Things that make you angry in video games.

[Alec Benson Leary]

I really hate games where you control a party of multiple people, but when your leader dies the game ends for no reason. Final Fantasy XIII is a dogshit game for many, many reasons, but it exemplifies this one particularly.

Microtransactions. Dan Hardcastle has often ranted about them, and rightfully so. I reinstalled The Sims 3 on my new computer years after getting it at Best Buy, and found that it had been loaded to the gills with microtransactions for completely random things, like new couches and shirts. The actual content you got with the game was much lower than it should have rightfully been.

And the worst part of it is that the game has to remind you that it wants you to buy shit every single time you look at the items in build mode. It can't just show you the stuff you have access to, it has to pepper the menu with all these glowy items saying "buy me!" There's even a glowy button that's always on the main toolbar that takes you to the sims store. I just dropped $1,450 on the main game and all 23 expansions, I don't need my eyes drawn to some glowy shit while I'm trying to immerse myself in the things I already chose to pay for because you want me to give you more money.

 

[The Fair Lady]

^As a fan of FFXIII, I agree.

 

[Carlson]

I really hate games where you control a party of multiple people, but when your leader dies the game ends for no reason. Final Fantasy XIII is a dogshit game for many, many reasons, but it exemplifies this one particularly.

That's something I love about State of Decay, in spite of its problems: there IS no central character. A lot of people treat the starting character as the protagonist just because he's useful at the start and you can use him as a jack-of-all-trades guy, but the game doesn't give two shits if he lives or dies. You can use just about any party member you want and in most cases, the story won't come to a screeching halt if any of them die. You just need to keep moving on.

In fact, Lily (your Mission Control) is literally the only character who cannot be killed at any point during gameplay.

Spoiler

And she'll probably die after the ending anyway because she can't get her lupus medication.

 

[caffeinated_wench]

I really hate games where you control a party of multiple people, but when your leader dies the game ends for no reason. Final Fantasy XIII is a dogshit game for many, many reasons, but it exemplifies this one particularly.

Actually, there IS a reason for this. Well, more than one reason, but there's often a story-related reason why this happens.

Can it be a huge pain in the ass anyway? Yes. Yes it can. It most certainly can.

 

[Watcher]

I really hate games where you control a party of multiple people, but when your leader dies the game ends for no reason. Final Fantasy XIII is a dogshit game for many, many reasons, but it exemplifies this one particularly.

The one game I noticed that did this well was Baldur's Gate. Mostly because toward the end of the game after a plot twist it's revealed that

Spoiler

The main character is a child of Bhaal, and when you kill a child of Bhaal they turn to dust and return to their god to fuel his resurrection.

 

[caffeinated_wench]

I really hate games where you control a party of multiple people, but when your leader dies the game ends for no reason. Final Fantasy XIII is a dogshit game for many, many reasons, but it exemplifies this one particularly.

The one game I noticed that did this well was Baldur's Gate. Mostly because toward the end of the game after a plot twist it's revealed that

Spoiler

The main character is a child of Bhaal, and when you kill a child of Bhaal they turn to dust and return to their god to fuel his resurrection.

I want to play those games.
Partly so I'll get the references in Mass Effect and Dragon Age.



The way I see it from a story perspective is that the story is told through the eyes of the main character. When the main character dies, the story ends there. Even if they were to go on without you, how will you be able to see it? You're dead.

And the leader often holds everyone else together (especially if leader is said main character). Generally speaking, chopping off the snake's head will cause the rest of it to lose its function. If you lose your leader, it's often a VERY bad sign and very disheartening. Even if you were doing well, losing your leader can incite panic and make the rest of the group (whether it be a party or an army) feel like there's no hope of winning now (goes double for protagonists as leaders).

 

[Carlson]

That's a pretty good reasoning, yeah. Some games have a disparate enough party that losing the "protagonist" could kill it, but others rely on the main character to keep everything going. Without the protagonist, the story would just end.

That said, I think it's bullshit when games let your AI partners infinitely get "knocked out" or stunned or whatever when they run out of health and you can revive them as many times as you want, but it's only one shot for the player character. The original Gears of War did this, and it's aggravating as shit. Thankfully the other games let your squadmates revive you.

 

[caffeinated_wench]

That's a pretty good reasoning, yeah. Some games have a disparate enough party that losing the "protagonist" could kill it, but others rely on the main character to keep everything going. Without the protagonist, the story would just end.

That said, I think it's bullshit when games let your AI partners infinitely get "knocked out" or stunned or whatever when they run out of health and you can revive them as many times as you want, but it's only one shot for the player character. The original Gears of War did this, and it's aggravating as shit. Thankfully the other games let your squadmates revive you.

Dragon Age comes to mind for the first one. Several of your party members don't like each other. The one thing they all have in common is you. You're the crutch, you're the one keeping everyone together, mentally as well as physically (as a group). Same with Shepard in Mass Effect.

That happens in Dragon's Dogma. You can revive your pawn buddies, but they can't revive you. Granted, they're pawns, but....

 

[Watcher]

Dragon Age comes to mind for the first one. Several of your party members don't like each other. The one thing they all have in common is you. You're the crutch, you're the one keeping everyone together, mentally as well as physically (as a group). Same with Shepard in Mass Effect.

In one of the DLCs to Dragon Age Origins it has you control the Darkspawn's forces during a What If scenario where the main character died early on in the game. Where

Spoiler

All the main characters die and the Darkspawn win

 

[caffeinated_wench]

Dragon Age comes to mind for the first one. Several of your party members don't like each other. The one thing they all have in common is you. You're the crutch, you're the one keeping everyone together, mentally as well as physically (as a group). Same with Shepard in Mass Effect.

In one of the DLCs to Dragon Age Origins it has you control the Darkspawn's forces during a What If scenario where the main character died early on in the game. Where

Spoiler

All the main characters die and the Darkspawn win

Yeah, I've played that. It saddened me.
Also shows how much is depending on you.

Spoiler

They were close, though. And things went downhill pretty quickly without you.

 

[TL 611]

Oh my fucking gawd Hearthstone's pissed me off.

IGNORING the fact that it has glitched out and randomly removed one of my cards.
IGNORING the fact that its cost me money due to its stupid fucking glitches where you literally cant play any cards, or it DCs you during an arena run.
IGNORING the fact that despite the fact Ive opened 40+ packs I've only got one legendary and it was shit.

They've broken the matchmaking. I cannot win against the people theyre pitching me against. At all. I just played 4 games and just what the fuck?!
First guy managed to have a fucking 10/5 windfury kill me on turn 5.
Second guy was running Trump's legendary mage deck (i.e. the pro deck to get to legendary rank).
Third guy was some warlock with removal to everything.
Fourth guy had a 6/4 out on turn 2 so I just fucking left.
I do not have the cards to be competing with these people. BECAUSE YOUVE NOT GIVEN ME THESE CARDS.

For fucks sake this game is trying my patience.

 

[Aiko Heiwa]

I hate games where I'm being all badass and kicking the enemies asses and being all great and stuff, then come the cutscene..."OH NO THE BOSS CHARACTER HAS A PISTOL WHAT AM I GOING TO DO"

 

[caffeinated_wench]

I hate games where I'm being all badass and kicking the enemies asses and being all great and stuff, then come the cutscene..."OH NO THE BOSS CHARACTER HAS A PISTOL WHAT AM I GOING TO DO"

Cutscene incompetence is stupid as hell.

As much as I love Dragon Age, I get very annoyed with whenever a cutscene happens. Like... you set your characters up how you want before the fight starts. Cutscene happens, and it resets their positions to the original formation.

 

[The Fair Lady]

If you don't use the main protagonist during a boss fight in an RPG, but in the cutscene afterward they're either exhausted or look like they just kicked ass.

 

[Carlson]

I hate games where I'm being all badass and kicking the enemies asses and being all great and stuff, then come the cutscene..."OH NO THE BOSS CHARACTER HAS A PISTOL WHAT AM I GOING TO DO"

Cutscene incompetence is stupid as hell.

As much as I love Dragon Age, I get very annoyed with whenever a cutscene happens. Like... you set your characters up how you want before the fight starts. Cutscene happens, and it resets their positions to the original formation.

As well as Cutscene Hypercompetence, where a character is capable of pulling off a ton of badass moves as long as the player isn't controlling them.

One of the biggest offenders in this sense may be the SPARTANS in Halo. They've got superhuman speed, strength, and reflexes and one of them, at the age of 14, beat a whole squad of space marines into a pulp (killing one or two of them) with his bare hands and a pipe that he stole from one of them. And when the actual gameplay comes, they're slow as molasses (you don't get the ability to sprint until Halo 4) and rely on their shields, floaty jumping ability, and circle strafing while dumping a whole magazine into a single bad guy to survive.

 

[Night Terror]

losing

 

[Smokedaddy]

What pisses me off the most are "guess what I'm thinking" situations. It is apparently vitally important sometimes for ephemera like plot and logic to take a distant backseat so you can admire the oh-so-clever designer's mind.

A (related) close second prize goes to places where it's impossible to succeed on skill and experience alone. You're given no clues and are simply required to die a few times before figuring out that "ahh, what I have to do is turn around backwards and shoot twice quickly just as the level opens" or whatever. (I say "related," because you are filled with respect for the designer's cleverness after you finally get through it.)

 

[Watcher]

What pisses me off the most are "guess what I'm thinking" situations. It is apparently vitally important sometimes for ephemera like plot and logic to take a distant backseat so you can admire the oh-so-clever designer's mind.

A (related) close second prize goes to places where it's impossible to succeed on skill and experience alone. You're given no clues and are simply required to die a few times before figuring out that "ahh, what I have to do is turn around backwards and shoot twice quickly just as the level opens" or whatever. (I say "related," because you are filled with respect for the designer's cleverness after you finally get through it.)

Do you have any specific examples?

 

[Giovanni]

Skyrim. Dragons.

Early in the game, they murder me.
Later in the game, they go down so easily that the epic feeling of slaying one goes away.

Then they realize that there's a human player controlling the Dovahkiin and begin to target my favorite NPCs to deal me emotional damage. Damn it, Ancient Dragons, nobody kills Sven but me!

 

[Watcher]

Skyrim. Dragons.

Early in the game, they murder me.
Later in the game, they go down so easily that the epic feeling of slaying one goes away.

Then they realize that there's a human player controlling the Dovahkiin and begin to target my favorite NPCs to deal me emotional damage. Damn it, Ancient Dragons, nobody kills Sven but me!

Yeah Dragons were a pretty bad decision in my opinion that Bethesda implemented.

Prior to Skyrim Bethesda has strayed toward more original thinking with their games. There weren't any dwarves, elves were divided into subclasses all with their own different cultures and racism, there was a lot of moral ambiguity and "Gods" were like traditional gods and "princes" were more like supernatural beings.

Then Skyrim came out and they pulled out one of the oldest fantasy tropes ever created, Dragons. Made them so pitifully stupid that rather than use their wings and fire on a constant basis, they land very frequently just so the player can kill them quicker.