[GENERAL DESIGN] WHAT IS THE WORST IMPLEMENTED/THOUGHT OUT SYSTEM YOU'VE ENCOUNTERED?

That's less an identification issue that a screwing your player over with shitty items issue, though.

I mean, in one of my games I had identification necessary for scrolls and items. You'd go to an identifyer, they'd do a batch identify then you'd get a random amount of items based on the type.

So for scrolls there were eight types, four rare, four normal. You'd randomly get them during identification (the items would not be determined before-hand). So you might get lucky and have 2 great scrolls and 2 normal, or all four be normal scrolls.

Same with healing items. You'd get vials, you get them checked, they give you a random amount of x items. Check 10 vials, you might get 5 health, 2 magic, 2 antidote and 1 life. It was a bit weighted so that you'd get more health and magic than the other vials, but there was always a chance.

But yeah, identify is fine. It's the shitty loot that you're unhappy about by the sounds of it.

author=Liberty
That's less an identification issue that a screwing your player over with shitty items issue, though.

I mean, in one of my games I had identification necessary for scrolls and items. You'd go to an identifyer, they'd do a batch identify then you'd get a random amount of items based on the type.

So for scrolls there were eight types, four rare, four normal. You'd randomly get them during identification (the items would not be determined before-hand). So you might get lucky and have 2 great scrolls and 2 normal, or all four be normal scrolls.

Same with healing items. You'd get vials, you get them checked, they give you a random amount of x items. Check 10 vials, you might get 5 health, 2 magic, 2 antidote and 1 life. It was a bit weighted so that you'd get more health and magic than the other vials, but there was always a chance.

But yeah, identify is fine. It's the shitty loot that you're unhappy about by the sounds of it.

The argument was that the system is implemented badly, not that the system itself is a bad one. Likewise, leveling up is not a bad system just because it sucks in Oblivion etc.

Except the argument was that the identification was the issue, when it is clearly the treasure given that is the issue. If the same system were used with decent loot it wouldn't be an issue. The treasure is the problem, not the system for identifying.

I have to state that I can only call an ID system implemented well if the player wants to use unidentified items and has a significant benefit from doing so.

Here's a breakdown why I can't imagine this working:

If the player is in combat...
...and the item is great, the player will enjoy being lucky.
...and the item is mediocre, they'll be disappointed that they couldn't get a better use.
...and the item is bad, they'll blame luck and get upset about the game.

If the player is safe...
...and the item is great, they'll be frustrated to have squandered it.
...and the item is mediocre, they won't care much.
...and the item is bad, they'll be disappointed that it was a dud.

So basically, only in 1 of 6 cases will it be fun, 1 of 6 creates apathy and a whooping 4 of 6 results in frustration.

It doesn't help that the item's effect is for all purposes completely random, meaning that there's no player agency involved in using it. Ultimately, this only fuels a player's gambling addiction. If you're designing an arcade machine that's supposed to eat your player's quarters, that's fine, but it's not a system for testing a player's skill.

Barring the use of unidentified items basically makes the items loot bags, which is just a double unlock of regular random drops. This system is alright, but it's pretty detached from a proper ID system in my opinion. Worse is having to invest in a skill to identify, as that mostly amounts to feat tax.

author=LightningLord2
It doesn't help that the item's effect is for all purposes completely random, meaning that there's no player agency involved in using it..

The games that do it well do have player agency involved. For example, instead of saving unidentified potions for a situation where you need a good bonus to survive, maybe you can find a weak enemy and throw the potion at it. If the enemy dies, you have identified the potion of instant death and have less to worry about when drinking unidentified potions. If there is no effect, you have greatly narrowed down the possibilities and should be able to survive testing one yourself after taking appropriate precautions. Experienced players will even pick up on minor clues, such as that this potion is unlikely to be the rare potion of instant death because I have found 3 of them already.

The downside is that many players decide the ID game is too complicated for them, and read guides so that they can play the other half of the game. Maybe it would make sense to have an 'easy' mode where all items come identified. But the ID game can be quite fun for those who have the patience to figure it out on their own.

author=LightningLord2

author=Tirear

author=LightningLord2
It doesn't help that the item's effect is for all purposes completely random, meaning that there's no player agency involved in using it..

The games that do it well do have player agency involved. For example, instead of saving unidentified potions for a situation where you need a good bonus to survive, maybe you can find a weak enemy and throw the potion at it. If the enemy dies, you have identified the potion of instant death and have less to worry about when drinking unidentified potions. If there is no effect, you have greatly narrowed down the possibilities and should be able to survive testing one yourself after taking appropriate precautions. Experienced players will even pick up on minor clues, such as that this potion is unlikely to be the rare potion of instant death because I have found 3 of them already.

The downside is that many players decide the ID game is too complicated for them, and read guides so that they can play the other half of the game. Maybe it would make sense to have an 'easy' mode where all items come identified. But the ID game can be quite fun for those who have the patience to figure it out on their own.

There's no safety in doing that tactic - it could be a Potion of Haste, meaning that the otherwise weak enemy will now completely wreck you.

When I said find a weak enemy, I meant find an enemy so weak that you can handle it being buffed. It's a potion of speed, not a potion of godmode. In fact, I seem to recall giant lichen doing 0 damage in nethack.

Also, it's entirely possible for you to be unable to find another potion of that kind, meaning that you could lose because you wasted an item you needed at this moment.

Yes, you sometimes have to pay a cost to identify items. Similarily you pay a cost any time you use consumables to raid a vault instead of moving on to mandatory areas, or spend your gold on a potion of healing instead of more food, or use a scroll of enchant weapon now when you might be about to find an artifact that could use it more. Deciding when it is or is not worth paying the price is as much more a part of the game as standing off grid from a door so that additional enemies cannot hit you with ranged attacks or jumping into a teleportation trap to escape from a dangerous foe.

author=LightningLord2
I'm gonna bring up a bad game system most of you might be familiar with: The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion

It applies the popular mechanic of level scaling, which is intended to keep challenging players of open world games, even if they do things out of order.

As you level up, so will your enemies, to the point that certain weaker species stop spawning (such as wolves and mudcrabs) in place of stronger ones. Obviously, this also applies to humanoid enemy gear (bandits in Vulcan/Daedric armor, for instance). This completely negates any benefit for leveling up - the only thing you really get out of it is access to Daedric Artifact quests (you need at least one to complete the main quest without exploiting glitches)

It does not stop there - First, the stat points you get for leveling up are based on the associated attribute of all skills you raised while gaining that level. For instance, if you gained points in two-handed weapons, you'd gain a bigger Strength bonus if you choose to incrase that stat. You have to carefully grind up all your stats so you get the maximum bonus (+5) each level (at least you only need to raise 2 stats as luck has no skills tied to it). Furthermore, increasing your Vitality doesn't increase your total HP, only how much you get every level up, thus forcing you to max out your Vitality ASAP to avoid getting gimped HP.

So even a deleved Oblivion has a retarded leveling system...

Yikes...

I always found the leveling system of the recent Elder Scrolls games to be a bit iffy. Even as I play Skyrim, it feels like it's way more difficult to power up your offensive, defensive skills than it is for anything else. Using a one-handed weapon is makes up more than about half my attacks in that game, for instance, but when it comes time to level up it's very seldom that I have enough perks to actually make my weapon's/armor stronger. As you level up, your enemies get tougher, or at least they are able to pull off incredibly cheap tricks like instant-kill moves that happen without any sort of warning; which can make the game seriously frustrating at times.

While it's on my mind, and it's a non RPG example, Megaman X6's nightmare system was about as half-assed as everything else in that game. It could have offered a nice, unexpected bit of variety and/or challenge from what the game already offered, like how comets work in Super Mario Galaxy. Instead, you get a random chance for a stage to slap in some cheap, uninspiring gimmicks that can turn good stages into annoying ones, and harder stages into borderline impossible... Or simply not add anything relevant at all?

It also works by essentially adding additional crap to every level you haven't beaten after completing particular stages, and I literally mean "additional crap." In the ice stage of the game, you have to worry about falling avalanche obstacles and pits, and that much is just fine. With the Nightmare system, the stage suddenly gets fireballs that spawn at completely random points on the screen, and with the level design not supporting this system at all, it makes it impossible to not get hit by something unless you are lucky. In a platformer as skill-based as the Megaman series, this is a huge fail.

As another example, a stage where you have to locate and destroy obstacles to proceed (Rainy Turtloid's stage), you have a chance of getting a darkness effect that obscures your vision with the Nightmare system... and the stage already has sections with an overlay of rain which added on top, makes your entire playing experience feel like a blind stumble in the dark, and you are constantly taking damage, and just yeah fuck this game.

author=Ratty524
In the ice stage of the game, you have to worry about falling avalanche obstacles and pits, and that much is just fine. With the Nightmare system, the stage suddenly gets fireballs that spawn at completely random points on the screen, and with the level design not supporting this system at all, it makes it impossible to not get hit by something unless you are lucky.

Yeah, the falling ice block section is super fun with the fireballs. What's even better is that this effect is a) triggered by Blaze Heatnix's stage, so going in weakness order really screws you here (good thing Wolfang can be killed by just looking at him funny), and b) is required to get into a sub-stage that contains the Jumper part, which is REQUIRED for X, Falcon, or Blade armors to get into Gate's first stage. (There's a few other stages where Nightmare effects are required to access certain things if you don't have some combination of Zero or Blade Armor and the Speedster, Hyper Dash, and/or Jumper parts)

Wolfang's other Nightmare effect (triggered by Shield Sheldon), which is X or Zero soul-bodies spawning at regular intervals and flying at your position, is often somewhere between damn-near and actually-unavoidable damage if you don't have Shield Sheldon's weapon, depending on where you're trying to duck and cover from the avalanches.

Speaking of the weapons, by the way, all the Nightmare effects (except the spotlights) are countered by the boss weapon from the stage that triggers them, which isn't much consolation when considering that a) X and Zero's specific versions of each weapon may or may not actually be useful for doing this, and b) SHADOW ARMOR CAN'T USE SPECIAL WEAPONS. Between that and the couple of spots in the game that Shadow Armor is unable to cross without Jumper and/or Hyper Dash parts, it's like the developers just really didn't want you to use the thing at all.

The only nice thing I can say about the Nightmare system is that it can be manipulated by entering and exiting specific stages. Of course, if you haven't beaten the stage, then "exiting" means killing yourself until you game over.
Yeah, killing yourself in one stage so that you can comfortably survive in another.

bahleted