Features that sounded good in theory, but failed in practice

[New Frontiersman]

I feel the topic's title is pretty self-explanatory: What features in games sounded good in theory, but failed in execution?

My example: The Pokemon Global Trading System.

The social aspect of Pokemon has always been one of it's greatest draws. Trading Pokemon with friends is great, trading Pokemon with someone you don't know is a great way to make friends. Even just collecting the Pokemon is one of the series' other great aspects; it's fun and addicting. Plus, trading is a great way to get a Pokemon you wouldn't normally be able to get like starters, legendaries or version exclusives. Trading and collecting: it's the way those aspects can just merge together so seamlessly that make up a huge part of why Pokemon continues to stay so popular even after so many years.

So you'd think the ability to search and trade for any Pokemon with anyone in the world would be even more awesome, wouldn't it? After all it's pretty much what you were doing before, only on a global scale. Now you can even search to find the Pokemon you want, and you know at least one person in the world is willing to trade it, even if no one close to you is!

Well, if you thought that, you'd be wrong. It's an awesome idea in theory, but the GTS in infuriating in practice. It's neigh impossible to find a fair trade on there. Whether it's people looking to get an Arceus for their freshly caught Haunter, or wanting a level 100 Flareon for a Vaporeon in it's mid 20s, or just asking for a Pokemon at impossible levels, it's a fucking chore to search through the system without it being flooded with the most blatantly unfair, bullshit trade offers. The fact that in the newest games Nintendo added the feature to leave a comment with the Pokemon you're offering only makes it worse, as now not only is pretty much every offer bullshit, but every other comment is some entitled prick demanding "shinys pls" or "perfect IVs only."

You can search and filter offers based what Pokemon you're looking for by level and gender, but you can't filter them by what Pokemon the people are asking for. If there were a "hide obviously unbalanced offers" filter, that would make the whole system infinitely less frustrating as that way I could at least ignore the assholes who think that someone out there will give them a level 100 Groudon for their fucking Octillery.

But how about you all? What features, when you first hear about them sounded awesome, but when it actually came time to try them out fell short of your expectations. While I'm mostly curious about features in games, it doesn't have to be game related if you can think of something else that had a good idea fall flat in practice.

 

[Roxas1359]

To add onto your example of the GTS, the fact that in Gen VI GameFreak made it that you cannot trade event Pokemon has turned the GTS into a "Look at the Shiny/Legendary/Shiny Legendary I have and you can never get, nah nah." Honestly, I will never understand the reason why GameFreak thought that restricting event Pokemon like that. The old slogan many of remember is "Gotta Catch'em All" except we can't because GameFreak won't let us. >.>

 

[Zhukov]

The face graphics thing in L.A. Noire.

An interrogation mechanic where they scan the voice actor's facial performance and you try to read their faces to tell if they're lying or not?

Awesome!

In practice however, the faces looked completely out of place since they were based on a different graphical method to the rest of the game. Also, actors told to act like they are lying end up rolling their eyes and shifting about like they're going mad. On top of that, there's no way to tell the difference between a doubtful statement or an outright false statement that you just don't have the evidence to contradict.

As it turned out, I ended up enjoying the car chases more than anything else.

 

[Zontar]

TF2's "Mann vs Machine". 2 years of hinting at, so they had plans for it for some time. I mean think about it: a group of players fighting wave after wave of robots? Who could have guessed it would get old as fast as it did? I remember waiting 45 minutes to get into a server when it first started, now it takes you seconds or maybe a minute at most, and for good reason: most people who play it now are either just doing it for the achievements, doing it to try and get a special weapon, or just messing around with a group of friends.

Also: Cities XL. The whole thing, from the original game to the later editions just screams "good idea, terrible execution", especially the inter-city economy (I mean seriously, I understand the optional online play in the original, but who the hell played that thing beyond just the free trial period and actually paid the monthly online fee?)

 

[The Wykydtron]

The ending layout in Dishonoured is a bit of a letdown personally. The game says "here have a bunch of hilarious ways to murder people and we're sending you in as an assassin. But don't murder anyone though, you have sleep darts and chokeholds and we expect you to only use those for the entire runthrough for the good ending."

Look I get how it aligns with how Corvo plays out as a character, whether he remains true to his morals and "does the right thing" even after all this evil shit has happened around and to him, or if he just says "fuck it" and kills anyone who stands in his way for vengeance. I like that, I do in theory at least. Corvo never had time to even have much of a character though, you have like 5/10 minutes in the prologue to set up important character relationships and that's really not going to work.

The DLC added Chokedust which really added to both lethal and non-lethal runs. Literally throw smoke in their face, disappear like a ninja. Awesome.

 

[Vault101]

The ending layout in Dishonoured is a bit of a letdown personally. The game says "here have a bunch of hilarious ways to murder people and we're sending you in as an assassin. But don't murder anyone though, you have sleep darts and chokeholds and we expect you to only use those for the entire runthrough for the good ending."

Look I get how it aligns with how Corvo plays out as a character, whether he remains true to his morals and "does the right thing" even after all this evil shit has happened around and to him, or if he just says "fuck it" and kills anyone who stands in his way for vengeance. I like that, I do in theory at least. Corvo never had time to even have much of a character though, you have like 5/10 minutes in the prologue to set up important character relationships and that's really not going to work.
.

he's a silent protagonist...meaning we're imedietly going to project onto him [footnote/] see? it saves us the trouble!of Writing![/footnote] which falls apart once I remembered I'm not a man with a bad haircut but a women, and my name isn't corvo...

The face graphics thing in L.A. Noire.

An interrogation mechanic where they scan the voice actor's facial performance and you try to read their faces to tell if they're lying or not?

Awesome!

In practice however, the faces looked completely out of place since they were based on a different graphical method to the rest of the game. Also, actors told to act like they are lying end up rolling their eyes and shifting about like they're going mad. On top of that, there's no way to tell the difference between a doubtful statement or an outright false statement that you just don't have the evidence to contradict.

As it turned out, I ended up enjoying the car chases more than anything else.

dont forget the vedgemite hair

the problem is there wasn't really room for subtlelty, also [spoiler/]Cole doing a complete 180 and WHAT? whys he banging the german chick where the hell did this come from?[/spoiler]

it wouldn't have been a problem except the fact we DONT see his children or wife AT ALL led me to belive that his home life was irrelevent...then once his personal live becomes relevent its like..what? though as I understand a lot was cut

 

[Dragonlayer]

Collecting the scattered pages of the protagonist's horror book in Alan Wake and having them hint at the unimaginable terror ahead. Fine in theory, but in practise every single potential scare was wasted when A) it was only followed up about ten minutes after you'd picked up the page and no longer cared and B) was usually implemented in such a way that sucked all the horror out of the moment. Perfect case in point, early on you collect a page ambiguously describing your horrific death by chainsaw at the hands of one of the possessed locals; only nothing happens for ages and when you finally do hear a chainsaw, its being wielded by someone in the far distance who then slowly approaches you, giving you all the time in the world to get ready!

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

TF2's "Mann vs Machine". 2 years of hinting at, so they had plans for it for some time. I mean think about it: a group of players fighting wave after wave of robots? Who could have guessed it would get old as fast as it did? I remember waiting 45 minutes to get into a server when it first started, now it takes you seconds or maybe a minute at most, and for good reason: most people who play it now are either just doing it for the achievements, doing it to try and get a special weapon, or just messing around with a group of friends.

Also: Cities XL. The whole thing, from the original game to the later editions just screams "good idea, terrible execution", especially the inter-city economy (I mean seriously, I understand the optional online play in the original, but who the hell played that thing beyond just the free trial period and actually paid the monthly online fee?)

theres like 500 MvM servers at all times, and even i play it from time to time, its certinaly not bad bro, just not your cup of tes

...

Capture the Flag in TF2 HOWEVER

nearly every match is a complete stalemate, limited strategies can be used, and the map selection isnt great either


also the idea of DLC in general, yeah it looked great at first, extra content for your game for a small fee, but it was abused to no end by publishers, basically the only DLC worth a damn are what 2 gens ago were considered "expansion packs"

 

[raeior]

Black and White was full of this. The idea of teaching your creature how to behave was really cool but then you slapped your creature because it destroyed a village and it interpreted it as "I shouldn't eat grain" because in the meantime it decided to eat something and instead starts to horribly murder villagers because you obviously want it to eat villagers instead of grain. It was somewhat avoided in B&W 2 where the game clearly showed you for what you were punishing or complimenting your creature.

Oh and the "dynamic" quests in Skyrim which they announced as the next big thing. Randomly generated quests which will entertain you basically forever! Yeah..right... Hey you have to . Could have been cool but oh my god I've never seen quests so blatantly obviously computer generated. The randomly generated content was even written in italic so you could exactly see what part of the line was written by a human and what was automatically inserted.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

I suppose this will be rather contentious but the PVP in Dark Souls. It's a cool idea in theory, but in practice it's just a bunch of hackers and lag stabs.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

The open world bit in FFXIII, Gran Pulse. For 10 chapters you've had a tight story, following rails and being on a time limit, and then they decided to introduce a whole chapter that basically said, "screw the story, do what you want". Except the next chapter, we're back on the rails and the time limit up until the end of the game. I wouldn't have minded if Gran Pulse opened up as an after story bit, but as it is it stands out like a sore thumb.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I understand why it's like this but I hate how multiplayer games won't let you unlock avhievements/trophies when you play offline multiplayer. Perfect Dark Zero is the only game I can think of that allows you to unlock MP achievements offline.

This isn't a feature but more of a lack of features: We've had MP3 players for well over a decade and it must cost a ton of money getting licenses to use songs in gaming. Why can I only listen to them in vehicles? In GTAV, everyone has a smart phone but nobody can buy earbuds? Saint's Row 4 is (from what I'm lead to understand) the only game that lets you listen to the radio outside of your car.

 

[Legion]

I suppose this will be rather contentious but the PVP in Dark Souls. It's a cool idea in theory, but in practice it's just a bunch of hackers and lag stabs.

Lag was my number one issue in Dark Souls 1. I'd have my back to a wall and they'd somehow "teleport" behind me to back stab me.

On a similar note: The Covenants in Dark Souls.

There are two of them where the person who enters it becomes a spirit of vengeance. In one of them you defend a certain area from any invaders by being summoned to their world to stop them reaching the boss there. In another one you are summoned to exact revenge on those who kill a particular NPC, every time they enter that part of the game.

A fantastic idea in theory and it adds an extra layer of excitement when you get summoned to deal with one. As well as working well within the story.

The problem lies in those who don't feel like playing the game as intended. Who deliberately create PvP based characters and set themselves up to be invaded by these phantoms, normally with a friend. They don't play the game as normal and deal with invaders as they come, they create circumstances deliberately to wait around for PvP. So you get summoned to fight somebody who has min/maxed a character solely for the purpose of fighting human players.

This wouldn't bother me if it wasn't for the fact that there are already PvP based Covenants and methods. Red phantoms and Black are meant for PvP so for those who simply wish to fight, they have several means and methods to do so. So really those who want to do a proper duel have access to it without needing to bother other players. "Taking over" the Covenants based around the Blue Phantoms is just ruining it for those who want to play within the spirit of the game.

 

[TheSYLOH]

Scaling Monsters.
In theory, it allows a content to be challenging and rewarding at any level or character development.
In practice it, at best, negates the point of leveling up, since you don't actually become more powerful relative to monsters.
at reasonable, snaps the difficulty curve over it's knee, as players exploit your power metric.
at worst, renders a game unwinnable due to sub optimal leveling choices resulting in an actual decrease in relative power during level up.

 

[sanquin]

Scaling Monsters.
In theory, it allows a content to be challenging and rewarding at any level or character development.
In practice it, at best, negates the point of leveling up, since you don't actually become more powerful relative to monsters.
at reasonable, snaps the difficulty curve over it's knee, as players exploit your power metric.
at worst, renders a game unwinnable due to sub optimal leveling choices resulting in an actual decrease in relative power during level up.

So much agree with this one. I prefer having to level up a bit more before entering a new area, to being able to beat the last boss at the minimum level you get from exp story quests.

 

[spartandude]

Scaling Monsters.
In theory, it allows a content to be challenging and rewarding at any level or character development.
In practice it, at best, negates the point of leveling up, since you don't actually become more powerful relative to monsters.
at reasonable, snaps the difficulty curve over it's knee, as players exploit your power metric.
at worst, renders a game unwinnable due to sub optimal leveling choices resulting in an actual decrease in relative power during level up.

"Heyguys, the main character has just leveled up we can now wear Deadric Armour to make it a fair fight!"

 

[Aris Khandr]

Black and White was full of this. The idea of teaching your creature how to behave was really cool but then you slapped your creature because it destroyed a village and it interpreted it as "I shouldn't eat grain" because in the meantime it decided to eat something and instead starts to horribly murder villagers because you obviously want it to eat villagers instead of grain.

That's actually how things work in psychology. If you are going to use positive punishment, you have to punish immediately after the action you are trying to decrease. Frustrating, perhaps, but at least it was psychologically sound.