Decline Your Most Hated Gameplay Elements? (poll)

[Crispy]

Now THAT'S a proper dungeon!

 

[Mexi]

Quest time limits. Reason why I didn't like Majora's Mask. I actually also failed Fallout twice due to that time limit. Fuck off with time limits. I hate it for Pathfinder as well. Time limits don't go well with exploration-centric games, double so for RPGS.

 

[Takamori]

Now THAT'S a proper dungeon!

WHERE IS THE SECRET PASSAGE AND ALTERNATE ROOM FOR EXPLORATION CRISPY THATS POPAMOLE RIGHT THERE.

 

[Fedora Master]

Now THAT'S a proper dungeon!

Paraelemental Plane of Fidgeting?

 

[Glop_dweller]

Your Most Hated Gameplay Elements?

Where is the 'None of the above option'? There is nothing so egregious in that list as to single it out with a vote.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Great thread. Results sorted by %

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...NbutBFh152seQI1LbU_/pubhtml?gid=0&single=true

Top-12:

I just learned VBA in 5 minutes to do this.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Voiced protagonist is worse than anything in that list for me personally. Gameplay-wise, any looter/shooter mechanics just sucks imo.

 

[Starwars]

Modern looting, where you just vacuum everything up without looking at the loot because it's so fucking boring. Even worse is the standard copy-paste crafting systems. Hate that shit.

 

[Citizen]

Rpg elements

 

[fantadomat]

respawning enemy

 

[mondblut]

Having 50 checkboxes to mark without a "select all" button.

 

[TemplarGR]

Anything that doesn't respect the player's time is bad for me.

 

[Lacrymas]

Is this a thread for RPGs or games in general? I hate randomized loot and respawning enemies in full-fledged RPGs, but they are essential in hack and slashers for example.

 

[Tavar]

Super annoying:

• Overreliance on RGN rather than on player "skill" which makes you feel like you are gambling instead of playing.
  
• Crafting in all forms

It also puzzles / annoys me if a game has voiced dialogues but gives a full preview of what you character is about to say in text beforehand. As I read much faster than the voice actor talks it just adds a delay and the money could've been spent on something which actually improves the game.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

In what RPGs do you have "Press F to pay respects"?

 

[Cryomancer]

Please. Add COOLDOWNS.

It transforms tactical combat or immersive combat into QTE.

 

[Thac0]

don't know what that is

A spinner is a tile in a grid based dungeon crawler (blobber) that changes your party direction into a random one on entering. As old blobbers do not have automapping or a compass that shows you the direction you are facing this can really fuck you over if you do not notice it, and make you wander in circles for hours. Basically a nasty and common desorientation trap.
They were the reason you NEED to map old blobbers and can't just play them by heart, spinners and teleporters will fuck you up good.
Have mostly been rendered harmless by the existance of in game maps now.


There is a lot of stuff in that list which I like and which is beneficial for incline. Punishing save/load systems, enemy immunities, slightly unbalanced character creation systems which allow you to make a party that gets wiped in the tutorial etc.

One which I agree with the most is long boring levels without challenge. A lot of JRPGs have the problem of being braindead easy. You can ironman a lot of them blind and never run into peril of losing your save. Massive dealbreaker for me.

 

[Zanzoken]

Probably should've limited responses to just 3 to 5 picks to really zero in on the "most hated" design elements.

Anyway, for me it probably goes like this.

1) Poor encounter design. The most common offense is games spamming you with dozens of trash mob battles, but there are others.
2) Rampant itemization. This means Diablo-style loot treadmills, Divinity "item fever", or any other kind of system that spams you with trash loot.
3) For party-based games, not having the ability to roll a custom party / custom companions. Most companion NPCs a la Bioware and Obsidian are whiny fags who I'd rather not have to engage with. Plus, making characters is fun.
4) Games that force you to do a lot of "commuting". Running around to explore unknown places is fine, but commuting back and forth across the same maps over and over again is incredibly annoying. Especially if it involves loading screens.
5) Saving restrictions that force you to replay content, especially in very difficult games where dying is common. I lasted about 20 minutes in Dark Souls because of this, and that's the only 20 minutes I will ever waste on that piece of JRPG trash.

There are a lot of other design elements in RPGs that I don't like -- quest markers, level scaling, etc -- but they aren't necessarily deal breakers if there are other aspects of the game that are compelling. The stuff on this list, though, will kill my interest in a game pretty quickly.

 

[Citizen]

4) Games that force you to do a lot of pointless running back and forth, something I call "commuting". Running around to explore unknown places is fine, but commuting back and forth across the same maps over and over again is incredibly annoying. Especially if it involves loading screens.

Agree on the rest, but bro... do you even metroidivania/zelda? Backtracking and searching for secrets in the previously visited places can be great if the levels are designed around the player gradually unlocking new moves/abilities/gadgets/whatever

 

[Zanzoken]

4) Games that force you to do a lot of pointless running back and forth, something I call "commuting". Running around to explore unknown places is fine, but commuting back and forth across the same maps over and over again is incredibly annoying. Especially if it involves loading screens.

Agree on the rest, but bro... do you even metroidivania/zelda? Backtracking and searching for secrets in the previously visited places can be great if the levels are designed around the player gradually unlocking new moves/abilities/gadgets/whatever

If that's a key aspect of the design, then sure. Backtracking to unlock new content isn't commuting at all. When I say commuting, I mean it just like your work commute... boring, dead time where you're just trying to get from point A to point B.

Here is an example of what I mean. I am currently playing Tyranny, and just beat a multi-part questline where your character is trying to conquer a place called Sentinel Stand. The map progression goes like this.

Sentinel Stand (exploration) --> Duskwatch Fort --> Rust Canyons --> Oldwalls --> Sentinel Stand (battle)

Every time you beat one of these maps, you have to travel back to your faction's main hub, Iron Hearth, and have a conversation with the faction leader, Graven Ashe. There's nothing important or interesting about this conversation... he basically just says "good job" and then the game unlocks the next map. But it's required that you make the trip back to Iron Hearth at every stage of the quest, or you can't continue it.

The map of Iron Hearth looks like this. I added a red X showing where you enter, and traced the path you have to walk just get to Ashe's location, talk to him, then retrace your steps to leave.

Spoiler

This is a textbook example of commuting, because there's nothing compelling or interesting about having to make this trip back to report to the quest giver. And the game forces you to do it... FOUR times. Four times going to the world map, clicking Iron Hearth, sitting through a loading screen, running to where Ashe is, clicking through his dialogue, running back to the exit, going back to the world map, then clicking on your next destination, sitting through another loading screen.

It's all just pointless, wasted time and effort.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Crafting except for unique, epic items. Junking components. QTE in all forms. Basebuilding with the exception of a 'trophy' room for the quests you've completed, particularly rare ones. Alpha Protocol did this well.

 

[undecaf]

Deterministic skill checks and voiced protagonist.

 

[octavius]

The only thing making me not even consider a game is anime style.

The thing that has made me quit otherwise obvious masterpieces (like some HoMM 3 user-maps) are walls upon walls of bad fan fiction level writing.

 

[luj1]

There is some unforgivable shit in the poll such as dialogue wheels, console UI and mandatory companions. But nost of the stuff are non-issues

 

[Dick]

this poll has a huge amount of options, and I feel like together most of them are quite good in showing the weak points in crpgs. Well if I had to pick one in particular it´s "Bland itemization where it is just a few numbers changing" - this killed the immersion in pool of radiance remake for me, cause all the + 5 swords and weapons and everything looked the same, even in your inventory. I wished that they at least would have made some + weapons in a different, or blinking color, or whatever. Well, like I said it killed the immersion, I just couldn´t go on with that game.