The 19 worst game design crimes - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=DudeGuyKT;51888061]any game with interactive loading screens gets a thumbs up from me[/QUOTE] Doesnt Namco or Capcom have a patent on loading screen minigames?

[QUOTE=J!NX;51886139]games that don't let me turn the music off can just shove off like I understand if its a gameplay mechanic and part of the GAME but in dark souls if I couldn't turn the music off it'd ruin the fights for me because it'd be too hard to focus. I've actually failed beating bosses a number of times because of music outside of souls, and then pretty much ice them the moment I turn it off.[/QUOTE] But the music makes the bosses sometimes :huh: [editline]1st March 2017[/editline] I can't imagine fighting some bosses and going through some areas without music.

[QUOTE=Novangel;51890953]But the music makes the bosses sometimes :huh:[/QUOTE] Its really a preferential thing personally even if it does have an amazing soundtrack it makes it a little harder to fight, particularly in dark souls, because I rely a lot on the sounds of the boss when they start an attack, as well as the visuals of them attacking. it also helps to hear the sound after the attack, etc. almost every boss does this. [editline]28th February 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Novangel;51890953] I can't imagine fighting some bosses and going through some areas without music.[/QUOTE] Believe it or not the sound design is good enough that it actually works really great regardless

[QUOTE=Cmx;51890876]Doesnt Namco or Capcom have a patent on loading screen minigames?[/QUOTE] Not anymore. It ran out in 2015.

[QUOTE=dai;51883127]guild wars 2 did this recently (by accident), there were some items meant for a collection of some kind. They dropped now and again, didn't stack, you couldn't sell them to vendors at ALL, and were actually marked [i]important[/i]. This was especially bad because to get rid of them, you dump them from the bag, but then it comes up with a confirmation screen asking if you really want to delete it, requiring you to type the item's oddly long name out (caps lock sensitive) to enable the confirm button, for each and every one got fixed in short order after the reddit blew up [/QUOTE] runescape was the worst for this small history, you could stall the game to not destroy stuff smuggled out of quests and minigames with some menus, and if you dropped the item it wouldn't destroy it (then you could just pick it back up) so jagex had to add the "destroy" option for quest stuff, every time you wanted to destroy some stuff you'd have to go through 3 menus to delete it, annoying as shit

[QUOTE=snookypookums;51882304]I'm amazed this list hasn't covered quicktime events. Fuck those with an extra spiky pineapple. Any game that incorporates a shit ton of those just relegated themselves to the bottom of my play list.[/QUOTE] It's not really a blanket issue as much as really bad and unfitting implementation. D4 does them extremely well (in mouse mode), but it's also a game where they just plain make sense to have.

[QUOTE=J!NX;51886271]MGS was never really my thing so I'd have no idea. it'd work though if the music really fit into the tone perfectly. For doom it worked, same for owl boy and Zelda games. Super Mario Sunshines music also worked great to create a nice relaxed pace. But those are games where the music fit pretty flawlessly. Unless the soundtrack fits pretty much naturally its usually pretty distracting. Stealth/fighting games I usually need them to be off more than anything. I think the key is really... does the music as act a filter for the rest of the noise, or does it act as an enhancement of the sounds? Most devs seem to feel obligated to add music because of what reason they might have, however it doesn't necessarily add to anything. When the game feels more natural without music, there's a problem with the music. I've seen many games with amazing soundtracks, that I ultimately listen to only outside of the game itself.[/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-qnhOeO5U[/media] Judge for yourself, but I'd really say the music definitely fits and is a huge part of what makes the gameplay so exciting.

Unskippable cutscenes, I wanna fucking cry most of the time when replaying the Assassin's Creed games, I just wanna stabby people, not go through the same shit. also Unskippable game end credits.

[QUOTE=Exploders;51892636]also Unskippable game end credits.[/QUOTE] bonus points when there is a post credits scene but you have to sit through 20 minutes of credts.

Too liberal use of i-frames, mostly for enemies. Yeah it sucks when you can stunlock enemies to death but it sucks even more when you have to constantly wait and theorize on when the exact moment is, when your attacks aren't drawn into the twilight zone as you're hitting an enemy. Secret of Mana is so awful with this because getting hit means entering a 5 second long damage animation, where at certain times you can get hit and locked into another 5 second animation and you can do the same to some enemies but not all of them because some have secondary get-up animations that also make them invincible for however long the animation is.

[QUOTE=Exploders;51892636]Unskippable cutscenes. Unskippable game end credits.[/QUOTE] games that only let you end the game / go onto ng+ when you finish the credits like fuck off lmao I just use cheat engine for these. +20 speed.

[QUOTE=TacticalBacon;51892323][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-qnhOeO5U[/media] Judge for yourself, but I'd really say the music definitely fits and is a huge part of what makes the gameplay so exciting.[/QUOTE] God, the music really made the game tbh (plus the characters and gameplay) but like the music just really tied it all together and upped the ante during every fight.

How about in adventure games that have conversations with dialogue options where the button to skip another character's speech has to be pressed multiple times to finish the conversation AND the same button is used to choose your characters dialogue option. This shit had me drop a few games cold turkey and never come back to them.

[QUOTE=meppers;51882278]how about cutscenes that are skipped without warning when you press escape.[/QUOTE] Addendum: They're not cutscenes, just characters talking, but they still get skipped with ESC on any press. I can't count how many times I've had it in Watch_Dogs2 and it got on my nerves EVERY SINGLE TIME. -"Aight, let's do a story mission" [selects] [gets out of the phone app with Esc] -CHARACTER: Blablablabla yadda yadda yadda, we have to go to this bar in XX place.... -"Okay, let's mark it on the map and get going while Character yaps about whatever" [press Esc to access the phone] -CHARACTER: ...and the code for the vault and secret of life is[SKIP] ------- -"goD DAMN IT" [editline]2nd March 2017[/editline] Also it might just be me but I have more trouble than before finding settings in menus of newer games, like they're more hidden between more ambiguous titles, for example turning on subtitles (Graphics? Video? Gameplay? Misc??)

Also inability to change the game's language.(Looking at you, Battlefield 1)

[QUOTE=Damjen;51890968]Not anymore. It ran out in 2015.[/QUOTE] IIRC it wasn't even a valid patent, since there were C64 and ZX Spectrum games with loading minigames long before Namco filed it

Platforming elements in a first person shooter - typically an older one, for me is usually the big one that really makes me groan at times whenever it is implemented into the game. The real problem is that you can't precisely tell the distance between you, the platform, and that pit separating you until you actually take the jump and hopefully not fall to your death because you jumped too early. Even though you thought you timed it fairly well, but you didn't because you can't tell how far the other side of the gap is compared to you and current position. At least newer games now are implementing ledge grabbing and double jumping to make this feel less unforgiving.

[QUOTE=AlexThepipe;51899466]Platforming elements in a first person shooter - typically an older one, for me is usually the big one that really makes me groan at times whenever it is implemented into the game. The real problem is that you can't precisely tell the distance between you, the platform, and that pit separating you until you actually take the jump and hopefully not fall to your death because you jumped too early. Even though you thought you timed it fairly well, but you didn't because you can't tell how far the other side of the gap is compared to you and current position. At least newer games now are implementing ledge grabbing and double jumping to make this feel less unforgiving.[/QUOTE] See this is something I've heard before but never had any issues with. I find FPS platforming perfectly natural even without aids like ledge grabs.

[QUOTE=DaBeaver;51899115]Also inability to change the game's language.(Looking at you, Battlefield 1)[/QUOTE] When a company decides to upload all of the audio files for all available languages, leading to a ~60GB download size when they could have easily left those out as free DLC and made the game half the size.

[QUOTE=megafat;51899987]When a company decides to upload all of the audio files for all available languages, leading to a ~60GB download size when they could have easily left those out as free DLC and made the game half the size.[/QUOTE] I just need English localization. It irritates me beyond measure that American soldiers are suddenly speaking Russian.

[QUOTE=Drury;51899787]See this is something I've heard before but never had any issues with. I find FPS platforming perfectly natural even without aids like ledge grabs.[/QUOTE] Have you played Hexen or Heretic yet? They show some pretty big faults with FPS platforming.

[QUOTE=eatdembeanz;51900660]Have you played Hexen or Heretic yet? They show some pretty big faults with FPS platforming.[/QUOTE] Speaking of Hexen, it's a prime example of a dead fad: stupid convoluted maze-like level design. Honestly, as much as I love the gameplay in the old Doom engine games, Hexen really pushed what I though was tolerable key/lever hunting, the entire gameplay can be summed up with "I just pushed an important lever, I have no idea where to go now"

[QUOTE=Drury;51899787]See this is something I've heard before but never had any issues with. I find FPS platforming perfectly natural even without aids like ledge grabs.[/QUOTE] Try saying this when playing an FPS on the N64. Turok 1 specifically. Since playing the Remaster I've noticed just how overwhelmingly easier it is because I'm not wrestling with a boat anchor controller. But it is still tricky at times to time it right.

By far, the worst game design feature has to go to password systems. They're irrelevant for games today, but I don't think everything today pales in comparison to repeatedly needing to entire your progress using 16 alphanumeric characters using a D-Pad and A button. And god help you if there's symbols. For me, what's more bothersome is when it's clear they were lazy. I'm cool with developers who gave you easy-to-remember words to punch in or small patterns with shapes. But that wasn't the norm. That would have required work. And may a Cesium-137 laced gold medal be delivered to the man who completely clears your password should it be invalid, forcing you to waste even more time retyping everything.

[QUOTE=wauterboi;51903370]By far, the worst game design feature has to go to password systems. They're irrelevant for games today, but I don't think everything today pales in comparison to repeatedly needing to entire your progress using 16 alphanumeric characters using a D-Pad and A button. And god help you if there's symbols. For me, what's more bothersome is when it's clear they were lazy. I'm cool with developers who gave you easy-to-remember words to punch in or small patterns with shapes. But that wasn't the norm. That would have required work. And may a Cesium-137 laced gold medal be delivered to the man who completely clears your password should it be invalid, forcing you to waste even more time retyping everything.[/QUOTE] It's especially fun when they decide to make the code symbols in the game. "You want to keep your progress? Write down the order of these 32 sprites."

Texas Hold'em. Nothing kills my will to live faster than a Texas Hold'em minigame, especially when you have to put yourself through it for some kind of special item or story-related reason.

[QUOTE=Hamaflavian;51910347]Texas Hold'em. Nothing kills my will to live faster than a Texas Hold'em minigame, especially when you have to put yourself through it for some kind of special item or story-related reason.[/QUOTE] That seems really specific.

I know a lot of people hate QTEs but I think in some games they can be done pretty well. I personally enjoyed the Yakuza series' QTEs a lot. They were always bad ass and fun to watch, I can't think of a single one that I didn't enjoy

[QUOTE=milan755;51912248]I know a lot of people hate QTEs but I think in some games they can be done pretty well. I personally enjoyed the Yakuza series' QTEs a lot. They were always bad ass and fun to watch, I can't think of a single one that I didn't enjoy[/QUOTE] The only way QTE's work in a video game is if the game already has certain design sensibilities to it. Japanese games seem to use QTE's the best.

[QUOTE=milan755;51912248]I know a lot of people hate QTEs but I think in some games they can be done pretty well. I personally enjoyed the Yakuza series' QTEs a lot. They were always bad ass and fun to watch, I can't think of a single one that I didn't enjoy[/QUOTE] I liked the QTEs of Resident Evil 4, no the other hand RE6 was absolutely awful. I don't mind using QTEs when being grabbed by enemies but the game relied on it way to much for very mundane actions.