Actually, I find that weapon durability can be a good balancing factor if done well, particularly if the individual fights aren't too hard. In particular, I think I like the way SaGa 1 and 2 do it (it helps that you can see weapon durability, and the games don't have a habit of closing off access to shops (one exception in SaGa 2, but the items sold there are eventually buyable elsewhere, and one temporary exception in SaGa 1). Also, the game tells you, right in the interface both in and out of battle, how many uses each weapon or skill has left. It also helps that there isn't an easy way to escape the system, unlike in SaGa Frontier 2. (Of course, resources shouldn't be too tight; I *would* like to be able to use my more powerful expensive attacks from time to time.)

In any case, choosing when to use your super-attacks is a good strategy. Some enemies are more dangerous or time-consuming than others, and it is those that you should save your resources for.

(This, of course, assumes a more linear combat-focused RPG, and not one that's more focused on exploration or "role playing", whatever that is.) I agree with this, and have since Final Fantasy 7 came out, maybe even earlier (FF6 has too much story focus until after a certain major event).

Again, I've had this complaint for decades.
If the game actually has XP, I actually like this, as it lets me know what enemies are worth my time to kill and which I should just run away from to conserve time and resources.

Here are some that are specific to RPGs:

1. Levels and experience points. This particular growth mechanic, IMO, has been overused in RPGs throughout video gaming history, and it is honestly not that interesting anymore. I would rather see more interesting growth systems, like gaining stats based off actions or equipment, rather than this old tired system. Also, such systems usually limit the number of levels you can gain, which can be a problem in games that use random stat growth. (With that said, if a game is not focused on character growth, a level/XP system with non-random stat growth could work, but it is still a rather boring system.)

2. Skill points. Generally found with #1, which menas that it becomes harder to get skill points later on, which menas that if you want to try something new later in the game, you can't (unless the game allows mid-game character creation or has a respec option). Also, this mechanic is again overused in the genre, though its use tends to be more of a modern thing (it didn't appear in the Dragon Quest series until 8, for example). There are other ways to handle the learning of skills that are more interesting, I find. (I would even prefer buying abilities in shops at this point.)

3. Enemies moving in real-time outside of combat. This turns the game into an action game outside of combat. When I play an RPG, I want to play an RPG, not an action game; if I wanted to play an action game, I would play an action game. Also, this can be worse than the old-fashioned approach of having a chance of a random encounter with each step; the SaGa 3 remake is a particularly bad example of this, where towards the end of the game you are basically forced to fight every single encounter unless you stop time, often without a chance to get your bearings, open the menu, heal, and save before the next encounter. I can honestly say that the encounter rate in the SaGa 3 remake is worse than the one in the original SaGa 3.

(SaGa games are goodd with points 1 and 2, but (except the original SaGa 1-3) not 3 (and original SaGa 3 isn't good with 1).)

DRM crap like Denuvo or Uplay and new DRM game clients like Epic. Also, any game, whether online or not, single player or MMO, connected to a store wherein game items can be bought. Finally, with some exceptions, I just don't care too much for contemporary gaming.

Let's go crafting! *shoots self* It makes sense for those games that are specifically designed around such a mechanism, but crafting is crammed into waaay too many games that really have no need for it, and it just ends up being detrimental. I'd rather continue having fun than having to sit down intermittently to throw together some random scrounged-up items so I can have more ammo, weapon upgrades, etc. Ugh!

I get where you're coming from, and I agree that quest markers should be optional, up to the player whether to toggle them on or off, but frankly I consider them a blessing. I know that wandering around a world looking for the right place based on information given can be fun, and feels more "real", but it is also terribly time consuming and can be very frustrating. It's fun at first, but for me at least that fun wears off.

I'm playing Witcher 3 right now, and I bless the fact that I can sit down to play for just 30 minutes or so and get right down to business, do some quests and move things along, rather than just walk in circles, retrace my steps and check the journal a hundred times and still likely fail to find the place where I can actually do something.

1.Lack of mod support. Many great games have become even better through mods. RTS titles like the C&C series and Star Craft. RPGs like Neverwinter Nights, Elder Scrolls and Fallout series. FPS games like Doom and Quake and C&C Renegade and Unreal. Action games like GTA. And many others. But now in 2019 its getting harder to find games that have mod support (Fallout 4 is a great example of how games companies SHOULD be doing mod support). And in an increasing number of cases devs are openly hostile to modding (making their games harder to mod or going after people who mod their games)

2.Games that require you to pay more post-release just to have a complete game or even a fun experience.

3.Games that are just a rip-off or clone of some other game and don't bring anything new to the table.

4.Entries in a series or franchise that deviate too far from what the franchise is known for. C&C 4 is a perfect example of this. They made all these changes (supposedly to be like some other game that happened to be popular) and in the process took away the things that make C&C C&C.

5.Unskippable cutscenes or dialog or similar. Like for example the unskippable in-engine cutscenes in C&C Generals at the start of many missions. Or the unskippable dialog in Fallout where you can't skip the speech even if you have already read the text on screen and dont need to hear it read out loud as well.

The problem is when publishers find those games make more money than niche games. Rather than being reasonable (and economically rational in a long view sense, by catering to a larger and more diverse base of customers), the publishers will hyper-focus in on the "e-sports" games while leaving other genres behind. I wish we had a world where all game genres were being made. As it stands, any online-only microtrasnactionfest is essentially a blow against offline singleplayer gaming. In theory both should be able to coexist. In practice, they cannot, due to publisher's short term greed. So I am proud to be selfish/arrogant/whatever supposedly negative adjective.

As for the topic, hmmmm. I would like to say DRM and the non-ownership model of gaming, but I think it's beyond a fad or trend at this point. I think it is simply the standard order of practice, thanks to a decade plus of Steam. It would be nice if DRM-free gaming gets more of a foothold, as I do think there is great demand for it that people don't realize yet. Similar to DRM being "the standard", I feel we are almost all the way there with microtransactions. People are defending Nintendo by saying at least the microtransactions are only in their new mobile game, not the console games. Wake up! These companies all introduce this stuff pretty incrementally; it is only a matter of time.

I feel like I got exposed. Thanks for giving me the reality check, I think I can move on to being a better person now. Not being sarcastic, I legit just never noticed what I was doing until you wrote it down. Ouch!

Always Online

And

Releasing unfinished games that require patches and when you buy a game items have to be downloaded..

I live in the country and don't have internet access at home so no Gran Turismo for me. No way for me to download the gear and loot when you buy a game because it isn't on the disc. It makes it nearly impossible to patch games.

That's true, optional would be the best here. It's been a long time since I've actually played a game that didn't have explicit quest markers/directions so my memories of them are probably through Rose colored glasses.

On a separate note, someone said 'Always Online'.
I agree hard, fuck dat.

I don't mind different Games, no more than different Movies and different TV shows.

Take Movies for instance you have varying kinds, some arn't even remotely close to what i would watch, others i could run on repeat.
Now here is my niggle (this goes for TV Shows and games too) is that you have a great Game, Movie, TV Show, and you would love for it to continue, but all of a sudden a fan base springs up that make it go in an entirely different direction (Original Tomb Raider series) or the modern day ideas (ingames) of achievements and mindless running back & forth that gets included in them (Modern Tomb Raider series), It's not so much that i hate different kinds of games, it's the fact that a shitty idea from them gets brought over into the kinds of games I like, and i ended up having to put up with that shit, just because a bunch of twits like blowing hours repeating the same shit over and over for achievements.

Take Terminator, the original will always stand as the best for me, the sequel was good, but it was the first, the original, that showed you how terrifying a Terminator could be, that feeling carried over into the sequel, making that great.
But all we have now is utter shite as the franchise is geared towards those that liked the sequel somewhat, so that there is more action, less terror, and more stupid shit for hyper active kiddies.

I watch cartoons too, but do i want every movie i watch to be basically hyper-active kiddie crap? no.

As for games being buggy, i started on the Snes and i don't recall ever running into a bug to be honest, however since the age of downloadable updates (PS3 onwards) ES: Oblivion was utter trash, it wasn't worth the disc it was printed on it was that bad, the bugs in that game were just too much.

My selection of Snes, PS1, PS2 games i can't say i ever encountered a bug, maybe one or two "unreachable" areas, but nothing like todays games, where they simply rush them out to patch them later, i don't look through "rose tinted glasses" on this, as i own those games from the very day i first purchased them, and even if i did encounter a bug i have since forgotten about, it was never game breaking.

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion was my first encounter for a really buggy game, Motorstorm had a couple of issues, but it was an online game so it was understandable, but i didn't have many games for the PS3, still it was the bugs encountered in Oblivion i still remember, as that was awful, i just moved to PC after that, atleast updates to fix such problems were more frequent.



Edit: Tomb Raider! was a few areas where if you went around the edges, you could basically walk upto a frozen enemy, but to be fair, you usually had to know they were there, normally you would just run on through and encounter them, so it was a situation that you would encounter on a second playthrough usually.
In this day an age, games are so big we need markers to be honest, if you look at Zelda; A Link To The Past, the map was so small and compact, filled to the brim with items, you could happily spend a few hours exploring, but do that in a modern game like Skyrim and it's a few hundred hours of exploration, with far less to gain from it.

Procedural generation for levels. I don't care how cool your fantastic algorithmic generator is, it's not an excuse to forego learning how to design a level yourself. You don't have to be a John Romero tier wizard but at least try before having the machine(s) "do it for you".

The rogue-like-ening. The rise of indie games gave way to way, waaaaay too many of these. The rogue-likes, the rogue-like-likes and so forth. I know there's plenty of talented and creative developers out there and I can't plead with them enough to consider not dropping any rogue-like elements into their game. Give it a rest for a while, hopefully by the time you get ready to unleash it on the world it'll feel like a breath of fresh air and not a whiff of "man, what died in here?".

And there's the more obvious stuff - the nickel and dime DLC output (Paradox and a few other developers, I'm looking at you), the microtransactionpalooza where nothing is safe from a micropayment at this point (entire game modes, etc).

Sometimes games of this sort can be fun; Zelda 2 is my favorite Zelds game, for example. Also, I note that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is very different from most Castlevania games, yet it is quite popular (and later games were made in this style).

Out of curiosity, what do you think of "white sheep" remakes, when a game that is very different from the rest of the series gets a remake that is more in line with the rest of the series (SaGa 3 DS and Ys: The Oath in Felghana are examples of this).

That's not been my experience. Among classic RPGs that are still quite playable, there's early Dragon Quest (some annoyances, like having to dig through your inventory to unlock doors in DQ2 and DQ3, apply), Final Fantasy 1 and 3 (for 1 you might need an equipment list to see who can equip what, and a list of what spells don't work properly so you can avoid them; 2 suffers from balance and pacing issues), SaGa (Final Fantasy Legend) 1-3, Bard's Tale 1 and 2 (3 if you can stand the load times of 8-bit systems; the DOS version is too buggy to be enjoyable without a fan-made patch), and many others. So, I would argue that what you said isn't really true as written.

(Fun fact; SaGa 1 is filled with bugs, but they oddly don't hurt the playability; the only things I find that really hurt it are the bad "random" number generator and the bug that makes confused enemies hit your entire party when using melee attacks; the English version, however, has a problem with 3 different abilities called GAZE (2 are extremely usefu, but 1 causes useless confusion).)

I wouldn't consider procedural generation to necessarily be bad; to the contrary, good procedural generation could work quite well, but requires the developer to actually have good experience in level design. Also, the aspects that are most interesting are random factors that can dramatically change the gameplay, like the placement of items, spells, and what monsters show up.

(With that said, it's not for every game; sometimes hand-crafted levels can be fun, but only if they're not poorly designed.)

One other thing I forgot to mention earlier, and that I have decided is a deal-breaker for me:

Stealth sections. Specifically mandatory insta-fail stealth sections. They ruined the Zelda series for me (I still enjoy A Link to the Past and earlier, and Majora's Mask I can still enjoy, but Ocarina of Time and later Zelda games I won't play because of those frustrating and unfun stealth sections), and I consider the existence of such a section to be a deal-breaker when deciding what game to play (unless I can cheat through it, which I might do if I get around to playing a certain Jedi Knight game).