Top five mistakes you see in a game, What makes you just look at a game screenshot and just facepalm Options

[slifer644]

Like the title says, what do find in game maker games that just ruin a game for you?

1. 5 house villages
Okay, how in the world can a village sustain itself if there are at most (based on my own formula for constructing which is 3 people min. to a house) 15 people? I was a major offender to this ( actually the more I think about what I hate, the more I realize I've done these), not putting much thought into making these villages. Another problem with having only a few houses in a town is that you can't have too many people without making it very unbelievable. For me, a fantasy village shoul have around fifty people, a town should have between 75 to 100 people, and a city should have between (this may sound insane) 100 to 200 people.

2. Boring/ confusing starts
When you start a game you can't just throw someone into it without a little bit of back story (unless your game is mostly a flashback up until halfway through). Having the player guessing what's going on is good, unless their still trying to guess twenty minutes into it, that's when you've gone overboard. The same applies to having the player do the same thing over and over again at the beginning till they reach a certain level and the begin the story. You have to give a little in both story and action to keep the player interested.

3. Underpowered enemies/ overpowered heroes
A big problem with making the enemies easy for the player to kill quickly is that it makes it seem unrealistic. If you're gonna make the fight a human enemy, you should atleast give the enemy the same amount or half that of your weakest character. This will make the battles
more tactical than just pressing the strongest spell you've got once in order to kill them (unless they're a spider or some small creature, cause that does make sense then). The only exception to this rile is if that attack is a finisher attack, cause then you're good.

4. Unoriginal settings/ unoriginal characters
I find that if I start some where that looks alot (alot... Hehehe) like that of a popular game that I've already seen, then that's just laziness. The same goes for characters in that if the the protagonist seems framiliar then it just seems like somebody is trying to get free ideas. The exception to this is if it is a fan game, then you're good. Originality keeps the game flavorful and draws the player into it more.

5. Forgetfulness
It is annoying when you get sent all over a flipping dungeon just to find a stupid that, guess what, you didn't even need in the first place. When the creator forgets that he put in a subquest and then scraps it later without removing what was in that subquest just gets annoying when the player finds it. Its even more frustrating when a player leaves the gameand the forgets what they were doing and can't figure out what they need to do.

You've hears my rants, lets hear yours.

[Kaust]

I disagree with what whoever disagreed with me said. Your creativity doesn't have to be limited. Magical things don't have to happen long ago, they can happen at any time you set them. Any good writer can make things work in their story. And what about modern day rpgs? The rpg I write is modern day and it makes for interesting social interactions when modern day people are exposed to magic and such. And by stone age, I'm overexaggerating. It's a certain tone that people have when they are trying to make something funny by overdoing it. What I'm saying is the midieval stuff is overdone. Most of what I had to say was cliche and overdone stuff that I saw too often. Mk pumpkin? I just have to defend my opinion of what's getting old.

And I disagree with you who disagree with the original disagreement!
Myth and Magic are and always will be linked with RPGs, same with the scifi jazz, because in general people who like RPGs like those stories. True, not exclusively, and you're right a good writer can make any story good, but that includes boy meets girl meets dragon meets KOfist.
Like I said on my last post here, there is a difference between cliche and convention.

I do not agree with the majority of you. You want things that are not fun to do in a game (exept spelling grammar).
Why should we care to know nps's lives and if they do not say anything interesting?
Because the truth, you will stay like 5 or 10 minutes in the village, maybe less.
I hate boring dialogues (small talk) with random npc that bring nothing to the main plot or side quests.

Also stop bashing Final fantasy series, most of them are not about crystals!
They have some gameply that you will never find in any rpg makers games, like the class system in FF1 and FF5.

The important thing is that a game, an rpg should be balanced between story, gameplay and fun.

This is a game design thread, its about building a more complete game. Fun ideally, but there are more experiences to games than simply enjoyment. Besides, we all know the games where the makers do put in that extra bit of an effort are better, and their better for the reasons people listed. Chiefly balancing the suspension of belief and the little extras like npcs that you want to talk to, because someone put thought into what they said.