What 4 things do you dislike most about modern RPGs

Pick 4

  • The need to grind

    Votes: 12 15.0%

  • Lengthy exposition

    Votes: 16 20.0%

  • Poor side quests

    Votes: 39 48.8%

  • Poor main questline

    Votes: 19 23.8%

  • Difficulty spikes

    Votes: 9 11.3%

  • Level scaling

    Votes: 26 32.5%

  • Missable content/items

    Votes: 5 6.3%

  • No manual saving

    Votes: 13 16.3%

  • Egregious RNG for items/loot/events

    Votes: 9 11.3%

  • Poorly written/passive companions

    Votes: 29 36.3%

  • The party system - Let me adventure alone!

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Silent protagonist

    Votes: 5 6.3%

  • Tedious minigames/jobs

    Votes: 21 26.3%

  • No/Limited Fast travel

    Votes: 6 7.5%

  • Poor crafting/enchanting mechanisms

    Votes: 11 13.8%

  • Poor melee/magic mechanism

    Votes: 12 15.0%

  • Uninspiring skills/abilities

    Votes: 13 16.3%

  • Unskippable interactions (dialogue/cut scenes)

    Votes: 14 17.5%

  • Backtracking

    Votes: 7 8.8%

  • Limited player responses (e.g. 4 variants of saying 'Yes')

    Votes: 17 21.3%

  • Poor maps

    Votes: 10 12.5%
  • Total voters
    80
They don't exist...
Anticipation Popcorn GIF
 
Picked four, my most disliked though is that crappy loot system Diablo, Borderlands etc has.

It's mind numbing after a while, just a constant stream of busy work for +0.02 items that you end up selling for nothing

It's all so pointless!
 
I collect VHS tapes said:
Baldurs Gate 3 isn't an rpg?

What a lazy, stupid take
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The game is a turn-based RPG, and is based on the AD&D tabletop system. What exactly is in its foundation from modern RPG? And yes, this is one of my favorite games. This game returned to the basics of the classic RPG genre (When everyone in the publishing industry thought the genre was dead), and not to the new modern trends in the genre.
 
I went with :

Lengthy Exposition
Poor Melee/Magic Mechanism - this is basically combat right?
Unskippable Cutscenes/Dialogue - this can be annoying if you don't care about any of it
Poor Maps - Level design/map design sure

I don't really like FPS Western RPG's or a standard CRPG, or JRPG, , or even turn based combat in general. ARPG's sure. Games with RPG elements, sure.
 
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1) I miss when ARPGs used to have unique levels with hidden secrets, traps, and puzzle design in them. Diablo 2 (and especially 3) changed the course of everything so that the focus was on the grind, loot, and combat. People today don't know what they have missed because of this.

2) Any JRPG that still doesn't have fast-forwarding combat or auto-win combat options for lower level mobs. Some devs still think the player should lose brain cells by spamming the attack option through these encounters as they wait to see animations and screen transitions for each battle.

3) When MMORPGs have 'kill 10 wolves' or 'collect 10 pelts' quests. It's filler.

4) Same thing with Ubisoft-like RPGs that copy-paste tons of checklists throughout a 100 hour experience. I call these comfort-food RPGs, because they're technically fun to play but you have to realize that you'll just about be playing on autopilot as you do the same tasks over and over.

5) Lastly, Final Fantasy 16's insistence on making side content into mandatory content. It made the entire last half of the game feel far too padded just to meet an hour quota. A game, that still to this day, needs an abridged edition to easily fix it's pacing issues.

Edit: I guess if you want this post to meet the 4 things quota, combine numbers 3 and 4, or 3 and 5.
 
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Mayar said:
The game is a turn-based RPG, and is based on the AD&D tabletop system. What exactly is in its foundation from modern RPG? And yes, this is one of my favorite games. This game returned to the basics of the classic RPG genre (When everyone in the publishing industry thought the genre was dead), and not to the new modern trends in the genre.
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A game released in the 2020s is considered modern, regardless if it pays homage to older games.

Expedition 33 is another pheneomal RPG that is modern, despite it also paying homage to much older titles like the original Final Fantasy games

many modern games are influenced by older games
 
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Forced open world

Forced ideologies (often obvious and tactlessly shoehorned in)

Forced level grind (in a single player game, no less)

Forced dialogue padding

Forced always online connection

Forced exclusivity

Forced side activites

Forced character choices

Forced cutscenes

Forced sequels

Forced "modern" and annoying NPCs.
 
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I collect VHS tapes said:
A game released in the 2020s is considered modern, regardless if it pays homage to older games.

Expedition 33 is another pheneomal RPG that is modern, despite it also paying homage to much older titles like the original Final Fantasy games

many modern games are influenced by older games
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Both games are great. I just don't consider games whose RPG framework and philosophy are based on the old school RPG - Modern RPG. For me, Modern RPG is an RPG in which the number of mechanics and RPG elements were sacrificed for the sake of increasing the audience. But this is purely my point of view.
 
Mayar said:
Both games are great. I just don't consider games whose RPG framework and philosophy are based on the old school RPG - Modern RPG. For me, Modern RPG is an RPG in which the number of mechanics and RPG elements were sacrificed for the sake of increasing the audience. But this is purely my point of view.
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I mean I agree to a certain extent, but this is largely semantic and at the end of the day we are just choosing to call RPGs we like modern, whereas ones we hate not modern.

again, I think this is semantics. I think we have both good and bad RPGs coming out nowadays, and the better ones tend not to stray as much from their roots, which is also what you are saying.
 
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Mayar said:
Both games are great. I just don't consider games whose RPG framework and philosophy are based on the old school RPG - Modern RPG. For me, Modern RPG is an RPG in which the number of mechanics and RPG elements were sacrificed for the sake of increasing the audience. But this is purely my point of view.
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Your statement feels like the equivalent of the stock market 'line must always go up' mentality.
 
Topher said:
I hate level scaling
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Level scaling is bad, but gear scaling (technically the lack of) is much worse. Oblivion has both of these issues.

You can level "incorrectly" and soon all the wolves in the world are replaced by damage sponge trolls.
Find a unique sword early on? Well that's neat, but you won't be using it later on since for some stupid reason it doesn't scale with you.
 
Exclamation marks on Quest,Items,events etc. Let players find those themselves naturally without giving cheat hints. Jrpgs-Rpgs now are for babies.
 
I collect VHS tapes said:
I mean I agree to a certain extent, but this is largely semantic and at the end of the day we are just choosing to call RPGs we like modern, whereas ones we hate not modern.
again, I think this is semantics. I think we have both good and bad RPGs coming out nowadays, and the better ones tend not to stay as much from their roots
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March Climber said:
Your statement feels like the equivalent of the stock market 'line must always go up' mentality.
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It's much simpler. Because I don't like to put everything in one basket, then we have BG3, 33 goes in one basket with Veilguard, Avowed, Outer Worlds, Final Fantasy XVI, etc. And I prefer to separate such games.
Again, this is purely my point of view.
 
Mayar said:
It's much simpler. Because I don't like to put everything in one basket, then we have BG3, 33 goes in one basket with Veilguard, Avowed, Outer Worlds, Final Fantasy XVI, etc. And I prefer to separate such games.
Again, this is purely my point of view.
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The problem is that if you disqualify any RPGs because they based their framework or philosophy of modernizing older ones, you are suddenly crossing out more and more subgenres as the generations increase, until there is only one future-subgenre RPG that can be considered 'modern'.

It's an unsustainable way of categorization, which is why I made the 'line must always go up' comparison.
 
I'd like to add a missing poll option (and this doesn't only apply to RPGs but games in general):

Inability to pause cutscenes. FFS. People have lives (well, some of us do, at least). Sometimes a break is warranted. Some games on PS4/PS5 pause the game when you press the PS button to show that overlay, but that's a hack that shouldn't be required (and it doesn't work most of the time). Like what the actual fuck. Such a basic, obvious feature.
 
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> Limited player responses (e.g. 4 variants of saying 'Yes')

This x1000. Player choice in general sucks in a lot of modern RPGs. It's a lot more "this is the story as we wrote it, you just get to play through it"

Also, not in the poll: absolutely TERRIBLE tutorials. Constantly overwhelm with modal dialogue boxes, reading multiple screens, it's fucking awful.
 
I voted
- lengthy exposition
- difficulty spikes
- egregious RNG
- tedious mini games/jobs

The last 3 are all somewhat related. Difficulty spikes tend to be mitigated if you've been a good boy and did all the tedious side stuff and endured the egregious RNG to get the rewards that will help you crush the difficulty spikes. And all of this basically counts as grinding.

Lengthy exposition is really mostly a problem of having every single little line of dialogue dubbed. I mean, I get it. But not every little exchange needs to have voice acting. Yet the devs know they'll have people up in arms if the player has to *gasp* read something instead of having it acted for them. Even a good game like Clair Obscur is guilty of this.
 
The worst for me is too much action game mechanics. But poor maps are maybe near the worst but level design is just pure trash across the board for modern game design as everything is brain dead.
 
Depends on the type of game (western vs Jrpg). But the things that generally annoy me:

- Poor story: Be it because of a boring plot or boring characters (or both). Specially when it feels like it's targeting "modern audiences" and everything has to extra bland and inoffensive.
I'm also kinda tired of generic medieval fantasy

- A poor sense of progression. When it feels like my experience 40 hours into the game is almost the same as 4 hours into it. This is usually linked to a number of issues like poor or uninteresting skill trees, boring loot, lack of enemy variety, aggressive level scaling, etc

-Poor pacing and too much padding. If you can only afford to make 25 hours of worthwhile content then just make the game 25 hours long!.

-Boring or unrewarding loot: I hate when games have 5000 things to pick up but 99% of it useless. And when your reward for exploring and questing is mostly useless stuff or boring incremental upgrades (like literally the same sword you already had but with 5% more damage)
 
Level scaling (give me a hand crafted world with hand crafted encounters)

boring itemization (+3% damage)

boring progression (+2% nonsense)

respawning trash mobs. give me permanence
 
Level Scaling
- Fuck that noise

Poor melee/magic mechanism
&
Uninspiring skills/abilities
- This is the meat of the game, if they don't get this right why bother.

Limited player responses
- Player agency is important to me.

Bonus
Lengthy exposition
- Edit, condence and be efficient in your storytelling. Save the wordy, flowery, self-inserting and indulging shit to your best selling book. 🙄
 
Voted tedious minigames.
One or two good ones is great. Too many it's bloatware.

Poor side quests deserve the hate but at the same time i think it's not that easy to make multiple good ones.
 
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None of the above. My biggest problem is the focus on mmo and action combat systems forcing me to only have control of a single character. I like having a large party and being able to use all their various skills. It's such a waste to have access to a bunch of cool characters and having them stuck as shitty ai partners the whole game.
 
Man I couldn't help but think of FF16 while I made my choices. The game lacks impact, and didn't leave any kind of lasting impression on me, other than one of feeling duped. I feel like I got suckered by the game's admittedly stellar demo, and then the rest of the game was all downhill from there.

Outside of Clive, Cid, Joshua, I genuinely don't remember anyone's names. I have vague memories of the main story beats but the villains and their motives were forgettable. Obviously. I forgot them.

Combat, from the beginning, was so bombastic and flashy that I never really felt any sense of growth.

In FF7, going from Fire to Fire 3 to Flare to huge summons like Bahamut Zero or KOTR felt like huge progression. Going from a single attack against an enemy to Slash-All or 4x Cut felt like a big jump in character power. FF7 knew how to make progression feel good. So did many other final fantasy games.

Clive never really gets to experience that. He's powerful and flashy from the start with the only real changes coming from different elemental powers.

BoF3 is another great example of character growth, starting out as a literal child and only being able to transform into a weak (relatively) baby dragon, and then growing into a man and turning into huge screen-dominating beasts really puts into perspective how far the player, and Ryu, have come. BoF3 also had the benefit of a smaller, rich cast of characters and side quests that led to tangible, worthwhile rewards, like granting you access to unique shops that offer items you can't get anywhere else or being able to obtain an accessory that cuts your magic consumption in half.

By comparison, the vast number of FF16's 70+ sidequests are for an item recipe of dubious usefulness or crafting materials that you are probably already swimming in. These do not feel like meaningful engagements. FF7R2's overwhelming number of Chadley Chores didn't feel like meaningful engagements either.

Give me measured character growth, a smaller cast of vibrant, distinct personalities and some sort of side activity that feels worthwhile. And skippable dialogue and cutscenes for the replay. I don't feel like I'm asking a lot.
 
I will only list one, and I didn't see it on the list. I hate it with a passion, and in some games, you can not opt out of it.

Way markers. I'm not a retard, I will happily explore, and find where I need to go on my own. All I need is a description on where to go.
 
Comandr said:
Man I couldn't help but think of FF16 while I made my choices. The game lacks impact, and didn't leave any kind of lasting impression on me, other than one of feeling duped. I feel like I got suckered by the game's admittedly stellar demo, and then the rest of the game was all downhill from there.

Outside of Clive, Cid, Joshua, I genuinely don't remember anyone's names. I have vague memories of the main story beats but the villains and their motives were forgettable. Obviously. I forgot them.

Combat, from the beginning, was so bombastic and flashy that I never really felt any sense of growth.

In FF7, going from Fire to Fire 3 to Flare to huge summons like Bahamut Zero or KOTR felt like huge progression. Going from a single attack against an enemy to Slash-All or 4x Cut felt like a big jump in character power. FF7 knew how to make progression feel good. So did many other final fantasy games.

Clive never really gets to experience that. He's powerful and flashy from the start with the only real changes coming from different elemental powers.

BoF3 is another great example of character growth, starting out as a literal child and only being able to transform into a weak (relatively) baby dragon, and then growing into a man and turning into huge screen-dominating beasts really puts into perspective how far the player, and Ryu, have come. BoF3 also had the benefit of a smaller, rich cast of characters and side quests that led to tangible, worthwhile rewards, like granting you access to unique shops that offer items you can't get anywhere else or being able to obtain an accessory that cuts your magic consumption in half.

By comparison, the vast number of FF16's 70+ sidequests are for an item recipe of dubious usefulness or crafting materials that you are probably already swimming in. These do not feel like meaningful engagements. FF7R2's overwhelming number of Chadley Chores didn't feel like meaningful engagements either.

Give me measured character growth, a smaller cast of vibrant, distinct personalities and some sort of side activity that feels worthwhile. And skippable dialogue and cutscenes for the replay. I don't feel like I'm asking a lot.
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Hmm, I'm playing through FFXVI now. I sort of get where you're coming from but the spongey enemies exacerbate the issue I think.

I do feel having respecced and got a few synergies kicking off like will o' and pile drive really does eat enemy health. The Titan fists really help as well. Torgal really helps when he's levelled up too. It might be cos I'm still in the game but characters like Charon, Jill, Gav, Kupka have all stayed with me as well. But aside from the eikon powers the basic combat is pretty much that - basic.
 
Bad or easy combat, making the game a chore to play. I'd like to include level scaling here since that kills the sense of progression making combat even boringer. (Skyrim)

Map filled with icons. Let me discover shit on my own. I want to go on an adventure, not feel like I'm doing chores. (TW3)

Lore dumps. You meet a new character and right from the get go he tells you everything about himself, his mom, his hometown, his religion, that dude from his job whose feet stink, his cat and finally his mom again. Fuck that shit. (Pillars of Eternity)

Can't decide on a fourth one so... All the other stuff: Choices without consequences, ugly chicks, bad/marvel writing, uninteresting story, bad music...

Good rpgs: Baldur's Gate 2, Deus Ex, Kingdom Come.

Bad rpgs: Skyrim, TW3.
 
Mostly the awful writing, and the amount of said writing that they expect me to suffer through.

If you've got solid gameplay and nothing worthwhile to say, lean into what you're actually good at. Just try to create an interesting world to navigate and, when in doubt, let the player discover their own story along the way.
 
By far is the poor interpretation of RPG systems to begin with. Many RPGs just become number games where you constantly chase the same weapons, magic, skills, etc; but with a higher number, to then defeat the same enemies as before, but with a higher number.
 
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