Most Frustrating Things in RPGs?

[Dr_Bonehead]

Hey guys! I'm a little new here, and I'm trying to learn all I can about RPG Maker and its capabilities. I've seen a few videos floating around here and there about tips and tricks when it comes to making a game with RPG Maker, but I thought I'd hear from all of you:

What are the most frustrating things you come across in RPGs? It can be either RPG Maker projects or RPGs in general. I want to know what sets people off when playing video games, and that way I can try my best to ignore some of these annoyances!

Thanks all, looking forward to your responses!

 

[TheoAllen]

There's a certain thread named "things to avoid in your game" and ppl were mentioning a lot of things that you might eliminate a lot if u listen to them.

Cant link at the moment bcz im on mobile. But maybe you can search for it?

 

[Wavelength]

Triggering plot flags!! When you have already figured out what you have to do or where you have to go, but the game actually makes you talk to three different NPCs first in order to be allowed to do that thing or go to that place and have something happen. There's no better way to turn immersion into frustration than introducing a bunch of pointless plot flags.

While plot flags are Number One with a Bullet in terms of "frustrating things in RPGs", here are a few others that pop up often:

• "HP Sponge" Boss Battles (bosses that don't do anything interesting and aren't threatening, but take forever)
• Mandatory Puzzles
• High Random Encounter Rates
• Protagonists that Act Really Stupid
• Long, Unskippable Cutscenes (as well as long, unskippable battle animations)
• Heavy RNG Influence in battle mechanics (especially for Instant KOs)

PS - Moving this over to Game Design General Discussion, since it's absolutely relevant to game design and anyone looking for design advice will get some good tips from this thread.

 

[MechScapeZH]

• High Random Encounter Rates

• Protagonists that Act Really Stupid

• Long, Unskippable Cutscenes (as well as long, unskippable battle animations)

I second these three- random encounters, especially high encounter rates, give me a literal headache (looking at you, Mega Man X: Command Mission), brainless protagonists make me question why I'm watching such a character (Dragon Quest is very, very guilty of this at times), and cutscenes that go on and on and on aren't fun at all- especially if I've seen it already (the original Kingdom Hearts was infamous for this)!

I'd also like to add unclear battle mechanics, especially stats with unclear effects. (Stamina if you've got HP, Hit Rate if you've got accuracy, vitality especially- I see that one a lot & never have any idea what it does.) More stats does not equal a better game, only a more complicated one. If I don't understand the game, how can I play? I see a lot of RPG Maker games artificially complicate things like this.

 

[MushroomCake28]

Like people said, there's already a very elaborate thread on this subject.

Personally for me it's random encounters in the middle of a puzzle.

 

[Countyoungblood]

talking to everyone in the village before progressing the plot. no.

 

[Soulrender]

@Countyoungblood You said key word "everyone". How about talking with few npc (for example up to 4, max 5 npc)?

 

[EthanFox]

For me, my biggest pet peeve with JRPGs is when there are aspects of the design the player can either miss or break through no real fault of their own - "critical failure" stuff. The kind of thing an unaware player can just spoil.

To clarify, there are two examples I can think of, off the top of my head.

First one is about saving.

Many RPGs use save points. Additionally, many RPGs have a structure, even if they don't use save points, where the user can be "sealed" in a location that they can't leave, usually around the time of a boss battle. This has the effect where, if the player can't defeat the boss, if they don't have an earlier save, they're basically screwed. Such a player would have to restart the game.

Now, long-time RPG players (like most of us here, I'm sure), generally have at least two saves, one at the nearest town and one at the nearest save point. However, I believe that's asking the user to employ a workaround to a problem which shouldn't exist. Often games do nothing to communicate this to the player, so people just have to work it out for themselves, and it's not good for accessibility.

There has been an evolutionary path of the solutions to this. Firstly, we had some games which did provide an explanation for the player (they might say, when saving, "you won't be able to easily leave this location - so consider saving in a new file"). Then, we had games like Riviera: The Promised Land on GBA which allow the player to grind battles via a menu option, and have a structure where you just don't need to ever return to a town. Finally we have games like Xenoblade 2, where the player is never sealed in a location and can always run to other parts of the world, right up until the final boss encounter - and even then, the game pops up a message saying "be aware that this is the final encounter" and gives you a yes/no choice before you open the door. All of these methods can work.

Secondly we have elements the player can ruin without knowing.

In Final Fantasy XII (the original version), there is a weapon the player can obtain called The Zodiac Spear. To get this weapon, the player has to do a few things, but that's not what's important. What matters is that there are things the player can do, very early in the game, which make it impossible for them to ever gain it.

One of these things is opening a chest in a certain location; a normal chest which doesn't appear to have any special qualities. After you open this, you can never gain the spear.

Squaresoft used to be kinda infamous for this; features which were like a weird proto-DLC. They existed to try and get more money out of the players by putting in things you would definitely miss if you didn't buy the game guidebook. These things thankfully became less common as the internet provided guides for free.

However, The Zodiac Spear is an extreme example. Generally speaking, RPGs often have items that are one-chance things, and I really hate these. Another example is that I finished FF7 back in the 90s, and never had the Ramuh elemental summon, because I missed it in the one room in which you can get it (you can never return to this location); I didn't even know it existed until ~2010! This wasn't too big a deal as Ramuh doesn't matter all that much, but often these things are very powerful weapons that would really help.

Both of these are symptomatic of the same problem; the ability for players to fail something, often without knowing, for no real good reason. Neither of them should really exist IMO.

 

[l8rose]

Secondly we have elements the player can ruin without knowing.

This. So much this.
There was an earlier Final Fantasy game (I think it was 2 or perhaps 3) where if you did things in the wrong order, you would no longer be able to progress the game. Same with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and opening the locked doors in the wrong order. Both were situated in about the middle or second half of the game so it was a lot of time wasted. I don't think I ever finished that FF game after messing it up.

Random things explained at the first of the game that are never used until the end of the game. For example Silent Hill 3 gives you an item at the start of the game that you don't use again until the final fight. Both my friend and I were stuck on that last fight for days, and only figured out we had to use it on restarting the game and getting the little info blurb about the item.

 

[EthanFox]

This. So much this.
There was an earlier Final Fantasy game (I think it was 2 or perhaps 3) where if you did things in the wrong order, you would no longer be able to progress the game. Same with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and opening the locked doors in the wrong order. Both were situated in about the middle or second half of the game so it was a lot of time wasted. I don't think I ever finished that FF game after messing it up.

You're talking about the Ice Arrows, yeah? In the maze in the Gerudo Village? I've heard that it's badly designed, because it's possible to open the doors in a certain order that makes the maze un-finishable; fortunately it's not an item that's required at any point in the game, but still, bad design.

 

[l8rose]

You're talking about the Ice Arrows, yeah? In the maze in the Gerudo Village? I've heard that it's badly designed, because it's possible to open the doors in a certain order that makes the maze un-finishable; fortunately it's not an item that's required at any point in the game, but still, bad design.

Forgot about that one but no, I was thinking the Water Temple. Literal game ending if you chose the wrong order to open doors.

 

[TheoAllen]

Now that I'm back on the desktop, let me write mine that I don't think many share the same opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. As Wavelength has mentioned, it's...

Mandatory puzzle in a game that is not a puzzle-oriented

That's right, puzzles, that it seems many people like to include to their game as "refreshment" so that you are not only doing battle, grinding, and leveling up. I have enough bad experiences in mandatory puzzles in RPG that I put it in my highest most frustrating list in games. In addition, I couldn't recall anything that I have a good experience of it.

There was a certain RPG Maker game with not-bad graphics, good action battle system that I would like to grind for hours. However, the dev decided to put the puzzle as a road block. The only way to pass it is to solve the puzzle or reduce my level/experience. I tried to endure it but later in-game, it became even more ridiculous that I had to take a note to actually solve the puzzle. Up to that point, I dropped the game.

The thing that I could blast through grinding, leveling, and basically just play the game, the pace breaks just by having a puzzle that is on my way to complete the game.

I probably could deal with everything else ... but not the puzzle.
Although I would count talk to everyone else before you advance the story or to remove the roadblock like "the bridge is under construction, please wait" like a puzzle because how the hell am I supposed to know that?

EDIT:
I just remembered another one.

Mixing up strategy/choice-based battle with action.

Strategy/choice-based game is supposed to be relaxing. But when you add up ATB with no wait for input or Quick Time Event like press X to deal more damage, press X more to deal even more damage, when you need to choose the skill through the menu, the fun stops.

If I want an action game, I would rather play a full action game and not bound with turn order or picking choices through menu.

 

[EthanFox]

If I want an action game, I would rather play a full action game and not bound with turn order or picking choices through menu.

These are all good points, and I think they summarise to being careful about how you diversify the experience in your game.

Back in the 90s, I played a game called Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis by Lucasarts, and that game was well-regarded for, early on in the story, offering the player three choices - an action story, a puzzle-based story or a cinematic story (I may have the names wrong, but that's not the point). The game then played out in basically the same way whatever you picked, but the action story had more challenging action sequences & fights, the puzzling story had more difficult puzzles, and the cinematic story had easier puzzles & easier fights.

Part of that is just understanding what your game is trying to be, and making sure whatever you add to it only enriches, and doesn't in any way hamper the experience. You can take this pretty far, thematically - surprisingly so, even - considering all of the ridiculous puzzles in Resident Evil 2, for example, which apparently all happen in a typical police precinct in smalltown USA - but it can really kill pace if done badly.

In Chapter 2 of Nina Aquila: Legal Eagle, I had a Yugioh-style card-based battling system, but early in the experience, I gave the player an option of two modes, where one required the player to play and win the battles, whereas the second mode was the same, only it was "fixed" so the player would never lose. I made that decision because although the battle system was fun, the game was primarily a visual novel in an RPG Maker format, so I didn't want players to ever get frustrated by the battle mechanics.

An interesting aside to this is that in the late 90s/early 00s, we started to see a load of games which straddled genres. One of the best examples of this was Battlezone, for the PC, which was a hybrid first/third-person shooter with a real-time strategy game. It was fun, certainly, but the developer obviously had hoped to "bridge the gap" and appeal to both RTS and shooter fans, when in reality, the game only appealed to people who were fans of BOTH RTS's and shooters, which is a smaller niche. Ultimately some of these games succeeded as devs discovered mashups that worked, but many of them failed.

 

[Countyoungblood]

@Countyoungblood You said key word "everyone". How about talking with few npc (for example up to 4, max 5 npc)?

that would be fine. the problem to me is playing hide and seek with the last guy to progress the plot.

 

[rue669]

I can't stand designated saving spots. It's so easy to let you save anywhere you want and in this day and age there's no excuse for it. It's a huge "quality of life" feature that is very much appreciated in the gaming community. When an RPG doesn't have a "save anywhere" feature, I'm unlikely to play it for very long. Heck, sometimes I can only devote 20 minutes to playing a game, so that save anywhere feature is critical.

 

[Countyoungblood]

I can't stand designated saving spots. It's so easy to let you save anywhere you want and in this day and age there's no excuse for it. It's a huge "quality of life" feature that is very much appreciated in the gaming community. When an RPG doesn't have a "save anywhere" feature, I'm unlikely to play it for very long. Heck, sometimes I can only devote 20 minutes to playing a game, so that save anywhere feature is critical.

^^^^ that. Im busy but I like games. save points make games unplayable for me.

 

[bgillisp]

I can't stand designated saving spots. It's so easy to let you save anywhere you want and in this day and age there's no excuse for it. It's a huge "quality of life" feature that is very much appreciated in the gaming community. When an RPG doesn't have a "save anywhere" feature, I'm unlikely to play it for very long. Heck, sometimes I can only devote 20 minutes to playing a game, so that save anywhere feature is critical.

This. And it's worse if the points are like an hour apart. It means that I have to dedicate huge bricks of time to your game, huge bricks of time I don't have which often means it just doesn't get played.

 

[Tai_MT]

RPG's In General
1. Puzzles. I'm not playing an RPG to do puzzles. I'm just not. They break the flow of the game. They break immersion in the game. They're busywork for the sake of it. They exist because some dev couldn't figure out a way to make their combat compelling, their dungeon design compelling, their story compelling, or their characters compelling. I love puzzles. I will play a good puzzle game anytime one comes up. But, I refuse to solve puzzles in RPG's. I'll grab a guide rather than waste my time with this nonsense. I'd like to see this trend go away.

2. Crafting Systems. I have no doubt that a Crafting System in an RPG could be done well. I haven't seen it yet. I probably never will. They're so boring. So "stock". So "generic". They exist to force the player to grind resources, which artificially extends the gameplay times, just so a dev can claim "I have a 50 hour game!". No, you don't. You have a 10 hour game which requires 40 hours of tedious crafting nonsense. You want to create a crafting system? Create Minecraft. Create Dwarf Fortress. Do something "open world" in which Crafting is the entire freakin' point of your game. Don't slap it into an RPG. I'm tired of seeing it. I'm tired of wasting my time with it. It adds nothing to your game except busywork for the sake of busywork.

The caveat being... Maybe you can do something with Crafting I've never seen before that makes it interesting and fun. I doubt you can, but maybe you will pull it off. If you think you can pull it off, then feel free. But, be prepared for me to lambast you for it if it fails utterly.

3. "Stock" Visual Encounters. No, I don't care that I can see your encounters. I'd rather they be random. Random makes it easier to grind XP/Money/Loot. Random feels more immersive. Random creates a sense of challenge in preserving your resources... It has a single downside and that is "I took one step, now I'm in a new encounter!" which is easily fixed by coding a single item in 10 seconds or by tweaking the game code to provide an absolute minimum number of steps/time before you can get a new random encounter. Visual Encounters create a ton of problems if left as "stock" and provide a ton of frustration for a player like myself. There's a reason Earthbound has the best VE system and nobody has topped it yet. Namely, nobody knows what they're doing or wants to invest the actual time involved to make a VE system good in the first place.

4. Housing that makes no sense. I'm sorry, but if you have 5 people living in this house, you need 5 beds. You also probably need 5 chairs. If you have a house with 5 people and a single bed... I'm going to think something squicky is going on here. Think about your map design when you create it. Don't break my immersion because you failed to consider realistic elements. You don't necessarily need to have a bathroom in each house (unless it's a modern setting), but I am expecting a place to sleep, a place to eat, and probably a place to prepare food. Enough beds and chairs to accommodate everyone. Your map design should have some semblance of sanity.

5. Predictable plot beats. If I figure out the "twist" of your game in the first hour of gameplay, you've got a problem. Lots of AAA games have this problem and many RPG Maker projects have this issue. If you cannot execute a twist properly, do not rely on a twist. Likewise, don't rely on a "mystery". Chances are, what I thought the solution to the mystery was is going to be a lot better than what you actually put into the game. Gears of War 3 had this issue. I had essentially "solved the mystery" of the enemies (the Locust and where they came from) when they had me go into a lab in the second game and we spent a few minutes exploring it. I thought it was cool and interesting that maybe humanity had created the "Locust" enemies during their wars as a kind of "Super Soldier" because the Fuel they were fighting over (Immulsion) was somehow toxic or radioactive or mutagenic. The stuff mutated things and made them heartier if it didn't kill them. It explained so much of the story! Then, Gears of War 3 comes around and "Immulsion" is actually some sort of free-flowing sentient thing that takes over the bodies of humans and Locust alike and is a huge threat... and the Locust are fighting us because they're desperate to escape the underground threat of the stuff... and the Locust are given no actual origin story. Yeah, my version was much better and much cooler. Especially since most of the first and second game imply that the Locust have lived on this planet since before we arrived and are essentially fighting us because we're interlopers.

My ending to the mystery was much cooler. It was more interesting. It also had a lot more explorable implications for the game world than what we got.

So, if you can't write worth a crap, avoid doing "Mystery". I'll inevitably create a better story in my head in an effort to solve your mystery than you actually created in your game.

RPG Maker Game Specific
1. Character Archetypes. Oh, I got a big burley guy, I bet he's a knight... Yep, he's a knight. Thanks. I appreciate being able to stereotype your characters and their personalities just based on their appearances. Is it too much to ask that the "pure hearted love interest for the main character" NOT be the White Mage/Dedicated Healer? Is it too much to ask that the broody goth chick stereotype NOT be the Black Mage/Wizard? Please try to do something different with the archetypes. I really would like to be surprised every now and again and meet some new people. I don't like meeting "Broody Main Character #7986760801235495876". I know this character already. Heck, if you just made him spaz out around cute animals or made it that he's "dark and broody" just because he's actually really dumb and has nothing to say and just wants to be able to participate in conversations... That'd be a welcome change! Seriously, stray from archetypes when possible. I'd like to meet new people.

2. In Media Res. There are ways to execute this well. Most amateur game devs are not capable of doing so. I don't like starting "in the middle of a mystery" or "in the middle of combat" or "in the middle of some dire situation". This tells me nothing about your game world. It tells me nothing about what is normal. It isn't exciting. It's "stock" at this point. The tell-tale sign of a lazy dev with no writing talent. Look, personally, I need some set up. I need to know the basics of your world and the set up for it. What is normal and what is not? Who am I playing as and what are they like as people? What are the challenges and the stakes involved? Give me something!

Starting me in the middle of everything with no clue on what is going on... Yeah, that's not helpful. It hurts your game.

If you want a great example of starting "In Media Res", go play some Bioshock. The original. The opening title card implies a plane crash. you swim up to the surface of the water afterwards, see wreckage of the plane with fire everywhere... and a lighthouse. You swim to the lighthouse because... well... you're in the middle of the ocean. The lighthouse has to be a good salvation for you. It's tagged with weird political slogans and banners. There's a device with a lever in it. You flip it... and underwater you go. Then, you are narrated at as you travel underwater. You are given the premise of the location, the main character involved, and then as the screen goes away... a breathtaking view of the entire world you'll be interacting with. Finally, you are dumped into the game world and immediately attacked by an unseen enemy. It destroys your means of using this same transport system to escape. Then, you hear someone on the radio and the game tells you to pick it up. You pick it up, and from there, you are introduced to the other main character and given some basic instructions "If you want to survive". From there, the game makes it your priority to "escape" this place.

That is a good "In Media Res" opening. It sets up that this place you landed in is nothing like the rest of the world you come from. It sets up that you're essentially trapped here. It sets up who is the likely villain in this place as well as who is the hero. It sets up the danger of this location quite nicely and the dire situation this location finds itself in. It sets up that you are a complete outsider here.

If you can't manage an "In Media Res" opening that establishes so much like the Bioshock opening does... Just don't do it.

Please, I need some set up. I need some reasons to actually want to interact with your world. A vague "mystery" isn't going to do it on its own.

3. Breaking the Fourth Wall. I don't care if this takes the form of jokes or what-have-you. Just... no. While I can appreciate a "comedy" style game... most people just aren't all that funny. Your breaking the fourth wall doesn't automatically make something funny. It just doesn't. You have to break it in just the right way for it to be funny.

Let's use Borderlands 2 as an example. There's an early quest to help ClapTrap (a robot that is generally the comic relief of the entire franchise). His quest is all the usual RPG tropes. Kill 80000000 of a specific enemy, travel to a fortress, etcetera. But, you turn around and notice you can smash a wall. You smash it and immediately get access to the reward. This is not funny. It feels like they're leaning too hard on the Fourth Wall here. The funny part comes in Claptrap's explanation of the reward. He tells you, "I've decided to let you use the Stash to share weapons between my minions!". He's been calling you a "Minion" all game. Then, he whispers, "Look, it's for twinking gear between all your characters". Fourth Wall broken, I laughed a little bit, and it was genuinely a little clever. A nod that says, "Yes, we know we cannot actually explain what this does in terms of the games' lore and in have it justified in canon. So, here's our flimsy justification, and then we'll just outright tell you what it's for so there's no way you don't understand". Admission they have to break the Fourth Wall, Flimsy Justification if you don't want to see it as Fourth Wall Breaking, and then they Break the Fourth Wall to provide the explanation of the Game Mechanic to you.

There are other ways to do this, but this is the most notable example of me and a dev "pulling it off".

Generally, though, I do prefer the Devs try to craft as much immersion as absolutely possible. Breaking the Fourth Wall is often used as a way to make a "cheap joke". They, generally, aren't that funny. Generally, you're breaking immersion to land a bad joke.

4. Easy Games. I play so many RPG's that are just too easy. They look complicated. They sound complicated. They sound difficult. Then, I discover that the thing I do in every RPG I ever play... breaks the game and renders it pointlessly easy. I'm not looking for "Dark Souls" level of difficulty here. I just want to have to employ some strategy or tactics. I just want to not be able to rely on my stats to win. I want something that feels a little cerebral. Or, at the very least, like you've got some interesting gimmicks on your enemies and bosses that change the way I have to play the game. Likewise, if I never feel in danger of a "Game Over", I tend to lose interest in the game. Winning becomes a "foregone conclusion". I need only spend the time to win. I don't need to be smart about it, just persistent.

If "persistence" (also known as "Time") is all I need to complete your game... Then I don't care. I work a real job. I have bills to pay, social obligations, and chores to do in my own home. I do not have a lot of "Time" to play video games. So, when I do play, I want my skill to be the reason I can progress quickly or the reason I am progressing slowly. I don't want the reason I'm spending 50 hours to complete your game to be "I had to take some time to level up since I was losing a lot". This is boring. I also don't want to blast through your game in 20 hours because "I overleveled and the game was easy with enough stat points".

I work a job. Do you know what that's like? Nearly no recognition. Nearly no time to shine. No acknowledgement of your skills that you've developed or how clever you've gotten at doing your job. You likewise aren't like to get promotions or more pay for this.

So, when I play a video game, that's what I'm seeking. I'm seeking personal validation. Not from others, but from myself. I want to win because I felt like I was being clever. I want to win because I feel like I've mastered the mechanics. I want to be able to tell myself at the end, "I did as well as I did because of the person I am."

I do not want to think to myself at the end of your game, "I completed it because the dev was terrible at creating and preserving challenge and anyone with enough time can win this thing."

I beat Zelda 2. On the NES. No save state emulation. On the original console, no cheats. Over 1000 continues to win that game. A game that frustrated me and annoyed me to no end. A game I will never play again. Not ever. I did my time. But, you know what? Beating that game was more satisfying to me than beating Chrono Trigger. I put a lot of effort and skill into my 1000 continues. I put nothing into beating Chrono Trigger.

5. Quests that serve no purpose. Too many devs design quests "backwards" on these forums. It's quite annoying. I rather hate engaging with them as a result. What do I mean by "backwards"?

The dev has a piece of loot they want to give the player. How do they give it to them? Well, it's powerful enough that they should really give it in a quest. What kind of quest should they make? Well, it's very powerful, so it's gotta be a long quest that is somehow equivalent to the piece of loot to be given. Maybe a quest to kill the boss of this optional dungeon? Sure, sounds good. Why would the NPC who gives this quest want the player to go into this dungeon? Um... Oh, maybe he was treasure hunting there and his friend got killed by the boss monster! Yeah! Let me write out the dialogue for this NPC now to deliver the quest...

Backwards. So much backwards.

Here's how it looks as a player:

Talk to the NPC, oh their friend died, and this boss monster is powerful. Do I know anything about it? No. NPC says nothing about it. Anyone else say anything about this monster? No. Any books or Lore in town about it? No. Okay, so it must just be a straight fight of some kind. Okay. Go into the dungeon... Wow, there are a lot of Treasure Chests here that aren't open with loot in them. Didn't that NPC say they were Treasure Hunting? Must not be very good at their jobs... Oh, save point here, must be the Boss Room next. Enter the boss room and no corpse, no blood, no bones... Where's the body of the NPC's dead friend? He didn't say he left the body behind, but didn't say he drug the guy back to town either... Oh, boss fight. Okay, time to kill it. Wow, this boss has a wind-up attack that inflicts every status ailment in the game on my entire party? How was I supposed to know that would happen? This fight is rough! Okay, I beat the boss monster. He's got a treasure chest in here. What's in it? The Infinity +1 Sword? Why was the monster guarding this? I guess just because the dev wanted me to get it by beating this monster? Oh, Quest Journal updated and told me the quest was complete. So... I don't need to tell the Treasure Hunter that I avenged his friend? Or hand over the Treasure to him as compensation for his friend dying and maybe a memento or something? Oh, okay.

Don't design your quests backwards. Seriously.

Here's how you design a Quest:
-I have a story I want to tell the player. Let me construct the entire story for the player to interact with and get engaged with.
-Here's all the ways the player can solve the Quest.
-Here's how the story is moved forward or what the player should be experiencing as a result of finishing this story.
-Oh, I should give the player some loot appropriate to completing this Quest. It's pretty straightforward... so... Maybe some money and a moderately powerful unique piece of equipment? Let me go design that piece of equipment and tweak it until it falls in line with the challenge presented here.

Boom, done.

Do you know why Fetch Quests exist? Because people design quests backwards. Same reason why Kill Quests exist. Same reason why "Gather Monster Drop" Quests exist. Escort Quests? Same reason. These hated tropes exist because devs are designing quests backwards.

If you don't have a story you want to tell your players, you don't have a Quest. If the quest doesn't interact with the world at large or hold a place in it, you don't have a quest. What you have, instead, is a "Loot Delivery System". Which, you know... you can save a lot of time by just putting this crap in chests without a Quest associated with it.
---
Okay, that's really long. It's what I have for now. Rant over.

 

[Soulrender]

@Wavelength mentioned these params as "pain-in-a*s"

• "HP Sponge" Boss Battles (bosses that don't do anything interesting and aren't threatening, but take forever)
• Mandatory Puzzles
• High Random Encounter Rates
• Protagonists that Act Really Stupid
• Long, Unskippable Cutscenes (as well as long, unskippable battle animations)
• Heavy RNG Influence in battle mechanics (especially for Instant KOs)

How about this:
- Bosses shows realy rarely and if they already shown their behaviours are strictly "programmed" depending of scenario plots
- Mandatory Puzzles, but quick to solve
- Absolutely no random encounters! Except in places where they can do actually something good. Like ambush in thick forest.
- Protagonists that act really stupid, well if he/she was that designed to be stupid?
- Instead skipping (wich still I don't know how to make it in RMMV) give player option whetter he/she wants to watch cinematic or not.
- RNG only for passive skills and no extra eventing with that.

Sounds a fair compromise?

 

[bgillisp]

One I want to add:

-Characters (or an entire party) that has the IQ of a turnip, combined. I really hate it when 99% of the plot is self inflicted problems or the big bad arrives is because the entire cast ignores the warnings that the game has been screaming at you for the last 50 hours *cough* White Knight Chronicles 2 *cough*.

To be fair I hate that in books, movies, TV shows, OR games, and will abort any of them if a high percentage of the characters feel like they have an IQ of a turnip. Or the problems are self inflicted.