Not THIS again...

[Yukari]

I'm sure that we all have some feature, mechanic, or generally something in video games that we just hate, but appears in just about ever video game we play, or at least it feels that way. Whether it be Loading screens, ice physics, or water levels. What is that thing for you?

For me it's two of the things I mentioned: Loading Screens and Ice Physics. Loadign screens are almost always much longer then they should be and can easily be minimized by simple programming tricks. And Ice physics are annoying, especially since most of the time the enemies are unaffected.

 

[Deja Vu]

I'm sure everyone is thinking it, but I'll just say it. Invisible walls in free-roam games. If we can't go there, why have you put it in the game? I understand when you can't climb certain areas because of steepness (Skyrim) but it irks me when you can't outright access an area.

 

[Spinosaurus]

OP, you're crazy.

Ice physics can be fun as hell.

As far as Nintendo goes, anyway.

 

[Yukari]

OP, you're crazy.

Ice physics can be fun as hell.

As far as Nintendo goes, anyway.

For clarity: I was talking about that sliding effect when you move on Ice.

 

[Alkaiser]

I love ice physics in Kirby and Super Mario, the control is incredible fun! Yes, it is kind of difficult to move, but to me that's fun.

But I hate long loading screens and also scripted gameplay. You know, when the game tells you to don a thing and you can't do anything else, like in modern action games where scripted sections are almost interactive movies where you can only shoot the guy the game says you, jump where the game says to, etc. And if you try otherwise there are invisible walls or the controls just don't seem to work.

Oh, algo I hate where a game has a world with secrets, caves and others... But you can't explore them until the game says you to. Ejem, Bravely Default. To me there is no different in that and a hallway.

 

[Dustmop]

Loading screens don't usually bother me. Unless it's like Dead Rising 2, where every door has an unnecessary and painful 20-minutes-long loading screen.

Water levels. I'm biased because aquaphobia, but even beyond that.. the controls are usually terrible, the camera is almost always bad, you're lucky if the water is actually clear enough to see what the hell you're doing, and there's typically some form of air meter that inhibits exploration and makes it more frustrating when you get stuck on geometry because the camera is bad. Oops, you drowned again!

Escort missions. Seriously. Who doesn't groan every time one of them pops up? Especially companions/escorts with really terrible AI. Just fast traveled here and.. Arcade, where are you going. WHERE ARE YOU GOING [Arcade has died]

And, it's already been mentioned, but invisible walls or otherwise not being allowed to explore an area that is clearly right there. Right in front of you. I can see it. Why can't we go there?

 

[Yukari]

And, it's already been mentioned, but invisible walls or otherwise not being allowed to explore an area that is clearly right there. Right in front of you. I can see it. Why can't we go there?

Because it was locked off so that you can buy it in a DLC. Available now for only $9.99!

 

[Altairis]

Escort missions. Seriously. Who doesn't groan every time one of them pops up? Especially companions/escorts with really terrible AI. Just fast traveled here and.. Arcade, where are you going. WHERE ARE YOU GOING [Arcade has died]

THIS. Especially when your escort has a mind of their own and you have to chase after them while simultaneously keeping enemies away from them. If they are following right behind you or you can tell them to stay put somewhere away from danger, then I guess it's a little better.

 

[Seth Rollins]

^ THIS. (especially in the hardest mode)

GAH and I hate it when they are actually weak and wont do anything useful for you >.> kinda makes you want to break your console/hand held console.

 

[TY]

turret sections at the start of the game... they just are stupid and should be forbidden...

 

[Megan]

I really don't like how a lot of games seem to rip you out of the story and force you to do some stupid mechanic button actions (especially QTEs and Button-Mashing)

QTEs
Having to focus on the game is one thing, but having to concentrate to push the button is another thing. It's annoying if you have to solve them during gameplay section and then there's these guys who think: "You know what? This cutscene is boring. Let's put in some QTEs to give them some gameplay and if they fail, they have to watch the whole cutscene from the beginning again!"

Button-Mashing-Sections
Maybe it's just because I'm terrible at them, but I really don't like them. They made me stop playing Southpark: The Stick of Truth (even though it was a relatvely good game up to this point). I simply can't imagine mechanically pushing the same button over and over again being fun.

Forced tutorials
I like tutorials that you don't notice, because they are implemented so well into the game that you don't see them as tutorials. A lot of modern tutorials tend to flood you with lots of text and especially if I play a game a second time it gets really annoying being foced to push the buttons the game wants me to push and do nothing else. Most of the time I get like: "Yeah, I get it, can we simply skip this stuff and go on with the program?"

 

[Sonata]

Water levels, glitching, loading screens, DLC.

 

[Pepperton]

Forced tutorials are a pain, especially in games that are a sequel - obviously, there are going to be a lot of players who went through the first of the series and don't need to be taught how to do things a second time. Doesn't mean take the tutorial out completely, but definitely make it optional. Other than that, Sonic games always had the longest loading times, which was super frustrating :[

 

[Lusus]

Grinding, not really a game feature, but in most RPG games it's required at some point or another. And even in non RPG games like Megaman Zero, there is this system that you need to grind for if you want to have an easier time playing the game(in Megaman Zero you have to level up your sword and buster like 4 times before you can actually use the elemental chips that are weaknesses to most bosses, you level them up by killing enemies, over and over again).

Forced tutorials are annoying, especially if they are lengthy and you already played the game.

Random encounters can be a pain too, i can understand it in most RPG games, but i hate sections when you have to go to point A to point B, then back to point A, then to point C and back to A and all of them have random encounters in them. Megaman Battle Network series is a very big example of that.

 

[Legobricks]

One thing I hate about RTS games is how one can never build a fortified base with walls and turrets and everything without it getting attacked mid-construction. That or it just gets flattened by an end-game army anyway because static defences are far more useless than they should be. I remember having this fortress world in Imperium Galactica 2 packed with high-level ground-to-space weapons and planetary shields, and it all got destroyed by an arguably modest fleet. Disappointing.

There are probably a lot more things I could talk about, but this is all that came to mind for now.

 

[Hiatus]

This is actually pretty specific and doesn't focus towards any video game genre in general, but personally, I have a strong dislike for Blue Shells from Mario Kart series. Whenever you're leading a race, you're always guaranteed to get struck with them by an opponent, and what frustrates me is that it always lands on you successfully and there's no way for you to dodge. When you are hit, you stay stuck in the same, exact place for a couple of seconds, allowing others to pass through or at least get more near. Alongside, I'm also not such a huge fan of Red Shells; every time you're locked onto by one, you will get attacked.

In Call of Duty, it could be sort of annoying when others use rocket-launchers. These weapons shoot bombs toward you, and whenever they touch surface, they would explode and one way or another, have you killed. They could even hurt you on impact. It might be fun to use them yourself, but when you're going up against them, it's actually not, haha.

 

[Lusus]

I hate the water in most games, especially in Classic Sonic and Megaman.
In Sonic you drown if you stay in it for too long(obviously), but your jumps are barely jumps at all, and you move really slowly too(or the framerate rapidly dropped).
In Megaman series games, the water makes you jump super high, most water levels have celling spikes on them, which are insta kill, and you also move slowly in some games while in water, so yeah.

 

[Heir]

Leaps of faith. I have bad trust issues with video games, and I can never work up the nerve to make those jumps.

 

[SmashBrony]

One thing that bugs me is when you see a NPC that has all sorts of awesome moves, but when
they become playable, you either don't get to use those moves or they are SERIOUSLY down-graded...

A example is Zero from Mega Man X.
You see him do these awesome moves, like shooting multiple gigantic shockwaves from his Z-Saber (Mega Man X5)
or punching the ground, causing a bunch of rocks to shoot up sky-high. (Mega Man X2)
But whenever he's playable, you don't get to do those moves...
Heck, in Mega Man X3, X uses the Z-Saber better than Zero does!

Although, Zero does have some cool moves that can be used when he's playable,
like on Mega Man Xtreme 2, he gets a move called Earth Gusher where he punches the ground, causing a
screen-wide wave of destruction to appear. Very useful for clearing the screen of enemies & putting the hurt on specific bosses.

 

[Morkula]

Random encounters have no place in modern game design. There have been much better ways of encountering enemies over the years, some even building upon the random encounter concept (such as XIII-2), and having zero control over when you run across a weak Lv2 mob every two steps is just unbearable to me now. Pokemon is the sole exception to the random encounter rule, and even then caves are ugggghhhh.

Agreed with water and ice levels, and escort missions, for reasons already mentioned above.

And another one that hasn't been mentioned: lives. Nintendo is especially guilty of this. Lives are a relic of arcade machines, designed to make you pay more to get more tries. In home platform game design, especially with checkpoints, saving, and other non-arcade design elements, lives serve no purpose and are just a nuisance at best. The only types of games where lives should still be acceptable is in score-attack games and modes, such as Geometry Wars, Super Stardust, etc.