RPG Mechanics That Always Suck

[Lich]

Is there a single game that did "level up skill by using it" well?

[Nemesis]

Runescape

[GhostCow]

Is there a single game that did "level up skill by using it" well?

Mortal Online 2, except for leveling magic. Leveling magic was done through extremely degenerate gameplay.

[Emphyrio]

Is there a single game that did "level up skill by using it" well?

It was ok in Tyranny

[Lhynn]

Is there a single game that did "level up skill by using it" well?

Liked it in kingdom come. Though I did hate having to pick up flowers, eventually just modded it with an autopicker.

[rusty_shackleford]

Is there a single game that did "level up skill by using it" well?

Almost guarantee any examples will be MMORPGs where safeguards are put in to prevent people from just swimming into a wall while sleeping irl.

[Emphyrio]

gem/rune slots

[WhiteShark]

The initiative system is round robin, which means if the enemy has one character left it gets to act for every single turn you make. Which means, completely counter to common sense, you should never leave strong opponents for last and kill off the weak first. Each weak enemy you kill makes them significantly stronger.

[Geckabor]

Limited inventory if the game isn't almost completely designed around it.

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

Inventory weight/encumbrance is always **** and adds nothing. Anyone that defends this is being a spiteful contrarian and should die of pancreatic cancer.

[rusty_shackleford]

games without inventory management are not rpgs, they're tactical or action games with rpg elements

[Lich]

games without inventory management are not rpgs, they're tactical or action games with rpg elements

I'm not disagreeing, but why are they not RPGs?

[Vlajdimir Ermenović]

Impromptu party bickering (looking at you, BG2)

[rusty_shackleford]

games without inventory management are not rpgs, they're tactical or action games with rpg elements

I'm not disagreeing, but why are they not RPGs?

Categorization by differentiation.

Inventory management is a mechanic that is rarely ever shows up outside of TRVE crpgs or, more recently, survival games. Unless you're trying to categorize a survival game, it's a good trait for identifying whether something is an RPG.

[Atlantico]

Visual novel dialogue choices

[Goth-Girl-Supremacy]

games without inventory management are not rpgs, they're tactical or action games with rpg elements

So they're actually good games.

[Gregz]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/you ... ll.136581/

[rusty_shackleford]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/you ... ll.136581/

Site full of people who hate rpgs hate mechanics actually present in rpgs and love visual novels, shocker.

[Gregz]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/you ... ll.136581/

Site full of people who hate rpgs hate mechanics actually present in rpgs and love visual novels, shocker.

Pretty sure there are some people on that site that love actual RPGs, they're just not admins or friendly with the admins.

[NotAI]

There's no "Trigger RPGHQ" thread on RPGHQ. Let that be this thread:

Dice Rolls.

Dice Roll Condition Checks.

All they do in a single player game where the choices are predetermined options is drastically slow down the game. There might be only two ways to finish a quest, one per character type. Usually is because budgets are a thing. Only a few quests have multiple fallbacks. So dice roll checks merely encourage save scumming. Baldur's Gate 3 is the best recent example.

The positive is of course that having a skill is no longer mandatory, any character has a chance (a lower chance) to try some route.

Dice rolls work in the context of a human game master who constructs more options on the fly if needed. In a computer game only thing that happens is overslow pace. The gameplay loop is just made worse by constant saving and loading.

[Acrux]

constant saving and loading.

Weak

[2factorauth]

Combat

[Norfleet]

Almost guarantee any examples will be MMORPGs where safeguards are put in to prevent people from just swimming into a wall while sleeping irl.

That just demands a more creative way to swim into a wall. Or puts a cap on how much you can swim into a wall. Or just doesn't have these as skills. Hell, even reality has this problem, because mindlessly and repetitively using a skill for no actual useful reason is an exploit used to grind skills in real life, too.

[WhiteShark]

Hell, even reality has this problem, because mindlessly and repetitively using a skill for no actual useful reason is an exploit used to grind skills in real life, too.

Just the opposite: using a skill mindlessly will slowly make you worse at it, not better. It takes deliberate focus to improve.

[Norfleet]

Just the opposite: using a skill mindlessly will slowly make you worse at it, not better. It takes deliberate focus to improve.

Depends on the skill. Some skills only improve if the thing you're doing is harder than the thing you're previously did it on. You simply never get better at it unless you consistently increase the difficulty level. Other skills will increase even if you just use them constantly for no reason. If you want to improve your Running skill, it will, in fact, improve from just running everywhere, even in circles, for absolutely no reason.

[WhiteShark]

Just the opposite: using a skill mindlessly will slowly make you worse at it, not better. It takes deliberate focus to improve.

Depends on the skill. Some skills only improve if the thing you're doing is harder than the thing you're previously did it on. You simply never get better at it unless you consistently increase the difficulty level. Other skills will increase even if you just use them constantly for no reason. If you want to improve your Running skill, it will, in fact, improve from just running everywhere, even in circles, for absolutely no reason.

Mindlessly running everywhere will increase your endurance but it won't improve your form, which is the major skill component of running.

[Lich]

Only two rings allowed.

A male human should be able to wear up to 21 rings.

[Shillitron]

- Gay Bear Romances
- Procedurally Generated Content (Loot, Quests, World Events, Etc)
- Weapon Jamming
- Critical Failures
- Skill Checks that have RNG
- Dialogue Options that don't show Skill Requirements

[wndrbr]

- Dialogue Options that don't show Skill Requirements

that's a good thing.

Ideally skillchecks that your character can't pass shouldn't show up in the menu at all, and the ones your character can pass shouldn't be marked as skillchecks. Otherwise it makes dialogues look like "press x to win".

[Shillitron]

- Dialogue Options that don't show Skill Requirements

that's a good thing.

Ideally skillchecks that your character can't pass shouldn't show up in the menu at all, and the ones your character can pass shouldn't be marked as skillchecks. Otherwise it makes dialogues look like "press x to win".

It doesn't have to always be the "optimal positive outcome" though and when I'm playing a game fresh I like to see skill checks I can't use, it lets me know the game was designed around them and that other builds / skills will be fulfilling.

My example of this is New Vegas which seems to try and reward almost every skill even in Dialogue.

I do think skillchecks being the "Give me XP and reward and always be the best choice" are actually a ****** RPG Mechanic.