RPG Mechanics Made Pointless By Game Features

[DraQ]

RNG is rendered pointless by reloading.

It's only pointless if the RNG is highly telegraphed and binary, with a high level of impact attached to it. Like if you fire 30 bullets a turn and each of them is RNG, you're probably not reloading for each bullet. But if you're able to gamble everything on double or nothing, yeah, why is this even in the game?

True, there is a lot of effective mitigation strategies - delayed consequences, recoverable failures, having a lot of rolls happen in a short timeframe (randomness becomes less random once you add more of it), etc. - but many, even really good games are designed as if their devs never even heard about such thing as player saving and loading.

If player opens a chest and only at that moment contents are determined using RNG, then of course player will keep reloading until something cool falls out of it.
If a result of a skill usage or stat check is non-deterministic and readily apparent, then of course player will keep reloading (doubly so if it's something like pickpocket check and the entire town goes nuclear on the PC/party on failure - I'm looking at you, Wizardry 8).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Many D&D style games limit options or stocks based on a "per day" system, but then let you rest anytime you want outside of combat with zero penalty, making anything but per-battle limits pointless.

Pillars of eternity actually fixed this with campfires and limited them based on difficulty which is great but decided their audience was too stupid to handle it so they pretty much removed it in the sequel. Pathfinder kingmaker fixed this early game but completely ruined it because by end game you could carry as much rations as you wanted. I'm hoping at least one of these new dnd inspired games have the balls to do it properly. Limited rests, some dungeons you can't escape and are stuck with how much rations you brought in, and forcing people to do a walk of Shame back to town if they over rest be would be amazing.

The only thing supplies added to PoE was the annoyingness of having to return all the way to town to buy new ones when you ran out.
Resting in a dungeon should be dangerous. You should be required to find a small room and a way to bar the door, and ambushes should be frequent.

 

[DalekFlay]

If player opens a chest and only at that moment contents are determined using RNG, then of course player will keep reloading until something cool falls out of it.
If a result of a skill usage or stat check is non-deterministic and readily apparent, then of course player will keep reloading (doubly so if it's something like pickpocket check and the entire town goes nuclear on the PC/party on failure - I'm looking at you, Wizardry 8).

I played Pathfinder Kingmaker recently and in the end-game it has a ton of pretty high level skill checks in dialog that are RNG based, so even with great scores you fail half the time. I don't like being a save-scummer so I resisted the tempation to reload them all, but you easily could. You could also save before trying to open any locked chest (I got screwed out of finishing a quest for a unicorn horn by not being able to open the two chests in the game that had one). At least in these cases though the player can choose to be a prestigious man of honor and not reload if he cares about it, while in Outer Worlds you can't stop yourself from getting 300 lockpicks.

 

[laclongquan]

In Fallout 1/2, barter is entirely game breaking. Instead of making you swimming in loot money middle to late game, now you can swim in money in early-middle game. In tens of my runs, barter is entirely untouched, and I (we) have no problem with money.

Gambling, though, is half-way interesting. It is a skill that can bring you much money in early game, which provide easy access to shop's weapon. In return you pay for it by slower advancement in other skills. It might be an alternative way to play, IF you want to play a crippled noob. Although you can improve it with talkative pacific style... it is too noobish of a character to make people interested in playing.

In Fallout Tactic, gambling is too cheating that recent fan-mod mostly eliminate this feature. barter is still in because shops are too limited and the scaling of shop items make selling is not that profitable. you can manage to buy/sell a little better... until the shop sold out what you need.

 

[laclongquan]

In a separate note: Stealing

Most game make game too easy with stealing thanks to savescumming. Thus players can have access to many things with that action.

I speak, of course, of the trinity: Fallout series, BG/IWD series, and Planescape Torment.

Still, to fix it, the easiest way would up the skill check way up, so only a specialist can do it. And that bring up another trade-off: people find it too hard so they just abandon that feature.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I played Pathfinder Kingmaker recently and in the end-game it has a ton of pretty high level skill checks in dialog that are RNG based, so even with great scores you fail half the time. I don't like being a save-scummer so I resisted the tempation to reload them all, but you easily could.

I don't think games should tell you whether you passed/failed a skill check in dialogue and is also an unnecessary constraint on the writer. As an example: luring the player into a false sense of security by thinking they passed say, a barter check, only to later realize they had one pulled over on them by the NPC would be impossible if the game flat out tells you that you fail.

 

[DraQ]

You could also save before trying to open any locked chest (I got screwed out of finishing a quest for a unicorn horn by not being able to open the two chests in the game that had one).

And there is no way in that game, purportedly emulating PnP, to open the chest in any other way?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You could also save before trying to open any locked chest (I got screwed out of finishing a quest for a unicorn horn by not being able to open the two chests in the game that had one).

And there is no way in that game, purportedly emulating PnP, to open the chest in any other way?

#13 greatest crpg of all time bro

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[rusty_shackleford]

True, there is a lot of effective mitigation strategies - delayed consequences, recoverable failures, having a lot of rolls happen in a short timeframe (randomness becomes less random once you add more of it), etc. - but many, even really good games are designed as if their devs never even heard about such thing as player saving and loading.

It's the complete other way around. They are designed around you savescumming which is why they are like they are.

 

[Saravan]

True, there is a lot of effective mitigation strategies - delayed consequences, recoverable failures, having a lot of rolls happen in a short timeframe (randomness becomes less random once you add more of it), etc. - but many, even really good games are designed as if their devs never even heard about such thing as player saving and loading.

It's the complete other way around. They are designed around you savescumming which is why they are like they are.

Savescumming is a choice however that you as a player decide to take. You could play the game and decide not to do it, live with the consequences of your actions etc. The game will most likely suffer if you try to via game mechanics stop that. That would usually require restricting saving in odd ways that frustrates players more than the thing it's trying to solve.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

True, there is a lot of effective mitigation strategies - delayed consequences, recoverable failures, having a lot of rolls happen in a short timeframe (randomness becomes less random once you add more of it), etc. - but many, even really good games are designed as if their devs never even heard about such thing as player saving and loading.

It's the complete other way around. They are designed around you savescumming which is why they are like they are.

Savescumming is a choice however that you as a player decide to take. You could play the game and decide not to do it, live with the consequences of your actions etc. The game will most likely suffer if you try to via game mechanics stop that. That would usually require restricting saving in odd ways that frustrates players more than the thing it's trying to solve.

You're overlooking that the game features are designed around it. It's like telling someone to cheat in a roguelike by backing up their saves and expecting to get a similar gaming experience.

 

[Darth Canoli]

If player opens a chest and only at that moment contents are determined using RNG, then of course player will keep reloading until something cool falls out of it.
If a result of a skill usage or stat check is non-deterministic and readily apparent, then of course player will keep reloading (doubly so if it's something like pickpocket check and the entire town goes nuclear on the PC/party on failure - I'm looking at you, Wizardry 8).

I never save-scummed in Wizardry 8, not that i do it in other games either, sure, if i've read you can get the vorpale sword of oblivion +25 in a chest and after 3 playthrough, i never had that sword, i might try.
In wizardry 8, some loot are random but most of them aren't, some are fixed or coded with a high probability.
You never have to rely on save-scumming, you get better weapons soon enough.
The only exception in Wizardry 8 is the Cane Corpus if you have a pixie ninja, you "have" to get it from Don Barlone and i think the drop rate is around 50-60% but that's meta-gaming when you re-play the game.

Wrong example where in many games, it's fully randomized.

 

[cvv]

Exploration: made more or less pointless by level scaling, unless there's hand place loot.

Unfortunately level scaling was created for brainless retards who always whine that "gaem is railroaded" and "gated" and that you can't go absolutely anywhere right from the start. These imbeciles are particularly prevalent in the Bethestard camp so Todd created level scaling to appease them.

 

[cvv]

RNG is rendered pointless by reloading.

Fucking this. Quicksave anywhere is a cancer from space on RPG gaming.

Love Roxor's line about lockpicking chance being always 100% regardless of the actual percentage.

Problem is when you try to at least minimize savescumming like Kingdom Come did you'll get hit with a massive disturbance in the force and a million normie voices will cry out in anguish. Resistance is futile.

 

[DraQ]

True, there is a lot of effective mitigation strategies - delayed consequences, recoverable failures, having a lot of rolls happen in a short timeframe (randomness becomes less random once you add more of it), etc. - but many, even really good games are designed as if their devs never even heard about such thing as player saving and loading.

It's the complete other way around. They are designed around you savescumming which is why they are like they are.

Savescumming is a choice however that you as a player decide to take. You could play the game and decide not to do it, live with the consequences of your actions etc. The game will most likely suffer if you try to via game mechanics stop that. That would usually require restricting saving in odd ways that frustrates players more than the thing it's trying to solve.

I have proposed a method that doesn't restrict saving - just let the game fight back against player bending probability (reloading) when it detects it, by treating luck as finite supply - depending how low does player run it increasingly interesting loot might be overriden with trash, increasingly worthwhile sidequests might autofail (in believable manner) with player not getting the reward and bearing the consequences and so on. On the flip side game should provide recoverable failure modes as often as possible.
So, if player plays smart to minimize deaths and only reloads when absolutely necessary, they will almost never get this bad luck override. If player reloads a lot they have difficulty of finding funds and generic supplies, then high quality generic items, their sword breaks, then it might turn out someone has already looted the resting place of that sweet artifact of power or that noble's daughter kidnapped by bandits was already eaten by trolls that, unknowingly to bandits, shared the cave with them and now noble is pissed and considers it your fault.

Second, there are ways to limit saving that aren't console trash checkpoint BS, but they require to be cleverly integrated into game's logic. For example in Ori and The Blind Forest (platformer and metroidvania) you can create your own checkpoints almost everywhere but it uses energy you also use for a lot of useful stuff. If you do it sparingly you are never really running out and can always save if you need to (before or after frustrating section, when leaving the game, etc.) but since you cannot save everywhere you're encouraged to go certain stretches through the game without saving and it creates tension. As a bonus game makes saving heal you a bit as an early unlockable ability which creates strong incentive to live your non-fatal mistakes.

Third, unless it's highly plot-driven experience you can always just use ironman mode with save only on exit (needs to still save your progress all the time beneath the hood to avoid crashes and other technical mishaps).

If player opens a chest and only at that moment contents are determined using RNG, then of course player will keep reloading until something cool falls out of it.
If a result of a skill usage or stat check is non-deterministic and readily apparent, then of course player will keep reloading (doubly so if it's something like pickpocket check and the entire town goes nuclear on the PC/party on failure - I'm looking at you, Wizardry 8).

I never save-scummed in Wizardry 8, not that i do it in other games either, sure, if i've read you can get the vorpale sword of oblivion +25 in a chest and after 3 playthrough, i never had that sword, i might try.
In wizardry 8, some loot are random but not all of them are, some are fixed or coded with a high probability.
You never have to rely on save-scumming, you get better weapons soon enough.
The only exception in Wizardry 8 is the Cane Corpus if you have a pixie ninja, you "have" to get it from Don Barlone and i think the drop rate is around 50-60% but that's meta-gaming when you re-play the game.

Wrong example where in many games, it's fully randomized.

That was for stealing from NPCs. In ironman you just don't do it most of the time. Out of ironman you simply reload because the cost is too high. But yeah, good luck seeing that *light* *sword* without scumming.

 

[DraQ]

RNG is rendered pointless by reloading.

Fucking this. Quicksave anywhere is a cancer from space on RPG gaming.

Actually that's mostly reloading rather than saving.

Love Roxor's line about lockpicking chance being always 100% regardless of the actual percentage.

Sometimes it's 0%, but never anything in between.

 

[deuxhero]

In Morrowind, NPCs would react to your outfit quality. Unfortunately the check looks at the value of your armor as well as your clothes, and armor costs so much they think you're fabulous for wearing any armor beyond trash tier.

In New Vegas, every weapon has a unique jam animation. Problem is, the durability threshold to see them is so low, and repairs are so easy, you'll never see them past the very early game even if you use a mod to increase the threshold. Taking enough HP from an enemy to cripple a limb also tends to mean they're about to die anyways, and I can only recall doing it to deliberately toy with an enemy.

In KotOR 1 and 2 you get various special attack type options. You can't see enemy AC and the math (plus various on-hit effects you can get) favors flurry anyways meaning there's no reason to not just pick flurry and use it every fight.

In Mount & Blade, playing as a female is supposed to be a negative socially. Among the negatives is that you don't get a free fief when joining a faction. Thing is, there is no sexism penalty on getting a fief afterwards, but there is a penalty for already having a fief. Thus the penalty actually becomes a benefit since you stand a very high chance of getting the first city you take.

In a separate note: Stealing

Most game make game too easy with stealing thanks to savescumming. Thus players can have access to many things with that action.

I speak, of course, of the trinity: Fallout series, BG/IWD series, and Planescape Torment.

Still, to fix it, the easiest way would up the skill check way up, so only a specialist can do it. And that bring up another trade-off: people find it too hard so they just abandon that feature.

Kingdom Come had NPCs realize you were a thief after the fact. Sadly this so rarely comes into play due to how hard it is to trigger even though it exists.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Problem is when you try to at least minimize savescumming like Kingdom Come did you'll get hit with a massive disturbance in the force and a million normie voices will cry out in anguish. Resistance is futile.

The issue with KCD's system was that there was no save at exit at launch. This is an absolutely mandatory feature.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Something that I like about XCOM is that it isn't truly random. There's a lot going on in its pseudo-RNG system. One of them is a seed that's set when you start a battle. So because the random seed is already set, that 95% chance to hit has already been decided before you pull the trigger. Reloading the game isn't going to turn a miss into a hit.

Something else that XCOM does is it adjusts its rolls to match player expectations of "random." So when you miss that 95% chance to hit, the next so-called "95% chance to hit" is actually a lot closer to 100%. Truly random rolls would make you miss a 95% shot three times in a row once out 8,000 attempts. Given the billions of rounds of XCOM that players have played, that 1/8000 chance should happen pretty often, but it doesn't because the devs got tired of testers complaining and they tweaked the odds.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

Problem is when you try to at least minimize savescumming like Kingdom Come did you'll get hit with a massive disturbance in the force and a million normie voices will cry out in anguish. Resistance is futile.

The issue with KCD's system was that there was no save at exit at launch. This is an absolutely mandatory feature.

I didn't play KCD that early. That sounds horrible. So if real life calls, and you don't have a Savior Schnapps, then you're just SOL. I don't know how anyone could have thought that was a good idea.

 

[Baardhaas]

In Fallout 1/2, barter is entirely game breaking. Instead of making you swimming in loot money middle to late game, now you can swim in money in early-middle game. In tens of my runs, barter is entirely untouched, and I (we) have no problem with money.

That's partially because barter is actually broken in Fallout 2 (not sure about F1). Something was wrong with the calculation, so the lower your barter skill, the better the prices. It got fixed in the unoffcial patch. This doesn't fix the broken economy though (fixed selling prices), so you'll still get stupidly rich very fast.

There's a mod that fixes the barter system, making barter a viable alternative to just stealing everything.

 

[cvv]

Actually that's mostly reloading rather than saving.

Yeah, I'm hearing that all the time. It's technically true.

But consider Wasteland 2 - there's a locked door with some mysterious content behind it. You have 60% of success, 20% of a critical failure. You try - BLAM, a critical failure. The lock is jammed ever forever. You'll never learn what is behind that door - maybe a weapon, maybe a piece of lore, maybe a great quest or a companion NPC.

How many people will just accept it and move on and how many will opt for that super-easy, super-fast solution: F9?

It's called incentives and it's a real thing, no matter how much people say "you don't have to do it". To incentivize players to savescum is cancer.

 

[cvv]

Problem is when you try to at least minimize savescumming like Kingdom Come did you'll get hit with a massive disturbance in the force and a million normie voices will cry out in anguish. Resistance is futile.

The issue with KCD's system was that there was no save at exit at launch. This is an absolutely mandatory feature.

I agree but do you really think if they included the Bard's Tale 4 style of a save-on-exit feature from the start (you can save on exit but when you load up again the save is automatically deleted, something they originally considered) people would whine any less? Nah, people are addicted to their F5/F9.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

people would whine any less?

who cares