Things that piss you off on RPGs.

[racofer]

Yeah so I just finished replaying Bloodlines one more time (last time was like two years ago), and damn.... The game is still my favorite, like I've advocated here many times over, but for some reason this time the bugs pissed me off. Just to give one example, at some point I couldn't increase dexterity any longer (not because of clan restriction or anything like that), because whenever I tried to add points it instead would subtract them! This one was totally new to me.

But now back on topic, what do I hate on many RPGs, more than anything else:

* Not being able to complete certain quests because I ignored the "imaginary sequence of events" the developers had in mind. Example: again in bloodlines there's a quest in downtown where after you enter the hospital that crazy bitch asks you to retrieve a certain item from the museum. Except, I had already done the museum way back before talking to her.

I hate this kind of things when you end up with an unsolvable quest because you no longer can get access to an area since it's considered done, when in fact there's still shit left to be done there.

 

[Kavax]

FedEx quests. I tried. I really tried to play the original Baldur's gate, but...

I couldn't. The horror...

 

[Serious_Business]

I suck and my opinion is worthless

 

[DefJam101]

The same thing I hate about 90% of games, the obligatory scenario(s) where an objective is presented to you, and then you get fed this bullshit about: "But first, you must acquire the 5 masks of madness to unlock the door! These masks are located in... come back when you have all 5 masks!" Surely, there must be another way to progress through the game's content.

 

[Qwinn]

Spending months fixing them, and then getting trolled for your efforts.

Qwinn

 

[RK47]

the inability to kill off annoying characters. Or at least intimidate them.

 

[OSK]

Fake C&C.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

1. Non-tactical turn-based combat. (Wizardry, M&M, Bard's Tale, every JRPG ever)

2. Railroading. Stuff like getting captured in the Fallout 3 main quest no matter how strong your character is, having party members die no matter how strong they are or whether you can just revive them, having the plot advance the same way no matter what the player does, has done in the past, or what his personality is, and cutscenes in general. RPGs are about me making my own story, not following someone else's. Hell, Bioware's AuroraToolsetTutorial.pdf says "Use links to allow players to follow different paths in a conversation while ensuring that they are being provided with the same information. This is especially important when dealing with any plot information." What the fuck, Bioware. Decline of cRPGs.

3. Bugs. cRPGs are the least polished genre ever.

4. The fact that removing 2 and 3 at the same time would require an enormous budget and likely be impossible. Having so many choices creates so many possible playthroughs that it would be impossible to test them all. That said, Drog and Killap have shown that modders can finish games as complex as Fallout 2 and Arcanum, (which have almost no railroading) but shouldn't the RPG genre strive to surpass FO2 and Arcanum, not lag behind them?

 

[trais]

Having to fight tons of weaklings that pose no threat whatsoever.

 

[Redeye]

FedEx quests. I tried. I really tried to play the original Baldur's gate, but...

I couldn't. The horror...

Baldur's Gate 24 minute speed run

the prick cheats (potion hack)

Still, the video is very instructive.

on topic:

I hate it when the game cannot be sploited.

I also hate it when a game is crappy enough to require sploiting to generate fun.
(Oblivion)

 

[Ion Flux]

Bland, formulaic stories. Shallow worlds with no hint of originality.

 

[hiver]

All of the above except Qwinn example heh, heh.... sorryyy.

Ill add a few.

Having those bloody fences i cannot jump over or some bloody small ditch i cannot cross but i have to go all the bloody way around.

No jumping. What the hell is that? Why do i have 3D graphics if there third dimension isnt allowed in the game? (oblibion has hoping around, not jumping and its a hack and slash sandbox anyway)

No climbing either. Why? wtf

No destructible environments. wtf?

Dialogue that serves only to get you to the next quest. Always grammatically correct and clear and totally unbelievable. Lets have some ordinary human talk once in a while mkay?

Any kind of morale - karma meter.
Horrible.

 

[hakuroshi]

Games which allow (and even encourage) to build an intelligent and diplomatic character and then smack him in the end with unaviodable combat without companions.
Even otherwise great games suffered from it (PT).
But primary examples are both KOTORs.

 

[Lord Chambers]

The thing that pisses me off the most about RPGs is that they call themselves by the unifying moniker RPG when they would be better grouped into multiple seperate genres. The gameplay of Oblivion satisfies the same neurological pathways as Grand Theft Auto. Planescape: Torment satisfies the same ones as Monkey Island. None of these are more rightly an RPG than another, but tradition and a few superficial mechanics tell us to solidly link Oblivion and Planescape together while rejecting GTA and Monkey from this RPG discussion. A game where the primary gameplay is combat and loot-collecting angers the person who wants to roleplay a diplomat. The game where the primary gameplay is to illuminate a plot frustrates the player who doesn't like quests and their inevitable faults.

Age of Decadence is the closest promise to this choice & concsequence supported + paradigm-breaking quests holy grail everyone here purports can exist. We'll see if it will realize it or if just as many players will be left at the margin, not seeing what they like in their "RPG."

 

[mondblut]

Realtime combat.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

D&D. MotB looked interesting, but part of what killed it for me was I guess I'm just burnt out on the setting and mechanics. Probably why I loved VtMB so much when it came out.

 

[aleph]

Having to fight tons of weaklings that pose no threat whatsoever.

This. I mean what's the point having 10 trash encounters instead of having one challenging one that takes the same amount of time?

 

[baronjohn]

Voice acting pisses me off. I'm playing a RPG, not watching a fucking movie.

 

[janjetina]

Realtime combat.

This. Also, putting minigames in RPGs, where they clearly don't belong. Retardation of the dialogue (Mass Effect, Alpha Protocol, any Bethesda game).

 

[Suchy]

Having to fight tons of weaklings that pose no threat whatsoever.

this
and:
cliche characters/story
lack of proper dialogue
bad writing
mindless clickfest realtime combat
tb combat with no tactics
forced third-person camera for exploration (nwn, witcher)
lame voice acting

 

[Wyrmlord]

* Not being able to complete certain quests because I ignored the "imaginary sequence of events" the developers had in mind. Example: again in bloodlines there's a quest in downtown where after you enter the hospital that crazy bitch asks you to retrieve a certain item from the museum. Except, I had already done the museum way back before talking to her.

Yeah, I remember a similiar situation in KotOR 2, wherein I already had GOTO in my party on coming to Dantooine, and yet GOTO's bounty was still on. And GOTO didn't even try to inform the guys that the bounty was called off, when they had Master Vrook in their prison.

To think that Bioware in KotOR 1 allowed you to tell the Kashyyk computer "I am Revan" in order to directly get access to the Star Map, and yet a Chris Avellone game contains such a blatant hole in it, and had no alternative option to a changed situation.

 

[Cassidy]

Everything already mentioned except for Qwinn's, plus:

Emo romances
Captain Obvious' Plot Twists
Feminazi Political Correctness (as far as using "her" instead of "him" in Class descriptions)
Character development restricted to Classes
Vorpal Blade +10 Munchkinfests
"Boss fights" that are neither optional nor difficult
Chosen One Syndrome
Chainmail Bikinis, rogues with Glittering Leather Armor and alike
Level Scaling
Quest Compass

As for something that really bothers me:

Any combat system that can be described as "click on the generic bad guy redshirt once, put your hands away from the keyboard and wait for your PC to kill him." Or in other words, nearly every real-time combat system in existence, specially those which try to adapt turn-based PnP rules to real-time.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I'm going to have to second minigames.

 

[hiver]

first person view and sanboxiness.

 

[Mayday]

Top-down view and linearity.