Decline Your Most Hated Gameplay Elements? (poll)

[vazha]

Wizardry voice acting is excellent, for sure. Good voice acting was also one of the (very) few redeeming qualities of Oblivion.

I understand its not exactly affordable to non-AAA publishers & studios, but those who can afford it can also afford enough money & resources to improve the overall gameplay, so I don't really buy the argument that "certain games are shit because they spent money on voice acting instead of improving gameplay".

If they have enough money to afford guys like David Warner, Patrick Stewart and John Cleese voicing characters, they certainly do have enough money to do hire competent people to address gameplay issues as well, that's not an excuse.

 

[Thac0]

I don't remember in-game voice acting in DD but the intro is one of the best ever made.

There is quite a lot of it, and the quotes are incredibly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fh4wFILO3c

The trick is using it on moments that naturally are rare and impactfull. Kills, Crits, Deaths and so on.
Wiz 8 does the same, the characters won't chew off your ears while traveling or spending skillpoints, but they chatter when a party member dies, you discover a secret, combat starts and so on.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Nice, i remembered right then, it's the narrator's voice, not your mercs voices so it's not the same.

Also, DD success stands on the sound effects, music and narration mostly, remove it and you can cut their sales by half, it's this good from the intro, cheap voice acting, on the other hand is just like throwing away half your budget.

 

[Zombra]

I love the narration in Darkest Dungeon, but it has nothing to do with the issues of voiced protagonists. The narrator is not the protagonist.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

It also makes dialogue production more complicated process. Harder to change or patch things there.

 

[Zombra]

It also makes dialogue production more complicated process. Harder to change or patch things there.

This, like the cost issue, is true, but equally irrelevant to the topic as this doesn't qualify as a reason to hate a gameplay element. No one playing a game goes, "Shit, a voiced protagonist, I hate this game now because I suspect that voice acting may have had a deleterious effect on the budgeting and/or production schedule."

 

[hellbent]

I'd add unskippable cut scenes that plop you into a one-sided fight with no opportunity to buff or position your party members.

I also personally hate having mandatory regular consumption of food / water. Yes, I know some people love just having another little timer to keep track of, but I just want to play a RPG, not the fucking Sims or survival game.

 

[mondblut]

Also, many of you complain about voiced protagonists - is that a stance against voice-acting in general or just bad voice-acting?

Because I sure as hell wouldn't say no to, say, Alfred Molina voicing my Tiefling Bard character or Sean Bean uttering the sacred oaths of my paladin. Ian Mcshane as narrator or Ray Winstone as your resident Orc chieftain? YES PLEASE.

Voice acting, when done right, is a treat. Just look at Darkest Dungeon.

If their babbling does not interrupt gameplay, fine. But having to wait for every NPC to slog through his lines - let alone to wait for the PC to spell the words I have already read for fuck's sake - this makes me want to ragequit. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING MOVIE.

 

[Darth Canoli]

If their babbling does not interrupt gameplay, fine. But having to wait for every NPC to slog through his lines - let alone to wait for the PC to spell the words I have already read for fuck's sake - this makes me want to ragequit. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING MOVIE.

Wow, this is almost nice...

This shit makes me want to murder the devs, their family, their pets, their neighbors and everyone they ever met.

 

[vazha]

Also, many of you complain about voiced protagonists - is that a stance against voice-acting in general or just bad voice-acting?

Because I sure as hell wouldn't say no to, say, Alfred Molina voicing my Tiefling Bard character or Sean Bean uttering the sacred oaths of my paladin. Ian Mcshane as narrator or Ray Winstone as your resident Orc chieftain? YES PLEASE.

Voice acting, when done right, is a treat. Just look at Darkest Dungeon.

If their babbling does not interrupt gameplay, fine. But having to wait for every NPC to slog through his lines - let alone to wait for the PC to spell the words I have already read for fuck's sake - this makes me want to ragequit. THIS IS NOT A FUCKING MOVIE.

Skippable lines have been invented like, in early Byzantine period already, where did you find games that force you to wait till a character has finished reading his/her lines? Even Baldur's Gate didn't do that.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

No one playing a game goes, "Shit, a voiced protagonist, I hate this game now because I suspect that voice acting may have had a deleterious effect on the budgeting and/or production schedule."

"Hate" is a bit strong term for it, but hearing that game has full VA makes me double check that it's at least somewhat tolerable.
Insufferable protagonist is valid reason to avoid game, Starpoint Gemini 3 is one recent example of this.

Spoiler

And second one has skip dialogue-button that does nothing.

 

[Zombra]

"Hate" is a bit strong term for it, but hearing that game has full VA makes me double check that it's at least somewhat tolerable.
Insufferable protagonist is valid reason to avoid game, Starpoint Gemini 3 is one recent example of this.

Absolutely, I simply intended to highlight the distinction between a "hated gameplay element" and a "thing that can negatively impact the development cycle". One is a thing the poll is about; the other is not.

I certainly agree that full VA games often are very lacking in anything else, but the VA itself doesn't make them bad games ... unless it's bad VA.

 

[Twiglard]

Missing HP bloat option. I'm getting some DA2 flashbacks.

 

[Nano]

Absolutely, I simply intended to highlight the distinction between a "hated gameplay element" and a "thing that can negatively impact the development cycle".

Well I don't like it as a gameplay element either. A voiced protagonist tends to force a tone on my character that I don't agree with.

 

[Gradenmayer]

Forced stealth sections is big one for me. Stealth sucks in any game that is not built around it from the ground up.

Also I hate it when game with a good stealth forces you into open confrontation with an enemy that detects player right after the cutscene (deus ex hr), kills any interest in proceeding forward with stealth.

 

[xuerebx]

I'm overwhelmed by the options in the poll, so I didn't vote.

What I really hate is terrible inventory management (think of Fallout 1's list which you scroll through), very long cutscenes, and too much text to read. There are some exceptions e.g. there's lots of text in Planescape, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, although this is an exception to the rule.

With respect to too much text to read, although I appreciate things like a bestiary (in The Witcher 3) or an encyclopedia of sorts (in Kingdom Come) which gives lots of backstory, definitions etc, I rarely ever read through them. Perhaps I read some of them when starting the game but then I just simply ignore them.

"Hate" is a bit strong term for it, but hearing that game has full VA makes me double check that it's at least somewhat tolerable.
Insufferable protagonist is valid reason to avoid game, Starpoint Gemini 3 is one recent example of this.

Spoiler

And second one has skip dialogue-button that does nothing.

I randomly skipped to the 7:45 mark and had to stop the video after a few seconds...so cringey.

 

[xuerebx]

I remembered something else I hate, which is not specifically tied to RPGs however. Whenever you're given a quest to go to Point A, whilst an NPC is following or leading you (generally the latter is worse), and the walking speed of the NPC is too goddamn slow. If there is no entertaining chatter between the NPC and the PC, or nothing of interest happens during the walk/ride, the game should just cut to a black screen and make you instantly appear at your destination, a sort of fast travel if you will.

 

[Dick]

Don´t know if it has been mentioned already, but I would say, instant-kill traps are hugely annoying. Even if you constantly use your thief for scouting, what´s the point placing traps that most likely leads to loading a savegame for most players? I don´t like to excessively save-load, and if those would be replaced just with damage-dealing traps or whatever, they would be so much easier to bear. Not ideal game design.

Another thing, when NPC-characters suddenly decide to fight each other to death and you cannot do anything about it. As an example that eventually has lead to me restarting the game: Baldur´s Gate 2, in the Underworld, when suddenly Keldorn the Paladin decides to kill Viconia the Drow. Why exactly then, with no apparent sign that Keldorn was just at the edge of murdering her..? Earlier saves wouldn´t help, and eventually I had to decide whether I continue without my only cleric (Viconia) or load a game which is many hours before this situation. Again not really great game design.

 

[Bester]

As an example that eventually has lead to me restarting the game: Baldur´s Gate 2, in the Underworld, when suddenly Keldorn the Paladin decides to kill Viconia the Drow. Why exactly then, with no apparent sign that Keldorn was just at the edge of murdering her..? Earlier saves wouldn´t help, and eventually I had to decide whether I continue without my only cleric (Viconia) or load a game which is many hours before this situation. Again not really great game design.

Can be summed up as "NPCs having too much agency at the detriment of gameplay".

 

[Darth Canoli]

Another thing, when NPC-characters suddenly decide to fight each other to death and you cannot do anything about it. As an example that eventually has lead to me restarting the game: Baldur´s Gate 2, in the Underworld, when suddenly Keldorn the Paladin decides to kill Viconia the Drow. Why exactly then, with no apparent sign that Keldorn was just at the edge of murdering her..? Earlier saves wouldn´t help, and eventually I had to decide whether I continue without my only cleric (Viconia) or load a game which is many hours before this situation. Again not really great game design.

I can't believe i'm defending any BG 2 feature but if you played BG before, you know NPC wanting to murder each other is a thing, like Edwin wanted to murder Dynaheir.
Also, i think i remember Party members turning on you if your reputation goes on the opposite direction as their alignment, like Korgan, for example.
And even the two evil character from BG 1 start Montaron and X...something, by the way i really liked the mage voice acting as much as i hated his partner in crime's one.
I also thin i remember Keldorn not being too happy to have Viconia tagging along or was it the other paladin?

Still, i partially agree with you, the game should offer a replacement at the very least.

 

[Trashos]

Yeah, why the heck would a Paladin kill a drow Priestess of Evil? Makes no sense, 0 out of 10.

 

[Dramart]

Fetch quests, repetitive
excesive grinding, time waste
dialogue wheel, obvious choices
unskippable scenes, boring for replay
different choices with one same resutl, bad game design
warrior ladies, fake

 

[Zombra]

I love it when characters claim agency and exhibit their own motivations. This goes at least as far back as 1995 with Jagged Alliance. So tiresome when RPGs treat characters like fucking Pokemon, you put them back in their Pokeball when you're not using them and they just wait in there for your next command.

 

[Dick]

Yes what you say is true, and I did play BG 1 beforehand, so this wasn´t really new to me, but.... the thing is, even back in BG 1, while the bickering among party members is fun to watch, actually losing NPCs because of that is not so, and BG 2 has much fewer companions than BG 1.. so it does make even less sense there.

Also that was my first playthrough of BG 2, in my party was also Korgan (a chaotic evil berserker), whom Keldorn would actually praise (!) during his speeches, how Korgan could use his huge strength for the benefit of the party and whatnot..... and you who played BG2 know that Korgan isn´t cagey at all about his constant bloodlust and and so on and on, so when I saw that a lawful good char (Keldorn) wouldn´t even fight that specific chaotic evil guy (Korgan)... I kinda assumed there wouldn´t be any party fighting in BG 2 :D

Even more so because Viconia was just at the edge of being burned alive at the stake before you take her in your party, just because of her being a drow, and you learn that she is constantly hiding from the population because the general people are depicted more or less as crazy fanatics.. and if you read Keldorn´s dialogs, it actually seemed like that guy would stand out against the general fanatic population.. but apparently his ethics don´t apply to drow (?)

It isn´t even apparent which NPCs fight against each other other than making assumptions and by trial and error (from the example above, the alignment alone cannot be taken as a guarantee for that). There was a forum where the designers used to post after the game was released for a few years, and that site (some fan-forum, nothing official) would show the dev posts of the current day at the front page, and just by chance I stumbled across a piece of information where one of the devs posted the BG 2 NPCs compatibility list there.. so if you weren´t lucky enough to have read it, you were kinda out of luck. Back then (didn´t bother to look for it nowadays) I didn´t find this specific information anywhere else

I love it when characters claim agency and exhibit their own motivations. This goes at least as far back as 1995 with Jagged Alliance. So tiresome when RPGs treat characters like fucking Pokemon, you put them back in their Pokeball when you're not using them and they just wait in there for your next command.

I like this too, it gives each character much more personality which results in a more enjoyable game experience, especially in a game like Jagged Alliance but this is just too vague of a comparison, like apples and oranges.

 

[octavius]

Two things that really annoy me (and are some of the reasons I've given up on FRUA):

Unavoidable traps that drain your HP.

Large empty, dead towns that would have been much better as Menu Towns.