What kinds of enviroments do you dislike as levels in a game?

Sable Gear

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Johnny Novgorod said:
Sewers and underwater levels, hands down.
Agreement, with caveats:

-Not just sewers, but really any tight tunnels/corridors with an abundance of 90-degree angles. I hate navigating these especially in 3rd-person games where the camera gets hung up on the walls. Mazes are no fun. Mazes with enemies, especially fast-moving or exceptionally deadly ones (looking at you, The Depths in Dark Souls 1 and a good third of Amnesia), completely suck.

-Underwater levels where your movement is actively hampered. I get that's usually the reason to HAVE a flooded level but I don't like it. Super Mario Galaxy/2 had a kind of fun way of getting around using Koopa Shells for locomotion, and honestly I loved the way Zora Link controlled in the original version of Majora's Mask (it's to my understanding they slowed you down a LOT in the 3DS port). A water level with natural controls is something we sorely need.

Additionally:
-Super tired of all the tombs in Skyrim. They all look the same, they all have the same enemies, they all loop conveniently back on themselves with a secret door. I GET IT. They're boring.
<spoiler=long digression on this>This is one reason I prefer the dungeon-crawling in Oblivion (minus the dungeons actually ON the plane of Oblivion). There are only 4 or so types of locations (mines, caves, forts, Aeyleid ruins), but there are way more types of enemy sets (bandits, marauders [which yes, are separate classes], conjurers, monsters, animals, vampires, undead [which vary a lot], necromancers) AND these sets are mixed and matched between locations, rather than Skyrim's system of caves being ONLY animals, ruins being ONLY draugr or constructs, mines being ONLY bandits (you'll find necromancers or vampires sometimes if you're lucky). Granted, Skyrim had more types of overworld enemies, but they're all mostly humanoid with different sets of gear.

-Magma caves are never usually exciting either, I can't say I hate them but they're usually just boring. The most interesting "lava level" in my memory was Mt. LavaLava in Paper Mario, mainly because that level had a lot of verticality and some kickin' background music.
 

FirstNameLastName

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I actually dislike snowy environments. I just find the aesthetic rather drab to look at.

Also, the obligatory mention of sewer levels. I get that the nature of them makes it easy to create modular level designs with a limited number of assets, but they're always so tedious. I feel like the realistically grimy and filthy environment makes them unappealing on a psychological level as well, in addition to just being bland and frustrating disorienting. Here's a tip, if you must trap the player in a maze like environment, don't make it an environment that the player wants to escape from immediately.
 

Shoggoth2588

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It depends on the game. In 3D games like (Shooters or platformers or GTA style games) I absolutely can't stand jungles and forests. I don't really mind them in 2D games though (like the Donkey Kong Country trio on the SNES which is primarily Jungle). Other than that I don't care too much for deserts but the main one is Jungles in 3D games...also Sewers I guess...and jails/penitentiaries/dungeons/prisons since they can so easily become really, REALLY samey.
 

maninahat

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I think most people agree to hate sewers, me included. But some sewers are really nice. The best ones I think are in Mirror's Edge and Mafia 2 (the former is a huge cavernous thing, the latter is a really tiny one that's full of detail).

I tend to not like oversized castle/fortress levels. Designers want to make them big and imposing, but that just means they're a bother to traverse, and tend to be made up of samey looking stone walls and large empty spaces anyway.
 

Vanilla ISIS

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Anything that's a maze created just for the sake of padding the game time.
No clever gameplay mechanics, no interesting puzzles, just a set of identical corridors that blend together and force you to stop having fun and start navigating through them.
Hate those things.
 

The Wykydtron

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Sep 23, 2010
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Any game that isn't a horror game but adds in a token horror level for fun and sewer levels.

It must speak volumes about how good the rest of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is because that game has perhaps the most obnoxious sewer level in history and the haunted hotel level was ridiculously scary but I still finished the game twice.

Oh and flashback levels in general, particularly in mystery games (Ace Attorney 5, i'm looking at you.) They take up game time that doesn't really advance the plot forward at all because we're stuck in the past and they don't tend to have the gameplay to back it up. You're solving something that's already solved and often the consequences of the thing being solved has already been made clear in the present so what's even the point.

Also levels that are like homages to other things? I've only really seen it in full force once (again, hi Ace Attorney 5) and oh it was so fuckin' distracting and detrimental to the case. Case 3 might as well have been called Persona 4: The Case. Except Persona 4 had 50+ hours to set up its mystery, setting and cast of characters, you have like 5 hours max but you're trying it on anyway. Holy fuck, how did this get the green light?

That thing that you seriously need to avoid when attempting to compare yourself to something in a similar genre happened. "Why am I not just playing that game instead? I'm playing a shitty Persona 4 knockoff so why am I not playing Persona 4?" Incredibly disappointing for an AA game really.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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Deserts.

It's probably because I live in one, but it's the only reason I can't get through Fallout: New Vegas. Well, that, and because I know that area well and it's boring.

Anyhoo, desert levels just bore me and it just reminds me of how hot it is outside and how I wish the sun would just slow its roll.

Water levels can be annoying as fuck. The one that stick outs in my mind is Poseidon's level in God of War I. That one sucks a whole bunch and I want to personally slap the person who created it across the mouth with a sea bass.

I DEMAND SATISFACTION.
 

Guitarmasterx7

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+1 to the "sewer levels" list.

My gut response is "stone ruins" tough a lot of games I really like (Zelda, Uncharted, God of War) have them pretty prominently so either they don't bother me as much as I think they do, or they're a better design tool than I give them credit for and I've just seen a ton of them. Either way I don't find them too fun to look at.

I'm weird and actually like water levels. Aesthetically at least.
 

Queen Michael

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Concrete and steel. I started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum the other day, and while the game is lots of fun, it's just to visually bleak sometimes. There's a reason nobody wants to live among a lot of concrete and steel, and lemme tellya, it's not because of how much fun it is to look at.
 

Fallow

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Anything that is 90 shades of brown. That most frequently includes post-apocalyptic whatever, FPS jungle, anything "realistic", and off-road dirt racing.
 

pookie101

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sewers and strip clubs.. saying they have been over done in gaming is an understatement
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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I dislike railway stations/underground subways. Metro was a nice enough game, but it seems like there has to be a subway station in every modern action/FPS.

I don't mind so much when it's a game like Shadowrun, as 'vertical living' (and not in a good way) is kind of emphasised. Any place safe, quiet and shields from the acid rain is a plus. But subways and sewers seem a staple.

I think there's a right way to do them, so long as they merely act as a 'connector' between key points. But Levels dedicated solely in sewers and subways is kind of ... bleh?
 

Thaluikhain

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The Wykydtron said:
Any game that isn't a horror game but adds in a token horror level for fun and sewer levels.

It must speak volumes about how good the rest of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is because that game has perhaps the most obnoxious sewer level in history and the haunted hotel level was ridiculously scary but I still finished the game twice.
The sewer level is less annoying when yo find those two doors that let you leave, do something else and then go back in again later, though.

And while not a horror game, the haunted house didn't seem out of place (excepting some of the horror elements shouldn't work on vampires...the whole thing was in very low lighting, which shouldn't have mattered, for example) with the abandoned hospital, plague carriers, Grout's Mansion etc
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Thaluikhain said:
The sewer level is less annoying when yo find those two doors that let you leave, do something else and then go back in again later, though.

And while not a horror game, the haunted house didn't seem out of place (excepting some of the horror elements shouldn't work on vampires...the whole thing was in very low lighting, which shouldn't have mattered, for example) with the abandoned hospital, plague carriers, Grout's Mansion etc
Well, ehhh ... chalk it up to World of Darkness more so than just as if a 'horror element'. Assuming a non-splat ghost, not a wraith, both are fucking terrifying in cWoD. Or basically every WoD incarnation, even after they kind of replaced Wraith with Sin-Eaters line. Wraith Arcanoi were ... yeah. Potent. But even assuming that it weren't wraiths merely taking out their anger on a stupid vampire who decided to stumble into their haunt (who contribute their fair share of restless spirits, themselves) ... ghosts still more than a few ways to fuck you up, splat template or not.

The game does provide more than a few nods to the idea that you're a very potent vampire despite being a 13th Generation fledgeling. Able to take out multiple mages, more than one entire hunter cell, and even an elder Tzimisce. Not to mention being personally visited by Cain fully suggest that you are destined for something greater in these final nights.

For a game line that suggests that Methuselah influence all in their wars of indirect powers, driven by archaic memories of conflict and armed with the most comprehensive knowledge of blood magic, and perhaps even access Atlantean magic through their manipulation of mages themselves. Cain comes to *you* to provide you personal guidance/direct manipulation, hinting what you should do, would suggest that you are that one in a million that will do big things at the very cusp of Gehenna.

So one vampire, in a Wraith's haunt, and surviving without malicious injury or coercive manipulations through arcanoi suggests less that vampires are inured to wraiths, but rather you're something quite special. As multiple characters insinuate throughout the game.

But yeah ... plenty of Arcanoi powers can affect Kindred. Given what happens to you on the level, you're talking at least one wraith capable of Obliviate, or perhaps it was just Phantasm ... and some of the jaunt were merely a waking nightmare. But given you could still use various disciplines would suggest you weren't locked into a nightmarish dreamscape.
 

Wrex Brogan

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Lava levels.

Listen, Game Developers, I know having the obligatory fire level is required and that lava makes the villains lair look super cool, but... do you know just how hot Lava gets? Hell, do you know just how hot the air above lava gets? It's not really shit you should be building anywhere near, let alone having a character walk only a couple of feet away from. Plus the Red + Brown colour scheme (with smoky overlay) isn't really that appealing anymore after the hundreth-odd time of seeing it.

Let's go the opposite way now, and give the Villain a hidden mountain lair with blue skies and perilous drops. No more 'obviously not dangerous at all' lava or columns of fire.
 

Hero of Lime

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I used to say the likes of sewers and water levels, with the occasional annoying ice level due to the loss of traction. Now, I would say industrial, gray, complexes and the like. The kind that would require stuff like collecting key cards to get through, the kind with boring designs. This also translates to something like huge boats or tankers.

I recently saw someone player RE 6, and the parts dealing with a large tanker involving key cards, and some underground lab just looked terrible. I hadn't played that game since it came out, and I forgot how awful those areas were.

And of course. Grunty Industries in Banjo Tooie. Probably one of the WORST levels/environments/areas in a game I've ever played. It was confusing, boring to look at, gross, difficult to navigate, and just gross. I have some fundamental issues with Banjo Tooie's level design as opposed to the first game, but Grunty Industries features all the reasons I dislike that game, and then some.