[SatelliteOfLove]

even games like Diablo is doing this now

They really need to tone down button prompts on everything. I don't need to know which button opens doors 5 hours into a game.

I hate these cuz they stifle the learning process. This isn't LoZ's context-sensitive action button, it's the same thing over and over and over.

Don't even get me started about those who just cannot be mindful of their health without sirens and neon lights (or when really desperate, strawberry jam). They're in YOUR dungeon group, healing YOUR mans!

[ArachosiA 78]

The screen turning black and white when low on health

[Kokonoe]

Another thing is mass medal/item collecting to open entry to the next area. Sonic Unleashed 25+ medals for the next area? Please no.

All it does is waste your time.

[EatinOlives]

I'm really hating the recent trend where games completely lack anything resembling a good conclusion. I finished both RAGE and Bulletstorm recently and neither had anything I'd call an "ending". Neither of them even had what you'd call a "final boss fight", let alone a cinematic that properly gives closure to the story at hand. Yes, there's room for sequels, etc., but plenty of movies/books/TV Shows manage to have something called a "story arc", which I think many devs aren't particularly bothered to follow. Basically, even if a story is part of a larger arc, there needs to be a certain "winding down" in the current one to provide enough closure to make a game feel complete. Games that end literally in the middle of the battle (like in RAGE where the game actually stops with the protagonist smack dab in the middle of Capital Prime), or have a 30-second FMV as an "ending" is complete ass.

I know many devs do it because, hey, it's the ending and they're not devoting millions for the end of the game, but I think the ending is the actual last thing that people take away from your game (provided they don't go back to complete it 100%), and thus I think it's ridiculous that games go out with such a pathetic wimper. Why leave gamers such a bad taste in their mouths with disappointing endings and no conclusions?

[GungHo]

Especially ones that move the fucking direction arrows to different places on the screen.

Yeah... that really is assinine.

[gketter]

its minor, but hitting start when the game boots up just to get to the real menu of options

Start button title screens made sense when you hit start and the game...started. Now its an unnecessary button you have to hit based out of tradition

[Metal-Geo]

its minor, but hitting start when the game boots up just to get to the real menu of options Start button title screens made sense when you hit start and the game...started. Now its an unnecessary button you have to hit based out of tradition

That's very, very, very minor if you ask me. :P

I quite like title screens. It's the cumload of (unskippable) logo animations that come first that annoy me.

[RoboPlato]

I'm really hating the recent trend where games completely lack anything resembling a good conclusion. I finished both RAGE and Bulletstorm recently and neither had anything I'd call an "ending". Neither of them even had what you'd call a "final boss fight", let alone a cinematic that properly gives closure to the story at hand. Yes, there's room for sequels, etc., but plenty of movies/books/TV Shows manage to have something called a "story arc", which I think many devs aren't particularly bothered to follow. Basically, even if a story is part of a larger arc, there needs to be a certain "winding down" in the current one to provide enough closure to make a game feel complete. Games that end literally in the middle of the battle (like in RAGE where the game actually stops with the protagonist smack dab in the middle of Capital Prime), or have a 30-second FMV as an "ending" is complete ass. I know many devs do it because, hey, it's the ending and they're not devoting millions for the end of the game, but I think the ending is the actual last thing that people take away from your game (provided they don't go back to complete it 100%), and thus I think it's ridiculous that games go out with such a pathetic wimper. Why leave gamers such a bad taste in their mouths with disappointing endings and no conclusions?

This so much. I hate the desperate reliance on the game becoming a smash hit and spawning many sequels. You don't have to close everything up in case you do make a sequel, but I hate the fact that so many games are simply unsatisfying cliffhangers.

[bigdaddygamebot]

Lock-on in third person action RPGs.

[PSFan]

Water levels

[Dorfdad]

Exploding Barrels. I mean who would hold up in a warehouse full of exploding barrels consistently!!

[megalowho]

Great, you've arrived! First, kill 10 things. Now find 5 things that drop from the things you already killed, only they drop 1 out of every 4 times. Now kill the big named thing, it lives in a cave somewhere nearby. Also find my lost satchel in the cave if you don't mind. Well done! Here's some shoes you don't need. And hey would you mind walking over to this guy on the other side of the map, I hear there's some different looking things that need killing.

[ScreenSplitter]

In first person shooting games... WHY NO FEET.

Where the hell did my legs go?!

[i nerini del buio]

So I've been playing a lot of first person shooters to give my new mouse a good testing. I really prefer older ones because anything remotely new has a bunch of scripted scenes where you lose control of your character. This is almost always because some crazy shit went down or because your character has to do something so badass they couldn't possibly trust you to control it. I really hate that shit as well as most head bob effects because, as you may notice, in real life your eyes aren't a fucking camera. You have a massive range of peripheral vision and you constantly snap to different points of focus. There is no way to replicate this in a game, so anything that tries is some nauseating swinging camera that makes you feel like a drunkard with blinders on the sides of his head. The sad thing is that seems to be something that will only continue to increase in games. I'm pretty sure it's what devs mean when they say their game will have "visceral" action or whatever.

cooldowns
aim down sights
red screen of death
reticule bloom

[Willectro]

Escort missions / levels.

[RelentlessRolento]

Tutorials... Not even if they are long or short. Stop assuming I'm dumb and just let me figure it out. Feel free to have an in game or in box manual but I liked it when I could game not expecting to be shown everything right when I jump in.

[KageMaru]

I'm beginning to despise linear and heavily scripted games. It's fine for the random Uncharted or even CoD title, but the gamer in me dies a little every time I see a game trying to replicate CoD's success by mimicking the design choices.

I can't wait until this bubble pops and developers remember there are options other than hallways, cutscene, hallway, cut-scene, etc.

[18-Volt]

- Same job/race classes in many RPG's; Elves, dwarfs, orcs and goblins...
- Same fantasy setting; Dark Ages + Norse mythology (with a hint of greek mythology)
- No going back after checkpoint in some games
- Missable sidequests
- Dungeons that won't let you escape from there (like Pokémon and Dragon Quest do)
- Games that start from last save when you die instead of checkpoints/autosaves (saving often is a stupid habit)

[Gbraga]

Combat in everything, EVERYTHING.

Even games that are story focused like Alan Wake are shooters. I DON'T WANT TO KILL OR PUNCH STUFF EVERY TIME I TURN MY CONSOLE ON, PLEASE LET ME PLAY GOOD GAMES WITHOUT COMBAT.

[Reclaimer]

Games with large inventories containing items with vital stats of weight, value, quality, type etc... And no way to sort those hundreds of items by those fields.

Poorly written tooltips.

Games that don't offer options to adjust transparency, color, or enable/disable UI elements.

I feel like at one point everything above would be considered unacceptable, now they are the status quo.

[IceDoesntHelp]

- Headshots that don't kill or at least seriously injure enemies. Horrible in Uncharted, especially with buffed up enemies. Just because you wear a hat doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to seriously injure you with a headshot.

This, so much. Also, the hitboxes are terrible in the Uncharted series (though got a lot better in UC2)

[anotherVegan]

Screen turning red when you get shot, regenerating health, random encounters in RPGs, yada yada yada

[matrix-cat]

I really dislike God of War clone action games. There's so much potential in the field of combat systems, yet 90% of games think you just have one button do light attacks and one do heavy attacks and then call it a day. It means that you can only begin attacking in one of two different ways, and you've seen most of what the combat system has to offer in the first couple of seconds of the game. All the cool stuff is locked away behind extended combos and you'll just never see it because how often do you get that far in without having to block or dodge? When every attack shape except 'hit a man' is locked away behind at least one extra button press it just makes the game slower; you can't use a launcher or a wide crowd control or a ground pound without first building up through the ranks of your dull starter attacks, and you don't build up credit. No matter how many times you prove you're good for it, you still have to hammer out those first couple of presses every time.

Ironically, something like Batman's combat system is brilliant because it takes that clumsy idea and makes it the focus. In Batman your best moves are explicitly locked away behind high combo chains, but Batman's attacks aren't awkward five-button strings and every successful attack you land adds to the combo metre. The game encourages you to play strategically, preserving your combo string above all else because it's the only way to reach your most effective attacks. It's completely unlike any other system out there, and it just shows that there are so many different ways you can go with an action game if you're willing to innovate.

[daebo]

Press button as fast as humanly possible for certain amount of time. Hate it. Die.

[Santiako]

I remembered another, stupid iron sights. Ugh.

[Dice]

Press button as fast as humanly possible for certain amount of time. Hate it. Die.

I don't really see how this is standard game design. Last time I saw it was in RE4 when something grabbed me.

[megashock5]

Time limits on any event that has no context within the plot. I'll go at my own damn pace, I don't like playing sloppily.

Oh man, this. I want to take time and look around, don't give me a time limit.

Also, stealth. I get it in something like Metal Gear, but I hated the barrel stuff in Wind Waker.

Worst, IMO, is a repeating audio warning that WON'T STOP when you're low on life. Yeah, I know I need health, shut up so I can concentrate on looking for some.

Escort missions / levels.

Dear God, this too.

Also (flamesuit on) bosses. They can be handled really well, but so many times they're just cheap and take away from the fun of advancing to new areas of the game. And they don't need to be shoehorned into everything. They added bosses to Super Monkey Ball for crying out loud.

[Dice]

- Headshots that don't kill or at least seriously injure enemies. Horrible in Uncharted, especially with buffed up enemies. Just because you wear a hat doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to seriously injure you with a headshot.

This pisses me off. If I put a bullet through your head you should be down. Make them cyborgs or something if you don't want me to be able to kill them that way.

Time limits on any event that has no context within the plot. I'll go at my own damn pace, I don't like playing sloppily.

Especially in RPGs, or when it's really ambiguous like "do it quickly" and you don't know if the game is saying that for the story or if you'll actually just suddenly fail if you wait too long. Fuckin bad design even making me paranoid about/ruining the experience of the games that are actually sensible.

Insta-game over when you get seen during a stealth segment. I was watching a video review of the new Ghost Recon and when it mentioned that, I groaned. There's no reason for us to fall back on such tired trial and error.

Yeah, I hate this so much, especially if it's in a game where I have been quietly taking out dozens of the exact same assholes by the dozen.

I hate action games that magically lock you in a room until you're done killing everyone. There has got to be a better way of doing this than LAWL EVIL SPIRIT LOCKED THE DOOR WITH MAGIC, KILL ALL ENEMIES.

Yeah, what is this shit?

The obsession with multiplayer. FPS games use to be amazing and would last you longer than 4 hours.

This is becoming more apparent to me as I have been playing older ones. They are so huge and amazing.

People that fight the same with both 1/100HP and 100/100HP.

I think I even made a thread about this once. It's really pathetic that in this day and age, enemies roll 100% unill they just keel over and die. A lot of bosses even "get angry" and fight harder and harder until the end. What the fuck? Dead Space showed that it's perfectly possible to have even dynamic damage and behavior adjustment. Why not do this? Especially for large creatures? If I shoot some massive beast with a rocket launcher, it should lose a big chunk of its body and move slower.

And in shooters, say I miss horribly with a sniper rifle and shoot a guy in the leg... so he runs at me or to get help? I just sniped your fucking leg! If we have headshots we should have other types of damage recognition as well. Goldeneye was the first game I saw with this and that was ages ago. We should be waaay farther along by now.

Another thing is physics recognition before death. I remember this really took me out of Silent hill: Homecoming. There was this monster that was awkwardly wobbling like it could barely stand up, but my heavy blunt object attacks had zero affect on it. That really pulled me out of the game, but then also made me realize how in most games physical force has no affect unless it's a special move designed to have knockback.

So yeah, we're still stuck in old arcade games when it comes to many aspects of game design.

Escort missions / levels.

They wouldn't be so bad if the person you were escorting wasn't a fucking moron.

Oh, an incredibly dangerous area where we could be attacked any second? I'll just walk slower than your slowest walking option so we can have a chat!

Shit, bad guys are attacking? I'll stand still and hold my arms up while they run over to kill me.

[ii Stryker]

I'm beginning to despise linear and heavily scripted games. It's fine for the random Uncharted or even CoD title, but the gamer in me dies a little every time I see a game trying to replicate CoD's success by mimicking the design choices. I can't wait until this bubble pops and developers remember there are options other than hallways, cutscene, hallway, cut-scene, etc.

QFT

I also loathe vignetting in any shape or form in a videogame. It works well on other mediums NOT videogames.

[Reclaimer]

QFT I also loathe vignetting in any shape or form in a videogame. It works well on other mediums NOT videogames.

You really must loathe Diablo 3 then. :)

Waggle

Waggle when it really, absolutely could, nay SHOULD be a simple button press. Rolling in donkey kong returns drove me nuts.

[InsaneLuchador]

Waggle

[overburning]

Early bosses being "downgraded" to normal enemies.

[Femmeworth]

It's not game design per so, but I really hate the lack of in-depth options the vast majority of console games have. Nier has some of the best options I have seen in a console game. It lets you adjust how quickly the camera auto-adjusts, you can even disable it! How many other games let you do that? More importantly, I hate how shooters especially don't have any kind of setting for the size of the dead zones for the analog sticks. >:| I kind of know why they don't do it, but it still irritates me. I want precision damn it. I know Cliffy B posts here occasional, I would love to get an explanation out of him.

[CecilRousso]

Bosses, pretty much all of them.

To scripted and linear gameplay a.k.a. Rebel Assault gameplay - Uncharted and others.

[Metal B]

The MMO-Style and Level-Design
I really would like to play an MMO, but i hate the empty, big and generic environment. I know why they exist, but i hope Game- and Level-Design would finally find a way around it.

[Sojgat]

Recharging health, because most devs use it as an excuse for bad encounter design.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I don't get how so many people can say they hate bosses. What kind of games do you play? I can't imagine action games without bosses.

[Nemesis_]

The more and more action games I play, the more and more stealth segments there seems to be. Even worse, said games are not DESIGNED around this kind of gameplay so everything just FLOPS abysmally.

[Black_Stride]

The shaved head protagonist.

Shaved head as in bald or shaved as in buzz cut?
Cuz bald protagonists are pretty rare.
How many games actually have this?

I really dislike God of War clone action games. There's so much potential in the field of combat systems, yet 90% of games think you just have one button do light attacks and one do heavy attacks and then call it a day. .

Please mention these god of war clones, im curious to see how many you can mention that are guilty of the crimes you say they commit....and please dont say Darksiders or Castlevania:LOS

[Aeana]

I don't really see how this is standard game design. Last time I saw it was in RE4 when something grabbed me.

Last time? Or first time? Since RE4, it has been in sooo many action games. Even Witcher 2 has it.

[raziel]

cutscenes around every corner (usually to aid loading times) - max payne 3 made me notice this and hate it slightly in every game i play now

bad third person/cover system controls - this far into the gen, its crazy how few games have actually got it down

bad controls in general - i seriously find something like 60% of all third person games to not have controls to my liking

hold button to run - ridiculous that any game still has this

level up/perk/customization in multiplayer - i watched a UT2004 vehicles trailer the other day on youtube and made myself sad

[Bombadil]

Load screens when entering/exiting through doors.

"Cinematic experiences." I want to play the game. If you can't create that scene in your head with me playing it, then don't.

Shooting groups of enemies, walking forward along a pre-set pathway, shooting more enemies, triggering a cutscene, etc. When did developers stop being creative? Perhaps when they discovered they didn't have to be.

All the enemies/NPCs in a game look the same.

NPCs stand around, not doing anything, seemingly existing just for the player.

Object debris disappears shortly after it lands on the ground. Bodies disappear. Particles disappear. Blood spatter disappears.

Cheap blood spatter. Examples include F.E.A.R. and Assassin's Creed and God of War 3 (I say 3 because it was acceptable for the first two).

Overly dramatic intros voiced by old ladies or throaty men.

[Patrick Bateman]

Different difficulty-modes (easy, normal, hard). Mostly it changes only the number of enemies or their reaction time. I think that this is very lazy game design. Why not make a game that can be played by everyone? And when you can't achieve a goal in the game, you just don't play it right and have to adapt or learn how to.

See the Mario- and Zelda-games as good examples for no different modes.

[zoukka]

Why not make a game that can be played by everyone?

Easy task.

[Dice]

Different difficulty-modes (easy, normal, hard). Mostly it changes only the number of enemies or their reaction time. I think that this is very lazy game design. Why not make a game that can be played by everyone? And when you can't achieve a goal in the game, you just don't play it right and have to adapt or learn how to. See the Mario- and Zelda-games as good examples for no different modes.

Get out of my universe.

[Patrick Bateman]

Easy task.

Makes sense to quote and cut out the examples.

[Lijik]

Forced, blatant in-game tutorials get on my nerves the most.

Fuck that shit.

[mr_square]

its minor, but hitting start when the game boots up just to get to the real menu of options Start button title screens made sense when you hit start and the game...started. Now its an unnecessary button you have to hit based out of tradition

If you have multiple pads plugged into the console, how else does the game know which one you want to use?

[Black_Stride]

Makes sense to quote and cut out the examples.

Zelda and Mario are always on Easy. Lost Odyssey starts on Insane and the drops to Super Easy after the second boss.
What if i want more of a challenge from the same game?

On Topic
Games with only one difficulty that is too easy, i want a challenge god damn it, give me hard and insane modes.
Look at RAGE....you are overpowered through out the game.

Difficulty settings let "everyone" play the game, if everyone had the exact same skill level, then yeah there would be no need for difficulty settings.....but players dont so difficulty settings are a nice touch.

its minor, but hitting start when the game boots up just to get to the real menu of options Start button title screens made sense when you hit start and the game...started. Now its an unnecessary button you have to hit based out of tradition

If you have multiple pads plugged into the console, how else does the game know which one you want to use?

^I notice this in GeOW3 when my cousin and I have a press start battle to see who gets top screen.

[Coolwhip]

Forced tutorials and tips for 5 year olds. There should always be a 'treat me like an adult with an actual brain' mode. Would have made Skyward Sword a lot better for example.