History ScrappyMechanic / RolePlayingGames

** In some versions of ''VideoGame/YsIAncientYsVanishedOmen'', bosses will have roughly ten times more health and attack power if you come to the fight underleveled. This pretty much forces you to get killed, then go back and grind until that stops happening. There's a good chance this was supposed to make you feel like you got massively stronger, but it demands superhuman levels of naiveté to not see it for the lazy stat gate that it is.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'':
** The game's influence system is this for some, but the most prominently disliked feature is the "jealousy" featured between the other two members of your player character's love triangle, depending on which gender you play. For female characters, high influence with the Disciple and low influence with Atton results in a couple arguments between the two, but that's the extent of it. However, a male character who has high influence with Visas and low influence with the Handmaiden will see an argument between them, with the Handmaiden becoming so infuriated with the player that she refuses to speak to them for the rest of the game. This means you lose out on her sparring matches, which can teach you an extra ability to add your wisdom bonus to your defense, and more pertinently, the ability to [[spoiler: train her in the ways of the Force.]]

** Many people dislike the fact that only ten auctions per account are allowed on the gold auction house -- if you have alts or play AT ALL you will quickly exceed that limit, and combined with limited on character and joint character inventory it can be a pain. As a result, most gear you find is turned into VendorTrash because it will take up too much space. That gear sells for so little, and giving it to the blacksmith to turn into items for him is pointless as most blacksmith items are terrible.

** Aux Cores are one of several ways to power up your blades in battle. They're only obtained as quest rewards or monster drops, and even then can't be used right away. Instead, you have to take them to someone who can refine the aux core in exchange for [[VendorTrash random items]]. This extra step is annoying, but at least you can usually select which collectibles to use, helping get rid of excess items that you have nothing to do with. For some rarer aux cores, however, you have to give a very specific set of items, and [[GuideDangIt good luck figuring out where some of those are]]. Notably, in ''[[ExpansionPack Torna ~ The Golden Country]]'', [[AuthorsSavingThrow refining is skipped over]], making aux cores much easier to use.

** The root of most players' problems with the mechanics comes from the tutorials. You can view every tutorial exactly once, with no option to go back to them later. If you miss it the first time around, you missed it (you can buy tutorials from informants in cities around the game, but they're just short hints). Not that it'd be that helpful to go back to them, as the game's tutorials are [[TheComputerIsALyingBastard notorious for being incomplete, misleading, or flat out wrong]]. Frequently, the problem with the mechanics is more about the game explaining it poorly rather than the mechanics themselves being flawed.

** ''Enemies calling for help''. It was already annoying in the previous two games and is made even worse here. Doesn't help much that most of the enemies that are able to call for help are usually GoddamnedBats.

* Any JRPG with the option of attempting to escape from battle that has a chance of failure. The only times the player will try to escape are when the fight would waste too much time, or when in very serious danger of losing if they don't get out. In both cases, the possibility of failing to escape is frustrating at best and can lead to a death at worst. Some games mitigate this by having consumable items, spells, or special skills that serve as a guaranteed means of escaping battle.
* A strictly limited inventory, which leads to characters picking up more than they can hold and having to either sell, stash or discard others to be able to acquire new ones. Far too often, the limit is strict to the point of impeding gameplay. Essential quest items can also take up storage space, limiting a player's supply of consumables or alternate gear even further. Can be commonly found in older [=RPGs=] like the ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' series, early installments of the ''Franchise/ShiningSeries'' and [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue the first generation]] of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games.
* In virtually ''all'' [=RPGs=], dead or otherwise defeated characters gain NO experience points (or other experience-styled points for that matter). This can really be insulting to players that won a close battle, and in many cases, creates FakeLongevity (especially after certain bosses) when they have to waste extra hours to grind back the experience to get the previously-defeated characters levelled up. If there is that opportunity, that is... in more egregious cases, they simply CantCatchUp.
* Any RPG game where [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the game ends if the main character bites it]], but the party has the means to make you un-bite it. [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration In-game story or plot justifications]] for this mechanic does little to alleviate the frustration it can invoke upon players.
* [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration From a gameplay perspective]], any RPG where [[SoLongAndThanksForAllTheGear a playable character leaves the party and takes any equipped items with them]] will usually result in a soft reset from an exasperated player. Heaven forbid you didn't save your game in a while!

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'':

** An old-school one: forcing an immediate GameOver whenever the PlayerCharacter is [[StandardStatusEffects petrified or imprisoned]]. You can have a dozen stone-to-flesh scrolls and could undo it in a heartbeat, but noooo, it's GameOver just 'cause <CHARNAME>, and only they, got turned into a statue. In game terms, they're not even dead!

** The level up system, which is accessed through blue save points. To level up, you have to teleport to a church through blue flowers and reflect upon your experiences. In practice, this was not only time consuming, but it was possible at one point to [[UnwinnableByMistake trap yourself]] on the enemy airship, right before ThatOneBoss, with no way of leveling up by overwriting your save file using a red flower (that lets you save, but not level up).

** ANY RPG game where [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the game ends if the main character bites it]], but the party has the means to make you [[BuffySpeak un-bite it.]] This goes for ''Baldur's Gate'', as well as ''Persona 3'' and ''4'', as mentioned above. [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration In-game story or plot]] [[JustifiedTrope justifications]] for this mechanic does little to alleviate [[NintendoHard the frustration]] [[FakeDifficulty it can invoke upon players]].

* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2: Mask of the Betrayer'':
** The Spirit Eater curse. Of course, playing properly (with proper alignment), it's easy to keep the bar full with only limited need to eat soul, and lowest hunger. If you choose to be a villain with it however, your cravings will rapidly exceed the available supply of spirits. You can remedy this using Satiate, which often involves waiting 15-30 minutes '''[[AC:REAL-TIME]]''' before you're allowed to use it. Before patches, the Spirit Eater abilities shifted you either towards LawfulGood or ChaoticEvil, bad news for ChaoticGood, LawfulEvil, or TrueNeutral characters.

** The [[BribingYourWayToVictory Real-money auction house]] also gets a lot of grief, since it lets players substitute real-world money for competence at actually playing the game.
** Prior to patch 1.0.8, the GuideDangIt nature of the Auction House: Since only adjustments to base stats were listed, you needed either pencil & paper or a third-party site to figure out whether the item you were considering would actually be an improvement.

* ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'' has a cast time for each action, similar to the ''VideoGame/{{Grandia}}'' series. If a character is attacked during that time, their action is cancelled. The game's strategy thus comes from timing your attacks so you hit enemies while they are casting their attacks. But for some reason, the developers gave some enemies "interrupt counters", which makes them instantly perform a powerful attack if you interrupt them. Why did anyone think it would be a good idea to punish players for making clever tactical decisions?

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', Athenian Water[[note]]"Revive" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] is not the most popular of items. It revives a KO'd ally and restores 50 HP. Sounds good on paper, but 50 HP becomes low-tier fast. By mid-game, regular {{Mooks}} can easily reduce a revived ally's HP to single digits or KO them with one attack. This can be circumvented by having a second ally ready with a Mid-Potion[[note]]"Mid Tonic" in the SNES translation[[/note]] to immediately restore 200 HP (which doesn't really work if two playable characters are KO'd, as there can only be three active playable characters at any one time), or by using Crono's Raise[[note]]"Life" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] or Marle's Arise[[note]]"Life 2" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] Techs (which doesn't work if Crono/Marle is KO'd).

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', the Athenian Water[[note]]"Revive" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] is not the most popular of items. It revives a KO'd ally and restores 50 HP. Sounds good on paper, but 50 HP becomes low-tier fast. By mid-game, regular {{Mooks}} can easily reduce a revived ally's HP to single digits or KO them with one attack. This can be circumvented by having a second ally ready with a Mid-Potion[[note]]"Mid Tonic" in the SNES translation[[/note]] to immediately restore 200 HP (which doesn't really work if two playable characters are KO'd, as there can only be three active playable characters at any one time), or by using Crono's Raise[[note]]"Life" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] or Marle's Arise[[note]]"Life 2" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] Techs (which doesn't work if Crono/Marle is KO'd).

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', the Athenian Water[[note]]"Revive" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] is not the most popular of items. It revives a KO'd ally and restores 50 HP. Sounds good on paper, but 50 HP becomes low-tier fast. By mid-game, enemies can easily reduce a revived ally's HP to single digits or KO them with one attack. This can be circumvented by having a second ally ready with a Mid-Potion[[note]]"Mid Tonic" in the SNES translation[[/note]] to immediately restore 200 HP (which doesn't really work if two playable characters are KO'd, as there can only be three active playable characters at any one time), or by using Crono's Raise[[note]]"Life" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] or Marle's Arise[[note]]"Life 2" in the SNES English translation[[/note]] Techs (which doesn't work if Crono/Marle is KO'd).

** In the PC version, you essentially have to use two controllers; the keyboard/controller for Aurora and the mouse for Igniculus, because [[SarcasmMode we all know how well that worked]] for ''VideoGame/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' for the UsefulNotes/Atari2600. The player isn't completely dependent on Igniculus so it's not as bad as it could have been, but unless you have a second player it can still be a bit of a nuisance.

* A strictly limited inventory, which leads to characters picking up more than they can hold and having to either sell, stash or discard others to be able to acquire new ones. Far too often, the limit is strict to the point of impeding gameplay. Essential quest items can also take up storage space, limiting a player's supply of consumables or alternate gear even further. A staple of [=RPGs=] like the ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' series, early installments of the ''Franchise/ShiningSeries'' and [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue the first generation]] of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games.

* ''Any'' JRPG where you have the option of attempting to escape from battle, but it has a chance of failure, wasting the action you used to attempt it. The only times you're going to attempt to escape are when you can't be bothered fighting the battle because it's not worth your time (in which case, failure only manages to waste ''more'' of your time), or when you're in very serious danger of losing if you don't get out now (in which case, failing only ''[[UnstableEquilibrium punishes you more]]'' because not only are you still stuck in the battle, you just wasted an action accomplishing jack-squat and are now even closer to getting wiped out). In both cases, the possibility of failing to escape is frustrating at best, ''game-ruining'' at worst, with ''no'' upside. It seems the only reason games do this is [[ThePennyfarthingEffect other games do this]], though some games mitigate this by having consumable items, spells, or special skills that serve as a guaranteed means of escaping battle.
* Another genre-wide one is a strictly limited inventory, which inevitably leads to your characters picking up more items than they can hold and having to either sell, stash or discard others to be able to acquire new ones. Sometimes it's fair enough, you shouldn't expect adventurers to [[HyperspaceArsenal carry around an entire shop's worth of gear unless they're leading a caravan]], but far too often the limit was just ''unreasonably'' strict to the point that it only impeded the gameplay. It's often made even worse when essential quest items also take up storage space, limiting your supply of consumables or alternate gear even more, and could worse still when different party members have their own inventories and can only use items they're holding, often forcing you to do some awkward reshuffling before they can get their hands on their new weapon. A baneful staple of older [=RPGs=] like the ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' series, early installments of the ''Franchise/ShiningSeries'' and [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue the first generation]] of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games, [[ThePennyfarthingEffect it's inexplicably still showing up today]] in games like ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' (where it was ''so'' detested that the 2020 remake actually eased up on it by allowing you to send items directly to Stockpile Thomas if your inventory was full when you tried to take them).

** The root of most players' problems with the mechanics comes from the tutorials. You can view every tutorial exactly once, with no option to go back to them later. If you miss it the first time around, you missed it. Not that it'd be all that helpful if you could go back to them, as the game's tutorials are [[TheComputerIsALyingBastard notorious for being incomplete, misleading, or flat out wrong]]. Frequently, the problem with the mechanics is more about the game explaining it poorly rather than the mechanics themselves being flawed.

** Tiger! Tiger! could be a fun 8-bit minigame, providing miscellaneous rewards and serving as a change of pace from the usual gameplay. The problem is that the game is the only way in a regular playthrough to get parts for Poppiswap, which allows upgrading and customizing the various versions of Poppi. Unless you want to spend a lot of time playing this game, Poppi and by extension Tora aren't going to be that good, which is rough because with the right upgrades, they're easily some of the most powerful characters in the game. New Game Plus and some DLC items made it much easier (including making Tiger! Tiger! unnecessary in NG+), but it's still going to be a hassle in a regular playthrough.

** Spike auras, which cause enemies to deal damage to you everytime you attack them, separately from their usual attacks. Dealing with these requires a lot of healing, using temporary measures to get rid of auras, or using up a bunch of gem slots. There are also different types of spikes, including ones that only trigger when the enemy is toppled (unable to fight back or evade attacks), and the notorious Instant Death spike, which takes a completely different type of gem to prevent and is on the most powerful monster in the game. To make this somehow even worse, the original game gave no indication that an enemy had a spike aura until you started taking damage from them.

** The root of most players' problems with the mechanics comes from the tutorials. You can view every tutorial exactly once, with no option to go back to them later. If you miss it the first time around, you missed it. Not that it'd be all that helpful if you could go back to them, as the game's tutorials are notorious for being incomplete, misleading, or flat out wrong. Frequently, the problem with the mechanics is more about the game explaining it poorly rather than the mechanics themselves being flawed.
** A lot of rare blades are obtained randomly, meaning you have to open a bunch of core crystals just hoping you get the right blade on the right driver. It's possible to tilt things in your favor, but even if you get everything perfect (and you won't), the rarest blade is at best a 1/140 chance. The sheer number of junk common blades you get also means you'll have to release a bunch of them, treating them as disposable in a way that clashes with the actual story of the game.

** A lot of rare blades are obtained randomly, meaning you have to open a bunch of core crystals just hoping you get the right blade on the right driver. It's possible to tilt things in your favor, but even if you get everything perfect (and you won't), the rarest blade is at best a 1/140 chance. The sheer number of junk common blades you get also means you'll have to release a bunch of them, treating them as disposable in a way that horribly clashes with the actual story of the game.

** Spike auras, which cause enemies to deal damage to you everytime you attack them, separately from their usual attacks. Dealing with these requires a lot of healing, using temporary measures to get rid of auras, or using up a bunch of gem slots. There are also different types of spikes, including ones that only trigger when the enemy is toppled (unable to fight back or evade attacks), and the notorious Instant Death spike, which takes a completely different type of gem to prevent and is on the most powerful monster in the game.