Hated Design Decisions

[Rayfer]

   The ongoing Xcom 2 thread brought up issues regarding difficulty and turn limits. Leaving AI out of the conversation...what are your 3 most hated designer's intentional game design decisions?  My three are:

Turn limits (i.e. Xcom 2)
Save Points rather than save anywhere (i.e. some shooters)
Locked battles (i.e. original Scourge of War: Gettysburg)

[Grim.Reaper]

- Game Locks (if I buy the darn game, I should be able to play the entire game from the start)
- Multiplayer Only Games (number of games would like to play, but only are multiplayer)
- Restricted End Games (game ends after a pre-determined ending/time---want flexibility to write my own history without constraints)

Probably more...but will stop after the requested three :)

How long before the inclusion of DRM be mentioned:)

[mirth]

Resource collecting. Mass Effect 2 turned my uber hero and elite crew into friggin space miners. We have the resources of the entire Earth Alliance at our disposal, can't we just buy the damned palladium?!

[sandman2575]

Hex-based maps  -- Plenty of hex-based wargames I love -- Grigsby's titles, Decisive Campaigns -- but I think we're well past the point of retiring in *PC games* this 20th-century board-game convention

The "4X games must still be fundamentally based on Sid Meier's original Civilization formula...from 1991" dogma. Still amazed at how hard it is for developers to push this genre in truly new directions.

[DoctorQuest]

Only saving the game at "checkpoints". Stupid and frustrating. I should be able to save the damned game anytime I want.

[Pete Dero]

Only saving the game at "checkpoints". Stupid and frustrating. I should be able to save the damned game anytime I want.

And it lets you know something is going to happen.

[RyanE]

"Game Locks (if I buy the darn game, I should be able to play the entire game from the start)"

x10 on this one.  Its one of the most pig-headed and stubborn issues that immature developers foist upon us.  I still have a hard time understanding the logic.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Crafting.  Hate it.  It's never fun. At best it's innocuous.  Usually it's a chore.

Mandatory multi-player.  Usually to the detriment of the single player experience.  If your focus is meant to be on a single player experience, focus on that.  Work on improving the AI instead of slapping on some forgettable capture the flag nonsense.

Multi-platform release.  Usually means it's a console to PC port and far too often fails to utilize the assets of the PC.  Locked frame rates, non adjustable POV, no key binding options, console controller auto detect that can't be turned off and gets confused by joysticks, no joystick support, limited graphics options, small maps, short draw distance, etc.

[ArizonaTank]

Bohemia's Carrier Command has one fatal design flaw to an otherwise great game.  There is no fast forward when your carrier is just waiting for supplies to be produced or arrive (there is when you travel). 

It means you have to sit there and surf the net or read a book while waiting for your supply barque to arrive.  This can take 5 min or more.

Very much a shame because otherwise the game is very good IMHO.

[JasonPratt]

Only saving the game at "checkpoints". Stupid and frustrating. I should be able to save the damned game anytime I want.

But lo, in the lowest deep a lower deep! -- being able to save only a checkpoints is annoying enough; being unable to keep saves at those checkpoints is even worse. (Both are a console game characteristic.)

Example of the former: a JRPG like the Final Fantasy games, where even if you have limited save slots and can only save the game when you reach certain town areas, at least you have a rollback of saves to work from.

Example of the latter: the Batman: Arkham series. This still has a limited few number of save slots, but each slot holds one and only one ongoing game. If you want to go back to see a plot thing again because you missed it due to reasons (sometimes goofy game mis-timing reasons), you can't even reload from one of a few older saves and play back up to that point. If you want to play an unlocked New Game +, you have exactly one opportunity to do so. If you want to play a New Game + again you must sacrifice a new slot (perhaps deleting an old progress) and play through the whole vanilla campaign once to unlock the NG+ again. This is purely a console limited-save design and using it on the PC (or any modern system really) is asinine beyond words.


Behold! -- in the lower deep a lowest deep is yet again revealed: games that feature good New Games + which restrict you to starting the NG+ exactly once. If you want to play a NG+ campaign again, you have to start over from scratch on a vanilla playthrough. This is light years retarded beyond even the former low, because there is literally no reason why a simple code switch cannot be activated for an install's save-group (even assuming the dumbass limited install problems already noted), giving you the option to start any new progress slot from a NG+. Even if (using B:Ark again as an example) the NG+ is designed to read the progress of the vanilla game in order to clarify things like the Riddler trophies which have been unlocked and which still need fulfilling, you could still write five lines of code to ask "select a finished normal game from which to build the NG+". But in the B:Ark games, the Riddler trophy progression is (I think in all three applicable cases) the only thing carried over incomplete! Why not give an option in another five lines of code, of, "Do you want to treat the Riddler goals as already finished for your NG+? Press x if yes, press y if you want to finish those yourself." Sure, they get you experience to spend on upgrades, but the whole point to a NG+ is that you're starting out with a lot of upgrades already unlocked (except where locked for plot purposes), and those aren't the only way to get xp! The B:Ark games aren't the only ones with this problem, but they annoy me the most: I put my time in already unlocking those things to get the final Riddler mission, I don't want to have to do it again. Just let his plot run straight from now on.

(Note: I don't think Arkham Asylum has a NG+ option, and its Riddler resolution is lame. Origins: Blackgate has a NG+, if I recall, but finishing out the collectables doesn't unlock more plot -- and nothing to do with the Riddler, incidentally. Out of the remaining three games, Origins doesn't matter if you get full completion because there is no plot resolution just a stupid single question mark trophy -- you get all the resolution you're going to get just by going through the normal game. Still, the NG+ should be doable for either of those games from any fresh start once unlocked. City and Knight are the only two games where starting with full Riddler trophy completion is actually useful, although there are other benefits of course, which also apply to Origins and, to a much less extent, to Origins:Blackgate.)

[Gusington]

SDR hit on crafting - and I thought it was just me. I'd rather collect coin and buy some cool armor/weapons/spells/potions.

I also hate puzzles and timed missions.

[mirth]

Ditto on crafting and puzzles.

[Gusington]

I do like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, though.

[Wburn]

My most hated design feature are tiny click boxes! What the hell are they thinking when they make them almost microscopic. Example Carriers at War. Great game but the boxes for strikes etc. Have a tiny little click box that's almost impossible to click. I also hate small fonts, sometimes I need to put on reading glasses just to see what it's stating. 

[DoctorQuest]

I do like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain, though.

Coconut in a drink. ANOTHER bad design decision.