Your Cardinal Sins of Gaming

[cojo965]

I had an idea for a title but failed to put it to text, sue me. With that in mind here are some examples:

GO OUT AND FETCH X AMOUNT OF ULTIMATELY MEANINGLESS TAT

The Requisition quests in Dragon Age: Inquisition are a particular bugbear of mine for this one. See, what this does is necessitate that the player pick up absolutely every fucking plant, rock, and lootable valuable that you don't need but equally don't want to get rid of JUST IN CASE you need them for a future Requisition. Here's the thing about it though: it's ultimately meaningless because because it affects NOTHING! Er... I mean it has no meaningful impacts to gameplay beyond gaining power but if you aggressively side quest you will never be hurting for power. I wish developers would realize that this isn't a fun challenge it's always just busywork. Speaking of which:

GO OUT AND KILL THIS/THESE ENEMIES

To tell the truth, I'm not against this one as a concept, but it's the execution that often goes to Hell. How this should work is going out and fighting a boss/bosses of some description resulting in either heavy exp payment, cool loot, or hefty money reward. How it usually works though is going out yet another bandit camp or spider cave in complete obliviousness to how many you've cleared out up to that point. It's the difference between fighting dragons in Skyrim vs Dragon Age Inquisition: one has them become an irritation by having them be all over the place, the other limits them but makes DAMN sure you've earned the right to fight them by making the dragons hard as shit. Stop making me fight enemies so far below me that they're below sea level.

What gaming sins get under your skin?

 

[MysticSlayer]

A fetch quest that relies on a rarely dropped item from a seldom-appearing enemy in a game that uses random encounters will almost always get me to drop it right there. I don't mind fetch quests, but stacking all the other shit onto it just really bugs me.

Then there's the idea of requiring the play to do stuff in an area that will get cut off later in the story without letting the player know about it. Xenoblade Chronicles, I'm looking at you! (Yes, I'm aware Xenoblade normally alerts the player, but it didn't catch everything.)

There's also playing the same section over and over again just to lose at the same difficult boss. Even worse is if there's an unskippable cutscene (which are themselves a major problem!) right before the boss. And, even worse, there's the possibility I'm losing because it is an RPG and the boss is designed specifically to deal with a character of my build. If it doesn't make me rage quit entirely, it will at least make me lose interest in the game.

 

[Neverhoodian]

-Unskippable cutscenes, particularly if it's right before a difficult segment like a boss battle. Frankly, there's no excuse for it in this day and age.

-On-disk DLC. If it's on the disk in a finished state I should be able to play it without paying more. End of discussion.

-Crates/lockboxes in F2P titles like Team Fortress 2 and Star Trek Online. You know, the ones that you can't open unless you cough up real money, where 99.9% of the time you get vendor trash and that .01% gives you an extremely prestigious item. It's essentially gambling, only you don't even win anything in real life. The worst part is they drop so frequently that you can't even trade them away or sell for in-game currency. I either have to delete them outright or let them sit in my inventory, silently taunting me. Since we're on the subject of F2P titles...

-Any F2P game that's pay-to-win or requires an insane amount of waiting/grinding. Publishers would do well to look to TF2's and STO's business models, where (almost) everything is available to everyone, premium players just get some extra perks. But hey, at least those other F2P games have an (albeit flimsy) excuse for their nickel-and-diming and Skinner box methods. What is absolutely inexcusable is...

-Implementing the above F2P schemes in a full-priced game. Few things will kill my enthusiasm for a game quicker than this variety of naked greed. There's a special level of video game hell reserved for these kinds of corporate leeches.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

-What bugged the shit out of me about looting for resources in DA:I is that I'm supposed to be the Commander of thousands of Soldiers. Why the hell am I and my compatriots out digging up crystals and plants, when I have an entire Army who could pick an area clean in one hour?

-Things where you have to rely on random drops, so you wind up grinding to pick up the item you need. The worst recent example I can think of is "Grim Dawn". I love the game, but there is a high level dungeon later on where you need to forge a key to get in, and the key breaks after you use it. If you die in this dungeon, you have to start over, so you need another key. The problem is that to forge the key, you need this extremely rare ingredient that you can only get from random drops, so you may have to grind for God only knows how long to acquire it. Luckily, this dungeon is an optional area, but still, who could possibly think this was a good design decision?

-Inability to save during a mission. "Warmachine: Tactics" I'm looking at you. I get the purpose of making it more difficult and trying to discourage save scumming, but why not just make it optional at the beginning of a campaign to turn on Ironman mode, and let the rest of us just play how we want?

 

[Mister K]

I'll go with grinding. There is nothing more boring in an RPG than fighting dozens upon dozens of the same enemies just to level up.

Also, useless skills in RPG's. Has anyone ever made a character in Fallout that had gambling developed in any way? I understand having sub-optimal but fun skills and abilities, but useless ones I'd rather never see.

 

[Selucia]

Escort Quests : These things are very annoying simply because how well i play the game has no real impact on how fast i can complete the quest not to mention most games force them to walk very slowly.

Pointless Open worlds : Games like assassin's creed and DAI whose environments are filled with uninteresting filler content rather than anything important which feel like a waste of such nice environments.

Facebook style features : Stuff like garrisons in wow being added in simple because the more casual and mobile market are becoming used to having time lockouts on certain features hell even DAI had real time lockouts with those stupid inquisition wartable missions that really have no reward to doing them.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Unskippable cutscenes: If I have to repeat a segment, I don't want to be stuck watching the cutscene preceding it again and again and again. I don't mind having to watch it once, but after that, it should be skippable.

Unpausable cutscenes: Sometimes I may have to go away from a game at a moment's notice. Terrible I know, but that's the life we live in these days. Give me an option to pause a cutscene so I can return to it after.

 

[Lufia Erim]

Honestly? I don't really have any. Like i read the previous posts and none of those things really annoy me. I guess if there is one thing that bugs me is when a games default difficulty is too easy when there is no difficulty setting.

But then again difficulty is relative to the player and i have played so many games that i kind of don't find anything that hard. Which is why i kinda flocked to competitive gaming. But thats a thread for another time.

 

[Fractral]

The biggest sin that kills my enjoyment of long JRPG's is having the random battles drawn out by needlessly long openings and move animations. The biggest offender is Lost Odyssey, which would start every random battle with a long drawn out shot of every character taking their weapons out, limbering up and so on. While pretty, they added a minute or more to every battle. I ended up abandoning Lost Odyssey a little after getting the third party member because it was just so frustrating.

Actually, Final Fantasy IX is pretty bad for this too. It starts every battle with a panning shot of the battlefield, then a shot of the enemies, then a shot of the party, then you can sit and wait while the torturously slow ATB gauge fills. And if you want to cast summon magic, I hope you have a book to hand. That said I forgive it in this game's case because everything else is so perfect.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

* Unskipable cutscenes: Yeah, everyone's got this on their list, but considering the fact that some games still do this it's hard not to be annoyed by them.

* Random quips in open world games: Seriously Rockstar, you've made how many GTA sequels and you still haven't learned how annoying it inevitably becomes when we're hearing the same stale phrases over and over again. These are games that are designed to provide ridiculous amounts of game time; surely they realize it won't take long to have heard all of them.

* Escort quests: There's a reason why this makes its way on to so many other people's lists. Failing because I fucked up is perfectly fine, but failing because the person programming the AI fucked is unacceptable. I don't like being at the mercy of their artificial stupidity.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

RNG - There are some games that use random number generation well; games like the Yu-Gi-Oh series and, Renowned Explorers are necessary but I hate it when it's used as it was in FTL. It feels like Renowned Explorers uses RNG in a very similar manner to FTL but the key difference is that there is a higher degree of leniency and possibly even more than one RNG. Whereas in FTL, it seems like you pull the arm of a slot machine once then hope to go to the right places and find the right things. I guess the best thing to liken this to is the difference between a scratch off ticket vs a UFO catcher. Both can screw you over but the later at least lets you try your skill. Another really annoying aspect of RNG comes in the form of item-drops and rare encounters. In Final Fantasy IV it seems downright impossible to get certain items as an item drop. In Yo-Kai Watch it's been a similar pain in the butt to get a variety of Yo-Kai, Bugs and, Fish to spawn when I really needed them (and in Yo-Kai Watch, you do need specific bugs, fish and Yo-Kai to complete some quests).

Arbitrary rule shift - As I explore the vast expanses of Skyrim's wilderness, I come across a cave hidden behind heavy shrubbery. Anticipating a new dungeon to explore, I enter and within moments I come across a large door. There is no way around, under or, over the door. I examine the door and find that the only way to open it is a lever...a level on the other side of the door...in Oblivion and Morrowind, exploration was encouraged and rewarded by allowing the eagle-eyed players who found a dungeon's back door the unique ability to secure that dungeon's final treasures and kill the dungeon's final enemy. NOT IN SKYRIM! Another issue I've run into when it comes to The Elder Scrolls and the later Fallout series is how you can have a lockpick skill of 100 and every perk unlocked in that skill tree...but you still find doors that need to be opened via levers and treasure chests whose locks can't be picked because they require a key. Dammit, I'm a LIVING Key!

You Must Install This Game (and all updates) - As Yahtzee once said, the primary advantage consoles have over the gaming PC is the fact that I can just pop a disc into a box and find myself in the game within a few minutes. This ended with the PS3, a console that wouldn't play a great number of games without first installing that game onto the HDD, downloading a potential day-one patch and installing that. This process can take as long as the average Star Wars film and if your internet screws up during a patch-download, you have to start all over again.

Buy em' all to catch em' all - This has been an issue with Pokemon since the very beginning but the upcoming Fire Emblem Fates is a larger example of this issue. I can kinda see the business logic in splitting an animal-collection game up into multiple versions but splitting an RPG into multiple titles just seems arbitrary if we're not talking about sequels. It also seemed arbitrary to split Mega Man Battle Network 3 and onward into two games...what was that about anyway? I've only ever played MMBN2.

Actually, Final Fantasy IX is pretty bad for this too. It starts every battle with a panning shot of the battlefield, then a shot of the enemies, then a shot of the party, then you can sit and wait while the torturously slow ATB gauge fills. And if you want to cast summon magic, I hope you have a book to hand. That said I forgive it in this game's case because everything else is so perfect.

Summon Magic was especially bad in Final Fantasy VIII which made a mini-game out of the long summoning cutscene...It was a pain in the butt.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

My Sins are variations of each other.

Rubberbanding Ai:

Imagine you're in class. It's a hard subject with a tough professor that people just cringe at hearing her name. This is the final. You've been scraping by for months, but you were determined to not let this test beat you. You studied harder than you ever did. You went over the material time and time again. You could write a dissertation in the subject matter that would stun the greats of the field, that's how well prepared you are for this test. You take it and proceed to get a 97. Literally the highest grade this Professor ever gave to anyone in her thirty years tenure. The average grade on this final is a 76.

The Professor then decides to bump up the scores of the other students to an average of 93. For really no other reason than you did so well, but she wanted to give the illusion that you had to work hard for your high grade.

That's what Rubberband Ai feels like. It doesn't matter that you had the skill, the reflexes, the course knowledge and the precision to take every turn like a champ. You don't get the satisfaction of seeing your mini map and not seeing anyone near you. They are always on your ass. It cheapens the feeling of accomplishment for me.

On that note...

Leveling Monsters:

This I do not get, for the life of me. To artificially keep a sense of danger every monster grows with you. Except that's stupid.

I've become a Warrior/Mage Hybrid. I've slain dragons and stole their souls to augment mine. I've crated weapons from the rarest elements and enchanted them with the most arcane magic the world has ever known. I've visited Dwarven caverns and was gifted with their machinery that brings God-like fighting power simply through the manipulation of science. I clad myself in armor that forgotten invincible heroes controlled the world with. I've grown in Power that I can Lift or Smash Boulders as I wish, literally run across the plains without my Stamina taking a hit, and move objects with my mind.

... And the same damn wolf at the beginning of the game is still damaging me as much as it did when I started. Does this make sense to anyone?

 

[FPLOON]

Thou shalt not glitch when said game feels like it
*looks at Sonic 06*

Thou shalt not lack button customization
*looks at certain fighting games*

Thou shalt not remind me of one's own DLC
*looks at [insert game here]*

Thou shalt not pad out game for "100% completion" sake
*looks at [insert game here]*

I was also going to add a "thou shalt not mimic real life without proper context", but then I realized that I have not [yet?] played a David Cage game...

Dammit, FPLOON! This ninja moment does not count as a Christmas present!!

*ahem* Other than that, having to download the patch separately for a digital-purchased video game...

 

[Dalisclock]

The biggest sin that kills my enjoyment of long JRPG's is having the random battles drawn out by needlessly long openings and move animations. The biggest offender is Lost Odyssey, which would start every random battle with a long drawn out shot of every character taking their weapons out, limbering up and so on. While pretty, they added a minute or more to every battle. I ended up abandoning Lost Odyssey a little after getting the third party member because it was just so frustrating.

Actually, Final Fantasy IX is pretty bad for this too. It starts every battle with a panning shot of the battlefield, then a shot of the enemies, then a shot of the party, then you can sit and wait while the torturously slow ATB gauge fills. And if you want to cast summon magic, I hope you have a book to hand. That said I forgive it in this game's case because everything else is so perfect.

Have to agree. I love FFIX and it's probably one of my favorite FF games of all time(so I'm glad it was the last FF ever made) but that was one it's major flaws. Especially later in the game if you use Summons on the end game bosses. Ark's full animation takes like 3-4 minutes each time, IIRC. And when spamming Ark is the best way to take out Necron...that's a long battle.

 

[LetalisK]

My gripe is from the BG2:EE Neera storyline: giving the player no indication that, unlike the other quests in the game, this particular string of quests relies on finishing them in a certain order. And it's not even so much that no indication is given that they should be finished in a certain order and that there is a point of no return, but rather that they are actively going against indicating this in the quest texts and how the quests are laid out in the world(the point of no return quest is right next to a couple of the other quests that have to be done first, necessitating you running around the world in a stupid manner). It's basically expecting you to do the completely unintuitive thing. "Yeah, this guy is missing his cats, she lost her hairpin, and this other guy wants to meet a bear, but this other guy near where you'll find the hairpin is gonna die soon if you don't save him!" So if you do the typical thing where you take all the quests from a hub, go complete them in a generally efficient order, and try to turn them in en masse, then basically everyone dies.

 

[Callate]

Insert Stupid To Continue

"Ha! You fool! You walked right into my trap!"
There is one, and only one, way to advance, and it involves either doing something no one in their right mind would actually do and/or showing a level of obliviousness to the situation and/or the motives of those involved in the situation that causes one to believe the designers think the player character, if not the player him/herself, is an idiot.

Climb into that coffin, Freeman...

I'm your final boss fight, but let's wait five hours.

Sometimes, this is okay. It's an old but serviceable trope: the bad guy beats up or mistreats the hero in Act I so it can be all the more rewarding when he's finally defeated in Act V.

But especially in video games, this has to be handled with care. Ideally, the player needs to feel that a) their character and/or their own skills have actually improved since Act I, and b) they're actually facing the same character they fought in Act I, not just the same model with plot armor removed for the climax.

And can we please put an end to "Wear down this boss' life meter, and then he defeats you anyway"? Or worse, "Wear down this boss' life meter multiple times, and then he defeats you anyway"?

GTA:Chinatown had one of the worst cases of this ever- the plot would have been over in half an hour if the first time the Triad boss had been stupid enough to insult the protagonist while said protagonist was waving an assault weapon around, nature had taken its course.

And while I loved KOTOR, the Force Resistance powers exist for a reason- and that reason is to prevent the kind of powers Darth Malak uses to conveniently escape from working.

Real-Time Waiting Action!

This mostly comes to mind because I've been playing some RTS-type strategy games on a tablet, and games like This War of Mine... If I have to wait more than about ten seconds for something to happen, there probably ought to be some sort of time compression mechanic. It's one thing if there's an active danger that something might attack me while I'm attempting something that reasonably ought to be time-consuming, or if I'm playing a multiplayer game where the action is driven by other people's choices. But if I'm just waiting for a chance to do something... Why?

I shouldn't be tempted to play other games while I'm waiting for a game to let me participate.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Escort this weak, fragile, defenseless person from one end of the map to the other! Also they're suicidal and kamikaze!: Escort escort esCORT DON'T MAKE ME CARRY LUGGAGE-- *ahem* I mean, I don't care for escort quests, especially when the AI is retarded to the point of me literally having to orbit them to keep enemies off their backs while they scream that they need help and are being attacked because they keep running off ahead while I'm trying to look and explore. At least in Infinite and the Last of Us the escort is less that and more "AI that don't alert enemies and can't be hurt so they might as well not be there sometimes".

Timed missions! Also timed missions can fuck right off. And not even QTE's, THOSE I can handle. Just not timed missions; I am not fast. It's bull to say that something is a challenge when they add a timer and say "oh only GOOD gamers can do this in this amount of time lol" because that's insane troll logic.

 

[Dalisclock]

Stealth missions where it makes no sense. Basically, a mission where you've previously had no problem murdering every guard, soldier and commando you've encountered, but suddenly you're told that you have to be sneaky and any violation of this ends in a game over. Some of them even add insult to injury by having just being seen as an instant game over, rather then someone raising the alarm/hitting the alarm button(if you get seen, but stop the guard from hitting the alarm, you're good).

Don't get me wrong. Sometimes the scenario makes sense, such as when you are trying to sneak up on a target and you don't want him running for his panic room where you can't reach him, or you're in an area where the enemies significantly overpower you(thus fighting would be akin to suicide), but other times it's just "because the plot says so".

 

[EyeReaper]

No pause button on Single-player games. I'm looking at you, Bloodborne. There's a million and one things that could happen that would make me have to temporarily stop playing a game. I shouldn't be punished for getting a phone call halfway through Father Gascan's beast mode combo. Literally no good reason to not have a pause button. It's the dumbest shit since the llast thing that passed out of Donald Trump's colon.

while we're at it, ol' bloody buddy, There's a few more things no game should ever do that you love.
- No manual save points
- Bosses that are virtually impossible to kill until you die once
- Having aggro-able NPCs look and stand around like normal enemies. (damn you Eileen)

 

[Nazulu]

Darkness as an Obstacle - Lazy and unhealthy game design (which is surprisingly common) is to just make the area really hard to see. I'm sure there are many people lining up to request this challenge more. If designers must have this, then either put in a light that isn't pathetically small, allow enough time to see everything like that factory level in Donkey Kong Country, or find a very special purpose for it instead of just blinding everyone or using it for jump scares.

Constant Messaging - Guess which new popular game has this. Besides screwing the flow, the information should be something really important (and it never is to warrant this) so it feels like you just have to swallow annoying facebook messages to proceed. It's so anal delivering info like this when the challenges could be made to be solvable with out it, or just give hints, or even just GIVE THE FUCKING OPTION TO ASK!!

Piss Weak Bosses - I always find it the most disappointing that after making it through some challenging levels you finally get to fight a boss so to break up the monotony... only to find that it wasn't even a threat. I especially hate it when it only takes a couple of easy hits. Too many games have this problem.