You can do that in the first game too. Press X on the 360 and spacebar on the PC (no idea what it is for the PS3 version).Estarc said:
Your Cardinal Sins of Gaming
- Thread starter cojo965
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Blatantly feeding ai.
Noticed this a lot on match 3 games like Gems of War and marvel puzzle quest, etc. Ai opponents match something simple and are awarded a cascade of magically matching tiles that buff up their mana to ludicrous levels. Rarely ever happens to you.
Noticed this a lot on match 3 games like Gems of War and marvel puzzle quest, etc. Ai opponents match something simple and are awarded a cascade of magically matching tiles that buff up their mana to ludicrous levels. Rarely ever happens to you.
I got another one:
YOU MUST RELY ON OTHERS FOR PROGRESSION
I remember Poke'mon being particularly bad at this in that certain evolutions can only be triggered by trading with someone else, but I haven't played the recent ones so maybe the online mitigates that annoyance. However, when the game builds a specific challenge around someone else in another role in a multiplayer game, I will be pissed. Battlefield: Hardline pulled this shit in the Syndicate Assignments with the Rep system. These are essentially score streaks that give you more mags, faster reloading, and the like. You get Rep by doing pretty much anything in the multiplayer and the Hacker can hand out bonus Rep to good performers. Here's the thing though: NO ONE WANTS THE BE THE HACKER! Because of this your only options are: be a god at the game, or get a good Rep booster out of Gold Battlepacks. In other words, good fucking luck with that.
YOU MUST RELY ON OTHERS FOR PROGRESSION
I remember Poke'mon being particularly bad at this in that certain evolutions can only be triggered by trading with someone else, but I haven't played the recent ones so maybe the online mitigates that annoyance. However, when the game builds a specific challenge around someone else in another role in a multiplayer game, I will be pissed. Battlefield: Hardline pulled this shit in the Syndicate Assignments with the Rep system. These are essentially score streaks that give you more mags, faster reloading, and the like. You get Rep by doing pretty much anything in the multiplayer and the Hacker can hand out bonus Rep to good performers. Here's the thing though: NO ONE WANTS THE BE THE HACKER! Because of this your only options are: be a god at the game, or get a good Rep booster out of Gold Battlepacks. In other words, good fucking luck with that.
Not fixing your glitches, and then adding more with updates and never fixing those.
There are plenty of major bugs that found their way into Skyrim on PS3, and they are never going to be fixed. One minor one though is that wolves no longer play the howling sound if you have one of the DLCs installed (I forget which). I'm glad that my reward for shelling out more money is to forever have ninja wolves, on top of Dawnstar getting attacked literally every time I go to it by vampires even in broad daylight unless I finish the Dawnguard dlc in its entirety asap on every character I make now.
I could just reinstall the entire game minus the dlcs, but that would take too long and then I'd lose arrow smithing/nord armor.
There are plenty of major bugs that found their way into Skyrim on PS3, and they are never going to be fixed. One minor one though is that wolves no longer play the howling sound if you have one of the DLCs installed (I forget which). I'm glad that my reward for shelling out more money is to forever have ninja wolves, on top of Dawnstar getting attacked literally every time I go to it by vampires even in broad daylight unless I finish the Dawnguard dlc in its entirety asap on every character I make now.
I could just reinstall the entire game minus the dlcs, but that would take too long and then I'd lose arrow smithing/nord armor.
To me, the issue with games like Xenoblade and pretty much all the Tales games is that some interesting stuff can get cut off without the player having any way to know it might get cut off. Since these games often go into the 50+ hour mark, it can be very infuriating to realize that I'll through all that content again just to see a couple things I missed, no matter how much I may love the game as a whole. That said, I'm personally fine with changes to the world and story when the player is given an opportunity to adjust or the player knows beforehand that they may lose access to something.inu-kun said:
Overall, it's not really a game breaking issue for me. It's just one that can really leave me feeling down about a game for a while to a degree that few things can accomplish.
Escort quests. annoying. i hate any kind of escorting, companions and other crap like that. i tend to play games my way and suicidal companions charging into enemies is not that way.
the "must follow the script" disease. imagine there is a settlement and a boss in there owns an unique item. you have arrived in the settlement, killed the boss and took that item. as soon as you walk out there is a NPC waiting outside of town with a quest to get that item. however you cannot give him the item you just took. in fact the game ignores everything you did so far because you havent done it in order the game wanted you to do. this is a frequent mistake in open world games and i hate it.
Artificial technical limitations. for example tieing game speed to framerate (Stronghold series). Whats interesting is that sometimes you could even get multiplayer matches where people with faster computers had the advantage if building faster.
level scaling. hate that stuff. populate the world with enemies you want and leave them like that. i dont want to go to beginners area and leave super elite mutated deathclaw nor do i want to go to the most dangerous area and fight rats. if you cannot enter because monsters are too strong - tough. being able to beat a strong monster is the challege and being high level with low level mosnters in beginner areas is how its supposed to end up.
AI cheats. for example endless resources in RTS games for AI.
time limit. you can fuck right off with limiting time for me to finish the mission. i know that sometimes it supported by games story but i hate being rushed and this results in horrible experience.
the "must follow the script" disease. imagine there is a settlement and a boss in there owns an unique item. you have arrived in the settlement, killed the boss and took that item. as soon as you walk out there is a NPC waiting outside of town with a quest to get that item. however you cannot give him the item you just took. in fact the game ignores everything you did so far because you havent done it in order the game wanted you to do. this is a frequent mistake in open world games and i hate it.
Artificial technical limitations. for example tieing game speed to framerate (Stronghold series). Whats interesting is that sometimes you could even get multiplayer matches where people with faster computers had the advantage if building faster.
level scaling. hate that stuff. populate the world with enemies you want and leave them like that. i dont want to go to beginners area and leave super elite mutated deathclaw nor do i want to go to the most dangerous area and fight rats. if you cannot enter because monsters are too strong - tough. being able to beat a strong monster is the challege and being high level with low level mosnters in beginner areas is how its supposed to end up.
AI cheats. for example endless resources in RTS games for AI.
time limit. you can fuck right off with limiting time for me to finish the mission. i know that sometimes it supported by games story but i hate being rushed and this results in horrible experience.
Let me start with something I called "Stupid Difficult". When you clear all the enemies in the area, and you can't find a way to advance your character. After you bang your head against the wall for an hour, you will find a small hole behind a bush with the ladder going down into it. You can only see it from a specific unobvious position.
If you can update retro games to current consoles and computers, you can put in an options for save points. As fun as retro games are, the limited lives and the hours you have to spend to finish the game has left me to abandon classic games before I can finished the final level. It would be cool to be able to see how these games end.
Short solo campaigns to focus more on multiplayer.
Anything that shortchange customers by not having a complete working game available on it's release.
An enemy character that was extremely difficult to kill when you first meet it becoming easy cannon fodder afterwards.
If you can update retro games to current consoles and computers, you can put in an options for save points. As fun as retro games are, the limited lives and the hours you have to spend to finish the game has left me to abandon classic games before I can finished the final level. It would be cool to be able to see how these games end.
Short solo campaigns to focus more on multiplayer.
Anything that shortchange customers by not having a complete working game available on it's release.
An enemy character that was extremely difficult to kill when you first meet it becoming easy cannon fodder afterwards.
I dropped $150 on lockbox keys this past weekend...I opened at least, which with discount was over 150 lockboxes, on my VERY last one, I finally got an item that had ANY value at all, but it wasn't the one I was trying to get. I don't mind a little gambling to support a game I really like, but STO's lockboxes just cause pain, lots of pain.Neverhoodian said:
Yeah, these are both mine too. If I want to make something easier for myself I can very easily turn the difficulty down - but I'd like that to be my choice.ObsidianJones said:
I think that a degree of monster levelling is ok, but only within certain constraints:
1) That it only results in a certain change in the base stats - say, 30-40% either side, so that the enemy remains roughly the same strength.
2)That you provide a degree of variation at all levels. So if you face 10 wolves in total at level 1, you'd expect 6 of them to be weak, 3 to be medium, and 1 to be strong.
If you face 10 again at level 10 you'd expect 2 weak, 5 medium, 3 strong, with a somewhat diminished, but not insignificant challenge.
But by the time you hit level 30 you'd be fighting almost all strong, but the fight would nonetheless be completely trivial.
3)Thirdly, that you mix up enemy times as characters progress. I'm not saying that low level creatures should be completely eliminated at higher levels, but they should be supplemented with new types, or greater numbers, or more challenging tactics.
For all of these, I think that the Morrowind midgame is a great example of how to do it. They managed to incorporate it into the story by having disease spreading during the story, producing variants of animals which hit harder and attacked more ferociously. You could also contract the diseases.
The way that the enemy spawning worked was to use 'levelled lists'. So any enemy you faced would have maybe 20 different spawn options. The options would be linked to level so you'd usually get an enemy roughly commensurate with your level, but it was still RNG'd for variation - so one time you'd get something pretty challenging, another time something less so. Some spawns would only start at a higher level so as to make some areas way too tough for low level characters.
Additionally, there were certain spawns which included multiple creatures. So you'd face a rat at L1, a wolf at L5, and an entire pack at L20.
To supplement the levelled lists, there were also fixed spawns, so you'd still get utterly mulched if you went somewhere dangerous at low levels. And it then felt somewhat satisfying to return to those areas later.
Tutorials:
now tutorials for obscure systems are fine, heaven knows Star Ruler 2 could use one for its planetary management system(possibly a glossary as well). I'm talking about the painstaking "W is to go forward" tutorials that also walk you through the S, A and D buttons as well. It bothers me so goddamn much to be walked through the absolute basics of a game again and again and again and most of the time they aren't skippable.
Those "Powered by Nvidia" cutscenes at the start of games:
These really piss me off because oftentimes they take too long(and are even extended) and there is a 50% chance I'm already using the graphics card they're advertising every time I start up the game.
Pop up style tutorials:
these are a pain in the ass because not only do they interrupt flow constantly jerking me out of any hint of immersion I could be building up. Developers also seem to think that its ok to write an essay or two into EVERY GODDAMN ONE OF THEM, without pictures of any kind. Its a visual AND interactive medium use tooltips and pictures.
Whenever a game asks me to press the enter button for ok:
this is an indication of poor design choices all around the only comparable thing I could think of is if on a controller you had to push the xbox/ps4/home button for "OK" in dialogue.
Mobile ports:
you have no idea how many goddamn mobile ports I've seen that fall into the categories listed above, they will hold your hand until it turns black and drops off from lack of bloodflow. And then people talk about how they're the "future of gaming" god damn it every time I hear that phrase I want to force somebody to play a single mobile game without paying for micro-transactions and see how long before they go insane.
Always online DRM:
Elite Dangerous I'm lookin at you.
10 minute loading times:
Hello GTA 5 how the heck did you get off scott free with this one?
Hack, Slash, Loot:
this game in particular, this pretender to be an RPG roguelike I hate it the most.
Revenge of the Titans:
Also gets its own entry all alone because I've never seen a more poorly balanced game in my life. If you want to know what the hell I'm talking about you can take a look at the wiki and try to figure out how much of the the game is designed to be useless. But if you don't want to do that I'll save you some time and tell you this: most of it right off the bat and eventually all of it.
The developer admits to balancing the game based on the "feel" of it and by god does it show, towers become forcibly obsolete very quickly, the game is by default set on an adaptive difficulty setting, the research tree is full of vaguely worded research topics most of which are only there to unlock more research and don't actually do anything. And to top it all off the entire resource gathering tree is a surefire way to lose money and lose in general, that's right the resource gathering was specifically designed to actually LOSE YOU MONEY.
now tutorials for obscure systems are fine, heaven knows Star Ruler 2 could use one for its planetary management system(possibly a glossary as well). I'm talking about the painstaking "W is to go forward" tutorials that also walk you through the S, A and D buttons as well. It bothers me so goddamn much to be walked through the absolute basics of a game again and again and again and most of the time they aren't skippable.
Those "Powered by Nvidia" cutscenes at the start of games:
These really piss me off because oftentimes they take too long(and are even extended) and there is a 50% chance I'm already using the graphics card they're advertising every time I start up the game.
Pop up style tutorials:
these are a pain in the ass because not only do they interrupt flow constantly jerking me out of any hint of immersion I could be building up. Developers also seem to think that its ok to write an essay or two into EVERY GODDAMN ONE OF THEM, without pictures of any kind. Its a visual AND interactive medium use tooltips and pictures.
Whenever a game asks me to press the enter button for ok:
this is an indication of poor design choices all around the only comparable thing I could think of is if on a controller you had to push the xbox/ps4/home button for "OK" in dialogue.
Mobile ports:
you have no idea how many goddamn mobile ports I've seen that fall into the categories listed above, they will hold your hand until it turns black and drops off from lack of bloodflow. And then people talk about how they're the "future of gaming" god damn it every time I hear that phrase I want to force somebody to play a single mobile game without paying for micro-transactions and see how long before they go insane.
Always online DRM:
Elite Dangerous I'm lookin at you.
10 minute loading times:
Hello GTA 5 how the heck did you get off scott free with this one?
Hack, Slash, Loot:
this game in particular, this pretender to be an RPG roguelike I hate it the most.
Revenge of the Titans:
Also gets its own entry all alone because I've never seen a more poorly balanced game in my life. If you want to know what the hell I'm talking about you can take a look at the wiki and try to figure out how much of the the game is designed to be useless. But if you don't want to do that I'll save you some time and tell you this: most of it right off the bat and eventually all of it.
The developer admits to balancing the game based on the "feel" of it and by god does it show, towers become forcibly obsolete very quickly, the game is by default set on an adaptive difficulty setting, the research tree is full of vaguely worded research topics most of which are only there to unlock more research and don't actually do anything. And to top it all off the entire resource gathering tree is a surefire way to lose money and lose in general, that's right the resource gathering was specifically designed to actually LOSE YOU MONEY.
Having to memorize level layouts
I'm looking at you, From Soft.
No easy-to-compare stats
This is something which may actually give me headaches. Am I expected to write down the stat values for items and NPC's? What about histograms with no numerical values? Usually, I just take a pencil and lay it against my computer screen or go back and forth comparing each bar, one by one.
Secret stats
Oh excuse me for not knowing that besides these five other stats, there's like three more circumstantial ones.
Long corpse runs
Whether it's a corpse run which takes me through a level's worth of obstacles or a respawn and run to the boss, I absolutely loath when each death means ten minutes of down time. I'm sure I'll eventually get better and learn how to beat the boss; it'll just take me a few hours after factoring in the corpse run time.
Maps which do nothing
Try and navigate using the local map in Fallout 4. Just try.
I'm looking at you, From Soft.
No easy-to-compare stats
This is something which may actually give me headaches. Am I expected to write down the stat values for items and NPC's? What about histograms with no numerical values? Usually, I just take a pencil and lay it against my computer screen or go back and forth comparing each bar, one by one.
Secret stats
Oh excuse me for not knowing that besides these five other stats, there's like three more circumstantial ones.
Long corpse runs
Whether it's a corpse run which takes me through a level's worth of obstacles or a respawn and run to the boss, I absolutely loath when each death means ten minutes of down time. I'm sure I'll eventually get better and learn how to beat the boss; it'll just take me a few hours after factoring in the corpse run time.
Maps which do nothing
Try and navigate using the local map in Fallout 4. Just try.
1- Rushed/lazy console ports; If you don't want to do a PC version, then don't bother at all, you're only hurting yourself.
2- Always online connection required for single player; I get that you want some measure of anti-piracy, but the pirates don't have to worry about things like this. You're only hurting your legitimate customers.
3- Meaningless choices; *cough* Telltale *cough* Bioware *cough* (I need a lozenge). You want people to feel drawn in to your game, then don't give them choices which later turn to mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Telling a story is important, giving the illusion that players control the story is a cop-out.
2- Always online connection required for single player; I get that you want some measure of anti-piracy, but the pirates don't have to worry about things like this. You're only hurting your legitimate customers.
3- Meaningless choices; *cough* Telltale *cough* Bioware *cough* (I need a lozenge). You want people to feel drawn in to your game, then don't give them choices which later turn to mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. Telling a story is important, giving the illusion that players control the story is a cop-out.
When leveling curve just stops and you have to grind for like 5-10 levels to reach the next part in quest lines (most asian MMOs) does this.
And when AIs get cheats at higher difficulties.
I would very much like to see a learning AI which can adapt to tactics like the ones used in Tiberian Sun and Red Alert.
And when AIs get cheats at higher difficulties.
I would very much like to see a learning AI which can adapt to tactics like the ones used in Tiberian Sun and Red Alert.
Overly long tutorials/ unskippable tutorial
If you have a RPG that encourages multiple play throughs or a new game+ mode, don't have an hour long tutorial or force the player to go through it every time.
Hiding information on your website
For some reason companies want to hide information on their websites that should be in the game, like BF4 keeping all your MP stats on battlelog, or worse Destiny only allowing you to read lore items you unlock in game on the Destiny website.
Just increasing enemy health for higher difficulties
Turning all the enemies into bullet sponges is not hard it's just annoying. I can remember one game (I think it was SOCOM 4) hard difficulty just made the enemies ridiculously hard to kill, it would literally take two shots to the head with .50 cal sniper rifle to kill normal enemies.
Game overs for the party leader dying
FFXIII is the first game to come to mind for this, if the character you're controlling dies it's game over but if a team member dies you can just revive them no problem.
Scaling enemies
It just destroys all sense of progression
If you have a RPG that encourages multiple play throughs or a new game+ mode, don't have an hour long tutorial or force the player to go through it every time.
Hiding information on your website
For some reason companies want to hide information on their websites that should be in the game, like BF4 keeping all your MP stats on battlelog, or worse Destiny only allowing you to read lore items you unlock in game on the Destiny website.
Just increasing enemy health for higher difficulties
Turning all the enemies into bullet sponges is not hard it's just annoying. I can remember one game (I think it was SOCOM 4) hard difficulty just made the enemies ridiculously hard to kill, it would literally take two shots to the head with .50 cal sniper rifle to kill normal enemies.
Game overs for the party leader dying
FFXIII is the first game to come to mind for this, if the character you're controlling dies it's game over but if a team member dies you can just revive them no problem.
Scaling enemies
It just destroys all sense of progression
Post Auto-save Cut-scenes
Put the bloody auto-save after the bloody cut-scene so I can just fight the bloody boss that just bloody well caved my head in with a brick. Bonus rage points if it can't be skipped.
Escorting Idiots
I don't mind the odd escort mission, but if my character (or characters) are part of the crack team of special operatives or whatever, shouldn't the NPC stand somewhere behind them, perhaps taking instructions from the professionals. Bonus rage points if there's friendly fire.
Inevitable Instagibs
It's fine to instagib the player for being an idiot, I can live with the knowledge that I got splatted because I stood in the arc of a Minotaur swinging his axe around, but being instagibbed by something you can't reasonably foresee is bollocks. Bonus rage points if it's a substantial setback (new game / restart a long level).
Inventory Weightlifting
There's little that makes me hate a game more than having to calculate inventory weight when you're looting, and it only gets worse when crafting materials are involved as you basically need to loot the entire universe. Bonus rage points if crafting goods need to be kept for a long time.
Crap Relationship Systems
Having Geralt in The Witcher walk up to half the female characters who don't know him from a bar of soap and talk his way into their bedrooms was more interesting and reminiscent of actual human interactions (despite the fact I'm about 75% sure it was meant as parody) then the standard BioWare "give presents get boobs" system. Bonus rage points if all the interesting character details are tied up in this system.
Ridiculous Fast Travel
I might well be alone in this, but when you can just leap from point A to point B with zero effort (as in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) then the devs may as well have not bothered with the open world you lose all sense of scale; being able to jump to select locations isn't so bad though (as in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind). Bonus rage points for random encounters mid travel.
Put the bloody auto-save after the bloody cut-scene so I can just fight the bloody boss that just bloody well caved my head in with a brick. Bonus rage points if it can't be skipped.
Escorting Idiots
I don't mind the odd escort mission, but if my character (or characters) are part of the crack team of special operatives or whatever, shouldn't the NPC stand somewhere behind them, perhaps taking instructions from the professionals. Bonus rage points if there's friendly fire.
Inevitable Instagibs
It's fine to instagib the player for being an idiot, I can live with the knowledge that I got splatted because I stood in the arc of a Minotaur swinging his axe around, but being instagibbed by something you can't reasonably foresee is bollocks. Bonus rage points if it's a substantial setback (new game / restart a long level).
Inventory Weightlifting
There's little that makes me hate a game more than having to calculate inventory weight when you're looting, and it only gets worse when crafting materials are involved as you basically need to loot the entire universe. Bonus rage points if crafting goods need to be kept for a long time.
Crap Relationship Systems
Having Geralt in The Witcher walk up to half the female characters who don't know him from a bar of soap and talk his way into their bedrooms was more interesting and reminiscent of actual human interactions (despite the fact I'm about 75% sure it was meant as parody) then the standard BioWare "give presents get boobs" system. Bonus rage points if all the interesting character details are tied up in this system.
Ridiculous Fast Travel
I might well be alone in this, but when you can just leap from point A to point B with zero effort (as in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) then the devs may as well have not bothered with the open world you lose all sense of scale; being able to jump to select locations isn't so bad though (as in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind). Bonus rage points for random encounters mid travel.
Game-overs upon death of the character you're controlling? OH GOD THE PERSONA 3 FLASHBACKS GAAAAAH!
It doesn't help that the ally characters are fucking stupid, either. (Come on, Yukari, you just shot that eagle, there's another identical eagle next to it, it's weak against pierce attacks too, you got a "One more!" from shooting the first eagle, just shoot the second eagle so we can do an all-out attack--*Yukari uses Garu on the first eagle, healing it*--OH FUCK YOU!)
It doesn't help that the ally characters are fucking stupid, either. (Come on, Yukari, you just shot that eagle, there's another identical eagle next to it, it's weak against pierce attacks too, you got a "One more!" from shooting the first eagle, just shoot the second eagle so we can do an all-out attack--*Yukari uses Garu on the first eagle, healing it*--OH FUCK YOU!)
Porno quality storytelling:
John Carmack said that a story in a game shouls be like a story in a porno - it should exist only to provide context. If you are going to bother following this philosophy, don't cram in unskippable cutscenes and don't force us to care about character you didnt bother fleshing out.
Killing off the main character in a cutscene:
Special shoutouts to Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption.
John Carmack said that a story in a game shouls be like a story in a porno - it should exist only to provide context. If you are going to bother following this philosophy, don't cram in unskippable cutscenes and don't force us to care about character you didnt bother fleshing out.
Killing off the main character in a cutscene:
Special shoutouts to Call of Duty and Red Dead Redemption.
Agree with this mostly, though I can think of a couple games(Limbo, I wanna be the guy, for example) that can get away with this. Really, if you want to do "everything is trying to kill you" combined with "You will die. A lot" then be consistent about it and make it easy to reload/restart after death.Fireaxe said:
So agree on this. If a game is going to want to me hold onto pretty much anything and everything I find for the purposes of crafting/upgrades, don't force inventory limits on me as well, or at least give me somewhere convenient I can store my stuff until I need it.Fireaxe said:
Elite 1 didn't require a internet connection, Privateer didn't require an internet connection, nowhere, NOWHERE in the kickstarter pitch did they say Elite dangerous was an MMO or would require an always online connection, you can look it up, you can search as hard as you like. They sold this game on an existing license without bothering to tell anybody it requires an always online internet connection and that is a real scumbag thing to do to anybody.Gundam GP01 said: