WHAT IS THE BIGGEST DESIGN FLAW IN GAMES?

author=GreatRedSpirit
More games need a room at the end of the giant confusing final dungeon (only accessible via another dungeon and traveling in a monster littered area of the world filled with poison swamps, random damaging earthquakes, and having to traverse damaging ocean) where you are outnumbered three to one with some of the most dangerous enemies in the game divided by a forcefield where your side of the room gets filled with lava after one turn

lmfao

author=Fallen-Griever
You don't give them the whole game on easy mode, you give them the first few levels and then throw out a fake/bad ending (hence the SoR reference), meaning they still have extra content to unlock/be rewarded with in normal mode!

It's all about application...

I can understand the "secret ending" if you finish the game on a harder difficulty but not allowing the player to play the whole game just because it's too difficult is generally considered bad practice these days.

I guess there's a few places it's acceptable (very short games where maybe each difficulty level means basically a completely new game for example). But generally if someone paid for a game they don't want to be told by the game that they suck just because they didn't play the game on the hardest difficulty level. (this also goes hand in hand with being able to change the difficulty mid-game if it turned out too difficulty/too easy)

And with Youtube they'll probably look at it online and then get pissed that the game left out shit for them and never buy a game from that developer again. (if they're that informed)


EDIT: Qetzl probably said it better.

You can disallow the player to beat the game at the lowest difficulty, but you can also let people beat a game in whatever difficulty they choose. I do not see the benefit of locking people out of major parts of the game unless they play at a certain minimum difficulty. It does however make sense to create challenges that cannot be beaten unless you have the skill needed to beat them.

You mentioned encouraging the player at getting better at the game. However, locking out major content of the game sounds more like demanding than encouraging to me. Sure, I don't have to experience the whole content, but if it's a game I bought it means I get less content for my money and also that it's less likely I buy more games made from the same company.

There are several games I've beaten and then replayed on a higher difficulty. Other games I didn't feel were good enough for me to play a second time, or I did play it a second time, but not until years have passed. If those other games would have held content hostage unless I play a higher difficulty than I originally choose, it would not have meant I suddenly find them more fun. Rather, I would have to choose between continue playing the game despite getting a bit tired of it or abandoning the playtrough.

If someone wants to encourage me to get better at his/her game, then make the game fun enough for me to play multiple times. Also make getting better fun. For example, increasing the offensive capabilities of enemies in higher difficulty levels is usually a better idea than increasing their defensive capabilities since the latter often means fights just take longer.

Finally, let's say that a player plays trough a game five times in a row and selects the easiest difficulty all the time. Why care? Even if I work my way towards the hardest difficulty level, it doesn't matter if someone else just keeps playing the easiest difficulty level over and over. Why bother to encourage players who aren't interested at getting better to get better?

Does slow text speed, slow walk speed and encounter every 8 steps, count?

A big design flaw in some RPGs is, it seems as if the game is built for the enemies rather than the player. I'm all for difficult enemies/bosses, but when they're just cheap it makes me wonder how the devs could've thought it was possibly a good idea?

The worst thing is when enemies can spam full party sleep, paralyze or what have you. *Paralyze, attack, paralyze, attack* Oh, I'm dead! Never got to pull off a single attack or spell. Awesome! Accessories to block against it? Not obtainable yet!

Then you have to grind a lot, which is fine, but even then you still have to hope that 95% chance to hit paralyze move misses atleast one character so you can do SOMETHING.

author=WolfCoder
Can't recall an RPG that was like that.

Clearly you've never played any of the Shin Megami Tensei games. They have a tendency to do that. They also tend to give lots of enemies instant death spells, which, combined with the fact that main character death = game over, is not fun. Sometimes enemies even have area instant death spells!

I definitely agree that if you get a game over, it should be because you did something wrong or made a bad choice. There should be some way to avoid losing.

author=Necrile
Defense (the action not the stat). So many games has defense being ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS. Think about it, when you play RPGs, you smack on the enemy as hard as possible until you get hit, in which you would cast a healing spell or pop a potion. For my games, I make defense actually OP. Is it a bad idea? Maybe, but its better than it being bum-fucking-worthless.

I agree, actually. So many times I'll get some new armor, increase my defense by about 150 points, and the damage I take goes down by 1-10 points. When enemies are dealing thousands, what's the point? Oh, okay. Instead of 3,000 I now take 2,990.

Lol. Funny thing is, I even read that part, but my brain ignored it.

Edit: Defense is mostly pointless because it gets you nowhere. Maybe if defense caused you to counter when attacked it would have a point.

That could be useful, but there needs to be a better way to know when to use it. Often we don't need to bother defending against normal attacks, but usually there's no warning for special attacks. Games seem to have done away with casting times.

Everything is instant now so actually getting a defend in before a fatal attack is all luck now. Games like Final Fantasy IV, where spells and such took time to cast instead of click-boom, would actually work, or bosses would often show signs of what they're about to do.

I remember defense being useful in Legend of Dragoon. HARK!