NO-GOs in RPGs

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

What are elements in RPGs which aren't necessary and only piss you off?

I found one today:

You have an avoidable enemy advantage where in total eight enemies kill your party before you're able to counterattack.
Thanks to this I can't continue this game... for now.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Alisa Reinford

[Augestein]

Absolute no-nos? Difficulty spikes where the enemies are too strong in the next area and force a grind, but the gap between the enemies that you last fought are too weak, and the ones in the next area are too strong. Grinding is not fun in my opinion and forced grinding is the worst. 

[Moblin Major General]

How about enemies with Stun having more initiative and seemingly impeccable accuracy? Guess who get's stunlocked for the next 20 or so turns? That's right, it's you.

[Augestein]

4 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

How about enemies with Stun having more initiative and seemingly impeccable accuracy? Guess who get's stunlocked for the next 20 or so turns? That's right, it's you.

So you mean Bioware games? 

[Emeraldfox]

2 hours ago, Alisa Reinford said:

What are elements in RPGs which aren't necessary and only piss you off?

I found one today:

You have an avoidable enemy advantage where in total eight enemies kill your party before you're able to counterattack.
Thanks to this I can't continue this game... for now.

Sounds like an ambush, those are in a lot of RPGs.

 

My 'no-go' happen to be timed items found in MMOs. Sure, it's the nature of the beast(not for all of them, but) but why should I pay for this silly item with my own money if it's just going behind a paywall again?

[HK Motendra]

When the enemy is so absurdly strong that the only way you can win si through spamming DEATH until it takes effect

[TheAstraWolf]

Persona and some SMT games do that quite a lot, same for FFXIII. When the leader dies, it's an instant game over. How nonsense is that, do the rest of the party just fuck off and dies?

[Moblin Major General]

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

So you mean Bioware games? 

Only if you don't know how to use the cover system in Mass Effect is it a problem there, but for the rest? Yeah, that can be a problem.

[vanguard333]

Forced grinding: When I play an RPG, I just want to explore, fight monsters, complete the story, etc. I don't want to needlessly fight the same monster 1,000,000 times just to progress in the game.

Areas you cannot return to after a certain point in the story: Sometimes this one is actually okay, but most of the time there's no real reason you cannot return to that location. Also, if you missed something when you were there, you can't go back and get it.

Characters clumsily swinging realistic two-handed weapons very slowly: what's the point of having a realistic greatsword/zweihander in a game if the hero slowly and clumsily swings the sword like it's a telephone pole with an anvil at the end; it just ruins the badass feel of using a two-handed sword. Examples of this include Dark Souls and Dragon Age.

Characters throwing their shields behind them whenever they attack: The whole point of a shield is that it is in front of you the whole time; what's the point of a shield if the character is almost never using it. Link understood this and kept his shield in front of him in Ocarina of Time and he's an amateur in that game.

Half the game being DLC: I paid for the game; I shouldn't have to pay for the game again just to have what should have come with the game in the first place. At least Nintendo promised never to do this when it started including DLC in their games.

Button-mashing  (at least that's what I think it's called); I really dislike games where there's almost no strategy behind what attacks to use/spells to cast and are just "Use as many of them as you can as much as possible". Ability cooldowns only give the illusion of strategy in most cases, as you're not really having to time your attacks even with the cooldown. Examples include World of Warcraft and, to a much lesser extent, Xenoblade Chronicles X.

[Deltre]

1 hour ago, Augestein said:

Absolute no-nos? Difficulty spikes where the enemies are too strong in the next area and force a grind, but the gap between the enemies that you last fought are too weak, and the ones in the next area are too strong. Grinding is not fun in my opinion and forced grinding is the worst. 

I came in here to say this, basically.

Fortunately, very few games actually force grinding these days; there's almost always a better way to do things especially when it comes to bosses and not just random goons. When games actively include level as a part of your overall power (looking at you SMT) it can get a little irritating though. It's not the 80's anymore, you can make a game longer without resorting to padding in the form of forced grinding. 

[MasashiH]

13 hours ago, Motendra said:

When the enemy is so absurdly strong that the only way you can win si through spamming DEATH until it takes effect

Literally what I'm doing with Vanille in Gran Pulse, but because I choose to farm Adamantoises for the CP and Gil (maxing out Crystarium before 1st game completetion, FFXIII)

The absurd difficulty difference between enemies is something that I can relate to. This was the exact reason I stopped playing Tower of Saviors.
(Had hit that particular wall where you could only advance on the story with ridiculous overpowered units and extensive grinding was not enough, the time spent on that eventually bored me)

13 hours ago, TheAstraWolf said:

Persona and some SMT games do that quite a lot, same for FFXIII. When the leader dies, it's an instant game over. How nonsense is that, do the rest of the party just fuck off and dies?

Noticed that a lot while fighting the Manasvin Warmech at Lake Bresha (few tries, got always killed by that AOE attack). It's funny how Lightning dies while the rest are like "fuck this, we might as well surrender too"

 

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by MasashiH

[BakanGin]

When a boss can be killed in two hits.

Or when I can't upgrade weapons till after I need them

[TheEnd]

I have a thing against permanent level and/or ability drain

1 hour ago, TheAstraWolf said:

Persona and some SMT games do that quite a lot, same for FFXIII. When the leader dies, it's an instant game over. How nonsense is that, do the rest of the party just fuck off and dies?

That's especially silly in games where your characters don't really die, but just pass out instead.. which tends to be the rule nowadays.
 

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

2 hours ago, Emeraldfox said:

Sounds like an ambush, those are in a lot of RPGs.

I have to admit there's a way to avoid mentioned situation.
People gave me a hint.

However it still stucks if this happens to you because you can't prepare against them. It's nothing else than luckbased for me.


Also I forgot to mention that some overleveled bosses are annoying which force you to overgrind.
The best example is Minotaur from SMTIV.
After a while I was so bothered that I lowered the difficulty at this point.

[Reality]

Evasion scaling, either for you or the enemies. 

I find bosses that have crazy dodge rates far more annoying than ones with giant HP/ DEF.

Evasion bosses are just the worst, both the ones with natural evasion (or a shield block chance) or the often worse ones that use buff magic on themselves and basically force you to wait it out/ use dispel magic. 

I'm fine with evasion on shit like metal slimes/loopers (both of which are bad game design for other reasons)

Bonus points if the model of the enemy is something that couldn't possibly dodge attacks such as a gigantaic dragon, armored knight, or a literal wall. ffs secret of mana

[Augestein]

10 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:

Only if you don't know how to use the cover system in Mass Effect is it a problem there, but for the rest? Yeah, that can be a problem.

Yeah, I was talking about old school Bioware games primarily where that was a thing of infamy in their designs. In Mass Effect, you at least have squad mates to stop that nonsense. 

 

8 hours ago, TheEnd said:

I have a thing against permanent level and/or ability drain

That's especially silly in games where your characters don't really die, but just pass out instead.. which tends to be the rule nowadays.
 

In older SMT games, it made sense because you were binding demons to a contract, if you're dead, they have no obligation to heal you. In Persona 4 though? That mechanic can go screw itself. It makes no sense. Your party members will jump in front of you for a lethal hit, but if you get KOed, they no longer care? WTF? 

[Laura]

RPG's where you can't really modify the party. Like being unable to change the characters inside the party or being unable to modify their skills/abilities/ect.

I really like being able to make a party I enjoy and enjoy the characters in it.

The games that respected are those Persona Q, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy III and V (for that job system xoxoxo), Tales of Symphonia, Fire Emblem. Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance and Advance 2 are also up high.

I love job systems. I really love them.

[Slumber]

MMO-combat and collection/fetch quests quests(Looking at you, Xenoblade and Dragon Age Inquisition).

Edited April 21, 2017 by Slumber

[Nobody]

I don't think i have an exact one, but slowness in general bothers me. I don't mind random battles at all, but if they're overly slow, then yeah, that's rough.

It's why i don't think i'll ever play FFIX

well, unless they put a speed up button like they did with the ps4 version of ffvii

Edited April 21, 2017 by Nobody

[Rezzy]

For me, permanently missable sidequests or items bug me.  I understand that for story reasons, it's sometimes unavoidable, but I hate missing things, and I don't like using walkthroughs if I can help it on a first go, so it's inevitable that I miss stuff.

[SullyMcGully]

When the game allows you to grind to get a character to incredible strength, and then kills them off without warning (R.I.P. Aerith). I actually love this from a storytelling standpoint, but from a gameplay standpoint, it's really frustrating. At least be civil and give the player a replacement character with the same stats, like with Galuf in Final Fantasy V or Ninian in Fire Emblem.

I also don't like it when a game breaks immersion. That would be when in Fire Emblem Awakening after you-know-who dies. While you're supposed to be on the run from Plegia's goons and feeling awful down, you can still go around grinding and having cheerful support conversations. I prefer how Sacred Stones is realistic about it right after the Ghost Ship chapter. You can't grind like normal because you're stuck at sea in a ship. Duh.

[Slumber]

15 minutes ago, SullyMcGully said:

When the game allows you to grind to get a character to incredible strength, and then kills them off without warning (R.I.P. Aerith). I actually love this from a storytelling standpoint, but from a gameplay standpoint, it's really frustrating. At least be civil and give the player a replacement character with the same stats, like with Galuf in Final Fantasy V or Ninian in Fire Emblem.

I also don't like it when a game breaks immersion. That would be when in Fire Emblem Awakening after you-know-who dies. While you're supposed to be on the run from Plegia's goons and feeling awful down, you can still go around grinding and having cheerful support conversations. I prefer how Sacred Stones is realistic about it right after the Ghost Ship chapter. You can't grind like normal because you're stuck at sea in a ship. Duh.

Psh, nobody dies in Awakening. At least nobody outside of the DLC.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Slumber

[Soledai]

1 hour ago, Nobody said:

I don't think i have an exact one, but slowness in general bothers me. I don't mind random battles at all, but if they're overly slow, then yeah, that's rough.

It's why i don't think i'll ever play FFIX

well, unless they put a speed up button like they did with the ps4 version of ffvii

There's a speed up button in the steam version

[Magical CC]

Choices you made are pointless and cant change relevant things in the story is absolutely the worst. It's called "role-playing-game" for a reason.

[Locke087]

The number one Sin is forced grinding.

The number two is a stupidly high encounter rates.

And number three and the horrible sin of them all forced material collecting. This crap should always be optional especially will the material in question is RNG dependent (if it's not that's fine).  Because nobody likes running around in circles for hours or killing the same monster over and over again praying that the thing actually drops.  

Edited April 21, 2017 by Locke087