NO-GOs in RPGs

[FrostyFireMage]

- Areas of No Return where you can't go back to previous areas to collect important items/do quests

- Status effect skills/spells that are totally useless because it's just quicker to kill the enemies outright

- There is one character that is far superior to the others to the point where the other characters are more or less cheerleaders

[Azure Sen]

-Absurdly high encounter rates. If the player can't go three steps without being forced into an encounter, there's a problem.

-Out of nowhere stealth sections in games with no stealth mechanics (and even some that do, lookin' at you Golden Sun). You are not Metal Gear Solid, stop trying to be Metal Gear Solid, and no you don't get points for just having the characters give up on the stealth if they get caught, you shouldn't have had the stealth section in the first place.

-Arbitrary party restrictions/forcing you to use a certain character for dumb reasons not related to the plot. I was thinking particularly of Xenoblade Chronicles X (as while I can understand Elma, Lin adds almost nothing to the story events) and Persona 3 (where Yukari forces herself into the party for petty reasons during the Hierophant/Lovers operation), but any game where a party slot is taken away arbitrarily is annoying.

Edited April 25, 2017 by AzureSen
Elma isn't the ship from Xenosaga, good job me

[Superbus]

I can think of a few things that continue to persist in 2017:

* A lack of an auto-save feature - I can understand having save points. It's kind of dumb, especially on mobile, but I get it from a difficulty curve standpoint. But not being able to drop and run from a game without penalty - ESPECIALLY on mobile - is inexcusable.

* Missables - More specifically, missable major items that you can only get at a certain point, for a certain time, doing a certain, very specific thing that you had to have a strategy guide to do. This, of course, was a bigger problem in the days before GameFAQs (PSX era); I missed my chance at the Da Chao Fire Chamber in my FF VII replay because of this shit.

* Game Over on leader death - Look, I know Persona 4 got Gary Stu levels of stupid after awhile. But I refuse to believe that the entire party, including our support character, was so traumatized by my guy his ass kicked that they forgot to cast the same Recarm spell they just casted six times in five minutes to save Teddie's sorry ass.

* Pay-to-win in premium RPGs - You're already making me pay X dollars just to play. Then you're probably charging me Y dollars for the optional-but-not-really DLC. Don't start putting healing and crafting items behind a damn paywall, too. This is a major problem with certain Idea Factory games.