Forums / Media / Video Games

Like the other thread, except not. As before, stuff directly related to gameplay, not story, community, or characters.

Permadeath

Unless it's a game like Spelunky, where each game only lasts a few minutes, I ain't touching it. I don't want to lose all of my progress because of a poor choice or a run of bad luck.

Physical needs (hunger, etc.)

Good LORD. My first experience with this was Mystic Towers, back when I was a child, and I've hated it ever since. It doesn't add to "realism" or immersion or whatever to me, it's just one more thing to keep tabs on and slow gameplay down for no gain.

Mandatory PvP

This is a deal breaker for me. It's done nothing but infuriate me every time I've been subjected to it. I wanted to like ArcheAge, but when I was told that it's pretty much all PvP outside the starter areas, I dropped it immediately. Same deal with Aion.

Time limits
I play games at something of a ponderous pace. I want to do things when I'm ready. I hate being rushed, and knowing I have a time limit causes me to panic a bit, rush, and become reckless. Arbitrary time limits are the worst, such as in Monster Hunter. Why does this quest to kill a Rathian absolutely need to be finished in 50 minutes? This is one of my biggest complaints with Mario 3D World. Due to the complexity of the levels, I always feel like I'm missing something that gets me to a green star. As such, I'm constantly running low on time.

Finite lives

Speaking of Mario…They serve no purpose anymore. In arcades they were important. On home consoles, it's pointless and in the way, especially when there's no real penalty for running out.

Save points without suspend saves

Save points are fine, as long as I can make a quick, temporary interim save if I need to put the game down quickly, like if food just finished cooking and I need to avoid reducing it to carbon. If it comes down to "lose 30 minutes of progress or piss off your friend," I'll drop the progress, but I'll be livid about it. As a small caveat, old consoles get away with it due to technical limitations.

Grinding

Doing menial tasks for a far-off goal with nothing else in-between is neither fun nor enticing. I'm looking at you, Portrait of Ruin. I will not master 5 different subweapons I've never used that require me to kill roughly a thousand monsters each. 100% completion isn't that important to me.

Quick-time events

Thankfully on the way out. They were never enjoyable. "Unintrusive" would be about as good as you can expect from them. I don't consider "struggle" actions, like mashing buttons to escape a grapple, to be QTEs. There's a solid reason for it, and it (usually) isn't instant death if you fail.

Random chance outside of gambling minigames

The random number gods hate me. I swear if a % chance for me to hit or successfully craft or whatever is under 90%, I've got an even chance to fail. Likewise, for the enemy? 30% is usually enough to get what they want.

Fake difficulty

Hitboxes discrepancies, cheating AI, struggling with the camera or controls, all are fantastic ways of getting me to permanently ragequit a game. It's not okay. It was never okay. It will never be okay.

Auto-scrolling levels

Related to the time limit thing above, I will almost always panic and screw up a lot. Eversion world 6, man…

Punishing difficulty
With very few exceptions, I hate games that are super-hard. I have a low threshold for frustration, and doing things that make me feel like I'm bashing my head against the wall, then penalizing me for not being Asian Gamer God enough to compensate isn't going to endear me to you very well. That's why I don't play bullet hells. Too much going on, no real room for error. Alas, vertical shooters that aren't bullet hells are a dying breed.

QTE
All I want to do is to watch the cool action sequence not this button pressing shit.

No manual saves
Hitman Absolution, I'm looking at you.

Unskippable cutscenes
If I'm kept dying on a level, I don't want to rewatch the cutscene again and again.

The Resident Evil Revelations dodge mechanic

Pretty much nobody understands it.

Hide and Seek gameplay

I just can't stand Hide and Seek gameplay. This is one of the big reasons I don't like the Metal Gear Solid series ( I enjoy Rising much better) because how clunky these are for me.

"Please enter you user email address and password"

Or my personal favorite:

"GO PREMIUM TO [remove hurdle]! CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE MORE [resource] NOW!"

Escort/Protect Missions
I seriously fucking hate these kinds of missions. One time in Super Robot Wars Z, I couldn't get the bonus because the assholes I'm suppose to be protecting are charging head-long into the battlefield in their inferior mechs.

Survival Horror games that consist of nothing but running:

I don't give a shit about a game where i do nothing but run, and it doesn't help that i'm more or less impossible to scare.
Also those games tend to be easy as all shit, when I realise I can get through the game without even a knife, I start thinking about how menacing these monsters actually are.

Blatantly Overpowered Bosses
- This is more of a problem with fighters. Ridiculous buffs, perfect combos, half HP bar supers, and unfair AI. Please do your bosses like Persona 4 Arena did with Shadow Labrys. Playable and balanced from the start.

Rubberbanding
- The bane of driving games. It's just as infuriating to see enemies slow down to a crawl when you screw up, as it is watching them catch up instantly after you either drive perfectly with a faster vehicle, or after you PIT maneuver them to hell.

Quick Time Events
- Fuck you Zeus, and fuck your random 0.5 sec reaction time QTE with unskippable cutscene. You ruined the entire GoW series with that bullshit. I did get through it eventually, but it was also the last time I played GoW.

Escort Missions
- If I have to protect something, or take someone somewhere, it's automatically shit. No further explanations needed I assume.

I understand it. It just takes precise timing.

Rubber Band AI
- “The more you succeed, the harder it gets” Sounds like the perfect philosophy for Dynamic Difficulty, right? Well, I guess that explains why the AI car can go nearly the speed of sound to close in a 30 second gap after spinning out, Or why the AI instantly can read my moves and make perfect reactions to split-second situations.

Anti-Human AI AKA Let’s Gang Up On The Human
- Computer AIs look out for each other, and have made a ceasefire pact to never harm another AI. So when you are in a battle with two different monster types, even if they’re sworn enemies in the story, they will always attack you and you alone. Bonus points if they also ignore AI controlled allies.

Stalking Missions
- Follow random moving thing for a set period of time, be an inch too far behind, you screwed up. Get too close, you spooked them! Alrighty then.

That Last God Damned Achevement, Collectible, Challenge, Thing
- In the tedious task of doing everything, there will always be those last useless, annoying, sanity siphoning things that destroys any hope of getting 100% completion of the game.

Pay to unlock levels AKA: mandatory dlc
This is especially bad on mobile games, like if i already payed for the game i want the complete game not a shitty demo version; i'll pay if you make a collection of new levels; or a bundle of new powerups; not just to fully unlock the game i already paid for.

Excessive linearity
I want to explore the world in the game, I don't want to feel like I am walking down a corridor.
Example: Final Fantasy XIII

Excessive lack of linearity
I have been thrown in a brand new world with no hints of what to do or where to go.
Example: I can't remember any example right now, but I played a lot of games that made me feel like this.

Is it that hard for a videogame to have the right balance between linearity & freedom?

An example for an excessive lack of Linearity would be Dark Souls, I guess.

Like, after the first level thing when you get dropped off at… Firelink? (played it ages ago) There's a lot of places you can go from there, but apparently going up the stairs and into that town area is the first thing you should do. The game gives no indication of this. If it does then I can't remember it. Also, another thing you get in Dark Souls:

Trial and Error

Games that're easy once you've memorized all the traps, enemy patterns, 'right' answers, etc, but super punishing if you're playing blind for the first time. And people say that you can dodge/avoid messing up with stuff if you're careful/observant enough, but come on. It's not like these games tell you what can and can't insta-game-over you before it happens. I don't get on with games like that.

Some examples:

Dark Souls: The Capra Demon especially, but there's probably others that better exemplify trial and error that I didn't get far enough to fight.
I Wanna Be The Guy: like the entire game
Dark Seed: The game can even become unwinnable.
FFX's Yunalesca: She can very easily instakill you because of a mechanic specific to her that the game doesn't warn the player about at all
Valkyria Chronicles:The game will say you have to capture a camp as your final objective. You capture the camp then the game decides you have to also destroy 2 tanks. You're fucked if you left your Lancers behind. Shame on you for thinking you just had to do what the game said you would have to!
Visual Novels: Yup.
And a lot of older games also have this trait, from back when artificial difficulty was more accepted.

Errand Boy/Girl Quest You know, every fucking MMO ever fucking made, scratch that, every RPG ever made. You know, you're the fucking Dragon Born and you want to some cool things, like kill demons and take out evil wizards, right? No, deliver this for me, you piece of shit.

Crappy Friendly AI It's bad enough when the people you have to kill are stupid, but when the one that's helping you sucks? You just don't wanna do it.

1 billion life point bosses They aren't really hard, but they got so much mother trucking HP that it takes seeming hours to kill it, and if you make one mistake, ONE, you have to do it all over again.

No Manual Saving So you've just dragged yourself through ancient skeleton infested catacombs and you're about to heal yourself when behold, the inevitable large center room with a chest on a pedestal.
You take one step forward and trigger a trap in which 37 arrows shoot from the walls, impaling you.
Not a problem. Let me just load my last checkpoint. Oh. It's at the beginning of the catacombs…

Scrape the Bottom In an attempt to make the game more difficult, you're provided with the bare minimum ammunition/power cells/energy crystals, etc. Then you have to go and break every single crate in the whole damned map just so you can take out that one stupid sniper.

Excessive Camera Effects Whether it's blood somehow dripping down your eyeballs every time you take damage or motion blur so intense you might as well look through wax paper, these elements can completely screw up your game experience.

Private Jackson Aim on AI Games that give AI obscenely good aim are inherently annoying. This is only worsened when the weapons your enemies use already have good range and a scope. You just end up diving hopelessly around corners while all the AI train their sights on that one tiny wall you're crouched behind.

Escort Mission Because why should I, the borderline invincible warrior of destruction, have to babysit an elementary school reject that has the durability of wet tissue paper? Why not stay out of sight while I carve a path out of the bad guys so that I won't be too busy guarding his/her ass while killing everything?

Useless Allies These guys contribute absolutely nothing to the 'team'. Their whole gimmick is trying to look badass while you're the one who does everything. When the time calls for them to be badass, they instead find themselves in a position where you have to save their sorry asses. I'm looking at you Slippy!

Trying to Shove Multiplayer and Online Material Down My Throat I don't know that many people who play this game and my internet connection is shit. I don't care what kind of bonuses I get from it. I can get through the main campaign just fine without it. I've been a solo player from my early days of gaming. Why can't I stay a solo player?

Paying Real Money to Play a Game I Already Purchased This. This right here is everything about gaming nowadays that needs to be destroyed and never brought back. Why should I have to pay you more money when I already bought the game? This created a whole new level of greed that even mainstream companies like EA are succumbing to. I find relief that the audiences have spoken in outrage over this kind of douchebaggery. I hope that one day we live in a world where games that have this mechanic are immediately shunned from the industry.

characters that hate you for no reason

Watch this video on why this guy is a perfect example

Most MMOs do this too (Maplestory I am looking at you dead in the eye YEAH YOU).

For some reason: almost every NPC conversatrion in MMOs go like this:

Me: Hello!
NPC:
Me: What did I even d-
NPC: Do my quest, you ############, or you can't play the main story.
5 minutes of kill questing
Me: Done.
NPC:
Me:

Games that don't tell you where to go

This happened to me right at the beginning in Dark Souls. I went to that graveyard with the skeletons. Never told me to go right. I raged. Hard.

Escort Missions
- If I have to protect something, or take someone somewhere, it’s automatically shit. No further explanations needed I assume.

To be fair, isn't that The Last of Us?

I don't think these are bad, unless the AI is dumb (which is almost every case, actually).

No Pausing Three words: Pokemon. Amie. Minigames. The only way you could possible pause is to just close the 3DS which is actually slower than you'd think. Plus you really have to concentrate when it's hard or unlimited, so it's like as soon as you open the 3ds to "unpause" you're not quite mentally prepared so you miss like three balls of yarn or something.

One time only areas Y'know, places you can only go once because of the plot or the game not letting you or something. They're always the cool areas, those one-time-only areas…

good/annoying moves with low accuarcy that always miss when you use it but CPUs have no problem with it This happens all the time in Pokemon.

Unskippable cutscenes
Who remember the final boss of Red Faction 2? (Seriously, fuck that useless bitch)

95% chance of hitting – missed
Please tell me I'm not the only one who has bad luck with this type of games

Regenerate Health
It seems that almost every soldier protagonist is Wolverine/Deadpool/Time Lord nowdays!
It's slow the combat, and make the game too easy because you have no limitation how many times you can regen!
I'm not also big fun of the old system – Instant Pick-and-Use Medkits, Which require returning to already-cleaned-up-area, after a battle that almost killed you, in order to pick up a spare medkit that you saved for an emergency!
Therefore my favorite method is a pickable Medkit/Health potion, which can be consumed whenever you want! Quick, not bureaucratic, and comes in a limited number which doesn't lower the challenge difficulty!

Bosses with Ridiculously Large Health Bars: These bosses annoy me because they aren't really difficult, but they take so damn long to kill, and if you die against them, the fight restarts with all that health back. The one boss that comes to mind is the corncob boss from Castle Crashers.

Crammed Combat Areas: Having me fight in an area that doesn't give me enough room to begin with is somewhat annoying, but when my movement is incredibly limited, it makes it more frustrating, since I'm guaranteed to get hurt while fighting. I remember one part in Half-Life: Opposing Force where you have to go through this maze in the dark that's filled with these huge monsters that are hard to maneuver because the corridors are pretty narrow around and deal ridiculous amounts of damage (as if that game didn't piss me off enough).

Enemies with Dead-On Accuracy: This is only a real problem when the enemy has something like a rocket launcher or a sniper rifle. With that said, I fucking hate the Jackal Snipers in the Halo series because on higher difficulties, these little bastards kill you in one shot, have pinpoint aiming, and tend to show up in spots where you can't clearly see them.

Fake Difficulties: The game is only harder because something that normally does a negligible amount of damage now all of a sudden takes 1/4 of my health away. Enemies don't have different patterns, bosses don't have any new tricks up their sleeves, nope, it's just them dealing a shitload more damage to you and you do jack shit to them.

I still haven't beaten HL:OF because of that maze.

Fighting Game Final Bosses: No other genre I know of has the most punishable final bosses in gaming history. Health bars as high as Mt. Everest? Check. Cheap attacks that can be used in succession? Check. Only way to beat them is some exploit the common gamer doesn't know of or just try to wait it out until the timer's done? Check. This is one reason why I have never been able to beat Mortal Kombat 9 as Shao Kahn keeps on spamming everything and Liu Kang's attacks do jack shit to him.
Forced Mini Games For Gameplay Variety: Good god is this one awful. I hate when I'm playing a game and then out of nowhere I'm forced to suffer through a poorly implemented minigame just to keep the game from getting stale. This is one of my complaints with Brutal Legend, mostly the races against Fletus due to how horrendous the driving physics in the game are to begin with.
Button Mashing Segments Against AI or In-Game Event: I'm okay on this if it's an element during combat, for the most part, however if it's during one scene and you have to press the button repeatedly until your thumb starts to feel sore it's an absolute pain. A recent game I played where I got pissed at a button mashing element was The Wonderful 101, the scene in particular being when Wonder Red had to chase after Wonder Blue while all the other Wonderful Ones stayed behind to plug up a giant hole that was flooding the undersea area. Being alone is fine until I have to use unite hand against a crank gear, which without any Wonderful Ones is a pain in the ass as you have to keep on mashing down on one of the buttons and it just doesn't want to move for shit. But after you get that crank turned your thumb is halfway to its deathbed.

Well, I did say Escort MISSIONS. I was talking mainly about games where escorting someone isn't on main focus (like it is in games such as The Last of Us or Resident Evil 4).

Games that don't specifically focus on that kind of gameplay, usually cannot waste too much resources to make the AI behave like you'd want it to behave.

It's extremely frustrating situation when you are fending off tons of attackers, and can only focus on a few at time. All the while bazillion enemies hammer on whatever you're supposed to be protecting, usually while doing absolutely NOTHING to protect themselves. Just standing there, taking the pounding. And then YOU get slapped with a Game Over, or a bad grade. Just because you can't fend off every single enemy while wiping the drool off the face of your precious subject at the same time.

Forced Mini Games For Gameplay Variety: Good god is this one awful. I hate when I’m playing a game and then out of nowhere I’m forced to suffer through a poorly implemented minigame just to keep the game from getting stale.

Oh god, that reminded me of Final Fantasy X-2. Also known as "Minigame the Game".

''One Time Only Areas''

Pretty much pandaria, except that you can only come back at max level.

Sudden Genre Shift
A few minutes ago you're kicking ass and now you have to sneak around these bastards.
Fetch Quests
Hey, get me 20 Bear Asses for no reason at all!
Ridiculously Rare Drop Rates
You want that Super Rare Bear Ass? Fuck you, take this Bear Poop instead.

Mandatory Class System
Not usually a huge deal, but some games cough Terraria cough take this too far. Not that I don't like some games with forced classes, but COME ON. It leaves little to no room to create a unique playstyle.

Blatant Imbalance
Especially in PvP games. If you're gonna make a PvP game in the first place, balance out your shit. Playtesting and all that.

REPETITION
The root of all artificial difficulty. Doing the same thing a billion times doesn't make it harder, just tedious. This applies to rare grinding, exp grinding, repeating levels, re-skinned enemies, little to no game variation, and so much more. All it does is waste time.

The One-time-only dungeons was one of the many issues the first Hyperdimension Neptunia has. Thank god that was gone in the other games.

Not-Enough Pallette Swaps: Before anyone asks, yes I like Pallette Swaps, What I don;t like is people half-assing it to a point where the allegedly different enemies look the same down to the color scheme

AI-Exclusive OHKO Mechanics: Cheapest way to sack a fight for "difficulty". Either give the players access to ONKO mechanics or keep them out, but do not just have the bosses have them

The Useless Useful Spell: I get that bosses have to be immune to status but it feels like they are there for the sake of it when they are only balanced by the fact that bosses and late-game mobs are immune to it.

In-App Purchases and Micro-transactions
Just imagine when real-time strategy classics like HomeWorld, StarCraft/Warcraft, Age of Empires, Europa Universalis, Rise of Nations, Command & Conquer, Company of Heroes, Black & White, Sacrifice, World in Conflict, Sins of a Solar Empire, Supreme Commander, Warhammer 40K, Little King's Story, Darwinia and Ground Control released on mobile.
When turn-based/tactical classics like Jagged Alliance, X-Com, Sid Meier's, Heroes of Might & Magic, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, Total War, Galactic Civilizations, Disgaea, Valkryia Chronicles, Pathway to Glory, Jeanne d'Arc, and was also released on mobile.
Don't you get it? Don't blame me, but it really goes like this…

Get 1 Unit of Knight of $0.99

i absolutely hate Advance level platforming in games. I can tolerate hard battles in games like Dark Souls. God of War, and Ninja Gaiden, but i would go complete apeshit if i have to do a very difficult platforming level that requires high level focus and precision. This basically ruined my experience playing God of War 1 & 2 and Guacamelee. The only reason i kept going on with those games was the solid combat.

Luck based missions

If I have to redo a quest/mission because some RNG says so, chances are I'll give fairly early.

37 Million Phase Bosses That one boss (or bosses, depending on the game,) that has over three hard to beat phases for no apparent reason. This seems to happen quite a bit in Kirby. It's especially annoying when you've barely beaten one phase, and you're just about to die, and you think the fight is done and over with…. But oh, what's that? Oh, it's a second phase! With harder attacks and a ull health bar and everything!
To add insult to injury, sometimes the game won't even heal you, or if you die, you have to do the whole boss fight all over again…..

MICROMANAGMENT!!!!
My. Fucking. God. Why do I have to pay attention to about 2 million other things instead of progressing the story? This is a big reason I can't get into Persona. I've got to study, make friends, be a nice dude, solve mysteries Scooby-Doo style all while grinding for the next fucking boss who'll demolish my ass, and it is all on a time limit. Fuck that shit.
Speaking of time limits
Timed Missions (That give you too much fucking time)
Why is it timed anyway?! It ain't worth it being timed when I can essentially walk all the way out! I may ragequit when the time limit is too strict, but dammit, at least make me WANT to hurry.
Darkness Induced Audience Apathy
This is a big flaw in all gaming storytelling. Sometimes, developers try to make a realistic atmosphere only to make it the shittiest place ever. You know the game Drakengard? EVERYTHING IN THE GAME IS TELLING YOU THERE IS NO GOOD ENDING. THE BEST FUCKING ENDING IS TO KILL EVERYONE AND YOUR PARTY IS A BUNCH OF RUTHLESS ASSHOLES. This is a big reason why DMC: Devil May Cry failed too. Too hopeless a fight, jerkass protagonist, and over-reliance on edginess. And don't fucking get me started on the originator of OW THE EDGE. The stages in that game were fun, but it was so dark and cheesy nothing could be taken seriously or be cared about.

Timers, FUCKING TI – Please wait 200 hours to read the rest of this post, Or pay 1,000 meme diamonds to view it now.

Premium Currency that can only be earned by paying more real cash and how the game constantly tells you to buy more or the in game characters get a sad face. LIKE I CARE?

DLC that could of been released as a free bloody update. NFS Most Wanted 2012's Airport Expansion, For Example. WHY UPDATE THE MAP TO INCLUDE THE AIRPORT ONLY TO BLOCK IT OFF HMM?