In my case, it's the particular term that I find to be judgmental, not the actuon.

"using quicksave and quickload" is a better phrase to use (though you could shorten it by removing both "quick" prefixes, or even to something like "using save/load".

Of note, when playing SaGa 1, I save all the time, partly because the save is so fast, and partly because death becomes hard to recover from if it happens too much. (Or there's the fact that I often like soloing, and a single death in a solo is a party wipe due to the lack of other party members.)

But no term has offensive meaning by itself, it becomes such only in context and by personal perspective. Save scumming has negative connotation because it's perceived that one is cheating in a videogame. And cheating is perceived as something bad because of real life relations between humans. But in the singleplayer videogames, such things become moot, because who is the offended party, AI?

Sure, certain individuals might sneer and be offended by person using something they see as cheating in a single player game, but I personally find that to be pathetic and they should "get a life" (now I am being extremely judgmental). What one does, and does not do with the game is their own thing. My only condition is that they, the costumer, should not demand game design features, such as mandatory lack of save option for example, from the game designer if it's against their artistic vision.

Also, I specifically used the term quicksave for TRON 2.0 because I specifically used those more than regular saves. And to me they are different categories, since saving progress in game can take many different forms.

With respawning enemies how am I supposed to enjoy exploring the game details? I like the first Silent Hhill enough that I will look at all of the posters and shop signs in peace once I've killed everything. Random encounters are good for respawning enemies, that way I can feel like I've completed the named areas while still having somewhere to find a fight

While these aren't three of my most hated, I'm deciding to ease out of my hiatus by rolling a post here and there.

Lockpicking minigames. It's akin to playing a tabletop game with a GM who is way too into LARPing; who demands you actually pick a lock. It should be relying on the skill of my character, not me. Though even the preloaded animations can be a bit much sometimes.

Insistent navigational assists. It's one thing to have a nice objective marker. It's another to have a nagging voice in your ear popping up to tell you puzzle solutions. In most situations, I'd be just fine with clicking on a quest and the map blinks the town/general area and offers to set up a nav marker over.

Ooh, here's one. Forced multiplayer integration/singleplayer content locked behind multiplayer. I was recently was playing Criterion's (2012) Need For Speed on the Vita because the internet was down and what else are you gonna do? And basically, there are achievements locked behind interacting in the multiplayer mode which itself requires a separate account.

So you'd think. But the realty is, like WiiConnect24, there are fan servers to bounce these services back online. Now if you're walking only offical roads, then that's indeed, it.

I do agree a bit on the no food topic. There are a couple of games that do implement this quite different then just the basic calculation 5 food equals 10 people + a 05% growth factor. Still there seems to be a bit ground for the reasoning... if humans are provided with ample foodstuff and peace and etc etc etc they will start procreating like rabbits, the same applies also with danger situations to provide continuation for the species etc etc etc but yea

Not all simulations displaying civilization behavior do appeal to anyone. One of the worst simulations in my book is Cities Skylines atm that " simulates " a living community in the weirdest of manners. For example the day and night schedule is about a month each. I just can't cope with that after having played simcity for many years ;)

Back to topic, Stellaris is a recommendation in my book, discounted you can probably buy the game and a couple of major dlc's for the price of a normal game. Another 4x recommendation is Shadow Empire. That one is quite deep though in the end all manager games boil down to number crunching

That's still a lot of trouble to access a feature that shouldn't require doing such things.

I find this to be a very poor definition for "RPG" Granted there is no good definition for everyone to agree on. But it's certainly not whether a combat system requires skill or not IMO. RPG is about a immersive story driven game. If devs go "Oh let's make a RPG" and having listened to you decided to not have player skill driven combat, I will hunt you down.

Zelda is largely considered RPG by almost everyone and it's combat system is very skill based. It doesn't even have levels aside from Zelda 2.

Doors that lead to the boss have a specific unmistakable aesthetic, also you typically need a boss room key to get in. In most all Zelda games it is virtually impossible to wander in a boss fight by accident. Also you can be teleported out after the fight but you don't have to, you can backtrack for anything missed after the boss battle.

So you hate games that require skill and and hate losing stuff. So you want super easy games. It's especially sad to get upset about losing things in Terraria, the stuff you'd lose, would just be what you saved up in a single run. Also eventually you can get items that store stuff and stick with you on death.

I personally like games that challenge me, it can be very fun.

No. You can have immersive story driven games in other genres. You can have RPGs that are not story driven.

Given the number of times "Is Zelda an RPG?" has been asked and discussed over the years, I would dispute that statement.

(Also, I'm currently playing a (turn based) RPG that doesn't have levels.)

That aesthetic wasn't introduced until Zelda 3; in the original Zelda the compass and the boss's roar (which you'd hear when adjacent to the boss room, provided that you are playing with sound on and are not deaf, because there's unfortunately no visual cue for this) were the only clues for the upcoming boss. (Also, most bosses were just normal enemies, with the exception that the ones you encounter early don't appear as normal enemies until much later, and none of the weaker enemies appear as bosses; also most bosses don't respawn, and the boss rooms are set to drop a heart container.)

Zelda 2 indicate a boss fight by having curtains overhead; if you see those curtains, you can turn back at that point.

[Zelda 1 Second Quest spoilers]
You mention backtracking to get things you missed, but there's one dungeon in Zelda 1's second quest where you have to walk past the triforce piece through the wall in order to get the item you need. If you get the triforce piece, you are sent out of the dungeon and have to go back through it to get the item.

No, I hate games that punish you for dying, making it more annoying than it should be to get back to where you were and attempt the challenge again.

I prefer games that challenge the player without punishing them for failure, like, say, Celeste. If you don't count a certain optional challenge (one I probably won't ever attempt, and one that doesn't introduce new content (with one minor exception)), a death in Celeste will only put you back at the start of the room. Yet, Celeste can be very challenging, especially if you choose to attempt the B sides and Chapter 9.

Another thing: Sometimes I like to experiement, and sometimes those experiments involve dying or using up rare consumables (or spending skill points, in games that have that mechanic), and I don't like it when the game doesn't let me *not* save what happens, as I find it extremely obnoxious.

Not by my definition, and who's to say whos definition is more accurate? Not you.

I ask out of curiosity of your opinion, not for you to "educate" me. What is your definition of RPG?


I totally get what your saying, But it depends on how the game flows. If success is on a scale of barely winning to doing very well, then it makes sense to punish death rather than start someone over. If you hate games punishing failure, than do you also hate games that reward success? Because those are two sides of the same coin. And that's most games.

Regardless, it's good for all games to have generous save systems so we can play the game as we wish. Hell, even a game like Tetris could use a save system.

The "no save" mechanism is one of mine as well, I consider myself to be the best judge on when I need to save or not. Games like Desperados 3 and Blades of the Shogun have the best save system for my taste.

Stamina systems, is another one I don't like. I do think it is appropriate in games like Kingdom Come Deliverace, that are aiming for a higher degree of realism than most games, as well as in games that take place in the real-world so to speak (Dying Light, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry etc) . However in Fantasy or Sci-fi games, where you usually have all these magic abilities or super high-tech gadgets or abilities, this mechanic often feels out of place to me.

A click for every item you collect, I'm refering to when you pick up herbs and what-not from the ground, that when you have multiple items on the ground to collect, that you have to click for every single one of them. This annoys me. There are some games that allow you to multi-pick everything on the ground or elsewhere with a single click, and this is fantastic. I also like games that have a proximity auto-pick.

Level Scaling is definitely among my most hated game mechanics.
I mean, what's the point in a level-system if leveling doesn't give you any advantage or even worse makes the game harder. Might as well just leave the RPG-mechanics out of the game.

Mandatory Minigames are even worse for me though (that includes having to finish them for content connected to the core game like stronges wepons or something like that). There's a reason why I choose games from certain genres and having another one mixed in is annoying in the best case (just not what I wanted to play at the time) and a frustrating 100% roadblock in the worst (if it's something I completely suck at).

Escort missions are another common complaint I share with many people. Simply because more often that not you have limited influence on the sucess even if the AI isn't utter garbage.

It's something along these lines:

An RPG is a game where the following are true:
* There are playable characters.
* The success of an action is based off the character's ability, not the player's. Hence, the player's role is to tell the characters what to do, not to actually perform such action themself. (For example, the whether an attack hits would be determined by a dice roll, not a collision check.)
* The characters are typically persistent from scene to scene. In other words, a strategy game where you create new units for every battle would not qualify. (Note that party changes are still allowed; there just needs to be some persistence between playing sessions.) (Note that this criterion isn't yet as refined as the others, so I expect it to mis-classify some games.)

(Notably, my definition doesn't require that characters get stronger as the game progresses, just that your party is reasonably consistent between encounters.)
What about games where stamina is really just MP but for physical attacks? (In other words, casting spells or non-combat actions like movement wouldn't use stamina.)
What if the game also has your level affect what quests are available? Does this make it better, or does it just make it worse?

(Romancing SaGa 1 and 3 are examples of this, provided you replace level with event/battle rank, which does increase as you fight battles.)

I agree about this issue, and this is definitely a significant accessibility issue. It's not that unusual to have a game that would be accessible to a person with a specific limitation except for one mandatory part. (Chrono Trigger, which requires pushing multiple buttons at once at one point, and which requires button mashing at another, is one example of this. The former doesn't affect me, but the latter is the main reason I don't like to replay that game, and while I will use a (probably emulated) turbo controller if I decide to play the game again.)


Escort missions work well when the AI's behavior is extremely predictable. In particular, I think one that has almost no AI (just some simple rules) would be much better than one with a bad AI.

For example, I think VVVVVV's escort mission works pretty well, where the escortee's behavior is extremely simple and easy to grok.