RPG Mechanics That Always Suck

[wndrbr]

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

The one thing I like about FNV's handling of skillchecks is that you can choose the impassable option anyway, and get some funny answer as a result.

There are also skillchecks that can **** you over if you pass them successfully, for example Dean Domino will get hostile if you act "too smart" during the first conversation with him.

[Atlantico]

Now I want to replay FNV

[Shillitron]

There are also skillchecks that can **** you over if you pass them successfully, for example Dean Domino will get hostile if you act "too smart" during the first conversation with him.

This is pure incline for me. Some players may be annoyed when a NPC reacts "bad" to you successfully passing skill checks and see that as a "trap" but personally I think it's great.

The one thing I like about FNV's handling of skillchecks is that you can choose the impassable option anyway, and get some funny answer as a result.

Yea I 100% agree, but this sort of flies in the face of what you said before..?

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".

I don't think you can do both.

[Acrux]

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".

I don't think you can do both.

Sure you can. Instead of :

Option A (Diplomacy)
Option B (Intimidate)
Option C (Stealth)
Option D (Crushmaster)

If your character could only do B and D,you'd just see:
Option B (no indicator of skill)
Option D (no indicator of skill)

[Shillitron]

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".

I don't think you can do both.

Sure you can. Instead of :

Option A (Diplomacy)
Option B (Intimidate)
Option C (Stealth)
Option D (Crushmaster)

If your character could only do B and D,you'd just see:
Option B (no indicator of skill)
Option D (no indicator of skill)

If you don't show options you can't successfully pass with a skill check.
You have no way of selecting a skill you'll fail for interesting or comedic effect.

[wndrbr]

The one thing I like about FNV's handling of skillchecks is that you can choose the impassable option anyway, and get some funny answer as a result.

Yea I 100% agree, but this sort of flies in the face of what you said before..?

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".

I don't think you can do both.

the game can hide the correct skillcheck and replace it with an unmarked funny option that leads to a guaranteed failure.

[rusty_shackleford]

FNV's failed skill checks would have been better if it didn't show the skill check because people would have actually picked them.

[Shillitron]

FNV's failed skill checks would have been better if it didn't show the skill check because people would have actually picked them.

If a game teaches / sets the expectation that "Skill pass != Free ****" then people would be more likely to pick whatever suits their personality / character.

Another example is the low int runs in Tim Cain's games (back when he gave a ****).
Being a moron didn't punish you much mechanically.. you could still get all your Loot & XP.. but the dialogue would react to your character for better or worse.

Personally I don't like the ambiguity of trying to discern that conversations are hooked into skills or not. I am usually watching for those convo options when I plan my next play through.

--

Adding another one:

- No Combat XP

[WhiteShark]

- Procedurally Generated Content (Loot, Quests, World Events, Etc)

- No Combat XP

Infra Arcana does both of these well.

[Lich]

- Procedurally Generated Content (Loot, Quests, World Events, Etc)

- No Combat XP

Infra Arcana does both of these well.

No combat XP works well in Infra Arcana because the shock mechanic causes constant tension between exploring more and proceeding to the next level.

[NotAI]

Fast travel is almost always bad.

Changes the entire GAMEFEEL.

Well, you know what I mean.

To the other thread: Terms that are just buzzwords: Added: GAMEFEEL

[Luckmann]

Magic Find - "increases the likelihood that a Magic, Rare, Set, Unique, or Legendary Items will drop."

First thing I agree with completely. It never adds anything in itself, games the RNG, disincentivizes the use of more interesting or better equipment, pigeon-holes choices into a more boring or uninteresting gameplay with false promises or a better future that never comes (because there will always be something better that you want anyway, so you "need" to stick to the magic-find.

I dislike random loot in general, even though I've loved several games that featured it (Diablo 2, Torchlight 2, Borderlands 1-2), but **** magicfind.

Fatigue in place of health.

What the ****? What games do this?

coloured items

Second thing I agree with, qith the caveat that it may be necessary in some types of games, namely those based around loot pinatas or procedurally created items, simply because there are so many of them that it becomes unreasonable to sift through them all.

But aside from that, I completely agree. It should be up to the player to determine what is good and what is bad, and in most cases most everything should have a natural niche, and good itemization progression shouldn't be a clear-cut climb in terms of specific set modifiers.

Levelling up.

I don't mind the concept of leveling up, but I do think that progression should be based around horizontal growth, not vertical growth. You should primarily be able to do more things or do things differently, not just get better at doing things you can already do. Accumulation of skills and abilities and opportunities is far more important than accumulation of numbers. Growth in terms of relative "power level" should, in my opinion, be fairly static, which adds to the gravitas of a game as "lower-level" threats continue to be reasonable threats for longer, possibly even in perpetuity. Few things are worse than in Paizuri's abortion of Pathfinder 2e, where you can face random thieves with superpowers just because the street thugs had to be "leveled up" to be (in)credible threats at the level the players are at. Reminds me of Oblivion's glass-armored highwaymen.

[Luckmann]

Only two rings allowed.

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

I unironically agree. I hate the "christmas tree" paradigm, but magic items should not be arbitrarily limited. If you can find a pair of magic socks, they should be able to be worn under your magic boots, and your magic glasses should be wearable with your magic helmet if the helmet is open-faced, and if you do find 21 rings, you should be able to wear all of them; or 23 if you're me, 25 on a good day.

[asf]

By colored items I mean the ******** lottery where random items are distributed like candy.

[Luckmann]

By colored items I mean the ******** lottery where random items are distributed like candy.

I was assuming you meant color-coded rarity systems, like "muh uncommon" "greens", "muh rare" "blues", etc.

[Emphyrio]

Stat-boosting drugs. Playing Fallout 4 last night, I thought about how tasteless it was to be shooting up heroin to help me kill mudcrabs while looking for baby Shauwan.

[rusty_shackleford]

Stat-boosting drugs. Playing Fallout 4 last night, I thought about how tasteless it was to be shooting up heroin to help me kill mudcrabs while looking for baby Shauwan.

you could also not use the heroin.

[Luckmann]

Stat-boosting drugs. Playing Fallout 4 last night, I thought about how tasteless it was to be shooting up heroin to help me kill mudcrabs while looking for baby Shauwan.

I dunno, I kinda like stat-boosting drugs. I just wish that the trade-off would be better (by which I mean worse). I think it's just one of those things that are hard to get juuuuuust right, and modern games don't even try; just inhale the jet and shut the **** up and then do some more meth.

It always reminds me of "Yes I sank your barge", an article on WFRP1 or 2 (both excellent TTRPGs), in which the topic of a player getting addicted after taking drugs for combat bonuses comes up, and the writer/developer makes fun or a player for being ********.

Stat-boosting drugs. Playing Fallout 4 last night, I thought about how tasteless it was to be shooting up heroin to help me kill mudcrabs while looking for baby Shauwan.

you could also not use the heroin.

Make me.

[Norfleet]

I counter: Healing potions should be a drug. The more you do healing potions, the more the character becomes addicted to healing potions, and they constantly feel like they're dying unless they have another hit of healing potion.

[wndrbr]

Stat-boosting drugs. Playing Fallout 4 last night, I thought about how tasteless it was to be shooting up heroin to help me kill mudcrabs while looking for baby Shauwan.

Todd knew it'd be tasteless, that's why Morpine was renamed into Med-X. Winners don't use drugs, they just pop performance-enhancing candies.

Jokes aside, The Witcher 1 has one of the best implementation of "buffing with meds" in rpgs - the effects last for quite a while, so you don't need to drink them again while mid-combat, and the toxicity bar limits the amount of elixirs you can chug at the same time.

[wndrbr]

A more realistic take on the stat-boosting potions in a post-apoc setting would be the adoption of various methods of the traditional medicine, i.e. herbal teas, poultice dressings, boiling wine, etc. 100 years has passed after the world was destroyed in a nuclear war, but somehow there's a lot of factory-sealed prewar drugs still in circulation? I think the three reasons Black Isle (and Bethesda) opted for fancy looking performance-enhancing drugs are 1) tablets, syrettes and IV-packs look more futuristic, 2) it would be immersion-breaking for the character to try to apply a bandage while in the middle of combat, and 3) fallout was spoofing real world military drugs like pervitin and panzerschokolade.

[rusty_shackleford]

A more realistic take on the stat-boosting potions in a post-apoc setting would be the adoption of the various methods of tradicional medicine, i.e. herbal teas, poultice dressings, etc. 100 years after the world was destroyed in a nuclear war, but somehow there's a lot of factory-sealed prewar drugs still circulating around? I think the three reasons Black Isle (and Bethesda) opted for fancy looking performance-enhancing drugs are 1) tablets, syrettes and IV-packs look more futuristic, 2) it would be immersion-breaking for the character to try to apply a bandage while in the middle of combat, and 3) fallout was spoofing real world military drugs like pervitin and panzerschokolade.

Might have also been leftovers from GURPS? I'm not going to go trawl through 2E GURPS books to check.

[The_Mask]

Winners don't do drugs.

[Luckmann]

Stat-boosting drugs. Playing Fallout 4 last night, I thought about how tasteless it was to be shooting up heroin to help me kill mudcrabs while looking for baby Shauwan.

Todd knew it'd be tasteless, that's why Morpine was renamed into Med-X.

IIRC the original reason (in the original games) was actually to get around rating issues. Using "real" drugs would/could give the game a higher rating, so they renamed all the drugs. IIRC Psycho's just PCP.

Winners don't do drugs.

Source?

[The_Mask]

Source?

[J1M]

Consumables that don't go bad in your inventory like milk left out of the fridge.

[Emphyrio]

One point in Chemist is enough for a "drug build" because it unlocks every advanced drug recipe. You can stack certain drugs (psychobuff, bufftats, berry mentats, overdrive, fury, jetfuel, med-x) and because of the way armor works just charge in and totally wreck stuff far above your level. Yeah a toxicity meter would prevent this kind of abuse... but wouldn't be as fun. Usually psychobuff and bufftats are enough.

You can spend 2 points and never get addicted but I think that's a waste. Instead you can put 2 more points into chemist so your drugs will be lasting 150% longer. With that, most advanced drugs except Jet will last 20 minutes, so it's trivial to stay high constantly. If you're going to take a break to build settlements or something, it only costs about 75 caps for a doctor to cure all your addictions.

I like F4's few good consumables a lot more than TES's giant list of +4% fire resist for 3 seconds potions. It's basically the difference between handmade loot and random colored loot, in drug form.

[Norfleet]

I like F4's few good consumables a lot more than TES's giant list of +4% fire resist for 3 seconds potions. It's basically the difference between handmade loot and random colored loot, in drug form.

Well, in TES, you're supposed to be making your own potions, the watered-down **** they give you is, obviously, worthless. The real meat is in making a potion that helps you make better potions so you can...

Also, maybe something that makes you **** napalm.

[Emphyrio]

I like F4's few good consumables a lot more than TES's giant list of +4% fire resist for 3 seconds potions. It's basically the difference between handmade loot and random colored loot, in drug form.

Well, in TES, you're supposed to be making your own potions, the watered-down **** they give you is, obviously, worthless. The real meat is in making a potion that helps you make better potions so you can...

Also, maybe something that makes you **** napalm.

That's how you end up with 60 different potions in your inv screen (+3% fire resist, +4% fire resist, +5% fire resist...) I will gladly trade the "fun" of the recursive alchemly exploit to avoid the inventory management tedium.

[Norfleet]

That's how you end up with 60 different potions in your inv screen (+3% fire resist, +4% fire resist, +5% fire resist...) I will gladly trade the "fun" of the recursive alchemly exploit to avoid the inventory management tedium.

Well, you're not actually keeping those potions. Or making those potions. What's the legitimate use of a 3% or 5% fire resist potion? Nothing. It's not enabling you to go fight anything that was going to do significant fire damage anyway. For that, you need something probably in the 90% or more range, unless your regen rate is insane as well. You will similarly not be keeping the recursive alchemical potions because you chugged those.

Inventory management tedium is mostly a function of the game being filled with trash objects that there is no good interface to avoid having to individually manage. The entire issue would cease to exist if you simply had a garbage sack, like we do in real life. Nobody individually manages garbage. It goes in the garbage bag, and then you chuck the entire bag into the bin.