Signs your game has gone HORRIBLY WRONG

[Arduras]

Short or underdeveloped campaigns... I have nothing against multiplayer games, but instead of including an underated singleplayer game, just stay multiplayer only... It saves me wasting my money


That at when you start to hear gold spam when playing a game... then you know your online again

 

[Marik2]

When the game focus more on the online rather than the single player

Yeah pretty much this Bad Company 2 and Aliens vs Predators released multiplayer demos and I was all, "There's definitely something wrong with the campaign", turns out I was right.

To be fair to the Bad Company one though, Battlefield has been an online multiplayer game since it's conception. It's designed to be one.

I'm actually a bit tired of people complaining about a game's singleplayer being bad when the multiplayer more then makes up for it. You know what it indicates? It indicates the game was made for online multiplayer! There are singleplayer games that are good as well, that have little to no multiplayer on them. Why? Because they were designed to be played singleplayer in the same way the others were designed to be played as an online multiplayer.

Now, on topic.

A major sign for a game going horribly wrong is when you know you are one or two missions away from the end, and there are several unresolved plots left untied. When you can predict a game is going to end in a cliffhanger, something has gone horribly wrong.

Alright fair enough on Battlefield, but if it was suited for multiplayer why did they make a campaign knowing they aren't good on that field. The reason why people hate it when a games focus on multiplayer more than single player, is because we feel that we aren't getting our moneys worth when the campaign is crap and reviewers say just get the game for multiplayer. Why pay full price for a game that's partly decent? This rule should apply to all games "You come for the campaign and stay for multiplayer" not "Just get it for the multiplayer" (If the game is just multiplayer than that's fine). But if a game has a campaign then it better not be half assed.

 

[UnusualStranger]

A major sign for a game going horribly wrong is when you know you are one or two missions away from the end, and there are several unresolved plots left untied. When you can predict a game is going to end in a cliffhanger, something has gone horribly wrong.

That is one huge game breaker. The story has fallen to pieces, so what do you have left that makes the main character carry on? Or what happened in those situations that were once incredibly important, but now mean nothing? It annoys the hell out of me.

A better example actually which really makes my argument, and has been brought up in this thread already, is Bad Company 1.

It was this "amazing" singleplayer game, and totally forgot about what made the Battlefield series great. Multiplayer.

So theres my example.

So...they should have scrapped the single player for the multiplayer? Not sure I agree with that, but then again, I've always loved to be able to play a single player campaign.

When I get to a point where the enemies in the game are impossible to beat right out of the blue.

I'm talking to you Baldur's Gate. Shame.

That is a problem. It is kind of like the RPG grinding I posted earlier. Why did it suddenly become impossible for me to kill these things?

When camping gets me better results than playing fair. I'm not actually talking about a FPS, believe it or not.

OK...so what are you talking about? Is there something in which living outdoors is better than indoors?

If it can't be defined as a single genre or possibly even two. Is it an action? Adventure? Action/adventure? No it's some godawful bastard child that didn't get aborted after the kart racing genre raped the fishing genre and the resulting rape-baby went on to mate with RPG and have a child with strategy which then married Action who had a kid that hooked up with Adventure!

This annoys the hell out of me whenever I go to look for a game. They divide them into categories, but make it hard as hell to figure out what the game really is. If your going to define yourself with a damn genre, stick with it, damnit!

 

[Sneaklemming]

snip

Bad Company 1 had a very poor (compared to the battlefield standard) multiplayer in a franchise that is known for having a high standard of multiplayer.

The earlier example I gave, counterstrike condition zero was meant to be a sequel to the original, and the focus was on a singleplayer game, and it completely ignored the multiplayer component. To this day CSCZ is the black sheep of counterstike games.

I'm a huge fan of great storytelling in games, and good singleplayer experiences, but sometimes people ruin what made a game great, by conforming to the "leading games" (see BFBC emulating Cod4)

Of course it can work the other way around too. I wasn't disagreeing earlier.

 

[Double A]

When the game is called Sonic Riders.

 

[gim73]

I think I shall accuse...

Infinite Undiscovery!

I accuse you of trying to be innovative in the rpg department by continuing the gameplay while you are in the menu. However, the inventory lists are like all rpg inventory lists, and hundreds of items long. While you are frantically looking for a single resurrection potion the rest of your party has died and the boss is beating on YOU. Oh, but there is a single button that will prompt the rest of your party to heal, but that depends on a hidden affection stat. If that character doesn't like you then he will let you die and not bother spending his full mp to heal you.

I also accuse you of not knowing exactly how many save points to have or how big to make each dungeon. There are many examples of this throughout the game, but the most glaring example is the last storyline dungeon. You walk in and are immediately thrust into a boss fight, then you are unable to leave. You must fight your way up the tower against tough opponents and 3 more bosses before you see a save point. I never thought I would NEED to carry 40 resurrection potions until I eventually lost all my party members from lack of revival capacity.

Oh, it's a fun game, just broken in several key details that would have made it great.

 

[ghostrider409895]

When the game focus more on the online rather than the single player

I agree. It is cool for a game to have great multiplayer, but for it to be a truly good game it has to hold up on single player.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

snip.

literally i was playing a game of l4d2 earlier..and just wow. i literally watched with my eyes as they SHOT out of the bathroom, easily 100 of them literally, and a charger and jockey followed suit and not even 15 seconds later a tank comes out of the mens room super pissed off about not having toilet paper or something, he took out all three of us within 10 seconds

 

[Chicago Ted]

Spoiler: Snip

When the game focus more on the online rather than the single player

Yeah pretty much this Bad Company 2 and Aliens vs Predators released multiplayer demos and I was all, "There's definitely something wrong with the campaign", turns out I was right.

To be fair to the Bad Company one though, Battlefield has been an online multiplayer game since it's conception. It's designed to be one.

I'm actually a bit tired of people complaining about a game's singleplayer being bad when the multiplayer more then makes up for it. You know what it indicates? It indicates the game was made for online multiplayer! There are singleplayer games that are good as well, that have little to no multiplayer on them. Why? Because they were designed to be played singleplayer in the same way the others were designed to be played as an online multiplayer.

Now, on topic.

A major sign for a game going horribly wrong is when you know you are one or two missions away from the end, and there are several unresolved plots left untied. When you can predict a game is going to end in a cliffhanger, something has gone horribly wrong.

Alright fair enough on Battlefield, but if it was suited for multiplayer why did they make a campaign knowing they aren't good on that field. The reason why people hate it when a games focus on multiplayer more than single player, is because we feel that we aren't getting our moneys worth when the campaign is crap and reviewers say just get the game for multiplayer. Why pay full price for a game that's partly decent? This rule should apply to all games "You come for the campaign and stay for multiplayer" not "Just get it for the multiplayer" (If the game is just multiplayer than that's fine). But if a game has a campaign then it better not be half assed.

For a lot of these more multiplayer style games, the campaign serves as a glorified tutorial. Sure you can have some fun with it and play it a good number of times, but you're going to be spending several times more hours on the online side of the game then the singleplayer side. I really don't know how to put this any differently then repeating that the singleplayer is in no way the focus of multiplayer game.

To put it differently, it's like ordering a burger, and finding it to be delicious, but then finding out that the drink that came with it is rather bland and tasteless. Where you really paying for the drink though? No, you went for the burger. Sure you could complain about the drink, but it's really not the main part of it. Sorry if this analagy is kinda shit, but I'm quite tired right now and have almost no intent to stay on after this.

To simplify it a bit, I think you're just blowing the singleplayer's importance in these games out of porportion. I mean, it's just not the focus. It was tacked on yes, but it doesn't mean that the game should be valued less because of it. It's not like the addition of the singleplayer portion of the game also added on to how much the game is going to cost you. With or without the singleplayer, you would have been paying $60 for it still.

Oh, and another reason for the singleplayer addition is for something to do quickly when you either have little time or are offline and want to play the game. If you could only play the game when you were online, then you'd be angry that you had nothing to do with it when you couldn't get online.

And as a final closing point, think of some singleplayer games that were designed to be played singleplayer, but then had some needless, poor multiplayer tacked onto it. Both sides commit this, so it's in no way restricted to multiplayer focused games. I can think of a few games right now, such as The Darkness and Dark Sector, where the multiplayer was terrible in comparison to the singleplayer. Did I let it bug me though? No, I just didn't play it.

Again, sorry for this rambling and lack of flow to this, but I'm tired as hell right now and will probably slide off my chair and onto my bed within the next 5 minutes. I can hardly even type properly right now if that gives you an indication to how tired I am. I have to press backspace every three words right now.

 

[Composer]

Basically, your example. Insanely frustrating.

"NO! NO! DON'T LOOK THAT WAY! LOOK THIS WAY, DARN IT!"

this is usually my problam with all 3rdperson shooters

 

[Deef]

When you realize that you stopped having fun hours ago.

 

[blankedboy]

When the game focus more on the online rather than the single player

You just dissed TF2.

Prepare to die.

 

[ghostrider409895]

The game goes bad once it gives up quality game play for artificial challenge barriers. Those are the time in the game where you have to do things like beat seven people with four hit combos, or only use melee attacks. I get why they do it. Their goal is for these things to help draw out playtime a bit more. I, personally, would rather have less time with more good game play, than to be given an hour more of challenges that I have to beat in order to move on.

My advice to game designers it this; if you are going to put in these types of challenges, like beat the level under a minute or don?t take damage, go ahead but please do not require them. Make them things people can try to do if they want to challenge themselves on second play through. Don?t make them required because all they are, are the same normal game play but with limitations that only serve to give us more game time, and all that extra game time does is give us lesser game play that takes away from the good stuff we want. It is more about quality. If you can make something hours long, that?s good, but make it good hours. A large pile of trash is still trash, and a small piece of gold is still gold.

 

[UnusualStranger]

chop
Of course it can work the other way around too. I wasn't disagreeing earlier.

I know, I was just trying to see if you had something I could check out to see what you meant. It is true that sometimes, games do lose sight of what their game was originally well known for.

slice

This can downright end a game for me. Wait, you mean that it will possibly take 5 hours, 3 boss fights, and a bunch of random encounters before the next save? Screw that.

snip

Reminds me of a time in which a tank spawned in an office that was so damned enclosed that when he punched, he would hit three of us every time. There was no time to escape or anything. We were screwed, and two of us were dead in about 30 seconds.

Rip

Ah, but we have wandered into neutral territory, where there are no winners. The problem here is that "both sides are guilty, so no one is wrong." Somewhat true, but not all games get a free "Out of Jail" card. Some games claim that their campaign has become better, or adds to the story, or some other hook. Then you get the game, only to realize that the story and gameplay is more filler and training than it is a single player campaign. You feel robbed that you believed there was a single player campaign, only for there to be a glorified tutorial.

You make a very interesting point in the discussion going on here. However, in doing so, you didn't add a point to the OP. Anything in particular you find that can break a game?

this is usually my problam with all 3rdperson shooters

The camera is often the downfall of many games. You think they could figure something out on how to position it correctly or something...

When the game focus more on the online rather than the single player

You just dissed TF2.

Prepare to die.

WHOA! TF2 is a pure multiplayer game! There is no single player, thus, there is no single player to be lost. I love me some TF2, and understand that is exactly what it is: A multiplayer game only. Peace? *Holds up peace sign*

swipe

This is just annoying, and yes, it can break a game. Like you, I understand the point, but they should really think of better ideas if they want to extend the game, rather than some pointless challenge that doesn't make any sense.

 

[Nazulu]

When camping gets me better results than playing fair. I'm not actually talking about a FPS, believe it or not.

OK...so what are you talking about? Is there something in which living outdoors is better than indoors?

Outdoors? Just take the sentence as it is. If I'm doing nothing in the game but running away and it makes me win then there is a problem.

 

[UnusualStranger]

Outdoors? Just take the sentence as it is. If I'm doing nothing in the game but running away and it makes me win then there is a problem.

Sorry....play on words. Camping? You know, when you go and sleep in the...Never mind.

Yeah, there is a real problem when if you run away, and that means you are doing a good job and winning, there is a real problem with the game. Something is very wrong.

 

[Denarius]

Games with horribly thought out mini-games that you actually NEED to do to accomplish certain goals in the game, I'm looking at you there Mass Effect 2.

Recylcing level designs as well as enemy designs, honestly at the very least attempt to make them look different to distinguish them from what you were running through or killing half an hour ago.

Games that claim you are basically god and you instead end up as the personal servant of everyone you ever created. Sims games along with Black and white.

Little work on single player or at the very least local play and more on the online.

Games that goes through a quick tutorial or entry level that makes you think "Oh this isn't that bad" and then you switch to insanity where you are going to die over and over again.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Recently bought White Knight Chonoicles last week and man the game was a blatant copy+paste job of a better game lets say Final Fantasy mixed in with horrible dubbing from another game lets say Eternal Sonata.

 

[Birdman1604]

When it contains the word SUPERMAN.

...and is followed by "64"