Decline Shit in RPGs that piss you off

[Quillon]

Companions' dialogue being exhaustible right from the start which leaves only rare updates for the rest of the game. Such pacing.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I agree with the criticism of item levels in games.

Nothing epic or legendary should ever be ranked below something you can buy from a shop, and you should never be given an epic level item as a normal quest reward - unless it is through exceptional circumstances.

Your average villager shouldn't be giving out priceless treasures just because you happened to take the quest at a higher level. Open world games like The Witcher 3 suffer the most from this problem. On Skellige alone you get fantastic swords given to you for every single quest. I remember one of the clan leaders giving me a priceless relic, something handed down their family generation after generation, normally hanging up in their castle- supposedly one of the finest weapons in existence. But it wasn't as good as a sword I already had so I sold it to the merchant outside the castle.

Time locked content is another thing that annoys me, unless there are fair signposts to warn the player they might miss stuff. The Trails in the Sky/Trails of Cold Steel games are bad at this. Often you'll have to travel across half the world and talk to random villagers just to find a piece of hidden content.

I think detailed in-game maps with waypoints/icons and compasses have also made RPGs worse. I fondly remember reading the journal in Morrowind and then having to find my own way to the quest objective. Some quests, like finding the Cavern of the Nerevarine, were very difficult unless you actually used the map in conjunction with directions in your journal. That isn't a problem now where everything gets shown on a compass or in game map.

Another annoyance of mine is characters that the game encourages you to take along with you in your party because of story reasons (or because of their writing/VA etc) but can't hold their own in terms of stats.

Other than those, the usual things of the game trying to decide what your character thinks instead of yourself creating their personality. But that is mainly a problem with JRPGs rather than WRPGs.

 

[Wayward Son]

I think detailed in-game maps with waypoints/icons and compasses have also made RPGs worse. I fondly remember reading the journal in Morrowind and then having to find my own way to the quest objective. Some quests, like finding the Cavern of the Nerevarine, were very difficult unless you actually used the map in conjunction with directions in your journal. That isn't a problem now where everything gets shown on a compass or in game map.

Someone give this bloke a motherfucking medal. Agreed with all your points friend.

 

[Zombra]

Another annoyance of mine is characters that the game encourages you to take along with you in your party because of story reasons (or because of their writing/VA etc) but can't hold their own in terms of stats.

I disagree (depending on what you mean by "hold their own"). "Gary Sue" NPCs with fabulous stats are way more annoying than suboptimal ones. I'm fine with my created PCs being the best fighters in the party.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Another annoyance of mine is characters that the game encourages you to take along with you in your party because of story reasons (or because of their writing/VA etc) but can't hold their own in terms of stats.

I disagree (depending on what you mean by "hold their own"). "Gary Sue" NPCs with fabulous stats are way more annoying than suboptimal ones. I'm fine with my created PCs being the best fighters in the party.

Games with created NPCs don't tend to force them on you during certain story points.

 

[Goral]

I don't want to repeat what others said so I'll focus on minor things that don't necessarily piss me off but are annoying nonetheless.

1) saves which can't be custom named like in Witcher or Shadowrun games - on the other end of the spectrum is Age of Decadence which groups the saves for each character we create and on top of it it shows the date, the place and the background we chose

2) non-customizable keys

3) empty/copy pasted areas (like in Shadowrun games where 90% of map during missions is empty, there is nothing there besides enemies and mission objective, no exploration potential; same goes for Bethesda games which are bloated to the extreme)

4) empty shelves (which should be visible but is not, how can you not notice that a shelf is empty?), locked empty lockers (in Underrail for example, why would anyone lock an empty locker in some remote area, I could understand in school or at work where someone could plant something but not in some cave)

5) situations which encourage save-scumming, e.g. you can steal something on a 5th try or open something on a 6th try even though your skills are very low; in Arcanum you get different loot in the first area (in the chest next to a Kite Shaman you can get from nothing to two magic armours + magic weapon depending on your build and even name)

Also not being able to increase the stats after character creation (like in AoD)

You can increase them but it's not easy.

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?

For unarmoured opponents assuming the sword would be new and sharpened it wouldn't make much of a difference but for an armoured one? Also, if one would parry a bronze sword (or with a bronze sword) the edge would dull over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjMtzJ6xgQ#t=615
So in general, on average steel swords would be better than bronze swords. I see nothing wrong with it.

Oh, one thing that pisses me off but only one person has mentioned is adding faggots to the game. Why almost all contemporary games have to include these sick people? Why not include lepers while they're at it? If they don't want to have polygon articles about LGBT oppression they could just not mention anyone's sexual orientation. What does it matter when you're supposed to be saving the world/colony/community and don't have time for romance?

 

[buru5]

That ring or amulet would remove the option of whether or not to take Pet Pal.

Which would be a fucking stupid and insipid thing.

FTFY. There would be no point to the trait/feat/whatever the fuck it is called existing if there is a way around it such as that. It is optional side content that requires a certain ability in order to access. I could maybe see your argument if it was story related quests but AFAIK they aren't. On top of which, if they give you access to this many quests you couldn't otherwise do, then it obviously isn't useful you fucktard.

Muh artificial padding to increase replayability

You make a build decision to not take this "useless" ability. It turns out to be useful in the form of unlocking otherwise gated quests. You complain about the fact that it has this use and suggest ways to make it useless. I agree with many of the others. Go play Oblivion or Skyrim instead of an RPG where you have to make build decisions that actually affect how you are able to interact with the game world via its quests and quest structure. Fucking simpleton.

"MUH SUPERIOR GAME IS SUPERIOR AND U ARE STUPID BECAUSE U DONT LIKE THIS ONE CERTAIN PART THAT I SUBJECTIVELY THINK IS GOOD AND I'M PISSED BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE THE THINGS I LIKE AND AGREE WITH ME WHAT A SIMPLETON!!!!"

Spare me your bullshit forum elitism, tool.

 

[Wayward Son]

Can you at least point out to me how it is useless if it unlocks otherwise gated content? It seems that you want it to be more useless by negating the fact that otherwise you can't access this content. Saying that it is useless implies that it has no or next to no use. I am not calling you a simpleton, you ARE a motherfucking simpleton.

 

[Jarmaro]

Oh, I forgot about something. Dunno if anyone mentioned it before, didn't see any post about it.

- Not being able to sell stolen stuff as all merchants are all-knowing gods that know it is stolen. So fucking stupid.

 

[pippin]

To be fair, it kinda bugged me some merchats wouldn't trade with you if you carried drugs in Morrowind. A nice way to make it less artificial would be employing some kind of speech or stealth check when you deal with a shopkeeper.

 

[Goral]

Not being able to sell stolen stuff as all merchants are all-knowing gods that know it is stolen. So fucking stupid.

On the other hand that could break economy in games like Planescape: Torment. You could get an infinite amount of money that way. And for certain, rare items it does make sense, e.g. you wouldn't be able to sell Mona Lisa easily.

 

[buru5]

Can you at least point out to me how it is useless if it unlocks otherwise gated content? It seems that you want it to be more useless by negating the fact that otherwise you can't access this content. Saying that it is useless implies that it has no or next to no use. I am not calling you a simpleton, you ARE a motherfucking simpleton.

I can't point out how it's useless because I never made that assertion to begin with. I just said I don't like it and would like an amulet or ring that gives you the perk. You then sperged and made some retarded assumptions about my point. So yeah, why should I explain something that was never stated to begin with? And you call me the simpleton. You can't even contain your emotions when your precious opinions are threatened.

 

[ga♥]

Not being able to sell stolen stuff as all merchants are all-knowing gods that know it is stolen. So fucking stupid.

On the other hand that could break economy in games like Planescape: Torment. You could get an infinite amount of money that way. And for certain, rare items it does make sense, e.g. you wouldn't be able to sell Mona Lisa easily.

This is exactly what happens in BG2. Steal, sell, steal, sell, and yeah, infinite money.

No idea why would they allow that.

 

[Wayward Son]

Can you at least point out to me how it is useless if it unlocks otherwise gated content? It seems that you want it to be more useless by negating the fact that otherwise you can't access this content. Saying that it is useless implies that it has no or next to no use. I am not calling you a simpleton, you ARE a motherfucking simpleton.

I can't point out how it's useless because I never made that assertion to begin with. I just said I don't like it and would like an amulet or ring that gives you the perk. You then sperged and made some retarded assumptions about my point. So yeah, why should I explain something that was never stated to begin with? And you call me the simpleton. You can't even contain your emotions when your precious opinions are threatened.

Except you did make that(or a similar) assertion:

Reminds me of Divinity Original Sin, where not taking a shit talent (Pet Pal) will actually make you miss 4 or 5 quests throughout the game. Stupid design choice, imo.

It's obviously not a shit talent if it gives you access to otherwise gated content. Unless that content is shit, in which case, I can't see why you're complaining. You are arguing for the lessening of the consequences of build choice in an RPG of all things. That is why we are suggesting you play a game where your choices of build have little to no consequence.

 

[bataille]

Incentives to haul trash items to the traders. I'm more pleased if the money in a game turn out to be useless since that means there is no need in one of the most braindead activities one can imagine in a video game.
I still consider the design philosophy of dungeon crawl stone soup to be the best. You can't sell items, so you just pick up what you need, ignore the rest and move on and don't look back. It just feels right and very healthy as opposed to that awful hoarding and weight-/space-management of other games.

 

[Nutria]

Not being able to sell stolen stuff as all merchants are all-knowing gods that know it is stolen. So fucking stupid.

It's a shame because there's a lot of interesting stuff you could do with fencing stolen property. Like maybe the shopkeeper buys it, but the next time you come around he's pissed off at you or he's got the cops waiting for you.

 

[fantadomat]

Respawning enemies,grinding and lack of side quests.....aka jrpgs

 

[Zombra]

Incentives to haul trash items to the traders. I'm more pleased if the money in a game turn out to be useless since that means there is no need in one of the most braindead activities one can imagine in a video game.
I still consider the design philosophy of dungeon crawl stone soup to be the best. You can't sell items, so you just pick up what you need, ignore the rest and move on and don't look back. It just feels right and very healthy as opposed to that awful hoarding and weight-/space-management of other games.

Can't fist hard enough. In fact if I didn't know better I'd think you were an alt of me.

"Warehouse Management Simulator 2004" is not a game I would wait in line to play. Maybe for a solid salary and decent benefits; otherwise, no.

 

[deuxhero]

Random vendor inventory where, despite not needing OOC knowledge to desire a particular item (like a scope for a common type of rifle) that can show up in a vendor's inventory, there's no way to request it. Especially so when the vendor is also a creator. For that matter, random vendor inventory where important items everyone wants that the vendor should have a reasonable amount of (anti-rad meds in a radioactive hellhole, food, basic tools needed for work) are in short supply yet expensive shit few want (high-end rifles) are the bulk of the trader's inventory (one of the big problems with Call of Chernobyl right now, forcing you to exploit how vendor inventory is randomized on a game load and quickload repeatedly). I love the New Vegas mod Mail Order Catalogs, which gave an elegant and lore friendly solution (Nevada has a working postal system and a gun maker that sells everything in there to anyone with money anyways. Why shouldn't they do mail order?)

 

[gaussgunner]

Reminds me of Divinity Original Sin, where not taking a shit talent (Pet Pal) will actually make you miss 4 or 5 quests throughout the game. Stupid design choice, imo.

It's obviously not a shit talent if it gives you access to otherwise gated content. Unless that content is shit, in which case, I can't see why you're complaining. You are arguing for the lessening of the consequences of build choice in an RPG of all things. That is why we are suggesting you play a game where your choices of build have little to no consequence.

It was obvious to me. When you're playing a game with a talking cat who's a powerful wizard, and there's a skill that lets you talk to other animals, you take it.

 

[Zombra]

When you're playing a game with a talking cat who's a powerful wizard, and there's a skill that lets you talk to other animals, you take it.

But ... you could have +15% fire resistance !!!!!!!

 

[eXalted]

Dialogue options that I know what the response is going to be.


Oh, great hero, please help our poor village. Bandits in the outskirts are constantly harassing and stealing our caravans!

1. Of course, I will help thee in these times of trouble!
2. Have you asked the King for help?
3. I won't help thee.

Yes, but he is so short on soldiers right now with all this war going on in these times of trouble!

1. I will help you then... sheesh...
2. I won't help you then.


Of course, they will say that! "Ah, right! We will tell the King! Here is your EXP reward" said no villager ever.


I started skipping a lot of dialogue options. Now playing RPGs is healthier than ever. I remember Zombra trying to explain this to all the autists here.

 

[Goral]

Of course, they will say that! "Ah, right! We will tell the King!

As if king would be interested in solving peasants problems... They wouldn't even be able to contact him. Bad example.

 

[Elemental_wanamingo]

I hate how little gameplay there is in dialogue. Nobody seems to be willing to implement anything else than skill checks with colored texts. Typical dialogue options are then like this:

Do you want this magical sword?
1. Yes

If your speaking skill is above 8 then the text is green and you get the sword. If less than 8 then the text is normal color and you don't get it. The depth of the gameplay is marvelous! You can play as a character that avoids all gameplay.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Invisible walls used to piss me off, but I learned to accept them. I didn't want to play TW1 at first because of them, but now it's the most memorable game of the series for me.