Fnord
SasqWatch
So I've been playing a bunch of RPGs this year, some old, some new, and there's a bunch of things that seem to be somewhat common in older RPGs that I'm glad we almost never see anymore.
Illusory Walls (and similar)
So many older RPGs hide important items behind walls that look like just any other wall. The only way to know that there's something behind it is to just rub yourself against every wall you see, and hope that it will let you through. I'm somewhat fine with this when it comes to purely optional things (although I still don't like them), but for things you have to find to progress, they're just so annoying. Sorry, but I don't like rubbing myself against walls constantly, it's not fun gameplay, it's not challenging, it's just wasting my time.
Tiny (almost) hidden buttons
Similar to Illusory walls, we have tiny buttons that you need to find in order to progress, which just forces you to slowly scan your surrounding to find that button, checking every wall for anything that might look just a little bit out of place. Or buttons hidden underneath a lot of other junk. They're just obnoxious.
Spinners
Spinners make you spin. It's that simple. They were (probably) introduced to mess with you when you make your own maps, by disorienting you. That's obnoxious, and just wastes your time. In some games you've got an automap, but they still keep the spinners in, and here they really serve no purpose. They just spin you around. That's it. Worse yet are random spinners, which will make you face a random direction every time you step on them. I hate spinners. They're not fun, they never were fun, and I don't get how anyone thoughts they were a good idea.
Level drain
So you just got hit by a wight? Sorry, but now you just lost a level. Better reload, because if you accept every level drain that happens to you, you'll soon be level 1! Strahd's Possession is really obnoxious when it comes to level drain, but many other games have it as well (in particular D&D-based ones)
Roller-coaster rides of difficulty levels
So this area had red dragons, plenty of them, and now in the next area I'm fighting wolves? While difficulty needs its highs and lows, you can't just have all highs (or it will get tiring), going from one area with massively powerful enemies, and in the next area facing early-game enemies just feels silly. And fighting those wolves just feels like a waste of time.
Everything has to be a maze
While the overly linear level design of a lot of modern games can be really boring, the opposite extreme, everything being an illogical maze, is also boring, and often feels just as unrealistic. There's a middle ground, where you make a logical level that looked like it could have been used for whatever the area was used for, and where you force the player to explore to find keys, buttons, clues on how to solve the puzzle and so on. There's a place for mazes, don't get me wrong, but not everything should be one.
Instant death or instant "you're out of the fight" spells/abilities purely based on luck
Ever had your character just die because they failed a resistance roll? Or have someone be incapacitated for 5 min? Yeah, this is not fun. If you've got instant death abilities, make them avoidable through skill, not just by adding +2 to resistance against death.
Lack of information on equipment
So what deals more damage, a long sword, a broadsword or a bastard sword? Some games wont' tell you, you're just supposed to figure it out on your own. Sometimes that information is in the manual, sometimes it's not.
Clutter of mundane items to find the magic item
Some games just throw loads of mundane items at you, with a few magic items thrown in for good measure, but it does not tell you which item is magic, and which is not, you just have to go through every item, on its own, trying to identify it. If a game is not doing something clever with it, like the paladin sword in Icewind Dale, this is just obnoxious.
These are just some of the things that have been driving me nuts in some of the older games I've been playing recently.
Illusory Walls (and similar)
So many older RPGs hide important items behind walls that look like just any other wall. The only way to know that there's something behind it is to just rub yourself against every wall you see, and hope that it will let you through. I'm somewhat fine with this when it comes to purely optional things (although I still don't like them), but for things you have to find to progress, they're just so annoying. Sorry, but I don't like rubbing myself against walls constantly, it's not fun gameplay, it's not challenging, it's just wasting my time.
Tiny (almost) hidden buttons
Similar to Illusory walls, we have tiny buttons that you need to find in order to progress, which just forces you to slowly scan your surrounding to find that button, checking every wall for anything that might look just a little bit out of place. Or buttons hidden underneath a lot of other junk. They're just obnoxious.
Spinners
Spinners make you spin. It's that simple. They were (probably) introduced to mess with you when you make your own maps, by disorienting you. That's obnoxious, and just wastes your time. In some games you've got an automap, but they still keep the spinners in, and here they really serve no purpose. They just spin you around. That's it. Worse yet are random spinners, which will make you face a random direction every time you step on them. I hate spinners. They're not fun, they never were fun, and I don't get how anyone thoughts they were a good idea.
Level drain
So you just got hit by a wight? Sorry, but now you just lost a level. Better reload, because if you accept every level drain that happens to you, you'll soon be level 1! Strahd's Possession is really obnoxious when it comes to level drain, but many other games have it as well (in particular D&D-based ones)
Roller-coaster rides of difficulty levels
So this area had red dragons, plenty of them, and now in the next area I'm fighting wolves? While difficulty needs its highs and lows, you can't just have all highs (or it will get tiring), going from one area with massively powerful enemies, and in the next area facing early-game enemies just feels silly. And fighting those wolves just feels like a waste of time.
Everything has to be a maze
While the overly linear level design of a lot of modern games can be really boring, the opposite extreme, everything being an illogical maze, is also boring, and often feels just as unrealistic. There's a middle ground, where you make a logical level that looked like it could have been used for whatever the area was used for, and where you force the player to explore to find keys, buttons, clues on how to solve the puzzle and so on. There's a place for mazes, don't get me wrong, but not everything should be one.
Instant death or instant "you're out of the fight" spells/abilities purely based on luck
Ever had your character just die because they failed a resistance roll? Or have someone be incapacitated for 5 min? Yeah, this is not fun. If you've got instant death abilities, make them avoidable through skill, not just by adding +2 to resistance against death.
Lack of information on equipment
So what deals more damage, a long sword, a broadsword or a bastard sword? Some games wont' tell you, you're just supposed to figure it out on your own. Sometimes that information is in the manual, sometimes it's not.
Clutter of mundane items to find the magic item
Some games just throw loads of mundane items at you, with a few magic items thrown in for good measure, but it does not tell you which item is magic, and which is not, you just have to go through every item, on its own, trying to identify it. If a game is not doing something clever with it, like the paladin sword in Icewind Dale, this is just obnoxious.
These are just some of the things that have been driving me nuts in some of the older games I've been playing recently.