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

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Where's the slider that makes Ivy's breasts bigger than her head?
There is none, but you can do some hilarious shit with props. It's not quite PSO tier where you can use them to create a character that consists entirely of boobs, but shit like that (and funnier) is possible.



Just don't take your horsecock-equipped fighter named YOUR RESISTANCE into online unless you want to eat a quick ban.
 
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Futagirl Ivy? GAME OF THE YEAR CENTURY MILLENNIUM
It's something you can do in 20 seconds once you know how the editor works.

Start with Ivy:

FutaIvy1.jpg

Use a sphere and warp it before adding a texture to match her outfit.

FutaIvy2.jpg

There you go, Ivy with suspicious crotch bulge. This is nothing as far as ridiculous shit this character editor is capable of.

Danky Kang.jpg
sonic-soul.jpg
 
That was one of the things I didn't like about Yakuza Kiwami. Eventually I was able to purchase abilities that allowed me to hurt bosses during their health regen phase, but when I fought Shimano for the first time I didn't have these and it made the fight go on forever.
That one really annoyed me because the game went out of its way to do a tutorial on how to do Kiwami actions, but what I didn't know was that you still had to purchase the damn skills. I assumed the game would just give them to you because it made such a big song-and-dance about the Kiwami actions, but no it doesn't. I spent way too long trying to do a move I didn't have the unlock for. I was able to figure it out before Shimano, but it's still bullshit.
 
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The air war was one of the two things in WW1 that's wildly romanticized (the other being Lawrence of Arabia). It's fitting for it to have a lighter mood. The Runner and Avanti Savoia are dark.

Too bad the campaign was bad overall.
And something that these games seem to be really allergic to is having you fight alongside other soldiers. In BF1, at least, but also in other Battlefield games with campaigns, it seems like you always end up in just one squad or even by yourself. They have a few setpiece scenes and then it could be any other genre but a wargame.
Your guy winding up going lonewolf just seems to be something Medal of Honor pioneered and now it's really hard to break off for some reasons.
 
There is none, but you can do some hilarious shit with props. It's not quite PSO tier where you can use them to create a character that consists entirely of boobs, but shit like that (and funnier) is possible.



Just don't take your horsecock-equipped fighter named YOUR RESISTANCE into online unless you want to eat a quick ban.

It's something you can do in 20 seconds once you know how the editor works.

Start with Ivy:

View attachment 2278435

Use a sphere and warp it before adding a texture to match her outfit.

View attachment 2278436

There you go, Ivy with suspicious crotch bulge. This is nothing as far as ridiculous shit this character editor is capable of.

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View attachment 2278447
These are fantastic. Every character creator should let you shitpost this hard
 
Vehicle sub-missions in any 3D GTA. Specifically, Taxi and Paramedic.

To explain further, Paramedic is a sub-mission you do where you pick up patients all around the city and bring them to the hospital in an ambulance, advancing to the next level once all patients are done. Taxi is where you find fares and take them to their destination - rinse and repeat.

What makes these sub-missions absolutely insufferable when going for 100% is that they're incredibly fucking repetitive.

In each level of Paramedic after Level 1, a patient is added. You have to complete Level 12 to beat it, so that's 12 patients in total. Unfortunately, your ambulance only has three seats. More unfortunately, absolutely nothing else is changed other than more patients. It's fucking mind-numbing, especially in earlier titles.

Taxi is even worse. To complete Taxi, you have to drop off 100 fucking fares. Rockstar, thankfully, dropped the goal to just 50 in SA, but it still didn't change just how suicide-inducing it is. And as you can already tell, there is no variation either here. No special events, no random encounters - nothing. Just keep on driving.

I still pray for the day someone finds a way to cheese these for the entire Trilogy. You can already cheese Paramedic in SA by going to a smaller town, as well as Taxi in III by being able to do the mission in any vehicle. I haven't heard of any cheese strats for VC, though.

Thank God these aren't a thing in the newer releases. It took Rockstar roughly 8 years to finally realize these sub-missions are shit.
These sub-missions were always one of my favorite parts of VC and SA.

Here's a tip: if an optional side mission in a video game makes you feel suicidal, don't play them. There's nothing in the game requiring you to complete them.
 
If you don't like doing the tasks that are required for 100% completion then why are you going for 100% completion? Sounds to me like you'd be better off spending your time differently.
Everything else is fine. Collectibles and stunt jumps are fine because I can go at them at my own pace. Missions are fine for obvious reasons. Vigilante and Firefighter are fine because they're engaging and quick and easy respectively. It's just that Taxi and Paramedic missions are the worst of the bunch because I have to turn my brain off everytime I do them.

Just because I don't like doing one unejoyable thing doesn't mean I don't want to do everything else that's enjoyable.
 
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Everything else is fine. Collectibles and stunt jumps are fine because I can go at them at my own pace. Missions are fine for obvious reasons. Vigilante and Firefighter are fine because they're engaging and quick and easy respectively. It's just that Taxi and Paramedic missions are the worst of the bunch because I have to turn my brain off everytime I do them.

Just because I don't like doing one unejoyable thing doesn't mean I don't want to do everything else that's enjoyable.
Fine, but I don't agree that including a completely optional side mission that might not appeal to everybody is "bad game design" just because you like seeing arbitrary numbers in the stat screen.

I 100%'d both games because I liked all the side missions and eventually the number incremented to 100. Had there been a side mission I didn't like I just wouldn't have played it. It'd be different if progressing through the main story required everybody to complete them, but that's not the case, because it's not a badly designed game. All there is is a number that tells you you've completed them. Aim for 98% or whatever and save yourself the trouble if you don't like doing them.
 
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100% completion.
100% completed all the games, and I still receive a low "criminal rating". The best I ever got in 3 was Capo. Vice City, Hitman. San Andreas, Soldier. (In other words, my status went down over time. That is some bullshit.)

It's easier to use a hex editor on your save file than spend the rest of your natural life blowing up choppers.

I think we were naïve to assume that developers know what they're doing. Some trophies are unattainable; just as some difficulty settings are unbeatable.
 
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Speaking of which, how's this for terrible game design. Mathematically impossible, obviously.

View attachment 2380396


In Gran Turismo 2 there was a bug in the early US and Japanese versions that stopped you getting 100%, and a bug in the European one that allowed you to get more than 100%. They would rename the Opal cars to Vauxhalls for the UK market, which was accurate, but didn't account for how it would affect the completion percentages as the game thinks they're different cars.
 
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