Things that do not make sense in games

[mlnevese]

Sometimes we see things that make no sense at all in games.


A good example would be the "Game Over if the main character dies" in computer fantasy RPGs. It doesn't make any sense unless the main character can't be resurrected for some reason, such as the Bhaalspawn in Baldur's Gate where the essence of Bhaal left the body if you died. Most fantasy setting have spells or itens that will allow resurrection, so why the game over. Your party could just drag you to the nearest priest even if none of them could do it themselves.

 

[Skatan]

Critical hit/miss on rolls. Look at any boxer or similar martial artists and see if they critically miss every once in 20 punches, hehe.. I don't mind the mechanic in games per se, but it always feels a bit silly if a level 20 character goes up to a level 1 kobold and misses critically.

 

[m7600]

Merchants have an infinite amount of money. You can sell hundreds of expensive magical items to the same merchant, and they will never say "I don't have enough money to buy all of this stuff".

 

[alice_ashpool]

Critical hit/miss on rolls. Look at any boxer or similar martial artists and see if they critically miss every once in 20 punches, hehe.. I don't mind the mechanic in games per se, but it always feels a bit silly if a level 20 character goes up to a level 1 kobold and misses critically.

as the greatest swordsperson in the realm 1 in 20 times you cut off your own fingers and stab yourself in the foot.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Critical hit/miss on rolls. Look at any boxer or similar martial artists and see if they critically miss every once in 20 punches, hehe.. I don't mind the mechanic in games per se, but it always feels a bit silly if a level 20 character goes up to a level 1 kobold and misses critically.

Even worse, in some games it can happen if the level 20 fighter uses a hammer to hit a DOOR! Critical miss!

Also, what makes no sense but amuses me a lot: Being able to steal equipped items. Sneak up on a person, take the large shield out of their hands and walk away without them noticing? Hilarious!

 

[Nimran]

Even worse, in some games it can happen if the level 20 fighter uses a hammer to hit a DOOR! Critical miss!

Also, what makes no sense but amuses me a lot: Being able to steal equipped items. Sneak up on a person, take the large shield out of their hands and walk away without them noticing? Hilarious!

Yes, that could never realistically happen. *looks around shiftily*

 

[mlnevese]

Also why can't you kill a merchant and take away his infinite stash of money and all of the equipment?

 

[BelgarathMTH]

Drinking potions during melee combat. "Excuse me, would you please stop swinging that sword for a few seconds while I grab and uncork this bottle and take a drink to heal the wound you just gave me? Thanks, I'm good to go now."

 

[mlnevese]

Drinking potions during melee combat. "Excuse me, would you please stop swinging that sword for a few seconds while I grab and uncork this bottle and take a drink to heal the wound you just gave me? Thanks, I'm good to go now."

It's even better on sci fi games... "Please Mr. Giant Killer Robot, can you pause your homing missiles, death lasers and atomic grenades for a moment while the nanobots in this med kit repair my body? Thank you!"

 

[m7600]

Plus you can drink dozens of potions during combat without having to urinate some moments later.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Also why can't you kill a merchant and take away his infinite stash of money and all of the equipment?

Well there's that mage, he has an insurance company, they sell an invisible chest where merchants keep their inventory, with a matching bracelet that registers their health level, so as soon as the merchant gets seriously injured or killed, the chest locks and teleports to a safe place, in the mage's basement.
If the merchant survives or someone resurrects him, they can claim his goods for an appropriate safekeeping fee, and if he remains dead, the inventory is put to good use by the helpful insurance company.

 

[m7600]

Here's one about RTS games that I find mind-boggling. Let's say that one of your peasants starts building a barracks. If you click on a button that says something like "train this unit", soldiers start emerging from that building. But how is this possible? That building was initially empty. When the peasant finished constructing it, no soldiers went in there to garrison it. So how is it possible to train units in a building that was initially empty? It's as if they appeared out of thin air.

 

[mlnevese]

Look! A building that is almost falling apart with wood doors that are partially rotten!
*tries to kick the door*
*You need a ley to open this door*
Fires a mini nuke
*You need a key to open this door*

 

[BelgarathMTH]

Here's another one: Hammerspace in games. For anyone unfamiliar with the trope slang word, it refers to the way in games you can just summon a war hammer, or any other weapon, out of thin air.

Slashing damage from your sword not working against those skeletons? Poof - turn it into a mace.

Need to change your plate +1 to that magic chain mail with the specific free action ability? Poof - your suit of armor is changed.

Need to fire your bow until the enemy closes and then switch to weapon and shield? Poof - your bow disappears and your weapon appears in your hand, your heavy shield strapped to your other arm and ready to block.

Need to find that magic item in your pack you've been saving for this enemy that just surprised you? No worries. Poof - there it is in your hand.

I think warriors are actually the most powerful magicians in any fantasy game, what with how they just magically produce whatever in their hands they need, then make it just magically go away when they need their hands for something else.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

Okay I really hope I understand correctly that this is a thread to laugh about unrealistic things in games if you imagined them in real life, and not what people actually wish to be implemented in a more realistic way.

I already don't particularly enjoy exaggerated fatigue, cold and hunger mechanics unless survival is an explicit core element of the game.
I suppose at least some of us would easily get frustrated with a game where you get hacked to pieces because drinking a potion means taking off your backpack (speaking of which, wearing a full backpack in a fight should seriously hamper your dexterity and movement), putting it down, rummaging around and digging through all you carry to finally get that bottle, screw off the lid and get beheaded or have bled to death the moment the bottle finally touches your lips.

I think most games already do a lot to make it more realistic by drawing attacks of opportunity when drinking a potion, losing dexterity/dodge based AC bonus while using a healing spell, or things like grave injuries that remain after resurrection or after more serious hits and that apply certain penalties and need a special treatment or extensive rest to go away.
Several games also make it take a few seconds to draw or change your weapon, for example, or don't let you change armour in a fight. I think that's as much realism as we can expect, unless we prefer to play without pausing too.
And I'm especially grateful for the mercy of not receiving a severe concentration penalty if you realize in the middle of a fight with a huge dragon that your bladder is rather full after all these potions

 

[m7600]

In the Diablo series (which I love), when you defeat a skeleton, it drops some gold coins. But the skeleton didn't have a bag of coins, or anything like that. So where did it stash the gold?

 

[BelgarathMTH]

@Urdnot_Wrex , Yes, we're joking. The silly things are probably necessary for the games to be fun, but they're still silly if you switch your mindset. Imagine a Monty Python sketch where the characters are actually doing what we do in games, acted out as a movie.

I try to keep the silliness to a minimum in my own games, but that's just me. I usually don't let my archers carry shields, for example, and I refrain from going into my backpack during combat. Too much nonsense ruins my immersion. If I'm about to die, I have to make a decision whether to suspend disbelief and do it anyway so I can keep playing. It depends on how much fun I'm getting out of the game.

The original Baldur's Gate tried to reduce the problem of strained suspension of disbelief with the quick slots mechanic. It would actually unpause the game if you went into your inventory, but that mechanic was met with massive player complaints, which is why they took that out for Baldur's Gate 2, rendering the quick slots on the interface kind of redundant. EE went even further in that direction when they started letting you carry a shield and a bow at the same time, even though the shield bonuses are inactive while the bow is being used. They figured players were just pausing the game and switching out bows and weapon/shield combos anyway, so they figured players would like having the process made more convenient.

 

[BelgarathMTH]

In the Diablo series (which I love), when you defeat a skeleton, it drops some gold coins. But the skeleton didn't have a bag of coins, or anything like that. So where did it stash the gold?

Ever tried to imagine where you got those gold coins from the dead wolf or bear? I have, which usually ends with me going "Eww."

 

[Chronicler]

Sometimes we see things that make no sense at all in games.


A good example would be the "Game Over if the main character dies" in computer fantasy RPGs. It doesn't make any sense unless the main character can't be resurrected for some reason, such as the Bhaalspawn in Baldur's Gate where the essence of Bhaal left the body if you died. Most fantasy setting have spells or itens that will allow resurrection, so why the game over. Your party could just drag you to the nearest priest even if none of them could do it themselves.

To be fair, if we're talking "Most fantasy settings" in games they tend to avoid outright calling it death at all.

Final Fantasy for example always calls it "K.O.", presumably short for Knockout. The Phoenix Downs cure "K.O.'d" allies, but this is different from like genuine death. Same with all the revive spells and such.

Within the fiction I think you get gameover when the entire party is knocked out, because at that point there's nothing to stop the monsters from eating you or whatever, and outside of that death basically only occurs in cut scenes.

I feel like that does still leave some questions though. Like the paper mario games call it "K.O.", but also like the game immediately ends if Mario is knocked out. Any of the companions can get knocked out and Mario keeps fighting, but you can have the whole crew in prime condition and when Mario gets knocked out you get the game over screen.

 

[Skatan]

With regards to wearing backpack and other adventuregear in combat, a bit off topic but a guy called Shadiversity on youtube have many videos on the topic where he tries it out and it often work better than you would expect. He also "proves" (if we can call it that) that wearing a twohanded weapon and a shield at the same time is very much doable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5znQ50HNB8&list=PLWklwxMTl4syeLHqL3DD0GrPoXHwkZkHJ