"That's stupid!"

[Cello]

It is, i'm telling you!

What are some things you hate that frequently make their way into games?
Be it missions, gameplay mechanics, anything you hate seeing done over and over in games, this is the thread to let it all out in.

I don't have time to make a big list (i'll probably add more later), but i'll go ahead and kick off the thread with ESCORT MISSIONS.

I HATE ESCORT MISSIONS WITH A PASSION.

[Captain Fabio]

Escort missions make me want to rip my eyes out. I wouldn't mind it too much, but your escort normally has the IQ of a pea and runs towards danger, instead of away from it.

On thing I am not the biggest fan of is moral choice systems that don't give you much of a choice. Like you have to be either MAJORLY EVIL or AMAZINGLY good to get anything good. Why can't they be a bit like infamous which actually had a pretty good one... even though you have to be at the extremes to get the good moves, it was a step in the right direction.

[560cool.]

Oh God, probably the worst escort IQ. EVER !! Was in the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Games. First off, the escort was always at Lv. 1. Yep, be it an S+ or a D mission, the escort was Lv. 1. And usually a Pidgey or something along those lines. Not to mention its AI...

And also, underwater levels. 2 prime examples : OoT's Water Temple (sure we can all agree on this T_T) and Super Mario Bros.' water levels (I really hate these ; they just kill the pacing for me).

[Nuke]

Escort missions are quite annoying. I remember a stupidly difficult one on Spartan Total Warrior on ps2.

The most stupid thing for me is on ace attorney when a logical piece of evidence that could be used to advance to story is disregarded for a nonsensical one that eventually involves you putting every piece of evidence on every statement just to continue.

[Archenoth]

I always hated the obligatory deus ex machinimas that would occur in some game series. Where the impossible happens because of some higher being. *sigh*
Unfortunately Pokemon is a little bit notorious for that.

Also, puzzles are nice, but stop shoving arbitrary hints at me all the time!

Originally Posted by 560cool.

And also, underwater levels. 2 prime examples : OoT's Water Temple (sure we can all agree on this T_T) and Super Mario Bros.' water levels (I really hate these ; they just kill the pacing for me).

Not me... I actually loved the Water Temple and water levels in general. :V

[Wings Don't Cry]

Like everyone else I hate escort missions especially in the PMD games where I have to go through like a 99F 3 Star rank dungeon where the Lvl 1 Caterpie thinks it's strong enough to take down a lvl 60 Metagross.

This next thing isn't as common in games as escort missions but they're probably just as bad due to their unpredictability, enemies that have instant death attacks that target your whole party. It's even worse if they don't do anything of the sort until you've taken down a good chunk their health and then they spring it on you out of nowhere forcing a game over on you and making you re-watch and extremely long cut scene because skipping cut scenes had not been invented back then. Final Fantasy fans will know what I'm talking about.

My last problem might not be that big a deal to some people but forced tutorials are not fun at all, I much prefer games where there's a tutorial section in the menu if I ever get stuck instead of forcing down a big wall of text at me every time something new shows up. Honestly if a player ever needs help they should just search the menu for the help/tutorial section and if they can't do that they really shouldn't be playing video games since I don't seem to recall any game where it is actually difficult to find the menu button.

[Team Fail]

Originally Posted by Captain Fabio

Escort missions make me want to rip my eyes out. I wouldn't mind it too much, but your escort normally has the IQ of a pea and runs towards danger, instead of away from it.

True facts are spoken by this very man.

I hate escort missions, but also parts in games where you have to do a pile of difficult tasks without healing. Almost like Battle on the Big Bridge in FFV or escaping the floating continent in FFVI.

[Cello]

Seems i'm not the only one who hates escort missions. I had the Assassin's Creed series in mind mainly when I typed the original post, haha. :P
Another one is Resident Evil 4, where the vast majority of the game was spent escorting a sack of organs. Resident Evil 5 was no better, with Sheva having poor aiming and always getting into danger. I wish I could have just turned her off. D:

but also parts in games where you have to do a pile of difficult tasks without healing. Almost like Battle on the Big Bridge in FFV or escaping the floating continent in FFVI.

Oh god, this. I can't think of many situations off the top of my head, but an optional one would be the battle arena in FF7. You have to go through it as Cloud alone and you even run the risk of suffering from bad side-effects at the end of the battle with the slots.

Your post reminded me, another thing I hate is timed missions. I don't like being pressured to do things in a certain amount of time.

[Team Fail]

Originally Posted by Cello

Oh god, this. I can't think of many situations off the top of my head, but an optional one would be the battle arena in FF7. You have to go through it as Cloud alone and you even run the risk of suffering from bad side-effects at the end of the battle with the slots.

Your post reminded me, another thing I hate is timed missions. I don't like being pressured to do things in a certain amount of time.

Oh my god the Battle Arena. I hate that place so very much. And as for timed demos, in the Final Fantasy 7 Demo included with Tobal 1, instead of having the freedom of 10 minutes to escape the Mako(ro) reactor, you have three minutes. A timer is not displayed, rather every minute, it says "Three minutes remain." "Two minutes remain" and so on and so fourth. As well, you can't run from any battles you may encounter there as well, so that's a pain in the rear as well.

[G3neSESS]

i cant stand 1. timed missions 2. escort missions 3.obscure puzzles 4.puzzles in games that shouldnt have them and 5.cliche cookie cutter plot twists(please no more amnesiacs,best friends being the evil character,mysterious supposed bad guy being a good anti hero etc.

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

Escort missions. God, if they want us to protect them then running headlong into danger might not be the smartest decision in the world.

Instant kills. And in some RPG's those have MUCH higher accuracies than the OHKO moves in Pokemon games.

Giving less experience the higher in level you are. Pokemon started committing this deadly sin in 5th gen, but I've played other RPG's that have always had this system.

[THAT WONDERFUL PIXY GUY!]

Terrible aesthetic design.

There is nothing that annoys me more than bad aesthetic design. Over designed characters. A black t-shirt looks good, a blazer looks good. This, this doesn't look good. That is a cluster-frag that has no understanding of simplicity. The hair, the clothes, those pants, ridiculous, almost as if the designer made it just to stand out without questioning how stupid it looked.

Another problem is lazy design overall. Ever since CoD and Halo, there has been an overflow of "realistic" shooters and space marines wearing clunky armor. At least with Halo and CoD they were the ones that started the trends (even though they didn't make the concept, duh) so you can't really blame them. Either way it's laziness, people trying to capitalize on popular games. Generally, I hate anything that can be described as "Like x but-".

[Drakow]

Sums things up for me perfectly.

[PokeRaidenFighter350Z]

Originally Posted by Team Fail

Oh my god the Battle Arena. I hate that place so very much. And as for timed demos, in the Final Fantasy 7 Demo included with Tobal 1, instead of having the freedom of 10 minutes to escape the Mako(ro) reactor, you have three minutes. A timer is not displayed, rather every minute, it says "Three minutes remain." "Two minutes remain" and so on and so fourth. As well, you can't run from any battles you may encounter there as well, so that's a pain in the rear as well.

Timed tasks were never my favorite, they always leave me shaking badly when there's hardly time left cause I have bad nerves. The timed task I hated the most is the Boss fight at the base against this machine called BGH251F2 in FF8. This boss nearly killed me in less than 3 hits because of its beam cannon! It's bad enough that I have to face that thing twice in the whole game!

[Stingray]

Kind of echoing That Wonderful Pixy Guy...

Copying the OMG popular game at that time that is close to your own game to the point its a cheap knock off. You see this a lot in FPS's and MMORPGs these days.

For example: Battlefield 3's campaign... really? BF2/BF2142 didn't have a campaign it was just the multiplier with AI Bots instead of players and I PREFERED that. Why? because it allowed me to familiarize myself with the maps, weapons, and most of all the flying vehicles so when I got into Multiplayer I knew what was going on and how to NOT fly my jet into the ground right after take off. The Battlefield series has been and always will be a Multiplayer FPS with vehicles in it... stop trying to be like MW. (Also the unlock everything is a little retarded... what do you mean I have to unlock FLARES on my jet... kind of hard to do when I die every time anything locks on me since I can't pop flares to prevent a lock).

MMORPGS... well all the new ones seem to be like WOW with one or 2 changes. The one that pissed me off the most was Warhammer Online. I LOVED Dark Age of Camelot and WAR was suppose to be its successor, and many of the players who went to WAR were expecting that. Instead Mythic decides its safer to copy WoW for the most part and WAR ends up a crappy copy of WoW with a bit more PvP, and none of the DAoC awesomeness (and ironically still had DAoC's worse problem: terrible class balance).

Ok getting off my soap box...

[SNOR(es)LAX]

Escort missions are just a pain in the ass. The person that you are escort is just lousy like it hasn't played the game for millions of years and it still wants to try to difficult the enemy by its own.
This experience is based on the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series.

[Luck]

Originally Posted by THAT WONDERFUL PIXY GUY!

Terrible aesthetic design.

There is nothing that annoys me more than bad aesthetic design. Over designed characters. A black t-shirt looks good, a blazer looks good. This, this doesn't look good. That is a cluster-frag that has no understanding of simplicity. The hair, the clothes, those pants, ridiculous, almost as if the designer made it just to stand out without questioning how stupid it looked.

Neku could do without the spikey orange hair or the turtleneck aspect, but his design is really simple. It's just cargo pants with a sleeveless shirt(and a HUGE turtleneck). There's really nothing wrong with it, especially considering how bizarre Shibuya is supposed to be.

I agree on the bad design aspect though, Planescape: Torment succeeds too well at being ugly. The architecture of The Hive manages to be monotonous and incredibly ridiculous at the same time.

[Unknown#]

Escort missions, timed missions, overabundance of load times, I despise them all with a passion. But I loathe forced tutorials. When it comes to tutorials I think Pokemon Red/Blue should be used as the examples because while the tutorial was there, it was optional.

[Cello]

Originally Posted by Luck

Neku could do without the spikey orange hair or the turtleneck aspect, but his design is really simple. It's just cargo pants with a sleeveless shirt(and a HUGE turtleneck). There's really nothing wrong with it, especially considering how bizarre Shibuya is supposed to be.

I agree on the bad design aspect though, Planescape: Torment succeeds too well at being ugly. The architecture of The Hive manages to be monotonous and incredibly ridiculous at the same time.

Oh man, Neku doesn't even hold a flame up to the main character of Final Fantasy Tactics A2.
Picture for those who haven't seen him.

Ugh, I hate over designed characters as well.

Originally Posted by Unknown#

Escort missions, timed missions, overabundance of load times, I despise them all with a passion. But I loathe forced tutorials. When it comes to tutorials I think Pokemon Red/Blue should be used as the examples because while the tutorial was there, it was optional.

Those are some good ones, especially the tutorials. I think every game needs to make tutorials optional to be honest.

[AWsquared]

I think I have to agree with everyone else that escort missons are the worse thing. They're always some person (or Pokemon in PMD) whose weak and lousy. They don't seem to contribute much to your team cause of how weak and careless they are.

Another thing I hate is a boss or leader with a repetitive attacks or tactics. For example, Elesa when she constantly uses Volt Switch to switch between her two Emolga. It got very redundant very quickly.

[Airbourne Bubblun]

I hate timed missions with a passion, doesn't matter what game it is. It makes you rush too much and you end up getting killed or so in the process.

[Jeremy]

Well sweeties, it's always been forced tutorials for me. I'm the type of person who would like to get in the game and instantly figure out what to do. If there's a tutorial, either it has to be skippable, or it's presented in a way where it doesn't assume that I have never played a game in my life. It just feels insulting.

[Mr. Magius]

Well yes, escort missions are pretty gruelling, but I haven't had too many of these missions that really make me hate when they're put into games. Escort missions are more of challenge than a pain in the arse, imo.

What I really hate is any timed missions. "Oh, a bomb's about to explode. We'll give you 2 milliseconds to run outta hurr." Of course, I'm fine when you're given a ton of time, like in the classic Super Mario games, but if you really have to squeeze your speed and perfection into the game, that really gets to me. In some missions, you have to make absolutely no mistakes. I kind of get a claustrophobic/trapped feeling whenever I face a timed mission.

Also, looooong dungeons that don't allow you to save until you complete it.

[Team Fail]

Originally Posted by PokeRaidenFighter350Z

Timed tasks were never my favorite, they always leave me shaking badly when there's hardly time left cause I have bad nerves. The timed task I hated the most is the Boss fight at the base against this machine called BGH251F2 in FF8. This boss nearly killed me in less than 3 hits because of its beam cannon! It's bad enough that I have to face that thing twice in the whole game!

...Thanks for the heads up! That's the next FF I plan to play.

Originally Posted by Jeremy

Well sweeties, it's always been forced tutorials for me. I'm the type of person who would like to get in the game and instantly figure out what to do. If there's a tutorial, either it has to be skippable, or it's presented in a way where it doesn't assume that I have never played a game in my life. It just feels insulting.

Oh gosh forced tutorials. They're bad enough in Pokemon, but I've had them in Final Fantasy when it explains menus and stuff. So annoying. >_>

[PokeRaidenFighter350Z]

Originally Posted by Mr. Magius

Also, looooong dungeons that don't allow you to save until you complete it.

That is VERY annoying! If you quicksave like in the 89th floor of a dungeon then continue from there and under some unfortunate circumstances, your game freezes or battery dies, causing a loss to your team and worse, you lose EVERYTHING you got (All items in bag, items that were held by you and/or your team and all the money you currently had on you). WHen that happened to me, I wanted to quit playing PMD. Luckily I didn't because I can always get those items back...

And @Team Fail: FF8 was always my favorite FF game ever. The only prob I had was that no matter how strong you become in level, the enemies will be around your current level. (Except the bosses I think)