that don't make no sense, internal logic of the world or not. For instance, we have the "cooldown" abilities where you won't be able to use an ability for a certain time after you first used it. In a few instance, this could make sense; maybe the cooldown is an actual cooldown of some device or something. Or maybe it represents something that exists only in the game itself, like magic powers. But when you have stuff like in Underrail where you have cooldowns for using grenades and robots are somehow able to become immune to emps for a little while right after being emped, it just makes the game feel like a farce. I can, of course, deal with this. Underrail is a game I like very much, actually, and I am a big fan of Wizardry 6/7 even though the class change system resetting your attributes make no sense at all. But even when I like games that do this, I think they could stand to be a whole lot better if they tried to make sense instead of just throwing the pretence away.

 

[jimmy_pvish]

Game that encourage grinding or design with grinding in mind. (thrown low level character to you at late game, you want to use them? then grind !!)

 

[Zombra]

Prestigious post, Alex. I agree that scripted choices are artificial and it would be preferable for games to gate content and create conflict more believably and organically, like a flesh-and-blood GM can. We're not there yet, of course, and procedural content is nowhere near sophisticated enough to feel inspired when you play it. I also would like to leave the road of heavily scripted decisions ... right now, though, it appears that this is the only way they can have meaning and impact on the narrative.