Castle Paradox

[Sephyroth]

Bosses: Short and difficult is the only way to go, gameplay-wise.
Short and easy is just pointless.
Long and difficult will frustrate the players, like Worthy said, if they spend a long time trying to defeat a boss and then lose. Also, a long battle is unacceptable if the boss only has one attack pattern. Once the player gets past the challenge of beating the pattern, the rest of the battle will be boring repetitions of monotonous responses.
Long and easy = Holding down the enter key for the entire duration of a battle. The only time I could think of where this would be acceptable would be during a story battle that focuses on plot advancement rather than challenge. But then again, this would be less of a "boss battle" and more of a "story scene".

Chrono Cross had a great Short and Difficult battle system in general. The heroes are forced to rely on a limited amount of spells, which they can't increase by fighting enemies over and over again. There are a number of bosses towards the latter part of the game that uses the magic limitation as a strategic fuse for the player to try to defeat the boss as quickly as possible while managing his characters' health and magic supply.

[Ssalamanderr]

Something I hate: Ultimate spells/weapons/armor/characters. If one thing is better than all the rest, what is the point of having the rest of the items/spells if one is clearly better than all the rest? I know that character's have to build up their power as the game goes on, but I'd prefer multiple weapons that are useful in different ways/situations.
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Ssalamanderr's Journal!: http://www.livejournal.com/users/ssalamanderr/

Ukelele no good!

[Me]

At first glance, I didn't agree with that, Ssalamanderr. I was thinking, "Well, of COURSE there has to be an ultimate weapon! You can't just keep gong up and up in power!"
Then I actually thought, and you make a very good, little-used point. I'd much prefer a game where there is a wide variety of semi-ultimate weapons - ones with incredible power, but severe penalties, or less power but benefits, rather than one mega-weapon of doom.
Ultimate spells I think most people already hate - it gets stupid boring when you can (whee, FFVII example) Mime Knights of the Round a hundred times in a row and beat anything.
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[Shadowiii]

Ultimate weapons with a catch are good, though. (ie Cursed Shield in FF6).
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Me]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at.
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UP DOWN UP DOWN LEFT LEFT RIGHT RIGHT A B START

[djfenix]

I'm kinda more into the old-school rpgs, like the original FF, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, etc. where you stay in one area to level up until you feel confident to explore the cave to the north, or something.

I absolutely HATE linear RPGs. Stuff where you just go in a straight path. The story is just about following instructions to get from A to B. The dungeons are just a linear path, going from A to B. Nothing in between, nothing to figure out for yourself, and nothing to explore. I like variety, and I like to explore, which is why I really dont like FFVII and up (with the exception of FFXI, because it has all that I love ^^)

Other things I dont really like are overly easy battles (I like tough battles), cliched stories, and games where the main female lead is some sort of magic user chosen by destiny to fulfil some sort of crap and then she falls in love with the main hero (ala FFVII to FFX, Lunar, Grandia).

Of course, there are some exceptions, where I do like the game despite having those things...

[Dan the Man Entertainment]

You guys are forgetting something about ultimate spells: they cost a helluva lot of MP. This is what makes other spells worth using. They can do more damage to certain enemies. In FF4 what did more damage against the red dragon; nuke, or fire 3?

[Shadowiii]

What about Ultima in FF6? It basically beat the crap out of everybody (though Merton was better). Not only that, if you had a magic style character she'd either have Gold Hairpin or the Economizer, not to mention MP up the butt. Basically, I had both Terra and Celes spam cast Ultima the entire last dungeon. Ugh, the final boss is too easy.
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Dan the Man Entertainment]

Ah, yes, I completely forgot about that.

Anyway, here's something I hate in RPGs:

Unknown Character shows textbox displaying dialogue
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Example:
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[Sephyroth]

[Eggie]

Sorry I took so much time to reply to this, but...

I agree with the Ultima in FF6 thing. It was too cheap! I mean, you eventually don't use anything but that!

Another thing, I hate when characters don't really have a difference in strength or weaknesses. Like, every character can learn every move and be so ultimate in every way (IE. FF8)

What I ADORE is how at the end of FF4 everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, unlike Super Mario RPG where you have everyone a lot the same.

Speaking of SMRPG, as soon as I got Bowser, I had Mario, Bowser, Geno, and Mallow. Mallow was too weak (well, just a little), so I use Geno, Mallow, and Bowser. Now, the thing is, even though Mallow is out of battle, he still gets EXP. I hate how in some games, unused players get EXP (FF7 kinda cuts it in half, I think.)

Another thing is how there is always some trick to getting rid of ultimate bosses. Like FFX-2, Cat Nip, plus Gunner, plus SOS, equals cheap wins! Or Vanish/ Doom off of FF6.

Of course, when battles are too slow (Wild Arms 2), I hate that. And speaking of Wild Arms 2, it has that level up Special Points thing like Star Ocean. I hate that! Leveling up and getting special points.

Also, just the fact that some games leveling up is how you learn moves is too generic. I liked how FFX-2 made it a lot different. FFX-1 sorta kept to that if you look at it.

Also, I hate at end games where it is a no-going-back situation, and you can save (I believe this has been mentioned by someone previously). Like Earthbound.

Speaking of Earthbound, I hate how is you get Ness to Level 99 before he cobblers Ness' Nitemare, you don't get the ultimate level ups!

Also, I hate when the amount of EXP you get at the end of a battle is too frickin' low for your level up, and the next boss seems so hard that you have to level up!

Now about difficulty, I hate when battles are too generic and are too easy, that all of your battle gameplay revolves around one strategy.

Now, the 100% thing in FFX-2 was cool, but it is almost impossible to get that perfectly without walkthru help. How the hell is anybody supposed to do that perfectly? You need to make sure you do the chapter quests correctly, and say the right things... they shoulda made it you didn't have to do everything in a linear example.

Hmmm... "Linear", I like non-linear games that if you don't do this or that, then you won't get the ultimate stuff.

And ultimate stuff... I like when there is ultimate stuff, but you don't use it 100% of the time. Like in FFX-2, there are the ultimate accessories divided upon 6 accessory slots (3*2). While on FF6, there are 28 accessory slots (14*2), and the ultimate relics are limited. Another point, when there is too much ultimate stuff.

More RPG hate? I hate not having sidequests. Sidequests to get better stuff. Sidequests to get the ultimate weapons / spells.

Getting ultimate stuff can be a pain though.

"Hey Lulu, y'wanna dodge 200 lightning bolts without going near a lightning tower or exiting the screen or saving?"

"Okay, boy. Let's go!"

Uhhh... no way am I gonna go for a Sigil of Jupiter, or Saturn, or whatever when I have to kill so much of my mind for it. Point, I hate when goals for great stuff is really, really, fustrating.

Like people said, I hate when battles are too easy. You go in and take down 6 enemies quickly 'cause they require one shot. Or when boss battles are too easy. Like everyone here should agree, they should be semi-short, but hard.

Another thing is when a character joins your party 'cause you came across him. I remember this happening on an SNES RPG, but I can't remember which one. They see you there, and they join.

From that, I hate when some characters are not storyline worthy. Y'know, like they aren't really important to the story, but they are in your party. I figure all party members should have a story value.

And... that's enough for today.

[Ronin Catholic]

I hate when games use active-time battle and make their Speed stats way too high. If you don't make sure to have it pause on battle menus, things get stupidly hectic really quick at speeds above 20-ish.

This used to be different on older computers back in ye DOS days. At that time, 20 was a good minimum baseline and anything above 40 was ridiculous. Surprise surprise, lots of OHR games used to have people who thought the battles would be turn-based instead of ATB, gave characters speeds ranging from 10 as "average" all the way to 100, and didn't test their games before release.

A speed of 55 means it will take one second to get another turn. A speed of 1 means it takes a full minute.

For my money if you're giving the player a full party from the start, 6 or 8 is good for a sluggish slugger (like the Fighter in Spellshard or Knate in Trytuges who is based on the former) who hits decently hard and can take a lot of hits. Speeds below 6 shouldn't be used except as a joke or on bosses who use long intervals as a gimmick. In this case, making "average" speed heroes have speeds of 10-12 or a "fast" hero have speed anywhere up to 20 is good, though maybe 20 should be a fast hero + speed upgrading equipment.

If you're doing just one hero in ATB mode, go ahead and go with a speed of 20, 30, or 55 off the bat.

...but then, our lovely new Turn-Based mode is really a lot more intuitive for you newbies out there. Speed = order you'll act within the upcoming round of attacks. You can now make speed a stat that scales with the others as you level up instead of one that should remain static throughout an adventure.



Another pet peeve of mine is accuracy, or rather peoples' refusal to understand it as a mechanic (either dismissing it as "it feels bad to have attacks miss, therefore player attacks should never miss" or making it so high that equipment with a "drawback" of reducing the accuracy stat does nothing).

One way to look at the accuracy/dodging mechanic or saving throws on spells is this: Without the chance of resisting/dodging, that thing would always hit. The Word of Instant Death would never whiff, the Necromaster could just say it four times and your whole party would be dead; and why wouldn't he, if his MP is anywhere near as high as your player character wizard's is? The army of 100 orcs and their 100 bows arrow'd you 100 times for 1d6 damage each. The Sleep spell? Your entire party is now asleep, the guy can just walk up to you and slit your throats, killing you with no damage roll or anything. Saving throws/miss chances are there to be fair to the person whose turn it isn't.

You can always make your game mechanically imbalanced to favor the player - most RPGs do, as a matter of fact. Healing items, the option to grind for experience, customizable equipment/upgrades - even if you didn't just set heroes to have 100 accuracy and 25 dodge out the gate and enemies to have 50 accuracy and 0 dodge, the fact that players can control so much of the game's flow should not be underestimated.

And that's another one: Customization and risk vs. reward. You can make powerful optional stuff gated behind a powerful optional monster, and you can also have something like an ogre's club that does easily 3x as much damage as most weapons of that level but with -50% accuracy. Will the player use it, taking that risk knowing it mathematically pays out in the long run? Will they play it safe and stick to more accurate weapons that are weaker? High risk and high reward.

Maybe heroes start with accuracy near 100, accuracy caps at 100, their accuracy stat continues to rise with level well above 100...and the heavier your armor is, the more it drops accuracy as well as evasion/speed (if it impacts these). Make a choice between the caution of hits being more likely vs. the caution of taking less damage from attacks. Higher level heroes have skill levels to overcome the drawbacks of the really powerful weapons and armor.

So one of my pet peeves is I don't like when games miss too often (I feel Trytuges is slightly bad in this regard and I should give the mages in particular a little bit more accuracy; Nintendo Quest was just right when I was testing it initially which may have skewed my stat distributions badly) but I also don't like to go through a whole game without seeing a single miss from the player or the enemies; I'm sure an RPG could be made quite well with no randomization, but I like a bit of chaos.



Another thing I don't much like is completely linear weapon upgrades. It worked for the original Dragon Warrior because of how the game was structured and all weapons having the same overall properties, but when you're using an engine that can easily support things like having weapons that alter a hero's accuracy, evasion, defense, magic stats, speed, attack properties like spread or multi-hit or delay, elements, etc. you'd might as well take advantage of some of it.

So instead of just going "Stone Axe is ATK+5, Bronze Axe is ATK+10, Iron Axe is ATK+20, Steel Axe is ATK+40, Bad Axe is ATK+80" you can go "Grab Axe helps you to steal, Half Axe shrinks if you get shrunk to protect you from attack debuffs, Long Axe trades low accuracy for a high evasion rate by keeping your distance, Huge Axe is huge damage but slow or low accuracy, Hard Axe penetrates armor, Golden Axe sells really well; Green Axe, Kind Axe, and Axe of the Apostles do bonus damage to evil creatures; Chill Axe and Hot Axe have elemental properties" and so on. Some of those axes have different attack values, but often with a tradeoff. They could even be mostly linear, so long as there's a potential reason to bring one to a certain situation or play style despite officially being weaker.



Another one: Armor. In most OHR games and for that matter, most professional RPGs I can think of, weapons give ridiculously better offensive bonuses than armor pieces do defensive ones. Remember that by default it takes +2 DEF to cancel out +1 ATK so if both are equal, the engine is weighted heavily in favor of offense (and if not using %-based accuracy, it also puts four times as much value in a point of AIM than it does in DOG). So your T-shirt of +1 DEF doesn't reduce damage by 1, it reduces it by half of one point. So while you've got access to three scraps of cloth for your head, torso, and shield slots for +1 DEF each...the first town weapons are +4 to +16 in attack power? Yeah, not only does the engine include a baked-in unintuitive anti-frustration feature to keep most newbie games with even stats across the board from doing only 1 damage at a time, designers keep focusing on offense over defense.

In Dragon Warrior the advice of strategy guides was always to buy cloth armor and a club; my style was instead to buy a dragon scale and a leather shield or armor, take my time killing slimes in two or three punches until I could save up and buy a sword. But that game made both options available - focusing on the weapon is definitely faster, but also means surprise attacks hurt you a lot more.

Really, a good helmet, body armor, and shield should each give the same defense bonus as an average weapon of the same tier gives attack power (or have shields increase evasion instead). Someone wearing full body armor and a helmet should be basically impervious to random or unskilled sword swings - armor is really, really good at stopping swords, spears, and arrows in particular. There should also be ways to deal with high-armored foes such as:
- Warriors with techniquest that penetrate armor, but with a drawback (delay, reduced accuracy, lower base damage)
- Armor-piercing weapons such as warhammers (the hammer part is basically a pickaxe) or overwhelming attack power like mauls (AKA, sledge hammers). Historically, some knights would hold their swords by the blade to use their hilts as maces against heavily armored opponents because this was more useful than the edge (an actual mace is better, of course). These weapons generally have less wounding capacity against lightly armored or unarmored targets, hence why swords, spears, axes, and arrows remained relevant when blunt implements and heavy spiky things were the best options against the highly armored. The OHR can somewhat support this with its Sharp and Blunt damage types as well.
- Magic. In fantasy games, this is a viable combat option. Usually the heavy steel armor that provides such high physical defense doesn't necessarily bring high magic resistance along with it. Or if it does, it might not help them resist status afflictions. Or heck if their armor is enchanted, just melt the ground underneath them without targeting them directly.
- Endurance. A face-covering helmet restricts breathing; the reason helmets with movable visors were invented despite being less sturdy than a single solid piece is so that a warrior can lift up his visor to breathe and look around briefly as he moves between hot zones in the battlefield. All armor includes multiple layers of cloth/leather and the best all also incorporate steel, so it gets very, very hot and sweaty in there. So if using a stamina system, even the healthiest men at arms should tire out more easily than other characters.

So yes, please by all means make armor good enough to reduce default attack damage to 1, then include attack options that allow players to get around it. This will yield more interesting gameplay, more realistic weapon and damage interactions, and more satisfying armor purchases for the player.



Another pet peeve: Spells that cost way too much for what little they do ("Scan" spells in particular tend to be this) or cost too little compared to the other options (why ever use Fire 1 again if Fire 2 is only 1 more MP for spread damage + double damage?).

A way to deal with it: Think about the player's action economy. Is it a better option, in general, to simply choose Attack? If the answer is yes, the spell/skill should be free. In all or most situations, is it better than to choose Attack? It should probably either have one of its drawbacks strengthened or have a cost associated with it.

Maybe all players have a free move that takes their turn to end stun/mute on one ally and the mage has spells that remove these from the entire party at once for 1 MP.

If your 1-or-more MP cost attack spell is ever a worse option for your wizard than making a physical, non-elemental attack against an enemy weak to that element and no specially high magic defense stat, you've probably messed up something in your spell design or your weapon design. Consider options like making weapons that increase magic power in parity or proportion to physical attack power, limiting wizards from using really powerful weapons, or tying all damage to the same stat (so instead of ATK and MAG, you just have POW used for both).
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"I didn't start the flame war;
I don't know what you thought here
'Twas that way when I got here"

"I didn't start the flame war;
I can't understand a word you're saying
nor the game you're playing~"