Terrible design choices in otherwise excellent games?

[teebeeohh]

Deus Ex's minicrossbow, namely tranquilizer dart. "Silent takedown" my ass, instead of doing the logical thing (for videogames anyway) - you shoot a thingy, the enemy drops unconscious, they went for more realistic approach - the tranq takes its sweet time to hit in. During that time, the enemy has already found you and has probably told about you his comrades. Which makes the weapon... entirely pointless.

unless you land headshots(or back of the neck, where you can hit more reliably, the hit detection in that game can be really weird) which knocks enemies out instantly. except MiBs and named bosses (gunther, anna, simons)
which is not really realistic since i highly doubt a steel bolt shot through your eye will leave you just unconscious

removing the weapon cooling system from ME made the game feel a lot more like WW2 with spaceships and superpowers and a lot less scifi, i still don't get why the logic behind the ammo not slowly refilling if i don't use a gun fro a while, all the clips do is store heat, are they used pocket warmers after use or why don't they cool down over time? you could even add the reloading if you really wanted to by saying that scientist found a way to utilise magic space gas 42 that allows you to rapidly cool down your weapon and after use you have to eject the cartridge of gas with a new one and if you are out you have to wait for the gun to cool by itself. oh and if the heat sinks are glowing red when i eject them from my gun, why can't i use that as a special melee attack?
it also made no sense from a military point of view, why would you replace weapons that do not require ammo?

 

[CyanideSandwich]

Surprised the tower defence in Assassin's Creed: Revelations hasn't been mentioned. That was the most ridiculously out of place addition I've ever seen. But, then I'm a console gamer and I don't get out much. But seriously. Why. Why do it. What, did these assassins just lie down and take it whenever people attacked till Ezio showed up?

I actually liked the den defence. It seems as though I'm the only one on this site who did.

 

[Akytalusia]

xenogears, disk 2. it's one of the best games out there. but disk 2 was, the worst thing ever. some day, i keep hoping, they'll give the game a proper release.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Yeah, I can see why some people don't like it. Like how sometimes you pick a dialogue and it says something different then what you thought you chose.

The Witcher 2 could get quite bad for this. The bit at the start where your hands are tied behind your back and Roche goes to give you a handshake:

I picked an option that said "Very funny."

Geralt said "Fuck you."

... What?

I suppose that'd my pick for this thread.

 

[Bvenged]

Halo 4 was/could be a brilliant game but the multiplayer, customs and forge are completely ruined by a plague of bad design decisions.

I genuinely despise the game despite being a long standing Halo veteran and fan. Campaign was best one yet, but the multiplayer... it's simply not competitive in any way any more, and while the learning curve for previous Halo games' multiplayer had a exponential gradient, Halo 4's has been stomped completely flat - it's been so damn noobified there is no more room for improvement beyond sitting in scope, vaguely aiming in an enemy's general direction and rapidly pulling the trigger.

Here's just a few of 343i's poor design decisions and shortcomings:

On my X (red dead-X and shooting/shot-at indicators above friendly players) removed;
You don't get shot out of scope any more - this heavily encourages camping cross-map;
Can't drop flags;
Ordinance ruins map flow, skews game outcomes and murders competitive play in its sleep by adding a top-heavy truckload of luck to the game;
Maps overflowing with vehicles - Big team was always about more player numbers with vehicles to support.;
Stopping power (movement crippled when shot) is overwhelming and never used to exist in Halo;
Bullet magnetism (aim reticule turns red, your bullet will hit your target} overcompensates so much, it's near-impossible to miss a shot;
One flag/bomb objective games & infection removed (limited custom game options hamper workarounds);
Far fewer custom games options than Reach OR Halo 3;
Forge objects don't spawn in simultaneously when object timers applied, or at all if a player is nearby (they did in Halo 3 & Reach);
Join in Progress and matches beginning with unbalanced teams is a flawed practice, good in concept, doesn't work with Halo;
Betrayal system is crap - it hardly works at all; and
The UI (menus) are uninformative, basic, a navigational nightmare and simply unintuitive. Reach had an absolutely flawless UI.

There are many, many more design flaws and shortcomings I could rag on about that need rectifying, but these are the most notably ill-conceived. It absolutely infuriates me. I haven't gone into detail on most of those points but if anyone doubts me, in a PM, I could easily justify how they can be fixed, altered, or in a few cases, removed from some playlists to shape the game into a better competitive Halo multiplayer. I do welcome a lot of their additions (forge Magnets, JiP, Loadouts, Spartan Ops, perks, specialisations, etc.) but they have fundamentally broken what makes game Halo by changing and removing features that worked perfectly fine before and it is not fun for me or any of my friends to play any more, because of these poor design choices.

Now, no game is perfect upon release but Halo 4 is flawed to the core... a core which still contains the essence of Halo, but it's covered in a tonne of total shit. The few people defending the game clearly haven't played much Halo before, or are being naive (I hate to say it, but you are - this game is not Halo), because there are some really tragic, almost-rookie mistakes made on the part of 343i; which is surprising considering they're made up of industry vets and former Bungie employees - but that's what happens when you don't do an external beta-test on an enormousness project that requires fan-based feedback.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Just Cause 2: I want to buy several new weapons and a jet. This will only take me one small cutscene per transaction because the supplier doesn't let me buy in freaking bulk. Or rather, the supplier doesn't let me add to my shopping cart unless I'm buying more than one of the same thing.

Halo series: "Hey, if we're going to put so much effort into the multiplayer experience do you think we should add in a Bot option? It could encourage players to join the online community after all and players who can't get online can still get everything out of their copy of our game."

"No. No, lets not do that. Ever. If they can't get friends around or get online then they shouldn't play our game to begin with. "

 

[MoreThanANoob]

Infinitely respawning enemies in BioShock 1. The game plays beautifully and the moral choice was worked nicely into the mechanics and gameplay, but I will always remember this.

When I was going to collect some ingredients to progress to the next stage, I had to collect some honey in a room full of some very violent bees. Throwing a switch just inside the doors would release some smoke and calm the bees down for a while so I could search the room.

BUT

Every time I walked in, some enemies would spawn. It was perfectly fine the first time, but there was only one door to the room, with no other visible ways in because, y'know...underwater. Even if I stayed in the room to pull the switch after the smoke cleared, more splicers would be waiting for me around the next corner. I can't imagine it being incredibly difficult to at least put a hole in the ceiling for them to visibly jump through, but for god's sake, I went through half my EVE hypos and first aid kits on one simple room.

 

[Feylynn]

Games that break story and gameplay apart by having auto lose encounters that do any of these things.
-Give you game over if you lose before reaching the point they wanted you to lose at. (Final Fantasy IX's Beatrix/Kuja fights. I enjoyed them but still think it's bad design.)
-Fail to defeat you and then take you out with a cutscene. (Kingdom hearts 2 or anything else that uses the line "THERE'S TO MANY".)
-I'm going to give the line "There is to many!" its own entry. I don't care if it's justified, everyone else ruined it for you.
-Cutscenes that contain losses you had no control over. (I'm pretty sure Mass Effect 3 had a bunch of this)

Examples of this style of encounter done right!

-Megaman X. Intro stages fight with Vile. If you are really good at dodging that fight will last forever. You feel overwhelmed and helpless and you don't know for sure if you are accomplishing anything.
-Dragon Age: Origins the encounter with Cauthriern. It was probably the single hardest fight in the game and designed to be lost in order to progress you to a prison level. But it actually beat you in real gameplay and if you managed to win (I did by exploiting the Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage combo) you could just skip that entire level and waltz on with the story.

 

[Dethenger]

Any game that doesn't allow you to skip a cutscene before a boss. Fuck this sideways. Bosses are supposed to be hard. It should be uncommon that you beat a boss on the first try. So unskippable cutscenes before a boss are just wasted time. The only thing more frustrating than dying at the same spot for the twelfth time is watching the same 5-minute cutscene for the twelfth time.

I can't think of specific examples at the moment, but I know it's happened before.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

The lock picking minigames in Rachet & Clank Up Your Arsenal and Going Commando. The original game's minigame was norhing to write home about either but at least it was tolerable and didn't take ten attempts to do.

The conversation wheel in Oblivion. It made no sense, looked completely out of place and was made redundant by charm spells.

Jak 2 requiring you to win races to continue the story missions.

 

[Ironbat92]

Let me See
1) The Strike Forces missions in Black Ops II
2) The poker section in Secret Agent Clanks
3) Side Tracking in Bioshock
4) Defending Little Sisters in Bioshock II
5) The first hour missions and last mission in Assassin's Creed III
I could go on and on

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The Auto-Dialogue in Mass Effect 3. I loved it how in Mass Effect 1&2 almost all conversations had the dialogue wheel. Another thing that I didn't like in Mass 3 was how they removed the middle neutral option.

For that matter, the fucking wheel itself is a terrible thing. What is wrong with just reading what you're going to answer? It's so damn simple. Deus Ex did that, The Wicher did that, Gothic did that, all of them worked, so why fix what ain't broken? It never tells you what EXACTLY are you going to tell and it limits conversation options to six, which is laughable.

Largely because it allows for a more predictable system of outcomes. The physical location on the wheel tells the player much about the sort of answer it's going to be or if it will be a request for further detail or moving the conversation forward. Conveying both pieces to a player is useful. To lament the loss in granularity of the exact sort of statement your character makes when it tells you everything you'd need to know from a mechanical or thematic standpoint is somewhat silly.

Still, if you go too far in that direction it gets odd. Alpha Protocol for example gave a single word and only conveyed the basic "type" of answer. Combine that with a limited time to make a choice and often ambiguous information upon which to make your choice and it could be frustrating. Basically, my problem comes from reducing the information about what I'm going to say such that my capacity to choose is undermined.

 

[Loonyyy]

I love KOTOR to death

However the turret sections left me wondering why the hell they were in there in the first place...

Those were fucking maddening. First time I played it, I was using a touchpad. Oh god, why.

And they're just so insanely difficult, and so rigidly enforced. What is it, every two flights you get one?

Deus Ex's minicrossbow, namely tranquilizer dart. "Silent takedown" my ass, instead of doing the logical thing (for videogames anyway) - you shoot a thingy, the enemy drops unconscious, they went for more realistic approach - the tranq takes its sweet time to hit in. During that time, the enemy has already found you and has probably told about you his comrades. Which makes the weapon... entirely pointless.

I actually kind of liked that. The tranq was harder to use because of drop, but there was an attachment for that. But the delayed knockout was kind of useful. I'd deliberately aim for the leg, and tranq him, then he'd walk behind cover and drop, with no-one any the wiser. It also made double ranged takedowns easy. Leg one, Headshot the other. If you hit them from behind, they didn't notice.

Mine would be out of place QTEs. Fuck you Far Cry 3. Best game I've played this year, heck, in several years, yet it insists on ridiculous QTEs every so often. After hearing the infamous "Insanity" speech by Vaas, and going over the edge, I have to mash space to untie myself. I don't like damaging my keyboard all that much guys? And to top it off, the first time I failed it, and I had to listen to the (Unskippable) speech, all over again. It's a cool speech, but not when you listen to it twice in a row, seething at the game's poor design choice.

I don't need input in everything. Cutscenes are fine (Doubly so when you maintain camera angle and keep the narrative), you don't need me to press a button to feel involved.

So listen the fuck up to me Ubisoft, 'cause I'm gonna free your soul.

 

[scorptatious]

Well, in the PAL version and the Team ICO collection version of ICO, there was this one area which contained some kind of... piston? I'm not sure what it was. But anyway, when you activated it, you had to stand on it and wait for the exact right moment to jump so it propels you upward to the next ledge. I still haven't really figured out the timing on that thing.

After that, you had to jump on top of a water wheel and then hop off of it to grab onto a ledge that brings you to the switch that shuts off the water flow preventing you from proceeding to the next area. The time between getting on the thing and jumping to the ledge was really short. You have to either be really good or really lucky to get that jump on your first try.

I guess I wouldn't say they were "terrible" design choices. But apparently, they were annoying enough to the point in which they were both taken out of the North American version in favor of a pole you had to shimmy across and a ladder respectively.

 

[sXeth]

Dungeon Keeper.

Design a mazelike dungeon. Develop special rooms. Populate them with fiendish monsters. Put powerful doors in place. Lace corridors with wicked traps.

A hero arrives!

Pick up every monster in your dungeon and dump it on their head.

Victory!

Repeat ad nauseum.

Yeah I disliked that traps were more or less a last ditch failsafe (generally having the corridors directly around the heart flooded with them, and couldn't grasp why your imps couldn't take the things outside. Hero's having magical homing powers to find the Heart made most other options (barring elaborate path planning) useless, along with the inability to put your monsters on patrol routes (though the 2nd one had a guardroom thing).


Skyrim/Dishonored/AC 3/Misc Sandbox
-If you're going to base a game off exploration, try hiding the trophies and not spouting off where things are in loading screen tips (or in skyrim's case, strangely well-travelled news reporting innkeepers). A lot of stuff in those games would be a lot more interesting if you hadn't been bludgeoned over the head with it and finding it was somewhat of an accomplishment.

 

[DementedSheep]

Well just because I?m currently playing DA:O
The way they did the ultimate sacrifice ending when you import to awakening was stupid. Your character just mysteriously comes back to life (presumably it changes it so you did do the dark ritual). They already have it so that if you create a new character in awakening you play as a different warden from Orlais but the problem with this is it means you have to use the default story. Why didn't they just make it so if you import a US warden you play the Orlesian warden but with your US wardens choices affecting the world state? That way you could play the expansions without ?decanonizing? the US. I cannot imagine that this would have been that hard to do since they already have an alternative warden set up. I know this pisses me off far more than it should but it just seems like really dumb decision.
Making the dog a full companion. It would have been better if they treated him like a summon rather than using up a slot (there is a mod that does this though of course the game is not balanced for it)

In Mount and Blade, instantly losing a battle if your character gets knocked out. You don't die and you still have a whole army. Its really annoying to be crushing an enemies forces only to have one of them get lucky with an arrow to your face (depending on the difficulty it can literally be one arrow). The consequences of losing a battle and getting captured are harsh.

Any game that has a challenge mode/arena mode and puts a cut scene at the start of it or a game when the dialogue choices don't actually match what the character says which seems to be a trend at the moment. I don't know why it seems you can't have a VO and still make the dialogue choices reflect what is actually said.

 

[porous_shield]

Neverwinter Nights an its expansion had you rest to regain your spells for spell casters like clerics and the like but the problem was that they threw big groups of enemies at you in some expansions (Shadows of the Undretides) so you had to rest about every ten feet. I understand why the mechanic is there (DnD game) but I think they could have come up with something a little better. Shadows of the Undretide in particular had very small environments so you might be literately resting every ten feet in some sections.

For the Ace Attorney series I would have really liked a back button during dialogue so I go back and see what I just missed if I push the button too quickly.

Cryostasis could have done without the bug where you could fall through level geometry and couldn't be fixed and you just had to hope it didn't happen.

For Portal 2, if you play co-op the game commandeers your microphone, so if you were talking through Skype or just the chat program in Steam, it'll stop working. The microphone also cuts off during loading screens so you won't be able to talk while you're waiting.

 

[Starik20X6]

Necessary grinding, in any JRPG that has it. When I have to go out of my way and spend an hour killing the same damn monsters over and over again just to keep the story going? Nope. I should be able to make it through the game and level up enough by just playing the main story. When I have to stop the narrative to grind, it's flow-breaking, tedious and aggravating.

"Quick! The Big Bad is about to use his super-weapon to take over the world! Spend an hour fighting your way to the top of his enormous castle and stop him!" "Damn, I'm not strong enough. Now I have to climb the fuck back down again, re-killing everything I passed on the way up, and spend a week stabbing goblins in the face before fighting all the way back up to try again."

Grinding in itself isn't a bad thing. Sometimes there's nothing better than just zoning out and punching monsters in the dick for hours. But I shouldn't have to grind to make it through the game. Just going from story beat to story beat should be enough to get me through it.