Poll: Worst game-lengthening scheme.

[TheYellowCellPhone]

For me it's the backtracking. Especially if your first pass through affects what's going to be there when you go back.

That's why I hate Hard Rain campaign in Left 4 Dead 2 -- every health pack, bottle of pills, adrenaline shot, defibilator, or ammo packs have to last you both ways. It's not the regular Left 4 Dead feeling of 'Here's a health pack, I'm low on health, fuck yes, now I have some health'. It's now 'Here's a health pack, I'm low on health, but I should leave this here for future me'. It adds this high level of stress and the whole "but I might need it later" syndrome.

 

[Dygen Entreri]

Collectibles are the biggest offender for me, not only lengthening the game - but requiring external sources to obtain.

Nothing to break immersion more than having to read a guide or have a webpage open.

It's gotten to the stage where I won't purchase a game if collectibles are present, and there isn't a reasonable collection method in game.

For example Saint's Row: The Third has a purchasable perk that puts all collectibles on the map for designation.

Batman Arkham Asylum/City did collectables, but they did give ways to find them. In AA one of the collectables in each area is a map, while in AC there are the Riddler goons you can interrogate and the CCTV stations you can hack to find the camera locations. Downside was for sure that it took a while in both games to find everything if you wanted to prove to Riddler that you could beat him without cheating, but on the bright side at least they unlocked all the challenge maps, character trophies and concept art.

I hate collectables with a passion when they have no perpose though. The Assassin's Creed series is a huge offender, with pennants, feathers, treasure chests which barely give any money, paintings, weapons, armour, and that's just what I remember from games 1 and 2.

 

[Auron225]

Drawing magic in Final Fantasy 8?

This! Dear God, this!

They actually invented a whole new kind of grinding with the "draw magic"-mechanic. And why? Just so they could fuel the most paradoxical stat-enhancing mechanic ever.

Imagine if magic wasn't just a series of spells used to attack, heal or buff; but also a form of equipment. Now imagine that magic doesn't work with something silly and easily rechargeable like a "mana" or "MP" statistic. Instead, each spell has its own quantity, up to a 100 max. Now imagine that each time you use a spell, your quantity of that spell decreases with one and as such the statistic bounded to that type of magic gets weaker. And imagine that every time you use a spell, you've got to go and find an enemy that has that specific spell, so you can draw it from him again. For each of your 6 characters. At an average 0 - 3 spells a pop for the stronger (and actually useful) magic and an average 6 - 11 spells a pop for the weaker (and pretty useless) magic.

Welcome to hell.

You forgot to mention the fact that enemies and bosses level up as you do so its your only choice of actually getting any stronger =S Level 100 Squall, and the only way I managed to beat Ultimecia was using Squall's final limit thingy (forgot its name) over, and over, and over again 0.0

 

[Cid Silverwing]

All the above choices.

Because a good game/movie doesn't need anything to excuse or pad it.

 

[Adam28]

It's the backtracking that kills me with boredom, MMOs are probably the worst offenders of this. The worst backtracking is obviously the pointless running from point A to B to then be forced to run back to A.

I swear running is what you do most the time in MMOs these days.

Edit: Oh and BS puzzles in games where they do not fit.

No KOTOR, why should I be slowed down by this damn floor pannel puzzle, I have a galaxy to save!

 

[praetor_alpha]

Whatever the planet scanning in Mass Effect 2 falls under.

Seriously, I cannot fathom how some playtesters at Bioware thought that mini-game was okay. Sure the Mako was wonky, but Bioware could have improved that mechanic rather than take it out altogether.

Seconded. I guess I'm the only one who enjoyed farting around on barren backwater worlds. And the mineral collection in ME1 wasn't even remotely necessary to the story.

 

[Artemicion]

Skyrim has this adorable habit of putting quest items on the other side of the map from where you are. It's absurd and unnecessary.

 

[Smeggs]

I really don't mind the backtracking all that much if there's new encounters or w/e.

I was originally going to vote for Fetch Quests, as I totally despise killing the same enemy for an hour just to find five "Troll Schlongs" or whatever.

However, I'd have to go with grinding. That's always the one thing that ends up making me lose interest in an MMO.

*Fun time, leveling up quickly, get to about level 30, turns into hours of slaying the same mobs just to level up once.*

 

[LetalisK]

Endless grinding is the biggest problem for me. Hence why I'm not as big of a fan of some Final Fantasy games as others...

 

[AD-Stu]

All of the options in OP grind my gears to an extent - I was gonna say unskippable cutscenes don't bother me that much, but then I remembered the whole freeing Liara / fighting the krogan at the top of the lift segement from Mass Effect so yeah, they make the list too.

I think shamelessly copy-pasting sections is probably the worst though. Despite being one of my favourite games of all time, the original Mass Effect was definitely guilty of this and I'm glad it's something Bioware fixed for ME2.

 

[ElPatron]

I replied "Backtracking".

But in my heart, achievements where the cheapest developments in game lengthening. Or even multiplayer modes that were not needed to make up for a short campaign.

Nobody will play those MP modes. Just stop it, devs!

 

[galaktar]

The puzzle that moves extra slow...mocking you.

 

[WanderingFool]

I picked other, as really all listed choices equally piss me off.

*Edit*

Actually, thinking about it, there is something else that annoys me to no end, and its "those" achievments. You know the ones im talking about... the ones that reqiure a specific amount of time and effort to complete, like MP achievments that reqiure X amount of play time or to reach X level or rank. Those are just awful when the game in question has no MP community. Really, just any achievment which involves multiplayer pisses me off.

 

[Nyaoku]

Taking an enemy, changing the coloration and giving a prefix on its name and making you spend another 10hrs killing them telling you that they have a vast world to play when really your just killing the first few enemies over and over.

 

[Hasido]

there was a game that i had for the computer once. it was pretty good, it actually consumed a great amount of my time for a while with the fun it provided. and then the main quest decided, "alright, your done here, why not head on over to that desert on the other side of the world map so you can get a item, bring it back here, then we talk to someone relatively close, and then i don't know what happens cuz i stopped playing at the mention of the last three things."

i'm not usually one to stop playing a game because of minor annoyances, just when it doesn't entertain me. this game, however, shows that endless backtracking (timed the walk once, the closest city to the starting one was 20 minutes away) with a ridiculously large world map and the only for of "fast" travel was a levitation spell that didn't actually allow you to fly, just made you hover a foot off the ground, allowing you to bypass lakes and such, but at a slower movement speed, will bore me too the point of stopping.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Fetch quests usually require backtracking, and you will probably be grinding while backtracking. After that, you'll be at an appropriate level to take more difficult fetch quests... [sub]which will require more backtracking... [sub]which leads to more grinding... [sub]so you can get more quests...[/sub][/sub][/sub]

It's a vicious circle of tedium!

Overall I'd say the worst is backtracking though they're all pretty bad.

I love the Disgaea series but I've never beat the post game content, that's 8499 grinds too far(I get bored usually after grinding to level 1500).

 

[Vault101]

cutscenes are fine

but games that want to be movies? NOT fine

but that said I think I would forgive any game-lengthing tactic rather than the game be too short

 

[DracoSuave]

Drawing magic in Final Fantasy 8?

I'll just point out that if you wanted to be super successful at FF8, kill all the hardest enemies, and all that...

You didn't draw magic except to get certain GFs. It was always faster to turn the 3 Fish Fins that enemy dropped into a hundred water spells than it was to draw 100 Water spells.

As an example.

 

[V8 Ninja]

I voted for the millions and billions of fetch quests option. Here's my logic;

It is possible, on both behalf of the developer and the player, to make grinding interesting and not a complete time waster.

It is possible for a developer to make interesting ways to backtrack through an environment.

If done well enough, a developer can make me appreciate/tolerate seeing a cutscene a few dozen times.

HOWEVER...

There are NO excuses for making me do unending fetch quests. And my major gripe is that fetch quests are so obviously put in to extend the length of a game in a way such that there are almost no redeeming factors besides money and loot.

 

[shadyh8er]

Unskippable cutscenes RUINED God of War 3 for me. Having to sit through Hera's constant bitching and moaning every time I made it to her garden puzzle pushed me to banish the game to a lifetime of dust-collecting on my shelf.

Also, what would trying to find all the Blast Shards in InFamous fall under? Would that be grinding, because it's really starting to dance on my last nerve as well.

EDIT: Ok I read some of the earlier posts and the Blast Shard thing falls under "Collectibles." Seriously, there are 350 shards in that game. I have 347. I've been through all 3 districts high and low, and even found one that didn't show up on your radar.