Terrible design choices in otherwise excellent games?
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Xenoblade Chronicles.
The boss battle with Disciple Lorithia. In a game that relies on a pair of AI teammates and your control over their positioning is sketchy at best, this boss combines terrain hazards in the arena with the ability to push player characters around, and a radial knockback and knockdown ability. Not too bad in and of itself but the AI is completely oblivious to the terrain hazards and will stand in the acid until they die unless prompted to do otherwise. To clarify, to do this the character the player character must be alive, on their feet, not stunned and not in the middle of another action. The command brings both team-mates to the player, causing them to ignore their other duties - such as healing - until they reach the player. They must then be given another order to attack the boss again. If the player dies during this, due to being spiked by the boss' adds; since the team-mates are moving instead of fighting, that counts as the player character being downed while disengaged which is an instant game-over regardless of whether you have enough morale to revive. In short, the engine does not support the kind of battle tactics they were trying to implement for this fight.
I died something like 5 times there once I started to run too late then too early, then I tried to take cover which game won't allow you to do then I ran right past the turn because I had somehow managed to get past my pet npc who was supposed to tell me to turn and he did so when it was already too late.Slayer_2 said:
I totally agree. Due to an immense backlog, I've only just gotten around to playing ME2. Loving it so far, although the planet scanning has to be the most annyoning gaming element I have EVER encountered. I'm not that far in, just finished recruiting my team and will head down to save(?) Ashley, but I'm already dreading each time I have to do the scanning. It's so freaking tedious, and it totally kills the momentum of the story. Like you stated above, I also much preferred the Mako driving. Although it felt a bit empty, at least it gave you some interesting planets to explore, and it certainly contributed to flesh out the universe and helping it come alive. By taking that exploration part out and putting in a dumbed down inventory/upgrade system, ME2 certainly feels more episodic to me than ME1 did. The combat is good though, and the characters/story seem strong so far. Hopefully my thorough scanning in the beginning will allow me to skip scanning altogether towards the end so that I can start to focus on the actually great parts the game has to offer.Hawkeye 131 said:
It is a nightmare on PC, because for some reason W is not always forward, sometimes it is left and then sometimes S is forward, it was all so bloody confusing, also the end boss battle arena thing was nearly impossible with PC, I stumbled through it only because I was lucky.saintdane05 said:
In Fallout 3 and NV you can't put more than 1 mapmarker on the map and without those remembering all those points of interest and things you want/need to unlock or hack is fucking impossible. It is less of a problem in NV because the game won't allow you to go everywhere and restricts your movement with terrain and unkillable baddies, so by the time you can go anywhere you can also pretty much hack and lockpick everything, but in FO3 it's really an issue because in 3 you can go almost anywhere you want right in the beginning and you will discover things you can't unlock or hack really early in the game and I had to write things down in my notebook so I would remember where everything I wanted to get back to was located.
They were not taken out. Unfortunately, the North American version was rushed for a much earlier release. The game was really incomplete, without some extras like the readable subtitles and the alternative ending. Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido talked about that in a interview.scorptatious said:
That is a terrible reason not to finish the game. It's not as though the map is huge.Boggelz said:
I'd have to agree with most of this. Though I did enjoy my first runthrough of the Fade, because it was so different and weird and I had to puzzle my way through it to save Alistair (and some other guys I suppose). But the second time I just got the arse with it. And because I have it on PS3, I can't use the skip Fade mod. But I do go through with a walkthrough now, just to get it over and done with faster. On the other hand, I'm one of those twisted individuals who absolutely adores the Deep Roads, so work that one out...Furbyz said:
I'd also cite the Draw mechanic of Final Fantasy VIII for being the most mindbogglingly tedious thing known to man. And the sixaxis arrow controls bits of Heavenly Sword caused me to invent new swear words.
Saulkar said:
They did explain it though. They say that the overheating caused the guns to jam and become more unreliable. They also prevented soldiers using their weapons for constant supression, such as trying to keep an enemy in one plave while the rest of the squad flanks the target. That was the in-game universe explanation was for it. If you didn't like the mechanic, that's fine, but always remember to look at the codex pages/environmental hints etc that are in-game(this applies to any game) before outright saying the addition makes no sense universe wise.canadamus_prime said:
To some degree you could also assume that Earth still occaisionally uses weapons which require clips of ammunition. But this is just an assumption so I can see where the unease comes from Shepard immeidietly knowing how to use the weapons after just waking up.
Perhaps I'm just senile, but up until about tier 6 epic armor WoW featured some generally class appropriate often impressive armor. Nowadays they seem to have fired the creative art department and just put the same boring dross on everyone.Mordekaien said:
Insta-fail sneak missions/games. This is a fine line to walk, as I can think of 3 scenarios.
1. Insta-fail (restart from checkpoint/mission)
2. Nearly impossible odds if fail
3. Balanced combat if [sneak] fail
Options 1 and 2 are nearly the same; in games like Metal Gear Solid (1) or Velvet Assassin if you get seen your odds of getting away without dumping a ton of medkits, let alone surviving, are slim. Often times getting seen and then trying to fight your way out just ends up taking more time, because you'll die anyway and have to restart rather than just restarting immediately. This is frustrating.
Option 3 is akin to Dishonored. If fighting is just as easy, nay, easier than sneaking; why bother? Why not just go through each level guns blazing?
X-Com "Hey guys you know what would require more skill on harder difficulty? Giving AI statistical advantage over player by increasing hit chance by double on AI and reducing on his after all getting lucky in %25 shot is skilled right? Oh and lets make sure the statistics are completely wrong so you miss %98 shot 3 times in 40 shots and make it %5 hit for %25 and lets make all the others completely random"
oh and enemies that start taking cover when you see them so you can't ambush them.
Fallout 3: "Lets make this huge epic map with awesome gameplay and just a handful of sidequests so players won't feel like they have to explore" thank obsidian that they fixed that in fallout NV but failed at map dept imo after all desert doesn't feel post apocalyptic like a city and vegas is a city right? couldn't they used some city textures around to make it feel like old sin city?
Endless space: "Hey we got this interesting combat system with 3 weapons and 3 defences and 3 different accuracy levels depending onrange but you know what would be nice? Lets make missiles so slow it will take whole battle for them to reach and kinetics to be as accurate as blind man using MG 42 to snipe a guy in another town that is balanced right? Oh and travelling can be done only on imaginary rails between systems that will make space vast and allow for such array of strategic manuvering. "
RPG's "Hey we designed this boss and we gave him an ability which 1 shots random person if they happened to be not playing a tanky class oh and since its random anyone can get hit by too so player cant strategise, that will show those pesky mages!"
Darksiders 2: "You play death and %70 of the game are jumping puzzles because thats what you would want to do with a horseman of apocalypse right? Solve puzzles by jumping!"
Civ 5: "Ottoman jannisary for teh winz! %100 heal when killz and extra attack ,YOLO *procedes to code constantly repeating music"
Spec Ops the line: "Highlight of the game are the hell that characters go through and its made in way that player will feel guilty but in order to do that we made sure characters make all the dumb choices so player will face the consequences of a actions of a delusional mental patient without a choice that will make it immersive, right?"
GTA 4: Niko, its your cousin ... F*** Off and take your heavy accent with you.
Galactic civ 2: Lets make this awesome 4X game which is more detailed than a electron microscopic view and lets make sure player can't do anything but watch during combat a little card game would be nice *cough* endless space *cough*
Dark souls PC version: "PC? Whats that, who uses it anyway... ehm you use it with controller right, yea i think so lets not translate any controls to pc language and lets make it unplayable with keyboard" Game is good, design choices are covered by solid gameplay but when you can't play it, it fails really hard.
oh and enemies that start taking cover when you see them so you can't ambush them.
Fallout 3: "Lets make this huge epic map with awesome gameplay and just a handful of sidequests so players won't feel like they have to explore" thank obsidian that they fixed that in fallout NV but failed at map dept imo after all desert doesn't feel post apocalyptic like a city and vegas is a city right? couldn't they used some city textures around to make it feel like old sin city?
Endless space: "Hey we got this interesting combat system with 3 weapons and 3 defences and 3 different accuracy levels depending onrange but you know what would be nice? Lets make missiles so slow it will take whole battle for them to reach and kinetics to be as accurate as blind man using MG 42 to snipe a guy in another town that is balanced right? Oh and travelling can be done only on imaginary rails between systems that will make space vast and allow for such array of strategic manuvering. "
RPG's "Hey we designed this boss and we gave him an ability which 1 shots random person if they happened to be not playing a tanky class oh and since its random anyone can get hit by too so player cant strategise, that will show those pesky mages!"
Darksiders 2: "You play death and %70 of the game are jumping puzzles because thats what you would want to do with a horseman of apocalypse right? Solve puzzles by jumping!"
Civ 5: "Ottoman jannisary for teh winz! %100 heal when killz and extra attack ,YOLO *procedes to code constantly repeating music"
Spec Ops the line: "Highlight of the game are the hell that characters go through and its made in way that player will feel guilty but in order to do that we made sure characters make all the dumb choices so player will face the consequences of a actions of a delusional mental patient without a choice that will make it immersive, right?"
GTA 4: Niko, its your cousin ... F*** Off and take your heavy accent with you.
Galactic civ 2: Lets make this awesome 4X game which is more detailed than a electron microscopic view and lets make sure player can't do anything but watch during combat a little card game would be nice *cough* endless space *cough*
Dark souls PC version: "PC? Whats that, who uses it anyway... ehm you use it with controller right, yea i think so lets not translate any controls to pc language and lets make it unplayable with keyboard" Game is good, design choices are covered by solid gameplay but when you can't play it, it fails really hard.
But you don't have to? You get a message asking if you wanna replay the mission, then you get ported to a reasonable position/starting position of the mission.Boggelz said:
OT: Gonna go with the fade, I hate that part of DA:O, nearly ruined a otherwise excellent game.
XCom:
- Sometimes you can fire through what appears to be three solid walls.
- I hit more with 45% chance to hit than any other percentage ever.
- Enemies can move on their turn, but if you haven't seen them on the battlefield yet that mission, they then go into the "discover" animation and get a free turn to move again. Which screws up tactics.
- The inability to pause during enemy turns is idiotic.
The Walking Dead Episode 3:
Halo 4:
- The Promethean enemies are not enjoyable in the slightest to fight. Seriously, they feel like a complete chore.
- The Forerunner weapons are uninspired. They are the same as Human/Covenant weapons with slightly different stats, no new types.
Mass Effect 2/3:
- Thermal clips do not make sense. They are universal so can work on all weapons, yet you don't have a specific amount available overall, it limits you per weapon. There is no logical reason for it.
- The nightmare sections in Mass Effect 3 are the second worse thing in the series after the ending.
- Kai Leng is the third worse thing.
- Sometimes you can fire through what appears to be three solid walls.
- I hit more with 45% chance to hit than any other percentage ever.
- Enemies can move on their turn, but if you haven't seen them on the battlefield yet that mission, they then go into the "discover" animation and get a free turn to move again. Which screws up tactics.
- The inability to pause during enemy turns is idiotic.
The Walking Dead Episode 3:
Carly/Doug will always be shot by Lilly, no matter what you say to her. Even if you lie and claim you were the one stealing supplies.
Halo 4:
- The Promethean enemies are not enjoyable in the slightest to fight. Seriously, they feel like a complete chore.
- The Forerunner weapons are uninspired. They are the same as Human/Covenant weapons with slightly different stats, no new types.
Mass Effect 2/3:
- Thermal clips do not make sense. They are universal so can work on all weapons, yet you don't have a specific amount available overall, it limits you per weapon. There is no logical reason for it.
- The nightmare sections in Mass Effect 3 are the second worse thing in the series after the ending.
- Kai Leng is the third worse thing.
I can think of 4th one. Make it so that you have plenty of abilities/moves/gadgets/whatever that will make escaping easier than fighting enemies head on. Thief 1&2 did this good, fighting was hard but doable, yet often it was easier to run away from the enemies then douse the lights with water arrows and hide in dark corner. Splinter Cell Conviction has this too- you can see where your last known position is, so you can adjust your tactics accordingly (this last one is a bit far fetched, since Conviction is more of an action game than stealth, but you get the idea). Batman Arkham series has similiar mechanics, where if you screw up, you don't fail instantly.RobfromtheGulag said: