Disliked Elements, Mechanics, and Tropes

I accidentally did, in Life Gives You Lemons, name my ex the same as one of my coworkers was named. I can guarantee it was… an experience.

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Last time this happened to me, I happened to have named my character the same as the team’s pet dog. :sob:

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On the flip side, I hate when the game won’t let me use the same name as a character. It doesn’t happen often, but I would rather the choice be up to me

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Ok, but that’s just hilarious.

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for sure! I recently played something where your character is supposed to get mistaken for someone else except I had used the same name, resulting in my character literally saying “oh, but I’m not Nancy, I’m Nancy!”. massive facepalm.

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ImNotMeImYou2

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The only thing in IFs that make me want to throw myself out the nearest window is when I’m being tested for a stat and I’m off the mark by a minimal amount. Eg - You needed 50 strength to move this boulder but you had 49 so unfortunately you fail miserably and lose half your HP as result.

I guess it’s pretty unavoidable but that’s one of the advantages of games like Hero of Kendrickstone where stats are measured in whole numbers and levels ( 1 - 7 ) instead of 0 - 100, so being a whole level down is more understandable. Maybe making stat increases with block chunks of 5 or 10 would help remedy this but I’m not sure. Probably very niche situations but happens to me kinda often somehow :sweat_smile:

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There’s only one, but I’m not sure if they’re in the public demo or not. I’ll have to run through the public demo and check. If it’s there, I’ll share it. :slight_smile:

Nope. I can understand that. But it does relate to the infiltration mission. Since you brought this up, I’m guessing it’s in the public demo, so… they want you to infiltrate, but won’t give you information that is pertinent to the mission because your brain is a liability and someone could easily pick that info out of your head. Rosy is the one to refuse, and Nick supports it (seemingly regretfully, but he’s very adamant). Nick also refuses to answer questions about the letter, then gets miffed when you ask Rosy, instead. It just seems hypocritical to me: “You aren’t less than anyone, but we can’t treat you that way because your brain is a liability. Sucks for you!”

I actually really like Kent and Rosy, and think the romances could be great if there could ever be some balance in them. But there can’t be due to the MC’s broken brain.

That’s probably the best way to look at it. My Button really wants that connection, though. She just can’t ever have it.

The whole goal is to get Nick back into his own body, and I think that is where things are headed, which makes the MC a Zero again. The connection from Nick to Button will still be needed to keep ments from taking over Button’s body to do whatever, which means Nick will still be constantly monitoring Button until she dies. So yeah, no privacy ever.

Not really an option. Joining Vengeance–which will make everyone hate Button, but give them freedom–is an option. So it’s either “be evil and be free” or “accept it and never be free or have a private thought again”.

I love it too, but find it horribly sad. The only way the MC can ever have a life and not be hated eternally by everyone they care about is to leave permanently, cut all ties, and live in a non-ment commune… which I don’t think will be an option. I actually asked my husband and a couple others what they would choose if in Button’s situation, and they all said the same thing: either go live where there are no ments or die. Living with no chance of true happiness or privacy is not acceptable.

My point is that the non-ment ROs may not be able to read your mind, but ments can, which means anything your non-ment LI tells you can be snatched out of your mind by a ment, quite easily. So they can’t trust you with some information. Rosy flat out tells you this, and Nick confirms it.

Kent may share some important stuff with you, but they can’t share a lot of things. And, even in your job, you’ll have to do it without ever being properly informed, because telling you anything risks it getting spread around the world.

Then why do both Rosy and Nick tell you they can’t share pertinent information about the infiltration mission with you? They don’t trust you with it, because it can be taken out of your head.

Plus, I’ll be honest. If my brother was constantly in my head, able to read all of my thoughts to keep me from being turned into a weapon against everyone or myself, and there was no other option? I’d kill myself. I’d rather die than have someone able to know what I’m thinking all the time. I need privacy, and I need autonomy. Button has neither.

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Y’know I was indifferent to that style because Bars Nice but having skills on a discrete scale is kind of compelling.

It is rough to fail stuff when you don’t know exactly why or by how badly though (not that having a scale inherently prevents that). I know games can’t really stop to explain their maths, but I hate feeling lost in terms of like… how good my character actually is at a thing. Makes me feel like I’m failing cause I didn’t have all the information rather than cause I picked the wrong choice.

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A mechanic i hate when it comes to choice games is any kind of RNG. Due to lack of easily available saves it just interferes with ability to control the story and go the way i want. I would rather it be stat based or just exclusively choice based system.

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I agree. As much as I like Breach: The Archangel Job for it’s campiness and its dice roll mechanics, going through and setting up my canon playthrough is a total pain since it’s basically all randomized.

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It has a “deactivate randomisation” option though which i highly appreciate and have always used. Unfortunately same can’t be said about some other games.

I got really pissed off at vampire regent’s random event system in particular. For me it was VR’s biggest flaw (big enough to outweigh my love for setting and writing) and ironically became the biggest turn off on repeated playthroughs.

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Which unfortunately blocks access to some amusing outcomes, if I remember correctly. :neutral_face:

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I mean that just sounds like taking into account your disability.

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Yep, like at the very beginning when you’re first grabbed by the FBI, I love dodging through traffic like a badass, then getting caught. When “deactivate randomisation” is on, it skips straight to the getting caught part.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some lol

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Wrong animal, but Claire on Instagram: "My roommate is dating a guy with the same name as them and I call him the boyfriend addition. He doesn’t seem to mind."

This is for CoG/HG specifically, but not having Vulnerable Conversations With Friends. So many IFs shout “found family!!” without actually having any found family bonding outside of moments that feel very shallow, or like they don’t actually have a lot of stakes for the characters. I want to have conflict, but work through it because I love these people. I want them to come to me when they’re having issues, and for me to do the same. Why is stuff like this reserved for ROs? Is it the lack of time for these moments, so every quiet chance is allocated to romance?? I don’t get it. Let me have painful vulnerable convos with nonromantic partners about topics that are genuinely important to the characters. Please. There are a few that I enjoy, yes, but. Idk. The dynamics never feel as fleshed out as ROs, which I understand, but I would love an IF that has a heavy focus on the platonic/familial side of things.

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It’s kinda annoying how the forum tend to overblow any issue or setback in a story to the point where any defeat because ‘Your character is weak and useless’ and any problem in their all around life become ‘It’s endless misery no matter what’.

Like in Soulstone, everyone generally close rank to protect you but I never really lost a fight and you can kill trolls and harpies just as well as anyone else.

Or Path of Martial Arts where not being able to just beat every legendary beasts and martial artists in higher realms is just how the universe work and you’d have no reason to get stronger otherwise and you’re already basically the strongest within your own realm anyway.

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The distinction is typically how characters, or the story itself, treat you. In Soul Stone, from what I had read and remember, you are treated as a completely worthless hanger-on by everyone, no matter your abilities or feats. The characters and even the story constantly played up everyone else while completely ignoring anything you did. Was very otome in the worst ways like that. Almost would rather you actually be worthless so it is at least congruent with itself, though either way is something that makes it a hard fucking pass to me.

For Path, I think it’s that the losses are always as frustrating as possible. Like it’s always shit that, no matter your build or how you’re playing, you’re not allowed to ever even hope to win because it’s someone dramatically beyond you (or some bullshit thing that makes it impossible) in a story where you’re largely supposed to be ridiculous as is emphasized from the very get go. It drew in a crowd that wanted that absurd power fantasy, then constantly undercuts it at every story beat. Power fantasy is difficult in interactive fiction, especially a very gamey one like that, because the narrative still needs to come first, and I think Path fails in its delivery due to making every single battle a curbstomp, either by you or against you. I have a dozen issues with the story and its fanbase as is so this is the extent I’ll ever talk about it, but that’s how it comes across to me.

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I never got that feel, if anything everyone acted like you were the most important part of the group and overreacted like any scratch on you was a personal failure.

I mean, that’s just how those stories work at all. Sure, you have ridiculous potential and can be all around ridiculous but that’s the bare minimum to be noteworthy within a sect in a martial art story and if the losses aren’t frustrating, well, they aren’t really losses and don’t really work as motivation to go and sit on a rock for 5 years for figure out a new move or breakthrough to the next level of cultivation.

Like cultivation gaps are supposed to be hard stops, otherwise the whole thing collapses and it’s a cultivation story so obviously stronger cultivators will go around bullying people.

Unless you cheat-in stats or min-maxing very well, you don’t really curbstomp everyone. Your very first real match against Tigress is gonna be very disputed for exemple and Tang Ruo is outright unbeatable if you haven’t min-maxed like crazy.

Same for the first Arena match, if you aren’t over-leveled, the guy is a close fight.

You have the OPTION to turn those (except Tang Ruo) into stomps but those aren’t the default and given that not all stats are equally useful in every fight, you can perfectly curbstomp Tigress and struggle with the Arena Fight and vice versa depending on your build.

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