Poll: Worst game-lengthening scheme.

[Pat8u]

other for me its vehicle sections the likes of mass effect argh and mass effects side quests especially the one on luna but I still enjoy me1 for some reason

but then padding in games usaully make all the other things seem more fun because if everythings fun, fun will become boring

oh and i also hate backtracking because when i was playing morrowind for the theives guild trying to steal this helmet I found a thing called boethiahs pillow book I was going to take it but just passed on it then when I handed in the helmet quest he asks me to get a copy of that same book, so I ended up console commanding it in.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

IMO the worst scheme doesn't lengthen the game at all. Instead it drops a shitty cliffhanger ending on you, essentially telling you to 'spend another $60 on the sequel and maybe we'll provide some closure this time'.

 

[w00tage]

ALL of them. There is no consumer-side justification for lengthening a game beyond its natural conclusion, just like there's none for lengthening a book, TV show or movie just to reach a certain number of pages/minutes.

 

[nokori3byo]

For me, it's poorly situated checkpoints. This got to be a real ballache when playing Gears of War on harder difficulties. If you are going to have a time-sensitive escape sequence in which you have to run a gauntlet of heavily-armed meat-shields to get to your APC before it gets destroyed, then put the check point right before said gauntlet. DO NOT make the player run up and down two flights of stairs and engage in a gun battle before the whole sequence starts. That's just bloody tedious. The whole thing is trial and error to begin with, but the moronic placement of the checkpoints makes it a painful ordeal. Seriously, I had been enjoying aspects of the game up to that point, but that sequence made me hate the game as a whole.

As for grinding, I'd say it's usually something you do to yourself rather than have forced on you, at least in recent years. There are rigorously anti-grinding games such as recent Bioware titles and there are games like Skyrim that seem to say, "Hey, it's your time, if you want to use it casting Courage 500 times to level up then knock yourself out."

 

[witheringsanity]

i was gonna tick "tiresome backtracking", then i remembered... metroid, castlevania... i actually enjoy backtracking in these types of games, since you normally go through what was once a really tough area with your new power-ups, and feel like a total badass.

so yeah, it's a tie between grinding and fetch quests

 

[thejackyl]

Worse two I can think of are:

Forced Grinding - Which is obvious what it is and
Forced Backtracking - Which I'll explain a bit her because it might confuse some people

With that second one being said, That's one of the reason's I love the Metroid series before Prime. (and I loved those until the forced backtracking). For example, Super Metroid... I don't remember any time you were force to "backtrack". Yes you revisited places more than once, but it was only to get to a new section of the area (hint: New), and there was a sense of progression. Now, for example: Metroid Prime, you had to find cave etchings or something, which you could find them by accident while you play, but chances are you wont. If you didn't find all 8 when you go to fight the last boss, too bad you have to scour the planet with only vague hints of where to go. Some of which, I'm certain were in old areas where you had to use the latest gadgets you got to get them. Same thing happened in Prime 2 with the keys. Where as Super Metroid, the only backtracking I really remember is going to the boss statue to be transported to Tourain, which you only HAVE to go to once after you have killed the other bosses.

Tlr Version: Returning to old areas for a scavenger hunt = annoying. Returning to old areas as access routes to new areas = a sense of progression.

Note: I played both Prime 1 and 2 before I had internet access, so I couldn't just look up the locations. and even though I can now, I have no urge to dig out my Wii/Gamecube to try again.

 

[Shavon513]

Not a fan of grinding, especially searching for respawning enemies repeatedly. At least fetch quests and random side quests make leveling up less boring.

 

[The Pinray]

Wow, this is a great poll, OP. I gotta give you props. I actually had to think about what to choose.

Damn, what a tough one. In the end I chose back-tracking. It's so cheap and annoying.

 

[gigastrike]

Making a simple action take longer than it should. They could make it so that the valve only takes a few seconds to turn, but they're meaner than that.

 

[TheJazzyH]

Endless grinding, to me, may or may not be a bad thing, depending on the game. I actually enjoyed grinding in The World Ends With You as I farmed certain items to trade for other items. Pokemon HeartGold, however, dealt with this atrociously. The grinding is the most boring kind I've ever expirienced in RPGs, but even worst, the game asks you to grind your pokemon for 15-20 levels each after getting all 16 badges, before you can even stand a chance against Red, levelwise.

This, my fellow escapists, is the only reason I've never fought Red. I just can't do it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Definitely the backtracking. I hated Devil May Cry 4 for this very reason. They couldn't just give Dante some original levels, oh no, they just had to play through the same levels Nero did, just in reverse.

 

[EHKOS]

Backtracking. Ever play whiplash? God of War does it tastefully....kind of.

 

[Dangit2019]

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass had the absolute worst backtracking I have ever seen. Every time you defeated a boss, you had to sail back to the beginning temple, go through all the levels you had completed earlier, but go a few levels deeper and than leave...by completing all the levels you just did. I loved everything else in that game but I just could not finish it because by the 3rd time, I was contemplating throwing my ds in a storm drain, so I decided to quietly put that away.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Unskippable cutscenes are really annoying, especially when they are long and right after a difficult, lengthy boss fight.

 

[Rabish Bini]

I chose other, because it's the near impossible puzzle that always gets to me. The one that relies on luck more than actual logic, so it's near impossible to do without looking it up.

Can I have an example please? The first one that springs to mind is the puzzle at the end of the unknown temple in KotOR, and I'm sure I've encountered more, I'm just struggling to think up any...

OT: Oh yeah, I'll agree with this one. Bullshit puzzles that are impossible.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Backtracking is the worst when it's handled poorly. But there can be cases where it's handled well.

Unskippable cutscenes always suck. Always.

Honorable mention: Trial-and-Error gameplay. Or unfair gameplay that makes up for the game being short by making it very hard so that it takes forever to beat a level.

 

[skywolfblue]

Backtracking.

Grinding isn't so bad as long you're always moving forward. The moment the game sends you back is when it gets annoying.

Fetch quests are annoying, but as long as they offer new content to see along the way, it's not so bad.

 

[Rkngl]

mine is backtracking, not just the normal overused backtrack like DMC4 though that is truly annoying, but the "you just got a new ability/item, now return to every single pixel you've been to before to see what new sections get unlocked and/or new items you can get. An couple examples of this is Kingdom Hearts with the different marks you had to find after you got each one of the team moves and Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass where, after every dungeon you must return to the first one redo everything you had done before and then move one floor further to be told the next dungeon's location

 

[LobsterFeng]

I chose other, because it's the near impossible puzzle that always gets to me. The one that relies on luck more than actual logic, so it's near impossible to do without looking it up.

Can I have an example please? The first one that springs to mind is the puzzle at the end of the unknown temple in KotOR, and I'm sure I've encountered more, I'm just struggling to think up any...

OT: Oh yeah, I'll agree with this one. Bullshit puzzles that are impossible.

Hilariously enough, I was thinking of that exact same puzzle too. But yeah, just puzzles like that where pressing buttons at random seems more effective then using actual logic. I'm having a hard time thinking of other examples too I'm realizing now.

 

[Bostur]

Billions of endless, tiresome reuse features.

I don't mind reusage features by themselves, it's the context in which they are used and the way they are used that can become tiresome.

In a good level it can be cool to play it again from a different perspective. If core gameplay mechanics are fun I like to delve deeper into them by doing randomized stuff. If I'm faced with a beautiful immersive world, a few FedEx quests can make me appreciate it more.

Padding something dull is - well dull. Padding something great is like getting two good icecreams instead of one.