Things you've learned to always do or never do in RPGs

[jac8awol]

Ha, let me try that again, with less hyperbole. In many modern games it's easy to become over-leveled too quickly, which removes the challenge, which removes the enjoyment for me. I love side quests and murder hoboing as much as the next min-maxing autist, it's just that poor game design has conditioned me to avoid doing everything there is to do, for fear of breaking the challenge loop.

Of course it's great to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women, but if most encounters are not hair-raising, back-breaking, ball-sweat inducing ordeals that require me to finally use the damn consumables, I'm not gonna be engaged enough to finish the game. Ok fags, I'm ready for your cuck stamps now.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

updating my savescummer list after this thread...

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

You may have to 'help' an annoying character get killed to keep their better, joined at the hip, companion. Do it, without mercy or regret.

Try to figure out early on what the best weapon type in the game is and specialize in it.

Romance the most broken, BPD bitch in your party.

Spam the Wand of Wonder. No F5 first unless ur a fag.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Never keep a male bard around.

Fireball corrected for room and corridor volume LxWxH >> lightning bolt corrected for linear bolt length and reach.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

1. NEVER play a game where there are 100 chests, 100 barrels and 100 vases in the tutorial dungeon. (DOS)

 

[samuraigaiden]

Romance the most broken, BPD bitch in your party.

Good advice IRL too

 

[Theldaran]

But the things the OP listed are, you know... Baldur's Gate.

 

[Falksi]

Give your Wizard a hat.

 

[fork]

Never equip boots on my female characters because I want to see their cute feet

What are the best games for this?
Asking for a friend of course.

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

Start playing a game for the first time, play for a few hours, realize that your build sucks and would take too much time to unscrew it, restart the game from the beginning now taking into consideration how the systems work when creating your character, play until completion or until you get too bored to ever touch the game again

 

[SlightlyRadioactive]

If a game shows which dialogue options are skill checks disable them in the options menu. If there is no option to disable it, mod it away. If there are no mods, just suffer through the urge to metagame.

 

[Dodo1610]

-Allways plays melee chars sometimes with some magic
-never use heavy armour
-often even no armour and just wear the best looking clothing/light armour regardless of the stats
-fight with either greatsword or two weapons but never with a shield
-dump CON
-put everything in Dex, Str and Char
-enjoy the game-over screen because those characters only work in very few games

 

[Eisen]

1. NEVER play a game where there are 100 chests, 100 barrels and 100 vases in the tutorial dungeon. (DOS)

Game name?

 

[JarlFrank]

Never equip boots on my female characters because I want to see their cute feet

What are the best games for this?
Asking for a friend of course.

Morrowind
Skyrim with this mod
ELEX has a barefoot female companion
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire has some cool clothing sets that are either barefoot or with sandals (they are used instead of real armor tho, so the game will be more challenging this way)
Not an RPG, but the survival action adventure Die Young has you play a female character who gets her shoes taken at the start. You don't have to find new ones and can play through the entire game barefoot!

 

[Angelo85]

1. NEVER play a game where there are 100 chests, 100 barrels and 100 vases in the tutorial dungeon. (DOS)

Game name?

Divinity: Original Sin. The first town will break you if your OCD compels you to look into every minor loot container.

 

[lukaszek]

if ocd and completionists run are an issue for you, go play technomancer

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Always equip a mysterious magic item before identifying it first.

 

[Skdursh]

Always keep in mind Steam's 2-hour return policy and never get your hopes up that once-great developers of the 90's to early 00's will make anything but shit going forward into the future.

 

[T. Reich]

Metagame.

Knowing game mechanics without knowing storyfagshit is easy and highly beneficial.
Get to know which stats, weapons and skills work and which don't.
Which mechanics are broken (good or bad doesn't matter - both are equally detrimental to gameplay experience), which are kinda useless and which are really useful.

Knowing all that, you can plan ahead and get a pleasant (game mechanics wise) experience straight off the bat, without resorting to starting the game all over because you invested into broken shit.

Or you're a dumbfuck who thinks that mechaincs in RPG aren't important, then you can go fuck yourself.

 

[King Crispy]

In other words, cheat.

 

[Desiderius]

Test

 

[gurugeorge]

Test

Yep, I can see the post

 

[gurugeorge]

I forgot a very important one:

- Never, EVER, read anything online about the RPG you're about to start playing. Go in blind, every time. Ignore what the powermonkeys keep screeching about.

The problem with that is that build systems aren't always transparent, it's very easy to cock up a build to the point of uselessness in some games. Even the various D&D systems can be quite different from one edition to the next in terms of what's hot and what's not.

I like it when games give you at least one respec as a meta thing (outside in-game rationales), then you have the opportunity to try to figure things out for yourself (while being invested in the story as a new thing hitting you as you go), but if you got it wrong and you're finding you understand the game better with time (and meanwhile you're quite invested in your character's journey up to that point) you can adjust the build.

With a new game, both the story and the system are new, but as an in-game character you'd have more of an understanding of the world (unless they play the total amnesiac card).

That said, usually you can't go far wrong with building around crits - but that's not invariably the case, so it's a nice courtesy if developers give you a respec, just in case they've actually managed to devise a balanced system

 

[rusty_shackleford]

In other words, cheat.

cheating includes savescumming

 

[Miserable Panda]

Nice thread. I'm not good at listing things, but here is some meta-knowledge I learned over the years:
-If you want to relax a bit in a WRPG, play a fighter. You can easily get burn-out when you play really complex classes.
-Always target the mages first. Always.
-You really need to check beforehand if the game you are playing is conversation-heavy or combat-heavy. Playing a fighter in Planescape: Torment was not a memorable experience.
-A rogue is fine, but sometimes is easier to just activate the traps and bash all chests. Spending 30 seconds unlocking every container gets old fast.
-Min/Maxing makes the game boring, but looking for a dump stat is more than fine.
-Ideal party composition: Fighter/Tank, Healer/Support, 2 DPS. The golden rule for JRPGs. I tried making some quirky party compositions and I really suffered.