Game design choices that should be outlawed

[Canid117]

For example:
- Choosing to count a game as a loss against you when you quit an offline match or campaign mission.

As annoying as this one can be it does help prevent people from quitting to keep their stats padded. Sure you are going to take a hit even if you have a legitimate excuse to quit but sometimes (especially in a strategy game) you have to see it out to the end.

- Adding quick-time events spontaneously to cutscenes forcing you to watch them all over again if you fail.

That is inexcusable.

- Giving you 1-hit deaths, maximum of 3 lives, and no continue option-- you die 3 times you start the game from scratch.

I haven't seen this in a game since the late 90s so it strikes me as an odd complaint. Then again I don't play Sonic or Mario games any more.

 

[moretimethansense]

Oh well obviously it should count as a loss if one side is able to gain a decisive advantage (or hell maybe lock it at, when the first point is scored you are committed to finish the game?).
But why should the game ever make the player play (barring the already clear point that it is no fun playing if your opponent would rather quit than louse). I mean at worse it's a minor inconvenience and you have to wait for a new opponent. For me it's like a kick in the balls (don't take that too literally) because i was a bit slow deciding that i was done playing.

Maybe it's just a problem i have cause i have a bit of a competitive streak. But i find it insulting that the game counts it as a loss when it's too early for ANYONE to reasonably predict a victor.

Perhaps locking after the first kill/goal/X amount of points would be the best way, though if you quit because you're losing, you've admited you can't win, that should definatly count as your loss, I feel the same way about disconnects, the problem's on your end why should your opponent be robbed of a win?

If I am in a match, even one I'm certain to lose I prefer to go down swinging, I'll occasionally hit home delete in DoW 40K if my base is attacked ion two fronts though.

 

[farq1414]

FPS stop they all suck

 

[tylerzd]

The detrimental effect of QTE's is widespread:

Cheapens player death:
-skillfully fight your way through a tough boss fight, QTE triggered for the finish, miss one button press = character dies, checkpoints back to the start of the QTE. This destroys immersion. Developers use this device to try to keep players invested even when the game has mostly taken control away for cutscene purposes. Unfortunately, if the player does not respond to the inputs as planned, they will die in a completely mindless way totally divorced from core gameplay which then trainwrecks the smooth cinematic flow the developer was trying to achieve in the first place. This is further exacerbated by,

Pass/fail criteria, needlessly short input window:
-Get the button press = live, miss it = die, respawn to checkpoint. On screen prompt and input window = 0.5 seconds (if you're lucky). I'd like to see some hard data on how many players fail QTE's on their first playthrough of any given QTE sequence. I expect the numbers are staggeringly high. It gets to the point in many games where the input window is so small that a player is highly unlikely to respond in time on reaction if they aren't expecting the prompt. This is then further exacerbated by,

Random and inconsistent QTE placement in cutscenes:
-I was playing Bayonetta earlier today. I plowed through a tricky boss fight early in the game, complete with shitty camera angle (that's another story), and triggered the post-boss cutscene. The cutscene ran for a solid 25 seconds completely QTE free and then POP- QTE prompt flashes on screen. I jam the button in under a second. Death screen displays, apparently I missed the window. Checkpoint respawn to just before the little QTE bit, I hover my finger over the correct button in anticipation this time to make sure I get it. Cutscene continues, then the chapter ends. One button press. That was it. You cheap killed me, jarringly broke my immersion, all for a single button press prompt. Did that really need to be there? What conceivable value does that prompt have? Why?

I want to go back to the days of cutscenes being your reward for overcoming a major obstacle. A time where you can set the controller down for a minute, take a drink, and watch the story unfold. When did developers decide that this was a bad thing? It's not that gamers don't like cutscenes. They just don't like them when they are awkwardly placed in such a way as to prevent the player from progressing in the game in a timely fashion. Specifically if they died to a thing and want to retry that thing ASAP without having to watch the entire cinematic again. Usually repeatedly. I realize developers are quite proud of their ability to put together a pretty cinematic. That's totally okay, but please remember, developers, that you are in the business of gameplay first and foremost. When gameplay takes a backseat to your fancy little movie, you have failed as a game developer.

 

[baker80]

I'd still prefer save points, the temptation to save scum is too great

Right, so because you have no self control, I need to suffer needlessly through repeated unskippable cutscenes and pointless savepoint hunting, when there's absolutely no technical reason why these things should even exist anymore. Selfish much?

Other people shouldn't have to give up on an essential convenience feature just because you think it's not "hardcore" enough. Nobody is forcing you to abuse the quicksave button.

When gameplay takes a backseat to your fancy little movie, you have failed as a game developer.

That's something a lot of game developers really need to learn. Stop trying to make crappy interactive movies and try to make good interactive games instead!

 

[G-Force]

not having the original Japanese voice acting available in Japanese games.

Of course a big exception would be if the Japanese game was never recorded in Japanese such as No More Heroes, and Dead Rising correct?

 

[Eldarion]

Character creation systems that only let you see your character from a few strict angles so that you can't see if they look any good. I'm looking at YOU, Mass Effect.

Freaking this.

I had to remake my female shep like 3 times because she looked totally different in the game world's lighting.

 

[Lieju]

Quick time events in cutscenes.

They can work in some games if used well. To take two examples of QTE-use from the same game series, bad and good; Resident Evil.

I hate, hate hate Quick-time-events in Re4 and Re5. Especially in harder difficulties. I've dies numerous times and got lower ranking for playing well the game but failing at button-smashing.

As for using them well, Umbrella Chronicles did it right.
You got the music cue so you knew that this was a cutscene where one was going to pop up, there weren't long sequences of button-smashing, and even if you failed, usually the game didn't kill you immediatly, and you just lost some HP.

But majority of QTE's should not exist in the games they are in.

Also, unskippable cutscenes.

And enemies that kill you in one hit. Well, you can use them well, but usually they are just rage-inducing and annoying.

 

[Hulten]

1.Insta-death traps
2.Quick time events the require you to shack the controller. (Mostly guilty is the PS3)
3.Infinite ammo.
4.Regenerating to full health after sucking your thumb in the corner for a while.

 

[baker80]

4.Regenerating to full health after sucking your thumb in the corner for a while.

I actually think that kind of thing has its place. It's really not that much worse than running for the health pack whenever you get a paper cut, it's just a different way to tell the player "you need to finish this set of enemies within X points of damage."

Of course a big exception would be if the Japanese game was never recorded in Japanese such as No More Heroes, and Dead Rising correct?

An exception would be anything where two sets of voice acting plain wouldn't fit on one DVD. Voice data takes up a lot of space, it's not like the publishers ship the game without the original voice track just to spite people.

 

[drunken_munki]

Your character has amnesia.

Lazy!

I don't suppose you've played Planescape: Torment?

Nah. I was going to, but the outdated UI and general graphics hit me like a brick wall.

...Ow.

Your loss.

Mmm. Does suck; I've heard it's a fun game. But design that old and graphics that iconic of the 90's grind on me pretty hard.

Funnily enough, it was okay when I played Diablo II.

You might be able to use the 'widescreen mod' for infinity engine games. It allows you to set a screen resolution and the game is rescaled. Looks marvelous for BG and BG2

http://www.gibberlings3.net/widescreen/

p.s. I playing BG2 with 1920x1360

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

The way some people respond to these sorts of threads, it seems we're headed for a gaming future where no gratification is delayed, no fingers are challenged, and no story or puzzle requires multiple braincells.

The ability to save every 30 seconds isn't a good thing. The ability to respawn in three seconds isn't a good thing. The removal of anything remotely time consuming or complicated isn't a good thing.

But damn if we aren't headed for the prettiest game of pong anyone's ever seen. Mind you, both paddles will cover the entire screen.

 

[Plinglebob]

While I don't mind fixed save points/checkpoint systems in games (as they do help to keep the flow of the game going), please can companies make it obvious when a checkpoint has been reached. This comes about from Halo 3 where I spent 20 minutes fighting through enemies, reached a spot where there was a lull and thought "I must have reached a checkpoint by now" so switched it off. Came back to it the next day and I was back where I started.

Also, if its a linier game, please put in level selects for areas previously completed preferably with all collectables you've got at that difficulty saved.

Finally, have 3 or 4 Auto and Quick save slots that are on rotation. Save space is no longer an issue so te ability to go back to a previous quick-save if you hit the button at the wrong time would be lovely.

P.S. RPS' Do & Don't series [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/do-dont/] is a good read for this sort of thing. PC focused, but has some good points.

 

[Jessta]

Asking you if you want to save right AFTER crossing a point of no return (not before after) and then throwing a ridiculous difficulty curve at you. Final fantasy tactics! although I don't think anyone should be complaining about how quiting counts as a loss, honestly I ABSOLUTELY HATE when people quit in the middle of a game, I can understand it when they have to go, but if its just because they are losing or something stupid like that then they deserve to have it count as ten loses (offline I understand quiting when your losing, should still be a loss but not ten losses, otherwise the whole counting loses and wins thing is worthless because when ever your about to lose you just quit then you get a perfect win to lose ratio and bleh).
I can understand the whole un-skippable credits thing but when you can't skip a cut scene I get thoroughly frustrated when I try to get any replay value out of the game or if I die.
Character creation that only gives you a couple of decent looks and a million crappy looks, plus character creation that doesn't let you view your full character very well. Also being able to choose what buttons do what is just awesome that would be nice to see more of.
I also hate messanger boy type quests, god damn get a phone or pigeons or something *world of warcraft is especially bad with this* Oh I just spent an hour and a half running to this side of the world and you just want me to stroll on back across the world four of five times... No problem I can TOTALLY just spend the rest of my day doing nothing but walking back and forth...
necessary grinding is also another thing I hate, spend forty minutes walking in circles killing spiders before you progress that kinda thing. Also when a game is almost entirely based on gear rather than skill or strategy *cough* world of warcraft *cough*

 

[Cowabungaa]

I think cracked.com [http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_the-7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html] covers mine pretty nicely;

#7. Thou shalt let us play your game with real-life friends.

#6. Thou shalt not pad the length of your games.

#5. Thou shalt not force repetition on the player.

#4. Thou shalt make killing fun.

#3. Thou shalt admit when enough is enough.

#2. Thou shalt make sure your game actually works.

#1. Better graphics do not equal innovation and/or creativity.

Those are mine in a nutshell as well really. The article itself has little sub-headers with specific examples, but I think this covers it nicely.

Mmm. Does suck; I've heard it's a fun game. But design that old and graphics that iconic of the 90's grind on me pretty hard.

Funnily enough, it was okay when I played Diablo II.

If you ask me, Planescape's hand-drawn 2D graphics have hold up a lot better than early 3D from the same era. Hell I think it's sometimes downright beautiful;

It's amazingly atmospheric.

 

[Mallefunction]

Moral choice/karma system...the reason being is that the GAME is what's deciding what's right or wrong, regardless of the situation. Any action can be justified so the fact that I get a 'bad' ending because I did what I felt was the right thing to do in the situation is really unfair and fucking stupid. It's always black and white, never taking into consideration where the player is coming from or their reasoning behind their choices, etc.

Fixed cameras....god DAMN, the right analog stick was made for a REASON! USE IT!

Having to feed/take care of characters outside of giving them first aid when they're near death. It's not done as much now, but I still see it occasionally. If I wanted to play The Sims, then I would have bought The friggin Sims!

Level grades. This refers to the game literally 'grading' you on your performance in a level. For one, it's frustrating because I once again have to play to the limitations of the game and not the way I want to play (I'm looking at you, AC: Brotherhood) and it also destroys immersion because the focus gets turned to scores and numbers rather than what's going on in the story, etc.

Sandbox worlds that don't let me keep playing past the credits. One thing I do like about Assassin's Creed is that I don't need to start a new game to keep dicking around in the world. Once I go through the single player campaign, I can do whatever I please. There's not much to do frankly, but I like that the option is given to me so I can at least enjoy the game without being rushed to the next part of the story.

And I also pretty much agree with all the others mentioned above. Although I don't mind QTEs when it's heavily integrated with the gameplay (Heavy Rain, God of War, etc). When they're in cut scenes...FML.

 

[Emberwake]

If you ask me, Planescape's hand-drawn 2D graphics have hold up a lot better than early 3D from the same era. Hell I think it's sometimes downright beautiful;
It's amazingly atmospheric.

This is generally true, that the last generation of 2d games look significantly better than many old 3d games. This is doubly true if you can play the game at a high resolution (a term that means something different today than it did in 1998, hands up if you can remember when 800x600 was high res!) since 2d sprites and backgrounds from the late 90s basically look as nice as the artists could draw them.

As for my rules picks, I've got to go with:

1) Never auto-save before the cutscene. Allow saving between cutscene and boss fight.

The only thing more frustrating than repeatedly failing is having the game show you the same tedious exposition every time you try again. Example: Mass Effect, boss fight with krogan and geth on Therum, riding that damn elevator up 18 times, listening to Liara's nails-on-a-chalkboard voice over and over.

2) Never show me my corpse or death animation in unskippable slow-mo after I died.

Salt in the wound. Burnout gets a pass on this one because it rewards me for crashing.

3) Stun-lock must be killed with fire.

This one's popped up since the dawn of action games, but it saw a huge resurgence after WoW was released. The player should NEVER be killed without having the ability to act. I dont care what type of game it is, this one is such a huge deal breaker (and a keyboard breaker). Get out of jail free moves are a bandaid on the problem, remove stun-lock from everything everywhere.

4) Suicidal escorts should be left to die.

Escort missions don't have to go away. They've been done right on occasion. But for every decent escort mission in gaming, there are 20 more that involve babysitting a suicidal twat who doesn't wait for you, runs into the line of fire, takes the least efficient path to their destination, or otherwise finds a way to make you wish you were doing something else. If you're a game designer and you put an escort mission in your game, you'd better be DAMN F-ING SURE that its done right.

5) Grossly inconsistent difficulty - playtest your damn games!

Sometimes it seems that the largest studios with tones of staff and the most lavish budgets are the biggest culprits here. Dragon Age: Origins is one of the best examples I can think of. Good games can really be dragged down by inexplicably hard trash mobs and bizzarely easy boss fights. I'm not talking about optional bosses either; I mean when you come around the corner in the hallway on your way to Major Plot Objective 3 and you stumble into a group of goblins with no special names and no awesome loot who absolutely destroy you thirteen times before you either get lucky or cheap the encounter. Then half an hour later, when you get to the showdown with Major Boss 4, you mash your way through without breaking a sweat.

I could go on like this for hours, but yeah, those are the big ones.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Top five gaming no-no's:

1) Forced stealth sections.
2) QTE's.
3) Unskippable credits.
4) Escort missions.
5) Unskippable cutscenes.

 

[LiftYourSkinnyFists]

Personal dislike for quick time events or what ever they are

A

X

RB

LB

Fuck, I missed it and fell to my death.

 

[Wicky_42]

I'm going to have to nominate unskippable videos of any sort again. I turned on Crysis Warhead the other day for a bit of casual shooting and had to sit through a 5 minute sequence of adverts from Crytech, EA, Intel, Nvidia and then a freaking teaser trailer of how good the game I WAS SITTING DOWN TO PLAY was going to be - I mean what the FUCK? None of it was skippable. Just sat there mashing the keyboard and swearing at the various logos until the teaser started. Then I just walked off. Gets me pissed just thinking about it :/

Second nomination is for the current trend of counting multiplayer and single player as the same game time - as in, using a multiplayer component to excuse a poor effort in the single player department. I can understand the constraints on modern games companies time and budget-wise, and the obvious economic incentives to replicate the market leaders' performance, but if you really want to make a kick-ass multiplayer game then make like BF2 and just do it. No-one criticised BF2's shocking single player component seriously because it wasn't sold for that. The most recent case, Homefront, has been making a big thing of its single player, but now tells us that it's of the same length as the rather brief campaigns of other lack-lustre modern shooters. The game might still be fantastic, but it's not boding well...