- Joined
- Apr 24, 2015
- Messages
- 21,032
I don't want to go there, I might trigger a cut scene.
-
Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.
"This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.
Darth Canoli
Arcane
Harthwain
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
- Messages
- 5,609
Unskippable cinematics or cut scenes and unskippable tutorials is what kills replaying games. For me personally it's akin to games/movies not having subtitles nowadays - it's utterly barbaric and should be treated as a capital crime. Because there are certain standards that should be followed.
Mandatory grind to be able to advance the game - engaging a gameplay mechanic shouldn't feel like grind at all. If doing extra stuff of your own volition means you get something extra, then that's cool, but making grind mandatory is so stupid that it could only make sense in a mind of a suit who never played a game in his entire life. Also, you should consider giving the player ways how to reduce grind as the need for materials increases, to balance it out. This is what I'd call a good game design.
False choices where it seems like you can choose one thing, but railroads you regardless - this is a big reason why I value emergent gameplay over canned stuff. It enables the developer to focus on giving the player more ways to engage with the game world, instead of creating hand-crafted fake choices, which always lead to the same outcome in the end. You either make choices matter or don't bother making the game with choices.
Inventory space being too low when the gameplay expects you to pick up tons of stuff- If you need to pick up a lot of stuff, then you should have the means to be able to pick a lot of stuff. NEO Scavenger knew this, by giving the player access to a plenty of potential inventory space via various containers. This is show it should be done. Or just reduce the amount of stuff that's useful to a manageable level.
Mandatory grind to be able to advance the game - engaging a gameplay mechanic shouldn't feel like grind at all. If doing extra stuff of your own volition means you get something extra, then that's cool, but making grind mandatory is so stupid that it could only make sense in a mind of a suit who never played a game in his entire life. Also, you should consider giving the player ways how to reduce grind as the need for materials increases, to balance it out. This is what I'd call a good game design.
False choices where it seems like you can choose one thing, but railroads you regardless - this is a big reason why I value emergent gameplay over canned stuff. It enables the developer to focus on giving the player more ways to engage with the game world, instead of creating hand-crafted fake choices, which always lead to the same outcome in the end. You either make choices matter or don't bother making the game with choices.
Inventory space being too low when the gameplay expects you to pick up tons of stuff- If you need to pick up a lot of stuff, then you should have the means to be able to pick a lot of stuff. NEO Scavenger knew this, by giving the player access to a plenty of potential inventory space via various containers. This is show it should be done. Or just reduce the amount of stuff that's useful to a manageable level.
I think people have a very World of Warcraft influenced idea of them, where you're sitting there pressing 1, 2, 3 over and over as they cycle, not doing much else. I don't think this is true of many singleplayer RPGs that use them, like Dragon Age Origins. Though if you're the type to dive into exploits and abuse mana clash while ignoring your companions then I guess it would feel like that, so it depends on playstyle somewhat. Also also some people just see limited resources as part of the strategy (even though for me this argument is preposterous considering how easy it is to spam rests, even in games designed to make that harder like Pathfinder).
Oh, yes. This so much. But don't add it to the poll.
Not that gay romances have zero place in game. Sure, a gay elf could take a liking to you. But instead of saying "hey I want to such your cock" in so many words, he would assume that you're straight. And work from that assumption. And try to hide the fact that he's a homo. But games assume that you're just this giant bi that's ok with fucking anything and everything, gays, trannies, whatever. And this shit has to go.
"Default assumption that protagonist is fine with gay/tranny advances, instead of being a normal person" is what I'd call it. But on the other hand, this is SJW era we're in, so what's the point... We could then list another 10 crimes that the SJW are committing against humanity, and the poll would become heavily politicized. Better to ignore it, it'll go away eventually... I like that the list is about actual gameplay elements and not about politics.
Darth Canoli
Arcane
Well, i consider Underrail pretty lame overall, it didn't do one single thing right.
Combat - wow, tactical combat with ONE party member, chess has it all wrong, one
Loot - look at all that trash i'm carrying, you see, i'm not playing an adventurer, just a hobo collecting scraps
Backtracking - No game has such a slow movement and empty/useless caves and corridors with so much backtracking, aside maybe some RPGMaker trash
Graphics style - it's ugly, i have low standards but it's just ugly
Sound effects - nothing of note
Quest design - same here, it's just mediocre
Cooldowns - ...
Oh, but it has "different builds" so the autists can play it over and over again...
Some of us never touched world of warcraft, i considered warcraft pretty lame even when it was just a shitty RTS but i get where you get such a shitty taste from.
Some "proper" Grognards hate being blueballed with saves aswell.
The joy of losing an hour of progress after overextending into the dungeon is lost to them.
Although a lot of them play tactical rpgs, and having two hard fights in one of those without saving is premium bullshit.
Poll Results: Your Most Hated Gameplay Elements?
Members who voted for 'Long stretches of difficult gameplay with no opportunity to save in between'
Thac0
Only times where "long stretches of difficult gameplay w/o saving" is fine, is when other mechanics are in place to make it fine, like Diablo or Dark Souls.
In classic RPGs like Fallout, BG, etc there's no reason for this. Name a classic RPG where it's just fun to load an hour old save to redo the same content because you died and there was no save system.
Only times where "long stretches of difficult gameplay w/o saving" is fine, is when other mechanics are in place to make it fine, like Diablo or Dark Souls.
In classic RPGs like Fallout, BG, etc there's no reason for this. Name a classic RPG where it's just fun to load an hour old save to redo the same content because you died and there was no save system.
Darth Canoli
Arcane
No option to save everywhere (outside of battle) is just terrible design but some people don't value their time or really like to do the same thing over and over again, i guess.
You are thinking in the context of only isometric rpgs, which have always had the save anywhere quicksave system. Other systems would probably work less for them.
Particularily blobbers benefit from harsh saving system.
Last edited:
Trashos
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2015
- Messages
- 3,413
Darth Canoli, walking speed has been fixed lately. There is a speed time option now, and one additional system for fast-traveling.
For quests you are way off, Underrail has some really good quests, possibly some of the best, and a candidate for the best quest ever in
The rest I will put down to taste.
For quests you are way off, Underrail has some really good quests, possibly some of the best, and a candidate for the best quest ever in
the Oculus quest.
V_K
Arcane
Particularly blobbers more often than not have attrition-based difficulty, so it doesn't even matter if you can save everywhere - unless you savescum the shit out of every encounter for optimal resource use, you can still get fucked up in the long run.
Harthwain
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2019
- Messages
- 5,609
The problem with limited access to saving is that you can't drop the game at any point without losing progress when there is a real-life need for it. This is where "save on exit" is a must-have.
Oh yes, suspend saves are absolutely necessary.
I like the way a lot of the more challenging JRPGs do it (Mystery Dungeon, Etrian Odyssey and so on)
A hard save that you get reset to on death, and a suspend save that only exists so you do not lose your savegame if you have to go to work.
SoupNazi
Guest
I don't mind "Forced losing to enemies in cut scenes" as much as "Forced losing to enemies in gameplay via invincibility / trigger at low health / etc".
IF you have to wrestle control from me, do it in an obvious way, so that I know there wasn't a chance. Or give me a reward for beating the character even if I can't kill them for plot reasons. A good example of handling this badly is the first "boss fight" in Shadowrun: Dragonfall, where the meched up troll can't be killed, and it's a very difficult encounter. The game gives you a "survive for 10 turns" countdown and then a door opens and you're supposed to escape. However, it's possible to to get the troll to 1HP - problem is that then he stops taking damage even if you hit him. The HP bar simply doesn't go down, and then you get the same result: he receives an order from his boss to fall back. But the result is the same if you beat him, or if you just struggle to survive past the time limit.
It's not as bad as him staying at 1HP and not taking any damage for the rest of the turn limit, but all it needed was a flavor text change where maybe instead, he falls back by himself saying he got beat but it won't happen again, or gets knocked out but 20 minions come in to the room (the game has this mechanic) to save him, whatever. And there are probably far worse examples, because at least in Shadowrun you definitely don't lose, but you "just" can't win. It'd be worse like I said if he ended up staying at 1HP, invincible, and then proceeded to knock my characters out so that they can go to jail for plot reasons.
IF you have to wrestle control from me, do it in an obvious way, so that I know there wasn't a chance. Or give me a reward for beating the character even if I can't kill them for plot reasons. A good example of handling this badly is the first "boss fight" in Shadowrun: Dragonfall, where the meched up troll can't be killed, and it's a very difficult encounter. The game gives you a "survive for 10 turns" countdown and then a door opens and you're supposed to escape. However, it's possible to to get the troll to 1HP - problem is that then he stops taking damage even if you hit him. The HP bar simply doesn't go down, and then you get the same result: he receives an order from his boss to fall back. But the result is the same if you beat him, or if you just struggle to survive past the time limit.
It's not as bad as him staying at 1HP and not taking any damage for the rest of the turn limit, but all it needed was a flavor text change where maybe instead, he falls back by himself saying he got beat but it won't happen again, or gets knocked out but 20 minions come in to the room (the game has this mechanic) to save him, whatever. And there are probably far worse examples, because at least in Shadowrun you definitely don't lose, but you "just" can't win. It'd be worse like I said if he ended up staying at 1HP, invincible, and then proceeded to knock my characters out so that they can go to jail for plot reasons.
AW8
Arcane
They're bad because they force the player into a rotation: You'll always start with the strongest ability that also has the longest cooldown, and work your way downwards in order to maximize DPS. Instead of having all moves available at every turn, allowing the player to choose the smartest tactical choice for the circumstances, you will most likely have figured out the perfect rotation of moves and just keep going with that no matter what.
They're also a ridiculously arbitrary way to balance a game, see the absurd grenade cooldowns in Underrail. In what reality does it take 4 turns to reach for another grenade? If they are too powerful, just make them rarer and more expensive. Cooldowns are the lazy way out.
Heroic Liberator
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2018
- Messages
- 19,845
Shooshoo, Sawyerite. As long as the level design and enemy scaling are done properly, some abilities being OP doesn't matter (particularly if you have to be metagamey in your build in order to make full use of them).
Darth Canoli
Arcane
V_K
Arcane
I don't think DM-style cooldowns qualify as cooldowns - they don't operate on the level of individual abilities but on the level of part members. They make a lot more sense that way.
I also don't think the "Auto-replenishing hp/mana" options means what happens in DM. I think it refers to games like e.g. Drakensang, where it is fully restored (almost) immediately after combat ends.
Lacrymas
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2015
- Messages
- 18,934
Sawyer is a false prophet, for he did not balance PoE.
As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.