Summoning NPCs for quest lines.

[Pillagius]

There is no need to keep mercenary girl Kukajin alive: summon her, kill the boss and regardless of her performance pay her, back at the hub.

Not sure yet about other NPCs.

Requiring to summon NPCs to progress their quest lines is a terrible design choice - people playing these games are looking for a challenge, and NPCs aren't helping with that.

[vandalism]

Dude I saved her and now she is back at the hub but still just sitting there saying don't trust magic. Also she is still in the swamp when I go back there. What a mess. I think it's cause I entered the boss arena prior to saving her.

[Pillagius]

Originally posted by vandalism:

Dude I saved her and now she is back at the hub but still just sitting there saying don't trust magic. Also she is still in the swamp when I go back there. What a mess. I think it's cause I entered the boss arena prior to saving her.

I think I've read about it - not to start the bossfight before you free her. We know why now.

[60mph gorilla]

Originally posted by Pillagius:

There is no need to keep mercenary girl Kukajin alive: summon her, kill the boss and regardless of her performance pay her, back at the hub.

Not sure yet about other NPCs.

Requiring to summon NPCs to progress their quest lines is a terrible design choice - people playing these games are looking for a challenge, and NPCs aren't helping with that.

Souls games do this all the time. DS1 and DS2 especially. I remember in DS2 you had to summon that Mirrah chick like 3 times to complete her quest. If you didn't then uh oh

[Pillagius]

Originally posted by Giant Feeble Lard Baby:

Souls games do this all the time. DS1 and DS2 especially. I remember in DS2 you had to summon that Mirrah chick like 3 times to complete her quest. If you didn't then uh oh

Yeah, and FromSoftware did away with it (DS2, to be fair, wasn't even handled by their A-team and had whole bunch of experiments with its mechanics in general, almost to its detriment).
That's kinda the point, though - you have an example of mechanics that didn't jive well with players and years later in a new game devs: "Yeah, why not keep that thing that nobody liked?".

[Mannikins]

I wouldn't play an action RPG if I was looking for a challenge. I just want to explore a fantasy world and make a custom character to play the game in a way I find cool; the "Pruhpare 2 Die" meme needs to end at some point.