Bad items in video games >:(

[JJ Styles]

I will be using Borderlands (1 and 2) as my example games for this topic.

So i remember playing countless hours of both Borderlands 1 and 2, remembering all those hours endlessly searching for some guns, class mods, and other forms of loot. For Borderlands 1, it's so easy for me to say that this game had its fair share of really powerful loot such as the Hellfire SMG, the Volcano Sniper Rifle, the Defiler Revolver, the Ajax Spear Combat Rifle, the Hammer Shotgun, the Nemesis Repeater Pistol (basically almost all of the Pearlescent Rarity Weapons) among many others. For Borderlands 2, the game also had its fair share of very powerful and satisfying weapons and items such as the Interfacer Shotgun, Conference Call, the Unkempt Herald, the Norfleet Rocket Launcher, the Lyuda Sniper Rifle, the Sandhawk SMG, the Bladed Tattler, the Pimpernell Sniper, the Bekah Assault Rifle, the Fastball Grenade, The Bee Shield, the Sham, the Rough Rider, among others. But there is one thing that Borderlands 2 did better than Borderlands 1..

And that was PISSING ME OFF with some god awful items.

Oh yeah. Borderlands 2 had its fair share of really god awful items that has became a popular topic among the playerbase to the point that there are several youtube channels and videos out there dedicated on discussing how bad some of Borderlands 2's items are. Its no secret that guns and items such as the Logan's Gun, the Dahlminator, the Madhous, the Retcher, Sir Hammerlock's Elephant Gun, The Seeker, the Bunny, The Rolling Thunder, The Boom Puppy, The Devastator, the Midnight Star, the Landscaper (UGHUGHUHGUGHUG) and it even extends to the very rare (rarer than Legendary) Pearlescent Rarity Weapons such as the Tunguska, the Storm (UGH!), the Wanderlust (UGHHHH!!!), and the Bearcat to name a few, are just plain terrible. Many of these bad items mentioned are RARER AND HARDER TO ACQUIRE than most of the world drops you can get, and sadly, more common world drops out perform these pieces of ***k, and has left quite a really awful taste in my mouth as i played Borderlands 2 from beginning to the end game.

Basically, in many video games, especially in loot based ones, Bad items are going to exist. You spend countless hours completing a bunch of quests for some quest rewards, you explore every nook and cranny for something to gear up your character, you encounter a particular foe that can be quite a challenging beast to conquer, and you're doing all of that so you can earn something that is far superior than what you already have. You simply want to collect some very powerful or every exotic loot for your character (or some other character you have) to use or maybe to offer to some friends and colleagues. You spend those countless hours playing, looting, and exploring, only for you to earn an item that's basically piles of junk.

Simply put, its no secret that there exist items that are a piece of ***t!

So what are BAD items? Bad items can go for a lot of things but a common characteristic with bad items in PRETTY MUCH EVERY VIDEO GAME has something to do with having very bad (and lazy) gameplay design. The item is bad because its execution and implementation is so poorly done that it ruins the experience for the player. An item is bad because it deliberately harms the player's experience. An item is bad because it pales in comparison with the many other items within the game, making it a waste. An item is bad simply because it is impractical and overly gimmicky. Many of these bad items ruin the player experience because of a horrible combination of impracticality, poorly executed gimmicks, poor implementation and lack of proper playtesting. In many cases, BAD items exists because their designers failed to playtest their design and said studio decided to go with them anyway. Basically these are the standards of BADNESS that I'm going at.

So, what is your overall opinion regarding BAD video game items. Should they ever exist within the game as a means of either misleading players or simply being there to annoy players? Should the people responsible for bad items be smited upon by the Touch of God? Do you enjoy having bad items in video games? Or do you have something to talk about regarding bad video game items.

I used Borderlands as an example because Borderlands 2 is rather notorious for having a lot of bad guns and items that make you wonder why were they even there in the first place. There's a ton of games out there that have their fair share of god-awful unique, legendary, and other rare items that make you and I wanna hurl and wonder what the hell where they thinking.

 

[El Héroe Oscuro]

I think even if "bad" items were removed from games - such as with certain guns (classes) - people would still find a way to make another item the "new bad" item for the sake of comparing and such. Personally, I think bad items in games are a good thing because 1.) it doesn't allow the game to automatically award you with something good and 2.) can provide a challenge for gamers if they want to self impose one on themselves by using them.

 

[Somewhere_]

Bad items increase the value of good items because they reduce the frequency of the bad items and you must use the bad items to get the good items. As a result, the good items are more rare and difficult to obtain, thus making them more valuable.

While its never fun when RNG only gives you bad items or when you only find the bad items, but it really just makes the reward all that much greater. And in the process you increase your own skills and capabilities by forcing yourself to compensate for reduced power and stats.

However, this does not mean I want more bad items. I just think there should be a proper balance that keeps the good items valuable and desirable. And bad items should almost never be rare because that is just pointless at a developer's point of view and frustrating at a gamer's point of view.

 

[Mister Torgue]

LOOTEXPLOSIONS!?! Talk about LOOTSPLOSIONS! and Bordersalt

I remember my first time killing Hyperious solo in OP8 and the first thing i get from him was the Retcher, thinking that it was going to be a pretty cool gun. I WANTED MY Shock NORFLEET but i got something as a compensation instead and turns out that the Retcher, despite being a cool looking gun is just a horrible piece of gunk that makes me want to produce needlessly large amounts of RETCHING. YUUUUUCK!

To explain how bad the Retcher is, basically take everything BAD about E-Tech Shotguns in Borderlands 2, and multiply that by a hundred. Let's see.. BAD to almost nonexistent Critical hit modifiers, projectiles slower than my grandmother on a wheelchair, ridiculous amounts of ammo consumption, asinine range limit, among many other flaws. Now digest all of that, and mix it in a bowl of diseased gummy bears and you get the Retcher. Heck, the flavor text of the weapon perfectly describes it. "EWWW!"

It could take Xin and I years for this subforum to describe how asinine some of the most useless and horribly designed weapons and items in Borderlands 2 are.

I think bad items in games are a good thing because 1.) it doesn't allow the game to automatically award you with something good and 2.) can provide a challenge for gamers if they want to self impose one on themselves by using them.

Regarding loot based games, isn't it the reason why you have items of different rarities to go by before you earn your powerful loot? Hell the big issue really is that in many games (BL2 as a big example), Green or Common Rarity loot is much better than most of the HORRIBAD items that topic poster has mentioned. The only reason why Green items are not strong because of stats. Obviously Purple or Very Rare and High quality non uniques are WAY BETTER than those piles of f**k guns and items Xin mentioned.

A;so, The thing is that Bad items should still have some redeemable things within them to make them actually fun to use for those self-imposed challenges.

For example, going back to BL2 once again, I'll cite one example of a BAD item that's actually servicable for self-imposed challenges. The Bane SMG. It is is often regarded as one of the more frustrating weapons to use for all of the right reasons. Obnoxious sound effects that CANNOT BE MUTED even if one actually mutes the in-game audio, and a massive movement speed penality which is actually the worst penalty it has. While its a bad and frustrating gun to use, at least it actually has the power to ACTUALLY DEAL Damage. The Bane actually works when its used as intended. Shoot something till it does. Hell, people myself included, have killed Raid Bosses with this thing such as Terramorphous, Pyro Pete, and Hyperious, all of which are actually pretty easy Raid Bosses but still... The Bane while its "BAD" it still has damage, and its actually on par with many of the other Hyperion SMGs in the game. Its only ruined by a silly gimmick but considering the context of the quest, and it being part of BL2's Humor, its a smart thing to add. Its a Cursed Gun that has a lot of power on it.

Now compare the Bane, an actually workable BAD item to something akin to.... The Tunguska, the Pearlescent Rarity rocket Launcher that's supposedly RARER than the Norfleet (BL2's God Tier Launcher) and can only drop in Ultimate Vault Hunter mode and beyond (The Norfleet can drop in all difficulties), so the effort required to earn this thing is already quite steep to casual players. Now unlike the Bane which is an actually damaging SMG, thus a bad weapon that is still comparable to its class, lets inspect the Tunguska shall we? So what do we get with the RAREST LAUNCHER in said game? A Rocket Launcher that doesn't deal the same level of damage as that of the Norfleet (Far from it), almost the same level of damage as that of a Purple Rarity Torgue Launcher, and a gimmick that could have been cool. The projectile, instead of just flying to the intended target, it flies upward to the sky and deals a blast with a massive radius. The problem with that, and how RL's work in BL2 in general is that Launcher blasts will harm the player. And given how little health players have compared the rocket's explosion damage, the player will get killed, and the blast radius is so massive that it can kill the player in distances further than usual. Speaking of the damage, it isn't even that good either. People can do better with a Badaboom, a Purple rarity Torgue Launcher, hell even Bandit Launchers with much more practicality. So what do we get with the RAREST Launcher in the game? an Impractical piece of junk that should have been play tested. The concept of a Launcher with a massively epic blast radius, kinda like a Reverse Nukem (which is miles more practical than the Tunguska is, and is LESS RARER), is cool, but the execution of the item is just... yuuck. How was it allowed? Didn't they play-test that before releasing the weapon in the UVHM Pack 1 DLC? Hell did they even test any of the Generation 1 Pearlesecent weapons before releasing it? At least the Butcher, which is FAR from being a bad item, was a decent thing which came with the first generation of UVHM exclusive Pearlescents. There is nothing redeemable with the Tunguska. I was quite unforunate to have this as one of my first OP8 loot drops from an encounter with a Tubby, and again, RARER than a Norfleet.

And that's just one bad item with NO REDEEMABLE QUALITIES. I'd talk about the HORRIBLE Wanderlust which makes the Dahlminator (horrible gun as well) look viable, but I think i made a good point.

It makes me wonder why those developers in Gearbox was smoking and drinking when they designed many of the weapons in BL2 that ended up being bad. Its one thing to add mediocre but SERVICEABLE items, or overrly gimmicky items that are still somewhat usable (Bane = gimmicky but can still kill things), but to add in weapons and items that are horribly implemented because of whatever issues is still no excuse to defend lazy and undisciplined game design.

And that's just BL2.. Oh boy, don't get me started on the numerous other loot based games that me and the boys played.

Now for my 2nd point, its really annoying for ANYONE even for a casual player to get an item that's bad especially when the effort required to get them is overly steep (UVHM only, low drop rates, no defined loot sources), like the 1st Generation of BL2's Pearls. Not mediocre, but BAD. Like Dahlminator, Tunguska, Wanderlust, and Bearcat levels of bad. Hell the 1st Generation Pearls might even do better in Normal or even THVM but really even the White Rarity weapons like the White Dahl Repeater are far more servicable than those heaps of trash.

At least my company (TORGUE) made the Unkempt Herald though.

 

[JJ Styles]

LOOTEXPLOSIONS!?! Talk about LOOTSPLOSIONS! and Bordersalt

It could take Xin and I years for this subforum to describe how asinine some of the most useless and horribly designed weapons

At least my company (TORGUE) made the Unkempt Herald though.

Your company made the Land Scaper which makes the tunguska and the bearcat feel viable so its not like you get a free pass.

Oh the land scaper. Its funny how i never sided with the hodunks to earn that piece of crud as a quest reward. And if i were to explain how bad the land scaper is, let me just say first that green rarity hell even white rarity torgue shotguns are more useful.

Hell im in the mood. Theres also the devastator, a torgue hand gun thats supposed to be the seraph sister weapon of the god tier unkempt herald and is a supposed callout to duke nukem. Not to forget it has a badass name! But the devastator, holy duck. Hey guys, How would anyone like to use a gun thats so bad that its projectiles come out from behind the gun rather than from the barrel which gives the gun a delayed firing behavior. Also add in poor accuracy and inferior damage too. Theres no reason something that bad should exist. As far as self imposed chaplenges are concerned, the only self imposed challenge for the devastator is how long would it take for one to sell that pile of piss or kill himself or herself while journeying like a lunatic on crack

Also id like to point out that good items != overpowered. There are many good items in games that arent walking cheat engines. They should just feel good to use without harming the experience and should at least have a reason to exist even as what id like to call niche gear.

Id like to hear other peoples thoughts on examples of bad items in other video games too ya know.

 

[Urist McHemlock]

The Klobb. Might as well be the de facto weapon of Stormtroopers.

 

[Yukari]

The Grenades in Fallout 1 and 2.

They are rare, generally ineffective, and if you put any points "Throwing" you have to be insane because there are like 50 other skills that are far more useful than it. And if you didn't throw it with a decent level of skill the grenade would blow up in your face.

 

[JJ Styles]

I like to mention how horrible the acid soaker is from fallout 4. What a boatload of Asse. Admittedly the item has a pretty cool concept, a "gun" that fires corrosive blobs at a target dealing damage over time and reducing the enemy's damage resistance by an amount which is akin to that of borderlands. However, the item is ruined by its ammunition. The materials needed to make one unit worth of acid concentrate is some of the most insanely demanding material requirements in the game - 20 acid, 2 adhesive, 8 glass for ONE unit of acid concentrate. Acid and adhesive are already quite rare and it could take hours to farm for all of that just to crate a couple hundred units. Its so impractical just to use a "gun" that is not even designed to deal some stopping power.

So already the acid soaker is somewhat time consuming to get locked and loaded. But ince someone has around a thousand units of acid, is the thing even worth the time? For starters, the acid soaker isnt buffed or affected by any of the perks except for Lone wanderer, the range is literally piss poor as if taking a literal piss has far more effective damage range, and the effects while somewhat interesting is drowned out by how unusable the weapon is. Its a shame.

Its things like this that make me wonder if the team behind the Nuka World dlc was literally on acid when they designed the acid soaker. It makes me and you wonder why they waste so many hours making an item that doesn't feel good even as a novelty mediocre item, its such a wonder why there is a lack of decent items in the nuka cade. Hell fallout new vegas' dlc had a dair share of not so good items but at least they were servicable and heck new vegas' dlc offered so many good weapons and items to use.

Actually new vegas doesnt get a free pass either since it still has its fair share of ewww. I wonr even rag on the rolling pin or even the bb guns because at least they are fun joke weapons. But the silenced .22 pistol? That thing is basically a tube super glued on a grip and a trigger. The weapon doesnt even sound right, the damage is non existent even with a sneak attack (unless you have absurd amounts of guns skill but rhen again youd be using actual firearms instead) but even then, back stabbing people with a walking cane is far more damaging and practical for holdout sneak attacks.

 

[Degurchaff]

I would say the broadsword from Dark Souls 3 is a rather awful weapon Since it tricks you into believing that it's a good weapon

It's alright in early game but there's much other weapons you can find later on that will surpass the broadsword.

 

[JJ Styles]

I felt that ive been a little too barbaric with any of the bad items that ive mentioned so as a more positive change of pace, ill iterate some bad items, explain why they are bad and make a suggestion to improve on them.

The Pistol from Doom 2016: oh look a weapon from a not loot based game for once!
Yep. I went there. One of the doom guy's weapons is a blaster uac pistol and it serves as the basic pea shooter for the player to use. While it has infinite ammo and even a nifty secondary fire in form of a charged shot, the weapon is still a rather poor item mainly since it serves no other purpose than being the pea shooter. The damage it deals and with its capped fire rate (aka not firing as fast as you can pull the trigger) is just too poor against pretty much every other enemy save for zombies and imps. It serves no other purpose than a desperation weapon. An easy improvement to the 2016 pistol is to give it an uncapped firing rate aka making it fire as fast as you can pull the trigger so that the weapon actually feels better to use when desperate measures are called. It would also make the thing actually a bit more fun to use. Sure there have been some players who have done their ultra nightmare pistol only no grenades runs of the game but really why leave the pea shooter behind as an unfun weapon to use when the rest of the doom guy's weaponry are extremely well done.

Non unique Assault rifles in general in borderlands 2:
This is a rather sad tale. Back from borderlands 1, the old counterparts of the assault rifles known as the combat rifles were some of the better weapons for the players to use since most of them had high fire rate and decent damage per hit. In fact, the ogre which is a legendary combat rifle in bl1 was a legendary combat rifle done right - it was rare but it was extremely well done with decent damage, high fire rate, an explosive property that vastly improved the dps and given all of that it just made the player feel powerful when it was wielded. Fast foreard to bl2, the combat rifles were rehashed into assault rifles which i relember at first being some of the weapons that i wanted to loot first. Heck one of the loading screens even tell it straight that "assault rifles have decent damage and are effective at medium to long range". Sadly like a Randy Pitchford promotional speech, it was a lie. Assault rifles in bl2 were underwhelmingly effective thanks to their statistically inferior damage numbers compared to smgs and pistols. To add some salt to the wounds, ARs have SMALLER critical hit modifiers (1.6x vs the usual 2.0x that pistols and smgs usually have) than all other weapons excluding e-tech weapons. Its a shame since assault rifles are some of the weapons that players would want to use first. Sadly this makes most of the assault rifles in bl2 just underwheling save for a few exempliaries like the bekah, hail, hammer buster, and the jakobs gatling gun. An easy easy easy fix for bl2s assault rifles was to simply bump up the base damages of almost all ARs across the board and also fixing that backwards butte crit modifier to the usual 2.0x that all the other guns have. This would make the entire weapon class to actually be desireble even for the non unique variants.

Bolt Action Rifles! F@@kn bolt action rifles in your fps+rpg esque games:
I just realized that bolt action rifles are some of the worst weapon species ever especially in a video game.
How would you like your dps? Slow firing rate and a cycling time that takes seconds before you can fire again? Or how about suddenly missing a shot or downright failing the killshot because of enemy health? Enter fallout new vegas and varmint rifles which exemplify why bolt action rifles can be pretty awful. Hmm low damage per hit, very slow fire rate? Yep. And varmint rifles arent even your typical anti materiel rifles with very high base damage to take advantage of sneak attack multipliers. Its hard to be civil against varmint rifles but at least most of the enemy humans in new vegas carry them as well and are subject to their weaknesses too. Fonv could have had a much more hellish early game if the enemy convicts faced very early in the game already had lever action and even service rifles on hand.

 

[Yukari]

I would say the broadsword from Dark Souls 3 is a rather awful weapon Since it tricks you into believing that it's a good weapon

It's alright in early game but there's much other weapons you can find later on that will surpass the broadsword.

The Scimitar is a similar case in Dark Souls 1. The Falchion is better than it in basically every way and you can easily get it from Skeletons at Firelink Shrine.

 

[Fawful_X]

The Sharpened Volcano Fragment in TF2.

Oh nice, it's a weapon that inflicts afterburn on other players, for the fair tradeoff of reduced melee damage!... On the class that has a longer-ranged weapon that already inflicts afterburn as its primary... and may have a weapon that ALSO inflicts afterburn for the secondary...

I can't see why anyone would use it over even the Fire Axe, the sole weapon currently in the game with a direct upgrade, unless they're playing DeGroot Keep or some community map. Here's hoping the Pyro update will fix this useless trash.