What would you say is the weakest aspect of your favorite RPG game/series?

[Dweller Dark]

I'm mostly curious and would like to discuss/listen to opinions on the aspects of RPG's that you guys like the least or outright hate, even if it happens to be your favorite. 

 

Even though Mass Effect 2 isn't my favorite RPG, it is part of my favorite RPG series, but I find the mandatory main missions a bit of an issue. The ones that I recall that are more of a hassle than others are the crew kidnapping "mission" and boarding the Collector Ship. You don't get any choice in the matter and have to drop whatever plans you have in order to complete them, which includes being locked out of the galaxy map until you talk to Illusive Man and accept the mission you didn't have a choice but to start and complete. This can also interfere with Legion's loyalty mission because the crew tends to get kidnapped either immediately after recruiting him or right after doing his loyalty mission, so the former means you might end up having to either let part or all of the ship crew die, or let Legion potentially die because you chose to rescue the crew. Thematically, it sort-of works, but this method takes away player agency in my opinion. And first-time players who have no prior knowledge of this can easily mess things up. I might not be in the right headspace to explain it thoroughly and I might not remember all the details, but I hope y'all get the gist of it.

 

Speaking further about Mass Effect, I also believe Mass Effect 3 undermines Legion's character as described in Mass Effect 2. The main reason is that his character arc in ME3 is the exact opposite of the Geth's goals (the "true" Geth), which Legion describes to Shepard in ME2. The true Geth do not want to use the Reaper's tech or assistance to achieve their goals, but they are open to cooperation from organics if offered the opportunity. In essence, they want to remain mostly self-sufficient in accomplishing their goals, specifically without the Reapers involved. In Mass Effect 3, Legion willingly uses the Reaper code to give all the Geth intelligence on-par with EDI, which is the opposite of what he states in ME2. Not only this, but the big question proposed by the Geth upon their initial emergence of sentience is even altered to suit the situation in ME3. The original question was "Do these units have a soul?", since Legion isn't a singular AI but a "legion" of Geth programs in a lone physical platform/body. In ME3, the question is rewritten to "Does this unit have a soul?", which implies that he is a singular AI and not the former "legion" that was previously stated. This, of course, is because the writers changed between games, but it's a bit sad because we could have had another equally unique take on the evolution of Geth sentience. What would the evolution of a group of hive-minded AI look like, not counting the "many becomes one" outcome? Aside from this, the Quarian/Geth conflict also gets rewritten to reflect the change as well. Just to close this particular line of thought about Legion's writing, did you notice the change or is this the first time you've heard of it?

 

Let me know what y'all think!

[invalidlain]

The difficulty curve of the entire Shin Megami Tensei series is messed up outside of the Persona series, which are always just easy, but mainline SMT games such as Nocturne, IV, V and even my favorite entries into the series, Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2, have a problem where, even though they are ultimately tough games, especially if you're not a fan of min-maxing, the hardest fights are the TUTORIALS. IV is an example where this really bogs down the experience, because the game following the tutorial area is actually way easier. This also applies to the other games, but I'd say V probably has the best balance in terms of difficulty where the tutorial fights are hard, but so is the rest of the game anyways. DDS 1 and 2 don't really have more than maybe 1 or 2 tutorial battles, and they're tough fights, but then the game kicks into high gear in terms of difficulty after the first area, but I love that about those 2. Persona games have standard balance where the early battles are easy but get difficult as you visit more dungeons.

 

Strange Journey is really messed up that game has no difficulty curve it will just kick your ass all day every day outside the first battle.

[heliumlamb]

not being able to get at least 3 other people together regularly, each of whom i will have to explain THAC0 to at least multiple times a session

 

uhhhh, needing some graph paper, a pencil and eraser on hand at all times in order to not get lost, only to completely lose your party by the second floor. that's wizardry babey!!

king's field barely counts as an RPG, i certainly don't consider it one most of the time but i will for this thread. the weakest aspect of king's field, in all but the 4th one, is how you start to feel a bit too powerful toward the end of them. starts out tense and oppressive not unlike a survival horror, ends up feeling more like a "walking simulator" toward the end. but i dont mind wandering through, bleak, barren labryinths composed of maybe 2 textures for hours on end.

[yakfak]

ultima underworld (and the whole immersive sim thing that built up steam after it and system shock) bills itself as being conquerable in several different ways, that you can use tangential thinking to solve its puzzles, that you can have an entirely different experience by choosing a different character. but it usually turns out that there's one natural solution which lets you explore the game naturally and others that shortcut you, and shortcuts are undesirable because it's an exhaustive completionist game where you typically don't understand how to beat it until you've mapped the whole thing. plus you're the avatar, a paragon of virtue: the game has you play a character who'd never do anything duplicitous, who enjoys solving problems through the demonstration of valor/compassion/sacrifice etc, then reporting these successes to the people relying on them. it's in character to show RESOURCEFULNESS, ie, getting yrself out of weird jams through conversation or through noncombat spell actions like telekinesis or flight (also flight is way too powerful lol) but some of the "solutions" the game world presents are like... kill the luckless, slightly crazy thief to retrieve a major artifact from his body instead of just trading food for it (edit: i guess in an RP sense, if you chose to play the avatar as a paladin, this would be the Just solution (tm)), back-door the lethal labyrinth instead of solving a quest to unlock a really cool feature of the game that helps you navigate it intuitively, etc.... basically the multiple solution thing always boils down to "the satisfying way" or "the shit way" lol

 

that said it's still one of the best games ever made

Edited April 10, 2023 by yakfak

[hybridial]

7 hours ago, invalidlain said:

The difficulty curve of the entire Shin Megami Tensei series is messed up outside of the Persona series, which are always just easy

 

I feel a need to point out that I died more times in the like 6 hours I put into Persona 3 before giving up because I really didn't like it than I died in... yeah fuck it, I'll count both playthroughs, 180 hours of SMT Nocturne, because it's almost certainly true. I also never died once in SMT V. The game was a bit easy when you know Nocturne inside out.

 

Whilst Nocturne has it's infamous boss fights, the key aspect of its design was if you know exactly how the base mechanics work, it will almost never catch you out. It also always hints at what you have to do if a boss fight needs a specific approach. Persona 3 back when you were saddled with AI party member fucking morons who never did the correct thing to save their lives was frustrating beyond belief. Overall I hate Persona (for well, being Persona)but the gameplay in the rest was probably never as terrible as that. That said what I played of Strange Journey felt like a punishing slog and I never liked it that much. 

 

I love Baldur's Gate but whilst Throne of Bhaal ties up the plot it's pretty awful, it's not very replayable, I've only ever managed to play through it once.

 

 

 

[yakfak]

i love Strange Journey lol it's such an oldschool crawler
mc goes to 0hp = game over is so badass it makes me laugh
it isn't user friendly though and the amount of times you have to go back to the craft gives me Metroid Fusion flashbacks

[Serum]

Favorite RPG has always been Runescape. Weakest aspect is how much f*cking time it takes up. Literal years of full-time job, en route to maxing skills and quests

[Mr. Freeze]

Fallout will never have the dev time it needs to reach its full potential in storytelling. 

[Dweller Dark]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Fallout will never have the dev time it needs to reach its full potential in storytelling. 

 

This, and I imagine Bethesda will probably never take a more serious approach to Fallout reminiscent of the original game. I get Fallout 2 is a great game in the series because of its writing and comedy, but I feel we're missing the dread and dire circumstances of Fallout 1. Or even the somber, bittersweet tone of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, besides the fact that's a magick+steampunk fantasy game.

[hybridial]

1 hour ago, Dweller said:

This, and I imagine Bethesda will probably never take a more serious approach to Fallout reminiscent of the original game. I get Fallout 2 is a great game in the series because of its writing and comedy, but I feel we're missing the dread and dire circumstances of Fallout 1. Or even the somber, bittersweet tone of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, besides the fact that's a magick+steampunk fantasy game.

 

Most likely. Fallout 1 is probably my favourite in the series, followed by New Vegas. 2 was... eh, I never really got into it like those two, but I'd probably still say I liked it more than 3. 3 is not great but I think it needs to be pointed out that it has some efforts, it has some pretty cool quests and Bethesda didn't destroy Fallout as a concept till they made 4.

 

76 was just pissing on the corpse. 

[Dweller Dark]

Just now, hybridial said:

 

Most likely. Fallout 1 is probably my favourite in the series, followed by New Vegas. 2 was... eh, I never really got into it like those two, but I'd probably still say I liked it more than 3. 3 is not great but I think it needs to be pointed out that it has some efforts, it has some pretty cool quests and Bethesda didn't destroy Fallout as a concept till they made 4.

 

76 was just pissing on the corpse. 

 

Fallout New Vegas is my favorite because it has more philosophical concepts for the player to understand and come to a decision on, as well as more incentive to explore than "check out this funny place" from Fallout 3. While Fallout 4 makes some steps in the wrong direction, I think they tried to do their best with having multiple different factions for the player to decide upon and the general crafting side of things, even if that came with the whole basebuilding feature. That, and the locations to explore in that game are equally as varied as the ones in FNV, some are horror experiences, some are funny, some are depressing, etc. The Glowing Sea is nice for a radioactive wasteland too. 

 

And while FO76 is visually impressive, it lacks a lot of the personality that the other games had. 

[hybridial]

5 minutes ago, Dweller said:

 I think they tried to do their best with having multiple different factions for the player to decide upon and the general crafting side of things, even if that came with the whole basebuilding feature.

 

Eh, thing is, Fallout 4 goes out of its way to be the things Fallout never was. Fallout wasn't about RNG based loot combat loop, or building bases. It was about morally intricate questlines with multiple branching paths based on your skillset.

 

It *was* an RPG in the real sense, and Fallout 4 reduced that to almost nothing, and just became Post Apocalyptic Skyrim with building things added.

[Rudolph]

51 minutes ago, hybridial said:

 

Eh, thing is, Fallout 4 goes out of its way to be the things Fallout never was. Fallout wasn't about RNG based loot combat loop, or building bases. It was about morally intricate questlines with multiple branching paths based on your skillset.

 

It *was* an RPG in the real sense, and Fallout 4 reduced that to almost nothing, and just became Post Apocalyptic Skyrim with building things added.

Maybe that is not such a bad thing after all, as I have been disappointed by the limitations of Fallout 1 and 2.

 

Granted, I have yet to check New Vegas out, but I recently heard that even Obsidian developers went on to admit to have bitten more than they can chew; Chris Avellone himself notably rejects the narrative that they were screwed over by Bethesda.

 

I guess until developers can figure out a surefire way to emulate the limitless possibilities of old-fashioned tabletop role-playing games, they might as well focus on designing a robust sandbox world for the time being.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Rudolph

[hybridial]

1 minute ago, Rudolph said:

I guess until developers can figure out a surefire way to emulate the limitless possibilities of old-fashioned tabletop role-playing games, they might as well focus on designing a robust sandbox world for the time being.

 

I guess from a business side that makes sense but I have to say the end result are horribly uninteresting games without much soul. You can say the limitations of Fallout 1 might be frustrating but there's so much going for it in terms of personality that Fallout 4 falls so far short of. I get the feeling there are Morrowind fans who would rail against Oblivion maybe, Skyrim definitely in this regard and they do have a point, even if I find Morrowind to be an unplayable mess.

[Rudolph]

25 minutes ago, hybridial said:

I guess from a business side that makes sense but I have to say the end result are horribly uninteresting games without much soul. You can say the limitations of Fallout 1 might be frustrating but there's so much going for it in terms of personality that Fallout 4 falls so far short of. I get the feeling there are Morrowind fans who would rail against Oblivion maybe, Skyrim definitely in this regard and they do have a point, even if I find Morrowind to be an unplayable mess.

I have not played Fallout 4 yet either, so I cannot really comment.

 

As for Fallout 1, I do not know... I like the Ghouls, the Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel, but the rest of the game is kind of a blur to me, as human agglomerations look all very same-ish and the quests there - i.e. mostly turf wars - feel rather generic. Fallout 3 has this problem too, but I do think it manages to make some human characters and locations stand out more, like Little Lamplight and The Pitt.

 

Part of the reason why I do not feel like committing to a full Fallout 1 playthrough is because I do not want to have to go through Shady Sands, the Raider Encampment, Junktown, the Hub and the Boneyard again, which sadly is kind of necessary in order to be properly leveled-up and equipped to deal with the parts that actually interest me, like the Glow, the Necropolis, the Military Base and the Cathedral.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Rudolph

[Mr Masker]

I think Fallout New Vegas is a great game, but the combat is very... ok.

 

All you have to do is just get the Spiked Knuckles, put points into unarmed (although even with low Unarmed, they're still pretty powerful) get the silenced pistol and just stealth kill as much as possible. Well done, you have won most early to mid game combat! Even in detected combat, just pull out the Knuckles and beat the shit out of everything. Unarmed and stealth kills are super OP.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Mr Masker

[PsychEyeball]

4 hours ago, Dweller said:

 

This, and I imagine Bethesda will probably never take a more serious approach to Fallout reminiscent of the original game. I get Fallout 2 is a great game in the series because of its writing and comedy, but I feel we're missing the dread and dire circumstances of Fallout 1. Or even the somber, bittersweet tone of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura, besides the fact that's a magick+steampunk fantasy game.

Honestly, I never really cared much for the writing of Fallout 2. I prefered FO2 over the first game mainly because of all of the QOL features, the extra guns and the additional depth that party members had. Story-wise, I liked what New Reno had to offer and there was so much to do in this town it was dizzying, but I feel like none of the other towns were given as much depth. There's also no locations in FO2 that come close to evoke the same dread that FO1 is capable of, like the Glow or the Cathedral. FO1 in general is worse gameplay, better atmosphere and setting. 

 

7 minutes ago, Mr Masker said:

I think Fallout New Vegas is a great game, but the combat is very... ok.

 

All you have to do is just get the Spiked Knuckles, put points into unarmed (although even with low Unarmed it's still pretty powerful) get the silenced pistol and just stealth kill as much as possible. Well done, you have won most early to mid game combat! Even in combat just pull out the Knuckles and beat the shit out of everything. Unarmed and stealth kills are super OP.

Unarmed combat is so broken. On my first NV playthrough I obviously went the guns route and struggled to a max during Dead Money due to the ghost citizens being such a pain to defeat with guns. But on the following playthrough I was Unarmed... and made minced meat out of everyone there with so little effort. It was very cathartic after how much of a pain that particular area was for me the first time. 

 

5 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Fallout will never have the dev time it needs to reach its full potential in storytelling. 

Sounds about right. We'll sadly never get the perfect Fallout game. New Vegas came close, but it slightly fell short. 

[BGreener]

-The Neverwinter Nights main campaign may not be the greatest. Even though it opens up nicely, it can feel bland for people trying to get into the game. That said, it's been a good tool when cooping with my friends and getting them used to game's feel and mechanics. If starting solo, I recommend the expansion's campaigns if the main campaign ends up boring.

 

-Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games haven't always been the most in-depth or balanced, but I still had a lot of fun with the mechanics in games like Daggerfall and Morrowind than how things ended up in Skyrim. Skyrim was still silly pretty fun though, also MODS.

 

-Gonna hop on the Fallout train and just say I didn't like how FO4 steered the character development, although it makes perfect sense why they did it.

Edited April 10, 2023 by BGreener

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, Mr Masker said:

I think Fallout New Vegas is a great game, but the combat is very... ok.

 

All you have to do is just get the Spiked Knuckles, put points into unarmed (although even with low Unarmed, they're still pretty powerful) get the silenced pistol and just stealth kill as much as possible. Well done, you have won most early to mid game combat! Even in detected combat, just pull out the Knuckles and beat the shit out of everything. Unarmed and stealth kills are super OP.

I intend to roleplay as Kenshiro, so that sounds fine by me. :P

 

 

 

[BBQgiraffe]

Project Zomboid, hands down one of the best video games I've ever played, however some skills are downright useless in most playthroughs past a few levels(you only really need electrical 1), other than that it's a great game

[Geniraul]

My favorite and the only one RPG I like is the original King's Bounty (DOS).

 

 

One of the very few things I think this game lacks is the graphics updated to today's standards. Just the graphics, with the gameplay staying exactly the same (not like in The Conqueror's Quest).

[Dweller Dark]

16 minutes ago, Geniraul said:

My favorite and the only one RPG I like is the original King's Bounty (DOS).

 

 

One of the very few things I think this game lacks is the graphics updated to today's standards. Just the graphics, with the gameplay staying exactly the same (not like in The Conqueror's Quest).

 

Do you mean updating the graphics like they did with Wasteland 1? Or a complete overhaul?

[Geniraul]

I guess I would like it to be reborn, just like GZDoom (or at least ZDoom) did comparing to the Vanilla Doom.

[TheDanMarine]

does dark souls count as an RPG? if we're counting king's field then dark souls certainly counts

that final area is just straight up unfinished. like, "just plop down some enemies in a lava pit area and call it done" unfinished. remastered didn't fix it, but to be fair it is just a remaster. not often one of those will redo entire gameplay segments. 

 

15 hours ago, yakfak said:

ultima underworld (snip)

 

I'm probably one of the only people in this world who managed to softlock myself in that game. it was a horrible combination of not knowing about the respawn tree, missing a key I needed, and getting into an ambush area with two locked doors. I couldn't even use magic to fly out because the ceiling was too low. I gotta go back and play it again to completion one of these days. 

[Mr. Freeze]

WRT Fallout New Vegas, as someone who preordered it on 360, still has his Platinum Chip replica, and recently reinstalled it on PC, I think it's safe to say the game's reputation is buoyed significantly by mods. Unmodded NV is an absolute disaster gameplay wise, and despite the excellent writing still suffers from Chris Avellone Villain Syndrome (THE BULL AND THE BEAR AND THE BULL AND THE BEAR AND THE BULL AND THE BEAR AND THE BULL AND THE BEAR.)

[mrthejoshmon]

New Vegas/any Beth game is definitely carried by mods when talking about the mass appeal, no question. I however played New Vegas a million times on console (didn't have PC at the time) and I could willingly play vanilla again and again (I had every achievement except caravan, because how the fuck do you play it) mods just further encouraged me to play it again.

 

I found myself adding more to do (quest/new areas like AWOP) over overhauling the game, then again when I did finally overhaul the game it was night and day.

 

-

 

The RPG I love the most is Morrowind but good God you literally need to rebuild the game to make any use of it, I've completed the main game and expansions vanilla and it was more like playing with unstable magic.

 

Not once did it crash but every now and then the game would softlock, bug the fuck out, bullshit you to death, hell in Balmora there is literally a stone at the front gate that if you fall behind with low acrobatics you are just fucked (Moonmoth also has places like this, actually the game is full of em).

 

I play with vanilla Morrowind combat but every day I get closer and closer to swapping it out, dice rolls work in shit like Baldur's Gate because I am not watching it through the actual eyes of the guy doing it, it doesn't look like I am carefully patting someone instead of stabbing them.

 

To progress you literally have to abuse game mechanics, I would enjoy Morrowind more if I didn't need to play 4D chess just to make it anywhere.

 

The problem I think is that there aren't enough RPGs that let you just wander off and do as you please, if there is then they're usually either garbage or needlessly complex, hence why Bethesda (despite making utter garbage) have a monopoly on that kind of game.

Edited April 11, 2023 by mrthejoshmon

[Rudolph]

7 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Chris Avellone Villain Syndrome

What is that?

[MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai]

2 hours ago, Rudolph said:

What is that?

THE BULL AND THE BEAR THE BULL AND THE BEAR THE BULL AND THE BEAR.

 

 

 

Play Lonesone road DLC and you'll know.

[Rudolph]

@MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai This might take a while, so I do not mind spoilers.

[Eon Toad]

Knights of the Old Republic, and the main issue is that 2 was rushed and 3 got cancelled. KotOR 2 had the potential to be one of the all time greats but the ending is completely rushed and a lot of content was cut. The restored content mod gets you halfway there but not completely.