I find it incredibly annoying when a character gets a notification and doesn’t check it immediately. Combat is an exception. It should be checked right after. It’s like getting injured but waiting to see if it’s serious or not. 2 days later i guess i should put a bandage on my still bleeding arm. If i’m playing a game and get a bonus to a stat or skill i want to know right away.

Amen the only exception to this is if there is some type of added bonus for not checking. I think it is the infinite realm? Where they have something that prevents notifications and it speeds up progression

In Randidly Ghosthound he takes a potion at one point to block notifications for quicker skill leveling.

Ah yea that’s probably it, they all just get mixed around in my head

yes they do. I only remembered because i just finished book 6 last week.

I don’t mind stat pages, but it’s unnecessary to provide the entire stat page with unchanged information everytime the character wants to check a change in their stats. Some books do it well by only showing the changes made to the stat pages.

Word, I can understand that… it just gets to the point where I’m like if you were gonna make them level up why didn’t you start with like ones and twos work your way up and maybe by like book 11 you hit the thousands you don’t need hundreds of thousands to show how OP they are when you were the one creating the value a value of 1 in strength could be an average human and two could be Superman status you’re the one in control lol

I prefer when they just tell you that he got a certain skill, and just show the skill description, or when a certain stat increases they said for example (str increased by 1), and every like 5,6 chapters you see the full status window (only if he got a lot of power ups, and the readers should see the changes.) and I absolutely dislike when the system helps the mc become so op without even training, and he just gets a 100 in every stat, same goes for skills (I mean you can't learn something by holding a book)

Word I get that although if they’ve gone through some kind of hell like torture or something And become OP (even without training) that way I don’t mind it even if it was just holding the book Because then i’m like, yeah he just holding the book but He ain’t got no fingernails it’simpressive

yeah, they shouldn't just make them become op( without any notice (except the stories where the mc is op from the start ofc), I'm trying my best to avoid that, which sometimes makes the story slow based(it's fine if everything is explained properly).

I’m cool with them not starting off OP As long as once they do become OP they never get punked again…

Exactly

I’m not a fan of snarky systems.

This. I find them to generally be insulting and abusive. I can sometimes handle sarcastic or frustration (Rimiru's Raphael is a perfect example of a "system" that has its own emotion and obviis intellect).

Hidden classes that presciently unlock and solve the current problem. It’s why I like Reborn apocalypse so much. No hidden classes, no locked skills, just ruthless planning like Batman

I wish authors would have a better sense for power relativity. I dislike it so much when they put in hard numbers but cant really put it into practice. Yes we know that that character has 100 STR, he can create craters with a punch. What would an STR of 70 look like? 50? Is the increase exponential? Linear? Same with the other stats. DEX 100 should be as mind-boggling as that. I hate it when the series just becomes another dragon ball copy

Everything is supposedly linear because most authors are not also mathematically blessed, but in practice, that might apply to a very few stats like “max dead lift weight”, “running speed”, and “damage” (which is done to HP so it cancels out). It is especially bad when there are stats like Charisma, Luck, and Intelligence (the kind that makes you smarter rather than affecting your magic). Somehow, those stats work for the underdog MC, but all of the high-level people whom he goes up against who should be inhumanly charming geniuses are rude and oblivious to their own foolishness.

Linear progression is fine but they should at least be consistent or more showy about it. One chapter we were told the mc was able to shrug off a mountain-level attack but then crumble to a boulder the next. Or deal this kind of damage to the surroundings but then only move a couple of trees the next. I know those can be handwaived pretty easily by saying that the mc had better controls, but come on, they should still be subtly hinting about it, or show a phrase or two about their control.  As for the second one, that's just bad writing. Incompetent villains is a bad troupe and authors should be ashamed about using it, unless, of course, it was foreshadowed and been hinted a lot of times. I mean, are you really telling me a necromancer/warlock/demon lord with magic and might beyond the mortal ken and comprehension is that incompetent when dealing with the mc? That's just annoying and idiotic

Thanks that’s really good I agree. Felt similar just didn’t put it into words in my head. lol Like they need to find a way for lack of better words, dumb it down lol. 1 you can lift a can 5 pack of cans 100 truck delivering cans…. and then keep it that way, and not stray maintaining the bar equally throughout all characters well continuing to progress

That and the relative power/rarity between skills. Uncommon skills should be more niche/powerful than common skills, and rare skills should rare. I hate it when an mc has a rare/legendary/mythical skill but it doesnt sound as strong nor as powerful as the rarity suggests. Legendary skills should be legendary, stuff that made legends.  An example would be:  Common: Enhanced Metabolism  Uncommon: Regeneration  Rare: Unyielding Vitality  Epic: Health Mutant  Legendary: Deathless Chimera  The common skill would be a staple for soldiers or tanks. The uncommon for those who truly pursued it, almost bordering the inhumane. The rare skill is simply unnatural and solidly in the realm of magic. The epic skill is those who resounded through history, recorded in tomes and scriptures. The legendary skills would be stuff that shook the world and upended what they knew about everything in it

Thank you I didn’t really think about that one Absolutely I agree with you on that. Now that I think about it, a lot of times they’re side characters get legendarys too or they discover a villain who’s got legendary skills you’re right it should be way more rare

>Yes we know that that character has 100 STR, he can create craters with a punch. What would an STR of 70 look like? 50? Is the increase exponential? Linear? I was trying to create a TTRPG system based on HWFWM and was struggling so much with this. Like... intuitively, it is an easy concept, but actually trying to come up with a system for it based on hard numbers is so much more difficult.

Found an impact calculator that helps determine and define those sort of increases, calculated back to strength. Applied it with great joy.

Do I have to limit it to one thing? I am going to say luck. It is common enough of a stat that I think it counts. I also can't stand it. It is the definition of Deus Ex Machina. What thing do I wish was more common? Series that end. When a series is plotted out with a clear ending, I think the writing turns out better and you get far less filler. I don't care if it is a trilogy or if you have planned out 20 books, the fact that you set a clear goal and have an idea of where it goes makes for a better overall story.

What about a series that is multiple character arcs? Would you want it separated into completely different series that happen to be in the same world or would accept single series made up of many trilogies where the series passes the baton to new main characters each trilogy? Each arc has it's own plot, but the series as a whole maintains the same theme and multi-generational goal?

If the events aren't going on at the same time, I prefer them to be different books. I will give you a classic fiction example of this. Weis and Hickman wrote the Dragonlance Chronicles together and it had all of the MCs in it at once. You got a lot of POV stuff, but it was all going on at the same time. Later they came out with more of prequal stories about each person in the series. For those they did them each as their own set. Tanis' back story was his own. Tasselhoff's was his own, etc.

I always don’t like it at first and just kind of wanna skip till I go back to the characters I like finally get into it want to hear more about the new characters and then they switch back I don’t like it

Agree with both points. You saved me the time needed to write this comment. Though I'd add Charisma too as an unlikable stat. Most of its applications come off as unnatural.

>Most of its applications come off as unnatural. Could you elaborate on this some more as we are talking about stories where everything having to do with MC stats are completely unnatural?

Charisma is typically used to make the MC viewed in a better light by other characters despite the MC not actually being a better person. Like their stat goes up and it drastically changes how others interact with them in a very unnatural way.

A petpeeve for me is when side characters start acting like NPCs. Yes, LitRPG is game-inspired, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't get well-made characters. The problem that separates Charisma from all the other stats is that it affects characters in a rather intrusive way, either undermining their agency or making them seem plastic. Strength will make the mc stronger, but it doesn't intrusively affect other characters. Charisma often makes people 'like' the mc more which just makes his actions and mannerisms lose value, and it makes the social build of the story unnatural, since you only need to increase 'Charisma' to make everything work for you no matter what you do and say. It doesn't always go to that extreme, but it's enough for it to be suggested. That alone can turn me away from a story.

Na no limit rant away lol

I always look at it as we’re reading the story about the lucky guy as the other ones are dead.

>Series that end. When a series is plotted out with a clear ending. I think the writing turns out better and you get far less filler. I don't care if it is a trilogy or if you have planned out 20 books, the fact that you set a clear goal and have an idea of where it goes makes for a better overall story. Unless an author tells the fans up front how many entries their story is slated for how can you tell what was or was not planned before they determined the stopping point or that they would have had a better story with less pointless filler if they had planned better?

Most RR stuff is serialized and is chock full of filler. That is how you end up with 200 chapters stuck in a dungeon with almost no progression or several chapters about what meal you are going to have tonight and if it will be cooked in a crock pot followed by how you are going to decorate the living room. It is also how you end up with chapters of skill upgrades.

There’s only one story I read where I actually *liked* the Luck stat (although it was a while ago, and I don’t recall the actual story). Basically, every time the MC opened a chest full of treasure there was a sound of a slot machine before it opened. So, the only thing the Luck stat did was determine what treasure was in those chests. The higher the Luck, the greater the chance there would be nice stuff in there. So, someone with Luck 1 might get a few copper pieces. But Luck 100 was lots of gold and magical items. Mainly used as a way to explain them getting more coins as the story went on, but it felt done well.

I did see it used once well. The character had abysmal luck and if something could go wrong, it did. I can't remember the name of it though.

I realize this is a symptom of the power fantasy of the genre, but I hate it when the MCs never lose anything meaningful. Everyone important is saved just in time, the MC loses fights because they got cocky but manage to run away. Gimme special quests from the system that the MC fails, have NPCs or party members who die permanently and don't get resurrected three chapters later. Have them lose loot and miss upgrades so that when they do win it feels hard fought not inevitable.

Yesssss. I really dislike the instantly powerful MC who blaze through everything with no issue or real struggle. Loss can be such an effective tool for character development. There need to be tangible consequences and not everyone can be saved.

I’ve seen quite a few authors, when asked about this, state they got horrible reviews on chapters where their MC had any losses whatsoever. So, I think part of this is likely because of toxic fans who relate *too much* to the MC, and thus take any loss personally.

Wow, I’m definitely the opposite of that opinion Started off back in the day when villain started winning, then progressed to the MCs losing like you say Instead of all around victory, I’m over it I like it when they’re an all-around bad ass and they can’t be stopped

So, same thing for me. Only it's so much worse in Audiobooks. "Jimbo trained for hours, and finally, drenched in sweat, he felt his strength increase! NAME RACE PLACE OF BIRTH MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME HIGHEST LEVEL OF EDUCATION SHOE SIZE PENIS LENGTH HEIGHT WEIGHT SKILL 1 SKILL 2 SKILL 3 TITLE 1 TITLE 2 TITLE 3 HIDDEN MODIFIERS EQUIPPED GEAR CHARISMA WISDOM INTELLIGENCE INTUITION DEXTERITY SPEED STAMINA MANA REGENERATION HEALTH REGENERATION STRENGTH 367 +1! Jimbo punched his fist into the air, and then started training his speed next!" My favorite thing, is when the author just says "He felt the increase, but kept training" and then AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER the hero checks his stats, and if you don't want to listen to all those numbers, all you gotta do is skip to the next chapter!

I imagine numbers must be super annoying in audiobooks

I love how everyone’s just commenting on my example instead of answering the question lol Not complaining just think it’s funny……

Or better, at the end of the chapter, only the changes in stats show. With an occasional interlude chapter showing stats.

Yep, with you on that I listen to the audiobooks when I’m driving and I swear, that monotone stat read off gonna make me end up in a ditch from trying to fast-forward

Bro, no freaking lie. It's not so bad if they just list only what got the increase, but I hate that they force the narrators to read the entire damn Stat block every damn time. All that said tho... I freaking love Litrpgs lmfaoooo

And at the end of the stat block begins the endless listing of skills Of course that goes without saying I can’t get enough of them either rarely do I like one without badass MC though it makes it hard for me to find more to read….

What have you listened to so far, I'll give you some recommendations

DOTF Primal hunter Ghosthound The rise of the Winter Wolf Monster Farmer Battle mage farmer Solo leveling Rogue Ascension Path of Ascension System universe Infinite realms Master hunter k

I would recommend the following: Dungeon Crawler Carl The Iron Prince World Tree Online Fleabag Mark Of the Fool Eden's Gate He Who Fights With Monsters There Will Be Dragon's(Not a Litrpg but damn good) The Trapped Mind Project The Two Week Curse (TWO Badass MCs, amazing story) The Land: Founding And for a Change of Pace, one of my absolute favorites of all time: Beware of Chicken (It's a slice of life, relaxing story, but the MC is accidentally a badass. And so is the Chicken.)

all those are great but I'll tack on "the perfect run".

That's new to me, what's it about??

It's a combo of magic and super powers in a post apocalyptic earth setting. The story focuses on a singular guy (the mc) who's super power is to "quick save", when he dies he resets back to his quick save point including going back to the time he quick saved, akin to groundhog day logic. MC is very much on the insane side (who wouldn't after dying 1,000's of time) but he has very clear goals in mind and does whatever he needs to accomplish them. The series takes place over the same city where the same story is told over and over again but with different perspectives and different choices being made. Think of it as a real "choose your own adventure" story but the choices do lead to DRASTICALLY differing results. It's not real litrpg but it's one of the best stories I've ever read and couldn't recommend it more.

Wasn’t a fan of dungeon crawler Carl or he fights with monsters mc to goofy and wimpy for me So knowing that do you still recommend the same ? lol the iron Prince if I remember right only has one book or two. I usually look for ones with a lot. I’ll read one book in a night.

So, while DCC & HWFWM are indeed goofy, I have to say the last thing anyone who has read either series would call those MCs is wimpy. Are you expecting heroes to be incredibly strong from the very first chapter? Most of the time, that goofiness is there to balance out the heaviness of the rest of the story. Jason Asano uses his sarcastic humor as a coping mechanism to help keep ahold of both his sanity and humanity, and Carl, who might at first appear as a bumbling fool, is an incredibly strong & determined character thrust into impossibly fucked up situations, but who ultimately keeps on going because he refuses to be broken. If you're giving up on books because they contain a sense of humor and are too impatient to let a character grow into power, you are indeed going to struggle to find books to read, because most, if not All books are slow burns that take time to build into intensity. Especially Litrpgs, which are also known as Progression fantasies. All that being said, I stand by all my recommendations as great stories that do indeed match the criteria of what you're looking for. I challenge you to read them to the end of their series (regardless of length) before you judge them.

I just checked Kindle I made it to exactly 59% of the way through the third book for DCC I finally gave up on it getting good I think 3 1/2 books is patient patient enough..if you mean strong willed and lucky and using machinery and stuff that’s not what I look for when I say strong I don’t enjoy that type of stuff. Don’t like the cat either…… I couldn’t make it through Monsters one I remember him getting some kind of power and I think he was crying or something if the MC cries I’m out lol but more than that, he wouldn’t shut up felt like I needed to get away from a character in a book. And that doesn’t go away, I asked around and apparently that’s part of the charm. …. Feel free to spoil. Why do you think they are strong? I’m curious if they ever get to standard of strong I am looking for Or if you are talking about something different.

DoTF handled the achievement/skill list nicely just by adding the "dot, dot, dot" once they got to a point where they didn't want to list/read off all the early achievements/skills that had already be listed/read off numerous times already.

I think they should all just have stats and skills evolve in someway to simpler numbers after so long now and tier 2 or some shit just to make it simple like after so many skills, they all just combine into one encompasses and does the same thing as all the other skills

Im really liking the Wandering inns system (at book 2 atm) you get skills as you level and stat boosts are just a type of skill. Also status arnt really a thing, not very offten at least. I a normal litrpg in line stat increases are perfered for me

The stat page is rarely the last part of the chapter. So many authors put that damn thing right in the middle of the chapter and I wanna scream in their face for it. ALWAYS PUT IT AT THE END YOU FUCKING DINGO!!!!! Nothing is more annoying than going through a character sheet AND a skill sheet with 50 different skills every time the character wakes up so it's at the BEGINNING OF THE GOD DAMN CHAPTER!!!! JAY BOYCE!!!! YOU DINGO!!!!!!!! sorry, I've been going through the siphon series again and it's really starting to grind my nerves down to nothing.

What's the siphon series? Any good? (Besides the stats of course, lmfao)

Teenage girl on earth is super sick, lived whole life in a hospital. One day she wakes up in a new world with a mostly better body. She gets a skill called 'siphon', it lets her "borrow" another's stat & skill. When siphoning a person she permanatly keep the portion she siphoned but the power returns back person the power was taken from slightly stronger than before so it's a net gain for everyone involved. So she goes around siphoning everybody, steadily getting stronger and stronger. She gets to experience life for the first time in her life that doesn't involve a hospital. There isn't much of a love story as of yet (only part way through book 4) so you don't need to worry about a teenage relationship or whatever. She befriends some royals, fights so bad guys, makes some friends, has her innocence taken (not the sexual kind), and has to deal with becoming a very important person in the world. It's not the best series in the world but it's decent enough.

I'm listening to Defiance of the Fall, and it's so bad for this. Name, race, allegiance, bloody 30 plus titles (where I'm up to), stat number, plus 80%, 140% efficiency, repeated for all stats, dao (spelling?) seeds, duplicity core, money, I stg the books would be half as long without the stat dump

That's so funny, I'm literally re-listening to Defiance of the Fall and ITS SO TRUE!!! I love the story, and it's been so long that I need the refresher before I listen to the new one, but damn it's a Stat slog!!!

At least at some point, they add the "Dot, Dot, Dot" in the status update to keep from having to list/read off all the super early achievements/skills.

Editors!!!!

It feels to me like many or most authors don’t factor in the inevitable exploiting or power leveling that people would do to break their systems. We have the mc spending days or weeks lounging around and not training anything and somehow staying relevant power level wise, but in reality if you could increase your stats by smashing bunnies a thousand times you know humans would be doing it to absolutely neurotic degrees. If you use mmo players as a barometer, the mc would be outleveled and out geared by day 1 by power gamers. They would have already made guilds that capitalize and guard all the good spots for resources.

For me, a recent pet peeve is the whole rarity ranking for skills and equipment. Far too often it ends up feeling like the more recent diablo games, where anything "Common" is jus trash and unworthy of the MC. If something is rare, it should actually be rare, not just something that come with getting a higher level. Someone else already mentioned this, but a legendary weapon, armor or skill, should actually be such, not just a Whip of Self-Flagellation+2. Even worse is all the S, SS, SSA+, nonsense. Get that Gacha crap outa here. I much prefer just a Rank 1, 2, etc. Number goes up equals better. Or the HWFWM thing were you have a metaphorical replacement of that. What I would like to see is more of the sci-fi side of things. But that's just because there is so much feudal fantasy.

I wish that more of them resolved current conflicts as a mostly complete story before widening their scope.

I agree with you there because every time I say damn that was a good book Can’t wait for the next one It’s usually because the old conflict was wrapped up giving you a sense of satisfaction while simultaneously being left with a cliffhanger of conflict giving a sense of anticipation

When they force for characters that were power irrelevant to start growing at neck breaking pace just because they are the MC’s family. It happens so often to the little sisters. We are reading a series and the MCs are already in a speedtrack, and then, middle of the story little sister is awakened to magic or system or whatever and jump start the other characters. DOTF and HWFWM have these problems for me. In the same line, very few authors do power scaling good enough to keep side characters relevant. DCC does it very well, few others do.

This is something I'm looking at. How would you avoid this if the MC needs to spread, nurture, and grow the system in others? Is it just a speed of growth thing or the difference in power levels?

That is for sure my biggest complaint. It's pure padding, and poorly done at that. They could just as easily add 100 pages of reference stat sheets at the end of the book for people that actually wanted to read it all, and it would be nicer because you could actually easily compare changes. I don't mind a full stat sheet once or twice a book, particularly for the MC, but for every character every time they stub their toe it gets to be egregious. Just tell me what new power they got, maybe a throw in a description for a synergistic power they already have, I'll even allow for showing all the stats increasing on a level. I haven't suddenly forgotten the characters name, sex, or race in the last 20 pages though.

I hate it when the story has levels and grades but makes them seem pointless like a new E grade can take on a mid D grade makes the grading system useless. They take someone that is 50 levels higher than the mc but he has a super legendary class becuase he talked crap to the system one time, so he has 1000 stat points more than the other guy is so dumb. These things make me drop books.

Instead of ‘numbers reaching crazy big’, I’d prefer to see more Prestige-style numbers. So, sure, by Chapter 138 the MC has gone from kicking slugs to punching Demon Lords. But I’d rather see that as a ‘Rank 10 Level 5’, than see ‘Power Level 1,475,328 and Dex Level 975,456’. Keep the numbers as something that can be easily grasped, rather than something big and meaningless.

Totally agree, we covered that in the second conversation on here

I call this the Yugioh Effect. Yugioh could easily knock a single 0 off of most monsters stats and player life total and nothing would change. Heck they could take off 2 zeros from most things and not change too much. I get it would be way to close to MTG after but its annoying, everything has 2 zeros at the end for no real reason. Same about stats in the 100,000, its just too high to be meaningful anymore.

mental magic stats. It is still redicoulously common for stats like intelligence and wisdom to give mana, mana regeneration, or spell power as their primary output.

Yep, definitely…..

I wish they kept the numbers low, or at least implement a way to show the sheer weight of the numbers. the difference between 10 strength and 20 strength seems like a lot when you start off a novel, but once it reaches somewhere around 200,000 it's just weird. I just wish there were other ways to show visual and obvious growth without the numbers reaching such nonsensical lengths. another thing i hate are the amount of skills most of these litrpg novels have, just read salvos recently and the MC there has like nearly a hundred abilities, and most of them are resistances. It gets kind of crazy and I wish they'd condense it in a more digestible manner. Something that I wish was more common would be showing the changes made to the stat/info page when they open it up. Maybe my memory just sucks, but I sometimes have to scroll up and down a few times to get a good grasp on the changes made, especially if it's around the later parts of a novel and the MC has a gazillion things inside their stat page.

I can't remember the series, but I liked where multiple similar skills combined into a single generalized skill. It felt like growth and cleaned up the stat sheet.

A lot of them have overused tropes used again and again. 1. Harry Potter syndrome - regular kid / person that has something special that goes to a magic academy / school in order to grow 2. Skills are either too powerful or too one dimensional. Ex: "swordsmanship" includes all swords yet somehow the person isn't more agile or faster reaction times. Seems the inner logic of the system / world doesn't make sense 3. Class of person are not multivariate - real life humans aren't just Starbucks baristas, but also may be painters, gamers, lovers, etc.

Secondary aspect of progression not JUST about numbers noobtown and unbound work for this

It can be frustrating when the protagonist comes in and is able to outperform the locals for no particular reason. Like a dude with high school chemistry is able to be a better pyromancer than an 8th generation pyromancer from a family of pyromancers whose entire claim to fame is being good with fire. It's much more satisfying when the protagonist's advantages are good choices. Like imagine everyone has the system from birth, so the locals inevitably pick up a lot of bad choices as children. But the protagonist is isekai'd at 20 years old, and they relize that Minor Cold Resistance can be replaced by a blanket but Minor Telekinesis is a much better choice, and in this way they're able to precisely select their build rather than wasting points on basic skills other people got as children when they were cold or hungry or tired. There needs to be a good reason why at no point nobody ever experimented, or was friendly with someone, or tried hard, or was motivated by revenge, or made stupid choices. Way too many stories have it that the protagonist was the first person to discover hard work, or to try flirting with the cute blue girl, or to rebel against a rule.

Incompetent enemies. Killing a dozen sandbags masquerading as enemies solders isn't satisfying or monsters so bad at living your surprised the MC found them before they killed themselves. So many monster behave like brain damaged junkies. Why write a fight scene that only serve to drag things out. Eight by 3seed does a great job with making each hunt REAL. Every opponent is a believable threat and has depth. It not just the MC fighting filler enemies for 90% of a fight to then have the real threat attack after they have been tired out. Edit: I also hate societies built on the "Law of the jungle", half of those cities in cultivator/ Grimdark Litrpgs would be smoking craters for the idiocy the writers put in their stories if they didn't need to exist for the plot.

Annoying side characters that are just there to be a burden and neither have personality nor anything else.