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[Zangi]

Its sad how people would waste money on garbage to get a 'better' e-peen.... that does nothing for you.

[chaoticag]

Art imitates life you know.

[Ametsala]

It has been said, but Oblivion's scaling system is idiotic, because why on earth should I level up if it makes my enemies stronger? Isn't the whole point of leveling supposed to make you able to take on harder enemies?

Don't forget that like the third story mission, going to Kvatch, becomes OMG, NAILS IN EYES hard if you level up a few times before going there. That's why I do enough to finish that before reaching level two and then go off and do whatever I want.

Oblivion's got a lot of bad things but I still consider it a great game. I'd like to point a couple things about the leveling thing:

In Morrowind I got pissed off when I was attacked by cliff racers etc. when I could kill them with a single punch. That's what I consider stupid. I'll much rather fight bandit's in ridiculously expensive armour than animals that are just a nuisance. (Though in Oblivion sneaking is way too easy so avoiding enemies is not a problem.)

The leveled quest reward items are just stupid. What's the point in doing a quest at level 9 when the prize is a magical artifact that's useless when you get to level 10? (though I don't seem to be using a lot of the quest reward items anyway...) A leveled gold reward's okay as the main source of income is not from quest's but rather from the expensive armor you get from the bandits.


I think the really badly done thing in Oblivion is the riding part. What's the point riding a horse in the wilderness? You can't sneak or fight while on horseback and getting off the horse takes forever.

P.S. I'm level 27 and I haven't done the Kvatch stuff yet... I'm just considering to actually bother doing the main quest.

[Blaze]

CLIFF RACERS 

I considered opening up the construction set and just deleting all of them. No wonder Jiub was made a saint when he got rid of the Cliff Racers in Oblivion. The only thing I found more annoying was trying to hit that goddamn giant netch with the fork of horripilation. I could stand right next to it while swinging at it and it still wouldn't connect.

Oh, and the reward for saving the whole friggin realm of Tamriel from eternal damnation is a bunch of glorified orc-stat armor with mediocre enchantments.

Morrowind/Oblivion Magic system: My grandpa moves faster than my fireball, and he's DEAD.

Dark Cloud 2 Monica's creature morph system: It sounds cool, but it's just another horribly underpowered thing that you have to grind.

ADOM's artifact ammo: Getting crowned with a SINGLE ARROW = FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- Include those with the gamut of other completely useless artifacts out there and you have a 1 in 3 chance to actually get something useful.

[Neruz]

The annoying thing about Morrowind\Oblivion is the scaling algorithm they use is, well, broken, which means it is in fact entirely possible to reach a point in the game where the monsters are now effectively impossible to kill.


Also, there's very little sense of achievement; Yay i levelled up! I'm stronger now! And so is every single other creature in the game...

Why did i level up again?

[Sean Mirrsen]

I don't think I noticed monster levelling in Morrowind. Sure, some monsters were probably levelled to provide a challenge, but most of the world wasn't.

Morrowind was a good game if only because it kept one of the better features of Daggerfall - an open world. Despite the improved physics of Oblivion, which were great fun combined with the Paralysis spell or a console command, I liked that in Morrowind, there was that possibility to leap across the island with one jump. Broken, of course, but very much enjoyable. They even took out levitation in Oblivion to eliminate sequence-breaking.

[Neruz]

It might not have happened so much in Morrowind; i never personally experienced it although one of my RPG crazy friends said he ran into that issue on his second time round.

Definitely happened in %$%#ing Oblivion though.

[Rooster]

No, monsters in morrowind didn't level up on their own, their respawn was just replaced

In Seyda a crab respawn at lv1 is replaced by a netch at lv18

Also Sierra? My first though was Septerra core. A good game, but when I got to the point where I couldn't go back, and couldn't go farther without a special character I was like FUUUUUUUU-

[DeKaFu]

The annoying thing about Morrowind\Oblivion is the scaling algorithm they use is, well, broken, which means it is in fact entirely possible to reach a point in the game where the monsters are now effectively impossible to kill.

This.
In Oblivion, I made the mistake of using my class skills, so I ended up high level with relatively low-level combat skills. I then found that I could no longer effectively play the game because all the wildlife on the streets was so strong I could barely dent its HP before it killed me. I loved the game, but damn that was heartbreaking. Especially since I'd always made a point to go everywhere on foot.

[Mr.Person]

In Nethack, you can hit E to engrave things on the floor. At first glance, this seems useless, but it's actually one of the more powerful commands at your disposal. If you engrave "Elbereth", most non-human, non-elf monsters will flee from the square, as long as there's at least one item and/or you on it. The only way to figure out Elbereth's magical powers is through a handful of the literal hundreds of fortune cookies or one of the 12 or so major fortunes from the Oracle. Major fortunes are costly at the beginning of the game and fortune cookies are rare, not to mention there's like 800 fortunes and half of them are false anyways. In the manual? Nope. Explanation if you find squares with Elbereth already on them? Nope. When you do engrave or find a square with Elbereth on it and stand on it, is there any indication as to why the monsters are fleeing? Haha, no.

Yes, major gameplay features should either be explained or be blithingly obvious. Hiding them from the player but then making them pretty much mandatory to win the game is about the worst possible design imaginable.

[chaoticag]

I just realised that a lot of games have a useless money system, where it seems to go "get money to buy cool stuff" or "So you have money, so what?". Since you are bound to get tons of money, why not have powergoals? Harvest Moon does it well, and it is a freakin' farming game, with sheep!

It is pretty sad that RPGs don't even have a feeling that money goes around. Look at Fable 2, you got rich by not playing the game, which you could use to make yourself richer and richer, but that is where the list stops. (Fallout at least had a system where you could extend your deadline using money, and weapons were hard to find and pretty damn expensive).

Also, while still on the subject of Fallout, that game could make itself unwinnable if you go sidequesting for a little too long before you remember that you ought to be getting a chip. Bad design there.

Mass Effect: Where every sidequest room looks like every other sidequest room. That is all I need to say on the subject.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I could probably mention Spore. While it's a commercially good design, it's the same gameplay flop The Movies were. Some basic content, no customizability, little sense in creative gameplay.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but lets not get into games that are bad because they are overall bad. I like that this topic is going in the dirrection of good games with horrible mechanics.

Though I guess the worst part about Oblivion's scaling system is that it was entirely based on level rather then skills. So if you chose not to fight monsters in a while, you are basically dead.

[Virtz]

Also, while still on the subject of Fallout, that game could make itself unwinnable if you go sidequesting for a little too long before you remember that you ought to be getting a chip. Bad design there.

I'd disagree on calling that bad design. Ignoring the time limit on your main quest is sort of like ignoring objectives and racking up frags in a team-based multiplayer game.

I'd even go as far as to say having no timelimit (or equivalent) in a game where it'd make a lot of sense storyline-wise is bad design. There's no greater way of removing any sense of urgency or importance from a major event than having it not progress at all with time. Just look at Oblivion, the daedric "invasion" is a big joke.

[chaoticag]

Well, let us call it a matter of opinion and leave it at that; I just hate constraints.

Adding more to the list, enforced tutorials are very annoying. Oblivion and Fallout 3 fall into this, since I have to dredge through the longest possible tutorial that asks you "Are you perfectly happy with this?" near the end.

At least demon souls had the decency not to do that, although it can get annoying in its own right. (Why the hell did a guy with a poisoned knife just jump out of that iron maden!?)

Memorization and trial and error gameplay is pretty bad design, although it is one thing when you do something that is idiotic simply because you are used to doing so in other games. Roguelikes can be frustrating because of this, but it can also feel rewarding as well. Unless you are really unlucky and fall in a spiked pit with poison in it, or happened to have a block land on your head.

The unintuitive fighting in the original prince of persia game, although there might have been a way to defeat the guards without racking up near fatal wounds that I haven't discovered while I was playing it.

The DS Zelda games, and the idea that using the touchscreen to play the majority of the game... moving towards the left means my hand gets in the way of the screen, and Spirit Tracks just makes you look silly if you play it in public.

Dynasty Warriors doesn't exactly fall into this, but they have an issue with releasing the same game I've played since 3.

Any game that depends on gimicks for that matter. The eyetoy was a waste of money, and I haven't bothered getting a new power adaptor for my wii since my sister pluged it directly into the socket instead of the converter. That is a pretty bad sign (although I will probably get one when the Metroid game comes out).