Updates You Felt "Broke" Continuous/Ongoing Games

[Vausch]

You ever play a game for a while and when it gets an update, suddenly it feels like all the effort you put into it is worthless because the update either changed the rules massively or introduced a new element that made even your veteran status feel like it holds nothing compared to anybody that even just started playing?

For me, I'd say the biggest one is in Yugioh. The advent of XYZ monsters I thought was a massive breaker, since it made all the cards that seemed to balance synchro monster summons suddenly massively overpowered and allowed people to summon monsters that were nigh unkillable without effort.

And then Pendulum monsters came out.

I hate those things so much. Treated as monsters and spells? Ok. All summons are special summons? Ok. They don't die but go to the extra deck? Ok. They all seem to have effects that summon more from the deck giving you a full field of strong monsters in 1 turn with little payment? Ok. Fine. Y'know what Konami? I'm glad you're dying. If this level of power creep is what you consider "updating", you've lost all sense!

Rant over. What's your biggest game-breaking update?

 

[Fallow]

Terraria. New stuff is often not available in old worlds, which means you have to start rebuilding your village in a new one every update. It's frustrating.

 

[LetalisK]

The first major patch to SWTOR. Early level PvP warzones were balanced so as not to require the best gear available to compete. Level 15s were able to crush level 40s and it wasn't a rare occurrence. Then I don't know what happened with patch 1.0, but it took a big step backwards. And then fell off a cliff. Gear became king and lower levels got crushed. I recently started playing SWTOR again and it seems to be much improved, though. Not quite pre-1.0 levels, but pretty close. The first major patch also fucked up end-game PvP requiring people to submit to the RNG Gods in a tedious and random grind for gear in order to compete at that level too. They seemed to have backed off that ledge as well.

 

[Lightspeaker]

TF2. Way back in the Sniper vs. Spy Update, April 2009. For me that was the beginning of the end for TF2; putting game-changing weapons into a drop system was the stupidest thing imaginable. Cosmetics? Fine. But not weapon options.

I pretty much stopped playing when it got to the point where they were adding tons of new items in a patch meaning it was damn near impossible to have the same options as another player without just idling for hours upon hours to get every weapon to drop first. I think I've played it maybe half a dozen times in four years now.

 

[luckshot]

star wars galaxies the nge and cu. basically they made a new mmo and tried to swap out the old one and hoped no one noticed...these updates also completely broke one of the expansion packs

 

[Evonisia]

Maybe I'm just being hyperbolic, but around the time of the Fenix Uprising DLC for Gears of War 3 there was an update. Ever since Fenix Uprising the Lancer has done more damage. The Lancer is the laziest weapon in the game and one that I go out of my way to avoid using both before and after the patch (Hammerburst or Retro Lancer or GTFO), because it's just a regular rifle with minimal recoil compared to the semi-auto Hammerburst and the high recoil/high damage antics of the Retro Lancer. Giving it more damage is insane when the other two rifles were already at a disadvantage against the damage and the bullshit chainsaw mechanic.

I still love Gears of War 3's MP, and it's still much better than 1 and 2, but my God I will never love it anywhere near as much as I did before the Lancer became the insta-death rifle. Oh well, at least Judgment is still balanced.

 

[Neverhoodian]

TF2. Way back in the Sniper vs. Spy Update, April 2009. For me that was the beginning of the end for TF2; putting game-changing weapons into a drop system was the stupidest thing imaginable. Cosmetics? Fine. But not weapon options.

I pretty much stopped playing when it got to the point where they were adding tons of new items in a patch meaning it was damn near impossible to have the same options as another player without just idling for hours upon hours to get every weapon to drop first. I think I've played it maybe half a dozen times in four years now.

I still play TF2 on a semi-regular basis, but I understand your frustration. A part of me pines for the "good ol' days" of 2007-08. I miss the semi-serious spytech vibe instead of "SANDVICH SCOUT'S MOM BREAD MONSTER LAZORS LOL RANDOM!" I miss the plethora of tight-knit community servers that were killed off when Valve implemented Quickplay. I miss having a smooth framerate at high graphical settings before a crapton of particle effects forced me to tone it down. I miss the higher skill level from players in general before the game went F2P. I miss not having two or three players just standing in spawn because they were too lazy to find an idle/trading server.

And of course, I miss the days before abominations like THIS existed...

 

[Nazulu]

Yep, that's my favourite MMO's going to shit in a nutshell. Lineage 2 and Mu Online were the only ones I was ever interested in, but as soon as they started taking on many ideas from WoW, including changing the rules like no PvP wherever, no punishments, and adding keys you could buy to get special loot faster etc. etc. It completely fucked the experience. I really want those games to die now and be taken back to it's glory days.

 

[gigastar]

Planetside 2 started the resource revamp last August, all its first phase accomplished was removing what little metagame there was and then the remaining phases went on hiatus in favor of some useless crap.

Fast forward to last month, Smedley has the remaining phases planned for September, at the earliest.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It is not an update precisely, more of a revamp...and I seem to only be a part of a small niche group of people that feel the same way. But it's the only example I find necessary to whinge on about until Hades takes my sorry ass away. Metro redux is not the glorious Metro 2033. Last Light is to blame along with Deep Silver for CODding up the gameplay and destroying the immersion that the first game brought. One day I will be able to own and play STALKER to forget about this travesty. But until then: Blaarrrrggghhhh!!

 

[FPLOON]

I feel like one of the updates to Portal 2 makes it so that the trochievements you get on the PS3 doesn't also transfer to the Steamchievements on Steam if you're both logged in to both PSN and Steam on the PS3...

Other than that, one of my friends just realized that he can no longer play Skullgirls properly on the PS3 because all of its resources are being used for Skullgirls Encore... Then again, I don't think that's what you meant by "update", per se...

 

[fix-the-spade]

TF2. Way back in the Sniper vs. Spy Update, April 2009. For me that was the beginning of the end for TF2; putting game-changing weapons into a drop system was the stupidest thing imaginable. Cosmetics? Fine. But not weapon options.

Oh God yes.

I remember when they changed it back, I went from none of Sniper unlocks to ALL OF THEM. Arrows went through heads until the entirety of Egypt was filled with Mercs pinned to walls, it was glorious.

On a more recent note, some of the damage tweaks DICE have done to Battlefield 4 have made some maps all but unplayable. Needing to score eight or nine hits on a a moving target combined with Battlefield's notoriously spotty hit detection. It drove me back to playing BF3.

 

[Lightspeaker]

TF2. Way back in the Sniper vs. Spy Update, April 2009. For me that was the beginning of the end for TF2; putting game-changing weapons into a drop system was the stupidest thing imaginable. Cosmetics? Fine. But not weapon options.

I pretty much stopped playing when it got to the point where they were adding tons of new items in a patch meaning it was damn near impossible to have the same options as another player without just idling for hours upon hours to get every weapon to drop first. I think I've played it maybe half a dozen times in four years now.

I still play TF2 on a semi-regular basis, but I understand your frustration. A part of me pines for the "good ol' days" of 2007-08. I miss the semi-serious spytech vibe instead of "SANDVICH SCOUT'S MOM BREAD MONSTER LAZORS LOL RANDOM!" I miss the plethora of tight-knit community servers that were killed off when Valve implemented Quickplay. I miss having a smooth framerate at high graphical settings before a crapton of particle effects forced me to tone it down. I miss the higher skill level from players in general before the game went F2P. I miss not having two or three players just standing in spawn because they were too lazy to find an idle/trading server.

And of course, I miss the days before abominations like THIS existed...

I don't know whether to find it hilarious or depressing that the guy wearing THAT getup is wearing what looks to be a Grizzled Veteran badge. If I looked like that I'd be embarrassed to wear my Primeval Warrior. >_>

But yeah that picture...the cosmetics really did jump the shark... :-\

 

[Poetic Nova]

It is not an update precisely, more of a revamp...and I seem to only be a part of a small niche group of people that feel the same way. But it's the only example I find necessary to whinge on about until Hades takes my sorry ass away. Metro redux is not the glorious Metro 2033. Last Light is to blame along with Deep Silver for CODding up the gameplay and destroying the immersion that the first game brought. One day I will be able to own and play STALKER to forget about this travesty. But until then: Blaarrrrggghhhh!!

Metro Last Light was a good game, but I do have to agree. First game was better in most aspects.
Which made me sad to see that 2033 got updated to use LL's mechanics in redux.

Edit:
When it comes to Stalker, first game is still the best out of the series. Just make sure it has all patches and apply the Zone Reclemation Project on top. It keeps the game vanilla but fixes everything the devs overlooked while making it easier to run.

 

[bliebblob]

And of course, I miss the days before abominations like THIS existed...

This. The game I love is still in there, somewhere. But jumping the shark doesn't even come close to describing what happened to it. Around the time the first hats started showing up some gmod machinima-ists parodied it. Their point basically boiling down to: "Lololo what's next? Different eyepatches for demo?" And then valve proceeded to go 14 levels beyond that ...

There also once upon a time was this crappy korean ftp mmo, silkroad online. You know the kind: grindtastic, pay-to-win up the wazoo, rampant botting and goldselling, russian roulette enchanting system, player shops cluttering up everything, ... Its only redeeming feature an uncharacteristically brilliant thieves versus traders PvP system, akin to a heavily simplified version of EVE's trading. With more martial artists and less spaceships. I only played because I simply didn't know any better and eventually wisened up. But since I knew of nothing like that system and I did like that bit, I still gave it another chance every couple of years. Every single time the game's problem's hadn't improved in the slightest, and the last time I found the PvP system was completely gutted in favor of some kind of overly convoluted PvE loot pinata that isn't even worth the time investment of persuing. Instead of hoisting the rest of the game up to the level of their one redeeming feature, the one it was named for for crying out loud, they dragged it down to the sub-par level the rest of the game is on. Not surprising in the least, in retrospect, and kind of a relief: at least now I can officially uninstall it once and for all.

 

[babinro]

Diablo 3 - Anything after patch 1.0.8 (aka removal of the Auction houses and the expansion pack)

None of this really 'broke' the game but did effectively change the game to an experience I could not longer find lasting enjoyment with. What exactly made 1.0.8 so much fun for me?

- Static zone farming.
Pick a zone and farm. You know the map and the monsters so you can tailor a build towards that area if you wish and just have fun. Rifts and bounties are great additions to the game but they reward you MORE than static zone farming which was the type of farming I enjoyed most.

- Auction House.
I hated trade in Diablo 2 and out of the auction house of Diablo 3. It was filled with constant spam, sellers, scammers, trolling and flat out greed. The auction house fixed at all this. You were free to trade on your terms. If someone later 'flipped' your item for profit then so be it. You still bought or sold your items for your asking price all without major hassles or time commitments. The AH and RMAH weren't perfect but they were far and away the best means of enabling trade in a Diablo game.

- Sets were strong but so were non-sets.
Want a strong build but would rather not monopolize 6 gear slots on a set? You could do this.

- Monster Power 0 - 10
Difficulties MEANT something. MP10 wasn't a cake-walk. In fact it was a challenge difficulty. Most high end players would farm MP7 or MP8 for efficiency reasons rather than the slower battles of MP9 and MP10. The important thing to note here was that these difficulties were optimal but not MANDATORY. I would farm MP6 with my Demon Hunter all the time despite having an MP9 efficient Barb and Monk. Both felt rewarding and fun so I'd gladly switch between them.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I think I am beginning to despise the GvG expansion in Hearthstone. The level of RNG in the game is just ridiculous now, couple that with all aggro decks all the time now where queuing up to ladder is basically flipping a coin between facing MechMage, Mech*insertclasshere*, Face Hunter, Patron Warrior or Zoo and i'm close to uninstalling again.

All of the good cards are outweighed by the bullshit ones. I mean Antique Healbot, while amazing, is only good because of how it gives you a chance against aggro AKA if aggro wasn't so prevalent, Antique Healbot would be average to bad, same thing with Kezan Mystic, she's only good because she fucks over Face Hunter if you steal his Explosive Trap. Dr Balanced speaks for himself, making aggro even worse to fight against while simultaneously making the bigger creatures worse because every deck has to run BGH to counter him. He fits in every deck you can imagine.

"We have no plans to change Dr Bomb and we're not looking at it" - some guy from Blizzard

If Infinity Wars released a spectate mode, I would drop Hearthstone immediately since all of the fun I have is me and a friend spectating each other. I mean an online card game based around skill and playing around your opponent rather than praying that this full aggro ****'s Piloted Shredder drops a Doomsayer is much more preferable.

 

[Angelblaze]

Definitely the update to Hawken that removed tuning points.

Previously; you wanted a tanky berserker that could dodge in and out of cover like an absolute baws? Okay!
You want a pretty decently fast literal tank that is only vulnerable from behind? OKAY!
You want your tank...to be TANKIER?! FCKIN DO IT.

It felt like they stripped the customization away and after that I kinda stopped falling in love with the game. I was too addicted to 600-700+ life/unstoppable berserkers and bruisers I think.

 

[Tayh]

LOTRO PVMP.
Took a break. Came back, only to find they'd introduced some new kind of bullshit pvp grind system.
So not only do you have to grind infamy for ranks, destiny points for skills, passives and enhancers and Arbitrary Currency X for potions and consumables to remain competetive; now you had to grind another bullshit stat just to not be completely useless. And you have to do all of this on one pvp-map. There's no safe pve-maps for monster-players to level and grind in safety, as opposed to freeps(free peoples players) who have literally the rest of the game for playing in.
When I left, my rank 8 Warleader was one of the toughest tank/healer classes in the game. When I game back, I literally got taken out by a burglar in about 5 seconds. I guess the developers felt that all the time I'd spent earning infamy from kills, destiny points from objectives and hundreds of hours of playtime shouldn't count for anything.