'Broken' or 'Tired' RPG gamelplay elements?

[AJR]

Random battles.

[Farron]

@KillArmoire

Regular loot requiring MMO Sperg levels of dedication to acquire.

I'm not sure what a MMO Sperg is but it made me laugh :D

- Drop rates. Anything below 5% rate is offensive to me as a human being, I'm mean let alone I'm using my time to play your game and not only that but I need to kill monter X a thousand times to get an item ? If developers don't want us with a ton of said item why they don't just put it on a really hard monster, like those that you even need to use some rare consumable items. If anything about FFXII this was problably the biggest reason I hated it.

Basically this (although 5% isn't nearly as low as I was talking about).

I know. In an MMO it's still a pain but it's understandable since most of them have PvP, so everybody getting anything easily could somehow break the game, but it still doesn't mean that it should be impossible to get.
But in a single player RPG I think it's simply outrageous.

I remember watching some videos of people getting the Seitengrate bowbow in FFXII on youtube, they have to keep opening an INVISIBLE box item, and then go some screens away for it to respawn.
I just did some research to post here, the drop rate is: "Seitengrate bow = 0.0001% chance"!!!

Isn't it just overkill ? Like I said before, if they don't want us to use it in anything in the game, why don't they just put this as a reward for beating the strongest enemy in the game ? Sure, there aren't anything left to kill but at least it's a prize with a single 100% drop.

Developers could do this back in the NES, SNES and early PSX days when we didn't have internet to share this things with everybody, but nowadays if I see people telling me I have to go through 'out of this world' drop rates to play a game, guess what ? I just don't even touch the game and they just lost some bucks. If the game is a fair challenge (even if it's more than I can take), Monster Hunter, Demon's Souls, etc then it's Ok but if they don't this just for their own sordid pleasure, count me out.

[Aeolus]

@KillArmoire

Regular loot requiring MMO Sperg levels of dedication to acquire.

I'm not sure what a MMO Sperg is but it made me laugh :D

- Drop rates. Anything below 5% rate is offensive to me as a human being, I'm mean let alone I'm using my time to play your game and not only that but I need to kill monter X a thousand times to get an item ? If developers don't want us with a ton of said item why they don't just put it on a really hard monster, like those that you even need to use some rare consumable items. If anything about FFXII this was problably the biggest reason I hated it.

Basically this (although 5% isn't nearly as low as I was talking about).

I know. In an MMO it's still a pain but it's understandable since most of them have PvP, so everybody getting anything easily could somehow break the game, but it still doesn't mean that it should be impossible to get.
But in a single player RPG I think it's simply outrageous.

I remember watching some videos of people getting the Seitengrate bowbow in FFXII on youtube, they have to keep opening an INVISIBLE box item, and then go some screens away for it to respawn.
I just did some research to post here, the drop rate is: "Seitengrate bow = 0.0001% chance"!!!

Isn't it just overkill ? Like I said before, if they don't want us to use it in anything in the game, why don't they just put this as a reward for beating the strongest enemy in the game ? Sure, there aren't anything left to kill but at least it's a prize with a single 100% drop.

Developers could do this back in the NES, SNES and early PSX days when we didn't have internet to share this things with everybody, but nowadays if I see people telling me I have to go through 'out of this world' drop rates to play a game, guess what ? I just don't even touch the game and they just lost some bucks. If the game is a fair challenge (even if it's more than I can take), Monster Hunter, Demon's Souls, etc then it's Ok but if they don't this just for their own sordid pleasure, count me out.

That's nothing though compared to acquiring the dreaded Danjuro. A weapon only has a 3% base drop rate but it is only dropped by one rare enemy deep in the game's highest level dungeon (which is in of itself about four full dungeons away from the nearest warp point). The rare enemy that requires you to slay 256 enemies within the dungeon to show up per spawn and you need to grind off of it to increase your chain and thus improve the odds of a Danjuro to drop all the way up to 12%. The nearest save spot is well within the dungeon prior to the one where the rare enemy is (but this is moot anyways given how you need to build up a high chain to have any chance of getting this one weapon).

Of course I still get a kick out of how the one accessory that is supposed to help increase your odds for better loot makes all the treasure chests with the best stuff downgrade to utter crap (and without warning no less).

FFXII is loving sadistic to completionists.

[bigdeath]

random battles. I hate random battles.

[CastNuri]

Tutorials that go on for the first half of the game or more.

This, definitely. Tutorials are alright if they're short and sweet but sometimes I feel like they're assuming an impossible level of idiocy. I remember being very frustrated with the FFVIII tutorials because they were so bloody slow.

I don't have a problem with random battles. They're only annoying when - as Dincrest pointed out earlier - you have to backtrack after a mission or you're desperately seeking out a save spot. :(

[Sagacious-T]

Basically all of FF12 is a broken gameplay element. I wish I could time travel and prevent its creation. Kind of like the Terminator.

[Hidoshi]

Pay no mind to Thoren. He's an idiot, folks.

Random battles NEED TO GO.

[MeshGearFox]

Pay no mind to Hidoshi, folks. He's a municipal abortionist AND a commie.

I remember being very frustrated with the FFVIII tutorials because they were so bloody slow.

Oh god remember old, non-interactive Squaresoft menu tutorials that ALWAYS went one menu item PAST the desired one them backed up to it?

[CastNuri]

Wait, what?

I've never played anything pre-FF8 actually (which says more about my age than I'd like) so I'm not sure if you're describing FF8's annoying menu tutorials or something before that.

[Starmongoose]

FF7 had a tutorial explaining Materia. That was all I think, and to be frank - it needs the explanation the first time you play it.

[Roger S. Huxley]

You could skip FFVIII's tutorials though, I'm pretty sure of that.

[CastNuri]

You could skip FFVIII's tutorials though, I'm pretty sure of that.

Ten year-old me probably didn't know any better. :P

[Dincrest]

Although I'm generally anti-random encounters, the way the encounter mechanics were handled in Lufia: Ruins of Lore made me wish that game had random encounters.  That game was see-your-enemies-on-the-field-beforehand done horribly horribly wrong. 

Some of Aldorlea's games like Millennium allow players to change the random encounter rate on the fly, which is nice. 

[Starmongoose]

You could skip FFVIII's tutorials though, I'm pretty sure of that.

Ten year-old me probably didn't know any better. :P

At ten years old I was still trying to figure out my "Your"'s from my "You're"'s. You make me feel horribly inferior and I insist that you cease and desist.

[Prime Mover]

They go as far back as FFV. FFV's job system was explained by Boco the Chocobo. FFVIs Relic and Magicite systems were explained by Mog the Moogle. FF7s were explained by Cloud, and FFVIII were explained by Quistis. All were about comperable. I think FFVs were the longest and slowest though. I don't really remember FF8s though, but they were probably the most forgivable because the system was the most complicated. Materia and Magicite are fucking dirt simple though, they didn't really need those tutorials.