Biggest bullshit in a video game

[The Last Stand]

More of an eyebrow raising moment than rage inducing.

Xbox 360 comes out and games have achievements. Fun little way to do little challenges in game and challenge yourself while playing through your games again.

Play through Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. OK what are the rest of these achievements like. 'Get number 1 on solo ladder on multiplayer, get number 1 on team ladder on multiplayer' etc

Lol no

Achievements like that should be illegal.

 

[The Littlest Shitlord]

Going broad.

I'll take unskippable cinematic cutscenes over scripted unskippable events scenes like Half-Life where I'll wind up facing a wall to wait for the stupid scene to play out.

Crafting.

Skill trees.

Crafting (in MMORPGs, at least) really is complete bullshit. MMO devs can't manage simplistic craft-less economies and won't even try (because they are fantasy/sci fi nerds instead of economics nerds), adding crafting to the mix makes the situation even worse. A double-digit group of super NEETs out of a population of millions of players, who happened to have been playing since day 1 and have economic-oriented turbo hyper mega-autism, make more money than God (which they end up selling to RMT for real-life cash) while the entire rest of the MMO population has to suffer from mandatory interaction with the badly-designed and hopelessly-unbalanced "economy game". A relatively small number of other crafters struggle along in the vain hope that they, too, will one day make it to the top of the pyramid and make obscene amounts of undeserved cash that trivializes the rest of the game; most of the rest of the population is just poor and screwed unless they cheat. It's literally not even possible to even give them good advice to help them out, since the nature of a market economy is such that doing the same thing as everyone else will never make anyone rich. And yet every MMO dev team seemingly feels duty-bound to waste time on implementing a boring system that hardly anyone actually uses, actively makes the entire game worse, and requires special expertise (that they don't even have because it's in a completely unrelated field) to manage. It's insane.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Escort missions in general just fuck that noise.

I almost gave up on Jak II because of this shit.

One particular objective involved transporting some enchanted item to a racing stadium while fighting off the city police. Or was it something else? I don't remember. All I do remember is there was a game breaking bug that would replace the quest trigger with another racing mini game, making it unwinnable. It's made worse because you had to delete that save file.

So in essence I agree with that and any unfixed game breaking bug that kills your chances at winning the game until you start all the fuck over again.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

One particular objective involved transporting some enchanted item to a racing stadium while fighting off the city police. Or was it something else? I don't remember.

I remember. It wasn't the police, it was the Metal Heads, and you were escorting Samos and Younger Samos as they were telekinetically holding a piece of machinery. Neither of them had a lot of health either and there was so much shit flying at you that it was easy to forget about them until one of them inevitably died and the game cuts to a quick scene of one of them getting comically flattened by the machinery.

At least that one was short though. No, the one I hate was that one where you're escorting 3 of Krew's men down into the sewers because it's really fucking long with no checkpoints.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

Drakengard 3. The final boss is a rhythm game.

This would not be so bad if it were not for the awkward timing relative to the music and the obnoxious camera angles, as a visual pulse accompanies the notes that the statues in this weird modern art visual shit play. You must hit a button when the note's 'sound wave' reaches you, and there will be certain times where you can't really even see the notes because the camera has done some fucked shit.

Should you survive that, mercifully, that is the end of the game. You have completed every ending, every story, everything. All is well with the world.

The screen goes black at the end of it as the characters say their last lines of dialogue.

Guess what.

There's one more fucking note that you can't. Fucking. SEE.

 

[Deadpool]

Any platforming sections of a game that's not a platformer. Especially in FP games.

 

[WarJams]

Blind jumps in platformers.

Fights the game intends for you to lose, or are impossible to win, especially if they seem winnable. (vs Tiga in Breath of Fire II comes to mind) Might as well just make it a cutscene; it's gonna make me angry either way, especially if I squandered items.

Ever play Dante's Inferno? That was truly hell in a game. Bullshit story, bullshit controls, bullshit levels, bullshit bosses, bullshit ending complete with (spoilers for a game no sane person SHOULD EVER PLAY) the protagonist climbing up to heaven buck naked to fight god, cause his wife went to heaven.

No. Anybody who's ever read the Divine Comedy past Inferno would realize what the spiral-terraced mountain imagery at the end of the game was, but who the fuck ever does that -if they even ever read Inferno at all- which is probably why the studio could never figure out how to make a sequel, and the studio shut down in 2017 anyway.

The sea-side mountain is merely Purgatory. Dante has emerged from the anterior of Hell through the physical hole in the planet made from God literally yeeting Satan out of Paradise and straight to the deepest, frozen depths of Hell. Dante has absolved himself of his guilt, saved his waifu, and casts off the physical representation of his past sins, the tapestry sewn onto his chest, which dissolves into a puff of smoke and turns into a serpent which slithers away. There's still an entire mountain of drudgery and penance between Dante and making himself pure enough to enter the presence of God, but he is at peace now. There's no reason to fight anymore.

But the game itself was mostly okay, the Eighth Circle was the only truly terrible part of the game. You could tell at that point there were just out of ideas, so they made a bunch of stupid and boring time trials in a row. Truly, truly dreadful.

 

[Deadpool]

I’ll offer something in sort of a different vein from the other posts, but any game that lets you pause mid-combat to heal. This destroys pretty much any tension and difficulty a fight may have had, and just makes it about whether or not the enemy can outlast your store of food/potions that have zero downside for mid-combat consumption.

Really, I think the Minecraft inventory system - despite being pretty terrible and inefficient for Minecraft itself - makes a pretty good baseline that could suit the vast majority of games. You have a “large” inventory (at least 50-100 slots starting off) that you can only access while standing still and won’t pause in-game time, and then a hotbar you can bind weapons/potions/food/items to to make them instantly accessible. Depending on the game, items may or may not be able to be used/consumed from inside the inventory screen. The hotbar could either be always accessible using the number keys, or be like a weapon wheel that pauses/slows time while you make your selection.

This would essentially let you have the benefits of a large inventory (not having to throw shit away constantly) while mitigating the effects of being able to access anything anywhere by limiting the amount of stuff you can actually access on-demand.

You can avoid this by simply not doing it. Lack of self control isn't bullshit game design.

 

[Gar For Archer]

You can avoid this by simply not doing it. Lack of self control isn't bullshit game design.

We’re talking about a design choice that allows combat - a core game mechanic in many games - to be completely cheesed by just farming resources. It’s like spamming potions and healing items in Pokémon battles - what’s even the point of playing the game if you’re just going to win by outspending the opponent?

Another egregious example is the extremely liberal quick travel in Breath of the Wild. Nintendo spent 5 years crafting this wonderfully detailed world for players to explore... and then ensured that 90% of players would barely see any of it by allowing you to warp pretty much anywhere in the world you’ve explored, at any time, for no cost. This robs players who don’t know any better of a more fun gameplay experience, and does a disservice to the developers who made this beautiful world that the vast majority of players are just going to teleport through.

This kind of stuff is even more egregious because it’s literally a core mechanic. It’s not like performing a glitch or an exploit, where you do it with the full knowledge that you’re doing something unintended. Most players won’t even realize that they’re robbing themselves of fun because they don’t even realize they’re cheesing. Sure, I know how I like to play games and will set rules for myself accordingly. But core game mechanics that push most average players to cheese strats instead of engaging with the game how devs intended is bad design.

 

[Deadpool]

We’re talking about a design choice that allows combat - a core game mechanic in many games - to be completely cheesed by just farming resources. It’s like spamming potions and healing items in Pokémon battles - what’s even the point of playing the game if you’re just going to win by outspending the opponent?

Another egregious example is the extremely liberal quick travel in Breath of the Wild. Nintendo spent 5 years crafting this wonderfully detailed world for players to explore... and then ensured that 90% of players would barely see any of it by allowing you to warp pretty much anywhere in the world you’ve explored, at any time, for no cost. This robs players who don’t know any better of a more fun gameplay experience, and does a disservice to the developers who made this beautiful world that the vast majority of players are just going to teleport through.

This kind of stuff is even more egregious because it’s literally a core mechanic. It’s not like performing a glitch or an exploit, where you do it with the full knowledge that you’re doing something unintended. Most players won’t even realize that they’re robbing themselves of fun because they don’t even realize they’re cheesing. Sure, I know how I like to play games and will set rules for myself accordingly. But core game mechanics that push most average players to cheese strats instead of engaging with the game how devs intended is bad design.

Then dont do it. Problem solved. Some people like doing those things. Why should your incredibly picky preferences be catered to by denying them something that helps their enjoyment of a game?

 

[Gar For Archer]

Then dont do it. Problem solved. Some people like doing those things. Why should your incredibly picky preferences be catered to by denying them something that helps their enjoyment of a game?

This isn’t about my personal enjoyment of a game. As I’ve said, I’ll set rules for myself to make games more challenging if that’s what I find enjoyable.

My point is that if the vast majority of your players are cheesing through the content you’ve spent years working on, then you’ve failed your playerbase. If a game mechanic actively guides players away from a well-designed game system to the easier but objectively less fun route of grind, over level, and convenience over all else, then it’s a bad game mechanic.

 

[Deadpool]

This isn’t about my personal enjoyment of a game. As I’ve said, I’ll set rules for myself to make games more challenging if that’s what I find enjoyable.

My point is that if the vast majority of your players are cheesing through the content you’ve spent years working on, then you’ve failed your playerbase. If a game mechanic actively guides players away from a well-designed game system to the easier but objectively less fun route of grind, over level, and convenience over all else, then it’s a bad game mechanic.

Translation: people should only have fun the way I have fun, and if they don't they're wrong. Fun definitely isn't subjective.

Got ya. I'm gonna stop here because I don't want to detail the thread. Just pointing out that it's bullshit in games not nitpicking things I personally don't like in games.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Translation: people should only have fun the way I have fun, and if they don't they're wrong.

Got ya. I'm gonna stop here because I don't want to detail the thread. Just pointing out that it's bullshit in games not nitpicking things I personally don't like in games.

How the hell did you get that out of what I wrote? I’ll sum it up properly for you:

If a developer includes a mechanic in their game that actively leads players away from engaging with the game the way the developers intended, then it’s a bad mechanic. In a game that’s properly designed, your average player should naturally be driven to engage with the game the way the developer intended. If the “path of least resistance” instead leads players away from intended gameplay mechanics that you put effort into designing, then there’s something wrong with your game design - either the developer’s intended way of playing is awful and unfun, or the developers have given players an easy cop-out solution that lets them not have to engage with other well-designed systems that they would actually ENJOY if they had been properly coerced into trying it,

None of this is about what I personally enjoy, but about whether or not a mechanic actively undermines a developer’s intent in how the game is “supposed” to be played.

 

[CrystalRoserade]

That Marluxia Absent Silhouette in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix. I'm dreading having to go back to beat him, as I want to have at least one game I've completed 100%, since my first attempts ended in me getting my ass kicked. I know I should 'get good' and learn his attack pattern, but I'm a total dumbass with poor reflexes.

 

[Deadpool]

I actually remembered a specific instance of bullshit in a game. I was playing Morrowind, and was in a tomb of some sort with skeletons in it. Eventually I came upon a skeleton using paralysis arrows. There was basically no non cheating way of getting around it. I couldn't even get a step closer to it between arrows. Finally I just put the infinite health cheat in until it ran out of them.

 

[Vault Boy]

Halo 2 on Legendary. How they went from something balanced like Heroic to that broken shit is beyond me.

I only did it to unlock the Elite helmet in Halo 5, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I used some speedrunning tactics in some levels. The latter didn't really help all that much, as I still had to deal with other horseshit that the game throws at you like the final fight on Regret (I spent over three hours at that part alone, getting rushed by energy swords and pelted to death with plasma fire gets pretty old fast).

The rest of the series is far more reasonable on Legendary, but I'm never going to play Halo 2 on it again. Fuck that shit.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

That Marluxia Absent Silhouette in Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix. I'm dreading having to go back to beat him, as I want to have at least one game I've completed 100%, since my first attempts ended in me getting my ass kicked. I know I should 'get good' and learn his attack pattern, but I'm a total dumbass with poor reflexes.

The fight is utter bullshit. You have to rely on him giving you good attacks that you can counter to regain doom points, or just having perfect timing with reflega. I attribute my victory to luck more than skill.

 

[CheezzyMach]

QTEs suck no matter the game.

SNK Boss Syndrome can also bite it.

 

[MrTroll]

How the hell did you get that out of what I wrote? I’ll sum it up properly for you:

If a developer includes a mechanic in their game that actively leads players away from engaging with the game the way the developers intended, then it’s a bad mechanic. In a game that’s properly designed, your average player should naturally be driven to engage with the game the way the developer intended. If the “path of least resistance” instead leads players away from intended gameplay mechanics that you put effort into designing, then there’s something wrong with your game design - either the developer’s intended way of playing is awful and unfun, or the developers have given players an easy cop-out solution that lets them not have to engage with other well-designed systems that they would actually ENJOY if they had been properly coerced into trying it,

None of this is about what I personally enjoy, but about whether or not a mechanic actively undermines a developer’s intent in how the game is “supposed” to be played.

But... clearly the developers *did* intend for players to engage with the game by using fast-travel to skip long tedious walks from point A to point B. That's why they explicitly designed and added such a feature.

Anecdotally, I can't think of any open-world game made in the last decade that doesn't have a liberal fast-travel ability. With the amount of back-tracking required, especially when you get into side-quests, collectibles, achievements, etc., they'd be virtually unplayable for anyone who doesn't have 200+ hours of leisure time to devote to a single game.

 

[CrystalRoserade]

The fight is utter bullshit. You have to rely on him giving you good attacks that you can counter to regain doom points, or just having perfect timing with reflega. I attribute my victory to luck more than skill.

I'll be honest, I'm also dreading doing the data fights too, once I even get there. I at least have time to prepare, since I'll have to grind to level up each of the drive forms so I can use the skills you earn from leveling up. As for the Sephiroth fight, I'm saving that for last before I move on to Lingering Will.