Game mechanics / designs that you hate

M76

M76

[H]F Junkie
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Here is your chance, share what are the most hideous, and dumb design decisions you encountered in videogames?

Here are a few that annoy me in games:
  1. Returning the controls to the player unexpectedly during a cutscene
  2. Invulberable NPCs or indestructible plot items. Just show a game over screen if I kill a story critical NPC.
  3. Non-lootable fallen enemies, or untouchable weapons in the game world
  4. Self closing doors (that are not automatic by design, but simple plain doors)
  5. Invisible walls, and uncrossable ankle height obstructions.
  6. Placing save checkpoint before an unskippable cutscene
  7. Making a cutscene persistently unskippable for any reason (yes that includes the company logo at startup. I understand making it unskippable for the first run, but not forever)
  8. Trying to include game mechanics in the game world. This one needs a bit of explaining. I put everything here that somehow breaks the 4th wall, and therefore breaks immersion. For example bullet holes and cracks on the "camera" . Or projecting game objectives onto the game world. But also showing 15 bullet holes on your character, unless you play as the terminator.
  9. Making enemies unrealistically resistant to weapons, and as a result making fighting even the lowliest thugs extremely dragged out and boring.
  10. Locking game content or in an open world game, the game area until the very end of the game.
  11. Making every last NPC, even the janitor above you in rank.
  12. Telephatic enemies (you steal something when noones sees you, still everyone knows). Or one enemy detects you, and suddently every one of them starts converging on your position.
  13. Forgetful enemies, that if can't find you within a certain time will act as if they never saw you.
  14. Scripted chase sequences. Why include a chase that you can't win?
  15. Blatantly spawning enemies in the same spot.
  16. Map designs where the "back" or "hidden" entrance gives you more direct access than the main one.
  17. Map elements that are clearly made for the benefit of the player and, nothing else. Like a vent leading from one side of a forcefield to the other, with no vents anywhere else in the level.
  18. Herding the player by taking away control in certain situations. Some game won't even allow you to look in the direction you want, during "herding". Yes I'm looking at you bioshock infinite.
  19. Triggering plot events too early or too late. Well it's arguable if this is a bug or a feature, but it happens numerous times in games that you get conversations with NPCs just seconds after some event, that should've taken weeks or at least days to develop. Or that you get them long after they become irrelevant.
  20. Fake choices where the same thing happens regardless of what you choose.

Ok that's all for now.
 
I can get behind you on some of these. Others, not so much. The rear entrance one I disagree with.

I have been playing Ultima Underworld at home lately and I havent really come across any of these lol
 
Unlockables/Grinding in online shooters (ala COD, etc).

I miss good old Starsiege: Tribes where everything was unlocked from the get go.
 
Wow definitely agree with a lot of those! 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12 especially.

I hate when horizontal and vertical sensitivity are set different by default on games, 3rd or 1st person.

I hate not being able to shoot through ridiculously weak material in shooters, like trying to blast an enemy behind a few plywood planks with some 7.62x51 only to realize the flimsy wood has eaten up all my rounds with pride.

Games that advertise a more "open" campaign or "multiple ways to complete a mission" when really all they did was add 2 hallways or roads to the same objective instead of one on a handful of levels/maps.

BF4 campaign not letting you use suppressors, there by eliminating stealth as an option for the entire shitty single player. Yes BF single player sucks, I know. It still annoyed me though. Never bothered finishing it.

Games that are too short! Good ones at least.

Borderlands having the same guns with different paint jobs and different stats constantly repeated as different pickups. I got tired of the same 5 guns that each had infinite variants
 
Since it came up in another thread, games with tank controls for non-vehicle objects or characters. (main reason I don't play a lot of highly rated games from the past)
 
I have a bazooka, where enemy infantry and vehicles get blown to bits. Can't blast through a wood door or get past 24" tall sandbags. Padlock? Fuggedaboutit.
 
auntjemima said:
I can get behind you on some of these. Others, not so much. The rear entrance one I disagree with.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with the existence of back entrances or hidden routes. What I find problematic is if it's faster to get into a building trough the vent on the roof, than by entering the main gate. It's just unrealistic. The few games that got it right made sure that most back entrances were thoroughly booby trapped, and usually a maze to get in trough, like the original DeusEx. Then in came DXHR and ruined it, by presenting "hidden" entrances on a silver platter, that always led directly to your goal, but nowhere else.

I remembered one more:

Single minded approach to problems in games. When developers decide to only make it possible to progress further in the game by doing one single thing, when in reality numerous other things would work in the same situation. For example right now in Mad Max. You can only break gates by throwing the burning fuel can at it, but you can't by putting the burning fuel can near it. The resulting explosion is the same, but the gate is only destroyed if you threw the can.
 
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A fair of them are due to constraints, like backdoorsy one. It'd be stupid to fully design a map with pointless and useless vents. I get it, but it's a waste of time when they could be doing better things with the game.

The stupid forgetful enemies one isn't great but I also get why. Imagine if people just constantly reloaded because one accidental spot made the level 10x harder as they are always on alert. It's better to reset so the player can actually play. (I reload enough as it is because most of the time, Im trying to get through unmolested.)

The custcene stuff, I can fully get behind though. Unskippable cutscenes are a bane to good games. Ones that have saves just right before is even worst, and even more so when it's a difficult boss is after that long and unbearable cutscene. And double that, if it's a boss that requires a lot of trial and error to really figure out.

Oh.... and QTEs, I FUCKING HATE QTEs. I also hate mashing buttons to force a knife in or whatnot. I'm okay with it to get out of a grab, and I'm okay with finishers (unless they are overused and drawn out).
 
As an avid power gaming RPG player, the biggest turn off to me:

Unwinnable encounters

Especially when they are late in the game and I am able to max out my characters prior to that encounter meaning that absolutely nothing changes between the forced loss and subsequent easy mode win. It just straight pulls me out of a game when I am wrecking the country side and some random nobody is able to one shot me or worse: I one shot him and then via poorly written plot armor am forced to arbitrarily decide to flee because that puddle of goo that I just curbed stomped is "too powerful for me!"
 
I hate jelly on the screen whenever shot. Make the screen flash and that's all I need. If I'm wounded then just some audible queues work.
 
Only a few design decisions really get on my nerves.

Not being able to switch difficulties after starting a game is a big one, mainly because how poorly balanced some games are for harder difficulties.

It depends on the game but i absolutely hate over done targeting/lockon that is immersion breaking. Highlighting and making bright colored outlines of what ever you're targeting is completely immersion breaking. I understand it being used a game where you might have augmented vision or you're in a mech of some sort but a simple subtle arrow or dot over the target is more then enough in most cases.

Similarly also don't like when games lazily turn your screen a entirely different color just to represent a common game mechanic. I understand night/heat vision but seriously muting the screen of all but one color just like a over done ui essentially ruins any of the hard work put into the graphics of the game.
 
yourgrandma said:
Only a few design decisions really get on my nerves.

Not being able to switch difficulties after starting a game is a big one, mainly because how poorly balanced some games are for harder difficulties.

It depends on the game but i absolutely hate over done targeting/lockon that is immersion breaking. Highlighting and making bright colored outlines of what ever you're targeting is completely immersion breaking. I understand it being used a game where you might have augmented vision or you're in a mech of some sort but a simple subtle arrow or dot over the target is more then enough in most cases.

Similarly also don't like when games lazily turn your screen a entirely different color just to represent a common game mechanic. I understand night/heat vision but seriously muting the screen of all but one color just like a over done ui essentially ruins any of the hard work put into the graphics of the game.
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Yes! Finding out the "hard" setting is just giving enemies double health or something like that is annoying. There are better ways to step a games difficulty up then to simply add health to npc's
 
Games that put more emphasis on Multiplayer rather than Singleplayer. Back in the Half Life days games focused more on Single Player which I miss. And also multi-player only games... I'm looking at your Star Wars Battlefront and Titanfall. Two IPs that could have had amazing campaigns.
 
I agree completely with your number 3. If I can kill a guy who has the best weapon in the game with only the starting weapons or no weapons, let me pick up his damn gun! To further this, an enemy who has infinite ammo once killed has 3 bullets. WTF...? I mean, I get it, it would make you too powerful too quick, but do something else to counter it. I know its more sim like, but ARMA3 handles this well with weight effecting stamina and max inventory space based on gear. If you kill a guy who never fired a round in ARMA3, he's going to have his full combat load on him and you can take everything single piece of gear off of him.

I hate it when the max view angles are locked in 3rd person games. I just started playing Remember Me after I picked it up in some steam sale, and I can't look all the way up or all the way down. The FOV is narrow but that can be forgiven if I get to look all around, but I can't. It makes me sort of motion sick when no other games do. Let me see the damn world you made devs... shit
 
It's a good list.

Here are mine: A lot of these apply to RPGS or MMORPGs.

1) Quest hubs. A bunch of dudes in armor gathered together on a road somewhere and decided as a group they can't seem to get anything done, but expect you, as a solo player, to be able to do it. Oh and when you finish, they tell you to go talk to another group of dudes in armor 50 feet down the road and the process repeats.

2) Every NPC in the world has some quest or purpose in the game. There is no such thing as a NPC who just exists. If you see some hermit roaming in a forest, you know at some point you're gonna have to fight him, or give something to him, or lead him somewhere. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you will at some point.

3) Every NPC seems helpless. They need help pulling up carrots in their garden 5 feet away while they just sit there staring at you (they are good managers), and you "level up" for doing it for them. It's a quest! You have to figure it out and complete it, like its' a challenge. But really? 5 feet away and pulling carrots?

4) Achievements for doing nothing or counter productive. You fell off a cliff and get an achievement for falling 200+ feet. Woot. It's great I commit suicide, what an achievement. Or I get an achievement for crafting my first sword with a non optional quest the game gives me that I have to complete before continuing? Really? What did I achieve, crafting my first sword or just clicking my way through a stupid tutorial?

Sick of typing.
 
M76 said:
Here is your chance, share what are the most hideous, and dumb design decisions you encountered in videogames?



Here are a few that annoy me in games:
  1. Returning the controls to the player unexpectedly during a cutscene
  2. Invulberable NPCs or indestructible plot items. Just show a game over screen if I kill a story critical NPC.
  3. Non-lootable fallen enemies, or untouchable weapons in the game world
  4. Self closing doors (that are not automatic by design, but simple plain doors)
  5. Invisible walls, and uncrossable ankle height obstructions.
  6. Placing save checkpoint before an unskippable cutscene
  7. Making a cutscene persistently unskippable for any reason (yes that includes the company logo at startup. I understand making it unskippable for the first run, but not forever)
  8. Trying to include game mechanics in the game world. This one needs a bit of explaining. I put everything here that somehow breaks the 4th wall, and therefore breaks immersion. For example bullet holes and cracks on the "camera" . Or projecting game objectives onto the game world. But also showing 15 bullet holes on your character, unless you play as the terminator.
  9. Making enemies unrealistically resistant to weapons, and as a result making fighting even the lowliest thugs extremely dragged out and boring.
  10. Locking game content or in an open world game, the game area until the very end of the game.
  11. Making every last NPC, even the janitor above you in rank.
  12. Telephatic enemies (you steal something when noones sees you, still everyone knows). Or one enemy detects you, and suddently every one of them starts converging on your position.
  13. Forgetful enemies, that if can't find you within a certain time will act as if they never saw you.
  14. Scripted chase sequences. Why include a chase that you can't win?
  15. Blatantly spawning enemies in the same spot.
  16. Map designs where the "back" or "hidden" entrance gives you more direct access than the main one.
  17. Map elements that are clearly made for the benefit of the player and, nothing else. Like a vent leading from one side of a forcefield to the other, with no vents anywhere else in the level.
  18. Herding the player by taking away control in certain situations. Some game won't even allow you to look in the direction you want, during "herding". Yes I'm looking at you bioshock infinite.
  19. Triggering plot events too early or too late. Well it's arguable if this is a bug or a feature, but it happens numerous times in games that you get conversations with NPCs just seconds after some event, that should've taken weeks or at least days to develop. Or that you get them long after they become irrelevant.
  20. Fake choices where the same thing happens regardless of what you choose.
Ok that's all for now.
Click to expand...
You got a lot of them. I strongly agree with 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 18, and 20.


Some of mine:
  1. Infinitely spawning enemies to force player action or moving forward (Call of Duty is notorious for this)
  2. Lack of manual saving or multiple saves for a single playthrough
  3. Scaling difficulty by merely increasing enemy health and decreasing player health exponentially
  4. Arbitrarily closing off prior sections of the game to prevent backtracking
  5. Forcing a fail state in a scripted event if the player didn't act in a way that was predetermined by the developers
  6. AI that are not bound by the same world and game rules that are forced on the player (often erroneously referred to as the game "cheating" the player)
  7. "Nerfs" or redesigns to abilities and/or equipment because the developers don't like the way people are playing their game
  8. Physics, animations, controls, etc. that are tied to the framerate like it is the '80s all over again
  9. Using "artistic integrity" as an excuse to shit over established and trending storylines in a game or game series when creative team members change hands
  10. Localization; specifically altering and/or removing plot elements, dialogue, etc. because the culture being imported will somehow be offending or confusing to the new audience
 
I am reminded of some when I played through Supreme Commander 1...

Map suddenly expands and opens a new battle front (or new fronts) on the side of your base you had no defense to simply because that was the edge of the map just seconds before completing the current objective.
 
pothb said:
A fair of them are due to constraints, like backdoorsy one. It'd be stupid to fully design a map with pointless and useless vents. I get it, but it's a waste of time when they could be doing better things with the game.
.
Click to expand...

I don't agree, making the layout believable is part of the job, making things only for the player's convenience is cutting corners. And this doesn't just apply to vents that was just an example, try to be more imaginative.

I understand how this happens, but they should know better. This is a classic design failure. They're trying to design the map to fit to the game mechanics and concepts. Instead they should make a map that's believable first, and then figure out how to apply the game mechanics to it in a believable way.

Also you're trying to mix two of my complaints here. One is the back doors that are too easily accessible and too obvious. And another is where they put elements into the game world that are clearly only there for one reason: for the player to use them. These are two separate issues. There are games that have both these issues but that's a different story.
 
Armenius said:
You got a lot of them. I strongly agree with 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 18, and 20.


Some of mine:
  1. Infinitely spawning enemies to force player action or moving forward (Call of Duty is notorious for this)
  2. Lack of manual saving or multiple saves for a single playthrough
  3. Scaling difficulty by merely increasing enemy health and decreasing player health exponentially
  4. Arbitrarily closing off prior sections of the game to prevent backtracking
  5. Forcing a fail state in a scripted event if the player didn't act in a way that was predetermined by the developers
  6. AI that are not bound by the same world and game rules that are forced on the player (often erroneously referred to as the game "cheating" the player)
  7. "Nerfs" or redesigns to abilities and/or equipment because the developers don't like the way people are playing their game
  8. Physics, animations, controls, etc. that are tied to the framerate like it is the '80s all over again
  9. Using "artistic integrity" as an excuse to shit over established and trending storylines in a game or game series when creative team members change hands
  10. Localization; specifically altering and/or removing plot elements, dialogue, etc. because the culture being imported will somehow be offending or confusing to the new audience
Click to expand...
You make good points.

On that I remembered a few more.

  1. Disallowing backtracking (when you realize you left a medkit two rooms behind that would come in handy, but the game won't let you go back)
  2. Immediately re-populating cleared areas with enemies when you leave
  3. Matching enemy difficulty to your level in rpgs. Therefore making levelling pointless as fighting will never get easier. Instead enemies should be at a fixed level at each location. Often forcing the player to flee with his life when encountering enemies that are too strong, but also allowing some fun, when encountering weak enemies. And a lot of fun when fighting enemies that are at a higher level than the player but can be defeated by skill and luck.
  4. Putting you into the game world without showing as much as a menu, or settings screen, to allow the player to customize controls and graphics settings beforehand.

And this is not a game design issue: Developers who blame the gamers for disliking their game, or criticise other games that are more liked.
 
M76 said:
I don't agree, making the layout believable is part of the job, making things only for the player's convenience is cutting corners. And this doesn't just apply to vents that was just an example, try to be more imaginative.

I understand how this happens, but they should know better. This is a classic design failure. They're trying to design the map to fit to the game mechanics and concepts. Instead they should make a map that's believable first, and then figure out how to apply the game mechanics to it in a believable way.

Also you're trying to mix two of my complaints here. One is the back doors that are too easily accessible and too obvious. And another is where they put elements into the game world that are clearly only there for one reason: for the player to use them. These are two separate issues. There are games that have both these issues but that's a different story.
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I merged them because they, to me, seem like they address the same issue. It's obvious people are going to disagree, like on this. So no biggie.

Someone mentioned unwinnable situations... Man do I agree with that. Witcher 3 pissed me the hell off with that. Actually, Witcher 2 does as well, where if you rampage, you get to kill like 2 guards then you are insta killed by 3 arrows.

But back to witcher 3, That one quest where you fight 2 thugs and then get arrested. It pisses me off to no end. You can't kill them until they kill the guy helping you. I've tried, and I've confirmed it to hell and back. You can knock them to 1/0 hp and hit and hit and hit, and they JUST WON'T DIE! Fuck that noise.
 
All FIFA / NBA games after 2002 - Way too complicated controlls
Battlefield series after BF2 - Game Achievements Pointless, tones of ranks/medals/achievements/badges that made me loose any interest for competition.
 
1. Achievements in general
2. RPGs allowing a player to carry a metric ton of weapons, armor and random crap, but will not allow the same character to climb a waste high fence or step down a one foot drop.
3. The player can take a rocket/fireball/ axe to the chest with almost no health lost, but a 10 foot drop kills them.
4.The player getting to a high level and can kill (insert huge dangerous creature/character) with little problem, but a half naked quest npc can one shot the player with a wood club
5. Level scaling in general. If a lvl 1 player decides to roam around they should be at a great risk of being destroyed by a high level NPC/creature. The same player at a higher level should be able to wade through and destroy the same NPC/creature without the npc/creatures suddenly jumping up 20 levels. Give players a better risk/reward for exploring.
6. AI. Why in the hell can the player kill some random NPC with his buddy standing 5 feet away, just because the player is crouched.
7. NPC's decked out in awesome armor and glorious weapons, but when looted give the player a handkerchief and a ball of twine. On the same note looting chests, why in the hell does that giant ornate chest guarded by some hard to beat NPC have a crap weapon and two apples. Or the room you just cleared is full weapon racks with awesome looking weapons but when looted you get two rusty knives and a broken slingshot.
 
Well I wasn't looking for this thread but now that I bumped into it I have to post more annoying things.

  • Plot twists that make the story suffer leading up to them
  • The destruction of the medkit (all you need to heal is go behind cover for a few seconds)
  • Making cosmetic options unlockable during the campaign (not available from the start) in RPGs. - One of the main appeals of role playing is that you can shape your character to your ideas, but if the items needed for this only get unlocked at the end of the game what's the point? - Or worse making them part of microtransactions.
 
I'll add one more.

Escort missions!!!! Fuck those things...
 
Every single thing the op listed Ubisoft is guilty of.

He missed one though. Cameras that tell you how to move or that are completely uncontrollable.

but the worst thing i can think of is rubber banding in racing games.

fuck that shit.
 
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Domingo said:
Forced stealth missions drive me nuts. Let me fight my way out or at least let me try.
Click to expand...

Stealth should just be one of many techniques that can be used. If you make it through undetected, great. If you get detected, you should be able to attempt silencing the detector, or indeed, fight your way out.
 
Domingo said:
Forced stealth missions drive me nuts. Let me fight my way out or at least let me try.
Click to expand...

For me it's those fucking missions in the Assassin's Creed games where you have to tail someone undetected but also stay within a certain radius.

Also, fuck escort missions.

Obligatory loot box/microtransactions mention as well.
 
For me, there is really only one mechanic that will prevent me from buying a game (that is, if you don't count the new loot-box trend as a game mechanic):

- Game-wide countdown timers like those found in Majora's Mask, Lightning Returns, etc. This counts quadruple in RPG/Adventure games where you want to take time and explore.

While I did complete Majora's Mask - simply out to scratch it off my list - I did not find myself enjoying it. I also have a copy of Lightning Returns that I've never opened and probably never will. Some people find this mechanic exciting, but I simply don't agree.

Other mechanics that annoy me:

  1. Jumping gameplay over to a completely new and uninteresting character, taking you completely out of the main quest.
  2. Clumsy UI/Item Management in RPG games.
  3. Forced Minigames that don't fit in the genre, but are poorly designed and necessary to achieve X.
  4. Motion controls - seriously, the technology simply isn't there yet at a consumer level. The Switch is close, but it's not good enough.
  5. Any sort of always-online functionality in a single-player experience. It's why I most often don't play Ubisoft Games.
  6. The goddamn blue shell.
  7. Microtransactions of any kind. If I'm paying money to play the game faster, then it must not be a very fun game to play.
  8. Non-standard control schemes for standard gametypes like Racing/FPS
 
1. 3rd person cameras... sucked in Mario 64 and still suck today... of course some games figured out good ways to handle it but ugh, more often than not it pulls me straight out of the immersion when things go wrong, perhaps it's because I didn't grow up using them (old people problems?)
 
that part when you fire up a game and it shows you a shit load of screens that are before the intro.

or a FMV of the publishers logo.

i don't care who you are.
 
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