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General discussionMost Obsolete Mechanics(81 posts)(81 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted August 07, 2021
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dtgreene: Also leads to an interesting dynamic when there's a reason to lose a life on purpose, like in Zelda 2 where you recover your HP and MP, but losing your last life sends you back to the start, takes away all your XP, and in the Japanese version lowers your three levels to match the lowest one (so if your levels are Attack 4, Magic, 5, and Life 2, after a game over they all become 2). Also, in some shoot-em-ups (including, for example, the Touhou series), dying gives you a new set of bombs to use.

That reminds me of one mechanic that does seem to have disappeared, but was quite common in the NES days, but could be considered obsolete: Only way to save is to game over. (Examples include Zelda 1 and 2, Metroid, and Castlevania 2. Magic of Scheherezade was also partially like this, but you could also save (or, rather, get a password) in mosques, but later chapters don't have one in the starting town.)

Another mechanic of that sort that has disappeared and could be considered obsolete is password saves. In some older NES and GB (and some SNES) games, when you go to save, you are given a password, and to reload, you have to enter that password. For some games, like the Japanese version of Dragon Quest 2, these passwords can get pretty long, which makes it rather annoying to save your game. (Note that this type of save system is found on the SMS (Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon's Trap; the modern remake even includes such "retro passwords", but they're not required to save/load) and probably on the Sega Genesis.)
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ResidentLeever: Yes indeed, and in some games like Battle Garegga you kinda have to die at times to lower your rank and make the difficulty manageble.

In WB3 you also respawn the chest contents by loading a password, so it can be used to farm.
That's also true in Dragon Quest (though the battery save works for the US version), though note that in the remakes there's only one chest that respawns.

Dragon Quest 2, I believe, is similar in many respects; many one time only items will appear in their original locations if you load a save without said item in your inventory. There's also a couple interesting things that the game does with this:
* To get the Water Flying Cloth, you need to give the components to a specific NPC, then save and reload (which involves a password in the JP version). This can be exploited to get a second one, if you get the ingredients again before picking up the first one.
* There is a small island with a Yggdrasil Leaf (Leaf of the World Tree). This leaf will always be there if it isn't in your inventory, even if it was in your inventory when you loaded the save, and even if you just picked it up and used it right away (it's a consumable that revives a dead party member). This mechanic would make appearances in later games as well, though sometimes in slightly different form.

Incidentally, some early WRPGs (I'm thinking Wizardry 1-5, Bard's Tale 1-3 (though 3 less so than the others), and Might & Magic 1-2, take similar approaches to such items; if it's not in your inventory, you can get it again from the original location.
Posted August 07, 2021
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Orkhepaj: qte should be banned
coin/point collecting is totally useless feature
long videos
unrelated texts to the current events/story, many rpg-s fill the world with these, pointless i dont care what the Karens cat name was or what it liked to eat
long texts, they shouldn't be more than a few pages, if I want to read I just turn on my ebook reader
no modern easy to read fonts
no borderless window option
no stop sound/pause when not in focus
Coin/point collecting I'll somewhat dispute but I think most will agree. Shooters often use point systems as a core feature of the gameplay. CAVE made a career out of variations on collecting points for the high score.I don't think that's what you meant though. I believe you mean the "grab these useless tokens/bananas/dog turds because we said so" design patterh. I have nightmares about DK64 and it's "Collect-A-Thon:The Game" approach. It's one of the handful of games I've ever just quit with no intention of ever returning to. Also GTAIV, I've driven around this city and had a blast but I have zero interest in "pigeon hunting" just to say I did it.

I think your dispute about RPGs is interesting. It's not wrong but it depends very much on what someone looks for in an RPG. If we talk about the classic tabletop RPGs a huge portion of it was world building from the DMs. Many RPGs try to do this (with varying results) through what you described. Dragon Quest is famous for all the little side quests and relationships you form. On the other hand if you care more about tactics or combat or just unencumbered exploration, you aren't getting what you want. Neither are wrong or archaic to me but result in vastly different games. I will agree though that many RPGs these days get way too talky. I think I preferred when scripts were limited due to memory constraints. Esoteric over exposition.
Posted August 07, 2021
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Orkhepaj: qte should be banned
coin/point collecting is totally useless feature
long videos
unrelated texts to the current events/story, many rpg-s fill the world with these, pointless i dont care what the Karens cat name was or what it liked to eat
long texts, they shouldn't be more than a few pages, if I want to read I just turn on my ebook reader
no modern easy to read fonts
no borderless window option
no stop sound/pause when not in focus
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Mplath1: Coin/point collecting I'll somewhat dispute but I think most will agree. Shooters often use point systems as a core feature of the gameplay. CAVE made a career out of variations on collecting points for the high score.I don't think that's what you meant though. I believe you mean the "grab these useless tokens/bananas/dog turds because we said so" design patterh. I have nightmares about DK64 and it's "Collect-A-Thon:The Game" approach. It's one of the handful of games I've ever just quit with no intention of ever returning to. Also GTAIV, I've driven around this city and had a blast but I have zero interest in "pigeon hunting" just to say I did it.

I think your dispute about RPGs is interesting. It's not wrong but it depends very much on what someone looks for in an RPG. If we talk about the classic tabletop RPGs a huge portion of it was world building from the DMs. Many RPGs try to do this (with varying results) through what you described. Dragon Quest is famous for all the little side quests and relationships you form. On the other hand if you care more about tactics or combat or just unencumbered exploration, you aren't getting what you want. Neither are wrong or archaic to me but result in vastly different games. I will agree though that many RPGs these days get way too talky. I think I preferred when scripts were limited due to memory constraints. Esoteric over exposition.
yeah i dont like collectibles if they are way too many , a few per maps is okay ,hundreds not

most of these texts don't build the world they are just blabla fillers and has no connection to the actual events
and with so many universes these even get confusing, it is hard to differentiate between them like dragon age, solasta or elder scrolls and these small stuff are so similar i forget in which ive read something ,fe in which mages rebelled and a religion group wants to erridicate them or demons invade the world, i guess in every on of them... they are so similar

so even if they want to world building they should stick to the area their games playing , if they want to show different part of the world just make a new game elsewhere
Posted August 07, 2021
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Mplath1: I think I preferred when scripts were limited due to memory constraints.
Same here.

It's one of the reasons I prefer Paper Mario 64 over its sequel, for example. The sequel just has way too much dialog in parts.

I think that RPGs should offer modes like the Project Demi mod of Final Fantasy 5, which just cuts out the cutscenes and puts the focus firmly on the gameplay, and also why cutscene skip is a good thing.


One mechanic I think should be considered obsolete is ammo tracking in certain types of games. Specifically, if you have a game where:
* Melee attacks cost nothing to use.
* Ammo-using attacks don't have a significant advantage over other attacks.

Then ammo shouldn't be tracked, and the player should just be given infinite ammo.

Also, if ammo is going to be abundant, like in many WRPGs (see TES: Daggerfall or later, as well as the Infinity Engine games), then why not just give the player unlimited ammo and not bother keeping track?

(Ammo tracking might be warranted in a game where ammo-using attacks are really good, like if ranged is far better than melee, or if there's ammo-using weapons that allow attacking an entire area, but otherwise the mechanic should be avoided.)

(Incidentally, it's Final Fantasy 3 and 4 that made me think of this, where you need arrows to shoot a bow, and they're consumable, but some later versions (3D FF4 and the Pixel Remaster of FF3) made ammo infinite.)
Post edited August 07, 2021 by dtgreene
Posted August 10, 2021
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dtgreene: One mechanic I think should be considered obsolete is ammo tracking in certain types of games. Specifically, if you have a game where:
* Melee attacks cost nothing to use.
* Ammo-using attacks don't have a significant advantage over other attacks.

Then ammo shouldn't be tracked, and the player should just be given infinite ammo.
You just reminded me of a game my friend had growing up for the SNES. Mutant Chronicles:Doom Troopers. It's la grimdark Warhammer40K-esque shoot-em-up like Contra. It's nowhere near as good for a lot of reasons though.
Anyway just for the sake of fun and violence you can grab hold of enemies, put your machine gun to their chest, and fire away. This kills them (just to clarify) but you can continue to hold down the fire button and shoot through the back of them blowing blood everywhere for dramatic effect. Or to get out your anger I guess. The problem is that you have limited ammo which just defies all logic given the theme. Gore sprays everywhere. You have to use floating dead bodies as platforms to cross a river. Headless enemies continue to fire at you without aiming. The game clearly is aiming for over-the-top gore and encourages you to paint everything blood red so it's really weird that they made standard ammo limited. Missles and special ammos/grenades I get limiting but the standard weapon?
The grab and shoot move I mentioned seems ridiculous when you realize you could deplete all of your ammo without gaining anything other then spectacle. You can melee if you end up empty but it makes the game far more difficult particularly with all the platforming. It's not a great game in general but that just always seemed like the most bizarre design choice to me.
Posted August 11, 2021
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Mplath1: You just reminded me of a game my friend had growing up for the SNES. Mutant Chronicles:Doom Troopers.
Huh. I guess they ported that kusoge to the SNES; figured Nintendo would have slapped it down. Apparently it was based on a TCG?
Post edited August 11, 2021 by Darvond
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionMost Obsolete Mechanics(81 posts)(81 posts)
(81 posts)