Infuriating Developer Decisions in RPGs

[laclongquan]

Fast Travel.

Morrowind did this with mark and recall spell so it's at least tolerable. But when they apply it in full force with FNV, it break game's economy apart.

The devil of it is: it's so useful players cant help using it. And we would use disabling FT mod very very hesistantly because it's too damn useful.

 

[alighieri]

Fast Travel.

Morrowind did this with mark and recall spell so it's at least tolerable. But when they apply it in full force with FNV, it break game's economy apart.

The devil of it is: it's so useful players cant help using it. And we would use disabling FT mod very very hesistantly because it's too damn useful.

Well, the world of most open-world games is so bland and boring that traveling between locations without fast travel feels just like a chore.

 

[luj1]

Use this thread to post a list of things that create rage for you in RPGs. Ideally for all the prestigious developers who read the Codex and can use them to enhance their games, and for the retarded developers who...need help in avoiding basic pitfalls.

My top hate that makes me want to kneecap Bioware and Obsidian developers: magically teleoprting the main character to dialogue with an enemy (as per NWN2) and then ambushing them with enemies when combat was inevitable all along - as per ME & most Bioware games. Also seen in Obsidian's NWN2.

What's the point of having a party and stealth characters if you're going to gang-butt-and-face-fuck the main character everytime they talk to an enemy?.

The worst ideas in the last 10 years

Endurance mechanic in PoE
Effort mechanic in Numanuma
Kingdom management in PKM

 

[ERYFKRAD]

when they make rpgs that aren't scifi

Would you rather have bad science fiction rpgs than no science fiction rpgs?

 

[Alex]

Not using the keyword system for dialogue.

 

[purupuru]

After the first hour of Wrath of the Righteous, I have to add: rotating camera in isometric games.
I hope at least obsidian does not pick up on this trend for their future isometric games.

 

[Arbiter]

1. Inflated stats: you start with 50 strength and end up with 5000.
2. Useless skills / classes / weapons.
3. Trash mobs.
4. Real time combat.

 

[Alex]

1. Inflated stats: you start with 50 strength and end up with 5000.

The giant numbers can be rather annoying, but I will gladly forgive that if having 5,000 strength means you are at least as strong as 100 people and the game somehow make that matters. I don't know of any games that do that, mind you, but my point is that the scale issue is minor (to me, at least) compared to taking away meaning from stats.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Storyfaggy games with no combat.

 

[Ol' Willy]

a character in Fallout always holstering their weapon before attempting to open a locker or a door.

That's why I always walk around with empty hands. Makes sense

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Almost everything.

 

[V_K]

Diablo-style randomly generated loot.
Skill trees.
Instakill situations that are not telegraphed in advance (like dying to a failed dialog check).
A more generic version of the above, encounters and levels that can only be solved through trial and error (read: dying and reloading).

Fates of Ort[...]
Look, this one even uses a grid system but it's still real-time

Only it's not, the game autopauses as long as your character is idle. It's much closer to something like Eschalon than Diablo.

 

[anvi]

Allowing savescumming.

Having a difficulty level selection that forces you to pick blindly. What is "normal" - piss-easy combat for casuals or something that's actually reasonably challenging? What is "hard" - something entertainingly difficult, or ridiculously unbalanced garbage for autists with too much time on their hands?

Any RPG should have at most two difficulty levels - normal and easy. With normal being reasonably challenging but well-balanced and not a timewaster once you git gud, and easy for casuals and gamerthots.

All of this here really. I'm already annoyed that most RPGs start you off with exactly zero knowledge of the game but tell you to build a character anyway, then they ask you to trust their own judgement on difficulty.

Almost everything.

I think RPGs are one of those things that, it's all we know... so we don't even know any better way, and the world just keeps going on with it because nobody has come up with a better idea yet. If you really tried to forget everything you know about RPGs, and then think of a Paladin or Wizard or something going on an adventure, what would it be like? The games we have now are a million miles off what I think most people would come up with.

Almost every RPG is people starting at level 1 with magic missile or whatever, and then slowly build up, it's so stale. The constant collecting of shit loot from all over the place, containers, boxes, chests, enemies, and then you have to sort through it all and sell the stuff that isn't an upgrade or whatever... Stuff like that just isn't fun. The massive amounts of time spent running around and backtracking.

All these things are usually done because it's what they expect that the players want, but they have never tried anything else. And most of these things are evolutionary, they have come from older RPGs which took it from PnP etc. These ideas evolved like the concept of a knife evolved, but the whole world shouldn't be eating with a knife. Someone should invent a spoon and fork.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

What I've learned over time that most problems can be solved with superior design.
Morrowind didn't need fast travel all the time because it was actually interesting to traverse the lands. And the travel system is still a great mixed solution.
You don't really need to have an option to speed up animations if they are very short or combat is short overall.
Level scaling is simply a lazy fix for a non-existent problem.

- Boring, linear, granular item progression: You just got a new sword. It's a Level 6 which does +2.7% damage, compared to the Level 4 you picked up a couple maps ago which only does +2.3% damage. After 50 hours of this, the reward centers in your brain are completely fried.

I hate that one with passion. The amount of wasted bullshit loot in RPGs is overwhelming.


and - as always - fake choices.

 

[Darth Canoli]

What's infuriating, besides most of what was already mentioned:

• Devs who pretend to develop old-skoolz gansta incline classy RPG but get their inspiration from Skyrim and PoE.
• Devs who didn't play the modern classics (at least some of them among Dark Sun, Prelude to Darkness, Wizardry 8, ToEE, KotC and below VI Might & Magic)
• Games including current year politics (Dangerhair lesbians, alien sodomites, you name it)
• Devs innovating because they have GRAND ideas but don't even know the basics (learn to walk before trying to run)
• Games that are mediocre because of all the previous reasons, if 5% of the RPG devs knew what they were doing, the market would be flooded with masterpieces...

 

[curds]

Fast Travel.

Morrowind did this with mark and recall spell so it's at least tolerable. But when they apply it in full force with FNV, it break game's economy apart.

The devil of it is: it's so useful players cant help using it. And we would use disabling FT mod very very hesistantly because it's too damn useful.

Well, the world of most open-world games is so bland and boring that traveling between locations without fast travel feels just like a chore.

Yeah, honestly in my opinion the problem is not necessarily fast travel but badly designed, too-large open worlds.

That said, unrestricted fast travel is lame, too. Best solution is teleports to select few locations unlocked in late-mid game.

 

[ELEXmakesMeHard]

Hate it when games make me reload over and over in order to explore non-C&C dialogue tree options. If there's 3 interesting questions ask, then I should be able to ask them all. If one of those questions advances the dialogue to the next stage, it should be marked.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Well, the SJW shit makes even decent games unplayable. I thought I could hold my nose with Wrath of the Righteous, but the garbage-tier writing is permeated with this.

How are you supposed to care about saving a city when that city is Sodom?

 

[alighieri]

Well, the SJW shit makes even decent games unplayable. I thought I could hold my nose with Wrath of the Righteous, but the garbage-tier writing is permeated with this.

How are you supposed to care about saving a city when that city is Sodom?

By embracing the degeneracy.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Well, the SJW shit makes even decent games unplayable. I thought I could hold my nose with Wrath of the Righteous, but the garbage-tier writing is permeated with this.

How are you supposed to care about saving a city when that city is Sodom?

By embracing the degeneracy.

Nah. I'd rather not become a faggot just to play a videogame.

 

[Harthwain]

The removal of mechanics as a way of fixing them. Usually it results in a shallower game. I'd rather have a clunky but more interesting mechanic instead.

 

[Dodo1610]

-Not being able to switch between weapon sets
-HP bloat
-crappy armour systems
-very limited weapon selection


but the most infuriating:
when you cannot make an obvious choice because the writers want to create drama. Aka fuck Cyperpunks fake choices
- fake open world with invisible walls and not being able to jump/climb/swim seriously why have and open world if you don't want the player to explore

 

[Rahdulan]

Man, reading this thread makes me stand back in amazement thinking how many things Gothic got right. From an interesting world just big enough to memorize where fast travel becomes an added bonus to meaningful gear upgrades that aren't just minuscule percentiles encouraging perpetual gear treadmills.

 

[J1M]

Fast Travel.

Morrowind did this with mark and recall spell so it's at least tolerable. But when they apply it in full force with FNV, it break game's economy apart.

The devil of it is: it's so useful players cant help using it. And we would use disabling FT mod very very hesistantly because it's too damn useful.

Well, the world of most open-world games is so bland and boring that traveling between locations without fast travel feels just like a chore.

Fallout 1 & 2 have fast travel...

 

[50726f73706572]

Fast Travel.

Morrowind did this with mark and recall spell so it's at least tolerable. But when they apply it in full force with FNV, it break game's economy apart.

The devil of it is: it's so useful players cant help using it. And we would use disabling FT mod very very hesistantly because it's too damn useful.

Well, the world of most open-world games is so bland and boring that traveling between locations without fast travel feels just like a chore.

Fallout 1 & 2 have fast travel...

You poor poor men.