That could work I guess but whether you’re currently a heel or a face is decided by a straight up choice so that’s not really how the game is.
One thing I dislike is this trend of fiction with absurd premises that makes so many dumb meta jokes to the point where I ask myself, “Hey wait a minute, even the characters in the story think it’s dumb. Why am I still watching/reading this?”
Wish more media with strange premises took thenselves seriously, like in Kinnikuman, where wrestling is serious business and no one questions it.
15 Likes
I definitely prefer things to take themselves seriously. Like, did you not want to make this? Did you have a different idea, but got rejected and/or gave up on it? Cause I can tell
7 Likes
I dislike gender selectable ROs/companions. It breaks my immersion and makes them more like objects than people with lives outside the MC.
4 Likes
Honestly, I never understood this critique, since the characters aren’t any less developed than their counterparts. If gender roles and gender identity and the like are important aspects to the story than I get it, but if not, there’s no real reason a male character would have to be different than a female version of them all else being the same.
27 Likes
This. It makes sense to have set genders for ROs in the case of, say, the Golden Rose (where the… whatshername, Inquisition lady doesn’t work the same if she were an Inquisition guy) or A Mage Reborn (where the gender of the Book One ROs is societally fundamental), but most CoG worlds make no societal distinctions between genders, and therefore the only thing that set genders does is potentially lock some people out of some ROs.
29 Likes
@Interestedparty How about when the game forces you into a thing - maybe like a sport? - even though it gives you choices to like refuse an invitation?
2 Likes
If it gives you the option to refuse, and then has you do it anyway, that’s pretty bad. Better to not give the option at all than to ignore the choice.
9 Likes
This is bad if it’s a side thing. I HAVE however seen people complain about stuff like “the game is telling me I want to fight monsters, maybe I don’t!” in a game literally about fighting monsters.
22 Likes
I agree with that. It’s negating the player’s agency which at best is annoying, at worst immersion breaking. There was a kazoo analogy that someone put up years ago that fits this well. I mean if you need the MC to play some music for the story to happen, just write that in there, or work around the choices you’ve given to keep the story moving along without doing this:
I’m all for if a plot point is important enough either don’t make it a choice, or get creative later on why the player has to do something they’ve chosen not to for a justifiable story based reason.
That’s a different kettle of fish. If you start reading a game about needing to fight through a dungeon full of monsters as the premise, then it should be pretty obvious from the get go if that will be your cup of tea or not as chances are good you’re not going to be able to negotiate your way through to the prize with every single evil blood thirsty monster there.
14 Likes
I more had my thoughts set on a story that was actually involved in a scandal with bigots so I can’t really say its name without risking being called one as well.
But that story gave you the choice to join a specific sport or not. I chose not to join it but then later in the story something happens and I’m forced to join it just cuz.
I’m (usually) not a fan of characters with a weird array of hax that can warp reality and shit. Never feels like the power they have is earned, either. Plus I can’t really take ‘em seriously when some of them can die from getting shot in the face.
Anyway real raw power > hax on any day.
STRENGTH - MAXIMUM
SPEED - SURPASSES T I M E
DURABILITY - CAN TAKE A SCOOTER TO THE SHIN
INTELLIGENCE - YES
HAX - NO NEED
5 Likes
Not sure if it was already mentioned here but it takes me out when the player has little choice in how an RO and the MC treat each other in their romance. Usually in these cases, there’s an assumption of a “dominant” partner or a “man” in the relationship.
I notice this often when MCs pursue someone of the same gender, like when female MCs are assumed to be butch/masculine when they pursue female ROs or when MCs, regardless of gender/gender presentation, are treated like wilting flowers by male ROs. It feels as if these romances warp the MC’s personality to fit the relationship and it can get pretty annoying
8 Likes
I feel like there was a CoG or HG where you initially had the option to refuse to join something, and everybody just kinda sulked about you not joining them, and then like a paragraph later a thing happens that completely screws you up and you end up having no choice BUT to join the group that you said you didn’t want to join.
From how vague I’m being about it, it’s obvious I haven’t played that game in a while, but that might be because I got intensely burned by my choice turning out to be a roundabout way of telling me, “too bad, do it anyways.”
Pretty sure this was the build I was trying to go for in Elden Ring… which would’ve let me take a whole one extra hit before getting horrifically murdered, going by From Software math.
1 Like
A MC that has no agency of their own and solely exists as a plot device for the “supporting” cast around it. I won’t name any names but it’s honestly not fun at all to go from A to B, trying to do God knows what for XY character so their personal story can resolve and they’re able to move on just to find out the MC is written as a convenient tool, not as their own person. Same applies for reversed roles, the cast just being empty husks that mc treats as a checkbox is probably an instant killer for me, nothing worse than a story where the roles of both the protagonist and it’s npcs aren’t treated equally in depth.
Another thing I cannot stand is railroading. If you tell me I can pick to investigate the cabin or the road and I choose cabin just for you to say ‘Oh cabin you say? We don’t do that here, the road it is.’ then I seriously have to wonder why such a time waster is included in the first place and how many more of those are in the rest of the game. I’d take less choices if it meant they’re meaningful.
And lastly, when the game takes away my choice to decide how the MC is feeling in that moment. Or when the author decides for me how the MC should act in this given moment. I do not care about a set gender for the protagonist, I do not care about their set background but take away the ability for the player to make choices that shape said MC when it matters and I’m instantly dropping the game.
19 Likes
I have to agree with most of the thread, in general those ‘refuse’ choices annoy more than anything else.
It’s basically asking me ‘Do you want to engage with the story?’ as if I haven’t already paid money for it and as if we didn’t both know I’m just gonna get a game over or just get forced into it anyway.
Not that I mind a story forcing my character to do stuff but don’t fake me out for no reason.
7 Likes
- I can excuse pure evil, but I draw a line at (insert prefix)ism/bigotry
- I can show heads rolling, free violence, rivers of blood and mountains of guts… But sex and/or nudity is outrageous
- Either swearing is tabu or polite talking is, no in beetween or on the context
11 Likes
The absolute worst thing and you generally can’t even know before starting like some other potential problems (like a male protagonist for myself) so you’re forced to engage with it for at least a bit before realizing “oh, it’s this shit again”. There’s some actual games where it’s the case too, but in those there’s at least something other than the story (the gameplay) for you to have fun with. To give an example no one will get, God Eater. In those games, you kill things. You kill them really well, way better than anyone else. You don’t have big emotional arcs and dramatic monologues, you just kill. You are a gun they point at monsters and you fulfill that purpose with flying colors. In this, you the player and the MC are in sync. You fight and kill really well. That’s it. Other people get the character stuff which works because you still have stuff to do, because there’s game beyond the story. In IF there’s nothing but the story to make up for your character being an object, so it’s super egregious when all you do is show up to a group meeting and go “[Friendly Agreement]/[Sarcastic Quip]/[Stoic Expression]” after every idea and barely get a word of acknowledgement.
What’s the point of a protagonist that is nothing more than a tool for other characters (or outright doesn’t matter at all)? Why not just make a different character, one of the ones the story’s actually about, the protagonist? If they’re too set with too predetermined a story/arc for that, why not just write a static book with them as the protagonist, then? Surely that’ll save a lot of time and headache instead of forcing it to be IF.
Hopefully I don’t come across as too riled up; I fucking hate this and hate how bafflingly common it is in IF but I’m trying not to rant too much about it.
15 Likes
Worst thing is when your MC sets up goals of his own, yet keeps getting dragged away from them by a supporting cast. Even worst-er is the fact they often can’t achieve their own goals and have to be happy for supporting cast getting their shit together.
Speaking of elements I hate the most… A way of playing that is highlighted in the story as being the wrong one. The most annoying example of that was Rebecca in Wayhaven Chronicles, deadbeat mom extraordinare. If you keep shutting her off and refuse to bury the hatchet, Unit Bravo will constantly nag you about it. Sorry, dear sires, it’s not my fault my own mother played mother with you instead of her own son. There also will be constant passages about Rebecca feeling dejected and sad, she will constantly try to just return to the way things were without even an apology.
It just seems it wasn’t exactly a supposed way of me playing it. And it annoys me greatly that it wasn’t.
20 Likes
Always found that funny. You can show all ultra-violence on TV, games, movies and books, no one will give a shit, but show a womans(this is whole other historicity) nipple and people will make a crusade against it. Never understood why people do this or when nudity/sex became worse that beheading someone.
11 Likes