Gaming Concepts You Absolutely Loathe

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

While the adaptive difficulty can be annoying, it's not that different from RE4 & 5. Once you know how it works, what zombie you need to kill, can bypass or cripple, it gets easier. Here's a hint, the knife is very useful if you want to save ammo. Obviously, weapon degradation exists, but once I learned how powerful the knives are, I'd get my use out of them. If you shot the all of the Mr. Raccoon figures in both characters scenarios, you can use the infinite knife with no penalty to your rank. You can get consistent head shots with the shotgun; upgraded or not. Now the basic shotgun, it's usually all about timing your shot and distance. If you let the zombies lunge at you just before they initiate the lunge, you instantly blow off their head 95% of the time. Once you upgrade the shotgun, the head shots are way more consistent (even on Hardcore), but it depends on the player's aim and where the zombie is positioned.

You have some points, but I rather not have the game be a total cakewalk. Besides, hardcore was made for people that most likely already the played game on Normal or did Hardcore on their first play. Usually the player ready to plan their routes or strategy after subsequent playthroughs.

I know. I've beaten it. I've gotten the "Leon "S." Kennedy" achievement, "Sizzling Scarlet Hero" achievement, "Minimalist" achievement, and the "A Small Carbon Footprint" achievement. I can beat the game easily. As I have many times. That doesn't mean the mechanics aren't BS to me.

I don't want a game to be a cakewalk either. But I want my skill to matter. If you nerf me because I'm doing too well, that to me makes my skills worthless. Because it actually causes the game to hinder me for that fact. My level of fun comes from testing those kind of skills. If I wanted a running simulator, I would be into the Amnesia games or the Outlast.

To me, this is like if I was at the range with my shotgun and an instructor said "Great grouping. You're really shooting great. We decided that you're doing so well, we're strapping these weights to the end of your gun. Oh, and if you miss, we're kicking you out of the range because you didn't do as well with our unasked-for restrictions. Enjoy!"

(This might be the reason why Adaptive Difficulty exists.) Being overpowered. Sure, I actually like it for 30 mins but if I have that super weapon and everything gets smashed in one shot, what is the point of playing? Eg. Skyrim with bow and sneaking made the game a cakewalk. And uninteresting.

And it's not to say that some areas shouldn't be easy to blow through. Just not all

There's a fine line here. Control made you feel overpowered, but managed to make you feel under pressure constantly.

While I can understand the gripes about Adaptive Difficulty, I also understand what they are trying to do. Keep the game interesting

You know, I can actually see that. But I'm one of those rare people who actually likes the grind. I want to build up my character as high as I can. That's the actual fun for me. Even if midway, I'm so overpowered that the bosses mean nothing to me, I really don't care. Because I put in the work to get that good or that skillful.

That's why games like Bayonetta or DMC. Where it's not just about getting stronger, but tight precise combos that I need to pull off. I like knowing that it doesn't matter how powerful I am. I mess up, then I deserve what I got.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Competitive/Ranked Mode

I am all for having good strategies, teamwork, knowledge of game mechanics, and not bullshitting around. This is what I expect when I press ?play? on ranked, competitive, or whatever the name variation the game has. What I am greeted with instead are toxic and angry people throwing tantrum because things aren?t going their way, people who leave games and letting the rest of the team suffer, and people who don?t talk through the entire game but later talk a lot at post-game. Yes, everyone wants to win in this mode, even me. It?s okay to lose few games, and we can all learn from what we did wrong so we can have a better experience next time?..OH wait, that?s no it, is it? It?s always the healer who doesn?t heal you, tank who doesn?t soak damage, support that doesn?t help, teammates who don?t know the game, and everyone except you have (insert various mental-disability here) and they should kill themselves, isn?t?

The fantasy of always winning and reaching the top of the rank ladder is the cause of all these problems, IMHO. Players are expecting an e-sport level of teamwork and gameplay all the time when they really shouldn?t. No one's professional. No one has coaches that give them guidance. Now, toxicity aside, I can't understand why EVERY multiplayer games feel the need to have ranked/competitive mode. Like, have you not seen League of Legends or Overwatch? Do you want the same shit on your games? Granted, the toxicity in other games are nowhere near the level/not as infamous as LOL or OW, but I feel these modes are ruining otherwise great games. Not every multiplayer games need this mode; Because at some point we just don't give a shit and want to play the game w/o hearing all the bullshit.

This sounds like only an issue for team games. Try competitive solo games like fighting games. You may come across some toxic people and some ragequitters here and there (depends on the game, some have almost none like games made by arc system works) but they actually don't affect how much fun the game is at all. In fact, being ragequit against is like a mark of honor because they're in essence surrendering mid-fight and if you were at a tournament they'd be disqualified and you'd move on while everyone around would be laughing their ass off whereas if someone's being toxic then beating them is all that much more fun.

 

[CaitSeith]

Always-online single-player games

The worst offenders are mobile games and portable console games that do this.

We Cannot Go On Without You

The RPG concept where if the party leader gets KO'd, you lose instantly.

 

[happyninja42]

Easter egg hunting. I get it, you're really proud of your fully rendered world. But I really REALLY don't care to be told to go running around collecting 200 of something you scattered everywhere, just to compel me to crawl over every inch of your world. Especially when all it does is just give me some cosmetic crap. The only times I find this mechanic tolerable, is when it's actually incorporated into the storyline, and there is some tangible benefit for me doing it. The best example I can think of offhand, is the inFamous game. The shard fragments from the blast were all over, and they wanted you to find them, but they made it far less annoying than most games. First off, they gave you a pulsing sonar thing to light up the mini-map, so you knew where they were. And, they gave you tangible benefits in the form of XP that boosted your power pool, allowing you to do more super powered attacks before recharging.

And the rewards were incremental, so you didn't have to get all of them if you didn't want to, but you could gain benefits for casually picking them up as you went along. This was perfect in my opinion.

 

[Hawki]

Of course, as you also mention, it does work for some protagonists, like Jack from the first BioShock game, or the Doom Slayer, but more often than not, all it does is detract from the experience for me.

Even Jack kind of botches the concept for me. I said awhile ago that I think BioShock would be improved after the Atlas/Fontaine plot twist was revealed. If we take it that everything up to that point is Jack obeying orders like a drone, then a lack of speech kind of makes sense. But in the game's second half, where he's obstensibly his own man, then I think him speaking would add to that.

On the other hand, the Doom Slayer is a case where I'd admit the concept does work. Though part of the reason is that the game's story isn't treating itself seriously, so it can get away with a protagonist who simply doesn't have any interest beyond killing demons.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't like it when you get a "whatever section" in the middle of your game. Like a turret section, or a stealth section, or an escort section, etc. Anything that has nothing to do with what you've been doing so far so it feels like something you just want to get over with so you can go back to the actual game. Case in point: the "Batmobile sections" in Arkham Knight.

 

[Squilookle]

My biggest pet peeve is when [HEADING=3]Games change your FOV when you boost or sprint.[/HEADING] Eyes do not work that way. I don't need such a contrived mechanic to feel a sense of speed. Worst of all though is when it happens in a vehicle, I'm now given a false perspective on my environment, so if I want to boost over to a wall and then fly around it to avoid incoming fire, on finishing the boost, the FOV reveals the wall to be far, FAR closer to you already than it appeared during the boost. This is simply, to sum up in one word, shit.

I'll second turret sections, but for me [HEADING=3]rail shooting sections[/HEADING] are worse. They're a relic of the Time Crisis days and are the laziest type of shooter design. They have no place whatsoever in modern gaming experiences.

I'm also sick of [HEADING=3]Ironsights/ADS.[/HEADING] Having your gun block 1/6th of your already windowed view of the world is not realistic. Having your target constantly dropping behind said gun whenever you fire thanks to recoil is not good game design either. There's a good reason people will jump at optical sights or scopes over ironsights at every conceivable opportunity. They just suck. I know crosshairs aren't realistic either, but since all FPS characters are cyclops, at least crosshairs allow you to see around your gun, much like your second eye would when using ironsights in real life.

I also hate the [HEADING=3]Games that lack a mission-select screen.[/HEADING] This is particularly rampant in sandboxes (with a few notable exceptions). The way I see it, if you don't allow me to replay every mission in your game whenever I want, you're basically admitting that you're ashamed of your own mission design. And if you don't think your missions are any good, then why should I?

Competitive/Ranked Mode

I am all for having good strategies, teamwork, knowledge of game mechanics, and not bullshitting around. This is what I expect when I press ?play? on ranked, competitive, or whatever the name variation the game has. What I am greeted with instead are toxic and angry people throwing tantrum because things aren?t going their way, people who leave games and letting the rest of the team suffer, and people who don?t talk through the entire game but later talk a lot at post-game. Yes, everyone wants to win in this mode, even me. It?s okay to lose few games, and we can all learn from what we did wrong so we can have a better experience next time?..OH wait, that?s no it, is it? It?s always the healer who doesn?t heal you, tank who doesn?t soak damage, support that doesn?t help, teammates who don?t know the game, and everyone except you have (insert various mental-disability here) and they should kill themselves, isn?t?

The fantasy of always winning and reaching the top of the rank ladder is the cause of all these problems, IMHO. Players are expecting an e-sport level of teamwork and gameplay all the time when they really shouldn?t. No one's professional. No one has coaches that give them guidance. Now, toxicity aside, I can't understand why EVERY multiplayer games feel the need to have ranked/competitive mode. Like, have you not seen League of Legends or Overwatch? Do you want the same shit on your games? Granted, the toxicity in other games are nowhere near the level/not as infamous as LOL or OW, but I feel these modes are ruining otherwise great games. Not every multiplayer games need this mode; Because at some point we just don't give a shit and want to play the game w/o hearing all the bullshit.

Every game trying to be the next Skryim
I?d say there are too many open-world games coming from AAA companies. Ideally, open-world games should be filled with detail-heavy environments, areas that are lively with NPCs, NPCs that are fully fleshed out, intriguing story that takes hours to complete, various side activities to do, and fun gameplay that keeps you in the game. Games like RDR2, BOTW, Witcher 3 are all great examples of good Open-world games.

But good open-world games like these are too far and in between. I feel there are way too many generic-looking open-world games that are advertised to be ?larger than the previous game that was advertised to be the largest game?. While open-world games are getting bigger, and they do look pretty and are filled with details, my problems are too many open-world games feature either a world is lifeless, NPCs are stereotypical and brings nothing new, repetitive gameplay, technical glitches/bugs, or dull story. I am looking at you, Anthem and GR: Breakpoint

Couldn't agree more. Current shooters cater far too much to the individual, at the expense of the team. This wouldn't be a problem in a deathmatch arena game- but if specifically team based games like Battlefield, it's a game breaker. I get that people want to play with people of a similar skillset, but ever wonder what shooters would be like if they de-emphasized the K/D ratio? In Red Orchestra there's a deliberate delay between a kill and its appearance in the kill-feed. This one change is monumental in changing gameplay styles. Instead of looking to the feed for instant gratification, players keep their focus on their actual target, which is far less 'gamey.' If players weren't rewarded for kills maybe they'd play more like proper teammates for the thrill of victory? It still boggles my mind that when Battlefield 1 released, players would spend entire rounds pumping torpedoes into empty, parked boats that kept respawning, just because they got bonuses for killing vehicles. Such point and progression systems aren't just completely broken, but they're breaking the way people play the games.

And yeah, sandbox size isn't impressive by itself, when there's nothing to do on that real estate. I still think that San Andreas is essentially the ideal sandbox size. Anything larger than that better be heavily vehicle based, or it's just a waste.

 

[BrawlMan]

While the adaptive difficulty can be annoying, it's not that different from RE4 & 5. Once you know how it works, what zombie you need to kill, can bypass or cripple, it gets easier. Here's a hint, the knife is very useful if you want to save ammo. Obviously, weapon degradation exists, but once I learned how powerful the knives are, I'd get my use out of them. If you shot the all of the Mr. Raccoon figures in both characters scenarios, you can use the infinite knife with no penalty to your rank. You can get consistent head shots with the shotgun; upgraded or not. Now the basic shotgun, it's usually all about timing your shot and distance. If you let the zombies lunge at you just before they initiate the lunge, you instantly blow off their head 95% of the time. Once you upgrade the shotgun, the head shots are way more consistent (even on Hardcore), but it depends on the player's aim and where the zombie is positioned.

You have some points, but I rather not have the game be a total cakewalk. Besides, hardcore was made for people that most likely already the played game on Normal or did Hardcore on their first play. Usually the player ready to plan their routes or strategy after subsequent playthroughs.

I know. I've beaten it. I've gotten the "Leon "S." Kennedy" achievement, "Sizzling Scarlet Hero" achievement, "Minimalist" achievement, and the "A Small Carbon Footprint" achievement. I can beat the game easily. As I have many times. That doesn't mean the mechanics aren't BS to me.

I don't want a game to be a cakewalk either. But I want my skill to matter. If you nerf me because I'm doing too well, that to me makes my skills worthless. Because it actually causes the game to hinder me for that fact. My level of fun comes from testing those kind of skills. If I wanted a running simulator, I would be into the Amnesia games or the Outlast.

To me, this is like if I was at the range with my shotgun and an instructor said "Great grouping. You're really shooting great. We decided that you're doing so well, we're strapping these weights to the end of your gun. Oh, and if you miss, we're kicking you out of the range because you didn't do as well with our unasked-for restrictions. Enjoy!"

(This might be the reason why Adaptive Difficulty exists.) Being overpowered. Sure, I actually like it for 30 mins but if I have that super weapon and everything gets smashed in one shot, what is the point of playing? Eg. Skyrim with bow and sneaking made the game a cakewalk. And uninteresting.

And it's not to say that some areas shouldn't be easy to blow through. Just not all

There's a fine line here. Control made you feel overpowered, but managed to make you feel under pressure constantly.

While I can understand the gripes about Adaptive Difficulty, I also understand what they are trying to do. Keep the game interesting

You know, I can actually see that. But I'm one of those rare people who actually likes the grind. I want to build up my character as high as I can. That's the actual fun for me. Even if midway, I'm so overpowered that the bosses mean nothing to me, I really don't care. Because I put in the work to get that good or that skillful.

That's why games like Bayonetta or DMC. Where it's not just about getting stronger, but tight precise combos that I need to pull off. I like knowing that it doesn't matter how powerful I am. I mess up, then I deserve what I got.

Still not the worse Dynamic Difficulty Capcom's ever done. At it's worse was with RE5. Even the QTEs were tied to the dynamic difficulty. On professional mode, you had to be on point and could not hesitate. Otherwise, instant death. Speaking of which, instant death QTEs is another concept I hated. I'm glad this has finally died down, but generation 7 had a huge problem of using QTEs in the most obnoxious ways. The only games to do it best are Die Hard Arcade/Dynamite Deka, and Asura's Wrath. More so the latter, because at worse, you would lose some health or it would effect your score.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Games that purport to give lots of choices to make your own story. We have not yet reached a point where any game of a large scale can deliver a truly satisfying fulfillment of that promise. If a game has lot's of choices then most of them will either be incredibly inconsequential or just lead back into a main plotline.

I much prefer when a story gives a few, like three at most, very impactful choices that can be developed satisfyingly rather than promise and fail to make "all your choices matter". The worst of which is Telltale's games where choice is all a facade and repeat playthroughs show how hollow it all is.

 

[Squilookle]

Games that purport to give lots of choices to make your own story. We have not yet reached a point where any game of a large scale can deliver a truly satisfying fulfillment of that promise.

So I'm guessing you've never played Sid Meier's Pirates. Or Star Control 2. Or Elite. Or basically any game in the Mount and Blade series. All these games fulfil that promise and more, some since as far back as 1984.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

When the rules that apply to restrict me do not apply to the enemy I'm fighting. Admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of RTS games where enemy factions seem to eternally have all the resources they need to build however much of whatever they want despite me doing my best to wreck their production capabilities. If smashing my economic stuff slows me down, it should be a viable tactic to slow my enemy down as well

 

[Dalisclock]

Of course, as you also mention, it does work for some protagonists, like Jack from the first BioShock game, or the Doom Slayer, but more often than not, all it does is detract from the experience for me.

Even Jack kind of botches the concept for me. I said awhile ago that I think BioShock would be improved after the Atlas/Fontaine plot twist was revealed. If we take it that everything up to that point is Jack obeying orders like a drone, then a lack of speech kind of makes sense. But in the game's second half, where he's obstensibly his own man, then I think him speaking would add to that.

Well, considering Jack is literally a toddler who was somehow aged up 20 or so years in a single year before the start of the game I can only imagine Jack doesn't talk because "Jack shoot?" "Dada Golf" would be fairly immersion breaking considering the rest of the story.

I know it's weird that's the most unrealistic part of the game for me, but I've been living with a toddler and it's hard to see exactly how the game justifies Jack being a semi-functional adult human being despite having less then a year of life experience to draw on. Which is probably why Jack is mostly a non-entity as far as characters go.

 

[Dalisclock]

When the rules that apply to restrict me do not apply to the enemy I'm fighting. Admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of RTS games where enemy factions seem to eternally have all the resources they need to build however much of whatever they want despite me doing my best to wreck their production capabilities. If smashing my economic stuff slows me down, it should be a viable tactic to slow my enemy down as well

It happens a lot, apparently. I recently realized that since programming good AI is difficult, a lot of games just flat out cheat and give the AI extra resources depending on difficulty level.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComputerIsACheatingBastard

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotPlayingFairWithResources

It's one thing for enemy soldiers to have unlimited ammo for their guns. It's quite another for enemy armies to have resources far beyond what you can actually see on screen or get far more resources using the same methods. Or in some cases, they just get free money, so it's impossible to starve them by attacking their supply lines(but they can easily do that to you).

 

[Thaluikhain]

When the rules that apply to restrict me do not apply to the enemy I'm fighting. Admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of RTS games where enemy factions seem to eternally have all the resources they need to build however much of whatever they want despite me doing my best to wreck their production capabilities. If smashing my economic stuff slows me down, it should be a viable tactic to slow my enemy down as well

And they are always able to somehow find you anywhere on the map you've gone to.

 

[meiam]

When the rules that apply to restrict me do not apply to the enemy I'm fighting. Admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of RTS games where enemy factions seem to eternally have all the resources they need to build however much of whatever they want despite me doing my best to wreck their production capabilities. If smashing my economic stuff slows me down, it should be a viable tactic to slow my enemy down as well

It happens a lot, apparently. I recently realized that since programming good AI is difficult, a lot of games just flat out cheat and give the AI extra resources depending on difficulty level.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComputerIsACheatingBastard

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotPlayingFairWithResources

It's one thing for enemy soldiers to have unlimited ammo for their guns. It's quite another for enemy armies to have resources far beyond what you can actually see on screen or get far more resources using the same methods. Or in some cases, they just get free money, so it's impossible to starve them by attacking their supply lines(but they can easily do that to you).

That's pretty much every 4x game, AI is just incapable of playing those and need massive bonus to even begin to compete. It does create big issues where often you can exploit that to your advantages. So for example, in Civ 6 you can steal a portion of a city income with a thief, because the AI was getting insane amount of cheat gold stealing money from them was legitimately a better way for me to make money than the regular way, even if I heavily focus into it, so I would just steal there gold and use in non stupid (ie ai) way, which made higher difficulty setting not much harder than lower one.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

When the rules that apply to restrict me do not apply to the enemy I'm fighting. Admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of RTS games where enemy factions seem to eternally have all the resources they need to build however much of whatever they want despite me doing my best to wreck their production capabilities. If smashing my economic stuff slows me down, it should be a viable tactic to slow my enemy down as well

And they are always able to somehow find you anywhere on the map you've gone to.

Oh yes, I encountered a version of that recently! My enemy had a navy, I didn't yet. Since they would just attack any ship that got built on the coast they controlled, I started building well away from what they could logically see, on an entirely different island. As soon as my first ship spawned, the enemy navy legged it halfway across the map to come break it. There was no way they should have known it was there except the AI drawing upon meta knowledge. Sorry for the mild rant but that super irritated me

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

When the rules that apply to restrict me do not apply to the enemy I'm fighting. Admittedly I'm thinking more in terms of RTS games where enemy factions seem to eternally have all the resources they need to build however much of whatever they want despite me doing my best to wreck their production capabilities. If smashing my economic stuff slows me down, it should be a viable tactic to slow my enemy down as well

And they are always able to somehow find you anywhere on the map you've gone to.

Oh yes, I encountered a version of that recently! My enemy had a navy, I didn't yet. Since they would just attack any ship that got built on the coast they controlled, I started building well away from what they could logically see, on an entirely different island. As soon as my first ship spawned, the enemy navy legged it halfway across the map to come break it. There was no way they should have known it was there except the AI drawing upon meta knowledge. Sorry for the mild rant but that super irritated me

This is one of the many reasons I can never like X-Com games despite how good everyone tells me they are. Especially X-Com.

What the hell is the point to a Stealth Mechanic if even though "The Enemy doesn't know where you are", they keep walking to your position for no reason. Didn't break Stealth, didn't make a noise, but the enemies always seem to walk directly towards the position you're walking to.

I really hate BS mechanics. With all my heart.

 

[Trunkage]

Games that purport to give lots of choices to make your own story. We have not yet reached a point where any game of a large scale can deliver a truly satisfying fulfillment of that promise. If a game has lot's of choices then most of them will either be incredibly inconsequential or just lead back into a main plotline.

I much prefer when a story gives a few, like three at most, very impactful choices that can be developed satisfyingly rather than promise and fail to make "all your choices matter". The worst of which is Telltale's games where choice is all a facade and repeat playthroughs show how hollow it all is.

I remember in the Witcher 3 where you find out that Ciri survives an incident if you gave her a pep talk. Or you let a DV victim die or go back to the perpetrator. Which are both terrible. Sometimes choices just need to make sense in the game world, and many times they don't live up to expectation

 

[votemarvel]

Fast travel annoys me. Not in itself but that developers don't seem to realise that if there was more to do in the world or what was there was in a smaller space, then they wouldn't need to put in a fast travel system in order to stop people getting bored travelling across that world.

 

[wings012]

Games that purport to give lots of choices to make your own story. We have not yet reached a point where any game of a large scale can deliver a truly satisfying fulfillment of that promise. If a game has lot's of choices then most of them will either be incredibly inconsequential or just lead back into a main plotline.

I much prefer when a story gives a few, like three at most, very impactful choices that can be developed satisfyingly rather than promise and fail to make "all your choices matter". The worst of which is Telltale's games where choice is all a facade and repeat playthroughs show how hollow it all is.

I remember in the Witcher 3 where you find out that Ciri survives an incident if you gave her a pep talk. Or you let a DV victim die or go back to the perpetrator. Which are both terrible. Sometimes choices just need to make sense in the game world, and many times they don't live up to expectation

I've played visual novels where a seemingly innocent choice between slacking off in bed or going out for a walk can result in the protagonist getting killed or reality completely warping, cause the different routes completely contradict one another in terms of how reality works.

I too hate such choices. If I had my way, I'd have Dragon Age 2's dialogue options in every game with dialogue choices so I can be a snarky asshole all the way. If the choices are either going to not make much sense or have no impact, at least let me have a few laughs.