Things in RPGs that annoy you.

[SomaelCK]

Annoying misdirected VAs. This one really grinds my gears. I'd rather read through the text in that case.

 

[Webcrawler96]

1. I find that losing experience on KO/defeat can hinder my progress and sometimes put me in a tedious grind spiral.

2. Also, puzzles that would typically require the player to switch focus from the game to write something down to remember later (In games where the player is not an actual "character" in the game).

 

[TheMeowingFox]

FFXV further exacerbated this for me, but badly done giant boss fights are a big turn-off for me. And what do I mean by "badly done"?

I'm talking the kind of boss fights that when you stop to think about it, make no sense. In XV, when you fight the Adamantoise, all you do is hit its flipper...a flipper. And it dies.

How, how in the f*ck would doing that kill a monster so large? When it comes to menchanical mobs, hitting a singular point makes much more sense. But living, fleshy creatures? Where what, hitting a fingernail or an eye repeatedly can finish it off? Last I checked, it didn't rely on AoT logic where at least their weak point was explained and kept consistent. No, it's just...there. Because the devs didn't think further on how killing a skyscraper would actually work, and how they could translate that in relation to their gameplay.

One can argue FFXIV has this problem, but at least you can kinda make sense of it because of how some jobs are ranged, or use magic. Plus, you fight them in big raiding parties of 8 to 24 players.

 

[Former_Sky]

Amnesia openings. The minute an RPG Maker project mentions the fact that the main character can't remember their past, I click the back button right away. It rarely adds anything to the game and is pretty lazy storytelling.

 

[Kismet808]

Small inventory space, and games that require the mega grind. So in other words, I'm kinda' lazy, I guess, lol.

 

[TheMeowingFox]

omg, I hate, hate having to grind. I've grown to expect it in some genres, but if your difficulty leap is so great that I have to stop the story or whatever in order to spend a considerable amount of time powering up to catch up? Nope. To the power of ten, nope.

 

[Htlaets]

Simple one for me - Putting the checkpoint / autosave before the massive unskippable cutscene and dialogue going into a major boss battle.

That's the one that makes my blood boil. Never do this. If you're gonna have a massive cutscene, put a save right before the battle. If you're worried your players will be locked into an unwinnable fight because they forgot to heal or something, then have the inventory open before the fight.

Amnesia openings. The minute an RPG Maker project mentions the fact that the main character can't remember their past, I click the back button right away. It rarely adds anything to the game and is pretty lazy storytelling.

Much as I also despise the trope, there are a few stories that do amnesia spectacularly well. But, usually those stories don't open with them, yeah.

 

[ts50]

Inventory space. Random encounters (I much prefer an on-map ABS). Default RM battle system. Crafting (usually). And, main character can't remember things. Exception to this last one would be KOTOR 1 and 2 (my favorite RPGs), which pull it off fantastically.

 

[Magenta-Fantasies]

I despise permadeath in RPGs like Fire Emblem where you have no chance to bring a character back after they fall.

Several out there got their reasons on why they like the mechanic where they're forced to play carefully and think, but not everyone goes along with this, they don't want the stress of losing their characters for the rest of the game for the choices made in a battle.

I don't find it fun at all if I keep losing characters for the choices I made and then having that difficulty get even more tedious the more I lose characters.

Pfft. Filthy casual.

All joking aside, I have mixed feelings about permadeath. I enjoy it as a gameplay mechanic and especially if a character’s death impacts the story. I like it in a game like Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon where most the cast has little to no dialogue and are largely interchangeable, or if I’ve already played through a game. It also helps that Shadow Dragon isn’t that long. It’s not nearly as punishing to lose a character in a game that takes 30-40 hours to clear than something like the Fire Emblem: Fates games that take 100 hours each to clear (because I play all the paralogues, DLC and grind, too.)

Also, I like to play on Casual first so I can get to know the characters and get as many supports and endings as possible, then return for Classic mode. I’m planning to play through Fates: Conquest a second time, and doing an Ironman run (no resetting if a character dies.)

Yeah, that's why I haven't given the Fire Emblem series or other games like XCOM 2 a shot either. I feel like it would be very stressful to try and manage all of your characters, and all of that work you put into them just evaporates because of something you couldn't control or predict. However, I don't mind games like Until Dawn with that mechanic since that's more justifiable and immersive rather than annoying.

All of the recent Fire Emblem games have Casual Mode, which revives characters at the end of a map. You would probably enjoy that more. It's less stressful, but I also like the challenge of having to adjust your team and strategies as you lose characters. Although sometimes you don't lose characters at all. In my first Fates: Birthright playthrough (in Classic Mode) I only lost two of roughly 50 characters. One died because of a story-related event, and the other died on the final Endgame map (and on that particular map, characters don't die even in Classic Mode, to my surprise.)

What is Until Dawn? I am now intrigued.

In the RPG I'm designing, which I am very strongly leaning towards turning into an SRPG now that I know how to use a particular plugin, I am thinking about adding a "casual"/no permadeath/story mode. Originally I didn't want to do this, since your unit roster is impacted by several story-related deaths that happen to characters based on the player's choices as well as the RPG battles. However, from what you and other people have said, I think having a "casual"/no permadeath/story mode would attract a wider audience. I just need to find out how to implement this feature and how far to go with it.

Should this be an "easier" Classic mode with more healing items, weaker enemies and save points available (the easiest for me to implement)? Or do what Fire Emblem does and remove permadeath (I'd look into how to program this; I think I could do it with conditions and switches.) I wouldn't want to entirely remove character deaths, because some are linked to your choices in the storyline and change what happens in the plot and what ending you get.

 

[kvngreeley]

About Permadeath, I don't understand why that would be a thing in games unless it is directly related to the story. I don't think it should ever be for just any random party member.

Permadeath is just annoying if you have the ability to load a saved game and you save often. It is intolerable if it is just truly permanent for no real reason and you can't reload an earlier save or resurrect.

I don't quite understand why permadeath would be included in a game (unless it is essential to the story) rather than having a mechanic for resurrection. Even if resurrection required you to travel somewhere (inconvenience) to resurrect the party member. That way combat has true danger and consequences. At least for a period of time. You might have to plan on including a party member who could resurrect, or buy/find an item that allowed you to resurrect, or know where to go to a shrine or something and pay for resurrection. Many older games also had permanent consequences of resurrection. Your stats could be reduced in some way permanently. So you didn't want to rely on resurrection, it was a last resort.

You could even possibly have a mechanic were a dead party member could continue as a shade or spirit or ghost at a reduced capability until they could be fully restored. Again, consequences without permanence.

I loved Wizardry 8, but there were 2 permadeath scenarios that make me angry every time, even if I could reload an earlier save game. One scenario was purposely designed and if you timed a certain puzzle wrong, the entire party instantly died with no opportunity to resurrect. And if you were playing Iron Man mode, your game was over. No reloading an earlier save. And worse, depending on your path, it was somewhere around the 30-50% mark in the game with dozens of hours invested. Then there was a bug where if you walked too close to the edge of the map at a certain spot, your entire party was crushed to death and game over.

I think those are examples of bad game design or insufficient bug smashing.

I just don't understand the logic behind permadeath as a game mechanic. It doesn't seem necessary to make the players feel the danger and consequences of bad choices in combat or in their role play. Unless it is central to the story mechanic. But that is just my personal perspective and I am usually willing to be opened minded about the games that I play. So I probably wouldn't shun a game just because it incorporated permadeath.

 

[TheMeowingFox]

A reason people still play on Classic mode is purely for that perfect run. I would know, having tried it myself and still prefering Casual mode after the fact.

Me personally, I'm content with either mode being a choice to satisfy both parties. Completely removing one doesn't tend to work out well.

And speaking of something else that annoys me! Games with a lack of flexibility in options. Why is it so hard to include a difficulty slider so we don't get disillusioned millennials and 90s kids complaining about games being too easy?

 

[Kyiross]

Massive difficulty spikes that are not telegraphed not so much with bosses I don't like it but I can understand why what really annoys me is when the next area you're meant to go to is just full of monsters that mop the floor with the party you have.

One of the other things that Annoys me from a storytelling perspective is when the big bad just sits around twiddling his thumbs while the hero gains all the power needed to defeat said big bad.

 

[Shikamon]

One of the other things that Annoys me from a storytelling perspective is when the big bad just sits around twiddling his thumbs while the hero gains all the power needed to defeat said big bad.

eh i can deal with it lol, i think some big bad boss maybe have really great pride, or they just feel invincible. well, in most dragon quest games, they already won ( with humanity mostly locked on their cities and unable going anywhere because fear of monsters attack ) and just sit around manage their monster army from their dark castle like a normal lord.

oh and something that annoyed me, well a long cutscene with nothing but chit-chat, encounter enemy without repel item to skip, weird price rate for weapon and armors like only 10 G in first town but 200 G in second town, hidden jobs with very tedious requirements.

 

[Kanori24]

Hm... I can think of a couple of things, but the worst offender would be excessive hand-holding or over-tutorialization. I've been playing Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch, and while it's a cute little game, I feel it throws way too much at me, way too early on. Drippy's little tutorials became predictable as I learned how the game works.
Outside of RPGs, these two offenses make me question just who the target audience is when dealing with ultra-gory, profane games with explicit sexual content. They hold your hand and tell you precisely how to do every little thing as if you're 3 years old. It's just weird to me. Devs should understand the human mind enough to know that we 'get it'. Especially adult gamers.

The other thing would be having too many deaths, tragedies, and overall sad moments in the game. I get it... these are all things that all people are really sensitive too, and if you want a player to have an emotional reaction, kill a character. Kill the character's child. Kill kill kill die die die. What was it FF4 I think where someone was dying every 5 minutes it felt like. FF6 was also on a wild death spree early on. Tho I have to admit Cyan seeing his wife and child board the phantom train was a unique perspective on the matter.

So with all that said, I am striving to design my game with as little tutorials as possible, but also in a way that gameplay mechanics and solutions to problems will just kinda 'click' with you. BUt not on the first try lol. And I'll get into your emotions without slaying any characters.

 

[Ragpuppy87]

Dungeons or Superbosses that become available to challenge with no warning long before you have the proper skills or abilities to handle them. It's just setting up the player for frustration and failure.

 

[HOLYMOTHER]

It might be a little hifalutin an answer, but I really can't stand bad writing. The worst kind is when writers obviously don't take the world they're writing for seriously. Look at the writing in Fallout 3 versus the Interplay games or New Vegas, or (a better but more obscure example) KoTOR I versus KoTOR II. Not that the writing in KoTOR I is even bad, some of it's very clever, but there are certain parts of the game where you can tell it's more of a world built around an adventure than an adventure built into a world.

 

[Spaske]

1) Random encounters, oh do i hate those...
2) Too much grind, i dont mind that much in an mmo but in a SP to sit for hours and grind a few levels, bleh...
3) Cliches... if done corectly then i dont mind but mostly theyre not implemented correctly. ^^
4) 4-8 heroes attacking the last boss and calling themself heroes, true heroes go 1v1.
5) dunno if it counts but this is a thing that happened in recent years, microtransactions...
I LOVE the tales series but i despise in what direction they are heading, you can buy lvlups, double xp boost, max item cap removal and so on... in AC origins they went even that far, that when you go against enemies only a few lvl higher there is no way to beat them or rather it takes hours... also grinding for materials is just straight up obnoxious... and its getting just worse and worse...
Needless to say, i do NOT support such a thing, therefore i wont put any € extra for those scummy microtransactions...

 

[C64_Mat]

1) Random encounters, oh do i hate those...
2) Too much grind, i dont mind that much in an mmo but in a SP to sit for hours and grind a few levels, bleh...
3) Cliches... if done corectly then i dont mind but mostly theyre not implemented correctly. ^^
4) 4-8 heroes attacking the last boss and calling themself heroes, true heroes go 1v1.

Maybe JRPGs aren't your thing...

 

[Spaske]

Maybe JRPGs aren't your thing...

Lol, for real man, dunno if your post meant to be that arogant but it sure came over like that???
There are TONS of "jrpg" without those things i said, most jrpg stoped using random encounters recently and went for enemies on the map!
Alot of jrpgs arent that grindy, i should know because i played a ton of them, lets use examples, like xenoblade, tales of arise, dragon quest 11, yakuza series, persona, ff 7remake, ff 15..... just to name a few...
Also hating ONE mechanic of a game doesnt mean i wont play it or even enjoy it, what do you think, that i would not play and enjoy ff7 because of random encounters, or eathbound or ff10 or any pokemon game...

So to come back to your post, actually youre wrong, i totaly love jrpgs and are 100% MY thing!!!!

 

[C64_Mat]

Lol, for real man, dunno if your post meant to be that arogant but it sure came over like that???
There are TONS of "jrpg" without those things i said, most jrpg stoped using random encounters recently and went for enemies on the map!
Alot of jrpgs arent that grindy, i should know because i played a ton of them, lets use examples, like xenoblade, tales of arise, dragon quest 11, yakuza series, persona, ff 7remake, ff 15..... just to name a few...
Also hating ONE mechanic of a game doesnt mean i wont play it or even enjoy it, what do you think, that i would not play and enjoy ff7 because of random encounters, or eathbound or ff10 or any pokemon game...

So to come back to your post, actually youre wrong, i totaly love jrpgs and are 100% MY thing!!!!

Apparently even winking smilies aren't enough to show when you're being light hearted now.