Mechanics you dislike

[Basileus]

@Classic_Review
That bugs me mostly in games where party members have unique abilities and keeping the hero blocks me from making certain combinations. In a game like Final Fantasy 7, where all abilities come from equipped Materia, it didn't really bother me. Honestly, the real issue there is not sharing experience.

Thinking about it again, that's another thing Dragon Quest did ages ago that other RPGs didn't copy for some reason. Dragon Quest 4 (back on the NES in 1990) was the first DQ game to have more party members than you could use in battle and added a wagon that the party traveled with that carried everyone not in the battle party and everyone received EXP. The only exceptions were some of the dungeons that were too small to bring the wagon into. Another great feature was that you could swap characters in and out of the battle party during combat without losing any turns while the wagon was with you, and the sub-members would jump out to replace the main party if everyone got killed.

I have no idea why other RPGs didn't copy this stuff sooner. A lot of them are now, but these features existed before many RPG franchises were even created.

 

[Tai_MT]

Looking back seems like a weird thing honestly. Why put the requirement and the HM in different places, sometimes chapters (gyms) apart from each other?

Yeah, I have no idea what the requirement was for. Best I can tell, it was in case you had a friend further along to help you out. Or, you were making a run through the other game. You could just transfer a mon over with the ability before you got it. Saved some time on a "replay".

Beyond that, I have no idea why it was done that way.

Which was kind of its own weird thing. Why was it one-way? Why did the game potentially lock you somewhere you could be underleveled and not be able to go back to fight weaker mons? It's not a big deal because of how unlikely it was, but that ledge that stops you going back

Woops, I was taking about Mt Moon. I don't remember there being a one way path in or near Rock Tunnel.

Sorry, have to correct myself here. It's only "technically" one way up until a certain point. You can loop back around and return to Cerulean by beating a couple trainers and heading through some tall grass.

You get get the HM before the third gym, it only needs Cut. Celadon is technically where the fourth gym is, though. I instantly used Fly once I could get it because it shortens the trip to the pokecenter, which unlike later games the game expects you to go to for healing up.

Had to correct myself here too. I don't remember having Fly until after waking up the Snorlax, but looking at a screenshot map of it, yeah, you can get Fly pretty early on. Even before Gym 4. Probably why you only need completion of Gym 3 in order to use it outside of battle.

You get the voucher in the same city as the 3rd gym. And you have to return to the second gym city to get the bike, so it's an optional immediate backtrack that's about the same length as the beginning of the game. To compare with the second gen, you get the bike near the 3rd gym without any backtracking.

Are you sure? Man, I don't remember that. I might have to play it again to see. I'll take your word for it though.

At the path split in the north of the map, the game expects you to go right, deal with a whole of stuff over there, then come back and head left, then gives you the Fly HM. It's a much longer backtrack to the point that most players I see either intentionally or accidentally do it "wrong" by going left instead (which I did as a kid because the map implied that was the dead end and thus I should go that way).

I'm not sure what you're talking about. After Cerulean City, you have to go south to the third gym. You need to take an underground path to get to it (I forget it's name, it's where the SS Anne is). You can't take a direct route because the guards stop you and say you can't go into Saffron City, but they're thirsty. Once you go to right of the town with the third Gym, there's a Snorlax blocking your way north and south on that route. Your only option at that point is to head back to Cerulean City now that you've got Cut. You can now see the house broken into in Cerulean City so that you can access the route on the right. So, and must go through Rock Tunnel. This comes out at Lavender Town. You can go a bit south from here, but run into the Snorlax Issue again once you hit the junction. So, your only option is to go left. Once again, you have to go underground since you can't get into Saffron City. You come out on the route to the right of Celadon. You go to Celadon, pick up the fourth badge, and can't go any further left because of the Snorlax blocking the road onto Cycling Road. You can pick up Fly at this point, but can't move forward without the drink for the guards. So, you go to the Department Store, hopefully discover the vending machines on the rooftop, and buy some drinks. The game doesn't tell you to do this. Nor does it tell you that you need one for the guards. But, once you figure out that you need one for the guards and give them one, you can now enter Saffron City. You get the Silph Scope here, which you need for the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town that you couldn't climb because you can't identify ANY of the ghosts in the tower and there's a "hard stop" that prevents you from going higher than floor 2, I think, with a ghostly Marowak blocking your path up the set of stairs. Beating Team Rocket at Silph Co also removes the Team Rocket members in front of most of the buildings in the town, including the gym. So, you can hit up Gym 5 now. Once you've completed the Tower, Mr. Fuji gives you the Pokemon Flute that you can now use to wake the Snorlax up. I remember always going to the Cycling Route because I had a bike by this point that I was using regularly. I don't remember using the bike before getting to Lavendar Town. Maybe that's a symptom of the way the routes are designed or something if you get it in Cerulean.

Anyway, now that you have the Pokemon Flute, you can either go south from Lavendar Town or west from Celadon in order to get to Fushia.

Wasn't a need to backtrack really at all except that "middle" portion, but the 5 cities there are so close together that there's not any need to "fly" between them. The underground paths are longer than just travelling through Saffron. Or, at least, I never found a reason to "fly" between them. The routes being so short and already cleared out of trainers by that point meant it was generally less annoying to navigate a menu than to just go. (Open Menu, select Pokemon, select Fly, move cursor over location you want to go through by cycling locations since they were in a set order, select town, select "yes" for being sure you want to fly, wait for animation of flying to play, wait for animation of landing to finish, a jaunt by bike was a lot quicker than the menu navigation in a few of these places)

Being able to get back to a pokecenter, and especially the one of your choice, is a huge thing. It's a large part of using Return and Outside in Dragon Quest because maybe I got in over my head. You can get Abra earlier, but that requires putting a pokemon that can't do anything in your party to only go to the most recent pokecenter, unlike using any of the very useful flying pokemon in the game (outside charizard not learning it for some reason, which, I guess I should put HM as a mechanic I dislike, but more for implementation than concept).

The game actually flushed you with the "Escape Rope" item to escape caves and such. Fly wasn't really "useful" for returning to pokemon centers simply because the game never "locks you in" anywhere after Mt. Moon. You can always just walk back to the last one you were at with zero threat to your survival (unless you were silly and had one Pokemon left alive who was poisoned due to poor planning and poor skills, which only took me learning the lesson ONCE to stockpile Antidotes to prevent it from ever happening again).

The game world is designed in such a way that once you are given "Fly", there are no more "one way routes" in the world ahead of you and it is generally exceptionally easy to return to previous Pokecenters. Well, barring the Seafoam Islands and Victory Road... but those are "tests of endurance". They're there to prepare you for what the Elite Four is.

Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow handled "Fly" exceptionally well in my opinion.

Every Pokemon game AFTER them, however? That's up for grabs. Especially as the map designs got more complicated with a lot more space between Pokemon Centers and a ton more trainers in the way.

I actually gave Abra a chance on my first run of the game. It looked cool and sounded cool and it was a Psychic Type, which I didn't have yet. So, I'd put it first in my party, then swap it to something else to farm XP for it. Imagine my delight when it learned "Confusion" before evolving and then evolved to something fairly powerful in the game... to the point of being one of THE most powerful Pokemon in the entire game, outside of Mewtwo.

Granted, not everyone did that. But, I went through heck just to catch one, so I was going to use it. I made it ditch "Teleport" as soon as I could since I never used the "escape from dungeons" and "go back to last pokemon center" mechanics. But, that's just probably something unique to how I play.

If I find I'm in a tight spot, I just head back. If half my resources are gone and I don't know if I'm close to the end of a dungeon, I sort of just head back. I don't "press forward" and put myself into a position where I'm "in over my head" all that much.

Probably why I loved the Rival in Red/Blue so much more than any other games in the series. Dude had a penchant for ambushing you when you were safe, but tired, and putting you through the ringer. Always a surprise attack just before you got to safety. Dungeon complete, just time to hit up the town and heal up and... Rival Attacks!

I loved that. Made me REALLY hate that jerk and feel REALLY GOOD about beating him at the end of the game.

Anyway, you don't really "need" fly for returning to the Pokemon Center. It's "convenient" to have it for that. But, the game never requires you have it for backtracking at all, since you really don't do any backtracking until just before the end of the game anyway.

EDIT: Had to correct some stuff in my post. I was wrong and went to look up to make sure I was saying correct things. It's been like 20 years since I played after all Poor memory isn't a good excuse for being wrong.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Another great feature was that you could swap characters in and out of the battle party during combat without losing any turns while the wagon was with you, and the sub-members would jump out to replace the main party if everyone got killed.

I don't understand why games that let you change the party in battle don't have this. It makes zero sense.

I have no idea why other RPGs didn't copy this stuff sooner. A lot of them are now, but these features existed before many RPG franchises were even created.

There's definitely a lot to learn from older rpgs that newer ones seem to just ignore.

Had to correct myself here too. I don't remember having Fly until after waking up the Snorlax, but looking at a screenshot map of it, yeah, you can get Fly pretty early on. Even before Gym 4. Probably why you only need completion of Gym 3 in order to use it outside of battle.

Considering that you came from Cycling Road in your explanation, that would make sense because Snorlax is in your way from that direction.

Are you sure? Man, I don't remember that. I might have to play it again to see. I'll take your word for it though.

I looked it up to make sure my memory wasn't wrong. You don't need to backtrack for the bike, though, you are right in that you have to backtrack to get to Lavender... which is another point of back tracking I had forgotten. Having to head up to Bill's house is another one, but I think that one was mostly painless.

I'm not sure what you're talking about

I was talking about Gold/Silver in response to your point about it. I think it's after Whitney that the game opens up and gives you a clear choice of left or right and is actually pretty nice about letting you go either way.

The game actually flushed you with the "Escape Rope" item to escape caves and such.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that. I also would just grab a Diglett for Dig (or really, like a 1/3 of the pokemon in the game) for free escape ropes. Still, Fly helps in the overworld in case there's unavoidable grass (because the game punishes slow pokemon by making fleeing hard for them).

Unrelated, I have a lot of issues with how Pokemon as a whole plays and only with recent games did I really notice the issues that have existed since gen 1. As an example, RNG party recruitment is like proto-gacha tech.

 

[Tai_MT]

I looked it up to make sure my memory wasn't wrong. You don't need to backtrack for the bike, though, you are right in that you have to backtrack to get to Lavender... which is another point of back tracking I had forgotten. Having to head up to Bill's house is another one, but I think that one was mostly painless.

I can't remember if going to Bill's house was ever "mandatory" or not. I always went, so I assume it was, but I'm not sure. I also remember the "shortcut" back from there through the side route on it. No trainers, just a straight shot.

I was talking about Gold/Silver in response to your point about it. I think it's after Whitney that the game opens up and gives you a clear choice of left or right and is actually pretty nice about letting you go either way.

Oh yeah. Sorry, missed that portion. Gold/Silver does engage in a ton of "you need to backtrack", so Fly is far more necessary in that one. I can't even remember where you pick up the HM for it in that game.

Oh yeah, I had forgotten about that. I also would just grab a Diglett for Dig (or really, like a 1/3 of the pokemon in the game) for free escape ropes. Still, Fly helps in the overworld in case there's unavoidable grass (because the game punishes slow pokemon by making fleeing hard for them).

I suppose Fly can help in those sections. I don't remember there being a lot of "unavoidable grass" in Red/Blue. I remember it getting excessive in Gold/Silver and remaining that way through most of the series though. Red/Blue made this point of having "backtrack" routes through the same route where you could hop down ledges and stuff to avoid most of the grass if you had to go back to the Pokemon Center. There's the section at the beginning of the game to teach that to you. Where you have to deliver Oak's Parcel to him that you got from Viridian City before you can get Pokeballs and the Pokedex. The journey back to Pallet Town from there is painless and there's only the one patch of unavoidable grass... the same one you had to step into to get your starter.

Unrelated, I have a lot of issues with how Pokemon as a whole plays and only with recent games did I really notice the issues that have existed since gen 1. As an example, RNG party recruitment is like proto-gacha tech.

In most cases, I don't mind the RNG Party Recruitment. But, that's likely because with inventions like Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Home, that's basically become exceptionally painless.

It doesn't stop the game from having to make FOUR CHECKS on each capture attempt be annoying though...

Heck, I'm currently trying to transfer and move most of my stuff into Home from as far back as Colleseum in preparation for the two new games, and just trying to catch the Legendaries in the Crown Tundra for Sword/Shield by going through the Dynamax Raid Adventures is the most ANNOYING RNG crap on the planet. It's bad.

I wish Pokemon would rely LESS on RNG for some of this stuff. Or, you know, change some of the Capture Rates.

The one thing that Pokemon always does that makes me angry has to do with their Distribution of Pokemon.

"Oh, you can only get this by event! And that event ends after a certain amount of time! Then you're locked out of never completing your collect outside of cheating! But, we hate you cheating, so we're going to ban you from online play if you do it!"

I mean, there are Pokemon distributed through code for going to their movie or whatever. If my town never got the movie, I never got the code, so I miss out. There are Pokemon distributed through going to Gamestop and bringing your game to download it while you're there. We don't have a Gamestop anywhere near me and I'm not driving 300 miles to download the mon. They have the "Get from the internet" option of Mystery Gift for this crap and they almost NEVER use it. It's annoying and frustrating to forever be unable to "collect them all".

Pokemon also just has some issues with many of the recent games of "over leveling" you because of the way they've redesigned the capture system so much. I used to "build teams", but ever since Sun/Moon, I"ve never needed a "Team" to complete the game. My starter basically handles every single fight and I swap the other 5 slots in and out of Pokemon so that they can level up and evolve and I can have the Dex done before I beat the Elite Four. The only reason I have so many levels by that point is because they go, "Oh, it's a 1% chance of a 1% chance to even ENCOUNTER this Pokemon on this route!" and so I stay and battle everything there for like 5 hours and get like 12 more levels than the game plans I have.

They need to reduce the amount of this RNG crap. It used to be the only RNG in these games was just the Capture portion. This was fine. IT was all the games needed. Ball shakes, if it is good on all the checks, you capture. Now we've got 1% of 1% encounter rates, random weather that can affect whether you see the mon for months or months or never, random item generation in routes, random everything anymore.

I don't like the RNG in a lot of places as it makes progression frustrating or time consuming.

But, reducing it back to just the capture rate of the Pokemon, would be fine, I think.

Though, even then... Capturing so many Pokemon is now just "forgone conclusion" at this point, so I don't even care about the 3 shakes on anything anymore, unless I've thrown like 10+ balls at something and it's still breaking out on the first Capture Check. Then, I get freakin' angry.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I can't remember if going to Bill's house was ever "mandatory" or not. I always went, so I assume it was, but I'm not sure. I also remember the "shortcut" back from there through the side route on it. No trainers, just a straight shot.

That's where you get the ticket to the SS Anne. Which can be skipped because while you get the Cut HM on the ship, you can trade Cut over and actually sequence break.

Oh yeah. Sorry, missed that portion. Gold/Silver does engage in a ton of "you need to backtrack", so Fly is far more necessary in that one. I can't even remember where you pick up the HM for it in that game.

It's at the absolute opposite end of the map of the Elite Four. I get the idea they were going for, but in practice it didn't really work. To compare, FFX you also get Fly (well, the airship) at a dead end, but you've been following a literal linear path the whole game and now its saying "go everywhere!".

I don't remember there being a lot of "unavoidable grass" in Red/Blue.

I should play it again, maybe it's not as bad as I remember. Still, not great, but it would put it low on the list of cons in pokemon.

Now we've got 1% of 1% encounter rates

Absolutely agree to all of this, but to point out we had less than 1% encounter rates at least as early as Silver (the roaming legends) and I think some pokemon technically had 1% encounter rates in gen 1 (but could always be found elsewhere at higher rates).

Honestly, having a sort of minigame to guarantee a catch with still keeping a random chance to get a pokemon seems like the best midpoint. People who don't want to try hard to get something can rely on regular rates, but then each pokeball could have specific situations that you can jump through to remove the randomness; A pokeball might be a guarantee if they are in red health*, a duskball might always catch ghost and dark types at night, the master ball can be a prize for each time you beat the elite four, etc.

*I played a fan game that did this and it was so nice, it still made wild encounters tougher (you don't want to over damage) but once you learned the strategies you were rewarded with the catch instead of punished with slightly less bad rng.

Oh, you can only get this by event!

Mythical pokemon was the worst idea Pokemon made and they did it as early as gen 1. Gen 2 didn't even make it possible to get Celebi outside Japan. This ties back into my earlier point of "don't make me go outside the game to play the game", but also Mythical pokemon come at such high levels that I often can't even use them in game (Mew Glitch in gen 1 makes him level 7 which is just a few levels lower than the area you get him).

In most cases, I don't mind the RNG Party Recruitment.

I largely compare it to regular rpgs which have sidequests for each character. And simple sidequests for each pokemon sounds really cool.

 

[Ratatattat]

My opinion is that if I buy a turn based RPG, is because I want to experience the mechanics of a turn based RPG. If I want platforming, I buy a platformer. If I want puzzles, I play something like Professor Layton (puzzles + fun stories and characters). Minigames only get in the way, always.

As long as they are completely optional, I don't mind them. But when it is a core part of the experience, it just kills it for me. Not a RPG, but a relatively recent example was Shovel Knight - King of Cards, with the card game implemented into the campaign. I just don't get why.

Anyways, you do what you think it is right for your project. Good luck.

Ahh, see I get that. But also, perhaps we have different outlooks because I don't like turn-based RPGs I prefer on-map, real-time battle. I also like to have a lot of different types of gameplay options in a game, not narrowed down to one thing - but I do also agree that there should be one focus, and the rest should be just that (options), not required.

 

[Frostorm]

I'm not sure how I feel about randomly generated party members with randomly generated perks and flaws. Some of those flaws are ridiculous, like this guy is missing an eye, so that's -50% Hit or this person is claustrophobic, so he/she doesn't get a Helmet slot, while this other unit is a nudist, and thus doesn't have an Armor slot, etc... Think Darkest Dungeon or The Last Spell.

Imagine if every Pokémon you catch had ~3 or so of these randomly generated perks/flaws. Statistically speaking, you're bound to get at least 1 debilitating "quirk". You can only pray the remaining slots are at least half-decent and hopefully not banes.

 

[maage]

Re: Minigames

I read most pages of this thread (I think) last week or so, but wasn't able to get through every single one because it already took me several afternoons, haha. So sorry if this has already been addressed in-depth. But:

Why do some people seem to not like minigames in general? Does it depend on the type of minigame at all, or is it truly just in general? Because some responses have described things like shoehorning poker or sudoku into your game, which I agree is annoying (at least when it's not optional). But other responses weren't so clear, and I'm curious if they include more immersive/built-in minigames as part of their definition of those they dislike.

For example, the lockpicking in Oblivion and Skyrim are technically minigames. Fishing in Stardew Valley is technically a minigame. But they both blend pretty seamlessly into the overall theme and gameplay, and I like them because it makes me feel like I'm actually, interactively doing something rather than just pressing a button and watching the results happen.

Some people's distaste for minigames won't deter me or anything (so don't worry about that), but I'm planning on implementing some minigames into my game world for optional immersion. Specifically, they'll be interactive "campus jobs" to earn some extra cash, and will be only one of many ways to obtain money - just a totally optional alternative to grinding mobs for gold or making/finding items to sell, etc. I envision them fitting naturally into the rest of the game, such as a "diner dashing" type of event launching if you "clock in" for a shift at the café, or a "trace within the lines" minigame scene popping up if you take on a forgery job, etc.

So I guess I'm just curious, for those who generally dislike minigames in RPGs, if this type of minigame is included in that distaste?

I am curious about this as well. I actually really loved The Way 1-6 series because it had many many mini-games spread throughout the series. If I recall they were even skippable.

Assuming I even had something super basic like, 'round up all the sheep on the farm', and it's skippable, would people find that distasteful?

 

[Milennin]

I like mini-games, but more so to see how people did the eventing for them than the mini-games themselves.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Assuming I even had something super basic like, 'round up all the sheep on the farm', and it's skippable, would people find that distasteful?

There's a significant difference between minigames that are optional and ones that are forced upon you. I've seen some rpg maker games where the minigame can be skipped without even trying it and all you lose is optional treasure. If someone doesn't care about minigames, even if they don't dislike them, they might dislike them when it "gets in the way" of the rest of the game.

As for minigames themselves, there's bad ones and good ones. DQ actually tends to have bad ones (generic casinos) but as long as the game never requires me to go in there to get 100% completion then RNG is never getting in the way of me enjoying the game because they're harmless when boring and good when fun. And with DQ specifically, using games that already exist and are easy to program (aka generic casino games) means extremely little development going into it with it mostly going into the main game itself.

But, as I've said before, when the minigames are the point then that's why you are playing it. No one's going to complain about minigames existing in Mario Party. And, combat is itself a minigame that rpgs put heavy emphasis on while most of the game is exploration that is interrupted so often with the minigame.

 

[Tai_MT]

I am curious about this as well. I actually really loved The Way 1-6 series because it had many many mini-games spread throughout the series. If I recall they were even skippable.

Assuming I even had something super basic like, 'round up all the sheep on the farm', and it's skippable, would people find that distasteful?

Would most people? Probably not.

Would I?

Absolutely.

Here's the problem with mini-games, in a nutshell.

Your players are here to play an RPG. Any mini-game you implement is not "An RPG". It's a different experience entirely. Imagine if you had a racing game and you suddenly slapped in an optional First Person Shooter segment where you raid a car parts store so you can get some rare or powerful parts for the vehicles you're racing.

That's effectively what your minigame is. It's VERY immersion breaking most of the time, it isn't the genre your players are here for, and ends up being tedious to some degree.

Once upon a time, minigames were awesome. Why were they awesome?

Because almost no game had them. They were an "added extra". In a world where most people got 1 video game every 4 or more months, a mini-game was a freakin' bonus. You essentially paid for two games at that point. A fantastic novelty. They also counted as "extra content" a good chunk of the time since you weren't guaranteed another new game for a few more months.

We don't live in that world anymore. We just don't. Most players have another new game within a month or less of the last one. So, mini-games are effectively obsolete.

On top of which, every mini-game that's ever been created for an RPG has already been done to death. You aren't really doing anything new that a good chunk of your playerbase has seen and done a dozen times over and been bored by.

And, if you get into the stuff like "Lockpicking" in Skyrim and "Hacking" in other RPG's...

Yeah, I find those mostly distasteful too. They often feel quite tedious. The problem is that they're mostly necessary (until the games rendered this crap NOT necessary, and MORE TEDIOUS). See, here's the thing:

In oblivion, the lockpicking minigame let you bypass the "skill level" of lockpicking. There was the flat option of "force the lock" with a percentage if you didn't want to engage. It rolled your stat against the difficulty of the lock. But, if you were good at the minigame (and I got VERY GOOD at it, never needing more than a single lockpick, ever, and no reloading), you could have Level 1 Lockpicking and be breaking down Master Locks.

The minigame effectively let you BYPASS the skill check. VERY USEFUL!

Cue Skyrim:

Now, you can't even ATTEMPT the lock unless your skill level is "high enough". So, now the minigame is a wasted tedious mess. It serves no purpose now. At which point, it may as well just be a button prompt. Press button to unlock the door if my skill level is high enough. The minigame is now part of the mandatory gameplay and it adds absolutely nothing to the proceedings.

Hacking used to be similar. Fallout 3, you could "force" the terminals to roll your stat against the difficulty. Or, if you were personally very good at hacking, you could engage with the minigame and at level 1 Hacking skill, hack your way through the most robust security.

Now, it's mandatory. And it's tedious as crap.

The distinct reward for engaging in these minigames was great. They weren't too difficult to master, and the reward was that you could access stuff you normally couldn't because your stats were too low. They let the PLAYER SKILL override the CHARACTER SKILL. This has a distinction of making a player FEEL GOOD about playing the minigame. It also allowed many players to ignore putting points into Lockpicking and Hacking and such. You didn't need them if you didn't want them.

Until later games, where they ruined it and made these minigames mandatory and based them on your stats.

In Stardew... Fishing is like the thing I don't really do. I don't really find it that fun. I engage with it just enough to "fill the catalogue" and "fill the community center". Granted, Stardew isn't really an RPG. But, even here, I'm just not that engaged with the fishing minigame.

Heck, I don't even like it in Pokemon. "Hit the A button when you see the exclamation point!". Ugh, no. Let me just hit the button, catch the fish, and be on my way.

It's even worse in Stardew where the "fighting the fish" actively burns your timer for the day. So, you burn your timer waiting for the bite... then burn your timer trying to catch the fish.

Mini-games have their time and place. Most importantly, they have their own genre. If I want to play mini-games, I'll go into that genre to play them. I'm not going to play your RPG to play a minigame.

There has never once been a review that said, "This RPG doesn't have minigames in it, so I'm giving it a lower score". But, there are reviews out there that score RPG's lower for having minigames in them. Especially if they're badly made. Especially if content is locked behind them. Especially if they're boring and tedious and ruin pacing.

So, really, by adding mini-games into your RPG, you're essentially taking the chance of your game doing WORSE.

Now, as a dev... I view other devs putting minigames into their game as "not focused people". I view them as having gotten bored with designing their game and deciding to design another. They aren't in love with the mechanics of combat, the story they're telling, the characters they've created, the design of the map, etcetera. So, they created this other game on top of it and hope players will like it, instead.

From my perspective... if a game dev doesn't like their game THAT MUCH, then WHY SHOULD I? If a dev got bored of their own game and had to create ANOTHER GAME within it, then why would their game be fun to me?

Plus, time is spent creating this new game. Time that could've better been spent refining the actual game. Time that could've improved dialogue, dungeon design, enemy design, skill design, pacing of the story, refinement of other systems, etcetera. Instead, someone spent 20+ hours evening "catch the sheep" in this game.

Tell me: Do you think a dev that splits their attention between their main project and a side project is going to create a good game?

I don't hold the opinion that they will. For me, their priorities are skewed, and if they have to create a minigame to make their game fun, it speaks volumes about how much fun their game actually is.

Even if I see a minigame in a AAA RPG, I go, "So, this is why parts of the game are so low quality. Valuable dev time spent making this piece of crap, rather than fixing all the things wrong with this."

And yes, most of those AAA RPG's with minigames tend to have some serious issues. Especially with story pacing, dialogue, and even combat balance.

But, you know, they managed to code a card game into their game! All it cost was the quality of their main game to do it.

 

[Cythera]

Here's my opinion on mini-games.

I like them, and can often enjoy them...PROVIDED:

• They fit the world and lore. If you have an old-time, typical fantasy RPG with swords and medieval-style villages, don't just...plop in a casino and expect me to go with it. That hurts your world-building in ways you can't imagine, because now I, the player, cannot trust you or take your world seriously if you're just going to break the immersion with slots! Prizes! Bunny girls! Your mini-game needs to fit your world, and add flavour to it. This point here, I believe, is the biggest killer of mini-games
• They aren't necessary for game progression and/or lock a stupid powerful item behind it. Just...no. Do I really have to expand on this? *cough* FFX Blitzball and Wakka's legendary weapon *cough*
• In that vein...don't make the mini-games overly complicated or time-consuming. When I play mini-games, I'm doing it for 1 of 2 reasons: I want a cheap way to get items and loot, or I want to dive further into the world immersion. I don't want to try to learn a whole new game, or spend more time in your mini-game than your boss fights
• This point is a bit more niche, but if you have quests/goals/achievements that are tied to mini-games, don't make it a grind-fest. I don't ever want to feel like I MUST play the mini-game for this quest/goal/achievement a thousand times. Then it's just grindy. Now, if the mini-game is quick, easy, and has decent loot, you can get away with this, because it has its own incentive for the player to engage with it
• The prizes from the mini-game are worthwhile. Don't be afraid to give your players some good stuff from mini-games! They're giving you more of their time than what the main game requests. Appreciate it, reward them, and everyone is happy

Now, those points may sound like a lot of expectations.
And they are.
Mini-games should be carefully added. It takes dev time and effort and resources to make them good and bug-free. That's a lot that could be going to the game itself.
Like with any feature, if it doesn't add to the game, scrap it. Scrap it now.

 

[Bernkastelwitch]

I feel like the issue with Minigames isn't their mere existence but rather how they get implemented. Quite a few RPG Maker devs tend to make them too long, too hard, or not give you worthwhile rewards to justify playing them.

I personally like minigames and depending on how they are, I tend to focus on them a lot more than the actual meat of the game sometimes. Though some people seem to not want them at all solely due to the poorly made ones and don't want to deal with them at all.

I do think it can be done. It's just something to worth consider critique on when making them for your game.

 

[Ouro]

Imagine if every Pokémon you catch had ~3 or so of these randomly generated perks/flaws. Statistically speaking, you're bound to get at least 1 debilitating "quirk". You can only pray the remaining slots are at least half-decent and hopefully not banes.

You mean like if Pokemon came with some sort of randomly applied modifier, a 'Nature' of some sort if you will, that could make its stats better or worse?

 

[kirbwarrior]

You mean like if Pokemon came with some sort of randomly applied modifier, a 'Nature' of some sort if you will, that could make its stats better or worse?

Just imagine it even further, some sort of individual thing that modified every stat by a small but noticeable amount. Some determinant, something that brings different amounts of value.

 

[Ouro]

Just imagine it even further, some sort of individual thing that modified every stat by a small but noticeable amount. Some determinant, something that brings different amounts of value.

Mate, don't even go there. Next you'll be suggesting that Pokemon have a random selection of passive abilities to spawn with and that there can be great disparity between the available options.

 

[Tai_MT]

Or even worse, that these random things in Pokemon really only matter if you're going to play competitively... which means not at all... which means they're essentially wasted systems for all players except an extreme minority.

 

[Cythera]

Or even worse, that these random things in Pokemon really only matter if you're going to play competitively... which means not at all... which means they're essentially wasted systems for all players except an extreme minority.

Challenge runs would like a word with you!
I mean...I guess you could argue challenge runners are an even smaller minority than PvPers...probably.

 

[LordOfPotatos]

Or even worse, that these random things in Pokemon really only matter if you're going to play competitively... which means not at all... which means they're essentially wasted systems for all players except an extreme minority.

hey, it's not the gameplay system's fault that pokemon games beat themselves.
I swear natures and abilities are cool.

 

[Bernkastelwitch]

It depends on the game for randomly generated perks/flaws. Something like Rimworld thrives on that feature since unless the RNG decides to give you a character who'd rather starve to death than even walk to some food, it does allow for some unique gameplay on each of your characters in your colony.

Darkest Dungeon is love it or hate it but it does balance things out with the characters so they wouldn't break the gameplay.

I never really liked having to catch and breed all sorts of Pokemon for different abilities and natures, especially in earlier games. Say what you want about Sword and Shield but they're the most competitive friendly games since you can change their ability and nature with some in-game items. Now you can use that fancy Shiny Pokemon you got competitively and not keep it as a trophy because of its poor nature/ability layout!