Your Cardinal Sins of Gaming

Ihateregistering1

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EyeReaper said:
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.
I sort of get why they (as well as the Souls' games) did it: they want you to not be able to encounter a boss, pause the game and look up a strategy online for how to beat them, and then go back to the game. But yes, I think it's going overboard, and I shouldn't be punished because I need to answer the phone or the door.
 

tmande2nd

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The Computer is A Cheating bastard:

I just cant stand it when the computer gets to play by rules all its own and is obvious about it.
Whether its enemy mages in Skyrim getting to spam uber high level spells without worrying about magicka.
Civilizations in Civ 5 seeing all future resources without the right tech.
Or enemies in games who simply have 10 times the health and damage a player can do.

It is just so annoying and shockingly lazy that it drives me insane.
 

Maximum Bert

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Nothing done well irritates me but I find the following are rarely done well:-

Open worlds - great in theory usually you just get massive patches of boring as hell terrain with little entertainment value that serves more to annoy than to engage.

QTEs - Can be done well but again are usually not and just subtract rather than add to the engagement.

Meaningless collectable - Explore the levels why? er to get this pointless icon yay.

Timed missions - because nothing is more fun than possibly wasting a shit load of time over repetitive tasks memorising everything in something that has little worth to be able to advance.
 

ensouls

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Everyone's already hit the low points. I'll add one:
Unbindable controls.
Especially if they don't give a few different configs. See: Styx, who lets you rebind everything EXCEPT inventory scroll which is stuck on mouse scroll wheel. Thanks guys.
 

Silvanus

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My biggest one is advertising DLC in-game (like on a character select screen, which both MKX and Mario Kart 8 are guilty of doing). If I opt not to buy the DLC, then I don't want to told every time I boot up that I don't have all the damn content. If I've paid money for something, that something should not be advertising other somethings to me!

ensouls said:
Unbindable controls.
Also, this.


Funnily enough, though I can appreciate why it's irritating, unskippable cutscenes don't actually bother me all that much. Don't know why.
 

SuperScrub

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Pssh! Screw that I'm going to give the 7 deadly sins of gaming.
Lust: Seasickness Inducing Jiggle Physics/Sexual Pandering
Wrath: 3edgy5me pandering.
Sloth: Yearly releases.
Gluttony: Over padding a game with filler/grinding.
Envy: Poorly ripping off a superior game.
Greed: Microtransactions
Pride: Hideo Kojima
 

sjard

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#1 worst gaming sin for me since I started tabletop games back in 1982... GM/DMPCs. These aren't NPCs, these are usually super powered, cheat build characters that the DM/GM started playing in some game and then insisted on using when he started running games.

Nothing in video games can even come close to how bad this can be.
 

Bad Jim

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tmande2nd said:
The Computer is A Cheating bastard
But the computer is also stupid, and in 4X games an experienced player can run rings around it. It can't be fair and challenging at the same time. AI cheating in 4X is a necessary evil, although AI cheats should be either:

a) up front advantages that you are told about when you select your difficulty.
b) ways to compensate for natural human advantages.

Humans are much better at reasoning about what they can't see, so giving the AI some ability to see through the fog of war is okay. But settling on the strategic resources long before they can be seen is bad. That said it should be able to see them if you have the technology and are trying to buy their land. In that case a human player would be suspicious of such a deal.
 

Ryallen

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Shitty controls
If I can't turn on a fucking dime when I want to go in a circle, or better yet, just immediately head in that direction, then we have nothing more to say to each other. Because I know for a FACT that at least once, if I run past something that I want to pick up, I will end up walking in a complete circle instead of just turning around in order to get to it.

Busy work
This can mean anything that we are forced to do repeatedly in order to complete a task. Leading enemies out one at a time, grinding for levels and resources, pointless backtracking, anything. I hate busy work.

Giving the AI an advantage
No, the AI shouldn't be allowed to have 50% more resources than I do. (Why not?) Because it's not fair to me. (Yes it is.) No, it isn't. (Yeah, it is.) Well, how do you know it is? (Because you have a brain) What do you mean that I have a brain? What does that have to do with anything? (It gives you an immediate advantage over the AI player) No, it doesn't. (Why not?) Because I don't know what I'm doing. That's why I'm on Easy difficulty. (Then play better) That's not an excuse. I still suck at it. That's why I'm here on Easy! To get better! So stop giving the AI more resources than me!
 

EyeReaper

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Ihateregistering1 said:
I sort of get why they (as well as the Souls' games) did it: they want you to not be able to encounter a boss, pause the game and look up a strategy online for how to beat them, and then go back to the game. But yes, I think it's going overboard, and I shouldn't be punished because I need to answer the phone or the door.
I dunno, I still can't see that as fair. That'd be like if every puzzle in Ace Attorney or Professor Layton had a timer just to make sure you don't take a google break for every mission.
Gundam GP01 said:
And also because the passive multiplayer mode is set up so that somebody else can join into your game at any time. Letting you have the ability to pause would let you have the jump on any invader by noticing the moment he tries to connect and the game wont pause anymore.

That and it completely ruins the immersion with the multiplayer, which tries to portray it as a natural part of the game's
word
Lack of pausing in multiplayer I can understand, however, I strictly play in Offline mode.

...Although the game could use some Fable 2 style local co-op. That'd be fun.
 

FirstNameLastName

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I'd just like to add unalterable FoV in first person games to the list. It's not such a problem if the FoV is already at a reasonable level, but I seem to be noticing more and more games with excessively narrow FoVs. Fallout 4 required you to fuck around in the .ini files to change the FoV (and even then it seemed to only effect characters created after the change), and the default FoV was stomach turning low. It was especially bad in certain dungeons that had already confusing layouts that were made worse by having all the peripheral vision of a one-eyed man looking through a cardboard tube.
 

Godhead

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Lack of future-proofing
It's incredibly annoying trying to start up a game from my childhood and have it run worse on my current rig with ant sized text.

Level Scaling
I don't want to be wandering around in the starting area of a game or randomly in the woods and be attacked by what should be a low level enemy but is as powerful as the elite enemies I had been fighting previously.

Poor Inventory Systems
Mass Effect's inventory still gives me chills.

Increasing difficulty increases enemy health
If adding better AI isn't feasible then just decrease the DR on both sides.

Poor QA
This should be a given, and the only people who get passes are Eastern European devs, because as we all know Slavic technomagic dissipates at the sight of Quality Assurance.
 

GrumbleGrump

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Unsatisfying weapons

There's no way for me to lose interest faster in an FPS than having weapons that don't pack an apropiate punch. I want to feel like I'm holding a weapon, not a piece of plastic.

Selling power as a micropayment

Duh.

Boring story

Having awesome gameplay is great, of course, but if it's just functional or is kinda rehashed from other games then your game better have a decent story. See the story of Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. Nice enough gameplay, boring unexciting plot.

Unrealistic representation

This is more of a thing restricted to modern warfare games. I fucking hate it when this gun, vehicle or uniform doesn't belong. See Battlefield 4 for more. I don't know why they couldn't make it like Battlefield 3, where the factions started with equipment that's currently in use.

Grindy gameplay

Look, if your gameplay is boring and slow, don't make me do more of it. Work in your story or give your gameplay an unique edge.

Turn-based combat

Yeah, I'm sorry. I just don't get it. I can bear it when it's spiced up with humour like in Earthbound, but otherwise it feels like the loom of gameplay mechanics. At least make it tactical like in XCOM or FF: Tactics. You know, have ways you can tilt the RNG to your favor that aren't just buffs or better equipment.
 

immortalfrieza

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Hopeless Boss Fights:
There is nothing more annoying than being beaten down by an enemy that's invincible but the game treats like an actual fight, especially if it's against an enemy you'd probably be able to and soon will beat with little trouble at all if they WEREN'T invincible (Calo Nord, I'm looking at YOU). Either make that enemy hard but beatable and have the plot go on like it's supposed to another way, (which I actually greatly like) or just have the protagonists get their asses handed to them in a cutscene instead, but not if it requires my next gripe.

Cutscene Incompetence:
Whether it be because the protagonists do something stupid no player with 2 brain cells to rub together would do if they were in control and that the protagonists themselves wouldn't do otherwise, surrender against paltry amounts of enemies the protagonists could easily kill by the score, or lose against a boss in a cutscene they'd be more than capable of taking otherwise, and so on the protagonist's abilities, intelligence, and just general competence in cutscenes should NOT be inversely proportional to that of those same characters when under the player's control, ESPECIALLY if even in other cutscenes they demonstrate far more competence than they do in those.

Advice for writers that might read this, if your plot requires something to be done outside of the player's control, let the protagonists be at least roughly as competent outside of that control as they are in it and build the plot around that. If the protagonists can take down dozens of mooks without breaking a sweat while the player is using them, don't bring in a handful of those same mooks to capture them and succeed, bring in some big guns the player isn't likely to be able to handle for another dozen hours or so. Don't have the protagonists act intelligent 99% of the time then have them doing suicidally stupid stuff and falling for painfully obvious traps that any 3 year old can see coming, at least TRY to pretend to be clever with how you get the protagonists into doing things, etc. YOU are writing the plot, it is YOU that decide to put these characters in situations, thus it is YOU who are responsible when you've written that plot into such a corner that there's nothing you can do but make those characters act much less competent in order to finish. YOU are God, rewrite the plot a bit and the characters until you find something that makes sense to what the player can do and the personalities of the characters. For instance, if you want the protagonists to be stupid enough to fall for a really really obvious trap, make a character that is stupid enough to fall for it (but not so stupid and not so many traps like this that they're doing this all the time and thus they become annoying) or make the trap it into something that would work on the character based on their personalities, goals, and what and who they care about. For instance, use a father's daughter as bait for the trap, and in a way said father doesn't have time and in too emotional a state to think or care about the trap.

Multiplayer focused or exclusive games:
To put it simply, NO game should require playing with other people in order to have any real value. ALL games that exist should be perfectly worth every penny solely on it's own merits without any human interaction whatsoever, that interaction should only be a bonus on top of that, not supplementing or entirely replacing it. This is especially true when it's online multiplayer and it requires players to shell out more money just to have access to it at all, subscription MMOs are easily the worst example of this. It's become an epidemic in the video game industry to shove multiplayer elements into games all the time especially ones that never needed it and thus are worse off or worse make entire games which have nothing BUT multiplayer to do and thus destroy any potential it could have had in the process (Yes, we're talking about YOU Star Wars Battlefront).

Turned Based Combat:
I'll just come right out and say it. I will live with it in indie and other low budget games where the money to make real time combat just isn't there, (and even that excuse won't hold up for very long as it continues to become cheaper and easier over the years) but in AAA RPGs at the very least there is absolutely NO reason turned based combat shouldn't be completely DEAD by now, including in remakes of old games that had it. Real time combat even done badly is vastly superior in every conceivable way to turned based combat, it's much much faster, more exciting, less tedious and especially much less limited than the latter and the former has been around for more than long enough to kill off the latter. It and the people that support turned based combat in this day and age is like deciding to go back to hunting tigers by bashing them with a stick and a rock like we used to back in the caveman days when we've got hunting rifles which work far far better and much more safely now and have for decades and then defending that decision at though that were possible.

This is especially true when it comes to the same ol "wait for a gauge to fill up, select from a list, watch as the characters do whatever you picked for the 20000th time without even further input", at least try to do like some turned based RPGs have done and add things like extra turns for performing well, timed hits, timed blocks/dodges, and that sort of thing. Skill should matter in games, but it's rare for a turned based game to have any more strategy required than "steamroll weaker enemies without hardly trying until you're strong enough to steamroll over stronger enemies without hardly trying, rinse and repeat," the Pokemon games are particularly bad about that. However, with real time combat you can NEVER get complacent because sometimes even enemies you were fighting regularly 10 hours ago can still lay you out if you don't watch yourself, (this usually means have some cheap move or instant death attack, but that's still better) and sometimes there are even rewards for playing well against those enemies even if they are total pushovers. Fighting itself should be enjoyable on it's own, not just be a means to an end and real time combat all but ensures that.
 

runic knight

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Health = Hard enemies.
I am so sick of enemies that are hard because they force you to wage a more difficult and demanding battle against your patience than the creature itself and rely on bottomless hp pools instead of actual challenge to your skill. Specific mention for bosses or foes like this with the ability to heal. If the foe sucks, they just suck, deal with it and let me kill it quickly at least. Chances are if I can survive 10 minutes without it stomping me into paste, I can survive 50 the same pace. RPG's and MMO are particularly terrible for this, as combat is usually not that heavily skill based so much as stat based, where if you have the right stats, you win, and if you don't, you lose, regardless the skill of the player otherwise.

Pick it all up!
DA:I in particular, but MMO and RPG in general make this mistake a lot. You pick up everything, because you might need it. But that means you stop every 2 minutes to grab a new thing, making the pace of the game stop entirely, and feel like a chore. It is the boss health issue applied to crafting. Rare is the case where I need to go fight a boss for a specific ore not quickly sucked devoid of all joy when you have to grind out the rest of the components like a hired miner. Speaking of...

Grinding!
I get it, you need to set up growth of character to demonstrate progress and sometime, that means you need to murder a lot of woodland creatures. That is fine. Having entire systems designed around making the experience drag ass and torture the minds of the participants though? That is just crappy design. Skill and Mastery is far more satisfying for gameplay than head-to-wall bashing determination. And with more games showing how this can be done right, the excuse for it is less and less.

Small pouches.
Inventory space, something you need for all those trinkets and do-dads the game forces you to pick up to progress right, being needlessly restricted. Once more, it is a major issue in MMO, where worthless junk is thrown at you constantly with one or two important uses you can't bring yourself to abandon. Even worse when tied in to a cash-shop. Also bonus points of sucking if done in conjunction with terribly done inventory management. Borderlands, Skyrim... please no more.
 

Estarc

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Unskippable cutscenes. I like to replay my games. Final Fantasy X-2 introduced skippable cutscenes to the long-winded JRPG franchise, which was great. And Mass Effect 2 was way smoother to replay than its sequel thanks to the fact you could skip basically every line of dialogue.

Vehicle/turret sections tend to be egregiously bad in my experience.

Excessive scaling on enemy health and damage. Being forced to cower behind cover, and then die instantly if you get a grenade tossed at you cause you need to relocate and then catch a stray bullet is BS. As for the health, close range shotgun blast to torso or a headshot from a sniper rifle need to be kills. You fuck with the rhythm when that stops being the case.
 

immortalfrieza

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runic knight said:
Health = Hard enemies.
I am so sick of enemies that are hard because they force you to wage a more difficult and demanding battle against your patience than the creature itself and rely on bottomless hp pools instead of actual challenge to your skill. Specific mention for bosses or foes like this with the ability to heal. If the foe sucks, they just suck, deal with it and let me kill it quickly at least. Chances are if I can survive 10 minutes without it stomping me into paste, I can survive 50 the same pace. RPG's and MMO are particularly terrible for this, as combat is usually not that heavily skill based so much as stat based, where if you have the right stats, you win, and if you don't, you lose, regardless the skill of the player otherwise.
To add to this one, I am so sick of games that have "difficulty" modes that just boost the stats of the enemy rather than actually improve the enemy's A.I. and/or change the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy, so the end result is that the same tactics that worked on easy mode work on Super Duper Nightmare mode, it just ends up taking longer. In the very rare cases when they do "improve" that A.I. they don't really do that either, they just make the A.I. as cheap as possible such as with fighting games the A.I. will simply read controller inputs rather than actually predicting and reacting to what the player is doing more effectively. Another thing they tend to do with higher difficulty modes is when it's possible for the game to have them they'll just keep adding more and more enemies, which is basically the same thing as increasing the stats of the enemy, both are substituting actual challenge for simply trying to beat the player through pure attrition.