Game design choices that completely ruin the game?

[+davidcalgary29]

Pointless button presses not required for fighting/action sequences.  The Last of Us II has these awful, shitty sequences where Ellie needs to move...stuff...for some purpose, even though it bores the shit out of me and certainly does not enhance "gaming pleasure". I'm getting to the point (admittedly within the first two hours of gameplay) where I want a mod to turn Ellie into a Clicker. 

[Classic Pac]

Yes I know it's an old game Grim Fandango, but I played that remake. Why would anyone in their right mind include a section where you have to find a secret tunnel where your On Screen character is the size of a Pixel?  It's a good game, but that one part makes it unplayable.

[newtmonkey]

On 9/21/2020 at 7:39 PM, BawesomeBurf said:

QTEs - These rarely enhance the game, and most of the time they prevent you from enjoying the cutscene. If you want to have a cutscene, then have a bloody cutscene and don't try to staple 'gameplay' to it.

Agree 100%.

 

---

 

My pet peeve: incessant yelps, etc.  I am thinking of Nintendo since the N64/GBA for this.  The Mario Advance games are completely ruined by Mario constantly yelping, but this even goes back to Link shouting as he swings his sword in Zelda 64.  I cannot stand this stuff.  Dunno what makes developers think this is a good thing?

[Parker77]

On 9/9/2020 at 11:30 PM, zetastrike said:

This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread.  I think Turrican 1 and 2 on the Amiga are completely unplayable due to this.  It's so easy to not realize that you're in contact with an enemy until you have a sliver of life left.

Bit of an exaggeration. I've just finished the first despite not having played it in 20+ years. Trouble with Turrican is, there's so much platforming, if it did the arcade thing where hits knocked you back as in Shinobi or Rolling Thunder, it'd be even more frustrating.

 

It's not a brilliant game these days, but it's decent.

 

I'm very much looking forward to replaying the sequel though.....

[JamesD]

Escort missions wouldn't be bad if the people you were escorting actually tried to avoid danger instead of rushing headlong at it

 

[JamesD]

On 8/21/2020 at 9:04 AM, Razzie.P said:

A couple of years ago, I was playing Mario Party (Wii U) with my 2 kids.   We were all having a blast, especially my daughter (around 8 at the time) who was winning.   Near the end of the game, she rolled the dice and landed on a space 1 or 2 spots from the end of the game board that gives a “random effect.”  The random effect in this case was – Bowser took all of her stars, sending her from first place to last.     I could see the tears about to flow, and it completely ruined the game for her.   Even the rest of the players had a "yeah... that really cheapens the whole thing" vibe at that moment, so none of us enjoyed it.  To this date, neither kid has wanted to play it again.

 

I can understand some randomly generated negatives over the course of a game when you have a chance to bounce back.  But a game mechanic that simply says “you lose” near the end pretty much kills any reason to play.  Might as well have been a game breaking bug.

 

A couple of days ago, the blue shell in Mario Kart (Switch) almost had the same impact as we kept having great races ruined by a blue shell taking out the lead racer a few feet before the finish, but at least those matches are short enough to just move on.   I’ve always felt that the Blue Shell needs to be removed entirely, or have an option to simply disable it.

 

These made me wonder – you guys think of any other gameplay mechanics/design choices that, in your opinion, completely ruins what could have been a good game?

 

 

That's an evil thing to do to an 8 year old, and a good way to get them to hate your games for life

 

[Keatah]

On 8/21/2020 at 10:04 AM, Razzie.P said:

These made me wonder – you guys think of any other gameplay mechanics/design choices that, in your opinion, completely ruins what could have been a good game?

Anything that would interrupt the hypnotic rhythm in a bullet-hell shmup, aside from the scheduled level transitions. Anything that cuts into the flow of a game, DRM crap, ill-timed FMV. All of it makes you dread that moment in a game. And then the games that have that crap become less appealing than the ones that don't.

 

Edited October 4, 2021 by Keatah

[roots.genoa]

On 9/30/2021 at 2:21 PM, Parker77 said:

if it did the arcade thing where hits knocked you back as in Shinobi or Rolling Thunder, it'd be even more frustrating.

Of course, but they could have just made the character invulnerable and blinking for a few seconds without having to do that.

[Steven Pendleton]

I remembered Omega Quintet's order break. That certainly ruins the game.

[youxia]

Gave up on playing Blade Runner recently. It's a point'n click adventure, and the action sequences really can put a damper on things.

[cimerians]

JRPG's: Played some Persona 4 last year and I was quickly reminded how awful it is to click “A” (or whatever button) to continue dialogue.

 

Ariel: “Hello Hawk, nice day!”  (press A)

Hawk: “Yeah I know it's a nice day yadda yadda yadda” (press A)

Ariel:  ….  (press A)

Hawk: "What?"  (press A)

Ariel:  ….  (press A)

 

Luckily those guys were nice enough to put a toggle in the options menu to automatically continue conversations without having to hit a button. 

 

Not sure this "ruins" JRPG's completely but....annoying.

[Tanooki]

20 hours ago, JamesD said:

That's an evil thing to do to an 8 year old, and a good way to get them to hate your games for life

 

On 8/21/2020 at 11:04 AM, Razzie.P said:

A couple of years ago, I was playing Mario Party (Wii U) with my 2 kids.   We were all having a blast, especially my daughter (around 8 at the time) who was winning.   Near the end of the game, she rolled the dice and landed on a space 1 or 2 spots from the end of the game board that gives a “random effect.”  The random effect in this case was – Bowser took all of her stars, sending her from first place to last.     I could see the tears about to flow, and it completely ruined the game for her.   Even the rest of the players had a "yeah... that really cheapens the whole thing" vibe at that moment, so none of us enjoyed it.  To this date, neither kid has wanted to play it again.

 

THIS!  Site won't let me quote the original post when quoting the other...ugh.

Instead of WiiU, this was Mario Party when it came out on the N64 in 1998.  I grabbed this as it looked like all sorts of fun with the mini games and board game aspect.  I was 21 at the time and in college, got it intended as a party game to enjoy.  What happened to his 8 year old, happened to me, not once, not twice... THREE times in a fucking row.  I played the board game, got towards the end and I'd be in the lead or second, but where I could roll a win... each time the game threw that star thing out with the random effect and I was sent into last place stripping away my earnings from the last 30-60min of work.  At first I was annoyed as bad luck, second I was pissed and suspicious, and third time was fuck this game... I tossed it across the carpet.  Despite being a $50 game, since people with copier kits ruined returns and I was so over its bullshit I traded it out at a resale shop and lost 1/2 on it.  I didn't care, I was done with it, done with the franchise, or anyone cloning it either.  In later years I'd end up with the N64 sequels, DS and GBA games as super cheap pickups usually in a bundle... I still can't shake the memory, especially seeing th mechanic never was removed.  Extremely BAD design.  Mario Party was the first time a game franchise was dead to me.

[JamesD]

7 hours ago, cimerians said:

JRPG's: Played some Persona 4 last year and I was quickly reminded how awful it is to click “A” (or whatever button) to continue dialogue.

 

Ariel: “Hello Hawk, nice day!”  (press A)

Hawk: “Yeah I know it's a nice day yadda yadda yadda” (press A)

Ariel:  ….  (press A)

Hawk: "What?"  (press A)

Ariel:  ….  (press A)

 

Luckily those guys were nice enough to put a toggle in the options menu to automatically continue conversations without having to hit a button. 

 

Not sure this "ruins" JRPG's completely but....annoying.

I hate that.  How about a page of text at a time?

[Parker77]

On 10/4/2021 at 8:21 AM, roots.genoa said:

Of course, but they could have just made the character invulnerable and blinking for a few seconds without having to do that.

I guess, but in crowded places you'd then have the option of blundering your way through by taking a hit or two. I dunno, I see its a valid criticism, but it's always just been part of playing Turrican for me.

[digdugnate]

I'm surprised I haven't opined on this yet, haha.

 

I feel any time a game mechanic is shoehorned in where it feels out of place I think is a game design choice that ruins a game.  For example, a game that's crazy and bombastic like Far Cry 3, then they make you do a mandatory stealth section.

[Parker77]

21 hours ago, digdugnate said:

I'm surprised I haven't opined on this yet, haha.

 

I feel any time a game mechanic is shoehorned in where it feels out of place I think is a game design choice that ruins a game.  For example, a game that's crazy and bombastic like Far Cry 3, then they make you do a mandatory stealth section.

Stealth sections in anything - unless the game is specifically designed around it - irritate me no end.

[BawesomeBurf]

On 10/4/2021 at 12:00 PM, cimerians said:

JRPG's: Played some Persona 4 last year and I was quickly reminded how awful it is to click “A” (or whatever button) to continue dialogue.

 

Ariel: “Hello Hawk, nice day!”  (press A)

Hawk: “Yeah I know it's a nice day yadda yadda yadda” (press A)

Ariel:  ….  (press A)

Hawk: "What?"  (press A)

Ariel:  ….  (press A)

 

Luckily those guys were nice enough to put a toggle in the options menu to automatically continue conversations without having to hit a button. 

 

Not sure this "ruins" JRPG's completely but....annoying.

It drives me nuts when RPGs with voice overs don't auto-advance. I love Dragon Quest 8 on PS2, but hate that their is no auto option. 

[cimerians]

16 hours ago, BawesomeBurf said:

It drives me nuts when RPGs with voice overs don't auto-advance. I love Dragon Quest 8 on PS2, but hate that their is no auto option. 

 

Yup or how about: 

 

Cutscene plays for 5 minutes and ends....then you control your character for about 5 seconds to move across the room a few steps.....and another cutscene starts for another 5 minutes. smh

 

Another one I remember is walking 5-7 steps and automatically always getting a random encounter. Takes you 5 years and countless random battles to cross a pond to get to the other side. lol

 

I think a lot of those were old school JRPG's in the 90's, its improved (for the most part) 

[BawesomeBurf]

9 minutes ago, cimerians said:

 

Yup or how about: 

 

Cutscene plays for 5 minutes and ends....then you control your character for about 5 seconds to move across the room a few steps.....and another cutscene starts for another 5 minutes. smh

 

That is my issue with Tales Of Vesperia. Well that, and a lot of the dialogue is just characters parroting what another party member said, or just saying 'Yeah!'. It's okay for a character to not say anything if they don't have anything meaningful to add to the conversation. 

[Tanooki]

16 minutes ago, BawesomeBurf said:

That is my issue with Tales Of Vesperia. Well that, and a lot of the dialogue is just characters parroting what another party member said, or just saying 'Yeah!'. It's okay for a character to not say anything if they don't have anything meaningful to add to the conversation. 

You know thinking back to when that came out on Switch a few years ago and as little as I did play into it hours wise, THAT is what set me off the most of wanting to play it daily, then weekly, then it was a dust collector.  Too much forced blabbering bs.  Too much secondary and even tertiary blathering stupidity, and then the primary stuff was just too thick, common and overdone it broke my attention to play the game.

[jerseystyle]

Escort missions. Ugh.

 

Also, not being able to save when I want. I mean, cmon, I’m busy these days. Don’t make me wait to turn off a game.

[cimerians]

54 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Too much forced blabbering bs.  

That's exactly what it is, forced babble. Mix that in with endless pausing “…” for an induced coma  ?

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by cimerians

[Tanooki]

This has been an a part of the franchise since the original, but even into the Gamecube and Wii eras it never was overbearing overkill, or basically forced or strongly encouraged...easily ignored and didn't hamper the game, and it wasn't a scripted repeated must(forced) watch mess.  That's really the difference.  Phantasia, Symphonia, the Wii sequel, the PS1/2/PSP games and before they were fine.  Vesperia...yeah too much and forced, makes me wonder if the others like Zestiria and the rest which also hit the PC(Steam) off Sony systems had these problems too in the last decade or so.  It turned me off the franchise or wanted to even deep cut sale investigate those others.

[MrTrust]

This is a surprisingly hard question of you try to answer it accurately.  These are design choices, so things like poor hit detection should not count.  Nobody makes the hit detection bad deliberately.  Also, it has to ruin the game.  Every ice level of every 80s and 90s platformer sucks ass, but I don't think any of them ruined an otherwise good game.  Mechanics I don't like I don't think ought to, either.  I hate the sword-breaking and crafting in Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but they work and they're integrated into the game in a way that makes sense.  I think the game objectively sucks, but I could imagine it not sucking and it still being a kind of game I'm not really into.

 

My list:

 

Bogus difficulty options - I choose to play on higher difficulty because I apparently prefer more challenge than the average person does.  You get a game that's too easy by default, and instead of a thought-out, logical increase in the challenge, the hard mode just cheats.  Enemies soak up ridiculous amounts of damage and can spam super deadly attacks with absurd frequency.  I want it to be challenging, not unplayable.

 

Epistolary bullshit - I want to go slay a dragon, not read the personal journal of every Tom, Dick, and Harry that explored the dungeon before me.  Same thing with games that force you to listen to non-stop audio files to explain the storey to you.  Sorry to whoever wrote all this crap, but your video game story isn't even up to the level of a standard potboiler genre novel, so stop talking at me the whole time I'm trying to play.

 

Games with a high learning curve that also take a long time to play - I'm willing to accept that I will get my brains handed to me the first 10-20 times I play a sufficiently deep game.  If it takes me 4 hours each time I try, I'm never going to get to the level I can play it confidently.  I've only got so many heartbeats left on the Earth.

 

Cryptic, illogical solutions to puzzles - I do my best to not use spoilers to beat games.  If I have to resort to something that no sensible person would ever think to do outside of sheer dumb luck combing with desperation in the right way, I have no reasonable chance of beating it fairly.

[Steven Pendleton]

56 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Every ice level of every 80s and 90s platformer sucks ass

Ice Cap Zone