Nameless Voice on 1/10/2016 at 09:50
I think if you have something annoying or boring, then that's a design issue that you should fix for everyone, not just players who've been playing for a while.
Otherwise, the game is kind of less fun until you've already been playing it for a while, plus starting a new game feels really punishing because your character doesn't handle as well as you're used to from your previous game.
Shadowcat on 1/10/2016 at 11:24
I hate when a game takes away control in order to do something completely at odds with the gameplay. A classic example which springs to mind is a cutscene in which the player's character surrenders to a vastly lesser threat than those the player has already prevailed against.
Likewise for learn-by-failing scripted elements, where the 'correct' sequence of actions is inconsistent with the preceding gameplay, or where the scripting is simply not robust enough to reward what ought to be a successful course of action. I remember being driven crazy by a particular rescue mission in which approaching my target from a direction the game didn't like resulted (uncharacteristically for the game) in guaranteed failure for no discernible reason, causing me to continue trying to refine a tactic which had no chance of ever succeeding.
More generally: any situation which appears to have multiple solutions, but which actually requires you to read the mind of the designer to succeed.
I hate checkpoint saves when they follow long sequences of required and soon-to-be-tedious gameplay -- things which are just fine the first time you do them, but which have you seeing red after you've done them half a dozen times (if not more like 50). I-War is an absolutely superb game, but there's one mission in which a mundane recon route (several minutes of dull navigation) suddenly drops you into an intense combat sequence with a unique 'win' condition which you have never been faced with before, which IIRC is explained to you (a) while you are trying to cope with every ship and its dog shooting at you (I think I lasted about 10 seconds the first time), and (b) sufficiently vaguely that, even when I was surviving the combat long enough to do anything, I didn't actually understand what the game was asking me to do. That's several minutes of boredom in order to have yet another few seconds figuring out what you're supposed to do. Over and over. I hated that mission so much.
I hate it when a console port to PC still enforces a gamepad-centric UI when the mouse would have improved things. e.g. Omikron was a mostly excellent game, but its UI for dealing with inventory (and most other things) was absolutely painful.
On the converse, I can't think offhand of an element which I've loved so much that it has actually redeemed a game I would have otherwise dismissed. It takes a lot of things working in harmony for a game to be good, so I can't imagine just one element ever being enough, no matter how good. It's definitely much easier to pick out the things I didn't like in an otherwise-great game.
icemann on 1/10/2016 at 14:26
Another is when the gear the player / party members are wearing/using in cutscenes clashes with their appearance with them outside of those.
Time limits in place for 2D platformers I hate.
Lack of a continue option on games is also an element I hate on otherwise good/great games. You could say that this adds to the "hardcore" element in said games, but it's just stupid and adds unnecessary replaying back to the point the player had been at, with the added fear that if they lose all of their lives then it's straight back to level 1 again.
I was going to say that in the rare instances of a lack of a manual saving or check point system in FPS games is just stupid, but then I remember the ABSOLUTE fear that this instilled in me when I was playing the original version of AvP, and is something that I remember back to quite fondly. So not a bad thing to me, but I can very much see how it would be for someone else.
Another would be for the RPGs (this is much more prevalent in JRPGs but does sometimes happen in Western RPGs as well) to present to the player moderately hard bosses that make the player think that they've been using their skill points or gearing up in the right direction, and then suddenly on the final boss they require the player to have a particular skill, weapon, item or whatever that wasn't otherwise made apparent. Or it suddenly requires the player to be 20+ more levels ahead than the progression level the rest of the game had had them on.
This often means having to either:
A) Needing to go back to an earlier save
or
B) Level grinding to get whatever level requirement or skills that or needed.
So how in the hell was the player supposed to know about this without reading a gamefaq? In the RPGs where this happens I ABSOLUTELY fucking hate it.
Malf on 1/10/2016 at 14:56
Quote Posted by faetal
Stalker worked similarly. You level up by getting access to better guns, artifacts and body armour
To be honest, I think the best model is probably to step away from traditional pen & paper style mechanics and look at the way some of the classic Nintendo games do it. Give
players more tools with which to do the job in different ways rather than artificially boosting the power of the
character.
Now I'm not saying games like Metroid or Zelda don't have problems, and hard-locking content behind the acquisition of certain items can be really annoying, but the important thing to remember is that while the player feels they are progressing when they obtain the hookshot or freeze ray, they are also expanding and improving their skills as a player.
DarkForge on 1/10/2016 at 15:04
As far as "stuff I hate in games I like" goes, I've never been a fan of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided both having ammo take up space in your inventory grid - to me that's a worse decision than Invisible War's universal ammo. I've learned just to accept it for what it is though
You know what though? I'm going to throw Half-Life 2 into the ring here as well, specifically the section in the prison with the antlions. Hated those things, always felt they just got in my way. What I usually ended up doing was throwing the Pheropods far away from me in the direction I'd just come from, just so the blasted creatures would get lost! (Unfortunately that doesn't work for long though, since the game spawns more in automatically and they just seem to always be near you regardless, making the Pheropods nothing more than a cosmetic addition and next to redundant all round.) The one and only section in that game I don't look forward to whenever a replay comes around. :(
nicked on 1/10/2016 at 15:57
You know they will do your fighting for you right? That's the whole point of that section!
icemann on 1/10/2016 at 16:57
I thought that bit was awesome.
Pyrian on 1/10/2016 at 17:25
Quote Posted by DarkForge
As far as "stuff I hate in games I like" goes, I've never been a fan of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided both having ammo take up space in your inventory grid - to me that's a worse decision than Invisible War's universal ammo.
Huhhh. So... What's the actual
problem with it, though? I never felt too good about Deus Ex 1's ammunition system (no space, high caps per type, nevermind the hilarity of leaving you all your ammunition in jail). Ammo's
heavy, man.
Nameless Voice on 1/10/2016 at 21:17
Since this seems to have mostly turned into a discussion about things people don't like seeing in games, it's reminded me of a set of game design goals that I wrote a while back, and occasionally add to as I encounter some especially bad (or good) design in a game.
I've posted them up on my blog... and then spent a bit too long poking with web configuration to actually make the thing accessible.
(
https://blog.nameless.zanity.net/?p=95) Nameless Voice's Design Goals
Yakoob on 1/10/2016 at 21:28
Quote Posted by Thirith
I remember finding the time it took to have a tool work increasingly annoying as I got on in the game, so having that time reduced by 1% every time you use a tool (because you're getting better at using them) might be worth trying out.
Actually, I think it was your feedback that prompted me to add batteries scattered around the world. Each one decreases tool use time by 10% so you can actually get really fast by the end of it.
Yay for testing feedback improving gameplay :D
Oooh those are excellent, thanks for sharing. Especially agree with "Controls should enable player actions rather than restrict them," " Perception before trial-and-error" and "Decisions should be apparent." Very important yet so easy to do wrong.
