Krivol
Magister
Which RPG games do it right?
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Decline Shit in RPGs that piss you off
- Thread starter mbv123
- Start date
Which RPG games do it right?
Brayko
Self-Ejected
Two extremes piss me off.
-Autism simulators and proud of it (Try hards)
-Closet consolitis that retains a bit of autism because it doesn't know what it wants, ultimately ruining the whole thing *cough Oblivion*
To this day, the best retro RPG's in my opinion are still Grimrock and Xulima, not a hint of insecurity in these games.
-Autism simulators and proud of it (Try hards)
-Closet consolitis that retains a bit of autism because it doesn't know what it wants, ultimately ruining the whole thing *cough Oblivion*
To this day, the best retro RPG's in my opinion are still Grimrock and Xulima, not a hint of insecurity in these games.
Lilura
RPG Codex Dragon Lady
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- Feb 13, 2013
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- 5,274
Pity they're both garbage, though.
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2016
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The Witcher 1.
Drog Black Tooth
Self-Ejected
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- 2,636
Carry weight, inventory tetris, etc is just one of those things that only adds tedium. And it doesn't even make sense, hey look you're carrying 8 broadswords but this carrot suddenly makes you over encumbered, let's drop fucking everything in the middle of a dungeon and go find a shop to offload our shit. Fuck you. I'd rather prefer an unlimited inventory and with a list instead of a grid.
Games are fun when they let you make choices. Removing limitations takes away some of that choice. To me it's more interesting to choose whether to pick up that carrot or those eight broadswords than have the non-choice of being a human vacuum cleaner that picks up everything that isn't bolted down. That is tedium to me, brainless busywork that involves no decision-making and starts to feel like actual work if there's too much of it (and in RPGs there almost always is).
Inventory systems are rarely flawless, games reward you for compulsive hoarding by having merchants that are willing to buy one hundred thousand identical iron shortswords from you, and all sorts of exploits exist for those that seek them, but to me it's much less tedious to have a limited inventory and simply not pick up useless trash.
Alkarl
Learned
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2016
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- 472
So, in most games I definitely agree. All you're basically doing is comparing one set of numbers to another and hauking the lower values on the next/nearest merchant.
But, what if most of the stuff you could pick up was either obviously useful or obviously useless? What if, like in Daggerfall, you had a cart sitting at the entrance you could offload on?
I always hate when I'm looking at two sets of numbers on what is ostensibly the same weapon and one happens to be marginally better because it's steel instead of iron. Or, better yet, iron instead of bronze. In what way is a sharp bit of iron worse at making things bleed than steel?
Also, weapon degredation. Swords and stuff don't just crumble into dust after so many swings. Maybe they get dull, but they aren't going to just break into bits after what would amount to marginal use. Armor I can understand a bit better, especially leathers and solid plate, gotta patch up them holes.
circ
Arcane
Is this a poll? Well who cares.
I enter a city and people say stuff.
I enter it later and people say the same stuff.
I enter it after slaying the arch demon J1M and people still say the same stuff.
I enter a city and people say stuff.
I enter it later and people say the same stuff.
I enter it after slaying the arch demon J1M and people still say the same stuff.
I completely agree, but. A system that trains you to pick up everything (you can carry 2000 items) and then stops you cold at 2001 (now you have to pick through 2000 things to see what to throw away) is shit.
If you want inventory decisions to matter, great! Make a system where you can carry only a reasonable amount of stuff and make those decisions important right from the start. One suit of armor, 2-3 weapons tops, etc.
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Lack of utility/non-combat magic. All the unlimited potential that comes with being able to alter reality, and it's just used to kill things or make other people better at killing things.
Item durability. Every so often, you're forced to stop doing something fun and do something unfun instead by heading back to town to repair your gear. For what purpose?
Crafting. It used to be that when you found loot, you could maybe use or at least sell it. Now your inventory is cluttered by dozens of components that you can maybe eventually take back to town and assemble into something that's either completely useless, or so overpowered that it makes loot drops and quest rewards meaningless. It's a box on a list that seemingly every modern RPG needs to check, but why? Who actually likes this shit?
Item durability. Every so often, you're forced to stop doing something fun and do something unfun instead by heading back to town to repair your gear. For what purpose?
Crafting. It used to be that when you found loot, you could maybe use or at least sell it. Now your inventory is cluttered by dozens of components that you can maybe eventually take back to town and assemble into something that's either completely useless, or so overpowered that it makes loot drops and quest rewards meaningless. It's a box on a list that seemingly every modern RPG needs to check, but why? Who actually likes this shit?
Great Deceiver
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2012
- Messages
- 5,894
1. Scaled everything
2. Random loot tables that give you thousands of equally worthless individual vendor trash. Some random loot is acceptable as in, for example, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but what you have in mainstream RPGs is just fucking retarded.
3. Crafting. Fuck crafting
4. Unskippable anything
5. Carbon copy skill trees
6. Save the world you're our only hope
7. Massive lore dumps that are written by paid-by-word fanfic-level hacks and not edited in the slightest
2. Random loot tables that give you thousands of equally worthless individual vendor trash. Some random loot is acceptable as in, for example, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, but what you have in mainstream RPGs is just fucking retarded.
3. Crafting. Fuck crafting
4. Unskippable anything
5. Carbon copy skill trees
6. Save the world you're our only hope
7. Massive lore dumps that are written by paid-by-word fanfic-level hacks and not edited in the slightest
And just as I was about to give you a good fisting...
BTW, nice to see you are still around. Missed you in the Nalakh and Natuk thread some weeks ago.
Hobo Elf
Arcane
Level scaling
Random loot drops
Random attributes in said loot
Crafting
MMO quests in single player RPGs
Level scaling is the only true bane of my existence. RNG loot and loot drops have their place, but not in all games. It's impossible to make exploration rewarding or exciting if you don't have hand crafted and hand placed loot. Unlocking chests that has a 10% chance to contain a GREEN quality item from a set loot table is dull.
Crafting is always boring busy work that rarely serves a purpose that couldn't be fulfilled using the old and mundane methods such as buying an item from a shop or finding it in a dungeon. Usually it's there to waste your time and stretch the game time further than what it actually needs to be. But, hey, gotta have that "Over 100+ hours of epic adventures" on the game box.
Random loot drops
Random attributes in said loot
Crafting
MMO quests in single player RPGs
Level scaling is the only true bane of my existence. RNG loot and loot drops have their place, but not in all games. It's impossible to make exploration rewarding or exciting if you don't have hand crafted and hand placed loot. Unlocking chests that has a 10% chance to contain a GREEN quality item from a set loot table is dull.
Crafting is always boring busy work that rarely serves a purpose that couldn't be fulfilled using the old and mundane methods such as buying an item from a shop or finding it in a dungeon. Usually it's there to waste your time and stretch the game time further than what it actually needs to be. But, hey, gotta have that "Over 100+ hours of epic adventures" on the game box.
I don't get this hatred of random loot. Looting was never as fun and exciting as in Might&Magic 2, Nahlakh and Natuk.
Though it would be boring if all CRPGs had random loot, just as would be boring is all CRPGs used the same character system, or all CRPGs had characters that are just numbers.
Though it would be boring if all CRPGs had random loot, just as would be boring is all CRPGs used the same character system, or all CRPGs had characters that are just numbers.
Some more annoying shit: traps and puzzles. Go into any home and you'll find traps on all the cupboards and floors, just to slow down the player and ensure he's forced to take a rogue with him (a class which, more often than not, seems to exist solely to disarm traps). Even a dungeon has people who live there or at least use it frequently, do they really want to memorize and carefully avoid where the traps are so they don't get themselves killed?
Puzzles are another thing that are just there to waste the player's time and have no in-universe reason to exist. Whoever built the dungeon put a great deal of effort into a complex mechanism to slow down intruders for a few minutes. Why?
Puzzles are another thing that are just there to waste the player's time and have no in-universe reason to exist. Whoever built the dungeon put a great deal of effort into a complex mechanism to slow down intruders for a few minutes. Why?
"Vendor loot", introduced either deliberately or as a byproduct of economic design that creates it.
Hauling loot to the shop isn't a challenge, it isn't an adventure; it's an errand.
Hauling loot to the shop isn't a challenge, it isn't an adventure; it's an errand.
Brancaleone
Liturgist
P.S. Cooldowns deserve a separate topic to properly rage about.
Lhynn
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2013
- Messages
- 9,852
Gamey systems, level scaling, skill trees, lack of interaction between the systems and the narrative, banal writing (ill take simple, stereotypical writing like "save the kingdom, heres a sword" over boring uneventful shit). No character creation, having to play as a preset character.
SkeleTony
Augur
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2006
- Messages
- 938
The closest we get are Jagged Alliance 2 (1.13 modded), though even that game has a cheesy 'insta-deposit into bank account' button for cash (but at least it is not massively heavy amounts of pure gold and shit). Also one or two more I am struggling to remember right now.
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7,62 High Calibre
SkeleTony
Augur
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- Aug 17, 2006
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- 938
But I am right about those points.
I don't make it back here as often anymore since the Putin/Trump fan club took over the Codex so I was unaware there was a new Nalakh/Natuk thread.
SkeleTony
Augur
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- Aug 17, 2006
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- 938
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lol ok
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