Poll: Worst game-lengthening scheme.

[The Pinray]

Wow, this is a great poll, OP. I gotta give you props. I actually had to think about what to choose.

Damn, what a tough one. In the end I chose back-tracking. It's so cheap and annoying.

 

[gigastrike]

Making a simple action take longer than it should. They could make it so that the valve only takes a few seconds to turn, but they're meaner than that.

 

[TheJazzyH]

Endless grinding, to me, may or may not be a bad thing, depending on the game. I actually enjoyed grinding in The World Ends With You as I farmed certain items to trade for other items. Pokemon HeartGold, however, dealt with this atrociously. The grinding is the most boring kind I've ever expirienced in RPGs, but even worst, the game asks you to grind your pokemon for 15-20 levels each after getting all 16 badges, before you can even stand a chance against Red, levelwise.

This, my fellow escapists, is the only reason I've never fought Red. I just can't do it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Definitely the backtracking. I hated Devil May Cry 4 for this very reason. They couldn't just give Dante some original levels, oh no, they just had to play through the same levels Nero did, just in reverse.

 

[EHKOS]

Backtracking. Ever play whiplash? God of War does it tastefully....kind of.

 

[Dangit2019]

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass had the absolute worst backtracking I have ever seen. Every time you defeated a boss, you had to sail back to the beginning temple, go through all the levels you had completed earlier, but go a few levels deeper and than leave...by completing all the levels you just did. I loved everything else in that game but I just could not finish it because by the 3rd time, I was contemplating throwing my ds in a storm drain, so I decided to quietly put that away.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Unskippable cutscenes are really annoying, especially when they are long and right after a difficult, lengthy boss fight.

 

[Rabish Bini]

I chose other, because it's the near impossible puzzle that always gets to me. The one that relies on luck more than actual logic, so it's near impossible to do without looking it up.

Can I have an example please? The first one that springs to mind is the puzzle at the end of the unknown temple in KotOR, and I'm sure I've encountered more, I'm just struggling to think up any...

OT: Oh yeah, I'll agree with this one. Bullshit puzzles that are impossible.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Backtracking is the worst when it's handled poorly. But there can be cases where it's handled well.

Unskippable cutscenes always suck. Always.

Honorable mention: Trial-and-Error gameplay. Or unfair gameplay that makes up for the game being short by making it very hard so that it takes forever to beat a level.

 

[skywolfblue]

Backtracking.

Grinding isn't so bad as long you're always moving forward. The moment the game sends you back is when it gets annoying.

Fetch quests are annoying, but as long as they offer new content to see along the way, it's not so bad.

 

[Rkngl]

mine is backtracking, not just the normal overused backtrack like DMC4 though that is truly annoying, but the "you just got a new ability/item, now return to every single pixel you've been to before to see what new sections get unlocked and/or new items you can get. An couple examples of this is Kingdom Hearts with the different marks you had to find after you got each one of the team moves and Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass where, after every dungeon you must return to the first one redo everything you had done before and then move one floor further to be told the next dungeon's location

 

[LobsterFeng]

I chose other, because it's the near impossible puzzle that always gets to me. The one that relies on luck more than actual logic, so it's near impossible to do without looking it up.

Can I have an example please? The first one that springs to mind is the puzzle at the end of the unknown temple in KotOR, and I'm sure I've encountered more, I'm just struggling to think up any...

OT: Oh yeah, I'll agree with this one. Bullshit puzzles that are impossible.

Hilariously enough, I was thinking of that exact same puzzle too. But yeah, just puzzles like that where pressing buttons at random seems more effective then using actual logic. I'm having a hard time thinking of other examples too I'm realizing now.

 

[Bostur]

Billions of endless, tiresome reuse features.

I don't mind reusage features by themselves, it's the context in which they are used and the way they are used that can become tiresome.

In a good level it can be cool to play it again from a different perspective. If core gameplay mechanics are fun I like to delve deeper into them by doing randomized stuff. If I'm faced with a beautiful immersive world, a few FedEx quests can make me appreciate it more.

Padding something dull is - well dull. Padding something great is like getting two good icecreams instead of one.

 

[Joccaren]

Normally I'd say Grind. After DA2 - constant repetition of environments

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Reminds me o ow te eart stone is te most useul item in WoW

I absolutely loate te grind tat was in Oblivion, go into tat same cave, kill tose same 3 monsters again, ind te same loot, and ten enjoy going all te way back troug te empty cave to te cave entrance, again

I vote or backtracking tusly

 

[Aussie502]

LoZ: Skyward Sword suffers immensely from thinly disguised fetch quests.

Why must I continue to *prove* myself after clearly being able to wield the Master Sword. Doesn't anyone in this world want the ugly demon killed for good or not? This is especially apparent with the Water Dragon, he was the most annoying of all.

It makes it feel like the developers couldn't be bothered to create a better story so they just make us do boring fetch quests in the same 3 areas for the entire game.

 

[Agiel7]

Whatever the planet scanning in Mass Effect 2 falls under.

Seriously, I cannot fathom how some playtesters at Bioware thought that mini-game was okay. Sure the Mako was wonky, but Bioware could have improved that mechanic rather than take it out altogether.

 

[Kapol]

Out of those options, I'll have to go with Backtracking. Though another post reminded me of just how awful one thing is. Infinitely respawning enemies are the worst. At least if they're too the point you can't realistically plow through them on any difficulty. I remember CoD: WaW, playing through that on the hardest difficulty. I just couldn't advance. I'd kill 100 enemies without moving an inch forward at points. And when it doesn't register some of the areas as moving up and making it impossible to finish levels... just... no.