Enemies that ruin games

[Arakasi]

For all the people complaining about the New Vegas enemies, I play on Very Hard with Hardcore mode on, and I don't have too much of a problem with the enemies.
Stay away from Death claws until necessary, its not like they're hard to avoid, since they only group in certain areas.
Stay away from groups of cazadores, otherwise cripple the wings first and use anti-venom if hit.
If you can't take on a group of Legion, running away is a viable option. If you haven't been running from a group of enemies with a crippled leg you haven't been playing the game properly (hyperbole).
TBH I think these types of fights are refreshing, it shows that you aren't a total bad-ass who can kill anything immediately. It takes real effort and will be a drain on your resources which rarely seems to happen (at least for me).

These enemies don't ruin the game, and if you think they do, I'd like to suggest that New Vegas either isn't the game you thought it is, or it simply isn't your type of game.

Enemies that ruin games for me basically come down to anything that is repeated to the point of being boring (esp. damage sponge enemies) without anything about the player changing, i.e. your strength or resource level. Other than that, hard bosses with multiple health bars, you think you've killed them, but no. Also anything that is too grindy, e.g. a boss that you have to try over and over and over again to beat like a boss from the SNES days, especially if you have limited lives.

 

[Liquidprid3]

Bronzong in Pokemon, specifically Diamond and Pearl. They don't always deal a lot of damage, but their typing makes it that fire or ground are super effective against them. However, half the time their ability will be to resist fire, and the other half they will have levitate, so ground does nothing. Not to mention these fuckers appear in EVERY OTHER GOD DAMN BATTLE, making it even more annoying. Every time I think about replaying Diamond, I remember these guys, and just say no. I like Diamond, but I HATE Bronzong. They might not be as annoying to others, but they always pissed me off.

Also, the spiky-wheel enemies in Dark Souls. They're just annoying. I'm really enjoying this game, and I believe I'm almost done, but GOD I hate these guys. They don't even do that much damage. Like I said before, they are simply an annoyance.

 

[flying_whimsy]

Purge troopers.

I can't believe whoever made the game thought it was a good idea to put those things in there; they completely break the flow of the game because you have to sit there and spend multiple rounds of lightning just to kill one. I remember one stage in particular where you're fighting two or three of the things along with a couple dozen troopers of all types and at least one AT-ST. I don't know how that's even possible without cheating.

My contribution to this thread: invulnerable ghost enemies. The fact that no one has mentioned Silent Hill 4 in this thread amazes me and the ghosts in mario always freaked me out. Oh, and that freaking sun in Mario 3. I generally can't play those games because I can't handle enemies I can't do anything against (which wouldn't have been bad in SH4, but the fact that they followed you all the time and through walls just ruined it).

Also, those completely bullshit unbeatable final bosses in fighting games tend to spoil it a lot for me. If I set it to baby's first game difficulty and still get my butt whooped in the first round then something has gone wrong. They're almost as bad as fighting game AI that just reads your controller input (the equivalent of aimbots in an fps).

 

[crimsoncheesecake]

Metro 20333's frikkin slime balls! (Cant remember what they're called) They would swarm the hell out of you in extreme close quarters and explode dealing massive damage while you had to escort a ranger who would just keep walking straight on pretty much ignoring them! Only way I could survive was to run away and kite a few at a time but in the meantime they'd just kill the dumb ranger! God this level was so frustrating on ranger difficulty and took god knows how many attempts.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Apropos Dark Souls: I don't get why those archers in Anor Londo are so infamously loathed. I've only ever died once, and that was on my first time in the area before I spotted them (I was faffing about with equipment). You can also get behind one of the pillars, wait till they lose interest, then charge the one on the right - who's pretty easy to knock off or slay before the other archer can nail you.

Oh, and as for the poisoned guys (Engorged Zombies?) in the Painted World? Kill 'em with fire, and they don't explode to poison you.

As for enemies ruining games? Not sure if they ruin it, per se, but on solo Heroic or Legendary Halo 4, those Promethean Watchers are an absolute pain in the ass, buffing Knights and then buggering off before you can kill 'em...

 

[otakon17]

The twin archers of Anor Londo. Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them, fuck them, fuck them, FUCK THEM! I spent four hours grinding to make a build capable of using either the silence or stealth spell while I wore the complimenting ring(I had a Ring of Favor and Protection on the other hand). Biggest roadblock in the game if you ask me, especially since at least Sen's Fortress was a challenge because traps and all. But those assholes, those rat bastards.

In general though, snipers/archers are the bane of my existence in videogames.

I've heard soo many people complain about this part of the game, but I've actually never found them very difficult. I played the game pretty late in comparison to everyone else, and already knew about this part when I got to it, just from hearing about how terrible it was from everyone. First time I got through it in 2 tries. On subsequent playthroughs I don't think it's taken me more than 5 tries, and the one time it took 5 tries was on a build where I wasn't using a shield.

Seriously, it's pretty easy to exploit their AI. Just run up the flying buttress, ignore the archer on the left, run straight at the archer on the right with your shield up (the archer on the left will probably still hit you in the back once, but it won't make you fall off the ledge, just fall forward on your face), then once you get close enough that the archer on the right pulls his sword out the archer on the left with lose aggro and ignore you. From there either just parry the silver knight to death, or if you aren't confident in your parries just hold your shield up and push against the silver knight until he falls off the edge (could take anywhere from a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes to do).

I mean, it's definitely not a well designed section, and it's a section I really REALLY dislike, just based on the fact that dark soul's movement controls aren't precise enough for sections were you're forced to walk on tiny ledges (same reason I hate the room with all the painted guardians where you have to walk along the ceiling struts), but it's not the fault of the enemies that the section is so terrible, but the fault of the level design. Personally I'd say that the worst enemies in Dark Souls have to be the toxic blow dart guys in blighttown, because they always make you toxic in one hit, regardless of your resistances, and they are absolutely impossible to see.

Because you knew what to expect. First time through the game, no one did. And even stacking the heaviest armor and having a defensive build, near impossible to just "tank" the arrows. Also, no the archer on the left will chase your ass down if he loses line of sight, as when I finally DID manage to do just that he followed me. But yeah, being warned beforehand helps.

 

[Tellis Argonis]

'Charger' type enemies that have only their back or a small weak area that they can take damage from. They also got to have an unpredictable attack pattern, and move very slowly until you get near them, which then they charge. (Most recent of me seeing this is the Beserker demons in Shadow Warrior and later in the game they throw like 2-3-4 of em at you at a time with other guys in the mix.)

Enemies that can become invincible at will, and after becoming invincible, spawn a hundred little mini versions of themselves at a time for you to wade through, and by the time you reach them they've moved, burrowed under the ground, smacked you up a bit, became invincible, and spawned thirty more little buggers while another one gets aggroed to you. Case in point, Torchlight 2's Dune Mothers. Holy crap those were annoying, and they're a recentish example.

Enemies that teleport as soon as you shoot or hit at them and at will, deal immense damage, are complete bullet sponges, and teleport in front of you when you're just tryin to get some breathing room.

Flying mooks that bip and bob about and come in about every other wave of bad guys, shooting at you, and also have large health pools.

Enemies that are completely resistant to all elemental/magic damage, the bane of wizard dudes/dudettes in rpgs. Huge elemental resistances in general.

Enemies that chase you for miles once they've seen you and are hard to hit, deal a lot of damage, and also explode through wooden doors like they're made of tissue paper mache. Undead Dogs from 7 Days to Die. I know, that's an alpha game and they're being balanced and such, but daaayum are they annoying when you run into them. At least it's been made in that you don't see five every twenty feet. They were like land cliff racers. Speaking of which.

Enemies that prevent you from waiting/resting because they see you through a mountain that they're flying against. Also ones that make loud noises and ones that can kill or severely wound a low-level character and are EVERYWHERE IN THE GAME'S OVERWORLD. And only multiply their nuisance and damage when they're diseased. Once you're a flying sorcerer that don't need no maaaaan, swingin gaint electrified daedric daikatanas around you kind of want to go out and continue Jiub's crusade against the flying menace. Till then watch the skies Outlander.

Anything that stunlocks you or can knock you over repeatedly.

Anything that has no obvious signs that they can heal themselves at will but go 'aha! I shall use this healyheal!' when you deal a lot of damage to them.

Anything that heals other enemies and becomes invincible temporarily and then moves quickly when you hit it.

er... what else...

I'm out for now have this

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

Wait for it... the Mongols.

Spoiler

In Medieval 2, just when you think you're at the peak of your game, the Mongols come out of nowhere with huge stacks commanded by high-tier generals with high dread and high experience, to tear your empire a new one. They field mostly heavy cavalry and horse archers so good luck not getting pantsed in an open field battle.

To defeat them with the fewest losses, one would need to hole up in castles and lure them to besiege said castles. When the siege comes, put down lots of spears and spikes at the doomed gates to counter the numberless legions of horses. And loads of archers help. Have patience since these bastards have really high morale, so they won't break easily.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

In a general sense; stupid enemies. I think that most if not all problems with AI stems from this.

They can't perform anything apart from move and attack? No problem. Just make what they CAN do disgustingly overpowered.

In FPS: Rainbow Six Vegas 2. The enemies were far too stupid to make me do anything apart from hide behind a wall and shoot. The problem really comes into its own with their attempt to cover this up by giving them bullcrap dead-on accuracy. The worst of it is when you enter a room and they are turned the other way. When they notice you, they will get down on their knees and turn around while firing their gun. If you pay attention, you'll notice that you die a full half second BEFORE they are aiming at you.

Real-Time Strategy: AVP Extinction. There really isn't any strategy involved with this game. Every last bit of AI is too dense to permit anything apart from the basic gather troops and steamroll the map. There's also a general lack of support for any other style of gameplay, but that's not important right now. Maybe that's why the missions are fairly short for the genre.

Zubats from Pokemon. Individually, they don't pose much of a threat. But having to go through a cave was a friggin nightmare unless you were willing to blow your money on repels.

 

[lacktheknack]

Tomb Raider IV actually attempted some real enemy variation with re-animating skeletons (you have to shotgun them off ledges to kill them), ninjas that can deflect bullets, henchmen with guns, and beetle swarms you have to run from.

However, they also included a little fire sprite that chases you around and sets you on fire if it hits you. It's much faster than you, so you have to jump around and take advantage of its large turning radius. Trick it into hitting water to kill it.

The second encounter (I think) with them requires you to sprint down a narrow hall and then up a series of platforms (as they divebomb you) to find a pool of water to dive into. Meanwhile, I ragequit the game about six times in one day trying to do this part because I kept getting set on fire and killed.

Why did you do this to me, Tomb Raider IV? You were nearly the best Tomb Raider game! ;___;

 

[BiscuitWheels]

They weren't really all that dangerous or annoying, but I seriously quit playing Fallout 3 because of the radscorpions. I just has a big phobia of insects and those bastards give me the cold collywobbles.

 

[Augustine]

Cliff Racers.

Seriously if I hadn't played Morrowind on PC where I could turn these damn things passive, I probably would have flipped, they were soooo annoying with the most egregiously terrible hitboxes in a game KNOWN for terrible hitboxes.

Aahah, yesss. That brings back the memories in a boundless flood.
Morrowind was the only game that I played religiously for over 3 years straight. And indeed, these despicable things drove me up the wall

 

[DementedSheep]

Fucking drowners (witcher 1)
Not because they are hard, they are rather easy but they are everywhere and there is nothing more annoying than having to find the bastards who don't even attack you any more just to area transition.

Undead in many rpgs kill thief classes as anything other than lock pickers and trap disablers because they are outright immune to crits. Enemies that are immune to CC are also annoying. Shouldn't be able to stunlock them but a whole skill set should be rendered useless. It's lazy design.

 

[Mutie]

The f*cking Legion in Fallout New Vegas.

I pissed them off very early on and for a long time (just after Ring-A-Ding-Ding) they despised me. I would get jumped in the Wasteland at least once every 20 minutes by no fewer than 4 of them. It'd take 4-5 grenades to kill them, assuming they clutter together. Otherwise 9-10 shotgun shells to the HEAD. EACH. It works out worse for me that they have no concept of cover - cus they charge right into my face and unload a submachine gun into it. Constantly. In unison!

I almost always see them coming and so I save it so that I can reload when (not 'if') I die. It usually takes about 6 attempts to survive the fight. No other enemy I've encountered is anywhere near this f*cking OP.

I'm scared to advance the story until I level up a shit load cus I know they'll hate me again if I go much further.

There's actually a glitch in the game that causes severely levelled Legionnaire Assassins to start hunting you if you piss of the Legion too early. I was playing on Master Difficulty Hardcore Mode as a light-armour wearing speech and repair specialist with an array of guns and a sniper sidekick... It was painful. They had Plasma Grenades. Perseverance my friend, perseverance and the reward is great.

OT: MASTER YI. That is all.

 

[sovietmisaki]

the Janissaries in Assassin's Creed: Revelations. They where mainly the main reason why I discovered that using smoke bombs inside groups of really though enemies was actually a pretty viable tactic. Since they where so damn hard to fight, even with backup that I could call in. Given that they where the Ottoman Empire's elite infantry/ imperial bodyguards, That's not too surprising, though they where still such a pain to deal with.

And the Templar stalkers too, though more for the jump scares with the suddenly creepy change in the soundtrack.

 

[Casual Shinji]

For the other games, only Infamous 2 had bad ones. Luckily it was only two. Those bastards who crawl underground and you can only kill with grenades. And those big ice bastards that take a thousand hits to kill. I can't recall any from Infamous one, as once you got the massive lightning strike the game became piss poor easy.

Maybe it depends wich power you use, but as soon as I got Ice Grenades I made short work of those diggers.

The giant armored monsters were the biggest hassle. Their fucking spit barrage was inescapable, even when riding a power line. And you could only damage them if they opened their mouths, which was the same time they would hurl some annoying attack your way. You always had about a 3 second window of attack before you had to hide from giant homing mucus balls.

I remember the giant foes in Infamous 2 being a bit of a pain. Mostly as you fought one as a boss, and they they would just be around like the normal foes immediately following that. Which made them a real chore. They did get slightly easier in time, but they were never what I would consider easy.

I actually really liked this about the first two games. You're wandering around, and all of a sudden there's a bunch of giant monsters duking it out on the corner of the street.

I really missed the presence of random monster street fights in Second Son, or giant monsters in general.

 

[Trude]

I give some enemies from Borderlands 2.

Gearbox took the Crytec method of programming enemy AI, that is to say if they can see you, they can hit you and if they absolutely can't, find a stronger wall.
A skag summed it up rather nicely when it changed directions mid pounce to track my vehicle.

 

[Denamic]

Death in Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen.
Technically, he's easy as hell to actually fight or run away from. He's got HP up his ass and takes ages to kill, but he only has 3 moves. AoE sleep; incredibly easy to avoid. Teleport; Not even a threat. Swing of his scythe; Also easy to avoid, but kills anything and everything in one shot, enemies included. Doesn't matter if it's a goblin or a condemned gorecyclops, they all instantly die if they're hit. Same goes for you and your Pawns.

Now, the annoying thing about all this is that your pawns doesn't even try to avoid death. They stand around and get hit by every goddamn attack. What's worse is that they don't just go down, the get completely unsummoned and you have to get them back from a riftstone. If they were carrying stuff, it's lost. If they cost you rift crystals to summon, they're lost. Death is a tremendous nuisance. I wouldn't say it 'ruins' the game as such, but any fun you were having at that point in the game just goes straight down the fucking drain once he appears.

 

[Dragonlayer]

RENDER UNTO CAESAR MY BOOT UP HIS ARSE!

Well! Someone sure hates the Legion! This post combined with a few others expressing their contempt with the Legion's fighting power makes me feel like I'm the only person on this website who liked and supported them in New Vegas....

A few points before I respond to the original topic:

- The NCR may very well be one of the most modernised and well equipped faction in the wastelands but they are over-stretched and over-extended, especially in New Vegas. The sheer size of the Republic's domains demands that they split their forces further and further apart to cover everything, meaning that certain areas could very easily be overwhelmed by local threats due to lack of concentrated strength (case in point: many of the NCR's outposts in the game are staffed by less than ten personnel, yet are expected to last long enough against Legion raids that they can report back to HQ). Furthermore, that size inevitably dilutes the advantages of modernization: just take a look at how many Rangers in pseudo-power armour with top of the range weapons there are compared to average footsloggers in primitive flak armour and carrying shoddy rifles. Plus "modern" armour has enough trouble stopping knives as it is, let alone flaming chainsaws wielded by drugged up psychopaths!

- Tying into the size problem, the NCR must prioritize weapons and supplies for different theatres: basically who gets what when and how much of it. New Vegas is stated to be the very furthest extent of NCR territory in the Mojave, seen by soldier and civilian alike as an insignificant colony not worth dying over, meaning they are less important to the Republic and thus have a hard time scrounging up material. If I recall correctly, the player can affect this in-game through successful NCR quests but from what I've read "the folks back home" don't want their boys in the Mojave and President Kimball has got to listen to the public mood.

- The Legion can easily match the NCR - particularly the weakened and second rate contingent in the game - because they already have their own little empire in the east, one so stable and safe that merchants don't even need guards when crossing it! From this flows equipment and manpower, which itself is boosted through conquest (admittingly "slaves taken" may not always outnumber "Legionaries lost"). Also its repeatedly stated that man for man/woman, the average Legionary is a better soldier than his NCR counterpart in all but ranged weapons and equipment. And the Legion as a military force is strictly based on merit: NCR officers go through training or use family connections to achieve their ranks, Legion officers kill power armoured soldiers in close combat.

- Finally, how don't they fit with the world? If the country has been reduced to a Feudalistic radioactive hellhole where hyper-patriotic sentient computers plot genocide, cannibals run aristocratic casinos and giant ants breath fire, why can't a bastardised Roman Empire exist?

OT

Fuck Banshees from ME3's multiplayer: easily handled on single-player and they're nowhere near as infuriating as they were before I got my beloved Geth Juggernaut, but the amount of games they've ruined through teleporting instanta-kills....

Oh, and any enemy that can heal itself ticks me off no-end: (whinging voice) Only the player is allowed to do that!!!

 

[jklinders]

An old complaint. I don't know how common these fuckers are now but I hate so called "puzzle bosses." You know the ones where you have to manipulate them to stand in a certain spot, activate a switch or something and then hit them with a very certain attack to do any damage at all. Bonus points for not having anything like this at any other point in the game. Extra extra bonus points if the fucker heals at an arbitrary interval and forces you to change the pattern.

Even the best of games turn into a pile of rotten horseshit if they try to pull this as an artificial difficulty. I consider this grounds to rage quit and not bother completion.