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DeadOfKnight
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Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Thu Feb 03, 2011 12:57 am

I recently found this page while browsing the web:

http://www.gameranx.com/features/id/129 ... s-in-rpgs/

I found it interesting mostly because I realized I have developed every single bad habit listed. Does anyone have a cure for this disease?
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:13 am

I dont have any of these habits.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:20 am

I have a few of them, mostly the grinding habit(Which, depending on the game, isn't a bad habit at all...).
 
DeadOfKnight
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:33 am

Well I don't think I've ever restarted for aesthetic reasons but that's because I spend an absurd amount of time getting it perfect before I even start playing.
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WalkCMD
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 04, 2011 8:06 am

I am guilty of starting RPG's, not playing for a bit and forgetting where I am in the game and what I am doing, and then restarting.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:58 am

WalkCMD wrote:
I am guilty of starting RPG's, not playing for a bit and forgetting where I am in the game and what I am doing, and then restarting.


I've done that and grinding for exp. I don't see either as a bad habit.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:54 am

Grinding is the result of poor game design, not poor players. If a player feels that they need to grind in order for the game to be the proper difficulty or proper amount of fun, then the designer has screwed up.

A good example of this is Final Fantasy games. The battles involve too much luck and saves are too infrequent. Consequently, players grind so that they don't get killed and have to replay a section. If the battles were better balanced so that small mistakes didn't have such a large impact or if save points were more frequent and battles shorter, then this wouldn't be a problem.
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DeadOfKnight
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 04, 2011 10:42 pm

WalkCMD wrote:
I am guilty of starting RPG's, not playing for a bit and forgetting where I am in the game and what I am doing, and then restarting.

Yeah I do that a lot. I'm thinking I'm just going to start playing games on easy so I can get through them quicker and finish the story.
Without the challenge it would kind of take away any reason to min/max your character. I like adventure games so for me that's OK.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 04, 2011 11:01 pm

I hit many of the points on that list, but ultimately that article wasn't really so much about the players being bad. It was about the fact that bad game design precipitates the resulting player behavior.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:58 am

DeadOfKnight wrote:
WalkCMD wrote:
I am guilty of starting RPG's, not playing for a bit and forgetting where I am in the game and what I am doing, and then restarting.

Yeah I do that a lot. I'm thinking I'm just going to start playing games on easy so I can get through them quicker and finish the story.
Without the challenge it would kind of take away any reason to min/max your character. I like adventure games so for me that's OK.

Yeah, for RPGs I'm generally not playing for the challenge; I'm playing for the story. I only played through DA:O entirely once on Medium and I found constantly pausing to give each party member a new command tedius and not fun. Any subsequent run has been on Easy because I like exploring and I found the story quite engaging. I wanted to see how it branhces based on decisions and I didn't need to play through it again on Medium or higher to experience that.

That's in direct opposition to how I enjoy the Disgaea games; I love playing through those with the monster difficulty cranked up because you can get more awesome stuff that way.
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DeadOfKnight
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:15 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
DeadOfKnight wrote:
WalkCMD wrote:
I am guilty of starting RPG's, not playing for a bit and forgetting where I am in the game and what I am doing, and then restarting.

Yeah I do that a lot. I'm thinking I'm just going to start playing games on easy so I can get through them quicker and finish the story.
Without the challenge it would kind of take away any reason to min/max your character. I like adventure games so for me that's OK.

Yeah, for RPGs I'm generally not playing for the challenge; I'm playing for the story. I only played through DA:O entirely once on Medium and I found constantly pausing to give each party member a new command tedius and not fun. Any subsequent run has been on Easy because I like exploring and I found the story quite engaging. I wanted to see how it branhces based on decisions and I didn't need to play through it again on Medium or higher to experience that.

That's in direct opposition to how I enjoy the Disgaea games; I love playing through those with the monster difficulty cranked up because you can get more awesome stuff that way.

Yeah, games like that (Diablo comes to mind) I always start out easy and ramp up the difficulty with each subsequent playthrough. Of course this would apply more to games which allow you to import your character into a new game, but I found my own way to do this without a New Game+ option. Currently playing Mass Effect 2, so this won't be a problem. I've also got the default Shepard with auto leveling for all characters. Extremely sub-optimal, but on easy it's nothing to worry about and allows me to just enjoy the game.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Sun Feb 20, 2011 6:18 pm

I'll do the perfect build (for my style) one; I'm still trying to figure that out in fallout NV :D I was hoping it was more of a 9-bad-habits of rpg designers that break immersion/fun sort of thing.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Mon Feb 21, 2011 9:18 am

9 bad habits that break immersion:

1.) Bugs
2.) Choices that don't fit the role you want to play
3.) Bugs
4.) Bad voice acting
5.) Bugs
6.) Bad AI
7.) Bugs
8.) Leaving out story bits for DLC later, particularly mid-game DLC on a game I already finished and don't want to replay
9.) Bugs
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Wed Feb 23, 2011 4:50 pm

I'm super guilty of the "rainy day" one. I almost always finish my games with a large surplus of money/potions/powerups because I "never know when I'll need them."

I finished Dragon Age Origins with like 350 gold because I was waiting for "the moment."
 
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:13 pm

EsotericLord wrote:
I'm super guilty of the "rainy day" one. I almost always finish my games with a large surplus of money/potions/powerups because I "never know when I'll need them."

I finished Dragon Age Origins with like 350 gold because I was waiting for "the moment."


Mhmm, I'm guilty of that one as well, just hoarding a bunch of useless stuff too. In some games (like Two Worlds II) I even choose to play the character that can carry the most. I just find that not picking up items, even useless ones, is really annoying. Usually comes in handy before and under the last boss fight, however, when I use all the items I have collected.
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DeadOfKnight
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Wed Feb 23, 2011 5:23 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
9 bad habits that break immersion:

1.) Bugs
2.) Choices that don't fit the role you want to play
3.) Bugs
4.) Bad voice acting
5.) Bugs
6.) Bad AI
7.) Bugs
8.) Leaving out story bits for DLC later, particularly mid-game DLC on a game I already finished and don't want to replay
9.) Bugs

Sounds like you have a particular game in mind.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Wed Feb 23, 2011 7:04 pm

WalkCMD wrote:
I am guilty of starting RPG's, not playing for a bit and forgetting where I am in the game and what I am doing, and then restarting.


Oh god yes. I guess that's #4.

Most notably I've played through significant chunks of Final Fantasy VI many times, on SNES, on emulator, and most recently on GBA. Still never finished. I just hit a grindy bit, or get burned out by some repetitive section, and put it aside for a while. Then start over because I've forgotten the story. This time I'm determined to just look up the plot up to where I left off on the FF wiki.

Also I do this with Civilization games constantly. Come back to a set-aside game and learning the ins and outs of my empire over again is too daunting. So I start over. I don't know the number of Civ games I've ever finished (not counting getting wiped out), but it's very low.

Shame, because those are very good games.

Also guilty of the "saving (x) item for a rainy day, then the game is over and it was never used" thing. :(
 
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:54 pm

DeadOfKnight wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
9 bad habits that break immersion:

1.) Bugs
2.) Choices that don't fit the role you want to play
3.) Bugs
4.) Bad voice acting
5.) Bugs
6.) Bad AI
7.) Bugs
8.) Leaving out story bits for DLC later, particularly mid-game DLC on a game I already finished and don't want to replay
9.) Bugs

Sounds like you have a particular game in mind.

A couple games, yes. #8 is clearly Dragon Age, but it's true of most recent Bioware releases. I didn't find DA:O particularly buggy, I did find show-stopping bugs in the PC port of Final Fantasy VII. That was even on hardware and an OS that the game was designed for (Voodoo Banshee, Sound Blaster Live, Pentium 233MMX, Win98SE). #4 was Final Fantasy XIII. After about 4 hours I wanted to choke that little pink-haired girl.
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DeadOfKnight
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Fri Feb 25, 2011 4:59 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
DeadOfKnight wrote:
derFunkenstein wrote:
9 bad habits that break immersion:

1.) Bugs
2.) Choices that don't fit the role you want to play
3.) Bugs
4.) Bad voice acting
5.) Bugs
6.) Bad AI
7.) Bugs
8.) Leaving out story bits for DLC later, particularly mid-game DLC on a game I already finished and don't want to replay
9.) Bugs

Sounds like you have a particular game in mind.

A couple games, yes. #8 is clearly Dragon Age, but it's true of most recent Bioware releases. I didn't find DA:O particularly buggy, I did find show-stopping bugs in the PC port of Final Fantasy VII. That was even on hardware and an OS that the game was designed for (Voodoo Banshee, Sound Blaster Live, Pentium 233MMX, Win98SE). #4 was Final Fantasy XIII. After about 4 hours I wanted to choke that little pink-haired girl.

Ah ok, you had me worried there cuz I recently purchased New Vegas and all the reviews were good except for a big focus on bugs, which may or may not have been fixed since. I have DA:O but I haven't really gotten into it yet, but I did buy the digital deluxe edition on steam which probably contains the DLC you're talking about. I never bought the FFVII PC port because of the horrific reviews that port has on amazon for how buggy it is, but I got it for my PSP. I have no interest in any of the final fantasy series past X-2, only heard bad things about them all and they're so much of a deviation from the old school Japanese RPGs that I know and love.
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Re: Undoing the Experience: 9 Bad Habits in RPGs

Sat Feb 26, 2011 10:28 am

The bugs are pretty minimal now; sometimes I have problems with the launcher but that's about it.
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