Things that piss you off on RPGs.

[Gnidrologist]

Nothing pisses me more, than being pissed about something that pisses me of.

 

[Worm King]

 

[poocolator]

Does that mean you're pissed about it pissing you off? Or are you just pissed off at it? I'm not pissed about being pissed off at half the things I'm pissed off at because those things create adversity, which is fun, at times.

 

[deuxhero]

Fallout 2.

That was more telepathy than dream.

As is Morrowind more or less, givenall of your dreams of meaning are the work of either Dagoth Ur (a man who has harnessed the heart of a what is effectively a god) or Azura (who is more powerful then him)

Anyways hand holding, whiny female PCs who use the PC as their therapist (and people wonder why I like my women the way I do...) and combat that devolves when the player goes up a few levels.

 

[sirfink]

Pseudo-philosophical bullshit. Hate the college freshman philosophy that plagues so many RPGS, including some that are worshiped around here.

Number one: it's shallow and meaningless. Number two: it's just window dressing that invariably leads to combat. The fact that you're fighting the very essence of your inner-most psychic pain with a sword forged from the very blackest corners of your soul while standing on a plane of existence which exists only in your own mind, doesn't change the fact that you're just clicking your mouse half a dozen times on a monster until it finally dies. Quest completed! How deep and profound!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Pseudo-philosophical bullshit. Hate the college freshman philosophy that plagues so many RPGS, including some that are worshiped around here.

Number one: it's shallow and meaningless. Number two: it's just window dressing that invariably leads to combat. The fact that you're fighting the very essence of your inner-most psychic pain with a sword forged from the very blackest corners of your soul while standing on a plane of existence which exists only in your own mind, doesn't change the fact that you're just clicking your mouse half a dozen times on a monster until it finally dies. Quest completed! How deep and profound!

So you don't want anyone to attempt to make another PS:T? Because you can't have it both ways. If you think games like PS:T and Deus Ex are great, and you want to see more of them, then you are going to cop a lot of really crappy attempts to emulate them. Good thematic and philosophical writing is much harder to do consistently than good game mechanics. Put it this way - let's say you have a team of talented game designers. You can pretty much predict 9 times out of 10 that if good mechanics are their forte then they'll produce a game with good mechanics. But if good philosophical/thematic writing is their forte then it's a matter of the muse hitting them at the right time in the right way, and in a manner that happens to fit where the rest of the game is going. An Avellone or a Mitsoda might make 3 great scripts in a row, then have 10 fucking years of crap. Or an average writer might strike gold, then go back to mediocrity. It's why in film writers are at the bottom of the food chain. A good director/producer shops around for a good script - he doesn't have to wait for an inhouse writer to hit lightning at the right time.

So the downside is that if people are trying to make philosophical or thematic games, most of the time they will fail. You just have to hope that the game mechanics are good enough to keep the games fun and profitable enough that when someone writes PS:T the game company is still around to implement it. Personally, I'd rather see a whole lot of shit pseudo-philosophy to keep the genre alive. But yes, it pisses me off as well, and no I certainly don't advocate that you should have to buy it in order to fund good games - this isn't a 'buy FO:BOS to fund FO3' argument. More of a '[sigh], at least there's a bright side - one of these guys/gals somewhere, someday, might produce something good, so here's hoping that they keep on trying, though I sure as hell won't be funding their training stories unless there's a good set of game mechanics to make up for the crappy writing'.

 

[BehindTimes]

insert one of many JRPG cliche's.

Also, completely unbelievable inventory. I killed a rabbit, and it just happened to have 10000 gold on it? Or I just killed Drizzt, and all I get is a stupid belt? What about all the cool armor he had on, or the weapon he used? (I guess I prefer the Ultima VII approach for enemy inventory).

The gold factor. Yeah, the Iron Dagger costs 1000 gold, and all the enemies drop 2 gold. By the time I can actually afford an Iron Dagger, I'll already have acquired every member of my party a steel longsword. And by the time I get to the final dungeon, which happens to have no escape route, I'll be acquiring 10000 gold per enemy or chest, yet have no reason to actually need any of it.

Another vote for the Chosen One. How about a game where I'm not the savior of the world? I'd like to see an RPG have a more micro scale main quest. Maybe sort of like Fallout 1 requiring you to get a water chip, but unlike Fallout, the game ends when you can retrieve it (although acquiring the chip would be much harder). And BTW, if I am the saviour of the world, why are you charging me for every item I need? Hey King, rather than give me 100 gold, why not outfit my party and me in the very best and give us all the healing potions we need?

Reliance on fighting. I thought this was suppose to be a Role Playing game. What if I happen to want to be a pacifist?

 

[poocolator]

Pseudo-philosophical bullshit. Hate the college freshman philosophy that plagues so many RPGS, including some that are worshiped around here.

Number one: it's shallow and meaningless. Number two: it's just window dressing that invariably leads to combat. The fact that you're fighting the very essence of your inner-most psychic pain with a sword forged from the very blackest corners of your soul while standing on a plane of existence which exists only in your own mind, doesn't change the fact that you're just clicking your mouse half a dozen times on a monster until it finally dies. Quest completed! How deep and profound!

I found PS:T to be rather convincing, and entertaining in that regard. I don't think it would classify as a game written by "college freshmen." Fallout 3, if I remember correctly, had a number of instances where the NPC was bullshitting, and all I could do was cringe and quickly click the next dialogue option. The only problem with Fallout 3's crap dialogue in general, is that it didn't even seem as if it were written by "college freshmen," it seemed much, much worse unfortunately. Fucking Bethesda must be operating by chimpanzees or something.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Reliance on fighting. I thought this was suppose to be a Role Playing game. What if I happen to want to be a pacifist?

Sir, this is important for you to know, and the earlier you know it, the better it will be for you.

You are playing the wrong genre. I don't mean this as sarcasm. This is an honest statement. If you want games where you can play as a pacifist, maybe it is better if you go for adventure games, or something like that.

I am afraid you have misunderstood what the 'role' in roleplaying means. If you ever look up the history of RPGs, you will see that it is a subset of tabletop wargames. The catch to these specific wargames is that the soldiers you are controlling are not mere grunts. They are specialized experts. They are playing a ROLE in the battle. One person is the medical expert. One is the technical expert. One is a tactical killer. One is a heavy gun. And so on. (See Gary Gygax's Chainmail boardgame on Wikipedia)

It is a misconception to assume this 'role' implies improvised storytelling and theatrics. This is more to do with the ambiguities of the English language than anything else.

The basic rulesets of RPGs have always been based on mechanics that will be used in combat or situations incidental to combat.

A trend among most genres has been to incorporate some sort of cinematic and adventure style element into a game. RPGs also followed that bandwagon. The thing about RPG mechanics is that could occasionally be modified to suit those elements, and this has made people assume that those elements are essential to RPGs. They are not.

Why do you think Torment had fighting? It's because the ruleset that it was adopting was based on combat, and in accomodating that tradition, it had to have plenty of combat at various sections. Were it not a D&D game, it would not have had fighting at all, but the core of the game is based on fighting, and hence it had fighting. See, even the most "pacifistic" games of this genre have fighting. Why would you expect this nonexistent ideal of a totally pacifistic game when just about every game in this genre has fighting? It's what RPGs are, one way or another.

 

[Fezzik]

A trend among most genres has been to incorporate some sort of cinematic and adventure style element into a game. RPGs also followed that bandwagon. The thing about RPG mechanics is that could occasionally be modified to suit those elements, and this has made people assume that those elements are essential to RPGs. They are not.

Wyrmlord, although I'd agree with you that in the vast majority of RPGs, (pretty much all of them) combat plays an overwhelmingly significant role, I don't think it's necessary.

Games like Fallout and Arcanum, though few in number and not perfect when it comes to non-combat gameplay, seem to have created a small subgenre of RPGs that revolves more around choice than combat. You probably won't see true non-combat paths in most RPGs any time soon, but having multiple paths, regardless of their type, has become a defining characteristic of a very small subgenre of RPGs. Or if it hasn't and a game cannot be an RPG without combat present in every play-through, then that will mean that AoD won't be an RPG if VD is true to his word. And if AoD won't be classified as an RPG, I don't know what it would be classified as.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I just find it strange when people complain that a RPG has too much combat, or should not have it, because ultimately, this is what the genre is.

Such as the complaints that Mask Of The Betrayer has too much fighting. People have assumed that the fighting is incidental to the game. They impatiently want to skip ahead to the next big cinematic or dialogue. But the fighting IS the game. If a person can't get into the flow and enjoy the combat as it is going on, maybe this was not his kind of game in the first place.

 

[janjetina]

Pseudo-philosophical bullshit. Hate the college freshman philosophy that plagues so many RPGS, including some that are worshiped around here.

Number one: it's shallow and meaningless. Number two: it's just window dressing that invariably leads to combat. The fact that you're fighting the very essence of your inner-most psychic pain with a sword forged from the very blackest corners of your soul while standing on a plane of existence which exists only in your own mind, doesn't change the fact that you're just clicking your mouse half a dozen times on a monster until it finally dies. Quest completed! How deep and profound!

If the fact that there are RPGs where story and non-combat character interaction are the design focus is incomprehensible to you, go back to playing WOW, Oblivion, Diablo or whatever it is that clueless ADHD kids play nowadays. Once you remove the story, character interaction, dialogues and exploration aspects from a RPG, you are left with a Diablo clone.

I just find it strange when people complain that a RPG has too much combat, or should not have it, because ultimately, this is what the genre is.

Such as the complaints that Mask Of The Betrayer has too much fighting. People have assumed that the fighting is incidental to the game. They impatiently want to skip ahead to the next big cinematic or dialogue. But the fighting IS the game. If a person can't get into the flow and enjoy the combat as it is going on, maybe this was not his kind of game in the first place.

People complain of too much combat when combat system is badly implemented, and/or when there really is too much (usually not tactically challenging, but resource draining) combat (example: NWN 2: SOZ random encounters). Nobody sane would complain about too much combat in MOTB, if it had a tactical turn based combat system. Fallout and Fallout 2 were the only games that struck a balance where all the RPG aspects (C&C, dialogues, combat, exploration, character advancement) were well implemented. Since then, only major RPGs that had fun and challenging combat were Jagged Alliance 2 (a startegy-RPG crossbreed) and TOEE. In the rest, combat simply sucked.

Sir, this is important for you to know, and the earlier you know it, the better it will be for you.

You are playing the wrong genre. I don't mean this as sarcasm. This is an honest statement. If you want games where you can play as a pacifist, maybe it is better if you go for adventure games, or something like that.

I am afraid you have misunderstood what the 'role' in roleplaying means. If you ever look up the history of RPGs, you will see that it is a subset of tabletop wargames. The catch to these specific wargames is that the soldiers you are controlling are not mere grunts. They are specialized experts. They are playing a ROLE in the battle. One person is the medical expert. One is the technical expert. One is a tactical killer. One is a heavy gun. And so on. (See Gary Gygax's Chainmail boardgame on Wikipedia)

In before mondblut.

You, mondblut, and other grass roots types fail to grasp a few facts. A fact of life is that games, including RPG, evolve. They evolve in the sense that they increase in substance and complexity, so the game that was initially about combat mechanics gets additional layers of exploration mechanics, non-combat interaction mechanics including dialogues, and since human beings are not mechanical entities, adjusting the game to the aforementioned human beings, by wrapping the story, different forms of interaction between the characters and the world, enabling the player to make choices regarding how he interacts with the characters and the world, and making the choices matter, around the mechanics. From that perspective, it is obvious that a game that focuses on non combat interactions, exploration and C&C is still RPG, as long as those aspects are supported by the game mechanics.


The difference between this type of RPG and the adventure games are:

1. Skill based system and skill checks. There are none in an adventure game, while in a true RPG every aspect is governed by skill or stat checks (e.g. dialogues in PS:T involve plenty of stat checks).

2. Choices and consequences. While adventure games may have different solutions to certain problems, I haven't played a single adventure game where different solution paths lead to significantly different outcomes, regarding the character and/or the world (Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum were the best in that aspect, but this is the RPG aspect that should be improved upon by a lot).

The next time you get an urge to counsel someone to play an adventure game instead of a RPG, try to think of the number of skill based multiple outcome adventure games in existence. The number you should be thinking of is zero.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Oh, that stuff about old vs new RPGs is a different thing. I am referring to something else.

Whether or not RPGs have evolved, you can clearly notice that all RPGs, old and new have combat.

Every single RPG has combat. Whether it's a new-age dialogue-y RPG or an old style wargame, they all have combat. Whether it is pausable real-time or turn-based, combat is a common factor.

So why fault a RPG for relying on combat when it has been a convention in just about any game in this genre? I am just saying - it will have combat one way or another. Note that BehindTimes was not talking about quality of combat; he was talking about whether the player should have to go through combat at all.

We can fault a RPG for having minigames, since that was never a convention in the first place. But something so common as combat, we move beyond "Is this good or bad in the game?" into "Is this the kind of game I am supposed to be playing in the first place?"

 

[Fezzik]

So why fault a RPG for relying on combat when it has been a convention in just about any game in this genre?

I think a decent argument can be made that combat should be downplayed in certain types of RPGs in favor of non-combat paths. It goes like this: the core of an RPG (depending on whom you ask) is having multiple paths. The more the paths vary and the better-designed they are, the more interesting the game is. The goal in making an RPG ought to be to make it fun and interesting while making use of the core RPG elements. But if most of the variations in the game's paths are in how the character fights, then the paths won't be as distinct as they would be otherwise and so the game likely won't be as interesting. So, all things being equal, it's preferable to have paths through a game in which combat is not the dominant factor.

This isn't to say that an RPG that is combat-heavy is bad -- especially given that the argument has to be qualified with "all things being equal." For instance, one of my favorite RPGs is Dark Sun, which has loads of unavoidable combat and is very weak when it comes to choices. But, on average, I think having choices outside of the standard "how would you like to kill things" or even "are you going to join this gang or that gang," adds to how interesting a game is. And, for my part, once I had a taste of having those additional paths, it made me disappointed that so few games took up the mantle, as it were.

 

[mondblut]

In before mondblut.

You, mondblut, and other grass roots types fail to grasp a few facts. A fact of life is that games, including RPG, evolve.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=647934#647934

 

[felicity]

character/setting/plot that have colorful flavors but otherwise have few meat and bone - empty, meaningless and plain boring.

example: kotar2's Kreia and the wound on force plot; nwn2 the gith cleric companion, and the silver blade plot.

Just so happen that both are Obsidian's products... sad thing is I see they are being encouraged by players to make even more convoluted story, cryptic pretentious post-modern wannabe characters and more meaningless metaphysical bullshit that is supposed to be the plotline.

 

[Raapys]

It goes like this: the core of an RPG (depending on whom you ask) is having multiple paths.

Not really. All the first RPGs were completely linear dungeon crawlers. That's what cRPGs were about.

Choices and Consequences, good dialog and story, deep characters, etc., these are features all games, regardless of the genre, benefit from. And they're neither exclusive to nor required for an RPG.

Take Strife, for instance. Based on the Build engine( DukeNukem3D, etc. ) if I remember correctly, the game was little more than a shooter at base. However, they implemented C&C, money and an inventory, interaction with NPCs, open and evolving game world, etc. Did that make it an RPG? No, because it didn't have any actual character development or skill checks. However, it did make it a hell of a lot better FPS than most others out there.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

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

That's one thing I've never understood. Why the hell am I blocked by a little stream I should be able to jump over? If not jump, I could just walk through it!

I really hate artificial barriers in CRPGs. There's got to be better ways of keeping players out of areas they don't belong in than artificial barriers. Fallout 3 is a prime example of games with way too many artificial barriers. I'm not even sure why a lot of those barriers exist in that game OTHER THAN forcing the player to endure the dungeon subways.

 

[boynextdoor]

I mostly hate combat, especially uninspired TB combat. The problem with TB combat is developers usually try to simulate real combat and real combat is obviously not TB thus it is an automatic PHAIL!
If you must have combat (I think most games would be better without) then at least try to have as little as possible. Failing that at least use a system which is not a crappy modelling of real combat. I think Jrpgs are much better in this aspect because the combat is not trying to be realistic at all.

 

[Ion Flux]

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

That's one thing I've never understood. Why the hell am I blocked by a little stream I should be able to jump over? If not jump, I could just walk through it!

I really hate artificial barriers in CRPGs. There's got to be better ways of keeping players out of areas they don't belong in than artificial barriers. Fallout 3 is a prime example of games with way too many artificial barriers. I'm not even sure why a lot of those barriers exist in that game OTHER THAN forcing the player to endure the dungeon subways.

Yeah, this is something that regularly provokes anger when I'm playing games. It's extremely jarring to the psyche, and truly immersion-breaking. I hate it.

 

[mondblut]

Not really. All the first RPGs were completely linear dungeon crawlers.

I protest the "completely linear" part. Even the earliest, dungeon "dungeon crawls" still permitted a high level of character/party customization and a degree of traversing freedom like going back to a previous level (which is something largely alien to most other genres up until late 90s or so). And once the CRPGs went outdoors (as early as Ultima 1), their nonlinearity became truly unrivaled, you could pick cities to visit and dungeons to loot at your leisure, limited only by the power of enemies on your way.

So yes, multiple paths and different problem solutions are a staple of RPGs as much as combat is, otherwise there would be no classes other than fighters and no spells other than fireball.

The way I see it, an RPG was born out of a wargame the day when gamemaster said "well... there is a locked door in front of you, who tries to open it?" instead of "ok, ready for the next battle guys?".

 

[mondblut]

I mostly hate combat, especially uninspired TB combat. The problem with TB combat is developers usually try to simulate real combat and real combat is obviously not TB thus it is an automatic PHAIL!
If you must have combat (I think most games would be better without) then at least try to have as little as possible. Failing that at least use a system which is not a crappy modelling of real combat. I think Jrpgs are much better in this aspect because the combat is not trying to be realistic at all.

Turkish trolls are turkish.

 

[JarlFrank]

I don't like turn based combat. I don't like real time combat either. Both are trying to be too realistic. I only like JRPG combat because it's not realistic. You know, realistic combat is too complex and I don't get it and it's too frustrating I prefer simple and stupid stuff that involves no thought whatsoever.

 

[boynextdoor]

I don't like turn based combat. I don't like real time combat either. Both are trying to be too realistic. I only like JRPG combat because it's not realistic. You know, realistic combat is too complex and I don't get it and it's too frustrating I prefer simple and stupid stuff that involves no thought whatsoever.

The problem is not that they are trying to be too realistic, they are failing horribly trying to be realistic. Yes I don't like too much combat in games if they must have it then i would choose to have an abstract system with it's own logic instead of a sorry attempt to replicate real combat. I don't usually like Jrpgs, because their writing not being brilliant in the first place gets even worse when translated and their heroes are usually very generic and uninteresting but the latter part goes for all games nowadays. But most of them while not being actually good in the combat sections are on the right track.
There were some games that tried to mimic real combat and made it interesting like JA but i can't think of any other example.

edit: Please compare BG and any FF after 7 you will see that FF combat is actually more complex and BG is just... bad, boring and too simple.
And I don't like combat (at least too much combat) in a RPG because if the point of the game is munchkining looting killing exploring the dungeons in hopes of finding a flail of awesomeness +12 i might as well go and play a tactics game...

 

[dolio]

1) Baldur's Gate doesn't have turn-based combat.

2) Most people here (in my experience) don't hold up Baldur's Gate as an example of the best of RPG combat.

I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with a way that FF7-9 combat (haven't played anything beyond that) takes more thought, though.