nuCodexers talk about le trashmobs meme, but the real killer in RPGs are trash dialog mobs.

[aweigh]

I'd rather engage in 100 turn-based random encounters that actually progress my characters and my party building and let me engage in many different gameplay elements than have to run around in some boring ass place talking to boring NPCs that are giving me badly-written dialog asking me for help doing something dumb.

TRASH DIALOG MOBS NEEDS TO GO!

DIALOG NPCs SHOULD ALL BE UNIQUE AND IMPORTANT! Less trash dialog and more gameplay, please!

 

[smaug]

What is your obsession with fighting trash mobs?

 

[barghwata]

It's really just a matter of quality not quantity, if the combat system and encounter design are good then i'll happily fight hundreds of enemies. The same can be said about dialogue, as long as it is well written and helps with worldbuilding, fleshing out characters ,collecting informations etc... then i'll happily read thousands of words.

The problem however is when there is too much quantity but little quality and that's when you get trash mobs and trash dialogue; for me these two things are equally terrible, the only difference being that you can at least skip trash dialogue.

 

[S.torch]

Neither the gameplay or the dialog should be "trash". However trash mobs kill the fun of any game ten times faster than any dialog.

 

[aweigh]

Neither the gameplay or the dialog should be "trash". However trash mobs kill the fun of any game ten times faster than any dialog.

Sure, because if a game has "trashmobs" then that means it has bad gameplay. Who wants to play a game with bad gameplay?

Always remember that there is no such thing as a "trash mob", only a game with bad combat.

 

[DeepOcean]

Dialog you can skip, trash mobs however...

 

[S.torch]

because if a game has "trashmobs" then that means it has bad gameplay.

It means that is has bad combat. Gameplay go far beyond the vermin extermination process. However bad dialog can easily be skipped but nothing is going to speed these five copy-pasted rat encounters. Not even putting the game in easy.

 

[barghwata]

Always remember that there is no such thing as a "trash mob", only a game with bad combat.

Well; a trash mob is basically just a badly designed combat encounter. Even a game with a good combat system can have trash mobs if the encounter design is shit.

 

[frajaq]

good luck on your gayme buddy

 

[Catacombs]

I'm more interested in who took the time to PM you and ask why you're butthurt at him.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Well-balanced games about resource management use mobs to constantly drain resources (and also to represent long distances when talking about some world-map encounters). They're not filler there because gameplay is not about surviving specific encounters, but the whole hostile environment.

That of course gets ruined when an RPG encourages the player to "save early, save often, save everywhere", and lets the player to easily replenish his resources mid-adventure. Then we can talk about trash mobs, no matter how well designed the combat system is.

 

[aweigh]

Well; a trash mob is basically just a badly designed combat encounter. Even a game with a good combat system can have trash mobs if the encounter design is shit.

That's why reducing it to such a simple meme label as "trash mob" is so worthless. When talking about whether the combat in an RPG is good or not you have to talk about:

- Itemization
- Exploration
- Area design
- Encounter design
- How the game manages player psychology (Attrition, resource management, etc)
- Power curve / progression curve

Imagine you're in a dungeon trying to return to town and you have half of your party dead, and your surviving characters are all Poisoned so that every time they take a step on a new Tile they receive damage, and to boot you're all out of magic spells and all out of healing potions; and just when you're about to reach the safety of the town hub you get an encounter that includes enemies that can steal turns or can ambush you, and you're deathly afraid of losing this party because you just finished raiding a dungeon floor that you had never braved before and you got some great weapons/items that you do NOT want to lose...

Perhaps in another moment when you're at full power those same enemies are an encounter you would've considered "trash", but now because of the current player psychology that I described they are of PARAMOUNT importance to your party. The subject of whether an encounter is "trash" or not is a deeply nuanced one, my friend, and that is what I wish the anti-combat people would understand.

You simply cannot reduce combat mechanics down to something binary like "trash/not trash".

 

[Roguey]

Dragon Age II addressed the trash dialogue problem by removing introductory text on fetch quests; instead you find an object in a world, are told where to deliver it via quest compass/handy exclamation mark, then you're thanked by the character.

 

[Wunderbar]

You can easily click through some trash dialogue, but you can't skip trash combat.

Though i like trash mobs. Usually trash encounters designed to wear your character/party by making you spend resources, nothing wrong with that as long as there aren't too many of those trash encounters.

 

[aweigh]

You can easily click through some trash dialogue, but you can't skip trash combat.

Though i like trash mobs. Usually trash encounters designed to wear your character/party by making you spend resources, nothing wrong with that as long as there aren't too many of those trash encounters.

There need to be actual stakes for combat to feel meaningful. If what is gained is too paltry, or if what is lost is too inconsequential, then the player will begin thinking that the combat encounter itself is meaningless.

One of the many brilliant little things Wizardry did so well was managing to make even the post-battle encounter, i.e. the treasure chest scenario, engaging and meaningful because it still kept up the stakes for the player involvement even after the combat encounter was finished.

 

[new fucking guy]

just don't read it

 

[Wunderbar]

or if what is lost is too inconsequential

trash combat keeps you on your toes. A couple of inconsequential losses and your party is weakened for a real encounter.

 

[aweigh]

trash combat keeps you on your toes. A couple of inconsequential losses and your party is weakened for a real encounter.

Agreed. I personally wouldn't call those encounters 'trash' though, it implies that they serve no purposes, and they obviously do; and many other purposes as well beyond that as well.

 

[Latro]

without those "gotcha" mobs the game loses all challenge and is just tedium. I'd also like to say I'm in love with those special random bosses that show up in certain games (SMT: Nocturne, etc)

 

[barghwata]

Well; a trash mob is basically just a badly designed combat encounter. Even a game with a good combat system can have trash mobs if the encounter design is shit.

That's why reducing it to such a simple meme label as "trash mob" is so worthless. When talking about whether the combat in an RPG is good or not you have to talk about:

- Itemization
- Exploration
- Area design
- Encounter design
- How the game manages player psychology (Attrition, resource management, etc)
- Power curve / progression curve

Imagine you're in a dungeon trying to return to town and you have half of your party dead, and your surviving characters are all Poisoned so that every time they take a step on a new Tile they receive damage, and to boot you're all out of magic spells and all out of healing potions; and just when you're about to reach the safety of the town hub you get an encounter that includes enemies that can steal turns or can ambush you, and you're deathly afraid of losing this party because you just finished raiding a dungeon floor that you had never braved before and you got some great weapons/items that you do NOT want to lose...

Perhaps in another moment when you're at full power those same enemies are an encounter you would've considered "trash", but now because of the current player psychology that I described they are of PARAMOUNT importance to your party. The subject of whether an encounter is "trash" or not is a deeply nuanced one, my friend, and that is what I wish the anti-combat people would understand.

You simply cannot reduce combat mechanics down to something binary like "trash/not trash".

I totally agree, there are alot of different mechanics and design choices that can have an affect on whether a particular combat encounter is trash or not in a certain situation, but i still think encounter design issues like bad enemy placement and level design or dysfunctional enemy party compositions can make an encounter trash by default. Imagine for example an encounter where an enemy party of 5 archers are placed right behind a door, and the moment you open the door you're immediatley faced by these 5 archers that basically have no chance against you since they're already in reach of your close range fighters. An encounter like this wouldn't be fun and would be just a pointless waste of time, the example is a little extreme but you know what i mean.

There is also a problem with lack of variety, fighting the same types of enemies over and over can get tedious and repetitive really fast since the combat encounters would completely lose the element of suprise, there is nothing more fun than fighting an enemy who's abilities are still new to you and you're still trying to figure out a strategy to counter them as opposed to a predictible enemy that you've faught hundreds of times before.

 

[aweigh]

I totally agree, there are alot of different mechanics and design choices that can have an affect on whether a particular combat encounter is trash or not in a certain situation, but i still think encounter design issues like bad enemy placement and level design or dysfunctional enemy party compositions can make an encounter trash by default. Imagine for example an encounter where an enemy party of 5 archers are placed right behind a door, and the moment you open the door you're immediatley faced by these 5 archers that basically have no chance against you since they're already in reach of your close range fighters. An encounter like this wouldn't be fun and would be just a pointless waste of time, the example is a little extreme but you know what i mean.

There is also a problem with lack of variety, fighting the same types of enemies over and over can get tedious and repetitive really fast since the combat encounters would completely lose the element of suprise, there is nothing more fun than fighting an enemy who's abilities are still new to you and you're still trying to figure out a strategy to counter them as opposed to a predictible enemy that you've faught hundreds of times before.

Yes. I think you and me are mostly on the same page about this. I suppose at this moment my real issue is with the label 'trash'; for example in your archer example I would call that symptomatic of bad encounter design (maybe throw in bad area design) though if the game accounted for this with its core systems it could completely change the player psychology on it (for example if the player could train characters to set up barricades or to somehow deflect arrows); so once again we have an example of an encounter that can be trash or not depending on many different variables that are all related to core gameplay mechanics.

And in your second example, about variety, of course I fully agree here as well: this is a core component for having good player progression and for establishing a satisfying power curve for the player. This is stuff that when reduced to a simple label like "trash mobs" suddenly becomes much harder to discuss and talk more finely about because the meme label itself of 'trash mob' communicates absolutely nothing.

 

[Bah]

Typically, I think people throw out the "trash-mob" meme because they just don't like having more then a handful of fights in a game. I suppose that means they want to gain experience purely through questing, or having a smaller amount of more unique fights?

I thought Numenera tried something interesting by having much less combat, but making each encounter more unique, but it gets shat all over here on codex.

 

[smaug]

Even if a game has good combat, that doesn’t mean it can’t have trash mobs.

In Champions of Krynn if you explore every corner of the first dungeon you’ll fight the exact same encounter every. single. time and it plays out the exact same way. This is called trash mobs as it’s an excessive amount of useless mobs designed to keep you busy. If you’re going to argue “resource management” then good for you, but excessive trash mobs isn’t the only way to have resource management occur. Meaningful well thought out fights can drain and make you use your resources carefully.

This is one of the main reasons people hate random encounters.

 

[barghwata]

Yes. I think you and me are mostly on the same page about this. I suppose at this moment my real issue is with the label 'trash'; for example in your archer example I would call that symptomatic of bad encounter design (maybe throw in bad area design) though if the game accounted for this with its core systems it could completely change the player psychology on it (for example if the player could train characters to set up barricades or to somehow deflect arrows); so once again we have an example of an encounter that can be trash or not depending on many different variables that are all related to core gameplay mechanics.

And in your second example, about variety, of course I fully agree here as well: this is a core component for having good player progression and for establishing a satisfying power curve for the player. This is stuff that when reduced to a simple label like "trash mobs" suddenly becomes much harder to discuss and talk more finely about because the meme label itself of 'trash mob' communicates absolutely nothing.

I think "trash mobs" is just a simple expression that people came up with to signify that a game has a veriety of issues (bad encounter design, area design etc...) that makes some of its combat encounters pointless without getting too much into detail, but i agree with you that it's not a very useful expression to use if you're trying to have a more in depth discussion about game mechanics.

 

[Trashos]

Trash mobs are irredeemable. Why are you assuming that I am willing to go through 10-20 mins of mindnumbing fighting in order to reach 1 good fight? Not all fights have to be tough, but it does not mean that they should not provide something interesting and memorable.

Eg, have an interesting context for the fight, have an interesting enemy, have an interesting dialogue, make me use a tactic that I do not normally use, make me switch weapon sets, make me keep behind a party member that I usually send forward, do something that makes this fight kinda distinctive, memorable and worthwhile, you lazy fuck. Draining resources in an overall war of attrition is not a good excuse for trash mobs, there has to be more to it.

Do you remember in BG2 the Gnolls in Windspear Hills? That was not a boss fight. But it still had an interesting context, and a funny dialogue before the fight.

OK, maybe the above is an extreme example, as it involves heavy scripting. How about the Golems in BG2? They were not bosses, but they were dangerous, and you still had to figure out what weapons to use against them and which characters to keep back. They kept you on your toes.

I agree that trash dialogue is also bad, but it does not hurt as badly as trash mobs when it is short, at least.