Little Nitpicks in Game Design that Drive You Nuts

[Fappy]

So what little issues in common game design really grinds your gears? I'm not talking about bad framerate drops and excessive screen tearing here. I'm talking about truly inconsequential oversights in game design that triggers your OCD and turns you into a lunatic. For me I'd have to say that character models suffering from noticeable/consistent clipping issues really bothers me. It's gotten to the point that in games like Skyrim I will sacrifice optimization for the sake of having gear models that don't conflict with each other.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

When no goodies are hidden behind the waterfalls.
That greatly disappoints me.

I'm looking at you Final Fantasy 13, I stopped and searched all your beautiful waterfalls and NOTHING.

 

[Fappy]

When no goodies are hidden behind the waterfalls.
That greatly disappoints me.

I'm looking at you Final Fantasy 13, I stopped and searched all your beautiful waterfalls and NOTHING.

There are a lot of games guilty of this. There's a perfect place to hide something and you jump through tons of hoops to get there only to find out there's nothing there to find

 

[byte4554_v1legacy]

Little nooks and crannies to explore with nothing in them. I'll spend an hour climbing up to rafters, and crawling around debris, with nothing there but an awkward camera angle as a reward.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

So what little issues in common game design really grinds your gears? I'm not talking about bad framerate drops and excessive screen tearing here. I'm talking about truly inconsequential oversights in game design that triggers your OCD and turns you into a lunatic. For me I'd have to say that character models suffering from noticeable/consistent clipping issues really bothers me. It's gotten to the point that in games like Skyrim I will sacrifice optimization for the sake of having gear models that don't conflict with each other.

Exact same problem

Yes, yes, I know, the +100 Plate mail of Epicness is better than than the Leather Duster of Inconsequentialness, but the former clips badly with the +10 Hood of Anonymity, and I can't be dealing with that...

 

[StriderShinryu]

First person games where your character has no body/legs/feet and is just basically a floating camera with a pair of hands duct taped to it.

Blatantly obvious musical or visual cues that give away what's about to happen before it happens.

Clipping on clothing items (if you know it's gonna clip and can't do anything about it, then you should go back to the drawing board and alter the design).

Bad menu design in games with frequent menu use (RPGs, for example) especially including when there is a loading time before the menu appears.

 

[Zhukov]

The way that the protagonists in shooting games have limited ammunition but unlimited magazines. So if you have 150 rounds on your person, you can fire them one at a time, reloading a fresh magazine between each one. Where did all those magazines come from? Why did Dirk McMegafists not have to consolidate his mags at any point? It makes no sense!

(Yes, I'm aware that some of the more dry games out there make you recycle magazines in a realistic manner.)

Also, unskippable cutscenes. Why, developers? Just... why would you do that? Why must you force me to sit through your pathetic writing, remedial voice acting and feeble attempts to realise the film career you never had? It's been decades and you still won't stop.

More specifically, when games give you a checkpoint, then an unskippable cutscene, then a tough fight. Because nothing adds to the frustration of getting your arse kicked like having to sit through the villains pre-fight speech for the sixth fucking time. Witcher 2 was particularly guilty of this.

Lastly, I have one specific to Far Cry 3. Some of the main story missions are triggered by phone calls. So you'll finish a mission, then some clown rings you up and tells you where to go for the next one. Thing is, if you have the temerity to go on any side jaunts, challenges or optional objectives then the game will punish you by making you listen to the damn phone call again. I've heard some of them over ten times.

 

[Rawne1980]

Putting absolute shit in obscure places.

I love exploration as much as the next person but when I get to the top of your games equivalent of Mount bloody Everest for that shiny golden chest and all it contains is a few copper and a shit sword IT MAKES ME FROTH AT THE MOUTH IN RAGE.

 

[Fappy]

Putting absolute shit in obscure places.

I love exploration as much as the next person but when I get to the top of your games equivalent of Mount bloody Everest for that shiny golden chest and all it contains is a few copper and a shit sword IT MAKES ME FROTH AT THE MOUTH IN RAGE.

Morrowind was good about this. Some of the coolest items in the game are hidden in weird places.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

For me it is in-game pre-order/promotional items in RPG's. I don't like not getting everything in a game, even if it is a few unique items. In a RPG unique items are part of the fun!

Pre-order/promotional items should always be something that doesn't effect the game at all. Something like artwork, figurine, model, a book of some sort, a making of, that kind of shit.

Bioware is awful for this kind of bullshit. Also item packs in video games that cost money...also the fact that video games isn't one word. Videogames looks more proper to me.

 

[Cobalt Lion]

First person games where your character has no body/legs/feet and is just basically a floating camera with a pair of hands duct taped to it.

This is my big one. You end up as Yahtzee calls it " a gun floating 3 feet in the air."

My other one is clipping issues on equipment. NPCs and enemies that aren't really "holding" a weapon, you can see they're just sort of loosely cupping an items that hovers in their hands.

 

[shrekfan246]

SFor me I'd have to say that character models suffering from noticeable/consistent clipping issues really bothers me. It's gotten to the point that in games like Skyrim I will sacrifice optimization for the sake of having gear models that don't conflict with each other.

Different side of a similar coin, I think, but gear/equipment that clashes horribly with another visible piece.

Now, I'm one of the least fashionable people on the planet, but I really hate a stupid looking dull grey pot-shaped helmet when the rest of your equipment is blood-red/black spiked plate-mail of death. Or, more prevalent in WoW than most other games I've seen, equipment that's part of a set or shares the same model as a set, but is a different color for various reasons. It's cringe-worthy.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Lazy rain effects.

I enjoy it when games make an effort to exude atmosphere. And an easy way for them to do so is with weather effects, all the better when the weather is dynamic (Like with Red Dead Redemption)

But there are some cases in which the devs just didn't give a shit.

Spoiler

[/spoiler]

^The example above is something I see commonly. Basically instead of creating levels full of the pitter-patter of rain everywhere. All they do is drape a curtain of rain particles over the screen. It's like someone putting a wet tissue paper over my face and saying "look it's raining lol." It is absolutely unconvincing, it looks like shit, and it drives me crazy.

Also,

Fucked up lip-syncing.

[MEDIA=youtube]'GXMFwu1sS8w'[/MEDIA]

 

[hermes]

Arbitrary or abundant Loading Screens. When opening a door, encountering an enemy or just walking around causes a several minutes long loading screen. This is especially awful when in an indoor environment with small rooms, which means I am looking into loading screens more often than I am playing. It kills exploration...

The worst recent example is Tales of the Abyss. I literally stopped playing after a couple of hours because I couldn't stand the fact that entering a store or even random encounters meant several minutes of nothing.

Also, weird eyes in games. Uncharted 2 (for example) has some characters with seriously uncanny eyes, like they were replaced with marbles; which is weird considering the rest of the game was gorgeous.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

In many first person shooters, using RS for melee.

Why, why the fuck would you do that?! It feels terrible, no sense of feedback whatsoever. I know console controllers aren't trying to make every button press applicable to the action they perform, but still. When I want to cut someone up, or smash their face in with the butt of my rifle, why on Earth would you attach that action to the weediest button press possible? This does not make me feel like I just smashed a guy's face in! Not to mention, despite your thumb being in direct contact with the right analogue stick most of the time, pressing down on that stick to perform an action in the middle of a pitched battle just feels awkward somehow.

and before anyone points out the obvious, I know in the vast majority of games you can change the control layout, either fully customising it (something that is sadly rarer than it used to be for no adequately explained reason), or choosing from a collection of presets. That's what I always do, but that's not the point. When I want to get stuck in to the new game I've brought it does kill the mood to some extent to first have to go into settings to un-retard the controls. I've met nobody, I repeat, nobody who likes this standard configuration, so why is it the standard?

 

[Terminate421]

At this point not being able to look down and see your legs.

Copy and pasted reloading animations.

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

NPC's with perfect accuracy. 1 good example, in the game Sniper: Ghost warrior I am sitting a 100 feet on top of a lighthouse thingy sniping baddies, and they all have pistols and AK's and are hitting me with every shot.

 

[Fappy]

NPC's with perfect accuracy. 1 good example, in the game Sniper: Ghost warrior I am sitting a 100 feet on top of a lighthouse thingy sniping baddies, and they all have pistols and AK's and are hitting me with every shot.

That reminds me of Ghost Recon 2. Hiding in a dark forest with night-vision on a state-of-the-art sniper rifle and getting shot directly in the face by enemies 1/4 mile away wielding AKs who shouldn't have any idea where I am

 

[sageoftruth]

So what little issues in common game design really grinds your gears? I'm not talking about bad framerate drops and excessive screen tearing here. I'm talking about truly inconsequential oversights in game design that triggers your OCD and turns you into a lunatic. For me I'd have to say that character models suffering from noticeable/consistent clipping issues really bothers me. It's gotten to the point that in games like Skyrim I will sacrifice optimization for the sake of having gear models that don't conflict with each other.

That reminds me of another: Tons and tons of boxes/chests with nothing of value in them. I'm looking at you, Morrowind.