Things you Personally don't put/want in your game

[SquallStorm]

Generic formulas for abilities.  For example, in The End of Eternity, my Seeker class as a line of abilities that ignore defense if a particular stat is lowered.  Weakness Hunter ignores the target's defense if inflicted with the ATK Down state, for example.

Cutesy female healers.  Like Chaos said, my girls are the ones smashing heads.  Not to say the males are any less awesome.

Generic hero tropes.  My youngest main character thus far is 26, none of my heroes favor swords, have unrealistic hair.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

No swearing.

No female nudity.

For me personally, those are "NO JUST NO" things.

Hmmm.... what else... Ah!

NO BABIES

 

[trouble time]

No swearing.

No female nudity.

For me personally, those are "NO JUST NO" things.

Hmmm.... what else... Ah!

NO BABIES

Yo we got male nudity! ey we got the Johngalli A. shower scene.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Yo we got male nudity! ey we got the Johngalli A. shower scene.

That's pretty funny.

 

[Mushinronja]

My healer's a cute female, though it is her perogative to like being just that, so she stays as just that, lol.

Let's see.

My main uses a sword, check. Though along with being the main physical damage dealer, he is also the debuffer.

Healer girl is the healer girl, check. Friendly and kind, she took to the healing arts for a reason, after all. Another character of uses the same relative skillset in-universe to deal damage comparative to the mage-types though, so I see damage numbers in my healer's future.

My mage guy uses elemental magic and status ailments. He can also be short tempered, but he has his reasons.

And lastly my tank is a girl. Guess this is the most subversive character, as she is protective and forward thinking to the point of paranoia.

I also have a King and his Kingdom as the main setting of the game, although I guess when it comes down to it, he took the throne with no divine or blood relation to the position, so is he really a king? Idk, lol.


There are other parts of my story that I feel are more unique, but that's what I like to call spoilers. Maybe there's some solace to be found in a few simple, recognizable characters in a story full of all too important twists and turns. Like Isaac and Miria from Baccano or something, lol.

 

 

[That Bread]

Ooh why not
 

1.  Random Encounters, I hate them absolutely. They can get annoying fast while trying to figure stuff out. I rather physical encounters.
2. Saving anywhere, I feel that takes out some of the challenge in the game and makes it a bit too easy.
3. Generic Item names, potions and such. I like to try and give them a different name, add a bit more flavor to the world.
4. Kings and Queens that is something done too much, and it just doesn't appeal to me.
5. Unique skills, you've got to have some unique skills to your characters. Otherwise it feels a bit bland.
    

 

[Chaos Avian]

1. Saving anywhere, I feel that takes out some of the challenge in the game and makes it a bit too easy.

Play SMT4 I dare you

Also, another thing I don't put in my games are characters that aren't old enough being lead. Like you're 16 and leading a 25-20 year old man/woman who has years more experience and ability? That's just-- seriously. If there is a younger playable character it is justified, but I think I've only done that once or twice.

 

[SquallStorm]

Play SMT4 I dare you

I'd be inclined to agree but I have to raise you SMT3, Chaos.  

Another thing I don't add, ever:  Battle tracks that aren't rock/orchestra.

 

[trouble time]

It's kinda funny a lot of the things I see people saying they never do are things I actively do like

• Cute.  I just don't do cute.

I do, all the time. I tend to find game that try to avoid cuteness  take themselves far too seriously and might as well have named their lead Edgeblack Darkblade, not to say dark and edgey is always bad but I find most attempts fall flat

Unless I have an all female cast/ party I never really do female healers. I like my women strong and smashing your face in. Though in my recent projects I'm like Clord, I don't have members that specialise in healing.

for my current game my parties are all female and the healer has a stance swtich into a damage dealer, but these are generally things I don't actively avoid. Granted I do like physically powerful female characters in my games 

 

Cutesy female healers.  Like Chaos said, my girls are the ones smashing heads.  Not to say the males are any less awesome.

Generic hero tropes.  My youngest main character thus far is 26, none of my heroes favor swords, have unrealistic hair.

 

Like I said I pretty much always do cute, maybe it's because I consider a huge range of personalities and actions adorable (like getting hit and giving the opponent a blank stare like you can't beleive they thought such a weak attack would work...then knocking the enemy out for one such cute example) so it goes without saying my healer is cute despite her background as a legbreaker.

 

I don't try to avoid tropes either since I feel it's only cliche if it's done poorly, my main character is 14 (though she looks older since she's 6 feet tall) and has blonde hair despite being black (though her hair was black a birth and changed color when she started using magic)..no swords though

No swearing.

No female nudity.

For me personally, those are "NO JUST NO" things.

Hmmm.... what else... Ah!

NO BABIES

I actually do swearing though usually not very much, it's part of how I establish a characters speech pattern, the main character never swears since she was adopted into a noble family so she's trying to sound proper, but her friend (the healer I mentioned) will swear in a few rare instances  since she's used to dealing with people who speak with an explicative in every other sentence (the basic idea is that since their so loose with their profanity and she isn't they know to listen when she does swear.)

As for female nudity, while I'm not doing it now, it's not something I think I'd never do, I might not ever due it for fan service, but I do think there are other artistic uses for nudity. Since I brought up male nudity earlier I wanted to introduce a male character standing naked (granted I didn't want the audience to really see anything besides the character muscles) in the ocean watching the sunset surrounded by corpses floating in the water since it fit his character.

as for babies...I guess I don't do that

Also, another thing I don't put in my games are characters that aren't old enough being lead. Like you're 16 and leading a 25-20 year old man/woman who has years more experience and ability? That's just-- seriously. If there is a younger playable character it is justified, but I think I've only done that once or twice.

One of the first things one of my main character does is command a small military unit filled with people older than her (in fact she's the youngest named character in the game), though she does outrank them all and she wasn't originally in charge, she took charge when the fighting started and after the tearing the previous commanders arms off.

Basically this is a long form way of saying the thing I never do with my games is try to avoid tropes.

 

[headdie]

Swearing is a viable character trait, just dont over play it.  Swearing also becomes super effective as a narrative tool when used by someone who is soft spoken or has not used a swear word for over half the game, when dropped as a one off in a big bad moment it can add a lot of atmosphere because its like "wow that character never/is against swearing so this must be bad"

My hate list:

Random encounters

 

Personally I really dislike random encounters, primarily because you cant avoid them.  I have reasons for this.

1) When low health and rushing back to your rest point or somewhere you can buy health random encounters means it is very likely you will be forced into a battle and your health pool wont last out.

2) When blundering into an area under skilled to pass through it is very unlikely you can retreat to a lower skill area to recover and grind up your levels/kit

 

- Over dark maps: seriously I get that you are adding atmosphere but when I have to squint at my monitor to stand a chance of seeing where I am going half the time without good reason my eyes start hurting

- Massive difficulty spikes, especially without the narrative to support it.

 

[Kes]

@trouble time

It is simply not the case that the only alternative to cute is dark and edgy. Nor is the alternative to cute something lacking in humour and taking itself too seriously.  The possibilities are far wider than you are allowing for, and nothing like as cliched as the oppositions that you suggest.

I'm one of those who just can't believe that a 12-15 year old is mentally or emotionally capable of assuming the sort of leadership position you outline.  If the race is human, then I cannot forget the fact that the human brain is still being formed until 18+ years.  And although I think I've met some remarkable young people - someone capable of commanding a small military unit?  Yeah, well...

 

[hian]

I'm one of those who just can't believe that a 12-15 year old is mentally or emotionally capable of assuming


the sort of leadership position you outline.  


If the race is human, then I cannot forget the fact that the human brain is still being formed until 18+ years.  


And although I think I've meant some remarkable young people - someone capable of commanding a small military unit?  Yeah, well...

Then perhaps you should stop relying on what you can or cannot believe as a means to form opinions?


The fact that the human brain keeps on developing for a long time, does not mean that mental and emotional


maturity of people who've yet to pass the peak of brain development is necessarily lower than those


who've passed it.


This is highly individual, and has a lot more to do with indvidual experiences and environmental pressures


than with the average facts of human biology at the level of the brain.


I know plenty of people my age (round 30) who're less emotionally stable and developed than I was back in High school


for christs sake, because they've grown up in sheltered enviroments that enable and indulge


their emotional frailty and mental incompetence.


Secondly, the rather ignorant idea that seem to be so common in todays society of treating people under 18 as children,


is a very modern trend that was not at all common in pre-industrial societies, where you do in fact find


people in the 15-25 range being given responsiblities and roles we today wouldn't dream of giving to people under 20-35


in most developed countries today.


People in general grow on adversity and responsibility. Young people are no exception. Sure, some people drown in it,


but many don't - and to think that people in their late teens or early twenties can't hack it in the roles


attributed to them in most fantasy narratives, ignores the majority of human history (where people in those age


groups were forces to farm, fight in wars, etc.), ignores the plasticity of the human brain and its ability


to adapt, and ignores the patently obvious fact that these are fantastical narratives that tell stories about,


supposedly, the best mankind has to offer - not your average "oh high school was


so hard, I think I have PTSD because dad didn't buy me a car for my 16th birthday"-U.S youngsters.


Not saying that it isn't more reasonable to imagine leaders of warbands to be past their mid-twenties -


simply saying that the world isn't always so conventient, and that making a younger than average party


for the roles they inhabit is not something that should break immersion any more than any of the other


fantastical hallmarks of fantasy story-telling if you're going to be consistent about your attitudes.

 

[trouble time]

@trouble time

It is simply not the case that the only alternative to cute is dark and edgy. Nor is the alternative to cute something lacking in humour and taking itself too seriously.  The possibilities are far wider than you are allowing for, and nothing like as cliched as the oppositions that you suggest.

I'm one of those who just can't believe that a 12-15 year old is mentally or emotionally capable of assuming the sort of leadership position you outline.  If the race is human, then I cannot forget the fact that the human brain is still being formed until 18+ years.  And although I think I've meant some remarkable young people - someone capable of commanding a small military unit?  Yeah, well...

it's true I'm definitely exaggerating on the dark and edgy part, but I actually can't think of anything funny I've seen without some kind of cuteness to it. 

And yeah I can understand that it might stretch the suspension of disbelief a bit, but I was inspired by many of the stories I read in my own youth. Her age is something important enough to the character I wouldn't consider changing it though. The way the setting is she's better suited to leading than anyone else there, mainly the way magic works as a single unique ability rather than many spells people can learn, and she has an ability, or rather having to live with the ability made her fit to temporarily lead the campaign.

 

[metronome]

That was funny and I totally agree. Not a fan of cutesy things in games either.

Things I don't put in my games... hmm...

- Typical medieval fantasy settings with big kingdoms ruled by kings and queens. This stuff has been done way too much.

- Dragons. I almost never put them. They're overused and there are plenty of other fantasy creatures that deserve some attention.

- Button combos for skills. Not a fan of them in games, so I never put them into my own.

- Use of guns in a medieval fantasy setting, and use of swords in a futuristic setting.

- Parallax maps. Too time-consuming. I prefer to edit the tilesheets.

- The world map to move between locations. I don't like the look of it.

I have to agree about the use of guns in medieval fantasy setting/use of swords in futuristic setting.

Sadly, not so many people agree with us here.....some will even tell you that the use of sword in futuristic setting is crazily neat~~

anyway.

@op:

No "easy" bosses that I can just own them by levelling up, which is (imo) stupid.

No scaling. (hard boss and scaling should not be related).

No QTE

No random encounter.

 

[Kes]

@hian

Secondly, the rather ignorant idea that seem to be so common in todays society of treating people under 18 as children,
is a very modern trend that was not at all common in pre-industrial societies, where you do in fact find
people in the 15-25 range being given responsiblities and roles we today wouldn't dream of giving to people under 20-35
in most developed countries today.

It's always tricky assuming ignorance on the part of the other on the basis of one sentence.

I am, in fact, pretty knowledgeable about medieval society in Europe, which means that I am aware that you could not become a knight before the age of 21.  Age 12-14 you were a squire and expected to be learning by watching and assisting.

 

[Matseb2611]

I have to agree about the use of guns in medieval fantasy setting/use of swords in futuristic setting.

Sadly, not so many people agree with us here.....some will even tell you that the use of sword in futuristic setting is crazily neat~~

Right on. Well, if those people do want to bring a sword to a machine gun fight, they're very welcome to try. The only times I see this as a viable option is when the sword offers some kind of protection/advantage over projectile weapons, like lightsabers in Star Wars letting force users deflect blaster bolts for example.

As for the discussion about teen protagonists leading the team, yeah, I'm no fan of that either and I can't usually take games like these seriously. For that matter, I'll add some more to my list...

- Teen or kid lead protagonists. I just don't do them, because I can't personally relate to them (only time I recall having teen leads was Just Face It, and that's a joke game). In fact, from what I noticed, my protagonists (and antagonists) generally seem to always be roughly my own age or older. In my older stories/games, my protagonists were around 18-20, then they slowly moved to their mid 20s, and now I'm finding myself mostly making stories about 25-35 year olds. Funny how that works.

- Balloon icons. I don't like them, so I never use them. I'd rather show the emotion through dialogue, music, and facesets.

- Ace RTP music. Something I noticed, if I make an RTP game, I am fine using RTP sprites and tiles, even sound fx and BGS, but not the BGM. RTP BGM has lost its charm way too fast for me. I find the same true for when I play other RM games. I don't mind seeing RTP tiles, but when I hear another RTP BGM track, I go "Argh, replace that track with something different please!"

Edit: Just thought of another one:

- Ripped resources. I never ever put those and often frown upon other games doing it. Things like art and music give our games their own identity. And if there's not enough money for custom stuff, at the very least use royalty free stuff rather than stuff stolen from something else.

 

[trouble time]

@hian

It's always tricky assuming ignorance on the part of the other on the basis of one sentence.

I am, in fact, pretty knowledgeable about medieval society in Europe, which means that I am aware that you could not become a knight before the age of 21.  Age 12-14 you were a squire and expected to be learning by watching and assisting.

I think Hian's talking about antiquity...or maybe modern rebel groups in certain countries. My story doesn't take place in Medieval Europe but instead in a post-transhumanism and post-apocolyptic North America.

If the race is human, then I cannot forget the fact that the human brain is still being formed until 18+ years.  

The people in this world are more like Marvel's Inhumans in that they're generally stronger and faster than the people of today would be. Most aren't actually more durable, they're magical energy protects them from their own usually abilities but that's it. Most of them have one unique ability of some sort that could be anything, and since most of it is contrary to physical laws it's called magic.

- Ripped resources. I never ever put those and often frown upon other games doing it. Things like art and music give our games their own identity. And if there's not enough money for custom stuff, at the very least use royalty free stuff rather than stuff stolen from something else.

I agree on this one.

 

[Njalm2]

Interesting post. Since I'm posting, here's the list of things that I know I won't be putting in any of my games anytime soon. This might be a fairly long list, I've pretty staunch on my principles.

• Damsels in Distress: I've long since grown tired of this cliché, my personal opinion is that it sets a pretty weak premise. The fact that it frequently sets up the damsel as a reward for the Hero doesn't help it's case either. Which brings me to my next point.
• Female Healers and Mage-type Characters: This is something I generally don't do because it's so exceedingly common, by and large, none of the female player characters will be focused upon healing or magic. I prefer the women to be physical powerhouses, tanks or martial artists; hybrid characters like the Paladin are exempt from this.
• Male Bruisers, Warriors or Tanks: The male Player Characters are almost always mages, healers, summoners or warlocks in my games, as I've got a massive preference for guys like that. Opposite to what other commenters have mentioned in regards to ladies, I prefer my guys to heal, cast supportive spells and generally just wreak havoc with magic. Moving on with the list.
• Generic RPG Hero: I don't do these guys, there's no sword swinging, spiky-haired and hotheaded youth in any of my games, nor is there likely to ever be one. My main protagonists are, assuming they're male, almost exclusively spell casters of a sort. I'm even experimenting with a way to make the primary healer the main protagonist while still somehow making him interesting. Personality-wise, they tend to be more analytical and intelligent, sometimes cynical or cold, but never broody loners.
• Pre-Set Romantic Interests: Although I'm very partial to a good romance, I don't create characters for that purpose, and unless some of the characters have actual chemistry that may reasonably turn romantic, I'm unlikely to include it. When it does happen, it's usually gradual and can be between other characters other than the main protagonist, and not necessarily inhibited by gender or species.
• "Welcome to Our Village!" NPCs: Granted, the very first townsperson I made was one of these, but I always try to make the townspeople interesting and taking steps to give them something resembling a personality. I also try to make them actually helpful, often offering tidbits about the powers, weaknesses and general strength of local monsters or areas. As I imagine that the monsters basically represent the natural fauna of that particular region, and not just walking, sometimes talking, usually roaring chunks of EXP.
• Puzzles: My least favorite part of roleplaying games, I generally go out of my way not to include these. Although I do try to fill in the vacuum with other features such as mazes, conditions to pass, barriers and locked doors. Puzzles to me, especially difficult or otherwise advanced ones, are an obstacle that cannot be overcome by your characters achievement and your personal progress, which makes them more of a frustration to me than anything else. Furthermore, due to how I dislike them so much, they're hardly my strong suit and a subpar puzzle would probably damage my game more than it'd help.
• Teen or Kid PCs: I agree with Matseb in this regard, and for the most part he's summed up my views of it as well. I take it a few steps further however, I rarely even include them as playable characters altogether. In most Roleplaying games where they've been playable I've commonly found myself disliking them, I didn't much enjoy Genis from Tales and Symphonia and I did have my share of issues with Hope from Final Fantasy XIII. Yeah, it's not something I'm all that interested in exploring.
• Bosses Immune to Status Effects: I'm really fond of Status Effects as a way to add additional strategy to a battle, and I likewise abhor how status effects are commonly rendered entirely useless by bosses being immune to them for whatever arbitrary reason. Therefore, while my bosses are frequently resistant to these negative effects such as Silence, Poison or Blind, they're nonetheless fully susceptible and this increases the tactical options of the player, alongside giving me an incentive to attempt to make my bosses even more challenging and deadly. All my bosses are balanced with this idea in mind, and through the few game testers I do have, I've learned that it the status effects don't break the game as much as one might fear.In
• Bosses Immune to Percentile Damage: Expanding on the above point, I make bosses susceptible to percentile damage caused by spells such as Demi or Gravity. In fact, with some of my characters, such damage represents most of their raw damage output (though the actual spells are extremely MP intensive to compensate). I've made the bosses resistant to this kind of damage as well, by having the efficiency of such spells reduced by 70%. This might seem like a lot, but because of how most bosses have very large health pools, the damage is very significant nonetheless.

 

[Rhaeami]

I've only recently started making real game projects, but already I can tell there are a few things that I'm going to be doing my very best to avoid, or even actively subvert in the case of tropes.  Not that they're bad, and I often enjoy them in other peoples' games, but I don't think they have any place in my own games:

Grindable Resources - Experience points, gold, item drops from enemies, you name it.  It's a staple of the genre, but I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole.  I just prefer my game systems to be zero-sum, plain and simple.

Deity Pantheons - Whether it's the gods/goddesses of light/darkness so common to JRPGs, or the DnD-style pantheons made to flesh out the world's culture, I'm steering clear of this plot device entirely.  I just don't think it adds anything new, at this point.

Gritty Realism - Just a point of preference, here.  Not much else to say, I just prefer the exact opposite aesthetic.  I guess that would be... "clean fantasy"?  Well, whatever it would be called.

 

[Ksi]

- Healers: Never female and weak and helpless and frail. I always make them either male or good a dodging or built like a tank or able to hit like a truck or have some kind of attack gimmick that can help the team (say, attack x 2 with chance of stun or drain HP/MP).

- Healing skills: Either very fast or very slow and always letting you know so you can plan. By which I mean first turn or last. There's no wondering if your heal is going to hit before the enemy can get to you - you will know if the skill will hit first or last and plan around that.

- Limited MP heal items: A lot of people limit MP heals in order to 'introduce strategy' but I prefer making spells useful and a normal part of battle, instead of just something you whip out when you need them. They are akin to attacks and you have to use them or fail. Thus, you need to have an item to heal up that stat when you run low. Just like HP is an indicator of how you fared in battle and needs to be replenished, so too is MP. I don't like limiting your strategy just because you're afraid to be caught unawares and need items to heal MP. Each battle will require you use your MP so it would be unfair to force you to not use them for fear of limitations. Spells are a wizards' way of attacking - you don't limit a warriors' attack so why limit a wizards?

- Percent heal items - Okay, wait. I use percent heal items but I NEVER EVER make them JUST percent heal. 15% heal? At the start of the game? Are you a jerk or what? I always add a +base number to the mix so you don't get screwed. Because at the start 15% of 100 HP is 15. That is BS. However, add a 50 onto that and you have a heal of 75. Not so bad. And as you level up, your HP gets larger, so say level 10 when the new items are coming in to play you hit 500 HP. You're getting a heal of 75 + 50 = 125. Not as impressive or useful as it was but it was useful when it was relevant. Good balance!

- DEFAULT fricking PARALYSIS SPELL!!! - For all that is good and holy, never ever use this ever!!! It is horrible. At least edit the bloody thing because if you use this it will end up wrecking any party. There was this one event I was judge for and four or five games used the default paralysis skill. It had a high hit chance. The enemies used it very often. I got wrecked over and over and over. Seriously, that thing is horribly balanced and should never be used, especially if you have a party of enemies who all have the skill. Even if you lower the chance of them casting it, there's at least a chance that one will and it's an almost always full party paralysis which leaves you open to damage for five turns - and within that time at least one of the enemies is going to cast it again with the rest of the enemies wailing on your precious HP. Cue death. Seriously, don't do this.

- Default random encounter formula - It was badly coded and thus you have a chance for one-step encounters. Edit that ****, okay? If you are going to use the inbuilt random encounter system in any of the RM engines, edit it.

There's more but I haven't the brainpower to think of them atm.

On the point of kid/teen PCs, I wrote something a while back in another forum advocating them because they do make sense - a lot of sense, in any era. To quote myself:

If you really think about it, teenage years are when you start discovering the world around you and striking out on your own - if not physically, then at least mentally.

Especially when it comes to those games set in mystical RPGland where who knows what laws and rules there are - I've seen it justified with coming of age ceremonies and frankly, that works for me. And it does make sense that kids can out-think adults. Kids do it constantly if you look at it - how many times is an adult stumped by something a kid asks them? How many supposed 'child-proof' items end up being worth nothing because the kid found a way through or around. Childrens' minds are more versatile than an adults' because they aren't yet taught that x is done x way - they are outside of the equation and so can see different lines to follow than just the one... and they don't even realise it's an incredible idea because they weren't told 'no that can't be done' yet. I can totally buy that.

As for skill levels when it comes to things like weapons and the like? Well, I look at it like this - an adult in an army hasn't really had much practice fighting against resisting enemies. For the most part in an RPG there's little to no resistance put up against an army that has taken over. The villagers that were slaughtered definitely didn't manage to beat the enemies back and monsters would stay out of the way of a huge armed group of people - so the only resistance they would get is in the capitals or by rebellion forces who more than often don't confront until the story is in full swing. The capital battles are carefully planned - they don't have a say in where they're positioned in the fighting or how/when to attack.

Then let's take a look at the kids. Kids who have been fighting and learning every day since their village was razed to the ground by the occupying forces. Kids who are battling against various kinds of monsters, learning to use their weapons and skills in many different kinds of terrain, against different strategies, learning to be flexible when it comes to their fighting style and how to work together to get the most out of each other - covering each others' backs, learning how to compensate for each others' weaknesses and slowly growing stronger due to fighting all the bloody time. Kids who constantly upgrade their armour and weapons with their skills and who have a reason beyond 'just a job' to go full-tilt into battle against the enemy.

Yeah, I totes don't see them being better than the rank and file soldiers who fought in maybe a handful of battles and who, while doing training, haven't really been blooded in many life-or-death battles. Soldiers who aren't taught flexibility in battle or strategies - who attack when told and follow orders but aren't taught to think for themselves; who may be good friends with each other, yes, but aren't taught to compensate for each others' weaknesses or abilities in the heat of battle. Soldiers who only have their issued weapons and armour, to whom battles are just a job and who would not be serious when confronted with 'just a bunch of kids'.

Yup, no reason at all that the kids would win~

As for prodigies, I guess it's more the shock-factor - the younger the child the more shocking it is that they can out-do those older than them.