What do you hate in RPG/MMOs?

[Emberstorm]

I'm interested in hearing all your pet hates and dislikes in both modern and retro RPGs and MMORPGS. For example, some of mine:

1. Slow Movement speed. I tried to pick up Skyrim again recently, and the movement speed was so bothersome. I then found my first horse at a bandit cave, and it walked so unrealistically slow that I just quit the game.

2. Too much crap loot. I've been playing Path of Exile and I'm a big fan, but as I clear out each instance, I find that 99% of the items that drop are 10 levels below my character, can be purchased for almost nothing in stores, and sell for nil. Half of the game seems to be filtering through items to see what actually is useful to sell, use or enchant.

The reason I want to hear your opinions is because I'm working on a 2d mmorpg, and I want to get it right.

 

[odinnightowl]

excessive grinding- games where in order to advance you have to grind so very much.

 

[Warpmind]

Well, the biggest annoyance in MMOs tends to be other people, so there's a challenge...

More seriously, though...
1: Poor quest design; players being given only a part of the information they need to figure out what the heck they're supposed to do (like, say, kill 20 of a generic mob, but the quest info neglects to specify they must be killed in a specific location) or quests requiring the player to find a randomly spawning mob or randomly dropping bit of loot.
2: Unequal movement; if a player can't climb a steep cliff, it is insufferably annoying to see a random Joe Q. NPC bounce up it effortlessly, especially if the player is trying to fight said NPC at the time. (Exceptions do apply, such as the NPC using a lift or something, or breaking the path behind him as an element of the quest.)
3: An economy that makes no sense. A loaf of bread should not cost the same as a weapon, a shank of meat should not cost the same as a jeweled ring. Foodstuffs costing the same as a bit of mundane ammunition is okay, though, but pricing must have some sort of rational balancing.

 

[EternalShadow]

I'm interested in hearing all your pet hates and dislikes in both modern and retro RPGs and MMORPGS. For example, some of mine:


1. Slow Movement speed. I tried to pick up Skyrim again recently, and the movement speed was so bothersome. I then found my first horse at a bandit cave, and it walked so unrealistically slow that I just quit the game.

You could've made it gallop... Did you have your thing set to "walk" or something?


Otherwise, mods?


1. Mandatory lengthy grinding.


2. Nonsensical economies.

 

[Marrend]

Games with synthesis systems, and items that are expressly used for that system, and literally nothing else. I want my items to have at least some kind of utility! Though, synthesis systems tend to be pretty BS to begin with. There is almost always a recipe (or set of recipes) with ingredients/reagents/whatever that have a less-than-one-percent drop-rate.

 

[erpicci]

I agree with all of the above, plus:

• you are on railways: are you lv x? Then you have to do this (annoying) quest, if you want decent exp. No other ways. Do this quest later, and you won't get exp. This + linear plot.
• talk with, kill X, bring to. Choose one: more or less any quest you will be given falls under one of those, which is a bit repetitive.
• I don't know who you are, but could you kill a number of mobs, collect their rare drop and give them to me for free? That's a typical NCP behaviour. This, plus the [often useless] too long to read story he tells you when you accept. Or decline. I've always found this a bit annoying... althought I think this is not a big problem (not as big as slow Skyrim horse )
• This is the world, we have from 3 to 5 cities, each one with no more than 10 inhabitants: self explanatory.
• "Phew, finally killed Ultima Weapon..." -> "Hello, I'm Omega Weapon ^^": Indeed enemies are sorted by strenght, indeed you start in the noob area, and so on. Once again, repetitive.

 

[Blinn]

The sounds and music I swear are copies from 50 other games. If you care about your game at all, at least make an effort to make the audio aspect original, or hire someone who can.

I use my own sound libraries which I make from scratch. And it's one of the selling points of my own RPG Maker project, Uniques United. A game can be fun and have forgettable audio which spoils the rest of the game.

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

I hate excessive backtracking. If you're going to make it so there's all kinds of new stuff and the monsters are now leveled to you, that's awesome. But if you have a quest that's essentially: Remember that area you were in two hours ago? Go back and get a key that magically appeared for no reason! That makes me want to throw the controller off a cliff somewhere. I also hate excessive fetch quests. Go get item X to build item Y now deliver it to player Z and report back! Add some variety. I hate games with these kind of problems.

 

[Milennin]

Things that I hate in MMOs:


-Pay-2-win. This goes as the most annoying thing ever and I refuse to play any MMORPG that has this.


-"The real game starts at max level". It's just a cheap excuse to make levelling boring.


-Uninspired quests. Quests that tell me to get x of x item or kill x of x monster can go die in a fire.


-Gear over skill. It doesn't matter how good of a player you are, you'll still die or otherwise take a century to kill a monster higher level than you or if you wear bad gear.


-Money over skill. It's always the guys who sit 32/9 at the trade post/forums who wear the epic and legendary gear. It doesn't matter if I can solo entire world bosses or dungeons by myself, I'll still be poor as ****.


-RNG over skill. I run the same dungeons day in day out for over a year without a good item drop. First day newbie joins the party and gets the rarest drop in the game on his first run. Yay!


-Holy Trinity. There is so much more possible, yet almost every MMO sticks to this boring trope.

 

[Seacliff]

Fetch Quests

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

I've watched a friend of mine play WOW and I've noticed that randomly, high lv players will bust into an area with lower lv players and just kill everything that moves. I don't like games with multiplayer that allow this. If you're going to be a dick, there should be some sort of punishment for it.

 

[Blinn]

I've watched a friend of mine play WOW and I've noticed that randomly, high lv players will bust into an area with lower lv players and just kill everything that moves. I don't like games with multiplayer that allow this. If you're going to be a dick, there should be some sort of punishment for it.

I had the same thing happen in Diablo 2. I was one of the victims.

But one day, there was a punishment.

There was a server full of low-level characters (4-12) or something and I was the only guy past level 20. All of a sudden, this level 25 Paladin came on and started killing everybody on the server. What we did was band together and ganged up on him all at once. He died before anyone else did.

Sweet justice!

 

[Touchfuzzy]

In MMOs: People.

 

[odinnightowl]

i am sorry but while it can be a complaint ,complaining about people in an mmo is pretty strange MMO= Massively Multiplayer Online hence the game can not exist without people. so there are no 2 ways about it . you don't liek people stick to single player type games mmos will have people always.

As for having many other ways to do the game besides teh holy trinity i would liek to see that idea expanded upon . like how woudl you go about it then milenin?

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

Yes people are needed for MMOs but it shouldn't give a player the right to mess up someone else's experience. Unless you're going for PvP, but if that's the case, give a fair warning at least.

 

[Warpmind]

i am sorry but while it can be a complaint ,complaining about people in an mmo is pretty strange MMO= Massively Multiplayer Online hence the game can not exist without people. so there are no 2 ways about it . you don't liek people stick to single player type games mmos will have people always.

As for having many other ways to do the game besides teh holy trinity i would liek to see that idea expanded upon . like how woudl you go about it then milenin?

Yeah, it seems counterintuitive to complain about people in MMOs, but the problem is - too often jerks are given the freedom to be *******s with impunity.

You can have thousands of players interacting with one another in a sort of harmony, even if they are fighting against one another, but it only takes a few, or even just one abusive jerk to piss in the brew and ruin the experience for everyone else. Unfortunately, there's seldom much the GMs can do about it, except a few days' ban for the jerks, and then they're back to spew more vitriol and grief.

 

[Blinn]

Yeah, it seems counterintuitive to complain about people in MMOs, but the problem is - too often jerks are given the freedom to be *******s with impunity.

You can have thousands of players interacting with one another in a sort of harmony, even if they are fighting against one another, but it only takes a few, or even just one abusive jerk to piss in the brew and ruin the experience for everyone else. Unfortunately, there's seldom much the GMs can do about it, except a few days' ban for the jerks, and then they're back to spew more vitriol and grief.

Then clearly, it's how the victims react to the vitriol that perpetuates the problem. You can't change jerks, but you can change how you react to them. If they know you're not interested after trying to harass you, they soon move on to someone else. Chances are they'll be so busy hounding the other person that they'll forget all about you and you can go about your business.

There's a wonderful law of nature that's just as real as the law of gravity - it's called the Law of Non-Resistance. Water can wear down rocks, sweep away anything in its path, and cause massive changes in the Earth's geography because it is a completely non-resistant force. In other words, it doesn't use force to get to where it's going. Most people "resist the resistance", as in fight back, challenge opposition, or attempt to solve their problems in a quarrelsome manner, and because of this, they end up having a lot of problems. A person who practices the law of non-resistance isn't bothered by criticism, it rolls off like water from a duck's back. If the person insists on provoking a reaction from you, do not argue or fight back. Eventually, he'll wear himself out to the point where he knows it's not practical to try and harass you anymore, and chances are he'll look silly afterwards.

Everything that gets swept away by a tidal wave does so due to resisting it, whether it be water or vitriol.

Here's where I first learned about the law of non-resistance:

 

[TheMusicalCrowbar]

Then clearly, it's how the victims react to the vitriol that perpetuates the problem. You can't change jerks, but you can change how you react to them. If they know you're not interested after trying to harass you, they soon move on to someone else. 

The problem is not many people think it works. They teach this to children, "ignore the bully and he goes away" but when it doesn't work the first time people give up on it. I learned this fast as a child and applied it and it worked. They get bored after a while and move on. Most people don't have the patience to wait for them to get bored though.

 

[Blinn]

The problem is not many people think it works. They teach this to children, "ignore the bully and he goes away" but when it doesn't work the first time people give up on it. I learned this fast as a child and applied it and it worked. They get bored after a while and move on. Most people don't have the patience to wait for them to get bored though.

Kids used to pick on me in middle school, until things got really ugly. The year after, I was put in a tiny room called Isolation for the entire 7th grade. I was lonely in there, since I wasn't allowed into my normal classes, but the bullies stopped picking on me.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

1. All my experience with bullies has taught me that the fastest way to get them to lay off you isn't to ignore them, its to mock them and make them look small and petty in the eyes of others. Don't get angry, just laugh at them and make jokes about how stupid what they are doing is. Bullies need to feel power, when they get the opposite of that, they tend to lay off. It does take being witty enough that other people will actually find your jokes funny, but it works. People who try for the ignore it tactic I have found tend to get picked on the worse, because the bully never fears retaliation.

2. The problem with MMOs IS people. I was a fan of MMOs once. I played Everquest when it first released, I played Dark Ages of Camelot, I played uh, what was the Microsoft one? Asheron's Call? Shadowbane as well.

Universally the biggest issue I had with the games, was I slowly realized I just hated the people I was playing with. Half of them take the game WAAAAAY too seriously. Just modern MMO raiding takes this to an extreme. Then another half (not related to the first half) are just giant *******s. Yay, let's play an entire evening of Shadowbane where all that happens is me getting killed repeatedly by someone 20+ levels higher than me. Thats FUN!

And even when you do find people who aren't douchcanoes, if they don't play at the same pace as you, goodbye to playing with that group in a week when they are twice your level because they have no life outside the game. You have to start scheduling your life around their schedules just to actually have fun playing with people. I HATE scheduling my time, especially my leisure time.