What trips your aggro meter?

Is depleting your magic halfway through a fight usually bad gameplay? I mean, I know at least one RPG where it's actually not a terrible playstyle, because you're less likely to die from "Not enough MP" and more likely to die from "Didn't nuke the enemy hard enough", not to mention the problem of packs. (i.e. if you can handle 5 enemies of type X but it's challenging, then 6 is rapidly approaching TPK, and 4 is far safer, so fire nukes to get their numbers down fast. In a game where enemies are intelligent or operating in packs automatically so that you can't one-at-a-time them, burning MP early, even burning out, is a good tactic, especially if natural MP regen is a thing. EDIT: In a game that tries to model combat semi-realistically, where you get weaker the more you're hurt or strikes cause injuries, burning out MP fast is plausibly one of the best tactics.) Of course, in that case, you have to make it clear that it isn't a bad playstyle, I guess? It has to not be bad gameplay in the story.

 

I come from WoW, and mana management is a thing since it's constantly regenerating during the fight. And, in any case, running out of magic halfway through the fight means now you're powerless and the fight is only half over, so...I'd still call it a case of bad gameplay/bad resource management. Especially if you're the healer, and now your tank and dps are dying because the healer went OOM... (which is what happened in the story that triggered this thread, actually!)

 

The undead bears in Western Plaguelands. Or more accurately, I trip their agro meter at 40 levels in the wrong direction then run screaming.

Wait. Bathroom breaks in raids. Really. I haven't been in a single raid in a single game where someone hasn't gone 'brb' as we're about to pull.

 

Ahh, the welcome bears. I love the welcome bears. Every start zone should suddenly dump you out in a zone 15 levels higher with bear-lined roads, really.

(I normally play alliance, but whenever I roll Horde I take them to Silverpine to make sure I can give them the true West Plague experience.)

The best part is when we've already done the ready check and suddenly it's "BRB bio" when they've already said they're ready. Just don't click "yes" if you aren't ready!

 

overly lengthy fight scenes/fight scenes were supposed to care about
Ok so for one i absolutely hate it when a fight seen goes on for way too long it just wastes my time and usualy is them listing a sequence of events that ends in the mc is almost dead whoops he just used the mcguffin now hes maxed and won.

Fights were supposed to care about
This is a real big one for me when autors keep putting in fights and in them the character wins a ton of stuff and im supposed to think that this isnt just a way for the author to give the MC free stuff.

Another point to this that i think needs to be said is fight sceens are the most booring part of any book describeing how your character is chopping through enemies dosent contribute whatsoever the best fight scenes are when the majority is the mc talking about what they are planning in the fight or where there intersperesed with important dialouge but characters locking swords and fighting is about the most booring part of any book as it dosent contribute in any way to the story or anything really

 

It's always weird when the games that attempt to model "reality" don't have welcome bears, honestly. Especially in the flavors of litrpg where the game is reality, or supposed to make inherent sense- I mean, sometimes reasonable progression is justified, but if players really do spawn in different places, it'd be surprising if some players don't get the welcome bears experience.

Any books you'd say do capture the feeling of a welcome bear?

More on topic- I have a hard time appreciating skills acquired but never used. Sometimes there's good reason, but usually it just feels like a waste of energy.

 

It is I personaly think that a character should only have a few skills they use creatively rather then a bunch of skills that they never use and you forget immediately sure giving skills in the short run might feel like progress but in the long run it ruins books.

 

This - unless there is reasonable and valid interaction between skills

 

And if you really want the real life experience...
Have your first boss battle be the Walmart welcome greeter... Better hope you have the receipt for all that loot...

 

One of my pet peeves is when a character obtains great power without ANY downside. Like there's no consequences for totally overusing the power, or no limiting on that use, or else they can literally solo everything everywhere at any time.
With great power comes great responsibility I'd like to see more powers limited like that

 

My aggro trigger might not be a popularly held pet-peeve. But, since the title of this thread is about me...

Pop-culture references.

Here I am, lulled into a perfectly immersive fantasy/sci-fi trance- then bam, [real-world thing only the reader should know about]. A few here or there are fine, and the more hidden the reference, the better.
I'm a fan of subtlety.
Anyway, I don't want to come in like a wrecking ball or anything. A lot of popular authors use pop-culture references to successfully create a relatable baseline for their MC.

 

Is that an issue in any form of LitRPG, or only the forms where "real life" is the game, or the characters enter the "gameverse" or whatever? If the setting is explicitly a game, and there's still a real world, do you still have issues with pop culture references? If it's in the far future of the real world, does a "pop culture misinterpreted" reference qualify? I mean, too many references are probably annoying no matter what, but-

 

Great question(s), RandomFan.

I guess, for me at least, it's a literary device that drives me nuts across the genre board. And I want to be clear; I'm not saying they have no place, or that authors shouldn't use them.
I've used them. The MC in Book 1 of my Enthralled series uses the phrase, "I'm a Lover baby, not a Fighter," about two in-game classes. In centaur-and-slimes fantasy, I would rather it be slim to none. Even in the "real-life" LitRPGs, I find pop-culture references jarring. I read to escape the bombardment of what other humans flap on about with their mouth noises. Super Sales on Super Heros by William D. Aarand is a "real-life" one, right? I don't remember there being many pop-R's in the first book.
Is there a LitRPG I'm not aware of that is about a Starbucks barista gaining mocca late levles? (I'm being serious.)

Bottom line: I prefer fantasy or far-future LitRPG stories, and I dislike P-Ref's in those.

 

Ooh, sounds Galaxy Quest-y.

 

Well, some are set five minutes forwards, in which case the difference barely matters. Also, if they're set far enough, referencing today's best remembered TV series might be as cultured or faux-cultured as referencing mythology today, if they survived. There was a blog post for an RPG setting somewhere on that[1], the idea isn't original, but 2 millennium forwards is about enough time to make our social obsessions today what the Roman's obsessions are to us. Well known series that are vaguely remembered for long periods of time may be mistaken for genuine religious systems. Which ones survived is a matter of author fiat, but- I can definitely see Doctor Who being mistaken for a 21st century trickster god of time, or the Weeping Angels and Daleks becoming public domain mythological monsters, like vampires and kitsune are today.

In that case, the references are there, but the cultural context is horribly inaccurate. Still, you're right, most "pop culture" references will fall flat or break suspension of disbelief.

[1] Lurking Rhythmically: Traveller Tuesday: Ancient Terran Culture - Ponies. Pistols. Prepping. , if you want to see the full explanation of how this could happen, though it is in the context of a specific RPG setting, the idea applies to most far-future settings..

 

This is an issue I have in all sorts of speculative fiction set in the far future. How often do you drop some pithy saying from 17th century literature? How often do you drop some pithy saying from 1918? WHY are people from 2418 still namedropping Leeerooooy Jenkins?