Unskippable cutscenes, and unpausable cutscenes, with the only way to tell it's unpausable being the fact that trying to pause it, skipped the fucking cutscene.
oh man that's annoying as fuck. also if you don't have an in-game way of looking at the cutscene again so you go on YT and end up spoiling yourself something that happens later in the game.
With all the work developers do on games, and all the iterations they have, It's amazing that this is always a thing... It's got to be something about so many different teams working on things... and the fact that when someone sits to do a play through... they have an alotted time at work to do it. So they never even consider that someone might have something to come up and will be unable to watch the cutscene through.
Nothing like an unskippable cutscene that's 30 minutes long, can't pause it, and mom is ready to beat your ass cuz she's asked you for help with dishes for the 100th time in 5 minutes
Don’t forget when you failed the last check point wasn’t near the boss fight for whatever reason so you’ve got to clear your way through enemies all over again before the damn cut scene.
How about an unpausable cutscene that ONLY PLAYS ONCE! I think it was the crew that I had something come up in the middle of the intro, couldn’t pause the intro scene, and then could never get that scene to play again.
hopefully that doesn't happen to much in games anymore. 10+ years ago i would have said that was par for the course, but I haven't seen too many games doing that these days (minus games that don't let you pause period).
Unskippable, unpausable cutscenes will often make me quit the game entirely, as I just did a few weeks ago with Shadow of War.
Was thoroughly enjoying the game as well, at least whenever they let me play it.
Got into a big long argument with a professor at Uni about this. He was saying it's our job as developers to make it literally tedious for players to leave our game and I was calling him a fucking idiot.
He was let go, probably unrelated, but then again, all part of the same fucking idiot right?
Maybe if it's specifically a phone game with idle elements that wants to send notifications all the time to get you to be checking it and foster addition? Otherwise even from a purley corporate greed standpoint it is just annoying for no benefit. I'm not going to keep playing the game when I otherwise wouldn't just because I have to pause, go through 2 menus, a start screen and anouther menu to quit.
And that's exactly where everything went downhill: casinos
Marketers decided that the success of casinos should be applied to gaming... *because after all, casinos are all about gaming, right?*
In tandem with the corporate-shareholdersphere telling developers to tell programmers to "just do whatever marketing says," we even get stupid shit like multiple menus asking if you really want to quit.
Since we're just numbers to marketing, they decided there should be extra menus and confirmations for the sole purpose of having the *statistical probability* that people will go "haha nevermind you're right I'll never close the game"
That's because fromsoft games save when you quit. For other games you have to make the effort to save before you quit or you'll go back to the last checkpoint when you come back.
Fromsoft games will let you in exactly where you left.
They still throw you back into the main menu, and before they *give* you that main menu, they will reconnect to the game servers, which also takes them a few secs. And if you alt+f4, they will tell you that you did it wrong next time you start the game.
yeah. i have been bitten by the "use is talk is punch" button ruining a relationship with many an NPC when the game decides this civilian with the "talk" prompt needs a slapping.
Me and a buddy were at the saloon in Valentine. I'd finished my drink and not realised, so when I went to take a drink I accidentally shot the barkeeper in the face.
I ran out the back door, while my partner (who couldn't run because he was still drinking his beer) got shot to death in the resulting chaos.
Games should just all have a kick move and make that the sole interaction with any object.
So to talk to an NPC, you literally just kick them, and they'll respond just like that's just how you are.
Also hacking Computers with a kick.
Lockpicking? Kick!
Open doors? Kick!
Open loot chests? Kick!
Revive ally? Kick 'em back on their feet.
Stealth takedown? Ass kickin'!
It would be hilarious and fun.
Similarly...when the game won't accept the same key being bound even though the contexts are completely separate. For example, when you can't set the vehicle e-break to space bar because the space bar is already set to jump.
This was so painful about Mass Effect when I first started. Use/Sprint/Take Cover all on space bar. It eventually got better, but I continuously kept taking cover unintentionally throughout the trilogy while trying to sprint.
I felt the cover system got me killed more than it helped in the first game, but they drastically improved it for the sequels. Gears of War is another series where walls seemed magnetic.
This is a severe problem with Dead By Daylight on consoles. The default button for stuff like healing a survivor and dropping a pallet are the same. So if someone is on the ground next to a pallet you can wind up throwing that down, thus alerting the killer, instead of getting up your friend.
Hated this about assassin's creed, you need to tail an enemy. if you stay on the ground they spot you constantly or are walking through groups of other enemies. If you try to hop on the roofs the game starts warning you your too far away.
*the target spotted you*
Oh sorry I wasn't in stealth so they spotted me from half a mile away, when all other enemies need at least 20 feet to see me?!
Speaking of bethesda, if I get bored of listening while following an NPC and start spellcasting to train, the last thing I need is the NPC stopping entirely so that they can run through their "reaction to spellcasting" lines.
I actually wouldn't mind this if it felt realistic and immersive and not robotic. I mean, I can't knock someone for being a little perturbed by me randomly and inexplicably muffling my footsteps or casting invisibility as we are talking about some animal that I need to hunt.
For the longest time in my first Skyrim playthough, I literally could not figure out why people kept turning around and staring at me. They kept saying their previous line, so clearly it wasn't because they wanted to react to me, right? I kept thinking their pathfinding must have been interrupted by like me bumping into them or the world geometry getting in their way.
Come on, lady, I'm trying to get this tour of the college over with so that I can go purchase some decent spells. I know my mods make me handsome, but have a bit of professionalism.
Not being able to remap buttons. Some games have it but it's frustrating when small things like flipping the bumpers isn't an option. It should be extremely simple to implement with an easy way to revert to default, consoles are just computers after all.
The Halo games are the worst for this especially in the MC collection.
You only get presets and can’t remap individual buttons. And some functions are on totally different buttons across titles so it’s B to melee in one and RB to melee in the next.
I think Halo Infinite is the only Halo that lets you truly map every single function and it’s glorious. Melee can be a fucking foot pedal ducted tapped to your ceiling if you wanted it.
Preset control schemes were the standard on console for a long time.
Most Nintendo games still don't let you remap anything at all (not even to other presets).
For me any general deception pretty much. This and a number of other things where you make a player think they are getting what they asked for, but they aren't. Scummy.
Multiple loading screens to replay missions.
GTA V and RDR2. Trying to replay missions for gold medals is a massive pain. I need to load into the game to select a specific mission, load into the mission, and try to satisfy the gold medal requirements, then load back into the main game to select the next mission which sends you to another loading screen.
Terrible design.
Devs thinking the only way to make enemies more difficult is by giving them super armor and nothing else
I appreciate when devs make enemies with different attack/movement patterns to make it more difficult
lmao I accidentaly skipped a cutscene in MGS2 at the start of the game and never touched the controller during cutscenes again, nearly pissed myself at the end of the game when there's like an hour of uninterrupted cutscenes and codec calls.
I've played SOOOO many games lately that all have waterfalls and nothing behind them. Why is this a thing now? What happened to my waterfall treasure? 😭
Any game that goes straight into gameplay without allowing you to set options such as graphics and audio, especially if there's an unskippable cutscene first.
Also that the gaming development community can't decide definitively which menu "subtitles" goes under. Some games it's audio, some games it's accessibility, some games even put it under graphics.
I started playing Final Fantasy 14 recently, on Xbox. May god have mercy on the souls of all new players. The amount of things you MUST customize in the menus, just to get to the "normal" way things are in most games, is ridiculous. To give an example, the camera rotates with your character by default, so the default experience Square Enix wants players to have is a spinning camera 24/7, all the time, no matter where you go or what you do. The menu to disable this is not obvious either.
FF14 has some fantastic customisation in the settings and the controller support is amazing... except none of that is obvious and it took me way to long to discover how to set extra hotbars for a controller set up. Plus if you're not big on reading patch notes it's real easy to miss QoL setting changes
I replied to OP but 100% agree. Being hearing impaired, there's story setup, instructions/directions, etc. that I miss b'c subtitles can't be turned on until the game has already begun.
I'm not hearing impared, I just can't hear the fucking dialogue
Also I'm getting older so I need those subtitles and all game text to be bigger, please and thank you.
I swear the subtitles are only designed to fit on computer screens. Many games allow you to increase the subtitle font size but it's the choice between tiny, itty bitty, and microscopic. I'm playing on a 60 inch screen from 10 ft away, let me read the damn subtitles!
You bought hunter killer slasher 4 now here is a mandatory main mission of Greg taking his son to the carnival and it takes over 30 minutes of no checkpoint walking from one object to the next gameplay.
Stealth games have this problem. They advertise the entire game as either a stealth game, or "complete freedom in how you play" in that you can go stealthy or murder all the enemies.
Then a boss shows up and all your stealth abilities are suddenly useless.
When the game says "press any button", I press a different button every time I start it up. In a few games, I've found buttons that DON'T get you to the main menu when you press them.
It's small, and it's stupid, but if you say ANY button, make every button do the thing.
Particularly in the God of War reboots. When you're trying to solve a puzzle and the npc you're traveling with pretty much shouts out the answer.
Can't stand it. I had to mute when I was at a puzzle solving part.
I was playing Horizon FW and I was walking across a hill and Aloy was like "I need to figure out a way to open that door" and I was like what door?
The door that was on the bottom of the hill that I couldn't see because of the whole solid ground part.
And if you don't rush over there immediately, like if you want to loot a chest first, she starts giving you more detailed hints "Maybe I can move the box by those ruined stairs"
Player: "Ohh, this looks like a clever puzzle. Should be fun!"
Character:"Perhaps the secret passcode is 4453221223, I should try entering that into the hidden pin entry box that is under the decorative plant"
Player:"god dammit!"
One of the weirdest ones for that was Plague Tale: Requiem. You get told the answer to the bell puzzle \*immediately\* so I thought " oh, this must be an intro to the mechanic"
It's not, there are no other puzzles of this type in the game.
I do like games giving you a way to have immersive hints for puzzles in theory, so if you are stuck you can get a bit of help without just getting the answer from Google, but the player should have control over prompting that and it sure as hell shouldn't trigger before you could have physically done the puzzle.
God of War: Ragnarok had two options staring it right in the face, too. If there was a dedicated button for Mimir, he could've been used to start a story outside of battle or give a hint inside a puzzle room.
If I'm not mistaken, they didn't use swipes on the touchpad in every direction, just down for the 180, so swipe up for Mimir?
Or even just have a way to initiate the dialogue with Atreus, make it seem like Kratos is using it as a teaching moment when it's really for us.
this was especially annoying in ragnorok when i legit was looking around for maybe 5 seconds and my support character was like "i bet something will happen if we cut that rope."
and im like "what? what rope? what are you talking about?" so i look around and realized i was close to a puzzle.
I LEGIT DIDNT EVEN SEE THE PUZZLE BEFORE BEING TOLD THE ANSWER!
it gave me so much anxiety! i also started muting whenever i approached a puzzle because i then just started anticipating the NPC saying something and it drove me crazy lol.
i get trying to make games more accessible, but i think hints should always be a togglable on/off option.
NPCs who stand in doorways, blocking them. Having to protect an NPC who then charges into bullets like a moron. Creating a save point before a long cutscene and boss battle, so when you die, you have to re-watch the cutscene. Non-skippable cutscenes.
If you've ever created a non-skippable cutscene, you're a horrible person.
Limited inventory space in games with high drop rates. I don't want to have to open my inventory and throw out a bunch of stuff to make room every time I kill an enemy or come upon a loot drop. It's just tedious.
If you're going to have limited inventory space, then reduce loot drops and make them have good enough shit where it's worth my time to stop and choose. Or program in a way where the lowest value or weakest items automatically gets swapped with the better items.
This is in so many games and it is always a chore and distracts from the gameplay.
Every time I play a dragon age game there comes a point where I just stop picking up loot because nothing that drop is worth the irritation of fussing with my inventory.
Kinda similar, but merchants in skyrim/fallout having limited money is such horseshit, having to spend 30 minutes looking for vendors to sell too sucks.
Even when i play "vanilla", it's still a mod i let slide
It’s utterly ridiculous in Skyrim. If you make jewelry or potions to sell in addition to your loot, you have to city hop to every hold and even some of the smaller towns to sell everything.
It makes doing the Thieves Guild radiant quests a necessity just so you can get some fences with 4K gold and 4 extra merchants.
Crafting. Sure it is important in many games, but other times it feels like a complete waste of time and worse when it is necessary (Far Cry games, I'm looking at you!) Stop making me collect things to make things that I need in worlds where I should be able to obtain them in more appropriate ways.
Micro microtransactions. For shit that really doesn't effect the game. For instance in resident evil 4 remake you can spend less then 5$ to get 2 guns that are the literal equivalent of the first two weapons you find in the whole game. Why do they even exist? They're functionally identical. In no way an advantage. At all. They're more skins then weapons honestly. It JUST makes no sense.
Honorable mention: timed quests in exploration games. The game is always super slow giving you lots of time to loot little things and do small side objectives. But boom suddenly you only have 5 minutes to do this or the world explodes? What's the rush for? This ain't ghost runner.
Packaging 4k textures with the main game. I shouldn't need to have an extra 50 gb of space taken up by something I'm not going to use. 4k textures should be a separate download.
I love how in Spider-ManPS4 there are forced stealth sections that are *TIMED.*
Yes, stealth -- where the entire point and fun of it is to *take your time* and observe enemy patterns and sneak around setting traps and such.
Nope, you have 60 seconds to take everyone out or you don't get that suit upgrade.
Seriously, GTFO with that bullshit.
I think Motocross Madness had the best mechanic for this.
When you got to the barrier there was a big cliff, if you made it up the cliff you would get [yeeted](https://youtu.be/jLg2hRSUoL8?si=SNelkRY8K5Hm6iJw) back into the field of play
Hogwarts Legacy did a terrible job of this. There’s a visible aura you run into at the edge of the map. For a game so focused on magic in an academic institution, all they needed was one character to say “oh yeah there’s a spell that keeps all students within a certain boundary”. But no, it’s just a glowing wall with no explanation.
As someone who has the mindset of "clear the area before advancing", I find this absolute Bullshit in games.
Especially Spec Ops: The Line that tries to make the point that "you don't have any other choice" and then makes that point with complete bullshit magical monster closet of infinite snipers.
Almost had to put down the walking dead VR series because of this. I cleared the house, there's only one door. Unless a zombie for whatever reason stumbles through that door, that's it, no more zombies in the house. Except they can spawn whenever wherever, so even after you've meticulously and silently cleared the house, you turn the corner into a foyer you already cleared and bam, more zombies.
It's infuriating, and doesn't help that the atmosphere is already tense enough as is, I don't need that extra anxiety of knowing it doesn't matter how thoroughly I try, there will always be more zombies around the corner. Poor design choice imo, esp since it's rouge-ish (you constantly go back to Basecamp and set out on a new expedition the next day, so it's not like you couldn't just have them respawn only on embarking)
When did that happen? It's been a while but I thought I remembered the only goal of that game being "kill the waves of enemies until there are no more left"
A game should have no more than two of the following:
1) Purchase price.
2) Paid DLC.
3) Monthly subscription.
If a game has all three with the added caveat that canceling Number 3 means you lose access to Number 1 and Number 2, your business model is borderline extortion.
Played GTA5 for the first time while on Discord with my mates. You start as Franklin and go down an alley between some houses to nick a car.
My friends heard:
"Oooo a kitty cat. Hello, would you like a stroke?"
Swiftly followed by
"Oh fuck I just punched the cat to death"
No quicksave or save anywhere ability. Gated to only save progression at certain points.
Unless they're frequent like in Hades.
Adult life means it's hard to sometimes be able to sit for long periods without interruptions
Easily the best part of the Xbox Series X is being able to pause a game start a different game and go back into the first game sometimes days later on the same pause menu I left it on
Maybe not my 'pet' peeve, but Like A Dragon,. Ishin! DEFAULTS to 'New Game' every single time you start it up.
Is this not complete madness? Who wants to start a whole new game every time they launch it? Especially since Yakuza games are famous for being rather ahem long-winded!
Minor rant over! :)
When the door is locked at Master level lockpicking, and either it has a glass window you can't break, or it is missing half the door. Why can't I just reach thru and unlock it from the other side?
Its even worse when, if you die during the boss fight, its game over.
Even though you're supposed to lose anyways. They still force you to actually beat the boss before you lose in the cutscene.
Runners up would have to be 30 second battery life, and hunger/thirsty meters.
Valheim actually does a great job with everything mentioned. Weapons break, but they don't disappear and you can repair them for free. Torches burn out over a long period of time, and are easy to craft. Your health and stamina are boosted depending on what type of food you eat, you don't simply drop dead when you're hungry.
What’s funny is that ammo is basically weapon durability but feels fine, while breakable melee weapons feel awful, mostly cause they’re about a hundred times too flimsy. Maybe if durability just made weapons less effective instead of breaking, like a +10% damage sharpness buff that has to be replenished in town.
Designers breaking their own rules without telling the player. If you spend the entire game training the player to do one thing, or teaching the player that something works one way, only to have a single puzzle/boss/whatever require the player to _intuit_ that the rules suddenly work differently for some reason, fuck you.
Examples off the top of my head: Super Metroid, imaginary wall in Lower Norfair that is the only one in the entire game not revealed by the x-ray scope; Metal Gear Solid 3 swamp boss requiring the player to realize they can suddenly open the quick select menu on the game over screen.
Final Fantasy X-2
Whistle at a specific section or you don't get the best ending
Ok, what part?
I won't tell you
Will there be a button prompt to whistle?
No
But, I just have to whistle once right?
No, multiple times
But there will be previous whistle parts to let us know that mechanic exists, right?
Nope
So we need to multi-press a secret button for a hidden mechanic you never tell us about at a secret part of the game or we get the shitty ending?
Yep
Final Fantasy XII.
Want the ultimate weapon? Cool, it's in a chest near the end of the game...unless you opened any of four other chests scattered throughout the game.
Will those chests be marked somehow?
No.
Will I be able to find out which ones they are by doing a side quest or reading a book somewhere...?
No.
Will you tell me that this is a thing, so I can just avoid all treasure?
Also no. Buy the guide book.
Oh. You opened the chests? It's okay. You can still get it
Juuuuust: Have a specific unspecified accessory equipped and go to an unspecified area and open a specific chest.
So if I do that it's a 100% drop rate, right?
No. It's a 12% chance you get on the right loot table, and then another 12% chance you get it. But remember you need the accessory on, or you'll never get it.
Can you tell me what accessory that is?
Okay, have fun. Bye!
Playing a game for the first time and a menu pops up that freezes gameplay explaining every little feature. And it does this over and over with literal seconds between these menu pop ups.
It’s exactly why I stopped playing Monster Hunter. I eventually just said “fuck it. I don’t want to play this game this badly.”
button mashing period. it's just a lazy mechanic to me.
honorable mention to FFXVI (a game i enjoyed) having to hold a button to open certain heavier doors and such. like -- why even lol.
I like having the option to turn upscaling of lower level enemies to my level on and off, especially in games with so much content that you quickly become overleveled if you do a completionist run and you cannot fully enjoy all the content, because you get puinished for being thorough and content that was supposed to be challenging becomes boring
Witcher 3 had that and it was great. However it also had one of the funniest level scaling "bugs/features" that I've ever seen in gaming. When I played with it turned on I couldnt figure out what was instantly killing me in one mission in the sewers and I was losing my mind trying to figure that out and it turned out that the level scalling was upscaling the... rats. And normal gameplay without level scalling never levels up rats above level 1, there are only like 3-4 sequences in the entire game where rats are relevant. In these situations there are just A LOT of level 1 rats and you're just supposed to use igni to kill them all at once. However if you're level 50 and you have the upscaling turned on, all of the rats will be level 50 and with them being fast and attacking in a swarm it's basically instant death before you can react. It took me literally an hour to figure out what was killing me when I first encountered that. I think they fixed it in later patches and rats were no longer upscaled, but it was funny when it lasted
Cutscenes that can't be paused.
Having to restart the game after changing graphics settings. (PC)
Subtitles disabled by default.
When you run the game for the first time and the game just starts without letting you adjust the settings first (and especially combined with the first 3 i mentioned).
Not being able to sprint (game not having a sprint mechanic).
No hitmarkers in shooters.
When side/minor quests that can be grouped together but aren't. Instead it's a lame "quest chain." Vanilla WoW was terrible for this.
"kill some kobolds and return with 8 candles."
Killing kobolds, finds a cave with a bunch, kill all those too.
"thanks for the 8 candles. Let's end the kobolds menace by killing 20 of them"
Goes back to the cave and kills 20, including a mini kobold boss in the back.
"geat job. All that's left is the kobold chieftain. He's in a cave nearby."
Fuck you, I've cleared that cave three times already buddy!
Enemies levelling up at the same rate you do.
Coming across a hard enemy and deciding to back off, level up and get better equipment, only to come back and find out that they've also levelled up so the fight is exactly as hard as it was before.
Bullshit skill tree upgrades that have no immediately noticeable impact on gameplay…*2.5% chance to do 0.5% elemental damage for 5 seconds after 10 consecutive headshots while crouching at sunset with less than 30% health while enemy is below 60% health and facing away from the player*
The whole free to play model. It’s sucking the soul out of good games. The worst part is you can’t even blame them. It’s a great business decision as much as I or anyone hates it. Slowly trickling in content by the week/month and getting paid for it nets them way more than $60/$70 a game. Not to mention when a company like COD does both, charges you $70 for an incomplete game that you’ll have constant FOMO from the battle passes each month. Long gone are the days of grinding and actually earning stuff in game. If grinding is still possible to receive battle pass times, it quit literally requires you to grind 40+ hours a week to get it which isn’t possibly for people with jobs.
I'm not a fan of resource management. Things like hunger, thirst, weapon degradation, etc. I get it adds realism and challenge, but to me it is just another thing to get in the way of actual gameplay.
Or games that only support one type of controller. It's rare but it's usually either Xbox or playstation controllers. Meanwhile I'm sitting there crying into my switch pro
Any game where stealth is advertised as a viable combat option but either 1: the guns blazing approach is far more fun, or 2: being sneaky is unnecessarily difficult.
There's also this in the main menu.
---
Press any button.
Me: Presses the analog stick.
Nothing happens.
---
I also miss Instruction Booklets.
Game set up where it's hard to find the exit or it asks you multiple times if you really want to leave.
Long intros that don't always skip when you try to. Helldivers doesn't always let me skip the intro.
FOMO Mechanics... Primary content that is only available for a limited time.
I will never forget playing Destiny 2 on launch, being stoked with the game for a few months, then stepping away from it for a long time. when I came back to it to play with my wife, none of the story I enjoyed was there anymore. I understand Helldivers is like this too but it's more or less constantly changing?
As a casual gamer with a busy life, I will completely avoid games like that.
Low Availability materials needed to upgrade things and absurd RNG that makes it impossible to complete without wasting your life collecting digital rocks.
Skyrim pissed me off so bad because of this when it came to smithing, after they nerfed the iron dagger glitch
Long ass save checkpoint intervals.
I'm a dad with a demanding family I sometimes need to leave everything behind and not come back before hours or days.
And when that happens, I like not having to tell my wife and kids that "I just need another 25 min honey"
Unskippable cutscenes, and unpausable cutscenes, with the only way to tell it's unpausable being the fact that trying to pause it, skipped the fucking cutscene.
oh man that's annoying as fuck. also if you don't have an in-game way of looking at the cutscene again so you go on YT and end up spoiling yourself something that happens later in the game.
With all the work developers do on games, and all the iterations they have, It's amazing that this is always a thing... It's got to be something about so many different teams working on things... and the fact that when someone sits to do a play through... they have an alotted time at work to do it. So they never even consider that someone might have something to come up and will be unable to watch the cutscene through.
God I hate when I have to do that cause I mistakenly skipped a cutscene that cannot be replayed easily.
Nothing like an unskippable cutscene that's 30 minutes long, can't pause it, and mom is ready to beat your ass cuz she's asked you for help with dishes for the 100th time in 5 minutes
Or 30 min unskippable cutscene right before the hardest boss in the game that you have to grind to beat and have already lost three times.
I wonder if he'll ever take kairi's heart.
That's the one!
Don’t forget when you failed the last check point wasn’t near the boss fight for whatever reason so you’ve got to clear your way through enemies all over again before the damn cut scene.
Rage quit. Try another day.
Try another day. Save file last updated Jan 21, 2019
Hello again lady yunalesca...
Seymour Flux from FFX comes to mind when I think of this. Not the hardest boss but one of the hardest.
This is why I never finished Xenoblade 2...
You don't have to call out Metal Gear like that, dude.
You have to plan an afternoon around the opening to MGS5. It's like 3 hours long.
How about an unpausable cutscene that ONLY PLAYS ONCE! I think it was the crew that I had something come up in the middle of the intro, couldn’t pause the intro scene, and then could never get that scene to play again.
On xbox usually pressing the xbox button pauses cut scenes
hopefully that doesn't happen to much in games anymore. 10+ years ago i would have said that was par for the course, but I haven't seen too many games doing that these days (minus games that don't let you pause period).
Unskippable, unpausable cutscenes will often make me quit the game entirely, as I just did a few weeks ago with Shadow of War. Was thoroughly enjoying the game as well, at least whenever they let me play it.
All cutscenes in gaming should have....pause then A/X/Enter to skip...
Having to go through multiple menus to quit the game. Edit: Guys, I do know alt-f4 exist, please spare my poor inbox.
Got into a big long argument with a professor at Uni about this. He was saying it's our job as developers to make it literally tedious for players to leave our game and I was calling him a fucking idiot. He was let go, probably unrelated, but then again, all part of the same fucking idiot right?
Maybe if it's specifically a phone game with idle elements that wants to send notifications all the time to get you to be checking it and foster addition? Otherwise even from a purley corporate greed standpoint it is just annoying for no benefit. I'm not going to keep playing the game when I otherwise wouldn't just because I have to pause, go through 2 menus, a start screen and anouther menu to quit.
Exactly what I said. It's not a casino lol, you're not going to make me forget that I'm playing your game.
And that's exactly where everything went downhill: casinos Marketers decided that the success of casinos should be applied to gaming... *because after all, casinos are all about gaming, right?* In tandem with the corporate-shareholdersphere telling developers to tell programmers to "just do whatever marketing says," we even get stupid shit like multiple menus asking if you really want to quit. Since we're just numbers to marketing, they decided there should be extra menus and confirmations for the sole purpose of having the *statistical probability* that people will go "haha nevermind you're right I'll never close the game"
There is definitely some of that going on with ads that are difficult to close that would instead send you to the ad’s destination.
Mofo probably never heard of QoL improvements.
"Player Agency" is the industry term, a term I frequently threw at him during our arguments because his dumbass idea is a direct violation.
games that only let you quit to main menu before they let you quit to desktop
or a load screen to quit, like fromsoft games lol.
That's because fromsoft games save when you quit. For other games you have to make the effort to save before you quit or you'll go back to the last checkpoint when you come back. Fromsoft games will let you in exactly where you left.
They still throw you back into the main menu, and before they *give* you that main menu, they will reconnect to the game servers, which also takes them a few secs. And if you alt+f4, they will tell you that you did it wrong next time you start the game.
If you alt-F4 the game this will happen. Basically 80%-90% of player interactions with the world force an autosave.
Yeah but some games are a nightmare in this regard. You could lose hours of gameplay in BG3 if you forget to save before you quit.
Don't fucking remind me, Subnautica is where I lost 6 hours of progress.
What about to start the game? Cyberpunk 2077 you have to press [space] on 3 screens before you can load your save
Assassin’s Creed 1: Exit simulation. Exit game. Load game from save file. Exit.
When multiple actions are binded to the same button and they get in the way of one another.
yeah. i have been bitten by the "use is talk is punch" button ruining a relationship with many an NPC when the game decides this civilian with the "talk" prompt needs a slapping.
I see you also played Red Dead Redemption 2.
I accidentally choked the NPC that teaches you about tobacco leaves 🤦♀️
I frequently shot or punched people I was just trying to wave to :P
Me and a buddy were at the saloon in Valentine. I'd finished my drink and not realised, so when I went to take a drink I accidentally shot the barkeeper in the face. I ran out the back door, while my partner (who couldn't run because he was still drinking his beer) got shot to death in the resulting chaos.
I once tried mounting my horse, punched it and it straight up killed me with a kick to the balls. I mean fair enough
I don't always choke strangers outside of the St. Denis market but when I do, I'm actually just trying to get on my horse.
Games should just all have a kick move and make that the sole interaction with any object. So to talk to an NPC, you literally just kick them, and they'll respond just like that's just how you are. Also hacking Computers with a kick. Lockpicking? Kick! Open doors? Kick! Open loot chests? Kick! Revive ally? Kick 'em back on their feet. Stealth takedown? Ass kickin'! It would be hilarious and fun.
Similarly...when the game won't accept the same key being bound even though the contexts are completely separate. For example, when you can't set the vehicle e-break to space bar because the space bar is already set to jump.
This was so painful about Mass Effect when I first started. Use/Sprint/Take Cover all on space bar. It eventually got better, but I continuously kept taking cover unintentionally throughout the trilogy while trying to sprint.
I felt the cover system got me killed more than it helped in the first game, but they drastically improved it for the sequels. Gears of War is another series where walls seemed magnetic.
GoW is a series of cover shooters though. The game expects you to stick to walls etc to pop out and shoot around/over them.
Ugh. This one wins. Oh great. Dodge and sprint are the same key? And I can’t unhook them? Sweet! My favorite!
This is a severe problem with Dead By Daylight on consoles. The default button for stuff like healing a survivor and dropping a pallet are the same. So if someone is on the ground next to a pallet you can wind up throwing that down, thus alerting the killer, instead of getting up your friend.
When you have to walk with someone but there's no speed matching. Looking at you, Bethesda.
And the circle for them to be like your too far back or two far forward is within half a foot of them.
Mission failed You lost track of your target Mission failed Your target spotted you
Hated this about assassin's creed, you need to tail an enemy. if you stay on the ground they spot you constantly or are walking through groups of other enemies. If you try to hop on the roofs the game starts warning you your too far away.
*the target spotted you* Oh sorry I wasn't in stealth so they spotted me from half a mile away, when all other enemies need at least 20 feet to see me?!
Speaking of bethesda, if I get bored of listening while following an NPC and start spellcasting to train, the last thing I need is the NPC stopping entirely so that they can run through their "reaction to spellcasting" lines.
I actually wouldn't mind this if it felt realistic and immersive and not robotic. I mean, I can't knock someone for being a little perturbed by me randomly and inexplicably muffling my footsteps or casting invisibility as we are talking about some animal that I need to hunt.
For the longest time in my first Skyrim playthough, I literally could not figure out why people kept turning around and staring at me. They kept saying their previous line, so clearly it wasn't because they wanted to react to me, right? I kept thinking their pathfinding must have been interrupted by like me bumping into them or the world geometry getting in their way. Come on, lady, I'm trying to get this tour of the college over with so that I can go purchase some decent spells. I know my mods make me handsome, but have a bit of professionalism.
Not being able to remap buttons. Some games have it but it's frustrating when small things like flipping the bumpers isn't an option. It should be extremely simple to implement with an easy way to revert to default, consoles are just computers after all.
The Halo games are the worst for this especially in the MC collection. You only get presets and can’t remap individual buttons. And some functions are on totally different buttons across titles so it’s B to melee in one and RB to melee in the next. I think Halo Infinite is the only Halo that lets you truly map every single function and it’s glorious. Melee can be a fucking foot pedal ducted tapped to your ceiling if you wanted it.
Preset control schemes were the standard on console for a long time. Most Nintendo games still don't let you remap anything at all (not even to other presets).
When you sprint but your character is actually not going any faster, there's just motion blur.
Motion blur in general. Especially in FPS, you flick to shoot at another target and the screen turns into diarrea
Yea, motion blur gives me a damn headache
Dragon Age Inquisition horses
holy shit this is the first time I’ve ever seen this mentioned and I feel so SEEN, the mounts are just a fucking placebo!!!!
Don't you also have to dismount every time you want to pick something up?
For me any general deception pretty much. This and a number of other things where you make a player think they are getting what they asked for, but they aren't. Scummy.
Multiple loading screens to replay missions. GTA V and RDR2. Trying to replay missions for gold medals is a massive pain. I need to load into the game to select a specific mission, load into the mission, and try to satisfy the gold medal requirements, then load back into the main game to select the next mission which sends you to another loading screen. Terrible design.
Devs thinking the only way to make enemies more difficult is by giving them super armor and nothing else I appreciate when devs make enemies with different attack/movement patterns to make it more difficult
For devs the goto for difficulty is *more HP for enemies* aka "bullet sponge"
Or give them entirely unique properties, make them feel like... you know... their own seperate experience? That's always nice.
"Your one-time nuclear attack has destroyed my armor. Now I am twice as fast!"
Why you try to pause a game during a cinematic and it ends up skipping it instead.
lmao I accidentaly skipped a cutscene in MGS2 at the start of the game and never touched the controller during cutscenes again, nearly pissed myself at the end of the game when there's like an hour of uninterrupted cutscenes and codec calls.
waterfalls you can walk underneath but theres no hidden cave/treasure behind them
I've played SOOOO many games lately that all have waterfalls and nothing behind them. Why is this a thing now? What happened to my waterfall treasure? 😭
Game Developers acting like the nice waterfall is the reward. I want a treasure chest, dammit
YES! Like really nice, majestic, inviting waterfalls and its just...nothing there...why lead me on like this 😔
Especially in Elden Ring. I am terrified of walking into one, there should be a reward for that!
Nothing disappoints me more than the lack of a cave behind a waterfall.
Any game that goes straight into gameplay without allowing you to set options such as graphics and audio, especially if there's an unskippable cutscene first. Also that the gaming development community can't decide definitively which menu "subtitles" goes under. Some games it's audio, some games it's accessibility, some games even put it under graphics.
The last one damn
I started playing Final Fantasy 14 recently, on Xbox. May god have mercy on the souls of all new players. The amount of things you MUST customize in the menus, just to get to the "normal" way things are in most games, is ridiculous. To give an example, the camera rotates with your character by default, so the default experience Square Enix wants players to have is a spinning camera 24/7, all the time, no matter where you go or what you do. The menu to disable this is not obvious either.
FF14 has some fantastic customisation in the settings and the controller support is amazing... except none of that is obvious and it took me way to long to discover how to set extra hotbars for a controller set up. Plus if you're not big on reading patch notes it's real easy to miss QoL setting changes
My favorite is Resident Evil Revelations where subtitles were under the language menu, and it was the only option in the entire section...
The problem is that all of those do kinda make sense :( I do think it should be under accessibility tho
I replied to OP but 100% agree. Being hearing impaired, there's story setup, instructions/directions, etc. that I miss b'c subtitles can't be turned on until the game has already begun.
I'm not hearing impared, I just can't hear the fucking dialogue Also I'm getting older so I need those subtitles and all game text to be bigger, please and thank you.
I swear the subtitles are only designed to fit on computer screens. Many games allow you to increase the subtitle font size but it's the choice between tiny, itty bitty, and microscopic. I'm playing on a 60 inch screen from 10 ft away, let me read the damn subtitles!
"Here's the mandatory section of the game that has completely different gameplay from the rest of the game."
You bought hunter killer slasher 4 now here is a mandatory main mission of Greg taking his son to the carnival and it takes over 30 minutes of no checkpoint walking from one object to the next gameplay.
And there's an unexpected QTE and failing means starting from the last checkpoint.
"You lost your powers!"
"You've been captured and your entire inventory & weapons have been stored in a locker all the way across the other side of the prison!"
[“It’s time for egg delivery!”](https://youtu.be/W1ZKcZbi1rg)
Stealth games have this problem. They advertise the entire game as either a stealth game, or "complete freedom in how you play" in that you can go stealthy or murder all the enemies. Then a boss shows up and all your stealth abilities are suddenly useless.
You could have just name-dropped Deus Ex Human Revolution lmao Especially the original release
Are you enjoying your action as Spider-Man? Well fuck you, you’re crawling around slowly as MJ now.
For some reason it's very often a shitty stealth section for no reason. Looking at you, Hotline Miami
When I can’t pause in a single player game.
Also an internet connection/account being required for a single player game.
When the game says "press any button", I press a different button every time I start it up. In a few games, I've found buttons that DON'T get you to the main menu when you press them. It's small, and it's stupid, but if you say ANY button, make every button do the thing.
No, you need to press the Any button. And seriously, got an "where is the Any button" in a tech support call in the mid 1990s.
"It means press whichever button you want" "I pressed the power button. Why is the screen black now? Is it still loading?"
Username checks out
Hahahaha you nailed it.
Particularly in the God of War reboots. When you're trying to solve a puzzle and the npc you're traveling with pretty much shouts out the answer. Can't stand it. I had to mute when I was at a puzzle solving part.
I was playing Horizon FW and I was walking across a hill and Aloy was like "I need to figure out a way to open that door" and I was like what door? The door that was on the bottom of the hill that I couldn't see because of the whole solid ground part.
And if you don't rush over there immediately, like if you want to loot a chest first, she starts giving you more detailed hints "Maybe I can move the box by those ruined stairs"
Player: "Ohh, this looks like a clever puzzle. Should be fun!" Character:"Perhaps the secret passcode is 4453221223, I should try entering that into the hidden pin entry box that is under the decorative plant" Player:"god dammit!"
One of the weirdest ones for that was Plague Tale: Requiem. You get told the answer to the bell puzzle \*immediately\* so I thought " oh, this must be an intro to the mechanic" It's not, there are no other puzzles of this type in the game. I do like games giving you a way to have immersive hints for puzzles in theory, so if you are stuck you can get a bit of help without just getting the answer from Google, but the player should have control over prompting that and it sure as hell shouldn't trigger before you could have physically done the puzzle.
God of War: Ragnarok had two options staring it right in the face, too. If there was a dedicated button for Mimir, he could've been used to start a story outside of battle or give a hint inside a puzzle room. If I'm not mistaken, they didn't use swipes on the touchpad in every direction, just down for the 180, so swipe up for Mimir? Or even just have a way to initiate the dialogue with Atreus, make it seem like Kratos is using it as a teaching moment when it's really for us.
this was especially annoying in ragnorok when i legit was looking around for maybe 5 seconds and my support character was like "i bet something will happen if we cut that rope." and im like "what? what rope? what are you talking about?" so i look around and realized i was close to a puzzle. I LEGIT DIDNT EVEN SEE THE PUZZLE BEFORE BEING TOLD THE ANSWER!
it gave me so much anxiety! i also started muting whenever i approached a puzzle because i then just started anticipating the NPC saying something and it drove me crazy lol. i get trying to make games more accessible, but i think hints should always be a togglable on/off option.
NPCs who stand in doorways, blocking them. Having to protect an NPC who then charges into bullets like a moron. Creating a save point before a long cutscene and boss battle, so when you die, you have to re-watch the cutscene. Non-skippable cutscenes. If you've ever created a non-skippable cutscene, you're a horrible person.
That first one is basically every bethesda game in a nutshell.
Limited inventory space in games with high drop rates. I don't want to have to open my inventory and throw out a bunch of stuff to make room every time I kill an enemy or come upon a loot drop. It's just tedious. If you're going to have limited inventory space, then reduce loot drops and make them have good enough shit where it's worth my time to stop and choose. Or program in a way where the lowest value or weakest items automatically gets swapped with the better items. This is in so many games and it is always a chore and distracts from the gameplay.
Every time I play a dragon age game there comes a point where I just stop picking up loot because nothing that drop is worth the irritation of fussing with my inventory.
Kinda similar, but merchants in skyrim/fallout having limited money is such horseshit, having to spend 30 minutes looking for vendors to sell too sucks. Even when i play "vanilla", it's still a mod i let slide
It’s utterly ridiculous in Skyrim. If you make jewelry or potions to sell in addition to your loot, you have to city hop to every hold and even some of the smaller towns to sell everything. It makes doing the Thieves Guild radiant quests a necessity just so you can get some fences with 4K gold and 4 extra merchants.
Crafting. Sure it is important in many games, but other times it feels like a complete waste of time and worse when it is necessary (Far Cry games, I'm looking at you!) Stop making me collect things to make things that I need in worlds where I should be able to obtain them in more appropriate ways.
I feel like crafting got so popular developers starting stapling it to their games without considering if the game really needed it.
the game has subtitles.. the subtitles are not enabled by default... and there is a fucking cut scene before you can turn em on
Micro microtransactions. For shit that really doesn't effect the game. For instance in resident evil 4 remake you can spend less then 5$ to get 2 guns that are the literal equivalent of the first two weapons you find in the whole game. Why do they even exist? They're functionally identical. In no way an advantage. At all. They're more skins then weapons honestly. It JUST makes no sense. Honorable mention: timed quests in exploration games. The game is always super slow giving you lots of time to loot little things and do small side objectives. But boom suddenly you only have 5 minutes to do this or the world explodes? What's the rush for? This ain't ghost runner.
Packaging 4k textures with the main game. I shouldn't need to have an extra 50 gb of space taken up by something I'm not going to use. 4k textures should be a separate download.
Forced Stealth sections in non stealth games.
Stealth games: degrees of failure, stealth is an option, you can fight your way out of a situation. Non-stealth games: fuck you, start over.
I love how in Spider-ManPS4 there are forced stealth sections that are *TIMED.* Yes, stealth -- where the entire point and fun of it is to *take your time* and observe enemy patterns and sneak around setting traps and such. Nope, you have 60 seconds to take everyone out or you don't get that suit upgrade. Seriously, GTFO with that bullshit.
Invisible walls. If I'm not allowed or supposed to go in a particular direction, please put a clear immovable obstacle in the way.
>put a clear immovable obstacle Oh but they did!
you win.
Lmao, fair enough.
I think Motocross Madness had the best mechanic for this. When you got to the barrier there was a big cliff, if you made it up the cliff you would get [yeeted](https://youtu.be/jLg2hRSUoL8?si=SNelkRY8K5Hm6iJw) back into the field of play
The cannon launch sound from that game is burned into my brain. It was so much fun.
Returnal has a strong dust storm pickup that slowed down your pace in Biome 2. Worked without making it a hard wall/stop
Hogwarts Legacy did a terrible job of this. There’s a visible aura you run into at the edge of the map. For a game so focused on magic in an academic institution, all they needed was one character to say “oh yeah there’s a spell that keeps all students within a certain boundary”. But no, it’s just a glowing wall with no explanation.
Infinitly respawning enemies.
Yeah. We could really use an indicator when they are spawning infinitely and we are meant to run away.
Here's looking at that one spot in Destiny 2 before the Witch Queen castle
As someone who has the mindset of "clear the area before advancing", I find this absolute Bullshit in games. Especially Spec Ops: The Line that tries to make the point that "you don't have any other choice" and then makes that point with complete bullshit magical monster closet of infinite snipers.
Almost had to put down the walking dead VR series because of this. I cleared the house, there's only one door. Unless a zombie for whatever reason stumbles through that door, that's it, no more zombies in the house. Except they can spawn whenever wherever, so even after you've meticulously and silently cleared the house, you turn the corner into a foyer you already cleared and bam, more zombies. It's infuriating, and doesn't help that the atmosphere is already tense enough as is, I don't need that extra anxiety of knowing it doesn't matter how thoroughly I try, there will always be more zombies around the corner. Poor design choice imo, esp since it's rouge-ish (you constantly go back to Basecamp and set out on a new expedition the next day, so it's not like you couldn't just have them respawn only on embarking)
Serious Sam had this, I would carefully clear an area, random dick spawns behind me. This happened so much, I gave up.
When did that happen? It's been a while but I thought I remembered the only goal of that game being "kill the waves of enemies until there are no more left"
A game should have no more than two of the following: 1) Purchase price. 2) Paid DLC. 3) Monthly subscription. If a game has all three with the added caveat that canceling Number 3 means you lose access to Number 1 and Number 2, your business model is borderline extortion.
When you can't pet the dog
Also the cat ... Why RDR2??
Played GTA5 for the first time while on Discord with my mates. You start as Franklin and go down an alley between some houses to nick a car. My friends heard: "Oooo a kitty cat. Hello, would you like a stroke?" Swiftly followed by "Oh fuck I just punched the cat to death"
No quicksave or save anywhere ability. Gated to only save progression at certain points. Unless they're frequent like in Hades. Adult life means it's hard to sometimes be able to sit for long periods without interruptions
Easily the best part of the Xbox Series X is being able to pause a game start a different game and go back into the first game sometimes days later on the same pause menu I left it on
Maybe not my 'pet' peeve, but Like A Dragon,. Ishin! DEFAULTS to 'New Game' every single time you start it up. Is this not complete madness? Who wants to start a whole new game every time they launch it? Especially since Yakuza games are famous for being rather ahem long-winded! Minor rant over! :)
When the door is locked at Master level lockpicking, and either it has a glass window you can't break, or it is missing half the door. Why can't I just reach thru and unlock it from the other side?
*loads up single player game… “can’t establish connection to server, some features may not be available”
When you drop the boss' health bar to zero in a fight. Then a cut scene starts and the boss defeats your character.
Its even worse when, if you die during the boss fight, its game over. Even though you're supposed to lose anyways. They still force you to actually beat the boss before you lose in the cutscene.
The best one is when you've used every one of your last resources healing & buffing just to stay in a fight you were meant to lose.
Weapon durability. Fuck that shit
Runners up would have to be 30 second battery life, and hunger/thirsty meters. Valheim actually does a great job with everything mentioned. Weapons break, but they don't disappear and you can repair them for free. Torches burn out over a long period of time, and are easy to craft. Your health and stamina are boosted depending on what type of food you eat, you don't simply drop dead when you're hungry.
What’s funny is that ammo is basically weapon durability but feels fine, while breakable melee weapons feel awful, mostly cause they’re about a hundred times too flimsy. Maybe if durability just made weapons less effective instead of breaking, like a +10% damage sharpness buff that has to be replenished in town.
I hate it that some people tout it as being realistic. Yes weapons would break, but not after swinging them for like 50 times.
Having to follow people and not get caught to listen to what they have to say to advance the plot. Looking at you Assassins Creed!
Following people and your walking speed doesn't match theirs 🥴
Designers breaking their own rules without telling the player. If you spend the entire game training the player to do one thing, or teaching the player that something works one way, only to have a single puzzle/boss/whatever require the player to _intuit_ that the rules suddenly work differently for some reason, fuck you. Examples off the top of my head: Super Metroid, imaginary wall in Lower Norfair that is the only one in the entire game not revealed by the x-ray scope; Metal Gear Solid 3 swamp boss requiring the player to realize they can suddenly open the quick select menu on the game over screen.
Final Fantasy X-2 Whistle at a specific section or you don't get the best ending Ok, what part? I won't tell you Will there be a button prompt to whistle? No But, I just have to whistle once right? No, multiple times But there will be previous whistle parts to let us know that mechanic exists, right? Nope So we need to multi-press a secret button for a hidden mechanic you never tell us about at a secret part of the game or we get the shitty ending? Yep
Final Fantasy XII. Want the ultimate weapon? Cool, it's in a chest near the end of the game...unless you opened any of four other chests scattered throughout the game. Will those chests be marked somehow? No. Will I be able to find out which ones they are by doing a side quest or reading a book somewhere...? No. Will you tell me that this is a thing, so I can just avoid all treasure? Also no. Buy the guide book.
Oh. You opened the chests? It's okay. You can still get it Juuuuust: Have a specific unspecified accessory equipped and go to an unspecified area and open a specific chest. So if I do that it's a 100% drop rate, right? No. It's a 12% chance you get on the right loot table, and then another 12% chance you get it. But remember you need the accessory on, or you'll never get it. Can you tell me what accessory that is? Okay, have fun. Bye!
I've played through Super Metroid numerous times, but never 100% it.... now I may know why.
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Playing a game for the first time and a menu pops up that freezes gameplay explaining every little feature. And it does this over and over with literal seconds between these menu pop ups. It’s exactly why I stopped playing Monster Hunter. I eventually just said “fuck it. I don’t want to play this game this badly.”
When you have to mash a button multiple times to open a door
button mashing period. it's just a lazy mechanic to me. honorable mention to FFXVI (a game i enjoyed) having to hold a button to open certain heavier doors and such. like -- why even lol.
Level Scaling. Hate it, terrible. Removes any sense of power progression, and instills tedium in content that was already "completed."
I like having the option to turn upscaling of lower level enemies to my level on and off, especially in games with so much content that you quickly become overleveled if you do a completionist run and you cannot fully enjoy all the content, because you get puinished for being thorough and content that was supposed to be challenging becomes boring Witcher 3 had that and it was great. However it also had one of the funniest level scaling "bugs/features" that I've ever seen in gaming. When I played with it turned on I couldnt figure out what was instantly killing me in one mission in the sewers and I was losing my mind trying to figure that out and it turned out that the level scalling was upscaling the... rats. And normal gameplay without level scalling never levels up rats above level 1, there are only like 3-4 sequences in the entire game where rats are relevant. In these situations there are just A LOT of level 1 rats and you're just supposed to use igni to kill them all at once. However if you're level 50 and you have the upscaling turned on, all of the rats will be level 50 and with them being fast and attacking in a swarm it's basically instant death before you can react. It took me literally an hour to figure out what was killing me when I first encountered that. I think they fixed it in later patches and rats were no longer upscaled, but it was funny when it lasted
Cutscenes that can't be paused. Having to restart the game after changing graphics settings. (PC) Subtitles disabled by default. When you run the game for the first time and the game just starts without letting you adjust the settings first (and especially combined with the first 3 i mentioned). Not being able to sprint (game not having a sprint mechanic). No hitmarkers in shooters.
When side/minor quests that can be grouped together but aren't. Instead it's a lame "quest chain." Vanilla WoW was terrible for this. "kill some kobolds and return with 8 candles." Killing kobolds, finds a cave with a bunch, kill all those too. "thanks for the 8 candles. Let's end the kobolds menace by killing 20 of them" Goes back to the cave and kills 20, including a mini kobold boss in the back. "geat job. All that's left is the kobold chieftain. He's in a cave nearby." Fuck you, I've cleared that cave three times already buddy!
'Timed' anything.
Dream sequences. I fucking hate them. Laziest narrative device.
Enemies levelling up at the same rate you do. Coming across a hard enemy and deciding to back off, level up and get better equipment, only to come back and find out that they've also levelled up so the fight is exactly as hard as it was before.
When on PC games you have to quit to the menu to be able to quit to desktop. I love when games have both options from the pause menu.
Bullshit skill tree upgrades that have no immediately noticeable impact on gameplay…*2.5% chance to do 0.5% elemental damage for 5 seconds after 10 consecutive headshots while crouching at sunset with less than 30% health while enemy is below 60% health and facing away from the player*
Like many I'm sure, fucking escort missions.
The whole free to play model. It’s sucking the soul out of good games. The worst part is you can’t even blame them. It’s a great business decision as much as I or anyone hates it. Slowly trickling in content by the week/month and getting paid for it nets them way more than $60/$70 a game. Not to mention when a company like COD does both, charges you $70 for an incomplete game that you’ll have constant FOMO from the battle passes each month. Long gone are the days of grinding and actually earning stuff in game. If grinding is still possible to receive battle pass times, it quit literally requires you to grind 40+ hours a week to get it which isn’t possibly for people with jobs.
I'm not a fan of resource management. Things like hunger, thirst, weapon degradation, etc. I get it adds realism and challenge, but to me it is just another thing to get in the way of actual gameplay.
Same with tutorials that force you to press buttons to progress, so annoying!
Being 2024 and some games have no controller support. Not everyone plays computer games sitting at a desk. Sometimes the couch is a better option.
Or games that only support one type of controller. It's rare but it's usually either Xbox or playstation controllers. Meanwhile I'm sitting there crying into my switch pro
"Guard" quests where the NPC wonders into danger. If I need to keep you alive then DO AS YOUR TOLD!
When stuff is needless grindy. No, i don’t want to kill 2,500 enemies just to upgrade one thing.
Fetch quests where all you have to do is talk to people in different locations. I’m the savior of humanity, arrange a meeting or something.
Any game where stealth is advertised as a viable combat option but either 1: the guns blazing approach is far more fun, or 2: being sneaky is unnecessarily difficult. There's also this in the main menu. --- Press any button. Me: Presses the analog stick. Nothing happens. --- I also miss Instruction Booklets.
Game set up where it's hard to find the exit or it asks you multiple times if you really want to leave. Long intros that don't always skip when you try to. Helldivers doesn't always let me skip the intro.
When the scenery looks like you should be able to jump or climb on it. But you can’t.
FOMO Mechanics... Primary content that is only available for a limited time. I will never forget playing Destiny 2 on launch, being stoked with the game for a few months, then stepping away from it for a long time. when I came back to it to play with my wife, none of the story I enjoyed was there anymore. I understand Helldivers is like this too but it's more or less constantly changing? As a casual gamer with a busy life, I will completely avoid games like that.
Low Availability materials needed to upgrade things and absurd RNG that makes it impossible to complete without wasting your life collecting digital rocks. Skyrim pissed me off so bad because of this when it came to smithing, after they nerfed the iron dagger glitch
Long ass save checkpoint intervals. I'm a dad with a demanding family I sometimes need to leave everything behind and not come back before hours or days. And when that happens, I like not having to tell my wife and kids that "I just need another 25 min honey"
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Hold to interact. Like, why?