Little details in RPGs that annoy you

[PorkyThePaladin]

Sir Porky, this is beyond stupid.
Real life being abstracted into simple to understand verbs with simple systems behind them is not a choice here.

"Abstracting" is intrinsically entwined with, among other things:
- Science, reality and your brain - when a human tries to describe how shit works, abstracting and simplifications always pop up, impossible for it to work otherwise considering the complexities of reality and how humans function
- Games - games of all kinds are abstractions of reality, that's a big part of their definition; RPGs, c or not, deal with this in spades, due to the usual focus on systems
- 'Computors and how do they work' - even if you know how shit works irl, you still have to "convert" it to code, which in all cases means literally abstracting a phenomenon (that's already abstracted by human cognition, see above), literally into numbers, which then are literally abstracted into images you see on your screen

So, playing even the smallest, inconsequential computer game already results in like 4 layers of abstraction from reality.
Using simplifications is not a choice at all. "Representative analogs" that Crispy talks about, will always exist, if we won't switch to 100% perfect simulations (btw, who would want to "play" those?).

So, god fucking dammit, argue with D&D's implementation of something, but not with the fact that they use abstractions of reality. Having shit like Power Attack in games is a necessity. Its implementation may be dumb, sure.

Abstracting per se is not the issue, though it can be argued that given the current level of hardware, DnD is too much of an abstraction.

It's the details of the abstraction, like hitpoints, power attacks, etc that are terrible at modeling medieval combat.

 

[Sratopotator]

Abstracting per se is not the issue, though it can be argued that given the current level of hardware, DnD is too much of an abstraction.

You said that abstracting is literally an issue, as it causes problems. But whatever, lets move the goalpost together as bros.

Hardware is the least consequential here, Vavra is a fabulously optimistic person. In the end, it's people that have to think of innovative ways of abstracting something into theory, then into code/systems, then into your murderous satisfaction. Only exception to that would be an immensely advanced self learning kind of deal, but that also needs to be created by people first. There are no magical 'convert reality to ingame systems' buttons in programming, bro.
Even Warhorse studios' own attempts at using hardware in simulating reality in slightly more complex ways than usual can be considered as praiseworthy but inconsequential.

It's the details of the abstraction, like hitpoints, power attacks, etc that are terrible at modeling medieval combat.

Are you sure that the point of D&D is simulating medieval combat? While i kinda share your sentiment here (would be cool to have a robust and realistic melee combat system in D&D), lets remember that it's a game about a lot of different shit. And games like that are all about balancing depth, even in their bestestest versions/editions. 'You have to simplify somehow, how do you do that?' is the key question when designing real life based systems like those. And if a game has a wide range of different systems, you cannot overly focus on one of them, while ignoring the rest.

So, ignoring all the semi-nonsensical caveats in your messages, your position seems to be that D&D is just too far removed from reality. It should be more realistic.
Sure, would be nice. IF that wont result in more mess/bad ideas than there currently are in D&D.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Being able to do trivial things only with a particular quest item. Like lighting up some candles only with the quest match box set while your mage is able to unleash hell on earth with firestorms. Npcs wanting a particular item that is worthless junk compared to other objects available to you that could do the same job; "Bring a leather armor and I will come with you" while you have a dragon plate armor in your bags; but no, that just won't do it. Overabundance of magic items that should be worth a fortune according to the lore. Insane amounts of gold but no options to put it to any use. Fetch quests that send you to the same place repeatedly and items that only appear once you have activated the quest.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Abstracting per se is not the issue, though it can be argued that given the current level of hardware, DnD is too much of an abstraction.

You said that abstracting is literally an issue, as it causes problems.

::Citation needed::

But whatever, lets move the goalpost together as bros.

You sound really butthurt here in a passive aggressive way, like a pregnant woman.

Hardware is the least consequential here, Vavra is a fabulously optimistic person. In the end, it's people that have to think of innovative ways of abstracting something into theory, then into code/systems, then into your murderous satisfaction. Only exception to that would be an immensely advanced self learning kind of deal, but that also needs to be created by people first. There are no magical 'convert reality to ingame systems' buttons in programming, bro.
Even Warhorse studios' own attempts at using hardware in simulating reality in slightly more complex ways than usual can be considered as praiseworthy but inconsequential.

Wow, so much text to say ... nothing. Yes, people would have to invent the better systems to replace the current systems.

Are you sure that the point of D&D is simulating medieval combat?

Why, yes, yes I am. In any decent fantasy game/book/movie, the main character spends the bulk of their time fighting against other humanoids (humans, other human-like species, skeletons, undead, etc) using regular weapons. Fighting against dragons, mages, etc ought to be rather rare.

So, ignoring all the semi-nonsensical caveats in your messages,

Captain Butthurt strikes again!

... your position seems to be that D&D is just too far removed from reality. It should be more realistic.
Sure, would be nice. IF that wont result in more mess/bad ideas than there currently are in D&D.

Yes, let's not improve anything for fear of upsetting the cart.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Critical existence failure, aka "only the last hit point matters". You can have been hit for 9,999 points of damage by a dragon's fire breath, and yet your character will still be standing and swinging with all of their might. But when they take another 1 point of damage by a rat nipping their ankles, they suddenly fall over and die. I liked how the Banner Saga avoided this, where your character's strength was also their HP stat. If you have 16 strength, then you're mighty and strong and healthy. If you've been whittled down to 3 HP, then you're on your last legs and you have so little strength left that you're only going to deal chip damage to enemies.

Also, a more general worldbuilding/setting detail I dislike than one specific to RPGs (but you see it all of the time in them):

Towns and cities with no farms around them. Where do they get their food from? Also, towns and cities that have walls but no buildings outside them. As the population grows, people would naturally start building outside the walls, and maybe you'd see construction of new outer walls begin popping up.

At least here you can see where they get their food.

 

[gruntar]

- Cleave - this doesn't make any sense in terms of RL combat. How would you cleave in RL? You would have to cut cleanly through the first guy's torso to hit the next guy. Yeah...

As ridiculous as this clip is, EVEN IN IT it wouldn't be a cleave, since the sword got stuck midway through.

He kills 2 and hurts 1 with a single strike, which is basically what the Cleave feat in D&D mechanically represents.

D&D has no rules about swords getting stuck in enemies or not.

Oh, I didn't realize he was meant to have killed the guy behind also. Haha, the sideshot clearly shows that his sword is not long enough to have done this, maybe he disemboweled the guy behind with the violent splatter from the first guy.

That guy here put all his perks in cleave.

 

[Kev Inkline]

 

[Harthwain]

Stealing items from a merchant while he's looking straight at you and selling them back to him right away.

 

[Sratopotator]

::Citation needed::

Citation provided, cmon man, stop acting like an ass. Original point was muddy, you already straightened it out in the same message ("Abstracting per se is not the issue").

Spoiler

Porky, you do realize that combat in D&D has been purposefully, and by design, obfuscated by representative analogs in things like "hit points", "armor class", and the like, right?

Yes, I realize this, but what you have to realize is that this choice has led to a lot of problems

Wow, so much text to say ... nothing. Yes, people would have to invent the better systems to replace the current systems.

I mean, wtf bro. I'm literally saying "you are wrong, here is why...", what else do you expect? (Hardware is inconsequential here, always was; maybe it will be more relevant when we have our code written by an AI)

Like seriously, you are dead wrong here - systems that we are talking about, even with physics and modern lighting kinda-particles considered, are not really that hard to perform for a computer. If you already abstracted real life into numbers (you already established the systems), those numbers will be crunched by the cpu in no time. Only if you want to calculate something super specific in 3D space, while basing it on physics/modern lighting, it may become a problem. But really, even in this example, whatever that you want to achieve, can almost certainly be done using simpler means.
Besides, what we are talking about here (P&P adaptations I suppose? Or cRPGs in general?) use dice. Fucking dice, bro. How hard do you think calculating multiple dice throws is for a computer? :D
If you are making a P&P game, it has to be playable by humans. And, if you are making a P&P based computer game, it has to follow similar rules.
So, what the hell do you even mean by the 'D&D and hardware' thing?
P&P based cRPGs are a mistake? Serious question.

About the butts and pregnancies, and whatnot:
Yes, I'm a bit butthurt at the ignorant and low effort posts you are making. And I'm disagreeing with you on certain points, which could warrant a response. Or some poop throwing.
Seems like you went with the latter.
Otherwise I'm cool, bro. I even partially agree with you (D&D could use a melee combat revamp by someone with an exceptional brain), just not with like 70% of points you are making, and how you are making them

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

::Citation needed::

Citation provided, cmon man, stop acting like an ass.

No, it wasn't, you just imagined that's what I said and then began arguing against it. We call it strawmanning.

And I am not acting like an ass, you just went all passive aggressive like a woman, and I responded like a man.

...

Good god, your text reminds me of a Bioware exposition dialogue. I don't have the time to read all of it right now, but let me just say I don't understand why you can't seem to grasp that hardware does play a role in the level of abstractions required. When games ran on pen and paper or some early home PC, you need massive abstractions like armor class or Thac0 or whatever, now you simulate many of those processes completely, or if you still want to abstract them out, at least have much more accurate and relevant abstractions.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Let me repost my humble rant:

I gave D:OS2 an honest try with an open mind. I really did.
But then in chapter 3 when I was looting some high level location, I've stumbled upon a... Woolen Shirt.
A regular Woolen Shirt.
I compared the Woolen Shirt to the Legendary Armor Set of the Mythical Giga Hitler Turbo Warlock Braccus Rex. And the Woolen Shirt... had a better physical armor stat.
A fucking Woolen Shirt.
It... it broke me...
I uninstalled the game... and I never looked back.
But sometimes... in dark corners... in distant shadows... I swear I can see Swen. Standing there. Grining. In that fUCKING WOOLEN SHHIIIIIIIIRTTTrRREEE~!~!@~!@~!`1!!!!!!!!

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Woolen shirts are the least of Sven's problems when it comes to RPG design.

 

[Dodo1610]

- Lack of animations for eating, sleeping and such
- Being unable to jump/climb and swim
- platforming sections in RPG where you can jump
- +X% damage/protection bonus skills
- lacking armour selection/ugly armour, worst of all when an RPG has no clothing options but only armours
- Class locked equipment
- Being unable to return to a previous location
- useless guns but strong melee weapons
- Being unable to use your rifle as a melee weapon (somehow the older AC games were the only ones that got muskets right, you fired one round and then stabbed the rest to death with the bayonet)
- Quests that fail for arbitrary reasons e.g you have progressed too far in the story

 

[Sratopotator]

you just imagined that's what I said and then began arguing against it

I don't have the time to read all of it right now, but let me just say I don't understand why you can't seem to grasp that hardware does play a role in the level of abstractions required.

You make a dumb point - someone sees it and comments accordingly. I don't give a fuck if you have time to read and write a solid response or not, but that's not on me, it's fully on you. Context that you forgot to include resulting in your point being even more stupid than you intended is on you too. I just made the mistake of assuming that you mean what you write.
So, stop making excuses and throwing tantrums, while assuming pregnancies and whatnot, and either make a sincere attempt at responding, using actual arguments, or just shut up.

Again, in all this shit flinging, you are making some kind of point, which I wanted to isolate, and ask about, but you would rather want to make this about hormones, than to discuss anything. Kudos, I suppose?

In case you actually want to discuss something here:
You are saying that typical P&P abstractions (D&D in this case) being used in computer games are too limiting, right? (you cannot seriously think that P&P adaptation of any kind will make use of modern hardware, as P&P in definition has to be playable and transparent for humans, and has to support dice = has to be infinitely simplified when compared to its real life counterparts)
So, are you saying that P&P based cRPGs have no place in modern gaming? Or just that D&D is simplified too much, even when compared to other P&P systems?

If this is the former - nice, a major point, something to discuss!
If it's the latter - muddy point without much weight, let's end the discussion here, as I don't know my P&P well enough to suggest D&D alternatives + I thought this is somehow about hardware
Good day to you, Sir Porky!

 

[AetherVagrant]

Less to do with them being RPGs but something I've raged at in a handful of games this past year is UI issues that should have been a thing of the past with Ultima 7.
Why can I not hit escape to exit menus or inventory screens? Or why does one in-game screen allow for a right-click-to-close and the others not?
Hotkeys for all sorts of functions....EXCEPT the one's I literally use the most often.
Let me close shit in multiple ways, let me bind keys, let me quit to desktop, and let me skip lines of dialogue without skipping the whole cutscene.

"hold "space" for 15 seconds to gather ingredients...I mean hold space for 15 seconds BEFORE you get to watch the ten second gathering or lockpicking animation. What was I doing, pre-gathering? wool-gathering?

 

[Contagium]

Ultra generic "Celtic sounding" music pieces, regardless of the setting the game is in.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't give a fuck if you have time to read and write a solid response or not,

Yet clearly you do, as evidenced by your never ending walls of text, full of ... sound and fury, signifying nothing...

In case you actually want to discuss something here:
You are saying that typical P&P abstractions (D&D in this case) being used in computer games are too limiting, right? (you cannot seriously think that P&P adaptation of any kind will make use of modern hardware, as P&P in definition has to be playable and transparent for humans, and has to support dice = has to be infinitely simplified when compared to its real life counterparts)
So, are you saying that P&P based cRPGs have no place in modern gaming? Or just that D&D is simplified too much, even when compared to other P&P systems?

Above, you are again demonstrating straw-manning in its purest form. You just say a bunch of stuff I never said and start arguing about it, with ... yourself.

What I am saying is that DnD sucks in the context of modern computer games and hardware. It's not limiting, it's bad at modeling medieval style fighting because the abstractions were both very simplistic (because it was originally meant for paper calculations) and created by people with very bad knowledge of actual medieval fighting.

It should be entirely possible to create a modern RPG system which is both less abstract (allowing it to be deeper and more interesting) and based more on actual medieval techniques and realities. No hitpoints, no power attacks, no weird shit like AC and Thac0, perhaps instead replaced by stats/skills/abilities like parrying, footwork, feints, damage mitigation from armor, armor covering different bodyparts, etc. And yes, I realize there are words like this in DnD already, but the concepts they represent in DnD has nothing to do with those things as actually practiced in RL.

 

[ItsChon]

Also, a more general worldbuilding/setting detail I dislike than one specific to RPGs (but you see it all of the time in them):

Towns and cities with no farms around them. Where do they get their food from? Also, towns and cities that have walls but no buildings outside them. As the population grows, people would naturally start building outside the walls, and maybe you'd see construction of new outer walls begin popping up.

This is a good one, and something that actually fits into the title of the thread. This is a surefire way to kill any enthusiasm I might have had for your prospective game world. There is an old video that broke this concept down, and connected it to the medium of videogames. The word he invented is "shandification". Essentially, the more "shandified" a game is, the more likely it is that you will be able to connect with the setting and become immersed. It's not a coincidence that some of the greatest RPGs of all time are very "shandified", and every time I see a game that suffers from such issues, it's clear to me that it's almost certainly going to be mediocre at best.

 

[Daemongar]

Cleave came from a rule that was in every(?) prior D&D edition but had no real name.

Good call - it's in AD&D 1st ed. and was a special rule for fighter classes - if a creature had under 1 hit die (1d8) it was 0 level or such and you could attack one for each of your levels each round. That rule was implemented in Pools of Radiance as well

* Resurrection in games.
It makes no sense. Villains can never die and neither can heroes. There’s no end to anything, no impact to the finality of death.

In early AD&D 1st ed. the game got around this by having creatures lose a point of constitution and had to make a saving throw (system shock save) every time they were raised from the dead. Also the church doing the raising would charge a lot and base it off of the players standing in the church. Also, some races (elves) couldn't be raised at all. Then it just became "raise dead" was like any other spell, with no ramifications and no real penalty. The counter is that games just more or less made dying part of the game - that is, its a state which is the same as diseased, poisoned, or hungry. Temporary and annoying more than actually causing player hardship. This doesn't bother me as this ship has sailed a LONG time ago.

 

[Daemongar]

Eh, I'll throw out my annoyances:
* I have a limited pool of mana so I hide behind a rock while the enemy throws fireballs at me. Forever. I know the game has to make up for crappy AI, but still.
* I don't like unlimited inventory, but how about a game once in a while attempting to give you some options for taking it all with you? I think Minecraft has a box you can put things in and they appear it it's partner box. How about something creative? Or maybe a cart.
* Stealing mechanics. Think Oblivion actually had something on most games in this regard. They marked things stolen, but how the hell a guard two cities over knows you stole that bottle of wine is anyone's guess.
* Selecting from 3 or 4 classes that all are equal only in the same boring, different way. Class that swings 2-handed weapon does lots of damage but has low armor. This class casts powerful spells but has low armor. This class uses a shield and sword so it does average damage but has higher armor, etc. etc.
* I'm tired of looking through every filing cabinet, garbage can, box, crate, sack because for extra gold, bottlecaps, or whatever. This is why Tales of the Unknown: The Bard's Tale is better then Fallout: New Vegas.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

* I don't like unlimited inventory, but how about a game once in a while attempting to give you some options for taking it all with you? I think Minecraft has a box you can put things in and they appear it it's partner box. How about something creative? Or maybe a cart.

Daggerfall allowed you to dump items into your horse/cart at the entrance of a dungeon, so that if your inventory was approaching full you could simply spend a bit of time backtracking (or using the recall spell, if you had set the teleportation marker at the dungeon entrance).

 

[Daemongar]

* I don't like unlimited inventory, but how about a game once in a while attempting to give you some options for taking it all with you? I think Minecraft has a box you can put things in and they appear it it's partner box. How about something creative? Or maybe a cart.

Daggerfall allowed you to dump items into your horse/cart at the entrance of a dungeon, so that if your inventory was approaching full you could simply spend a bit of time backtracking (or using the recall spell, if you had set the teleportation marker at the dungeon entrance).

That's a solid example. That was creative and made perfect sense in the game world. Innovation seemingly stopped right there back in 1996 as far as rpg inventory goes though. Not here to argue about inventory, just saying I struggle to balance my hoarding nature with some level of reality. A cart makes sense, unlimited inventory not so much.

 

[kangaxx]

Scaling loot that needs replacing every 5 minutes. Completely retarded design.

 

[0sacred]

There are obvious ones like grammatical errors and things of that sort, but name something more intentional than that, something the casual gamer wouldn't necessarily object to or even notice, but would stick out like a sore thumb to you and drive you crazy.

For me, I can't STAND it when an RPG based on a medieval model includes any kind of modern language and/or phrases in it as part of its actual PC or NPC dialog.

"Oh, I think that's so cool, Sir Bingleswort. You totally owned that dragon," would be a blatant and supernova-inducing example.

Go.

unless you're arguing for literally Shakespearean English or conlangs, I don't see the point, i.e. I don't imagine the people in Fantasyland speaking English in the first place. I always imagine it's a translation of their native tongue I'm reading, and in their native tongue, a peasant may absolutely talk like that.

 

[Storyfag]

Encounters designed with prebuffing in mind.

That entirely depends on whether the prebuffing is plausible (as in: the monster's lair is surrounded by clues as to its nature) or not. The former is acceptable, the latter is anathema.