Gaming trends that irk you

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm on Team More Characters here, but I think one thing that could be done to make the experience better is if the characters that remain unused actually were implied to do things in your absence. So, if your 'base' is a village these characters would be patrolling it and making sure that someone doesn't swing by and steal all of your stuff. So you COULD use more people, but then you wouldn't have an area of safety to retreat to and those NPCs you rescued would probably be mildly deadish.

Still makes boss fights a little silly, but what can you do? Else you get stuck with writers having to appeal to everyone, or risk having characters you hate bumming around your party. Shoo, Anomen, there is no room for you here.

[Triaxx]

Strangely enough, I think that Ogre Battle 64 touched on the right idea. You had units that were up to 5 characters strong (5 Humanoids, or beasts taking two slots, so one beast and three humans or two beasts and one human.), but could also have Legions, which were sets of units that would march in formation, and if any of them were engaged, every so often the command unit would attack with it's basic troops once for each one. (You needed one basic troop for each unit in the Legion). Let my allies attack the field every few turns so they seem to be contributing something, without them having to be on the field.

[Zevox]

Strangely enough, I think that Ogre Battle 64 touched on the right idea. You had units that were up to 5 characters strong (5 Humanoids, or beasts taking two slots, so one beast and three humans or two beasts and one human.), but could also have Legions, which were sets of units that would march in formation, and if any of them were engaged, every so often the command unit would attack with it's basic troops once for each one. (You needed one basic troop for each unit in the Legion). Let my allies attack the field every few turns so they seem to be contributing something, without them having to be on the field.

Eh, Ogre Battle 64 is a fundamentally different type of game than typical party-based RPGs - closer to a tactical RPG, though fairly unique even among those. And honestly, I didn't like the Legion mechanic in it, since it only worked if the lead unit was using those basic, generic soldiers that you normally only use until they promote into something more useful. Didn't feel like the benefits were worth tying up 3-5 sets of troops in a group that had move to together, either.

[Draconi Redfir]

But they are the protagonist, the story usually literally revolves around them. He is the reason everything is happening the way it is. It would make no sense if cloud just faffed off and let everyone else handle things barring specific battles. Honestly, what DOES bug me is when cutscenes and such show that your entire crew are traveling together and yet only your three man team is doing any fighting. Everyone else is just like, "Meh, we will wait back here, you guys go fight emerald weapon or whatever. Dont worry, if someone dies we can act totally solemn afterwards. I mean yeah if we all joined in this weapon would die super quick, but im sure you three got it."

that's a good point. i remember in one game, not sure which, there's a discussion that goes something along the lines of "X-character has been fighting to save the world! We'd be lost without her!"

when i'd never used her in my entire time playing. there weren't even any cutscenes that showed her fighting.

[spectralphoenix]

Personally, I kind of liked the FF X way of doing things - your whole party (minus anyone who was absent for plot reasons) traveled with you, and in combat you had three guys in front and the reserve could be swapped in at any time in combat. In at least a few games like that (I'm not sure if FF X was one) the back line would rest and restore health/mana while out of combat. I find games where you have to choose two or three people to come along frustrating - I spend more time worrying about who would have the most interesting or funniest interactions if I brought them than actually playing the game. Mass Effect and Dragon Age were pretty bad about that.

[Rodin]

Personally, I kind of liked the FF X way of doing things - your whole party (minus anyone who was absent for plot reasons) traveled with you, and in combat you had three guys in front and the reserve could be swapped in at any time in combat. In at least a few games like that (I'm not sure if FF X was one) the back line would rest and restore health/mana while out of combat. I find games where you have to choose two or three people to come along frustrating - I spend more time worrying about who would have the most interesting or funniest interactions if I brought them than actually playing the game. Mass Effect and Dragon Age were pretty bad about that.

I don't believe FFX did have out of combat health regen, but it IS a FF game with the usual easy healing and tons of restorative items.

If FFX hadn't had the stupid "you must take an action in combat to get EXP", it would have been my favorite turn-based combat system ever. As it was, the irritation of subbing Lulu and Yuna in every battle just to give the last enemy a tap on the head for scratch damage got old REAL fast. A lot of the time I just wouldn't even use Kimahri to save time since I found him pretty useless in general.

Mass Effect 2 was pretty good about the party I found. There's usually an incentive to bring at least one different person along, whether it's a personal loyalty mission or a battle against a specific enemy that tied into a particular character. The third slot was free to bring whoever you thought would interact well with the main person you brought.

[Traab]

I'm on Team More Characters here, but I think one thing that could be done to make the experience better is if the characters that remain unused actually were implied to do things in your absence. So, if your 'base' is a village these characters would be patrolling it and making sure that someone doesn't swing by and steal all of your stuff. So you COULD use more people, but then you wouldn't have an area of safety to retreat to and those NPCs you rescued would probably be mildly deadish.

Still makes boss fights a little silly, but what can you do? Else you get stuck with writers having to appeal to everyone, or risk having characters you hate bumming around your party. Shoo, Anomen, there is no room for you here.

See this I like, I think suikoden did that as you generally had a home base that grew larger the more characters you recruited, so it wasnt like they were all following along with you on every adventure. If there was a story reason for certain people to be with you, they were put into your formation instead of just randomly showing up in cut scenes. But I have to be honest, its really hard to come up with an excuse to form this large group of heroes, enough to form say, three full teams worth, and justify the rest not taking part. Especially in most of the FF games. Every single person tends to have a very specific driving need to be a part of this stop the bad guy adventure (when it isnt saving the world as well) So it makes no sense to have, I dunno, cloud yuffie, and tifa doing all the fighting when barret is NOT the type of guy to hang back and relax, and neither are most of the rest of the crew. They have literally no reason to NOT take part and yet, here they are, NOT taking part. Oddly enough, I think its easier in games like suikoden because there are literally dozens of characters, and they represent armed forces as well. So you can easily justify them building up their part of home base, being home training their soldiers, etc, while your hand chosen team of heroes takes care of the small scale stuff.

[Eldonauran]

Personally, I kind of liked the FF X way of doing things - your whole party (minus anyone who was absent for plot reasons) traveled with you, and in combat you had three guys in front and the reserve could be swapped in at any time in combat. In at least a few games like that (I'm not sure if FF X was one) the back line would rest and restore health/mana while out of combat. I find games where you have to choose two or three people to come along frustrating - I spend more time worrying about who would have the most interesting or funniest interactions if I brought them than actually playing the game. Mass Effect and Dragon Age were pretty bad about that.

If I were completely honest, I would say I agree with you about FFX. I am dabbling with an iOS game right now, called Another Eden (which has Gacha-style "hero" acquisition, grrrrr, but it's free so I won't actually complain) and they have a reserve feature (up to a party of six) that allows for hp/mp healing. A blend of the two would be ideal for me. I liked the sphere grid of FFX, the "dress sphere" of FFX-2, and the overall "job system" of FF Tactics. Some clever blend of all three would most likely be my ideal leveling system. The more customization, the better.

[Velaryon]

I love that this thread is starting to touch on Ogre Battle and Suikoden, two of my favorite RPG series, and both of which I miss very much and would pay a LOT of money for a new game.

Ogre Battle did a great job of letting you involve a large cast of characters in the battle, by leading squads to attack and defend multiple targets at once.

Eh, Ogre Battle 64 is a fundamentally different type of game than typical party-based RPGs - closer to a tactical RPG, though fairly unique even among those. And honestly, I didn't like the Legion mechanic in it, since it only worked if the lead unit was using those basic, generic soldiers that you normally only use until they promote into something more useful. Didn't feel like the benefits were worth tying up 3-5 sets of troops in a group that had move to together, either.

I agree with this though. The legion mechanic was an interesting idea but I didn't like the way it was implemented. The legion commander basically had to be in a group with nothing but those generic soldiers who do almost no damage and die at the drop of a hat. And the benefits to their connected units were not nearly enough to make up for the restrictions of having them all tied together.

I think if the series had continued further, the legion idea could have been improved. For example, they could have made it so larger towns and cities required more than one unit to liberate, and then make legions more efficient for that purpose. They could have made soldiers actually useful when put together in a legion, instead of basically being a resource tax for a feature that wasn't all that useful to begin with.

[GloatingSwine]

I tend to find that 6 or 7 is a nice sweet spot for number of characters that can be meaningfully developed over the course of an RPG whilst remaining mechanically unique.

Any more than that and there tends to be someone who falls down on one front or another. Either they're mechanically poor or uninteresting or they're not well developed as a character.



One thing that does irritate me, however, is the Rogue Tax.

You know the one. Those extra treasure chests that you can only open if you brought the one class that all the "opening boxes" skills were parcelled off to.

They usually don't even have anything all that good in them.

But it's super annoying not being able to have them, especially if they're in areas you can't go back to. Doubly so if they're early on in the game when resources are usually at their tightest.

It doesn't generally get applied to any other class. Probably because it's too much effort to figure out what, precisely, you can't do if you didn't bring a Paladin (or local equivalent).

[Keltest]

I tend to find that 6 or 7 is a nice sweet spot for number of characters that can be meaningfully developed over the course of an RPG whilst remaining mechanically unique.

Any more than that and there tends to be someone who falls down on one front or another. Either they're mechanically poor or uninteresting or they're not well developed as a character.



One thing that does irritate me, however, is the Rogue Tax.

You know the one. Those extra treasure chests that you can only open if you brought the one class that all the "opening boxes" skills were parcelled off to.

They usually don't even have anything all that good in them.

But it's super annoying not being able to have them, especially if they're in areas you can't go back to. Doubly so if they're early on in the game when resources are usually at their tightest.

It doesn't generally get applied to any other class. Probably because it's too much effort to figure out what, precisely, you can't do if you didn't bring a Paladin (or local equivalent).

Yeah, im not a huge fan of that either. I think the solution of having bypassing locks be an ability independent of class is a decent one, as it means you can at least use whoever you want to do it instead of the designated lockbreaker *cough neeshka cough*

[Blindfolded Ape]

I'll say that I'm annoyed by the "Climb Tower, Unlock Map" trend that's become standard. Assassin's Creed 1 started it, and now it feels like anything open world will require you to arbitrarily climb a tower to know the local area, even if the character has lived there for years (looking at you, Spider-Man). The only game in recent memory that tried to innovate on this was Horizon Zero Dawn, where they A. Justified the need to get a map from a tower (the character had never been to the area and the towers were explicitly gathering map data), B. Let the map fill in on its own as you explored, C. Made the towers interesting to climb and not just running/climbing up the side, and D. Still had options for gaining maps by buying them (only for collectibles, but it's nice to be able to opt out of that)

[GloatingSwine]

The only game in recent memory that tried to innovate on this was Horizon Zero Dawn,

Also there are only like five in the whole game.

Which helped a lot.

It's okay in Breath of the Wild as well because of how the actual value of getting on top of the tower is a high place that you the player can look at the world from and tag points of interest yourself.

Although that does bring up another point.

Weapon durability can **** off all the way into space then **** off some more.

[ellenate]

sandbox games with no explorable interiors...

[LibraryOgre]

sandbox games with no explorable interiors...

Really, any of those buildings in Fallout 3+ that were completely sealed.

[Honest Tiefling]

Really, any of those buildings in Fallout 3+ that were completely sealed.

So gamers are like cats. If the door is sealed, we want in. If we can enter the space...Maybe we'll go in after some leveling. Maybe.

[Draconi Redfir]

well i mean, be fair here. There's a whole entire plank of wood boarding up those houses! How are you supposed to get past a whole entire plank of wood!?

[Keltest]

well i mean, be fair here. There's a whole entire plank of wood boarding up those houses! How are you supposed to get past a whole entire plank of wood!?

If only you had a pet beaver...

[Aeson]

well i mean, be fair here. There's a whole entire plank of wood boarding up those houses! How are you supposed to get past a whole entire plank of wood!?

And not only is it an entire plank of wood, but it's a 200-year-old irradiated plank of wood. As we all know, radiation is magic, and while old things are garbage, ancient things are vastly superior to any similar thing which can be made in the present.

[deuterio12]

And not only is it an entire plank of wood, but it's a 200-year-old irradiated plank of wood. As we all know, radiation is magic, and while old things are garbage, ancient things are vastly superior to any similar thing which can be made in the present.

Dire legendary exalted plank of wood King. It can shrug off even multiple mini-nukes whitout a single scratch!

[Marillion]

I'll say that I'm annoyed by the "Climb Tower, Unlock Map" trend that's become standard. Assassin's Creed 1 started it, and now it feels like anything open world will require you to arbitrarily climb a tower to know the local area, even if the character has lived there for years (looking at you, Spider-Man). The only game in recent memory that tried to innovate on this was Horizon Zero Dawn, where they A. Justified the need to get a map from a tower (the character had never been to the area and the towers were explicitly gathering map data), B. Let the map fill in on its own as you explored, C. Made the towers interesting to climb and not just running/climbing up the side, and D. Still had options for gaining maps by buying them (only for collectibles, but it's nice to be able to opt out of that)

I don't play very many games, but the three games I've encountered that in, HZD was definitely my favorite. That said, I also enjoyed the towers in Far Cry 3 and Dying Light, because each tower was different enough to be satisfying to climb, and the scenery porn from the top was quite lovely.

[Erloas]

Yeah, the scenic overlooks were the developers way of making sure you actually looked out at the scenery they set. Which isn't all that bad, it is really easy to get tunnel vision in a game and hardly even notice the world around the enemies. It isn't a bad thing, just have to be careful not to overdo it. Not overusing a gimmick seems to be many developer's Achilles heel. With the odd exception of some games that come up with some gimmick that they then only use once.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, the scenic overlooks were the developers way of making sure you actually looked out at the scenery they set. Which isn't all that bad, it is really easy to get tunnel vision in a game and hardly even notice the world around the enemies. It isn't a bad thing, just have to be careful not to overdo it. Not overusing a gimmick seems to be many developer's Achilles heel. With the odd exception of some games that come up with some gimmick that they then only use once.

the sad thing is, the "only use gimmick once" problem seems to plague nintendo the most. they never bring back anything even when the gimmick was fun and could've been used again. like if they had actual continuity, we could have some cool combinations of power ups their characters had in the past or something, or y'know consistently produce something like Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, or Majoras Mask, or mega evolutions or Z-moves, and so on. like we sure we get the same core gameplay, but not all the gimmicks are good ones and some gimmicks just make things worse when they could learn from the gimmicks that WORK and figure out how to replicate their success or at acknowledge that existed. but no, so many great ideas just used once then never done or referenced ever again, its kind of annoying.

[deuterio12]

the sad thing is, the "only use gimmick once" problem seems to plague nintendo the most. they never bring back anything even when the gimmick was fun and could've been used again. like if they had actual continuity, we could have some cool combinations of power ups their characters had in the past or something, or y'know consistently produce something like Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door, or Majoras Mask, or mega evolutions or Z-moves, and so on. like we sure we get the same core gameplay, but not all the gimmicks are good ones and some gimmicks just make things worse when they could learn from the gimmicks that WORK and figure out how to replicate their success or at acknowledge that existed. but no, so many great ideas just used once then never done or referenced ever again, its kind of annoying.

Link able to do Z targeting in the 3D games since Ocarina of Time.
Link riding horses in the 3D games also since Ocarina of Time.
Rematching trainers in Pokemon.
Pokemon breeding.
Pokemons able to hold items.
Pokemon friendship mechanic.
Pokemon no longer needing to be HM slaves.
Fire Emblem casual mode since Awakening.

Plenty of gimmicks get reused.

[Lord Raziere]

Link able to do Z targeting in the 3D games since Ocarina of Time.
Link riding horses in the 3D games also since Ocarina of Time.
Rematching trainers in Pokemon.
Pokemon breeding.
Pokemons able to hold items.
Pokemon friendship mechanic.
Pokemon no longer needing to be HM slaves.
Fire Emblem casual mode since Awakening.

Plenty of gimmicks get reused.

Problem is, half if not most of those just sound like quality of life features, not gimmicks. there is difference between "gimmick" and "vital new thing needed to make it work". the problem comes in when people start confusing one for the other.

[deuterio12]

Problem is, half if not most of those just sound like quality of life features, not gimmicks. there is difference between "gimmick" and "vital new thing needed to make it work". the problem comes in when people start confusing one for the other.

It's neither vital neither needed to work if the game was played before they were implemented. There were serious discussions about which pokemon made the best HM slaves for years, people were completely used to that just being a part of how you played pokemon, when suddenly Game Freaks introduced the "gimmick" of items that replicated HM moves.

But even then that still leaves the other half as gimmicks by your definition that did get reused.

People loved riding Epona in Ocarina of time and Nintendo delivered making Link able to ride horses (or boats) in every other 3D Zelda.

People loved pokemon breeding and held items in generation II, and it kept coming back.

And mega evolutions are coming back in a way with Dyanamaxing, where otherwise they would need to come up with lots of new models and Game Freak already comfirmed being at their limit in the art department.

Now not every good gimmick comes back, but then every gaming company is guilty of that, not only Nintendo.

[Lord Raziere]

It's neither vital neither needed to work if the game was played before they were implemented. There were serious discussions about which pokemon made the best HM slaves for years, people were completely used to that just being a part of how you played pokemon, when suddenly Game Freaks introduced the "gimmick" of items that replicated HM moves.

But even then that still leaves the other half as gimmicks by your definition that did get reused.

People loved riding Epona in Ocarina of time and Nintendo delivered making Link able to ride horses (or boats) in every other 3D Zelda.

People loved pokemon breeding and held items in generation II, and it kept coming back.

And mega evolutions are coming back in a way with Dyanamaxing, where otherwise they would need to come up with lots of new models and Game Freak already comfirmed being at their limit in the art department.

Now not every good gimmick comes back, but then every gaming company is guilty of that, not only Nintendo.

Yeah and no one cared when HM slaves were gone, because yay HM slaves are gone, thats a quality of life improvement. just because the company hypothetically decides to go back to HMs, that means nothing as to what it is.

Yeah, quality of life, because big fields, gotta get around fast.

well yeah, breeding is vital to the competitive scene and to getting some pokemon you can't through normal means.

Game Freak is spewing bull because niantic made pokemon go and 5% of all pokemon profits there ever was doing it, so Game Freak is afraid of being outdone by the other companies nintendo is bringing, so they're branching out and being worse at pokemon in the process.

You seem to be as just as confused as to what a gimmick verus quality of life improvement is as said companies. a gimmick is something like FLUDD that only works because of the specific plot of Super Mario Sunshine. a quality of life improvement is something that can work and can be good across more than just one game.

[deuterio12]

Yeah and no one cared when HM slaves were gone, because yay HM slaves are gone, thats a quality of life improvement. just because the company hypothetically decides to go back to HMs, that means nothing as to what it is.

Yeah, quality of life, because big fields, gotta get around fast.

well yeah, breeding is vital to the competitive scene and to getting some pokemon you can't through normal means.

Game Freak is spewing bull because niantic made pokemon go and 5% of all pokemon profits there ever was doing it, so Game Freak is afraid of being outdone by the other companies nintendo is bringing, so they're branching out and being worse at pokemon in the process.

You seem to be as just as confused as to what a gimmick verus quality of life improvement is as said companies. a gimmick is something like FLUDD that only works because of the specific plot of Super Mario Sunshine. a quality of life improvement is something that can work and can be good across more than just one game.

If a gimmick only works in something quite specific, then you're already answering the question why it wasn't used again. Because it only worked in those specific conditions. By that definition, there's no reason to bring back gimmicks because they would all be inherently one-shot.

It's also self-contradictory that pokemon breeding is necessary for the competitive scene. If there's no pokemon breeding, the play field drops for everybody since nobody can do it for superior stats. And spending hundreds of hours on pokemon breeding to get that uber-tuned pokemon certainly isn't what I would call "quality of life".

There was exactly one big field to ride Epona around in Ocarina of Time, and fast travel songs which were plain more efficient, but the horse was plain more fun than just teleporting right to where you wanted to go, even if usually she could only carry you halfway to there.

We'll see how the next pokemon plays when it actually comes out. I for one consider it an improvement that every pokemon can get a 1/battle hyper form before reaching the first gym rather than it being available to only a few pokemons only mid-late game.

[Lord Raziere]

If a gimmick only works in something quite specific, then you're already answering the question why it wasn't used again. Because it only worked in those specific conditions. By that definition, there's no reason to bring back gimmicks because they would all be inherently one-shot.

It's also self-contradictory that pokemon breeding is necessary for the competitive scene. If there's no pokemon breeding, the play field drops for everybody since nobody can do it for superior stats. And spending hundreds of hours on pokemon breeding to get that uber-tuned pokemon certainly isn't what I would call "quality of life".

There was exactly one big field to ride Epona around in Ocarina of Time, and fast travel songs which were plain more efficient, but the horse was plain more fun than just teleporting right to where you wanted to go, even if usually she could only carry you halfway to there.

We'll see how the next pokemon plays when it actually comes out. I for one consider it an improvement that every pokemon can get a 1/battle hyper form before reaching the first gym rather than it being available to only a few pokemons only mid-late game.

Yeah, because its a gimmick! but some gimmicks can be a bit more than one shot. nuances. definition pigeonholing is just another form of bull.

well I hate the competitive scene, so whatever, I'm just stating what works for a different playstyle. options after all. I might not take those options but somebody does.

yeah. quality of life, more options. want to be efficient? ocarina, want to have the fun route? horsey. thats quality of life. having both options is objectively better than having just one.

objectively not true, since there are pokemon that can't get into the game in the first place, and dynamax like any other gimmick will be thrown out come next generation.

[deuterio12]

Yeah, because its a gimmick! but some gimmicks can be a bit more than one shot. nuances. definition pigeonholing is just another form of bull.

well I hate the competitive scene, so whatever, I'm just stating what works for a different playstyle. options after all. I might not take those options but somebody does.

yeah. quality of life, more options. want to be efficient? ocarina, want to have the fun route? horsey. thats quality of life. having both options is objectively better than having just one.

objectively not true, since there are pokemon that can't get into the game in the first place, and dynamax like any other gimmick will be thrown out come next generation.

Hey, you were the one who started claiming that "gimmick" and "quality of life" are completely different separate things and can never overlap. If you're claiming so, then you need to clearly define what they mean, or no dice.

If breeding is mandatory for competitive pokemon, then there is no option. Either breed for hundreds of hours or you've already lost.

Only if both options offer a path to success. See above, in that only by breeding you can be competitive at pokemon.

Objectively unknown since Game Freaks left open the possibility of patching all pokemon eventually. Either way, more just for the sake of moar is not ojectively better. Like in breeding, there's theoretically plenty of ways to do it, but only a very few will actually produce tournament-worthy pokemon. So delaying the inclusion of the less popular pokemon that virtually nobody cared about to improve old gimmicks like megaevolution-»dyanamax that offer more options to all other pokemon is objectively better.