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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperDesignWhich Mechanics Are You SICK & TIRED of Seeing in RPGs?
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Author Topic: Which Mechanics Are You SICK & TIRED of Seeing in RPGs?  (Read 7787 times)
Jordgubben
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« Reply #40 on: December 05, 2014, 10:24:30 AM »

Is anyone else getting tired of the recycled lore that a lot of Western RPGs default to? "Elves", "Dwarves", "Orcs", "Skeletons", "Dragons", etc. I do. Not saying all Western RPGs do this, and some make great use such lore, but there's so much more to pull from within the context of just Western mythology, literature, and culture alone. Thinking back to games like Cosmology of Kyoto makes me realize how homogeneous the genre is, basically just rehashing Dungeons & Dragons along with Lord of the Rings ad nauseam.

I don't really have an issue with reusing Elves/Orcs/etc. If the central story or mechanic of a game does not revolve around a specific trait of a specific culture, then reusing established tropes saves info dumping. The same argument also holds for the Meat/Thief/Tesla/Nurse-team. It something not a part of what makes a game unique, then don't make it needlessly complicated.

What does bug me however is the simplified world view where all Elves are all good and all beautiful, whilst Orcs are the unquestioned targets of a player lead genocide. Those stories just remind me why I stopped taking LoTR seriously after reading Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I would love to play a game where the Orc equivalent of Nelson Mandela fights to abolish the oppressive Apartheid regime of South Lothlórien.
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gunswordfist
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« Reply #41 on: December 05, 2014, 11:47:57 AM »

can someone give me a non-spoiler link to teach me how to use the matrix/turn based parts of shadowrun genesis? seriously...
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« Reply #42 on: December 05, 2014, 02:57:34 PM »

What does bug me however is the simplified world view where all Elves are all good and all beautiful, whilst Orcs are the unquestioned targets of a player lead genocide.
this
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« Reply #43 on: December 06, 2014, 06:55:34 AM »

i hate it when each party member has their own inventory and money. never adds anything to the game other than tedious pointless micromanagement.

otoh it'd be cool to see separate inventories tied into a social sim mechanic where some characters don't want to share certain posessions for whatever reason. maybe have family heirlooms or just items that mean a lot to them for w/e reason. or maybe they're just greedy?

speaking of which it sucks how in most party-based RPGS your party is just this amorphous mass of stats that complement each other perfectly rather than characters who actually feel like seperate personalities.
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« Reply #44 on: December 06, 2014, 02:29:24 PM »

topic is now off course. But idc.

Swords and guns denoting powerful combatants. Terrible.
Reuse of the same similar statistics system just to lower the learning curve.

Lack of empathy with your enemies. Encouraging preconceptions and prejudice. Why can't you negotiate your way to victories using intelligence and charisma?

Magic being linked to a stat called intelligence. "I'm smarter than you, so I'm more deadly." But there's no stat called imagination. "I'm more creative than you, so I'm useless in this RPG."   Shrug
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gunswordfist
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« Reply #45 on: December 06, 2014, 04:21:24 PM »

wait, what games have separate money for each character? that sounds awful.
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« Reply #46 on: December 06, 2014, 05:07:15 PM »

Lack of empathy with your enemies. Encouraging preconceptions and prejudice. Why can't you negotiate your way to victories using intelligence and charisma?



Note the TALK command. But yeah, this is the exception to the rule (from 27 years ago, nonetheless), and even then it only worked with certain enemies (more specifically, those who are smart enough to be able to hold a conversation and aren't bosses). When it did though it immediately finished the battle. Of course one could argue that maybe different moves could be implemented to scare away other enemies.
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« Reply #47 on: December 06, 2014, 05:10:38 PM »

or, u know, most of the shin megami tensei series and a lot of good crpgs (such as the first 2 fallouts).
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Sik
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« Reply #48 on: December 06, 2014, 07:16:19 PM »

Heh, I did think about Shin Megami Tensei as I was aware you could scare enemies depending on what moves you use, but since I'm not really that familiar with it I prefered to play it safe =P
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« Reply #49 on: December 06, 2014, 07:57:54 PM »

*Pulls out notepad and pencil* Go on... I'm intrigued...
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« Reply #50 on: December 07, 2014, 01:49:03 PM »

Heh, I did think about Shin Megami Tensei as I was aware you could scare enemies depending on what moves you use, but since I'm not really that familiar with it I prefered to play it safe =P

The series generally has many ways to handle combat, besides stabbing things. In SMT IV, you could negotiate a ceasefire, try and recruit enemies to your team, try to get money from them, and even chitchat - all of which grant you experience. It's a pretty awesome series.
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« Reply #51 on: December 07, 2014, 03:27:07 PM »

Checking out this thread it's clear to me that Turn based rpgs don't hold good favor in a lot of people's eyes.  Personally I love turn based rpgs and would rather talk about some of the more intricate stuff that displeases me.

Simple boss fights.  The boss that hurts a lot, and has 1 or 2 super attacks or maybe some poison?  The boss that doesn't use status effects or is immune to them all because it would be too easy.

Meaningless stats.  When stats are generally beneficial and building one stat over another only benefits you if you have a certain class.

No party building.  When your party is built out of set characters and you can't influence your party's chemistry in the slightest.

unadjustable encounter rate.

Focus on random combat encounters rather than focus on planned encounters and boss fights.  Random encounters are only a necessary evil, boss fights and special encounters are when combat is fun.  A random group of enemies can't present an intricate challenge unless your under leveled and going through their territory for chests and such.

High level requirements for boss fights.  If your afraid that players who grind are going to be more powerful then just lower your level cap from 99 to 50 or something.  A game where you play half of it at max level would be interesting so long as you offer a reward to replace exp.
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« Reply #52 on: December 07, 2014, 05:56:06 PM »


unadjustable encounter rate.


An adjustable encounter rate is something I think needs more attention. I hated Bravely Default, but the encounter rate adjustment was a good idea. There are times when I don't want to deal with combat, and just get through a dungeon; in many RPGs, dungeons have puzzle elements, and I find it challenging to focus on them, and think, when I run into the same enemies every three steps. Conversely, there are times when I could use the extra experience points, as many RPGs require treadmilling.
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Sik
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« Reply #53 on: December 08, 2014, 05:03:38 AM »

Checking out this thread it's clear to me that Turn based rpgs don't hold good favor in a lot of people's eyes.  Personally I love turn based rpgs and would rather talk about some of the more intricate stuff that displeases me.

I think one huge problem they have is that normally it's absolutely impossible to prevent getting hurt (an example of an exception would be Super Mario RPG letting you dodge attacks with well-timed button presses). I know I used to avoid RPGs like the plague for a long while for that reason (granted, starting with the Phantasy Star games didn't help matters...)
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« Reply #54 on: December 08, 2014, 06:09:35 AM »

it's absolutely impossible to prevent getting hurt

While that would be bad in a lot of video games, in turn based games it pretty much just comes with the territory.  There are some exceptions but attrition based combat requires you to lose some resources.
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Jordgubben
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« Reply #55 on: December 08, 2014, 11:30:16 AM »


unadjustable encounter rate.


An adjustable encounter rate is something that needs the right kind of attention to work properly. I playing Bravely Default and loving it, but I never touch the encounter rate adjustment. It feels wrong, like I'm cheating, because it's outside the game play mechanics introduced by the world. If it was an early item or a cheap potion, then it would have been a completely different things.
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HyMyNameIsMatt
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« Reply #56 on: December 08, 2014, 11:55:30 AM »

Perhaps something similar to Pokemon's tall grass would be effective.  Gives you a lot of freedom as a designer since you can decide when combat is mandatory and when it is optional and show the player clearly where these segments are.

The issue with Bravely's adjustable encounter rate is you end up either having it at zero or max.  Your either grinding or progressing, which is not really detrimental to the game since you do it to whatever pace pleases you, but it does affect some people's sense of pride to play with it at all.
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denzgd
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« Reply #57 on: December 08, 2014, 01:53:52 PM »

An adjustable encounter rate is something that needs the right kind of attention to work properly. I playing Bravely Default and loving it, but I never touch the encounter rate adjustment. It feels wrong, like I'm cheating, because it's outside the game play mechanics introduced by the world. If it was an early item or a cheap potion, then it would have been a completely different things.

I see what you mean. Having to go into the menu and edit it as a setting really breaks immersion. However, on the other hand, I constantly found myself in battles where I was severely underpowered compared to a given boss or mini-boss, despite engaging in combat literally every time I encountered a battle. If it took a potion to amend this issue - something that the game made me pay for - I would feel sort of robbed, you know? An item early on would still need proper implementation, I think. That solution reminds me of the Exp. Share in the Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire remakes, where it goes against the game's established mechanics in general, and you have to go out of your way to turn it on or off. I think, were I designing the mechanic in Bravely Default, I'd put a sort of slider or something on the touch screen. There's enough menus that it won't stand out too much, and a slider is convenient and quick enough that it wouldn't take me completely out of the game to use it.

Perhaps something similar to Pokemon's tall grass would be effective.  Gives you a lot of freedom as a designer since you can decide when combat is mandatory and when it is optional and show the player clearly where these segments are.

The issue with Bravely's adjustable encounter rate is you end up either having it at zero or max.  Your either grinding or progressing, which is not really detrimental to the game since you do it to whatever pace pleases you, but it does affect some people's sense of pride to play with it at all.

I really think that Pokemon's tall grass is a great feature. It visibly marks where you might encounter something, and if a player doesn't wish to engage, they can walk around it, without having to interact with some side-mechanic. Although, I'm not sure how something similar would be implemented in a more average JRPG, as wild animals in tall grass seems more likely than bandits and dragons popping out! Cheesy

SMT IV just has enemies visible on the map, and when you get close, they run toward you, which initiates combat. Although, they are quite difficult to get away from, which doesn't make avoidance the easiest option, even if you want to. I know some games will have enemies flee from the player, if the player is enough levels above them.
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« Reply #58 on: December 08, 2014, 05:09:27 PM »

As was said earlier in the thread, there shouldn't even be random encounters (and therefore an ecounter rate) the enemies should be visible on the map.
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Sik
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« Reply #59 on: December 08, 2014, 05:20:43 PM »

it's absolutely impossible to prevent getting hurt

While that would be bad in a lot of video games, in turn based games it pretty much just comes with the territory.  There are some exceptions but attrition based combat requires you to lose some resources.

That's exactly the problem though, people don't like the idea that they don't have any chance to avoid loss. Any loss must be the result of the player screwing up, not the outcome of some random number generator.

That system is pretty much just a holdover from tabletop games which relied on dice due to obvious limitations. Videogames don't have them, so this is really pretty much just arbitrary design without much thought given to it.
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