RPG Mechanics Made Pointless By Game Features

[Funposter]

Oblivion and Skyrim's lockpicking minigames require no investment in the Lockpicking/Security skills to beat. Unlike Fallout 3/New Vegas which have hard limits on attempting to pick locks of certain levels, a character with 5 Lockpicking can always get into a Master level chest in Skyrim if the player is good enough. Same with Oblivion and Very Hard locks. Oblivion's was even funnier, because the 'Open' spells in the Alteration school of Magic DID have hard limits of when you could cast.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Aimed: Eye makes 95% of the character system of F1-2 obsolete. The only thing that pretty much matters is your AP count and that's it. And in F2 that matters even less as jet is overflowing and it's an easy way to ramp your AP count sky-high.

To explain it in numbers - Aimed: Eye has 60-65% of basic crit chance. In comparison to that, any bonus that you receive from Luck, Finesse or More Criticals is barely significant. Even Sniper is overhyped for the actual snipers - it's pleasant but you can easily finish both games without it while sniping everything.

Aimed: Eye costs 40 accuracy but that is way too easy to overcome. For any rifle with range 25+, a point of Perception provides 16% accuracy. Even for the shorter ranged pistols & rifles, it's still 8% accuracy. Even if you fail with your build, just a dose of Mentat or two will make you a sniper in no time. Furthermore, rifles have an innate two-handed bonus (which can be transitioned to pistols via One-Handed), some ammo has an -armor modifier for enemies (which is the same as +Accuracy) and some guns have a hidden Accurate perk (+20 Accuracy). And, with intelligence 10 being fashionable and no other ways of wasting your skillpoints, getting 150+ weapon skill rate is no problemo even in F2.

In terms of damage, eye shot provides pretty much 300% bonus on the average. So, even without further aid, just going for the eye doubles your damage output for a cost of meager 1 AP. But, as if that's not enough, crits also ignore your enemies' Damage Resistance. And even ignoring a DR of 25-30 (which is pretty common across all the foes) means 30-40% DPS increase. That's in addition to that previous doubling, yeah.

Furthermore, blue JHP ammo exists. Which provides double damage modifier as a trade-off for giving enemies more DR. While in natural state that ammo is disgustingly fair, if not self-defeating, once the Eye Shot comes into play you get all the bonuses (100% damage modifier, lel) without none of the punishment. So something like Magnum in F2 is better than a Plasma Pistol. Or that mega-hyped .223 pistol is only marginally better than a seemingly unamusing Desert Eagle. Heck, in terms of pure damage, DEagle might be better than freaking Sniper Rifle.

And then we remember that Better Criticals exist. It does cost 6 Perception and 6 Luck to study but, given that you can gain +1/+2 luck from quests and +4 Perception from drugs (and additional +1 from implant but ok, that happens too late to matter), the actual stat cost is much lower than that. You can start F2 with 2 Pe, 4 Luck and still get that easily. And that ramps the damage even further while introducing that sweet, sweet 20% insta-kill chance. Which obviously enables bare hands playthroughs and shit like this because sure, once Better Criticals are in the play, you can kill enclave troopers with rocks for all you care.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Lawntoilet]

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.

Not new, but Swordflight does a lot of this.
You can still savescum because of the NWN engine but it's otherwise good at disincentivizing rests when they shouldn't logically be safe.

 

[Thac0]

There are a lot of cool weapons in Baldurs Gate 1&2 which are made completely pointless by a much easier to obtain weapon being far stronger. Most of that is due to +1 apr on weapons being much better than any other enchantment. Bow of Tuigan and Shortbow of Gesen make all other ranged ammunition based weapons useless for a long stretch of the game(although Gesen is atleast somewhat hard to get). I constantly get cool shit for doing puzzles, combining artifact peaces or solving quests in that game just to stash it in the bag of holding never to be seen again, since the game is all about S P E E D.

 

[DalekFlay]

Pathfinder is 150 hours long and my tank used a flaming bastard sword +2 for at least 100 hours of it.

 

[Thac0]

Pathfinder is 150 hours long and my tank used a flaming bastard sword +2 for at least 100 hours of it.

I take it you didnt kill the twice born Warlord for Ovirbane, Enemy of all enemies? That sword is sick, Bastard Sword +5 of speed.
There was a fun bug with him on my playthrough Disintegration turns him into a puddle and leaves his loot on the floor, but still starts the spare/kill dialogue choice. So you can double dip on rewards while sparing him.
After getting fucked by bugs for the first 60 hours of the game I enjoyed a beneficial bug for once.

 

[UserNamer]

Just wanted to say that quick save and quickload anywhere anytime is a mechanic I hate. In general a well designed game (not talking about Rpgs specifically) is a lot more memorable to me when you are restricted in saving. There is a lot more possible tension as well

More games should not feature this

 

[Wunderbar]

In Ultima Underworld like a half of player's skills are useless.

Search? You can easily find secrets without investing in this skill.
Swimming? You can easily swim without levelling that skill at all, and there is a water walk magic.
Sneaking? With oil lamp / torch equipped enemies will spot you regardless of your sneak skill, and without a light source you can't see shit.
Appraise and Charm allow you to get lower prices when bartering, except there is a ton of gold/gems in this game, and barely anything worth a buy.
Track? Shows what kind of enemy is close to you. Now i know that there is a goblin nearby, wow!
Traps skill is useless, because there are no traps in this game.
Picklock? Doors can be easily bashed in or opened with magic, and lockpicks are very rare.

 

[DraQ]

In Ultima Underworld like a half of player's skills are useless.

Search? You can easily find secrets without investing in this skill.
Swimming? You can easily swim without levelling that skill at all, and there is a water walk magic.
Sneaking? With oil lamp / torch equipped enemies will spot you regardless of your sneak skill, and without a light source you can't see shit.
Appraise and Charm allow you to get lower prices when bartering, except there is a ton of gold/gems in this game, and barely anything worth a buy.
Track? Shows what kind of enemy is close to you. Now i know that there is a goblin nearby, wow!
Traps skill is useless, because there are no traps in this game.
Picklock? Doors can be easily bashed in or opened with magic, and lockpicks are very rare.

Those are more like mechanics made pointless by game content.

 

[Citizen]

Nah, people are addicted to their F5/F9.

The worst thing is how most games are just designed around it. I often forget to quicksave if I'm invested enough into the game, so playing stuff where you can just randomly die in absolutely any moment (STALKER: SOC, I'm looking at you) can be frustrating

 

[DraQ]

stuff where you can just randomly die in absolutely any moment (STALKER: SOC, I'm looking at you)

[citation needed]

 

[Tacgnol]

Nah, people are addicted to their F5/F9.

The worst thing is how most games are just designed around it. I often forget to quicksave if I'm invested enough into the game, so playing stuff where you can just randomly die in absolutely any moment (STALKER: SOC, I'm looking at you) can be frustrating

Unmodded SOC is pretty easy even on master. About the only time it gets instadeathy is if you're fighting enemies with high end AP ammo whilst lightly armoured, and those really only appear around end game.

 

[DraQ]

Nah, people are addicted to their F5/F9.

The worst thing is how most games are just designed around it. I often forget to quicksave if I'm invested enough into the game, so playing stuff where you can just randomly die in absolutely any moment (STALKER: SOC, I'm looking at you) can be frustrating

Unmodded SOC is pretty easy even on master. About the only time it gets instadeathy is if you're fighting enemies with high end AP ammo whilst lightly armoured, and those really only appear around end game.

You can get a facefull of gauss/RPG if you are not extra careful in Pripyat.
But you can still prevent that by being properly paranoid.

 

[Tacgnol]

Nah, people are addicted to their F5/F9.

The worst thing is how most games are just designed around it. I often forget to quicksave if I'm invested enough into the game, so playing stuff where you can just randomly die in absolutely any moment (STALKER: SOC, I'm looking at you) can be frustrating

Unmodded SOC is pretty easy even on master. About the only time it gets instadeathy is if you're fighting enemies with high end AP ammo whilst lightly armoured, and those really only appear around end game.

You can get a facefull of gauss/RPG if you are not extra careful in Pripyat.
But you can still prevent that by being properly paranoid.

Yeah those gauss fuckers in the NPP were annoying.

I think in SOC the Gauss projectiles were classified as electrical damage, which made them tear through most armoured suits. iirc, you could make them really easy by equipping 5 electrical artefacts.

 

[DraQ]

Nah, people are addicted to their F5/F9.

The worst thing is how most games are just designed around it. I often forget to quicksave if I'm invested enough into the game, so playing stuff where you can just randomly die in absolutely any moment (STALKER: SOC, I'm looking at you) can be frustrating

Unmodded SOC is pretty easy even on master. About the only time it gets instadeathy is if you're fighting enemies with high end AP ammo whilst lightly armoured, and those really only appear around end game.

You can get a facefull of gauss/RPG if you are not extra careful in Pripyat.
But you can still prevent that by being properly paranoid.

Yeah those gauss fuckers in the NPP were annoying.

I think in SOC the Gauss projectiles were classified as electrical damage, which made them tear through most armoured suits. iirc, you could make them really easy by equipping 5 electrical artefacts.

Looks like bad news when equipping a bunch of moonlights for better sprinting.

 

[jac8awol]

Games where you can take advantage of the experience system and it kills the difficulty curve. Where you can pick the lock, hack the computer, pass the diplomacy checks and finally kill the guy anyway and get experience for each of those things. Ok that's an extreme example but you know what I mean. Designers should not allow you to game the system like that, and don't tell me I'm just an autist and it's my fault for playing the game that way, that's like putting heroin in front of a junkie.

 

[Rat King]

Games where you can take advantage of the experience system and it kills the difficulty curve. Where you can pick the lock, hack the computer, pass the diplomacy checks and finally kill the guy anyway and get experience for each of those things. Ok that's an extreme example but you know what I mean. Designers should not allow you to game the system like that, and don't tell me I'm just an autist and it's my fault for playing the game that way, that's like putting heroin in front of a junkie.

You're an autist and it's your fault for playing the game that way.

 

[jackofshadows]

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.

Flash news: basically no dev cater to hardcore gamers. Bashing Obsidian for not allegedly letting go blind into the game with iron man on seems weird. If anything, even presence of triple crown solo achievment and the fact that it's possible to get w/o any crazy abusing afaik is enough to deserve some respect.

By the way, it's difficult for me to grasp complains ITT about design 'around' save-scumming . F5-F9 spam is player's choice, simple as that. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I do that too, just did it in Wiz8 to avoid many random encounters with my crooked underdeveloped party but I did that deliberately and not blaming game for that, obviously.

I played Eschalon 1 w/o reloading before every chest like many others (iirc I had iron man check anyway) and as a result, loot was scarce but I completed the game anyway because it was designed that way. And then I had a good laugh when I saw new special option in the sequel for savescummers from the first game! It didn't change loot inside chests after reloading but increaced average value in it.

 

[Harthwain]

Flash news: basically no dev cater to hardcore gamers. Bashing Obsidian for not allegedly letting go blind into the game with iron man on seems weird. If anything, even presence of triple crown solo achievment and the fact that it's possible to get w/o any crazy abusing afaik is enough to deserve some respect.

Newsflash: you're missing the point. The problem wasn't the ironman itself, it was ironman combined with the baked-in inability to retreat from the fight you realized you couldn't win. There are games out there that include ironman mode, but also don't have a retarded feature that prevents you from disengaging from the battle altogether (not just to kite enemies to death). Yes, in some games (Darkest Dungeon, to name one) it was made harder to do on purpose, but it was entirely possible and was more risk vs reward kind of thing.

 

[jackofshadows]

What exactly are you implying? That the game is not designed around iron man? Well, it's not. On the other hand, all examples you've listed are games that were clearly designed exactly for that mode (DD, BB, Neo).

And it's totally possible to disengage in PoE w/o dying.

 

[JarlFrank]

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.

Absolutely.

This is the main reason why NWN is the worst D&D CRPG ever made, especially since it's D&D, a system fundamentally designed around party members complementing each other. You can't have a good D&D party with less than 3 characters (3 is the absolute minimum, but 4-6 is ideal).

Fallout's combat would also turn from "enjoyable because of cool death animations" to genuine tactical fun with controllable party members.

Many such cases.

 

[DraQ]

Games where you can take advantage of the experience system and it kills the difficulty curve. Where you can pick the lock, hack the computer, pass the diplomacy checks and finally kill the guy anyway and get experience for each of those things. Ok that's an extreme example but you know what I mean. Designers should not allow you to game the system like that, and don't tell me I'm just an autist and it's my fault for playing the game that way, that's like putting heroin in front of a junkie.

That's because XP systems in general are deep lalaland.
The only way to make them work other than having living, breathing GM, is making them strictly goal based.

Something Balance Man set out to do before he pussied out and then lost his track.

Or you can give up making an RPG and make a Diablo. That'll work too.

 

[vota DC]

In Ultima Underworld like a half of player's skills are useless.

Swimming? You can easily swim without levelling that skill at all, and there is a water walk magic.
Traps skill is useless, because there are no traps in this game.
Picklock? Doors can be easily bashed in or opened with magic, and lockpicks are very rare.

Low level swimming can be useful of you play fighter (2 mana starting) without never invest on magic skills but you need just few points to explore even large bodies without losing health of water of level 3...you can even explore with zero if you rest sometimes since health drop from drowning is slow.
Traps is useless, you can't disarm traps but there are some traps like the spider pits in level 7.
Lockpick never broke but picklock doesn't work on massive door, you just open doors without noise maybe useful only if you want to steal from friendly factions without alarm them but really small gain Just like charm and appraise skills. Smashing door Is free, you just require some patience, you get even an unbreakable sword to do It faster.

 

[Harthwain]

What exactly are you implying?

It fits the theme of this thread (somewhat), so I mentioned it. That's all. It's not that big of a deal ultimately.