What are some of the biggest examples of bad game design you’ve seen?

[Mary the Goldsmith]

Any videogame that has you fight the same boss several times troughout the game with little to no change in the fight itself

 

[mr.moon1488]

Low-level caps in RPGs. In almost every RPG I've ever seen where there's only like a level 20 cap, you'll only be able to play the game for a few more hours after reaching it because it will get boring as shit. Personally, I'm in favor of not having level caps at all.

 

[Shining Wit]

Wait, you telling me that they split up the ability to unlock modes between both games? Holy shit why would you do that? Those are the kind of features you keep in both games. At least give both versions Hard Mode, the series is easy enough for a casual playthrough as it is.

You're missing the best part too

Gen V's hard mode is easier than the normal mode
Pokemon Gen V has exp scaling, in an attempt to limit grinding and encourage making a diverse team. Its a simple concept, you get a proportionally better/worse exp multiplier based on the lv difference of your pokemon and theirs
One of Hard Mode's changes was higher levels, which means on the whole, you're earning more exp and its now very easy to slingshot into being overlevelled, trivialising the game

Its a similar cockup to Merciless in Persona 5 Royal, but that one's even more egregious because the original release didnt have busted exp yields on that difficulty

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

The gun from Control. Storywise and gameplaywise it's all-in-one, the gun transforms from a handgun into shotgun, then machinegun, sniper rifle and grenade launcher. The thing is, despite all that you can use only two mods at a time. Why? Hell if I knew. And even worse than that, during the combat you can just pause the game, go to inventory and put the mode you need into second slot, that's it. It's the same thing, only longer and more irritating.

 

[FencePost]

I do like that in MGS3 you're given a couple of options to avoid the roughly 45-minute fight with The End. The fight itself is actually well-designed since it's supposed to be a slow, intense sniper battle where you're actively trying to get the upper hand, but at least the game allows you to bypass it if you don't want to do it.

It doesn't surprise me that Kojumbo had the foresight to have that in a game. If it has an in-game reason to be a drawn out fight and the mechanics aren't "wail on the boss's body parts," then it's fine.

Any videogame that has you fight the same boss several times troughout the game with little to no change in the fight itself

Ah yes, good old, reliable Taniks the (adjective) and Kael'thas Sunstrider, jobbing for the player(s) time after time because the budget ran out.
On topic: Arbitrarily large numbers for stats. Partially because of 'tism and partially because you can argue that they've contributed to the rise of Meta-scumming idiots. How am I supposed to know if +25 str for 3542 total or +220 armor for 25378 total is a better stat boost without looking up a guide made by someone who crunched out the formulas for each stat.

 

[Furret]

It's a bit of a low-hanging fruit, but the Water Temple in the original N64 Ocarina of Time. You have to equip and unequip the Iron Boots something like 50 times minimum to clear the place, which requires pulling up the menu every time. Combine that with backtracking due to some easily-missed keys and having to repeatedly raise/lower the water level, and you have an unbelievably tedious dungeon. It's so bad that one of the developers personally apologized for it in 2009. Fortunately, the 3DS remake fixed most of these problems, and the dungeon's design is much easier to appreciate as a result.

 

[TurkishOreo]

It's a bit of a low-hanging fruit, but the Water Temple in the original N64 Ocarina of Time. You have to equip and unequip the Iron Boots something like 50 times minimum to clear the place, which requires pulling up the menu every time. Combine that with backtracking due to some easily-missed keys and having to repeatedly raise/lower the water level, and you have an unbelievably tedious dungeon. It's so bad that one of the developers personally apologized for it in 2009. Fortunately, the 3DS remake fixed most of these problems, and the dungeon's design is much easier to appreciate as a result.

Not being able to use every avaiable button on the controller, duh.

Majora's mask 3DS would've been comfy if the D-Pad was assigned to the transformation masks.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

*the boss draws his last breath as a rumbling starts. Dust and bits of plaster fall from the ceiling, walls creak, flames erupt from nowhere and the screen shakes*



COME ON WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!




no, not until I've swept the lair for collectibles.




Found one!

 

[Friendly Primarina]

It doesn't surprise me that Kojumbo had the foresight to have that in a game. If it has an in-game reason to be a drawn out fight and the mechanics aren't "wail on the boss's body parts," then it's fine.

It's often reported that Kojima wanted the battle with The End to take weeks, as in literal real-time weeks. It was his wranglers who reined him in.

 

[Francis York Morgan]

Wait, you telling me that they split up the ability to unlock modes between both games? Holy shit why would you do that? Those are the kind of features you keep in both games. At least give both versions Hard Mode, the series is easy enough for a casual playthrough as it is.

IIRC, if you connect a copy of White 2 with Black 2 that has finished the game, the mode gets added to your game. It's still stupid to take one of the biggest features people have been asking for in Pokemon games and making it version exclusive and even dumber to make it unlockable only after completing the game. Bear in mind that on release Black and White 2 would have been the copy that people would be trying to import all the Pokemon from previous games onto. To play this new mode, you would have to either have another copy of the games to transfer your Pokemon over or you'd need to use the Pokemon Bank (an online storage service that has an annual subscription rate). For those who aren't familiar with the Pokemon series, moving Pokemon between versions tended to be a pain in the fucking ass and time-consuming so this further discourages you from ever using these modes.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The gun from Control. Storywise and gameplaywise it's all-in-one, the gun transforms from a handgun into shotgun, then machinegun, sniper rifle and grenade launcher. The thing is, despite all that you can use only two mods at a time. Why? Hell if I knew. And even worse than that, during the combat you can just pause the game, go to inventory and put the mode you need into second slot, that's it. It's the same thing, only longer and more irritating.

In general any limit to number of guns in games hurts the experience, because you'd rather stick to reliable boring weapons rather than the interesting unique weapons with limited ammunition or situational use.

 

[XMassAllYearRound]

Have you guys ever heard about Perfect Weapon? It legitimately is the worst designed game I've ever played.

Here is a comment left by the GUI designer saying his own game is hot garbage:

Yes, That is in fact the GUI designer, he used to have a checkmark when Google+ was a thing and his name also appears on the game manual.

 

[iceteayo]

I never liked how Counter Strike and its shooting mechanics are considered "skill" I might just be bad since there are multi million dollar tournaments for the game still to this day but after playing CS for years I just grew tired of it.

 

[MysticMisty]

IIRC, if you connect a copy of White 2 with Black 2 that has finished the game, the mode gets added to your game. It's still stupid to take one of the biggest features people have been asking for in Pokemon games and making it version exclusive and even dumber to make it unlockable only after completing the game. Bear in mind that on release Black and White 2 would have been the copy that people would be trying to import all the Pokemon from previous games onto. To play this new mode, you would have to either have another copy of the games to transfer your Pokemon over or you'd need to use the Pokemon Bank (an online storage service that has an annual subscription rate). For those who aren't familiar with the Pokemon series, moving Pokemon between versions tended to be a pain in the fucking ass and time-consuming so this further discourages you from ever using these modes.

I played Black 2 and I don't even remember this existing at all. Regardless, the thing I disliked about B/W and B2/W2 was the last place in the game: Black City and White Forest. These places are completely devoid of anything except background and music (and a Pokemon Center) by default. So how do you populate these areas? In B2/W2 they're a little nicer about it and give a Battle Tower type-area to hit up to get people and buildings. Don't like Battle Tower/Battle Frontier/Battle whatever type challenges? Tough shit. B/W are much worse about it though, because you have to visit another player's version via Entralink, which can only work via the DS wireless signal. In other words, you have to be physically next to that person in order to do it. So if nobody you know IRL has B/W, then you're stuck with your empty location forever.

 

[Furret]

IIRC, if you connect a copy of White 2 with Black 2 that has finished the game, the mode gets added to your game. It's still stupid to take one of the biggest features people have been asking for in Pokemon games and making it version exclusive and even dumber to make it unlockable only after completing the game. Bear in mind that on release Black and White 2 would have been the copy that people would be trying to import all the Pokemon from previous games onto. To play this new mode, you would have to either have another copy of the games to transfer your Pokemon over or you'd need to use the Pokemon Bank (an online storage service that has an annual subscription rate). For those who aren't familiar with the Pokemon series, moving Pokemon between versions tended to be a pain in the fucking ass and time-consuming so this further discourages you from ever using these modes.

What's particularly painful about the way they handled this to me is that Pokémon is the kind of franchise that could really use something like Challenge Mode. The battle system has a huge amount of depth once you factor in all the different Pokémon you can put on teams together, but this depth is almost never explored in the main stories of the games because they need to be easy enough that kids can win without too much of a struggle. Challenge Mode would be the perfect opportunity for them to include some more depth for the people with brains developed enough to construct teams, but they seem reluctant to try it again for some reason, even though it could be a great feature if they don't botch the implementation horribly like they did in B2/W2.

 

[Francis York Morgan]

I played Black 2 and I don't even remember this existing at all. Regardless, the thing I disliked about B/W and B2/W2 was the last place in the game: Black City and White Forest. These places are completely devoid of anything except background and music (and a Pokemon Center) by default. So how do you populate these areas? In B2/W2 they're a little nicer about it and give a Battle Tower type-area to hit up to get people and buildings. Don't like Battle Tower/Battle Frontier/Battle whatever type challenges? Tough shit. B/W are much worse about it though, because you have to visit another player's version via Entralink, which can only work via the DS wireless signal. In other words, you have to be physically next to that person in order to do it. So if nobody you know IRL has B/W, then you're stuck with your empty location forever.

You're not going to like this, but it's worth bringing up in a topic on bad game design:

If I remember right, Black City and White Forest actually do start with trainers in them. . . but only if you beat the game in, like, two or three days. I forget the amount of time but it's stupidly short for a Pokemon game. Every game starts with people in these version exclusive areas but each person has their own invisible value that determines whether or not they stay. And everyone loses a large amount of points for each day that passes without a player visiting the area and interacting with them (they still lose that daily amount but between just visiting the area and then interacting with them you gain more than you lose). So, something that should be a nice little bonus area to play around in after completing the game becomes a daily chore. Also, if this didn't seem silly/shitty enough, White Forest has a higher retention value for talking to the trainers than Black City does. Either way, most players never will complete the game quickly enough to keep their starting trainers from degrading away and thus will have to go through the annoyance that you described.

What's particularly painful about the way they handled this to me is that Pokémon is the kind of franchise that could really use something like Challenge Mode. The battle system has a huge amount of depth once you factor in all the different Pokémon you can put on teams together, but this depth is almost never explored in the main stories of the games because they need to be easy enough that kids can win without too much of a struggle. Challenge Mode would be the perfect opportunity for them to include some more depth for the people with brains developed enough to construct teams, but they seem reluctant to try it again for some reason, even though it could be a great feature if they don't botch the implementation horribly like they did in B2/W2.

Well, I can tell you what Gamefreak's response likely is to anyone asking for a Challenge Mode to be properly included:

"You already have one. It's called the Battle Tower."

But the Battle Tower SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS. It's just a repetitive grind against rando trainers who have a semi-competent AI (and in some games, cheating). In the newer games, you will sometimes get to battle a recognizable trainer like Red and Blue in USUM or Leon in SWSH but I hardly ever get to that point because it's such a fucking slog. Oh, and this is how you get BP. What's the BP for? Oh, you know, all kinds of wonderfully useful items that are limited in-game like the items needed for specific trade evolutions like Rhyperior or Magmortar. Or, in SWSH, items that allow you to manipulate your Pokemon's stats and abilities to make them more viable in the metagame. Considering that money is practically meaningless in these games after a certain point, I don't understand why they can't just have this shit be something you can buy with Pokedollars. It would lower the barrier of entry to competitive play (something they've been trying to do for awhile now) and I bet it would help cut down on the number of hacked 'mons being used if they didn't make it such ass to manage these various attributes (some of which are invisible, to those who aren't in the know). But Gamefreak will never do that because a) acquiring BP is the only reason anyone would put up with the Battle Tower and b) it might force them to actually develop a real postgame which is what they lean on Battle Tower to be.

 

[Juan But Not Forgotten]

In general any limit to number of guns in games hurts the experience, because you'd rather stick to reliable boring weapons rather than the interesting unique weapons with limited ammunition or situational use.

That's not the case here. I understand if in military shooter you can carry one riffle and one pistol or in Fallout you are limited by weight, but here it's literally one handgun that can be anything, yet you are limited by two weapons at a time.

 

[Spunt]

Low-level caps in RPGs. In almost every RPG I've ever seen where there's only like a level 20 cap, you'll only be able to play the game for a few more hours after reaching it because it will get boring as shit. Personally, I'm in favor of not having level caps at all.

This ruined vanilla New Vegas for me. You could hit the level cap having only done about 1/4 of the quests in the game, and enemies would drop the best gear by then, so there was no point exploring except to see the plot lines for quests, though if you'd already done those quests on a previous playthrough there wasn't even that reason either. Guess I'll go to the final fight then. The DLCs raised the level cap, but added more quests, so you could still max out before you were done, though you'd maybe do it at perhaps half the game's content rather than a quarter.

Speaking of that engine, Oblivion's totally broken and game-ruining levelling system combined with the strict level scaling. Hit level 11? Every goblin is now a troll with 3 times the hitpoints, fuck you. You had to metagame and make really bizarre builds to make sure your stat increases kept pace with the more powerful enemies and it was no fun at all, not to mention immersion-breaking when you get shaken down for pennies by bandits wearing armour worth more than the Imperial treasury. Just sell your helmet dude and retire.

 

[KingofNothing]

Speaking of that engine, Oblivion's totally broken and game-ruining levelling system combined with the strict level scaling. Hit level 11? Every goblin is now a troll with 3 times the hitpoints, fuck you. You had to metagame and make really bizarre builds to make sure your stat increases kept pace with the more powerful enemies and it was no fun at all, not to mention immersion-breaking when you get shaken down for pennies by bandits wearing armour worth more than the Imperial treasury. Just sell your helmet dude and retire.

This was why I couldn't finish Oblivion, but had a fun time with Skyrim. Having me choose my main stats just to punish me with buffed enemies for leveling those same stats too quickly was horseshit(and main story really bored me). I shouldn't have to dance around the games own leveling system to have a good time. The guild quests are amazing though and completely shit on Skyrim's.

 

[MuuMuu Bunnylips]

Some of the camera angles on the worlds in Super Mario Galaxy 1.

A lot of games have pretty fucked camera, so that's hardly a unique issue.