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

[Niggernerd]

They stopped putting much into CoD story which is really a shame. I haven't enjoyed it since WaW. Big Red 1 being probably the best imo because of the bonus features of WW2 vet interviews.
WW1 was a cool idea but man both CoD and Battlefield really dropped the ball with theirs.

CoD hasn't implemented anything good since Modern Warfare 2, that wall running and slide is pretty dumb because you're more of a fish in a barrel doing either. The maps look like shit too.

 

[The Penultimate Warrior]

They stopped putting much into CoD story which is really a shame. I haven't enjoyed it since WaW. Big Red 1 being probably the best imo because of the bonus features of WW2 vet interviews.
WW1 was a cool idea but man both CoD and Battlefield really dropped the ball with theirs.

CoD hasn't implemented anything good since Modern Warfare 2, that wall running and slide is pretty dumb because you're more of a fish in a barrel doing either. The maps look like shit too.

Battlefield 1's campaign was weird - from the intro it seemed like it was going for a full on horrors of war approach, then you're landing your plane on a Zeppelin and shooting down a whole fleet of them. Or that mission where you are shot down and have to get back to your own lines.......where your crashed plane is laying? That part in the Italian mission where you had to shoot down the bombers was completely broken as well, one of those parts I only eventually got through by luck.

 

[NerdShamer]

I don't think it has been mentioned, but: Premium tanks in World of Tanks.

Pay2Win in general is utter cancer, microtransactions are a desaster, but holy fucking shit, is it ridiculous when it comes to the tiered combat system of WoT.
Tanks get put into tiers depending on how effective they are in their role, but to make pay2win tanks more interesting, they are not only superior in all regards to a comparable tank of the same role, they are also in comparatively low tiers. Essentially, you're the games designated seal-clubber. Add to that the Russian bias that makes Tigers light up like Zippos with weak-ass armor and heavily reduced armor penetration and you get a mess of a game.

That being said: Bias on part of the game makers was a bitch, too.
Some years ago, one of the KV-variants, I think the KV-1S, was so incredibly overpowered for its tier, it was literally "The other side has one of those? Well fuck us, I guess." Barely anything could hurt that fucker, even from the sides, its cannon shot quickly, it penetrated anything and it did a metric ton of damage. It was ridiculous... and people complained for months before the devs reacted: They promised to put the tank into a higher tier "soon", but did sweet fuck-all for 2 or 3 months... meanwhile, they merrily introduced new tanks into existing techtrees of the other nations that ended up pushing everything after those new tanks up a tier and thus fucked them over even harder. I think when they finally changed the KV-1S into a higher tier, every other tank in that tier had already been nerfed.

Something specific to that game: Pseudo-historical tanks that never existed.
The game is choke full with tanks that were designed, planned or even just suggested during WW2, which makes some nations end up with utterly retarded designs that would never work, but since the game uses the crazed fever dreams of war-stressed Generals as foundation for their capabilties, you end up with tanks that drive faster than anything in their weight bracket, cause unlike the real tanks, that needed to come up with a propulsion system based on what's actually available, some General going "Yeah, we'll find a 1500HP engine of the correct size and weight somewhere, I guess..." Same with the armor and guns. Essentially, you end up with a tank that never left the most basic design phase, never had been put together to see if that shit even works and sometimes uses experimental technology that you'd not see employed up to this date to this degree.

The result: A tank with a ridiculously low weight, but a ridiculously strong engine, nearly unbreakable armor and a quick-firing gun that blows chunks out of tanks 20 tons heavier and 3 tiers higher without any problems. And this fucker costs 50 bucks. Never mind the whole thing would need to be build with armor as light as styrofoam and as sturdy as diamond to be able to even pull off half of this shit. Never mind that the engine would have to be so utterly large, it would fill up the entire insides of the tank and leave no room for crew or ammo...
And that abomination goes against some upgraded Panzer IV with all its historically existing specs (implemented by biased slavs)...

We used to call these made up tanks "sketch-tanks" or "napkin tanks", cause quite a lot of those felt like Hitler, Churchill or DeGaul had doodled them on a napkin while eating and going "This! I want this!".

I owned the KV-1S A few months before it was nerfed. It was fucking hilarious to see a heavy tank zipping around on the front lines, blasting people halfway to death. Of course it was nerfed, I got free researched parts between it and the KV-85, and I sold it for something that was capable of holding up traffic: The KV-2.

Good times.

WoT tried to add a mode like that for years and they could not balance it out.

Yeah, they had a mode where you pit two nations against each other. But thing about the Germans is that they were mostly giant metal bricks while nearly everyone else had "modernised" designs. It almost went about as good as this sounds.

 

[Massively Strong Greed]

Gen 1 Pokemon games have a number of issues.

There are some aspects that are obnoxious, like the move Wrap.
Gen 1. Wrap might be the worst move in any RPG ever, especially in Pokemon Stadium, where you have no access to items. If you're paralyzed and the opponent uses Wrap, then be prepared to wait a million years for the battle to end with you more than likely losing.

Then there's just straight up broken mechanics.
"Ghost types are strong against Psychic types!", the game and the anime told you.
Except, there's only two damaging Ghost-Type moves, one of which only does fixed damage, and the other that, due to a glitch, has been rendered so that Psychic types are actually immune to it. Not helping that Lick, the move in question, is extremely weak. Oh, and said Ghost-Types are all apart of the same family (Gastly line), and are all part Poison-Type, meaning they're still weak to Psychic.

Bug-Type moves are also super effective against Psychic-Types, but the only damaging Bug-Type moves are used by Jolteon, who gets no Same-Type-Attack-Bonus damage from it, and Beedrill, who's both fragile and weak to Psychic-Type moves, due to being part Poison-Type.

Finally, there's a personal gripe of mine that extends to Gen. 2. You can't catch anymore Pokemon if your current PC box is full. Gen. 2 would at least have Bill call you and warn you if a box was full, but no such thing in Gen 1. Thankfully Gen. 3 fixed this by making a newly caught Pokemon go to the next available box automatically.

It’s not even fun to use Gen 1 Wrap/Bind/Clamp/Fire Spin yourself because it takes FOREVER to make something faint.
On a sidenote, Ghost being physical until Gen 4 was stupid as fuck. I don’t care if Lick was the only Ghost attack in Gen 1 besides Night Shade, ghosts aren’t physical.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

It’s not even fun to use Gen 1 Wrap/Bind/Clamp/Fire Spin yourself because it takes FOREVER to make something faint.
On a sidenote, Ghost being physical until Gen 4 was stupid as fuck. I don’t care if Lick was the only Ghost attack in Gen 1 besides Night Shade, ghosts aren’t physical.

The physical special split should have been done gen 2/3, no excuse for pokemon getting good stats but all of their attacks dont use that stat.

 

[AnotherPleb]

The physical special split should have been done gen 2/3, no excuse for pokemon getting good stats but all of their attacks dont use that stat.

I take it you like Sneasel too?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The Fire Emblem x SMT crossover has every character be corresponding to an element. The final boss is immune to fire element, so fire element characters can get fucked.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

On a sidenote, Ghost being physical until Gen 4 was stupid as fuck. I don’t care if Lick was the only Ghost attack in Gen 1 besides Night Shade, ghosts aren’t physical.

I would like to see the reasoning behind the original split of how Physical/Special moves worked.

Though honestly There are two things pokemon has done that bugs me more than that.

1. Taking Unique Typings of pokemon like Flygon (Ground/Dragon) and making Psuedo-Legendaries with that same typing and just completely fucking the unique pokemon...and Mega Evolution/Z Moves Requiring Held Items to use. (I mean Z Moves were stupid anyways)

 

[Poyo Sato]

Kid Icarus Uprising's control scheme.

Basically, your right hand holds the 3DS stylus, swiping on the bottom screen to control a targeting reticle on the top one. This leaves the left hand to move Pit with the control stick, to attack with the left shoulder button, and to support the entire weight of the system at the same time.

It actually works quite well during the flying/rail shooter part of the stages, albeit hand cramping, but it's god level awful during the ground part. Even basic things like turning around and lock into enemies can become a chore. I can't remember how many times I got hit by enemies or went off directions I don't want to thanks to the unresponsiveness of the touch screen control.

It really ruins the experience of otherwise a very good game.

 

[MysticMisty]

I would like to see the reasoning behind the original split of how Physical/Special moves worked.

On paper it was probably something like "Fire, Water, and Electric are moves based upon elements that are not solid in nature and thus are Special attacks. Fighting, Rock, and Ground are hard and solid moves with physical contact and thus are Physical attacks". And then in practice you get moves like Fire Punch and Hyper Beam so you spend the better part of a decade (and over a decade in Japan) going against what logic tells you about in regards to being Physical or Special.

But it was nice when it finally happened though because some Pokemon that were never considered to be really viable got a new chance in (Pokemon) life. Like Gyarados, who could finally take full advantage of STAB with Waterfall, in addition to things like Crunch and Ice Fang, and even that new Physical version of Hyper Beam if you preferred that.

Flygon (Ground/Dragon)

Flygon is one of my favorite Pokemon and it's so disappointing to see it tossed aside in favor of pretty much every other Dragon type.

 

[Cpl. Long Dong Silver]

I never knew farmers were so invested in Pokemon

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

On paper it was probably something like "Fire, Water, and Electric are moves based upon elements that are not solid in nature and thus are Special attacks. Fighting, Rock, and Ground are hard and solid moves with physical contact and thus are Physical attacks". And then in practice you get moves like Fire Punch and Hyper Beam so you spend the better part of a decade (and over a decade in Japan) going against what logic tells you about in regards to being Physical or Special.

But it was nice when it finally happened though because some Pokemon that were never considered to be really viable got a new chance in (Pokemon) life. Like Gyarados, who could finally take full advantage of STAB with Waterfall, in addition to things like Crunch and Ice Fang, and even that new Physical version of Hyper Beam if you preferred that.

I somewhat assume it was a technical limitation that was left in until the DS. The Change was the single greatest idea the series had.

Flygon is one of my favorite Pokemon and it's so disappointing to see it tossed aside in favor of pretty much every other Dragon type.

I just wish they didn't make a largely better Pseudo legendary..ONE generation after it.

 

[AnotherPleb]

I just wish they didn't make a largely better Pseudo legendary..ONE generation after it.

And Chomp got a Mega evolution it never needed too. I won't be surprised when it gets a Gigantamax in the D/P remakes.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Gigantamax in the D/P remakes.

At least with Dynamax you can Dynamax Flygon and Flygon does have a varied enough move pool that you can probably make the Dynamax Turns good no matter what.

Mega-Evolution just ignored Flygon completely (Which is sad, Dragon/Ground with Levitate would be really cool for a Defensive mon)

 

[White Devil]

Fucking nerds.

 

[UrbanSpaceMan]

all rogue-likes.

 

[TFT-A9]

all rogue-likes.

They're SUPPOSED to be at least a little bullshit. IVAN is like concentrated triple-strength bullshit to the point where the creator said the game was supposed to be impossible to beat, and that's part of what makes it fun.

 

[Ilikeoreos]

I know the exact game and I'm very very sorry bro.

I'll disagree with you on this: this wastes competitive players time, but the original goal was to make each pokemon feel unique to the dumbass kids playing it. If a kid wanted to make a party with two or more of the same pokemon, it makes each team member unique in addition to their natures. "Yeah this murkrow sucks but this one is awesome" kinda thing. Its a small thing for most kids and even adults who just want to kick back and play pokemon. They're trying ro make the world seem alive and thats one way of doing it (at least they give you a choice for IVs later). Its not always successful but its an attempt.

I consider the unskippable cutscenes in Pokemon or any game for the matter to be bad game design. I am replaying the game, do not hold me hostage Unskippable cutscenes between fast travel when I know it's not to cover a loading screen are harrowing.

Games with huge maps but jack shit to do aside from linear quest. I like exploring but when there's nothing to find it hampers the point.

I'll probably think of more specific examples later.

I dont mind rewatching cutscenes because I tend to like games for their stories and I go into it with the same mindset as rewatching a movie I've already scene before. However, it can be very annoying when a long unstoppable cutscene comes before a notoriously difficult boss fight that's likely to take a few tries (the worst example I can remember is in Kingdom Hearts when you have to fight Rikku without Donald and Goofy with that crappy wooden sword)

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

I take it you like Sneasel too?

Breloom actually. Loved that little mushroom kangaroo, just felt shit that his grass attacks were worthless, so I was basically just using him as an overqualified fighting type.

I just wish they didn't make a largely better Pseudo legendary..ONE generation after it.

Solid reason why I skip using legendaries. Not only are they so OP that it's not fun, but it's half expected that you use them because often they are just better.

Case and point: why use any flying/dragon type, when you can just use Rayquaza. He has ludicrous stats, and in games with mega-evolutions, he can just mega-evolve without losing a held item slot. He's not even fair.

 

[AnotherPleb]

Breloom actually. Loved that little mushroom kangaroo, just felt shit that his grass attacks were worthless, so I was basically just using him as an overqualified fighting type.

Solid reason why I skip using legendaries. Not only are they so OP that it's not fun, but it's half expected that you use them because often they are just better.

Case and point: why use any flying/dragon type, when you can just use Rayquaza. He has ludicrous stats, and in games with mega-evolutions, he can just mega-evolve without losing a held item slot. He's not even fair.

Breloom still had a pretty decent niche in RSE thanks to Spore, but using Spore on Breloom ingame is never going to happen so I see your point. Hitmonchan is another pokemon that was far worse than it should have been with the Elemental Punches being worthless until DPP.