RPG Mechanics Made Pointless By Game Features

[rusty_shackleford]

Save and quit enforces permadeath.

...no?
It saves when you quit so you can start off from where you stopped. This can easily be combined with some sort of checkpoint save system(e.g., sleeping in a bed)

If it only saves when you quit, and you just had an hour of non-stop playtime, and then you die, the last save was a full hour ago.

find somewhere to rest more often than once an hour?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[JarlFrank]

Save and quit enforces permadeath.

...no?
It saves when you quit so you can start off from where you stopped. This can easily be combined with some sort of checkpoint save system(e.g., sleeping in a bed)

If it only saves when you quit, and you just had an hour of non-stop playtime, and then you die, the last save was a full hour ago.

find somewhere to rest more often than once an hour?

You didn't mention the "save on rest" in your original suggestion for a "save on exit" system. They're two different systems that can be combined, but having a purely save on exit system doesn't mean you also have checkpoints/save on rest.

 

[Serus]

Random chest contents is cancer anyway, hand-placed loot or bust.

You aren't into replayability, are you...
In crpgs many game aren't replayable by design so it's ok, i guess. I think good compromise was made in IWD1 or Wizardry 8. Placed loot combined with randomized loot one. Of curse there are crpgs to be replayed a lot of times, especially roguelikes where randomization is part of the fun.

How does randomized loot contribute to replayability?

I much prefer the hand-placed artifacts of Baldur's Gate 2 and Morrowind. I replayed both of those games plenty of times. Knowing where to find good artifacts doesn't make the games any less replayable.

EDIT:
In fact, I find good deliberately hand-made content way more replayable than randomized but flavorless content, which is why I tend to replay games with content I like more often than, say, roguelikes which rely entirely on randomization.

If that's not clear, I don't talk about replaying a game several years later the second time but actually replaying several times when you still remember the game very well.

Answering your question. Obviously because you know less about what to expect in the next game you replay.
Not knowing something in advance > repeating something you know exactly in advance and redo all the same steps.
The reason when replaying BG2 You take different class as your main char and/or different try different followers. Also You probably didn't play with vanilla version all the times but tried some mods. And didn't 100% of the time choose the same faction. Why? All this has a purpose - to increase replayility by creating some new elements to the game. Elements that You don't know in advance. Same principle applies to random loot, as simple as that.

BTW "flavor" loose meaning when you already know what to expect perfectly. The point is moot.


In the end, BG2 and even worse Morrowind, "plenty of times" ? Really. You should have used this time top play or replay actually good CRPGs.

Spoiler

Kidding, there are much worse crpgs out there, though i probably disliked Morrowind almost as much as you dislike RLs

 

[JarlFrank]

Kidding, there are much worse crpgs out there, though i probably disliked Morrowind almost as much as you dislike RLs

I don't dislike them, I played plenty of them and even paid money for some to get them in my Steam account (TOME, Dungeonmans). They just don't grab me. They're a "play one 20-minute session and quit when you die" coffee break genre for me.

I prefer games that have a consistent world for you to explore, and loot not being random is part of that consistency for me. If there's a legendary ancient artifact in that chest, it should always be there. There's no conceivable reason why a chest would contain random loot. Breaks my immersion.

Replayability is gained through good encounter design so you feel like re-playing the same well-designed fights again, alternative approaches to situations (combat, stealth, speech, etc), and branching paths through the main quest. I don't feel like randomization of content adds anything to a game.

 

[Trashos]

Serus, I call BS on the replayability argument too. I am heavily into replayability (I try to only play games that I estimate that I will want to replay several times), and randomization does nothing for me. No, scrap that, randomization makes the game LESS replayable, because there are less things to master, and therefore doing a subsequent playthrough makes less sense to me.

 

[DalekFlay]

It saves when you quit so you can start off from where you stopped. This can easily be combined with some sort of checkpoint save system(e.g., sleeping in a bed)

I'm glad you have the time after a death to repeat the shit you already did since your last rest, but not everyone is that big a loser in real life.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It saves when you quit so you can start off from where you stopped. This can easily be combined with some sort of checkpoint save system(e.g., sleeping in a bed)

I'm glad you have the time after a death to repeat the shit you already did since your last rest, but not everyone is that big a loser in real life.

Maybe walking simulators are more your style if you don't want any consequences for failure

 

[Arbiter]

Unique items being less powerful than random or crafted ones.
Or the opposite: crafting useless because better items can easily be found or purchased.

 

[DalekFlay]

Unique items being less powerful than random or crafted ones.
Or the opposite: crafting useless because better items can easily be found or purchased.

Good one, and applies to a lot of games I feel. If a game has crafting and you actually pay attention to it, chances are nothing you find in the wild will be interesting anymore.

 

[deuxhero]

Crafting should be reserved for games that don't have well stocked shops and make the advantage of it be you can get exactly what you want. Kingmaker with the item crafting mod is a good example: You can craft anything with the right feat, and are no longer at the whims of whatever loot was placed (so you can more freely specialize in an obscure weapon), and do it at half cost no less, but it costs a feat and time. You also can't get unique properties on your items if you craft them.

A game where the setting makes sense to have well shopped shops, like one where a major city/planet (that isn't under some serious stress like a plague or blockade) is a hub should let the player custom order stuff instead of bothering with crafting. I found the New Vegas mod Mail Order Catalogs worked really great and made sense in the world (you've got a working post system and a gun maker, so naturally someone would combine them). You've got a few restrictions that feel natural and it's actually more balanced than you'd think due to a few of the quirks: Your order is full price (no barter discount) plus shipping, and takes time to arrive, which serves the triple purpose of 1: not invalidating real merchant since only they sell armor/ammo and buy stuff from you 2: not invalidating exploration since unique weapons blow away the ones you can order 3: Making money actually matter a bit longer, since you have to pay full price in liquid caps which are actually relatively hard to come by in the quantities needed (it's trivial to loot some fiends for valuable energy weapons and trade them for all the consumables you want at a vendor, but their cap supply is crap outside of a small handful). While the time pressure isn't real outside of hardcore mode (and barely relevant even then) it feels natural.

 

[DalekFlay]

Sometimes in games, like Skyrim for example, I ignore the crafting purposely so the game doesn't get too easy and I'm not discouraged from exploring for loot. If the game was actually hard though, then I would try to maximize through crafting.

 

[Cat Dude]

First person perspective makes customization pointless.

 

[Ontopoly]

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.

It's the walk of Shame. Punishes you enough that you at least start considering rests instead of just spamming

 

[Artyoan]

Quick saving/loading renders a lot of systems defunct across a lot of games. Not to mention the removal of tension as well.

I'd say traps are my favorite example though. The player could either savescum the damage or the game likely has no long term effects anyway as heals are cheap/infinite.

 

[Harthwain]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution's shitty "director's cut" gives you cheat DLC hacking devices which make higher level hacking skills pointless.

I played the base version and higher hacking skills were pointless anyway, if you were good at it. It's games like this that make me wish for a smarter hacking, where higher level of hacking skill actually contributes to you being able to hack something.

Same goes for lockpicking in most games where lockpicking is manual (Skyrim, Thief: Deadly Shadows, etc.).

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.

I really liked Kingdom Come: Deliverance's take on it, because you either had to replay a day if you got caught or... live with it. But in most games ANY failure/consequence is rendered obsolete by save-load feature, not just stealing. Combat injuries/"death" penalties, for example.

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.

Wasn't level scaling supposed to keep the game challenging by making sure you can't outlevel everyone?

Although I always thought that making combat lethal is the best foundation for keeping the challenge in: if there is a possibility to die in any encounter, you tend to seek various ways to mitigate it. Some of it may be through buying better protecting gear, but it also enables people to be creative if they are trying to treat combat as last resort.

How does randomized loot contribute to replayability?

Theoretically by having different loot on each playthrough you have different ways to operate. But this requires good game design. Chests in Exanima always feel special, because pretty much any object (aside from a weapon, if you have a set preference) can be useful to you.

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.

It's the walk of Shame. Punishes you enough that you at least start considering rests instead of just spamming

What was pointless in PoE was the ironman mode.

Why? Because if you don't know what's going to happen you can get yourself into a fight you either can't win or can't win without reloading a lot. And if you can't win the combat or reload to win it, you're pretty much as good as dead. Why? Because you can't disengage, because disengaging will trigger attacks of opportunity, which traslates into: "You're dead, lol!", so it's the same result as fighting. This means you have to re-roll your character and play again from the beginning up to this point (this time knowing what you can take on). Until next time you get yourself into a situation where you can't win.

At this point you might as well save and load when needed.

 

[DalekFlay]

I'd say traps are my favorite example though. The player could either savescum the damage or the game likely has no long term effects anyway as heals are cheap/infinite.

Not sure about quicksaving (I get the impression some people constantly quicksave before every possible thing, which is kind of them being neurotic more than the ability to ruining games). However I agree traps in most games are pointless, because they don't do enough damage to matter outside of combat. I was actually pleased that Pathfinder: Kingmaker had some pretty harsh traps with high perception checks here and there. Yes it just makes you quickload, but if you casually save here and there it would still mean there was a penalty.

 

[Carrion]

For each of its dialogue skill checks, New Vegas has a successful and a failed version, written and fully voice-acted. The failed checks are hilarious and there are hundreds of them. It's just that you know beforehand that you'll fail the check, so there's no reason to pick them except for laughs.

 

[Ontopoly]

Why? Because if you don't know what's going to happen you can get yourself into a fight you either can't win or can't win without reloading a lot. And if you can't win the combat or reload to win it, you're pretty much as good as dead. Why? Because you can't disengage, because disengaging will trigger attacks of opportunity, which traslates into: "You're dead, lol!", so it's the same result as fighting. This means you have to re-roll your character and play again from the beginning up to this point (this time knowing what you can take on). Until next time you get yourself into a situation where you can't win.

At this point you might as well save and load when needed

Maybe iron mode isn't me for you. You should probably know the game before you try iron man mode, and disengaging attack of opportunities is a good thing because you should be punished for mistakes made in combat. Consequences for moving while engaged is a good thing in my eyes. If you're not able to complete iron mode at your skill level (neither am I) why don't you just not use it instead of trying to ruin it for people who do enjoy it? That's exactly the point of iron man mode, it's pretty much the only thing it does, and you're complaining because a more hardcore option exists that doesn't appeal to you. The entire point of it is if you go into a combat encounter you can't win and end up losing, you lose your account yet that's the problem you have with it. Leave it for people that can do it and don't try to lead Obsidian to even more decline with your bitching. No body should go into Ironman mode blind, and if you did then you should learn from your mistakes, change the mode, and move on without trying to ruin it for others.

 

[Harthwain]

Maybe iron mode isn't me for you. You should probably know the game before you try iron man mode, and disengaging attack of opportunities is a good thing because you should be punished for mistakes made in combat. Consequences for moving while engaged is a good thing in my eyes. If you're not able to complete iron mode at your skill level (neither am I) why don't you just not use it instead of trying to ruin it for people who do enjoy it?

You missed the point...

No body should go into Ironman mode blind, and if you did then you should learn from your mistakes, change the mode, and move on without trying to ruin it for others.

That's just bullshit. Neo Scavenger, Battle Brothers (to give a few examples) - ironman works fine there, even if you go into these games blind.

 

[DalekFlay]

For each of its dialogue skill checks, New Vegas has a successful and a failed version, written and fully voice-acted. The failed checks are hilarious and there are hundreds of them. It's just that you know beforehand that you'll fail the check, so there's no reason to pick them except for laughs.

It lets you turn off the indicators though, I believe. Or maybe that was a mod I used.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Unique items being less powerful than random or crafted ones.
Or the opposite: crafting useless because better items can easily be found or purchased.

On this note: Path of Exile's (and plenty of similar games I'm sure) crafting AND equipment drops are utterly ruined by it's online economy. The exact same materials are used for crafting whether you're level 5 or level 95. However, the ratio of crafting materials to under level unique items changes completely as you gain levels. So crafting anything is a retarded waste of materials for 99.9% of the player base, they should just trade their materials to some piss-bottling uber farmer for all the garbage (read:anything less than perfect rolls on the best items in the game) items he doesn't need any more. And you shouldn't even bother picking up any of the uniques you find -let alone rares or magic or normals- someone else already found hundreds of them so they're worth nothing.

 

[Butter]

For each of its dialogue skill checks, New Vegas has a successful and a failed version, written and fully voice-acted. The failed checks are hilarious and there are hundreds of them. It's just that you know beforehand that you'll fail the check, so there's no reason to pick them except for laughs.

It lets you turn off the indicators though, I believe. Or maybe that was a mod I used.

That was a mod.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Any RPG with turn-based combat and a multi-character party but that only gives the player control over a single character. AI is always frustrating in comparison with the player's own choices, and this reduces the complexity of what might otherwise be good combat systems.

Similarly, any RPG with turn-based combat and a single player-character (rather than a full party) would be better served by having multiple PCs, except in the rare instances where the combat systems are actually designed for just one character.

 

[Rat King]

In POE buffing is rendered completely useless because you're not allowed to prebuff and all of the buffs absolutely fucking suck.