Gaming Concepts You Absolutely Loathe

[Gralian]

What's that, a choose your own adventure style game you say? One with multiple ways to solve encounters? Lots of fun weapons, cool gadgets and awesome powers?

Wait... You have to play stealth to get the good ending AND you're forced into a pacifist run the whole game for an achievement?

Jokes aside, this really frustrated me with the dishonoured games and to a lesser extent the Deus Ex reboot games (HR and MD) i'm sure i can think of others too, but these were really egregious and got in the way of otherwise fantastic games that i love.

Yes, i know i can play missions like a psycho if i want. But that's not the point. I don't like *feeling* like i've been punished for how i want to play, no matter how arbitrary it may seem.

 

[Kyrian007]

Yes the problem was that enemies scaled against your level but many of the skills that increase your level don't necessarily increase your combat abilities proportionately. So if you spend time having fun in towns and leveling your non-combat abilities, or if you mix up your fighting style from time to time leading to leveling redundant skills, the enemies become much stronger while your power level remains about the same. It gets to the point, especially at later levels, that players are forced to use exploits such as alchemy/enchanting/blacksmithing loops to create ludicrously powerful equipment just to keep up. Your character should not feel weaker at level 40 than it did at level 1

I still don't see that as a problem, but rather a feature. The idea was to get away from the common practice of "creating a character." Just getting the levels up before you go out and play the game. Skyrim rather encouraged a system closer to "evolving a character" just playing the game the way you want and having those skills you are using naturally get better as you progress. To me it makes more sense to get better at lockpicking by picking locks rather than suddenly getting better at lockpicking because you killed your 35th wolf. The more common way to make a character "How do I make a sneaky character?" Well in character creation you max your dexterity and put your points in sneak. Ask the same question about Skyrim and the answer is, use a sneaky playstyle. What it punished, is people who were playing with the "old" RPG "create a character" mindset. You just can't approach it that way and expect to walk away with a good experience.

As Thaluikhain already said, there's a difference between an exploit and playing a game. An exploit is that you found that a certain item in your inventory is bugged and totally messes up XP rewards. Level one monsters will give you end game XP (1 xp per kill vs 100,000 xp per kill). You find this item four hours into the game where you're leveled to a point that Level One Monsters die if you sneeze around them. So you stay there and farm. That's an exploit. That's not how the game was made.

Given the multiple iterations of Skyrim, getting XP for blacksmithing and enchanting isn't a bug. If it was, it would have been patched out of the game several iterations ago.

Nor is it something easy to do in the early game. You have to find these caves. You need to kill what's in there. You need to mine. You need to refine and get other materials such as hunting animals for leather. You need to render all those items, and then build.

That's work. That's Honest to Sweet Zombie Jesus Work. You have to go to mine after mine. You have to make sure you don't do anything to interrupt the respawn timer. You can only carry so much or you can't fast travel. And you can't make anyone else do it for you.

How can this ever be considered an exploit? How can this even be considered quick?

That really isn't quick... that's the right way to do it. Going to mine after mine you have to use combat (or sneak) to get ore or (or or ha ha) money to buy the materials... leveling sneak, combat, speech (for mercantile.) That's evolving a character, creating that right balance. The Honest to Sweet Zombie Jesus Work way is the right way. The "exploit" that will sink you is like my previous example, turbocharging block by going to the first dungeon and letting a level 1 drugar hit your shield thousands of time until you Max your block. Or command consoling your inventory with infinite amounts of iron and making daggers until you Max your blacksmithing. You don't even have to cheat to turbolevel Alchemy, just collect the right ingredients which are available in abundance and are cheap and spend an hour or so cranking out potions. There's tutorials on how to do it, or frankly how to turbolevel any skill really. But use any of them and you do risk screwing up your character. And to me, that "punishment" is totally by design and I approve.

The example of a gaming concept I loathe is something like rubber-banding in racing or sports games. I don't want games to be close. I don't want cheap 3-pointers falling just because I'm up by double digits. If I'm doing badly in a race I don't want the drivers waiting around the next corner for me to catch up for the exciting finish. If I'm losing, I want a comeback to be because I'm awesome at the game... not because the game is HELPING me make the comeback.

 

[laggyteabag]

Hunger, thirst, etc.

I can appreciate the idea - needing to scavenge supplies for your own survival, but most of the time, all it feels like is babysitting a bunch of extra bars that bottom out too quickly.

A lot of times, it feels like you need to eat a full 3-course meal every 10 minutes, otherwise you will drop dead in the streets.

 

[happyninja42]

Not sure if this would be a "mechanic", though it might qualify under Forced Cutscenes or something, but I remember playing that first Tomb Raider reboot game, and being really annoyed with one point in the game and what happened.

Basically you see a parachute when at the safe point with friends, and you go running off to try and save the person (presumably a pilot), before the badguys get to him. So you run off, and I'm heading that way like a good little hero. I get to the spot, which is up one level from where I was at the time, up a simple ramp. I climb up the ramp, and I see a badguy with a shield, with his back to me, advancing on the pilot, who is injured. So I get ready to blast him to save the guy, and the game instead, takes away control, and shows me a cutscene of Lara just...standing there...WATCHING the badguy approach the pilot. And just...watches him gun down the injured man. And I'm yelling at my monitor "SHOOT HIM!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?"

So yeah, that was an annoying thing that I dislike in games.

Gameplay and Story Segregation. Oh god did the 2013 Tomb Raider have issues with this. There's that, the issue with the "Oh, Sorry Mr. Deer I had to kill you to survive" and then kill like 20,000 bad guys and not feeling a thing about it, or Lara being surprisingly good at murder off the bat considering she's supposed to be a college student on a research trip.

Gameplay and Story Segregation. Oh god did the 2013 Tomb Raider have issues with this. There's that, the issue with the "Oh, Sorry Mr. Deer I had to kill you to survive" and then kill like 20,000 bad guys and not feeling a thing about it, or Lara being surprisingly good at murder off the bat considering she's supposed to be a college student on a research trip.

I wouldn't have minded that much, if the game had taken time to make it more understandable why she didn't react. But I had already encountered those shield enemies by that point in the game, AND I was literally only like 10 feet behind the shield guy, with a clear, open view of his back, and he wasn't aware I was there. There was no reason for the refusal to attack. If they had given the badguy some dialogue, implying he was trying to help the person, perhaps kneeling down by him, and checking him, before quickly shoving a shiv in him, that would be at least something. Or if Lara had stopped for the cutscene, clearly too far away from the situation to help, perhaps separated by a too large gap or something, but she was close enough to see what was going on. I mean, ANYTHING would've been better.

Too be fair though, this is hardly a problem exclusive to that Tomb Raider game. But man was it glaringly obvious in that one.

What's that, a choose your own adventure style game you say? One with multiple ways to solve encounters? Lots of fun weapons, cool gadgets and awesome powers?

Wait... You have to play stealth to get the good ending AND you're forced into a pacifist run the whole game for an achievement?

Jokes aside, this really frustrated me with the dishonoured games and to a lesser extent the Deus Ex reboot games (HR and MD) i'm sure i can think of others too, but these were really egregious and got in the way of otherwise fantastic games that i love.

Yes, i know i can play missions like a psycho if i want. But that's not the point. I don't like *feeling* like i've been punished for how i want to play, no matter how arbitrary it may seem.

I don't really see the problem here? First off, with Dishonored, you can still kill people and get the "good" ending. You just have to not be, as you put it, a psycho murderhobo. And I don't just mean the main targets, you can also kill random people up to a point and still get Low Chaos. I've done it. I think it's fairly accurate really, I mean in real life, when there is a known killer on the loose, the local community does freak out a great deal. The level of panic escalates heavily. So to me, it makes sense, that reports of a masked Queen Killer, going around through the sewers, summoning hordes of rats to devour his foes, and killing everyone he meets. I mean..yeah? Why wouldn't that cause the people to freak out and go into worse situations and choices?

Now Deus Ex: Human Revolution, yeah I will agree they were a little clunky with the implementation of the "I didn't kill anyone" morality in that final cutscene, depending on which choice you picked in the final bit. I don't remember such a thing in Mankind Divided? But honestly that game sadly fell out of my memory pretty quick after playing it.

As to the achievement problem? Again, I'm not sure what the issue is there? All achievements require you to play a specific way to accomplish them, when the achievement is, by design, referring to a playstyle. To get the pacifist achievement, of course you can't kill anyone. So I don't see why that's a big issue? It's just a challenge for those who want to try it. All of those are individual though, as I recall. For example you don't have to do a stealth run to do the pacifist run. There are plenty of tools that let you be fairly open and still accomplish it. You won't get the Ghost achievement sure, but you can do that on a kill run. In fact it's easier on a kill run, as you only have on objective in that case. Don't get seen.

 

[Gralian]

What's that, a choose your own adventure style game you say? One with multiple ways to solve encounters? Lots of fun weapons, cool gadgets and awesome powers?

Wait... You have to play stealth to get the good ending AND you're forced into a pacifist run the whole game for an achievement?

Jokes aside, this really frustrated me with the dishonoured games and to a lesser extent the Deus Ex reboot games (HR and MD) i'm sure i can think of others too, but these were really egregious and got in the way of otherwise fantastic games that i love.

Yes, i know i can play missions like a psycho if i want. But that's not the point. I don't like *feeling* like i've been punished for how i want to play, no matter how arbitrary it may seem.

I don't really see the problem here? First off, with Dishonored, you can still kill people and get the "good" ending. You just have to not be, as you put it, a psycho murderhobo. And I don't just mean the main targets, you can also kill random people up to a point and still get Low Chaos. I've done it. I think it's fairly accurate really, I mean in real life, when there is a known killer on the loose, the local community does freak out a great deal. The level of panic escalates heavily. So to me, it makes sense, that reports of a masked Queen Killer, going around through the sewers, summoning hordes of rats to devour his foes, and killing everyone he meets. I mean..yeah? Why wouldn't that cause the people to freak out and go into worse situations and choices?

Now Deus Ex: Human Revolution, yeah I will agree they were a little clunky with the implementation of the "I didn't kill anyone" morality in that final cutscene, depending on which choice you picked in the final bit. I don't remember such a thing in Mankind Divided? But honestly that game sadly fell out of my memory pretty quick after playing it.

As to the achievement problem? Again, I'm not sure what the issue is there? All achievements require you to play a specific way to accomplish them, when the achievement is, by design, referring to a playstyle. To get the pacifist achievement, of course you can't kill anyone. So I don't see why that's a big issue? It's just a challenge for those who want to try it. All of those are individual though, as I recall. For example you don't have to do a stealth run to do the pacifist run. There are plenty of tools that let you be fairly open and still accomplish it. You won't get the Ghost achievement sure, but you can do that on a kill run. In fact it's easier on a kill run, as you only have on objective in that case. Don't get seen.

To clarify, i always try to get 100% achievements / trophies etc in a game before i move onto a new one. I guess what frustrates me is when a game touts lots of really interesting ways to murderize people (or to use neat powers, like in Dishonoured) but then requires you to go the whole game without touching any of it. For example, Dishonoured had an achievement where you beat the game only using "Blink" and nothing else. Along with a pacifist achievemnt. Deus Ex did something similar, no kill achievement - with that game though, it felt frustrating that you felt railroaded into having to play like a hippy purely because the XP reward was so much higher for conking everyone out on the noggin rather than using your badass armblades or that nifty silenced pistol you've spent the whole game modifying.

Because these games are lengthy experiences, i find it hard to justify playing through the way i feel "required" to by the developer and then play through it again how i actually want to play it.

I completely accept that this is all my own problem though. I don't expect anyone or many to really understand, but this was a thread about what winds you personally up.

 

[happyninja42]

To clarify, i always try to get 100% achievements / trophies etc in a game before i move onto a new one. I guess what frustrates me is when a game touts lots of really interesting ways to murderize people (or to use neat powers, like in Dishonoured) but then requires you to go the whole game without touching any of it. For example, Dishonoured had an achievement where you beat the game only using "Blink" and nothing else. Along with a pacifist achievemnt. Deus Ex did something similar, no kill achievement - with that game though, it felt frustrating that you felt railroaded into having to play like a hippy purely because the XP reward was so much higher for conking everyone out on the noggin rather than using your badass armblades or that nifty silenced pistol you've spent the whole game modifying.

Because these games are lengthy experiences, i find it hard to justify playing through the way i feel "required" to by the developer and then play through it again how i actually want to play it.

I completely accept that this is all my own problem though. I don't expect anyone or many to really understand, but this was a thread about what winds you personally up.

I think my confusion is that I don't see why that one specific achievement criteria, is so much more egregious than say ones that have equally difficult goals like "Kill 100 enemies without taking any damage" or "Don't lose any minions on this escort mission." Achievements by design, are meant to be challenging, and a pacifist related achievement, by it's very nature, requires you to not, as you put it, play like a psychopath.

Now I do agree that Deus Ex was kind of janky with it's XP system, given the bonus you get for non-lethal, but I think that's because you were going to need a lot more "tools" in your kit to have a passive run, aside from combat. Because someone who isn't worried about pacifist achievements, doesn't really need things like hacking or the social skills, so the XP can be more streamlined without really hindering their progress. Because I remember all of the story vital locks/computers, were pretty much 100% Level 1 difficulty, specifically so someone who was a combat monkey, and didn't invest in the support skills, could still progress the story. But the panels that allowed you to say, bypass the combat entirely, or get the information you needed to social your way out of a fight, those were usually gated behind the higher difficulty locks, thus needing more XP to get them Or at least that was my understanding of it. It might be just simply off via the math of it, and it's still a problem for a combat build, but I never really play that route, so I don't know from personal experience.

As to the Dishonored challenge about only using blink. I remember thinking that one was going to be tricky, but it turned out it really wasn't. I was genuinely surprised how easy it was to still go through that game with just that power at the default level. Partly because you don't have to bother with the side stuff, like trying to go through some crazy puzzle/obstacle course, because the only reward at the end is a Bone Charm, which you don't need because you aren't buying powers. xD It was surprisingly one of the easier runs I ever did of that game, and I even pacifisted with ghost, but that was mostly just because that's how I default to.

I actually loved that one, because of the theme of it. That you were basically refusing to make a deal with the literal devil for power to get revenge. That you could do it without mystic help (beyond the minimum required by the game). It was one of the easier runs I did, but also the most personally satisfying. "I don't need all your fancy powers Outsider. So keep your cryptic morality debates to yourself"

 

[Dansen]

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.

I share your frustration, its been bugging me lately. For some reason Borderland's 3 continues including cars even though they add nothing to the game. They added more vehicles and actual ways to customize their handling, damage and stats but you don't even use them because they are just there to get you from point to point. The maps also aren't designed for them as you get snagged on environmental clutter constantly. Its a waste of resources that could have been spent on other parts of the game that need it. And this type of design is so standard in AAA games its maddening. Open world is the gaming equivalent of putting "natural flavors" on your cereal box.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Games about grinding different combinations of skill together that don't tell you the skill tree in advance. I just finished Fire Emblem: Awakening and am currently playing Bravely Default and neither one tells you what you will unlock by leveling up a class. The whole fun is taking a character along an upgrade path to give them the skills they need to kick butt. However, your only options are to grind out every class to see what they all do and completely ruin the game by over leveling or look it up online, which always kind of sucks and you end up stumbling across the completely broken strats someone else has came up with to break the game. FE: Awakening was especially bad with the whole children inheritance system that I don't think was actually ever explained in the game at all.

All in all I'm not sure why those two games seemed to be so well regarded at the time. I'm completely underwhelmed by both.

 

[Asita]

"Anything goes" crafting, which is to say "Alchemy". I think the first time I encountered this was with Rikku's "Mix" ability in Final Fantasy X. You can combine any two stockable items into a new item. To explain why I hate this, let's look at the unique combinations for a moment.

Spoiler

60 combinations that result in an ultra potion
105 that result in a panacea
92 that result in an Ultra Cure
41 that result in a Mega-Phoenix
89 that result in a Final Phoenix
16 that result in an Elixir
357 that result in a Mega Elixir
653 that result in a Super Elixir
291 that result in a Final Elixir
24 that result in NulAll
82 for Mega NulAll
41 for Hyper NulAll
15 for Ultra NulAll
3 for Vitality
100 for Mega Vitality
95 for Hyper Vitality
25 for Mana
148 for Mega Mana
197 for Hyper Mana
62 for Mighty Wall
44 for Mighty G
199 for Super Mighty G
25 for Hyper Mighty G
3 for Freedom

...And that was a non-exhaustive list because I'm not about to count out the number of possible combinations for the remaining 40 unique results just to make a point.

The 'fun' part, of course, is that while each permutation of items has a single specific result, the game doesn't tell you what you're getting when you make that permutation. So if you don't have notes handy, you don't know if your mix is going to result in 5 hits of low ice damage, remove 15/16 of the foes' current hp, speed up the rate at which your overdrive fills up, or revives your dead party members (which you might not have) with full health. And it's just way too much to keep track of. Just on the non-exhaustive above you've got 2,707 permutations for 24 distinct results.

Now to be clear, I don't have a problem with crafting in and of itself. I love me some Teraria, Monster Hunter, Warframe, and Subnautica, and they all lean quite heavily onto their crafting mechanics. What I hate is the "alchemy" trial and error approach, where you're either crafting random items blindly or near-blindly and hoping for a good result or have your finger on a guide to make sure that you're both making the desired item and doing so with the lowest possible opportunity cost.

 

[Baffle]

NPC Auto Leveling: To me, this is one of the single most dumbest design that has ever come out the gaming industry. There is nothing that tells me my time grinding was useless more than NPC Auto-leveling. Why did I spend hours grinding to get enough points to get the Super Nova ability when a Thief in rags that I had difficulty dispatching with my rusty sword doesn't die outright to it?

I agree. I would've been so angry if I'd spent all that time levelling in Might and Magic to get the Armageddon spell, to find the villagers had somehow out-levelled it. (As I recall, and it was a long time ago, they hadn't. I just flattened those bozos.)

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hmmm, not so much a concept as an unintended effect, but when you're playing a turn based strategy game and you're close to winning, you tend to end up with a zillion units all wanting orders each turn, and your new stuff is several turns away from being able to get to where the last important stuff is going on. Slows things down a lot and I tend to forget some of what I'd planned to do with my units a few turns back.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I'm playing through Bloodborne. It's amazing that I like it when it has so many things I dislike.

-Bosses so Big that you can not see what they are doing. I get this is an intentional SoulsBorne Tradition. But it doesn't make it less annoying. I simply can not see the attacks and it makes it feel cheap. This leads to a few more complaints.

-Camera going crazy when it doesn't know how to handle your lock-on target's motion. This leads to a lot of unfair deaths. I know the answer is to disengage the lock on when you think something is happening. But I have been right next to a dog creature and seen my blade go through its body several times without damaging it once. Lock-on is essential to make sure you're actually going to hit the target, no matter how you clip through the enemy. But that leads to another thing.

-Lock-on disengaging on its own. You're not even that far away. You rolled out of striking distance and suddenly the lock on is gone. Is this a problem? Yup. For two more reasons!

-Sometimes it's a struggle to lock onto the enemy you wish to fight. There have been plenty of times where I've locked on to an enemy that's neck and neck with the actual foe I want to target. And the lock-on refuses to shift just a foot to the left to get the monster I want to take care of first. It artibarialy shifts when it wants to. And that cost some damage.

-Sometimes the Lock On just won't turn on. Don't feel like I have to explain this one.

But this leads me to my most hated thing of all. Having to deal with other players. Because it leads to (You guessed it) two different outcomes.

I turned on online for the first time to get to a chalice dungeon to try to get an uncanny weapon. Once I got it, I didn't think anything about being online, so I kept playing. I went to the Nightmare Frontier, and I fought my first PvP battle. So, the two options is either this guy was a hacker or he had such tremendous lag that only affected me.

I should state that I'm Level 100 at this point, 40 in skill, 32 in strength, Saw Spear +7 with a damage potential of 321.

I ran up to him and slashed him with my Saw Spear 5 times before he could roll away. The damage bar didn't move. I saw the blood coming out, the character model was stun locked, but no damage. I shot with my rifle, and once again his character displayed that he took damage, but all that happened was 13 points of damage.

Fine, I thought. Lag over. I baited a slash and then rolled behind him. One slash did actual damage. Great, let's get this done.

But in the same flurry of slashes, only the first swing did damage. Even though he was stunlocked for the three other slashes, nothing happened.

And here's the weird part. He healed. So yeah, he took damage for the first swipe. But seemingly took no damage for the rest of the flurry.

However, every hit he bestows onto me is always yielding damage.

Every shot I got on him in midswing doesn't stun. I got 8 slashes in on him without him healing once after that. meanwhile, he gets four slashes into me, doesn't shoot a shot, and somehow stuns me for a visceral kill.

Now the truth of the matter is that either way, it puts me off of the online component. For the same reason I hate all online components: It's always stacked against you. Whether it being just a really bad connection that somehow read all damage done to me perfectly and not him, or it's a hacker which I thought you weren't supposed to find in console games, but apparently this is a thing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHfB9azF84].


Online gaming means I have to play with people. And people suck.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

lock-on
Lock-on
lock on
Lock On

Lock-on is an archaic and obsolete mechanic that really has no point being in modern games. Monster Hunter World has an even more deliberate combat system than Souls games with bigger monsters and there's no lock-on (well, there is, but no one uses it). There's also Dragon's Dogma. Even in spectacle fighters with far more going on, lock-on only has a small handful of uses. From and Rockstar are like the only devs that have lock-on as the default for their controls, which really has no point outside of being an accessibility option nowadays.

 

[Dalisclock]

But this leads me to my most hated thing of all. Having to deal with other players. Because it leads to (You guessed it) two different outcomes.



Online gaming means I have to play with people. And people suck.

Yeah, honestly one of my biggest peeves with the Soulsborne games. I don't mind the co-op but my experience with the PVP feel like it's designed to fuck me because I'm focused on playing the game and not the meta. It wasn't so bad in Dark Souls and BB because I could just stay hollow or not ring the bell except when I wanted co-op assistance(and take my chances). Dark Souls 2 didn't give you that option because if you were online at all, you could be(and often were) invaded, and I swear, despite the SL system, one of the first invaders I faced was armed with acid and I couldn't damage him at all.

Yeah, I may be an asshole, but I routinely quit out of DS2 and reloaded whenever I had to deal with a human invader, which no doubt frustrated the shit out of the invader(there was one very persistent invader in the sunken city DLC who really, really had it out for me despite/because of this). OTOH, the griefer can suck it.

One of the reasons DS2 was a one and done, because I'm not dealing with that shit again, ever. There are better Dark Souls games to play and replay.

 

[BrawlMan]

I'm playing through Bloodborne. It's amazing that I like it when it has so many things I dislike.

-Bosses so Big that you can not see what they are doing. I get this is an intentional SoulsBorne Tradition. But it doesn't make it less annoying. I simply can not see the attacks and it makes it feel cheap. This leads to a few more complaints.

-Camera going crazy when it doesn't know how to handle your lock-on target's motion. This leads to a lot of unfair deaths. I know the answer is to disengage the lock on when you think something is happening. But I have been right next to a dog creature and seen my blade go through its body several times without damaging it once. Lock-on is essential to make sure you're actually going to hit the target, no matter how you clip through the enemy. But that leads to another thing.

-Lock-on disengaging on its own. You're not even that far away. You rolled out of striking distance and suddenly the lock on is gone. Is this a problem? Yup. For two more reasons!

-Sometimes it's a struggle to lock onto the enemy you wish to fight. There have been plenty of times where I've locked on to an enemy that's neck and neck with the actual foe I want to target. And the lock-on refuses to shift just a foot to the left to get the monster I want to take care of first. It artibarialy shifts when it wants to. And that cost some damage.

-Sometimes the Lock On just won't turn on. Don't feel like I have to explain this one.

But this leads me to my most hated thing of all. Having to deal with other players. Because it leads to (You guessed it) two different outcomes.

I turned on online for the first time to get to a chalice dungeon to try to get an uncanny weapon. Once I got it, I didn't think anything about being online, so I kept playing. I went to the Nightmare Frontier, and I fought my first PvP battle. So, the two options is either this guy was a hacker or he had such tremendous lag that only affected me.

I should state that I'm Level 100 at this point, 40 in skill, 32 in strength, Saw Spear +7 with a damage potential of 321.

I ran up to him and slashed him with my Saw Spear 5 times before he could roll away. The damage bar didn't move. I saw the blood coming out, the character model was stun locked, but no damage. I shot with my rifle, and once again his character displayed that he took damage, but all that happened was 13 points of damage.

Fine, I thought. Lag over. I baited a slash and then rolled behind him. One slash did actual damage. Great, let's get this done.

But in the same flurry of slashes, only the first swing did damage. Even though he was stunlocked for the three other slashes, nothing happened.

And here's the weird part. He healed. So yeah, he took damage for the first swipe. But seemingly took no damage for the rest of the flurry.

However, every hit he bestows onto me is always yielding damage.

Every shot I got on him in midswing doesn't stun. I got 8 slashes in on him without him healing once after that. meanwhile, he gets four slashes into me, doesn't shoot a shot, and somehow stuns me for a visceral kill.

Now the truth of the matter is that either way, it puts me off of the online component. For the same reason I hate all online components: It's always stacked against you. Whether it being just a really bad connection that somehow read all damage done to me perfectly and not him, or it's a hacker which I thought you weren't supposed to find in console games, but apparently this is a thing [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gHfB9azF84].


Online gaming means I have to play with people. And people suck.

Yeah, there are several games I can think of where the lock-on sucks or does not help much.

lock-on
Lock-on
lock on
Lock On

Lock-on is an archaic and obsolete mechanic that really has no point being in modern games. Monster Hunter World has an even more deliberate combat system than Souls games with bigger monsters and there's no lock-on (well, there is, but no one uses it). There's also Dragon's Dogma. Even in spectacle fighters with far more going on, lock-on only has a small handful of uses. From and Rockstar are like the only devs that have lock-on as the default for their controls, which really has no point outside of being an accessibility option nowadays.

I disagree to an extent. Lock-on has its uses in modern gaming, but depends on how well its implemented. Even if the lock-on is good or not, as long as the player is given the option to turn it off, than it's usually not a problem. DMC4 had the better uses of lock-on, because it's one of the few games that gives you options on how you want your lock-on to function.

Pointless or lazy backtracking where the environments don't change. There is no reason for this be here anymore.


Lack of restart checkpoint (Bayonetta 2), or the game punishes you for restarting a checkpoint (DmC & DMC5). After the awesomeness of Metal Gear Rising's restart checkpoint, all action games of this nature should have a restart option without penalty. Especially if you're a perfectionist.

Putting multiplayer achievements in single player games. Certain achievements/trophies are impossible to get if the servers down, no ones playing the multiplayer, or the games wasn't that good. There are many a 360/PS3 games that suffer from this. So if you're a competitionists, you are screwed trying to play these games many years later down the road. Nobody has learned from this, and I highly doubt it will stop.

 

[Drathnoxis]

RPGs where party members don't get xp when they are knocked out at the end of a battle. Bravely Default again. Whoops the boss did a OHKO on your mage just before your valkyrie landed the killing blow and you don't get a chance to rez, no part of the huge pile of xp for them unless you want to reset and hope for better luck next time.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Turn-based strategy that only allows four party members in battle, eventhough this is a fight to the death and the rest of your party is waiting backstage with nothing to stop them from joining in. I'd be okay with this if the same were true for your opponent, but it's not. They can have five or six dudes on the field in total, while you're stuck with only four. Can someone answer me why JRPGs still do this shit? I'm also looking at you, Persona 5.

This does not include games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Inquisition (not the same genre, but a similar party set-up), where the other members of your party are either back on the ship or at the HQ. Final Fantasy 10 also gets a pass since you can swap party members in and out whenever you want with no repercussions. One of the reasons it's the best JRPG out there.

 

[Dalisclock]

RPGs where party members don't get xp when they are knocked out at the end of a battle. Bravely Default again. Whoops the boss did a OHKO on your mage just before your valkyrie landed the killing blow and you don't get a chance to rez, no part of the huge pile of xp for them unless you want to reset and hope for better luck next time.

Oh, yeah, that's a rough one. "Yeah, you participated in like 90% of the battle but were KO at the end, NO EXP for you!" like it doesn't matter.

Double ouch in games that don't use leaked experience, again, like OCTOPATH.

Turn-based strategy that only allows four party members in battle, eventhough this is a fight to the death and the rest of your party is waiting backstage with nothing to stop them from joining in. I'd be okay with this if the same were true for your opponent, but it's not. They can have five or six dudes on the field in total, while you're stuck with only four. Can someone answer me why JRPGs still do this shit? I'm also looking at you, Persona 5.

This does not include games like Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Inquisition (not the same genre, but a similar party set-up), where the other members of your party are either back on the ship or at the HQ. Final Fantasy 10 also gets a pass since you can swap party members in and out whenever you want with no repercussions. One of the reasons it's the best JRPG out there.

I know some games do have a decent justification. Chrono Trigger includes a plot point where only 3 people can go through the portal(or sit in the epoch) at a time thus limiting your party to 3. Final Fantasy 4 actually let you have 5 people at a time and usually had some reason the others weren't with you(so there was no switching out to be had), but this did have the downside of your party members at any given time were totally dependent on plot progression and people would take off/join with little or no warning at all(often taking all the good gear with them).

 

[Schadrach]

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.

Sounds like the Butterfly Effect in action.

Anyway, another one for me is weapon and/or armour degradation. It's retarded and doesn't belong in games. In the Witcher 3, it's retarded, and I was happy to mod it out. Even in Breath of the Wild, it's unwelcome. And before someone states something like, "Oh, well, you could just go and obtain the best weapons in the game immediately and be overpowered." No, there is an easy workaround for that, which only takes one minute of brainstorming to think up.

Eh, weapon degradation in Deliverance: Kingdom Come wasn't bad at all. You basically just took your sword and found a grindstone and worked on it, and tried not to do something *too* stupid (like drive it edge first into the grindstone at full speed). Durability held out for a decent bit too, once you knew how to handle your sword.

You certainly can use exploits to get your Alchemy up to 100 quickly, there is nothing stopping you from doing that. The standard Drugar in the next dungeon will pound you into mulch, but it IS mulch that used to be AWESOME at Alchemy.

To be fair, it's still not hard. Just *use* Alchemy. Make up some Fortify One-Handed and Fortfy Block potions and drink your way into being a legendary swordsman.

Or go full crafter right off the bat - level the crap out of Smithing, Enchanting, and Alchemy, then chug those potions and murder someone with your enchanted (legendary) enhanced weapons and armor.

What's that, a choose your own adventure style game you say? One with multiple ways to solve encounters? Lots of fun weapons, cool gadgets and awesome powers?

Wait... You have to play stealth to get the good ending AND you're forced into a pacifist run the whole game for an achievement?

Jokes aside, this really frustrated me with the dishonoured games and to a lesser extent the Deus Ex reboot games (HR and MD) i'm sure i can think of others too, but these were really egregious and got in the way of otherwise fantastic games that i love.

Yes, i know i can play missions like a psycho if i want. But that's not the point. I don't like *feeling* like i've been punished for how i want to play, no matter how arbitrary it may seem.

To be fair, it also had achievements for not using any of the magic besides blink, for getting the high chaos ending, for using every weapon and tool available in a playthrough, etc. You couldn't get all the achievements without doing at least 3 playthroughs because of mutually exclusive achievements.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

When the dialogue clearly wants to show one character interrupting another, but there's a glaring second gap between the person stopping mid-sentence and the other character starting their 'interruption.' it's...just...don't. All these modern teraflop cores with a billion quantum space pixels fueling ray-tracing super high-def ultra motion-captured shadows and you idiots still can't make dialogue overlap with any hint of naturality. (Is that not a word? Oh well)
As much shit as one could throw at Sonic adventure 2, they did actually have a lot of overlapping dialogue. Yes, the execution was god-awful, but that's the sort of thing you're supposed to improve upon as we trundle to our pointless masochistic doom!