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Infuriating Developer Decisions in RPGs

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,690
Fallout 1 & 2 have fast travel...
It's not an open world though, so it makes sense to travel strictly between points of interests. In an actual open world game it kind of defeats the point of having an open world if you skip it by using fast travel.

Edit: One more important thing to mention - you don't really want to waste time, because you are on a timer (although this is more true for Fallout 1 than 2, because in Fallout 2 the time limit is very generous). Also, while moving around the map in a car is faster than walking, it does cost you "fuel".
 
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ELEXmakesMeHard

Learned
Joined
Jun 19, 2021
Messages
807
Redesigning the love interest from the first 2 games into looking like a sex doll -- while simultaneously changing the protagonist so that you play as her brother. :?

YCJalej.png
 

Monolith

Prophet
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Messages
1,290
Location
München
Goofy lol random plots. I didn't mind Dungeon of Naheulbeuk too much because it's framed from the get-go as a parody (and fires enough humour that some manages to hit). But Larian shit is an atrocious mix of bad childish humour (a lot just plain weird) with a serious plot that didn't end up working at all.
This. Just can't get over the goofy characters and plots in the first Original Sin game.

Losing fights during cut-scenes right after kicking an enemies ass - first Witcher was full of that.
 

Adenocaulon

Educated
Joined
May 17, 2021
Messages
74
The worst mistake is making the pc version similar to a console version when it can be better, for example games in pc without the option that may make the gameplay more customizable in pc, like keybindings and etc.
 

TheSoul

Scholar
Joined
Jun 15, 2018
Messages
155
Settlement building, giant lore dumps, AI companions, pointless crafting systems, the progressive presentism in most game settings, and the attitude that mods excuse bad game design.

Moments from specific games
Elex's respawning enemies
Underrail's default walk speed
New Reno and San Francisco
 

Tavernking

Don't believe his lies
Developer
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
1,216
Location
Australia
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.

Right. So it's real time but it autopauses when you're not moving. It's real time with pause.
 

Trithne

Erudite
Joined
Dec 3, 2008
Messages
1,191
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...

Do they? I'm pretty sure they have Overworld Travel, which is not the same thing. FNV tries to approximate it when you Fast Travel by advancing the World Clock by an amount, but it still doesn't represent the act of the character travelling that distance, with the possibility of encounters, like FO and FO2 do. FNV (and F3/F4 for that matter, and also TES from Oblivion onwards) Fast Travel is basically just a free teleport that takes time.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
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.
Dynamic cameras are almost always a bad decision.


For some reason the cRPG genre feels like retreading this mistake lately.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Todd should have never cut back on radiant AI.
As much hate as Oblivion gets here, the so-called "radiant AI" is what makes it stand out in the entire series to me. In many ways, it feels like a game in the format of Ultima 7 or Divinity games.
Rather than improving it and fixing obvious issues, they merely just cut it down heavily for Skyrim.

So, I guess that's my infuriating developer decision:
Worlds that don't feel alive. NPCs which don't react to you, NPCs that stand in one spot just waiting for you to talk to them, etc.,
It's worse in games that try to have some sim elements but fail at the alive part, Skyrim being a notable example. Kill a dragon in front of someone and they complain about the threat of dragons to you. Every guard has the same "I USED TO BE AN ADVENTURER LIKE YOU!" line. Nobody travels between towns, towns are tiny, nobody solves their own problems.

Skyrim's fake, plastic attempt at making their world feel 'alive' made it feel even worse than say, Morrowind.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
Right. So it's real time but it autopauses when you're not moving. It's real time with pause.
Or it's turn-based with simultaneous turn resolution. In a single-character game it's impossible to distinguish between the two, especially given the grid-based movement.
Point is, there are zero reflexes or reaction time involved in playing Ort, which makes it nonsensical to lump it with proper real-time rpg.
 

laclongquan

Arcane
Joined
Jan 10, 2007
Messages
1,870,144
Location
Searching for my kidnapped sister
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.

What you said is Morrowind system. There's a group of methods to moving between major point of interests, from public system to ones reserved for guild members. And people still need to move around 50-100 steps from point of entry to where the shops are.

With FNV's fast travel to marked location, it's just 20-30 steps~

Fallout 1/2 is not fast travel because the moves between locations take real resources, and then it take 100 tiles to get to where the shops are. Each shopping trips is a real trek. You dont do it lightly unless you are OCD about collecting goods and getting money.

Open World doesnt even come in to this. In Morrowind we can get Athletics buff to run faster. In Fallout New Vegas we can get Turbo to do the same thing~
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
Even if armour worked that way, and all hits against it were glancing blows that function no differently than a miss, that's not interesting game design. There should be a qualitative difference wrt defense between an agile unarmoured rogue and a burly dwarf in platemail. If the only thing that matters is AC GO UP then your system sucks.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
Armor, if it's plate+layers is both deflective (hits) and absorbing (concussion). Without padding metal helmet is deflective, but not very absorbing. So it's all very different depending on armor, context and weapons used.
And player must still be able to easily calculate (predict) results to make decisions. You can't run a mega formula under hood because then player wouldn't understand what can happen and for what reasons, and what decisions and conclusions he's supposed to draw from combat results.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
When a chainmail bikini enchanted to enhance agility does the exact same thing as hardened mithril armor or plainly raising your dex, your armor system is very one-dimensional.

The agile sword-dancer has a different type of defense than the burly plate armored fighter. One dodges out of the way of any strike, the other gives no fucks about being hit because most attacks glance off his armor.

That's why damage resistance and damage threshold systems like in Fallout and AoD are a lot better than D&D's plain "lol everything is AC".
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
Lot better at what? Calculate me quickly a chance to hit and damage result of a rifle crit in fallout. That is, if you even know how rolls in Fallout work.
D&D is made to roll irl. And people still forget their racial bonus against giants.
Damage thresholds can lead to funny unrealistic realisms same as AC (ie % reduction of any hit independent of power of said hit looks weird).

Also, while AC is same number to roll against, the sources are different and can have different contexts. For example, you lose DEX bonus if you can't see attacker/surprised round. But not Armor bonus. So it's incorrect to say there are no differences.
 
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Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,252
Location
한양
Strap Yourselves In
I'm just so tired of hauling stuff back to the store to sell it every 5 minutes. If you're going to have encumbrance in your game, then don't give me low-quality loot. Just give me money. Don't give me 50 cheap swords so I have to stop what I'm doing, go back and sell them, come back, and try to remember what the hell I was doing in the first place.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
You have the option not to loot it. That's the whole point of having an encumbrance system - to make looting less of a no-brainer. I agree that it works best with breakable equipment though.
 

Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,252
Location
한양
Strap Yourselves In
Yeah, I try to keep my hoarding impulses in check. But if I don't loot anything, I know I won't have enough money. So then I end up spending a lot of time trying to decide what's worth picking up, and I don't find that to be a particularly interesting decision. I'm sure some of this is because of how my brain is wired personally, but there really ought to be something at least better than Skyrim where you once you enter a town it takes a couple minutes just to get to a store.
 

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