Stupid game design

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

For heaven's sake, how hard is it for designers and developers to step back a moment and think "How would this work for a player?". How some features make it past QA is beyond me.

I (re)installed New Vegas as I haven't done the DLCs for it yet. Finished Dead Money last week or so and got started on Honest Hearts yesterday/today.

*MAJOR SPOILERS - MAJOR SPOILERS - MAJOR SPOILERS*
At the very start of the DLC, the caravan the courier is travelling with is wiped out (despite my best efforts). I lay about me slaying the caravan's killers, cross a bridge and some more shooting later, my quest updates to "Find a map". I shoot a few enemies en route to the map, a hostile, named NPC at the location, steal his hat and the map and quest updates to "Return to Mojave". Sure enough when I returned, the DLC ended. Seriously!?

I brought up a walkthrough to see if I missed something, and sure enough I did....or rather, I didn't miss to be exact. Apparently there was an NPC after the first bridge, armed and dressed EXACTLY like the NPCs shooting the caravan and me, who I wasn't supposed to shoot. But my auto save and quick save are no use, I've no useful "hard" save and I'll be damned if I start a new playthru to reset the DLC.

What idiot at Obsidian thought to put the essential quest giving NPC in the midst of a group of hostile NPCs all armed and dressed the same? He should at least have been unkillable/aggro-able or something.
*END SPOILERS - END SPOILERS*

What other ridiculous and plain stupid elements of game design have you encountered?

 

[KaizokuouHasu]

[spoiler*] cover you spoilers with these, and remove the asterixes. [/spoiler*]

 

[Dalek Caan]

To be fair making games are really difficult and developers are humans, who can make mistakes, and not robots that churn out games. I do get what you are saying anyway.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Oh yeah, I didn't actually end up shooting him but I don't really blame anyone who did. While it's annoying as hell, they should've stopped you from moving/shooting until after he approaches you.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Bullshit, follows chalk looks different, he also uses a different weapon, he ues a warclub, white legs use shishkebabs, smgs and AM rifles.

He does not look different enough. "Daniel" who died shortly after looked different. Whoever I wasn't supposed to shoot looked enough alike the other tribals that, while i was "seeing red" and killing anything attacking me, he was just there, amongst them, practically the same and in my crosshairs.

He should have been invincible, placed elsewhere, or the player is taken out of combat and unable to fire (ie. into conversation) immediately. It should not have been possible, let alone easy for that to happen. It's bad game design of the "unforgiveable" variety.