RPG Mechanics That Always Suck

[J1M]

But it is a game designed by a supposedly intelligent professional, so all of those items should never have been added in the first place.

[Emphyrio]

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.

OK, but it's the same problem even with useful potions: X healing, x seconds of invisibility, paralyze enemy for x seconds. A limited number of actually useful potions, like Fallout 4 or Witcher's system, is more fun and gives me a less cluttered inventory than the TES system. Even with my F4 druggie build, I could limit my "aid" screen to just a few items (psychobuff, bufftats, radx, radaway, stimpack, overdrive, orange mentats). My TES potion screens are usually pretty bloated even when not doing an alchemy build.

[Norfleet]

But it is a game designed by a supposedly intelligent professional, so all of those items should never have been added in the first place.

My experience with years of gaming says that developers apparently aren't gamers, which is why they waste a lot of their efforts on useless **** nobody wanted. It's actually less egregiously bad in TES, though: Most of those items are procgen derived from effects, and therefore, nobody actually wasted their time MAKING this trash.

OK, but it's the same problem even with useful potions: X healing, x seconds of invisibility, paralyze enemy for x seconds. A limited number of actually useful potions, like Fallout 4 or Witcher's system, is more fun and gives me a less cluttered inventory than the TES system.

Well, that's procgen vs. handmade for you. The various spammed potions of TES are actually useful code, in that most of those effects are actually relevant and useful. They just don't come at relevant and useful magnitudes most of the time, nor are they well organized. The flaw is in the inventory management, rather than the crafting.

[junior]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

[WhiteShark]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

It makes sense in HotU since you're supposed to continue into it with a preexisting character.

[Acrux]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

It makes sense in HotU since you're supposed to continue into it with a preexisting character.

Yeah, same with BG2. Normally, I agree with the sentiment and like low-level play, but those two are really not good examples.

[Emphyrio]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

I'd disagree but this only happens in D&D games so I agree those games suck.

[junior]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

It makes sense in HotU since you're supposed to continue into it with a preexisting character.

Yeah It does make sense but also makes for worse gameplay since all the feeling of progression is blurred or straight up gone and that's pretty important in rpgs imo. Nobody ever complained about being level 1 again in Gothic 2 or in Diablo 2, I rather have it that way tbh.

[J1M]

Main quests with a false, dissidence-inducing, sense of urgency when everyone knows the best ending is obtained by allowing the villain lots of time to prepare while checking off side quests.

[Atris]

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".

Shouldn't a character be able to actually know wether they are using a specific skill or not? It would be kinda stupid of me, for instance, to try to persuade someone of something without being aware that I'm using my personality/charisma/persuassion/etc. skills

[Luckmann]

My experience with years of gaming says that developers apparently aren't gamers [...]

This right here. It has become abundantly clear to me that the overwhelmingly vast majority of developers within the modern gaming industry are not actually gamers, and many that used to be rarely play games today at all. I am sure that there are very valid reasons for many of them, but ultimately the reasons matter far less than the results, and long gone are the days where the releases of games like Diablo and Fallout actually resulted in a serious dip in productivity in gaming studios because everyone there was so busy playing that they slept on the floors, and then had to make up for it with a debilitating crunch time.

Main quests with a false, dissidence-inducing, sense of urgency when everyone knows the best ending is obtained by allowing the villain lots of time to prepare while checking off side quests.

I'm not sure this qualifies as a "mechanic", but it's so ******* true. It's a testament to the creative bankrupcy of the current "writers" of games that they cannot envision tension as anything other than urgency, and just casually ignore the immersion-breaking cognitive dissonance of the gameplay, mechanics, and setting all clashing with this supposed sense of urgency, immediately defusing it and thus just flat-out destroying the very tension they were trying to build in the first place.

I don't understand why so many developers have such a hard time understanding this when it's plain to experience. It's almost as if they don't actually read literature or play g- oh, right.

[rusty_shackleford]

Game devs & game journalists are overwhelmingly libtards and libtards hate video games and those that play video games. They see video games as a tool for propaganda and reeducation, not enjoyment.

[Luckmann]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

I agree with the general sentiment, but it is not reasonable to expect from sequels such as HotU or BG2 or MotB, because they are direct continuations of a character's previous experiences. It is very much akin to saying that a character shouldn't progress in level at all, and I don't think any of us truly want that.

That being said, I have always favored games that are built primarily around horizontal growth, defined as growth in terms of abilities and actions, rather than vertical growth, which is essentially just "higher numbers" and outpacing/outclassing previous threats. I am of the firm opinion that a knife to the gut should almost be as much a threat to Noober the Peasant as to Conan the Barbarian, even if it may be much harder to get to that point for various reasons. I think this would be especially important in games with a very small span of potential outcomes, such as d20, but then again, I favor d100 and wouldn't see anything wrong with d1000 in a digitized format, so...

Game devs & game journalists are overwhelmingly libtards and libtards hate video games and those that play video games. They see video games as a tool for propaganda and reeducation, not enjoyment.

Yeah, there seems to be a significant segment of "developers" that outright resent their choice of career, and only seem to do it as an engine for social validation on the one hand, and deliberate subversiveness on the other; with upper management that clearly only cares about the numbers and what it can do for their marketing clout. There seems to be very few that are in it on the basis that they want to make good games and have fun doing it.

[Luckmann]

Sorry not sorry for double-post.

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".

Shouldn't a character be able to actually know wether they are using a specific skill or not? It would be kinda stupid of me, for instance, to try to persuade someone of something without being aware that I'm using my personality/charisma/persuassion/etc. skills

Women do it all the time and doesn't even realize.

In all seriousness, though, I think there's a difference here between Skills and Ability Scores/Characteristics. To me, the application of a skill is always a conscious effort. They are things you actually train to get better at, or otherwise consciously engage in (and thus get better at by repetition and accumulation of experience, even if this may be abstracted as a mechanic). So when there's a skill check, I think that it should be listed as such; you're actively attempting to persuade someone, you're actively trying to pocket something with sleight-of-hand, or you're trying to explain to someone just how good you are with a wrench - and you should have a general sense of how good you are at any and all of these things, but I don't think exact percentages should be listed or anything.

When it comes to characteristics though, I think they should be completely unlisted. Someone that is naturally charismatic doesn't necessarily realize it, and it takes no conscious effort on their part. When I pick things up, I don't remark on how light they are, regardless of how impressed my girlfriend is. Those should be unlisted and unmentioned; they should show up if you can do it, not show up if you can't, and they should be simple pass/fail, possibly showing up but letting you fail if you are very close to being able to do something or it being deceptively difficult (say you have 10 Strength, the option to pick up the rock may show up because you could expect to do so, but you will fail, because the rock is weirdly angled or larger than expected; you actually require 12 Strength).

These things should often be used in tandem. Someone that's ******** won't think of trying to use Hacking to begin with, and someone that is Athletic but doesn't have high Strength will know full well that they can't lift the aforementioned rock, someone with high Charisma may think that they can use their Persuasion, but then fail miserably anyway (Women do it all the time), and so on.

So a good weave of both would be preferable in my opinion.

[J1M]

All of that is pointless unless half the checks in the game have better content for failing the check than succeeding at it.

[Ryzer]

Daily reminder that Faggout new ****** is the ultimate decline since it shows the skill-checks unlike Fallout 1 and 2.

[Atris]

vertical growth, which is essentially just "higher numbers" and outpacing/outclassing previous threats

Ah yes, the Divinity Original Sin formula. The stats in that game explode like a ******* nuke. The gap between yourself and an enemy one level above you is massive

All of that is pointless unless half the checks in the game have better content for failing the check than succeeding at it.

Disco Elysium has been mentioned to death in that regard, but I was specially impressed by the fact that there are certain skill checks failures that give you access to otherwise completely unaccesible items (clothes). Usually failed skill checks can just show funny content, but here it actually rewards you *mechanically* with an unique item

[rusty_shackleford]

RPGs where PC/Patry starts from higher level than 1 and/or already has some above average magical/rare items. A Few games that did it: DoD,HotU,BG2. I know two of those are sequels, it's a wrong path to take because there's nothing more enjoyable in a crpg than being a level 1 scrub.

you forgot pst

[rusty_shackleford]

gygax had a houserule that started PCs at level 3 iirc

[Emphyrio]

I don't like in RPGs where you only have one character, and it's built so that you're meant to specialize in just doing one or two things over and over. I would rather have lots of options available and use whatever makes the most sense at the time. It gets very boring, especially as RPGs are usually very long.

[rusty_shackleford]

games where you control more than one character are only rpgs if you are a diagnosed schizophrenic

[Acrux]

I don't like in RPGs where you only have one character, and it's built so that you're meant to specialize in just doing one or two things over and over. I would rather have lots of options available and use whatever makes the most sense at the time. It gets very boring, especially as RPGs are usually very long.

Careful, there's a lot of people that say they actually like Underrail around here.

[Emphyrio]

@Segata Sanshiro why do you like to do the same thing over and over?

[Segata]

@Segata Sanshiro why do you like to do the same thing over and over?

I like experiencing the limits of my build, trying to come up with creative situations to bruteforce situations not meant for my role, try another build that plays completely different in a replay...

[Emphyrio]

I don't like in RPGs where you only have one character, and it's built so that you're meant to specialize in just doing one or two things over and over. I would rather have lots of options available and use whatever makes the most sense at the time. It gets very boring, especially as RPGs are usually very long.

Careful, there's a lot of people that say they actually like Underrail around here.

Every turn-based single-character game seems to have this problem. Underrail, Age of Decadence, Geneforge, Fallout 1 and 2. Combat in all of them is just awful.

I like experiencing the limits of my build, trying to come up with creative situations to bruteforce situations not meant for my role, try another build that plays completely different in a replay...

that sounds tedious but ok

[Vergil]

Romances in RPGs are usually terrible and written/programmed with zero finesse.

[rusty_shackleford]

that sounds tedious but ok

if you don't like that then you probably don't like rpgs

[Acrux]

games where you control more than one character are only rpgs if you are a diagnosed schizophrenic

Rusty cannot separate himself from an RPG character. Textbook definition of grandiose delusions (aka Napoleon Syndrome).

For myself, I'm just a tactical mastermind so only having one character bores me.

[rusty_shackleford]

games where you control more than one character are only rpgs if you are a diagnosed schizophrenic

Rusty cannot separate himself from an RPG character. Textbook definition of grandiose delusions (aka Napoleon Syndrome).

For myself, I'm just a tactical mastermind so only having one character bores me.

you don't like rpgs, you like tacticool games

[Vergil]

games where you control more than one character are only rpgs if you are a diagnosed schizophrenic

Rusty cannot separate himself from an RPG character. Textbook definition of grandiose delusions (aka Napoleon Syndrome).

For myself, I'm just a tactical mastermind so only having one character bores me.

Any and every character I play in an RPG has to be an idealized power fantasy self insert of me no exceptions.