What makes filler trash so bad?

[Desolate Dancer]

Filler content is complete, utter, irredeemable trash. I'd rather play a 20 hour game with excellent content throughout, than play a 60 hour game where half the encounters are copypasted generic bandit mobs and half the quests have me retrieve X amount of [alchemical ingredient name] for the alchemist guild.

I believe you have answered your own question pretty well and no one ever doubted that filler/trash mobs are cancerous. And yes, most games nowadays are full of shit content, or have only this type of encounter. Pissards of Trashernity was shit mainly because of this (and the fact that the copypastad monsters didn't even grant XP, seriously... whaaat?). So all of these principles of basic encounter designing had never really been contested, at least not here on codex.

But the more important question is this: how to design a game (e.g. a party-based, high fantasy crpg) to avoid placing trash encounters and filler content? How to avoid being branded as a game full of trashmobs and grinding?

 

[luj1]

story-focused RPGs with little to no combat, like Planescape Torment

PST was ridden with trash mobs mate....

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Just something to keep in mind - if the combat is a lot of fun, then trashmobs can be fun to kill as well. As long as their frequency isn't overdone, trashmobs can serve as a medium between high stakes boss fights and break up the pace of the game. But if combat is fun and it's fun killing things, expect devs to add more filler combat along the way. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing again, as long as they don't overdo it.

 

[barghwata]

Let players engange in trash mobs while freely exploring a worldmap is good. In the later one the player can usually decide if he wants to engage or not (while considering ressource drain vs. loot and xp, maybe some other benefits like reputation in the region etc.).

I don't think JarlFrank is complaining about optional enemies, just forced trash mobs.

And even how to engage; opening with a fireball, bring your thief in position, taking advantage of terrain, luring the enemies into traps etc. The more sophisticated the simulation the less are trash encounters just trash encounters.

If a combat encounter forces you to approach it tactically in the way that you're describing (taking advantage of terrain, luring the enemies into traps etc.....), then it's probably not a trash mob in the first place, from my understanding trash mobs are basically hoards of enemies that are weak and easy to beat without the need for any real tactics, and that are put there just to increase the length of the game and that's why they're called "trash" cuz they're pathetically weak and serve no other purpose other then to waste your time; but even if you implement trash mobs in a way where fighting them is challenging there could still be another problem which is the lack of variety, if it's always the same type of enemies you're fighting over and over you're bound to eventually find a way to deal with them easily and the gameplay just becomes a repititive slog real quick.

I think when people complain about trash mobs they're generally referring to easy and repititive combat encounters that add nothing to the gameplay.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

There aren't really trash mobs, so much as there are poorly designed combat systems. Like the OP states, if you have easily swept aside encounters, they should serve some purpose still, like attrition, or providing a conundrum to the player about what path to take, etc..

Trash mobs as a term, gets thrown about a bit liberally when people are actually trying to express dissatisfaction with combat mechanics. In DAO, the PC is literally in the midst of an invading monstrous horde. Its also a very large game. For your superheroes uniting the realms, a high body count is to be expected.

 

[octavius]

"Break into the duchess' manor and bring me her worn, aromatically fragrant socks!"

Why, you dirty podophile.

In conclusion: filler sucks

Filler content is complete, utter, irredeemable trash.

I guess it does have a function for some players: the grinders. Players who are afraid of a challenge and need to max out all stats before facing the final boss, even if it takes days of grinding the same trash mobs.

Also, if there's a chance of some fat loot dropping the copy pasted trash combat is more tolerable. But I can't think of any game that does both.
I actually prefer how old blobbers like Bard's Tale 1-3 and Might&Magic 1-2 did it, with lots of combat but with random enemy composition and a chance to find fat loot, especially in MM2. While Wizardry 7 was the opposite, with lots of copy pasted encounters and no random loot.

Dragon Age sounds like a pointless waste of time with the auto-healing, even more so than unmodded Oblivion.

 

[biggestboss]

The hypothetical RPG with a place called Boobtown sounds great.

 

[luj1]

if the combat is a lot of fun, then trashmobs can be fun to kill as well.

 

[Daedalos]

1. It wastes my precious time

2. It's wholly uninteresting and fucking boring. Do you care about filler people in movies? Nah, nobody does. You focus on the main cast and some intersting side-characters.

3. The combat system has to be EXTRAORDINARILY good, in order for trash combat to be fun, which is hardly ever is.

4. In Turn-based combat, trash mobs/filler shit becomes even more of a chore and fucking annoying (example: D:OS 1+2)
Special mention to those retard devs, that can't fathom to put a combat speed slider in the game, so animations take 80 years to finish.

5. It wastes my precious time

6. Don't waste my mother fuckin' time.

 

[Atchodas]

Well if combat is fun then it aint trash :D

 

[barghwata]

Well if combat is fun then it aint trash :D

Why waste a fun combat system on hoards of trash and hours of mindless and repetitive enemy encounters?

 

[JarlFrank]

And still you got it all wrong with your conclusion!

No.

But seriously trash mobs serve a purpose in an (traditional) rpg. And if you leave them out your gameplay will suffer from it. But even trashmobs have to be implemented in the right way. E.g. forcing players to go through lots of trash mobs to be able to advance the story (fighting endless orc hordes through a linear tunnel) is bad implementation with a negative effect. Let players engange in trash mobs while freely exploring a worldmap is good. In the later one the player can usually decide if he wants to engage or not (while considering ressource drain vs. loot and xp, maybe some other benefits like reputation in the region etc.).

If the trash mobs are entirely optional content not required to finish the game, they're acceptable. If they offer you rewards such as faction reputation or quest completion ("destroy the nearby orc camp" rather than "kill 10 orcs"), then they're not filler content but actual content that is connected to the rest of the game. Important difference.

And even how to engage; opening with a fireball, bring your thief in position, taking advantage of terrain, luring the enemies into traps etc. The more sophisticated the simulation the less are trash encounters just trash encounters.

If they require such tactics, they're probably not trash mobs but well-designed encounters. But even if they require such tactics, encountering the exact same mob for the 50th time is going to get old. At some point you just need some variety.

Think of roguelikes; they basically exist only of trash encounters still the way the systems are designed they rarely feel like ones.

Roguelikes are decent, but they're mostly just timekillers for me rather than games I can invest hours at a time in. They're fun to play for a while but don't suck me in like a properly hand-designed game does - procedural content just isn't as interesting as hand-made content.

The orc tunnel example is most of the time just a "hurry we have to finish the game" kind of decision imho.

Yes, and that's exactly what filler content is. Content that is put in for the sole reason of prolonging game time, or because the devs didn't have any better ideas.

 

[barghwata]

I think a lot of people here are severly misunderstanding Frank's point, he is not saying "a lot of enemies = bad", he is saying hoards of copy pasted weak enemies that don't require any tactics or skill to defeat are not fun which i think no one can disagree with, this should be the least conterversial thing to say ever.

 

[JarlFrank]

story-focused RPGs with little to no combat, like Planescape Torment

PST was ridden with trash mobs mate....

Well it's been a decade since I played it and the best part of the game (Sigil) didn't have a lot of combat at all (with most of it being avoidable), so...

Just something to keep in mind - if the combat is a lot of fun, then trashmobs can be fun to kill as well. As long as their frequency isn't overdone, trashmobs can serve as a medium between high stakes boss fights and break up the pace of the game.

Yes. I said that in my post. As long as the frequency isn't overdone. Three to four mobs to each major challenging battle is a decent ratio. A lot of games have a ratio that's more like 10 to 1 though.

But if combat is fun and it's fun killing things, expect devs to add more filler combat along the way. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing again, as long as they don't overdo it.

No. If devs add filler combat, as you call it here, to the game, it is not a good thing. Filler is by definition low quality content. Even if the combat system is fun, why would I want a high quantity of low quality encounters if I could have a smaller quantity of high quality encounters instead and then re-play the game one or two times? There's not a single occasion in which I would say that filler content is any good.

Well if combat is fun then it aint trash :D

You can have an absolutely excellent combat system but still have trash encounters.

People love ToEE's combat system and I replay that game once every two years or so, because it has some really good fights: the moathouse fight against Lareth, the fight against the bandits in the house next to the temple. But once I descend into the temple itself, the 5th horde of bugbears usually makes me quit my playthrough because I've had enough of copypasted bugbear armies by that point.

Combat is only fun when both and system AND the encounters are great.

 

[commie]

I disagree with the idea that trash mobs need require no skill. Play Pool of Radiance at level 1 and do the clearing out of the districts assignment and even a handful of Kobolds requires careful managing of resources and positioning and it teaches the player to learn to use their party optimally which helps in the long run.

 

[Darth Canoli]

In the past couple days I've been thinking about filler trash and why it annoys me so much. There isn't a single design feature that puts me off replaying a game as much as trashy filler. I can re-play combat focused RPGs like ToEE or KotC dozens of times, same with short C&C-focused RPGs like Fallout or Age of Decadence. Same with story-focused RPGs with little to no combat, like Planescape Torment or Disco Elysium. But when I think of re-playing Dragon Age - which has its 10 year anniversary this year - I just feel demotivated, despite the game having a decent combat system and solid C&C.

That's because of all the pointless filler that plagues the game.

Roguey posted this in the Dragon Age thread:

That's pretty much what excessive filler leads to. Almost 3000 enemies fought during the course of the game, holy shit! The majority of those are pointless trash mobs.

But to solve the question why filler trash combat is so soul-drainingly tedious, let's analyze this shit from the ground up.

[blahblahblahblah]

That's not just trash mobs, so many games rely on those and prosper, that's about the combat system.

Here, you have the tactics and the first time you play it, it's quite fun to get into their custom AI system, figure it out and get the most of it but when replaying it, it's too much of a hassle.

Plus, RTwP and trash mobs are a bad combination, RTwP is a bad combination by itself already but it's even worse with trashmobs.
It's alright during the first playthrough because there is much to discover outside that shitty combat and there is barely any good cRPG so playing these games with retarded systems is the only option besides re-playing wizardy 8 or ToEE yet again.

Blobber works well with trashmobs if the combat resolution is fast enough, some jrpg have auto-combat options making it quite painless (sometimes painless, sometimes, it's not good enough, still ...)

The ugly truth is these fuckers don't already know how to create an amazing settings with amazing characters, so just think how hard it is to make a very good TB battle system with handcrafted encounters.

They don't have the talent nor the skills.

The only game with a top notch combat system this past 10 years is KotC, an indie game, so it's not a matter of money but a matter of skills and vision.
I just wish Pierre Begue would pair with someone capable to create an amazing settings/world/characters and quests so we would get a true masterpiece.

 

[Drowed]

Think of roguelikes; they basically exist only of trash encounters still the way the systems are designed they rarely feel like ones.

Roguelikes are decent, but they're mostly just timekillers for me rather than games I can invest hours at a time in. They're fun to play for a while but don't suck me in like a properly hand-designed game does - procedural content just isn't as interesting as hand-made content.

I think in the case of roguelikes, there is a fundamental difference in the fact that a roguelike isn't exactly a game about combat but rather a game about resource management. The game mobs exist as a way to spend your resources and put you in an unfavorable position. You always have to be thinking if the next room will have too many enemies for you to defeat with your current resources, and how much you can advance without putting yourself in a situation of risk. The fact that at any moment your character can die and end your run is what makes this situation tense and makes even seemingly trivial enemies have a greater weight, because it is a snowball effect.

But in "normal" RPGs, most trash mobs are there just to take up space and, sometimes, to make the player feel powerful. Rarely they are there to make you spend your resources, because usually your resources are so abundant that they don't even make a difference - not to mention that often the trash mobs themselves often have loot, allowing you to recover the resources instead of losing them. I think in the case of roguelikes, the situation is not comparable because the essence of the game is different.

 

[jungl]

Its all about perspective. You can see that horde bugbears or trash enemies in a roguelike where you have to be on your toes. You can see boss encounters with casters and unique monsters as cool or baby easy shit meant to jerk the players ego. I enjoyed planescape torment combat way more then tides of numenera what I thought was boring.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Trash encounters need to be included in the games because players need a place where they can test out new abilities or party compositions without being outright annihilated by the boss or difficult encounter. In addition they let people know that their characters/tactics sucks. If I'm struggling with random enemies in the dungeon, I'm sure I need to change something before I challenge the boss.
They key things is that they need to be fast. Ideally the better the player is, the faster they should get through such encounter. If something doesn't requires you to think or struggle it also shouldn't waste your time. A good example would be later Shin Megami Tensei games. If your party composition is halfway decent and you already know the demons you are fighting against you can disable problematic enemies and exploit elemental weaknesses to breeze through the combat.
In fact trash enemies are rarely a big issue in turn-based games with good interface that don't rely on animations too much. Just make the game turn-based and let the players completely skip all animations (walking, attack, etc.) when they wish to. People who need to will take their time, those that don't wont waste too much of it. Also, all games that rely on respawing enemies or random encounters should have some item or skill that allows you to avoid trash fights for a limited time. Exploring new location and fighting enemies along the way is fine. Having to stop every minute to fight another wave of gobling or whatever when I'm simply trying to travel between places I've already explored is infuriating.

 

[Max Damage]

I agree with most of what have been said in this thread, the one more thing I myself want to underline is that trash/filler to me is something that's big dead air in any game; while this is kind of self-explanatory in its name, for some reason c&p filler encounters are way more frequent in RPGs on average than in other games. I don't replay most of RPGs I finish for this reason, as there's often very little "real" gameplay sprinkled in between clearing crowds of enemies that stopped being menacing or interesting long time ago. Playing KotC for the first time was a breath of fresh air because of how many unique and memorable encounters there are. I am replaying ToEE right now, and while I still enjoy combat system a lot, the game gets a lot sloppier in its flow once you enter the titular temple. Lots of encounters are obviously copypasted, and while ambiance is top notch, the whole place doesn't feel all that threatening or exciting because you kinda vacuum all the rooms in between few challenging fights. If it weren't for mods, I honestly wouldn't be replaying the game, as in vanilla you don't have much to look forward to, and enemies don't even help their allies who are getting their ass wiped across the floor next door. And yes, DA:O was VERY bad about trash encounters, I don't think I even stomached half of that game (gave up somewhere during that damn endless Fade). Compared to Fallout, DA:O is a bloated pile of junk.

 

[aweigh]

But the more important question is this: how to design a game (e.g. a party-based, high fantasy crpg) to avoid placing trash encounters and filler content?

Easy. Look to Wizardry 1, did it already 40 years ago. No fillter content and combat is always it's own reward.

 

[Tyranicon]

I like trash mobs for my power fantasy. Otherwise, great read and good points.

 

[Neanderthal]

I had no problems with the trash mobs in the Hive in Sigil because they fit the setting and imparted the air of danger that that slum should conjure. They fit, and as a melee Nameless it was very rewarding in terms of loot and vengeance to later carve through the thugs who were a challenge when you emerged from the mortuary.

In the more civilised Lower and Clerks wards these thugs almost entirely disappeared as they should. If you wanted combat you travelled to the more dangerous areas.

Filler combat has a place, but often it should be non existent. Devs should quit relying on trash mobs, crafting and loot to pad games, and give us actual content.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

JarlFrank, if you're not already designing/making a game, you should start. IMO, your posts consistently demonstrate that you have great design philosophy and sensibilities.

 

[Citizen]

Just something to keep in mind - if the combat is a lot of fun, then trashmobs can be fun to kill as well.

Yeah, for the first time, maybe two. And then it becomes unbearable. Honestly, if the game makes you fight the same or very similar encounter for more than one time, you can easily say that it's level design is thrash. What's the point of doing the exact same thing over and over?

Also, say what you want about Divinity OS, but in terms of encounter design larian at least tried to make it diverse and fun. You rarely fight the same encounter for two times, the enemy composition or the area is always a bit different. Enemies are still copypasted, but the heavy use of various gimmicks makes fight fel different

Even DOS2 despite absolutely broken combat system had some cool and memorable fights. (unkillable fiery lizards, dream sequence where you fight clones, and a fucking brutal fight with elves inside a tree)