LitRPG

Hateyou

Hateyou

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Guurn said:
Book 1 really felt like a guy trying to figure out how to write for me. The writing gets better as well as the storyline. I almost dropped the series but they are such quick reads i decided to plow on. I skip all the stats stuff, who really cares.
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The stat shit made it unlistenable to me. Reading it would be fine cause you could just skip it but it was terrible for audio. Think I got through book 2 or maybe 3 before I gave up on it. The character was just unrealistic and had zero personality or interesting thoughts. “I must get stronger no matter what, I love killing shit” was so boring. That and being almost godlike at early levels.
 
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Chysamere

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I can't imagine "reading" an audiobook. The very idea of it makes me shudder.

Having someone drone on and on about stats sounds like it would be brain melting.
 
fris

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Hateyou said:
The stat shit made it unlistenable to me. Reading it would be fine cause you could just skip it but it was terrible for audio. Think I got through book 2 or maybe 3 before I gave up on it. The character was just unrealistic and had zero personality or interesting thoughts. “I must get stronger no matter what, I love killing shit” was so boring. That and being almost godlike at early levels.
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I totally dig the "kill and get stronger" vibe. easy to zone out and not a big deal if you don't pay attention a bit. it does get long w/ the numbers, I'm sure reading it would be easy to skip a stats page. I'm on book 8 and plan to finish the series.
 
Tuco

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Hatorade said:
Not sure Primal hunter is for me, book 1 and swear we have spent more time on stats and skills then everything else combined.
Where I am book 1, is this first book issues and gets better?
william just got full metal suit and Jake just recovered from almost dying to the ambush/raptors
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Pretty much every litrpg backs off from the stat stuff the further the progress gets, to the point where they feel less like LitRPG and more like cultivation. You can only add so many 0s to the end of someone's strength before it becomes repetitive. Primal Hunter is no exception.

However, if you don't like it by the end of book 1 (I think you're close to the end?) you probably won't like any other books. The author describes Primal Hunter as a "relaxed book about a guy who likes to hunt and make potions" and there are a lot of things he does to cut tension to keep it relaxed.

What's funny is in the Chrysalis series I'm reading, the chapters with stat pages are explicitly broken out into individual chapters and the narrator cordially states, "If you don't like it, just hit the skip chapter button".

I skip every state page section in audiobooks and I'm surprised they bother with stat pages except at the end of a book or something. Maybe the authors feel like it's a guide but it has so little to do with even the combat mechanics.
 
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Tuco

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Hateyou said:
The stat shit made it unlistenable to me. Reading it would be fine cause you could just skip it but it was terrible for audio. Think I got through book 2 or maybe 3 before I gave up on it. The character was just unrealistic and had zero personality or interesting thoughts. “I must get stronger no matter what, I love killing shit” was so boring. That and being almost godlike at early levels.
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Hatorade

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Tuco said:
Pretty much every litrpg backs off from the stat stuff the further the progress gets, to the point where they feel less like LitRPG and more like cultivation. You can only add so many 0s to the end of someone's strength before it becomes repetitive. Primal Hunter is no exception.

However, if you don't like it by the end of book 1 (I think you're close to the end?) you probably won't like any other books. The author describes Primal Hunter as a "relaxed book about a guy who likes to hunt and make potions" and there are a lot of things he does to cut tension to keep it relaxed.

What's funny is in the Chrysalis series I'm reading, the chapters with stat pages are explicitly broken out into individual chapters and the narrator cordially states, "If you don't like it, just hit the skip chapter button".

I skip every state page section in audiobooks and I'm surprised they bother with stat pages except at the end of a book or something. Maybe the authors feel like it's a guide but it has so little to do with even the combat mechanics.
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Good to know. Story is decent, I like the fuck that and fuck you attitude throughout.
 
Hateyou

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Tuco said:
Pretty much every litrpg backs off from the stat stuff the further the progress gets, to the point where they feel less like LitRPG and more like cultivation. You can only add so many 0s to the end of someone's strength before it becomes repetitive. Primal Hunter is no exception.

However, if you don't like it by the end of book 1 (I think you're close to the end?) you probably won't like any other books. The author describes Primal Hunter as a "relaxed book about a guy who likes to hunt and make potions" and there are a lot of things he does to cut tension to keep it relaxed.

What's funny is in the Chrysalis series I'm reading, the chapters with stat pages are explicitly broken out into individual chapters and the narrator cordially states, "If you don't like it, just hit the skip chapter button".

I skip every state page section in audiobooks and I'm surprised they bother with stat pages except at the end of a book or something. Maybe the authors feel like it's a guide but it has so little to do with even the combat mechanics.
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Fuck, the stats being a chapter you can skip is genius. They should mandate that in this genre!
 
Void

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I read most of the Primal Hunter books (up to maybe 6 months ago) and might catch up at some point if I'm in a lull. I enjoyed them for the most part, although there was one book that was literally pointless, and I'm not angry at the books or anything like I am with shit like We Hunt Monsters where I literally want to murder the MC, but as with all of these they tend to get a little boring after a while. There is cool stuff that keeps you going, whether it be side characters or "floor mechanics" or whatever, but eventually the MC becomes tedious and boring, and you just kinda have to keep that in mind with all these series. Even if an author isn't milking it, they will eventually tend to fall back on stuff they've done before, or expand upon aspects that you don't care for, etc.

Path of Ascension has mixed things up fairly well in these later books, but...I can't stand the fucking combat descriptions now. One battle mentions like a hundred different skills being used, most of which we've never heard of before or can't remember, and while I can't necessarily suggest a better way to do it, this way certainly isn't working for me. What I'm getting at is that eventually almost all of these books fall into some kind of rut, whatever it might be, and you have to weight whether or not it is worth continuing or just cut it off and look back fondly at the stuff you did like. Like Defiance of the Fall. It turned completely around from what it was early on, and now I probably won't ever read another one. But I really fucking liked the early ones, and I'm glad I didn't miss out on those.
 
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Tuco said:
What's funny is in the Chrysalis series I'm reading, the chapters with stat pages are explicitly broken out into individual chapters and the narrator cordially states, "If you don't like it, just hit the skip chapter button".
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I don't do audiobooks, but that sounds like a great idea. Particularly for chrysalis actually, author made the rookie mistake of using adjectives instead of numbers in mutations, so it gets increasingly ridiculous as the MC picks between things glowing-hyper-dense-ultra-compact-compound-plating vs smoking-hyper-flexible-ultra-compact-compound-plating.

Zogarth is right on readers though - people don't know what they are going to like, they rarely know exactly why they liked something. Trying to follow reader demands is how you end up with undifferentiated slop, and chatgpt does a better job at producing that 8).
 
Ritley

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Agree with him that readers don't know what they like, but I'd argue that readers absolutely know what they don't like. The point about following trends rather than individual feedback is good though.
 
TJT

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Tuco said:
That tracks.

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Screenshot 2026-04-09 at 5.24.03 AM.png


Lol what the fuck.
 
Seananigans

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Ritley said:
Agree with him that readers don't know what they like, but I'd argue that readers absolutely know what they don't like. The point about following trends rather than individual feedback is good though.
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I'd agree they know what they don't like, but they almost certainly don't know if it's a bad thing that it's there, or if that disliked part of [whatever] actually contributes a net positive to the experience as a whole. Goes more for games, but I can see it being applicable to writing as well.
 
Hateyou

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I think it’s fine to say you don’t like something and have valid criticism like “your main character has zero personality or dialogue or personal growth and therefore, I’m out.”

I do think people that try to redesign the author/artist/devs vision to fit their own are morons. I see this all the time and it’s pretty annoying, I can see why creators get so butthurt over too much of that kind of “feedback”. If you don’t like something, state your criticism (or don’t) and move on.
 
V

velk

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Hateyou said:
I think it’s fine to say you don’t like something and have valid criticism like “your main character has zero personality or dialogue or personal growth and therefore, I’m out.”
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Sure, you can dislike stuff for whatever reason, I think Seananigan's point was more that it's not always obvious if something you don't like makes a story worse or not, even for you.

Like compare the 'I read this story but character x fucking sucked, I hated everything about them' and 'I started reading but it was so bland and boring I didn't bother finishing'.

My point on that was more on acting on that kind of feedback - i.e. if you hate character X and they write that character out, and someone else hates character Y so they kill them off, and someone else hates that a side character is gay, so they get rid of all the gays, and then someone else hates that the female characters are all boring, so he tries to add more interesting female characters and then someone hates that the story is all about girl power now and the author is slowly losing their mind.
 
Void

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Chysamere said:
Ok time to jump into this thread. Didn't even know it existed. I've been reading LitRPG's for awhile now and I'd love some recommendations however...

Please don't just recommend your favourite and say "You should read this" - Let's try to keep it similar to the ones below.

I read through the entire thread here quickly and I saw a few I might be interesting in checking out like Primal Hunter or He Who Fights with Monsters but a lot of the thread is years old at this point and they might have fallen off so fresh recommendations would be great.

So far I've finished or am up to date on, in order from most to least liked:

Blue Core
Chrysalis
Path of Ascension
Everybody Loves Large Chests
Only Villians Do That
Unbound

currently reading Dungeon Crawler Carl, loving it, just got through the train section.

So, anyone want to hit me with something?
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I had read all but Blue Core and Only Villains Do That, so I checked out Blue Core and ended up reading the trilogy because I'd already read his Paranoid Mage series. Pretty good, I enjoyed it for the most part, especially after realizing I can just skip the cringe explicit chapters because there really isn't anything important in them. It was nice of him to label them at least, so I could just skip it immediately. I've read my share of harem crap, and it always amazes me that men write this shit. I get women doing it because women, but I can't see any man with access to a woman and/or porn jerking it to a book.

Anyway, solid series if you discount that aspect. Is the Villains one at the same level?
 
Chysamere

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Void said:
I had read all but Blue Core and Only Villains Do That, so I checked out Blue Core and ended up reading the trilogy because I'd already read his Paranoid Mage series. Pretty good, I enjoyed it for the most part, especially after realizing I can just skip the cringe explicit chapters because there really isn't anything important in them. It was nice of him to label them at least, so I could just skip it immediately. I've read my share of harem crap, and it always amazes me that men write this shit. I get women doing it because women, but I can't see any man with access to a woman and/or porn jerking it to a book.

Anyway, solid series if you discount that aspect. Is the Villains one at the same level?
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Skipping the cringe is definitely the play. Weird tentacle sex was a choice to be sure.

Only Villians Do That is not as well written, but I enjoy the protagonist more. He's in the vein of anime protagonists who actually act like a normal person would.

With confidence and a middle finger to the people who try to fuck with him.
 
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Kiroy

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Man, if you don't like primal hunter i'd have to say litrpg just isn't for you. Pretty much anything other than dcc in the hard litrpg format isn't as good.

Also know a lot you do audio books and out off all the litrpg i've read, pretty much only dcc would have worked as an audio book for me. You've got to be able to skim certain parts to enjoy this genre.
 
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Void

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Yeah, and?
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Kiroy said:
Man, if you don't like primal hunter i'd have to say litrpg just isn't for you. Pretty much anything other than dcc in the hard litrpg format isn't as good.
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Yes and no. It depends on how far you've read into it. I think the most recent book out I haven't read, but I've read everything up to that. I loved the first however many, but after a bit it got a little boring and repetitive. And the two books where he did that special dungeon with the arena fights, the labyrinth, the art classes, etc...could have had like 90% of it removed and still got the point across. Reading about every single fucking fight in the arena, in particular, was just way too much.

There is plenty of other stuff I'd prefer not to have slogged through as well, but overall I still enjoy(ed) the series, so I'm not shitting on it. It's just that after a certain point pretty much every series like this gets boring, and it taints your perspective on the early books that you really loved. It is more inevitable than Thanos that these endless series that started on Royal Road or the like will run out of steam because the author either runs out of ideas or runs out of drive, but still wants that sweet monthly Patreon income.
 
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