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Annoying/distracting game design choices.

I am going to go on a mini rant so consider yourself warned.

First person games - everything in game casts a shadow except the player character. This particularly bugs me in Alien Isolation since the overall graphics quality is very high and nails the look of the film.

Doors - usually built to a ridiculously large scale compared to the characters and almost always double hinged even when in real life they wouldn't be. Also in third person game doors just open by being walked into and they magically swing open.

Character height and body types - this one I really hate, everybody is the exact same height and body with the only distinction being that men are larger overall. Very noticeable example in GTA V, cutscenes clearly show Lamar to be taller than Franklin but in gameplay no difference.

Gliding up and down stairs/slopes - at least make the effort to record more than one walking and running motion, this is just silly in modern AAA titles.

Post examples you can think of, GAF.
 

Symphonia

Banned
Doors - usually built to a ridiculously large scalecompared to the characters and almost always double hinged even when in real life they wouldn't be. Also in third person game doors just open by being walked into and they magically swing open.
Amnesia did doors right. They only open one way, and need the player to actually hold a key to grab the door handle and open it. I like that the player can also determine the speed and strength the door is opened at.
 

Auctopus

Member
When following a blood trail/footsteps in The Witcher 3, even once you've caught the scent/trail, you must hold down Witcher Senses throughout the path. It's very immersion-breaking.
 

Caronte

Member
Introducing a character for your party for the tutorial and then just killing them for no reason. As if there wasn't any other way to make them leave your party.
 

Dame

Member
Kissing. When two characters kiss it just looks robotic as shit.

SO angrily agreeing with this right now. Kisses are sensual and poetic. Why have developers and designers not sat down and said "Hey. We need to fix this mess and capture how fluid a kiss is"?

The first title i see to do that right has my money off of that one principle alone. It'd be worth a possibly terrible rest of the title.
 

Rolf NB

Member
Roadie Run.

Limit your FOV, shake your camera, slow down your camera control speed, and potentially start off with "resetting" your camera.
In a game!
 

Renekton

Member
Distracting (not annoying)

In games like Witcher 3 and AC, your horse will auto-teleport to your location. Why not it just teleport me to Ciri?
 
SO angrily agreeing with this right now. Kisses are sensual and poetic. Why have developers and designers not sat down and said "Hey. We need to fix this mess and capture how fluid a kiss is"?

The first title i see to do that right has my money off of that one principle alone. It'd be worth a possibly terrible rest of the title.
Go buy Assassin's Creed Unity right now
 

Dame

Member
idle animations in something like FFX, where they just keep moving the same way.
a good example is Rikku putting her arm up when she is happy about something and keeping it their after a line reading, then just moving it in repeat.
 

Auctopus

Member
Forcing you to walk, not allowing you to run through a certain section.
The Order 1886

image.php
 

Kinsella

Banned
Forcing controller changes mid-game for no damn good reason other than to show off a lame gimmick: Super Mario 3D World.
 
Blocking my progress by throwing up IRL timers. This pisses me off no matter what unless I paid $0 for the game. If I pay any money for a game you better not tell me how long I can play for.
 

Corpekata

Banned
Like every guy in the Arkham verse is at or over 6 feet tall. Penguin and probably Mad Hatter (probably, I don't remember much of him in AC) as the exceptions. Even Alfred and the Riddler are as tall as Batman.

I found it especially distracting when you first encounter Catowman and she's strapped to a chair and she (and the chair) seems sort of comically tiny. From that point on a lot of stuff seems sort of amusingly small.
 

M.D

Member
I wanted to make a similar thread after finishing Batman: Arkham City yesterday

That game handles voice chatter soooo poorly, it was so annyoing
 
I hate when a games flow is ruined by fluff and filler to slow down the player with meaningless sub-RPG elements, obligatory vehicle mechanics or some sort of level puzzle that has nothing to figure out. Don't do this. It's exactly this sort of bogging down of the experience that makes me not want to replay, and just makes it a chore.

Max Payne 1 and 2 are amazing game because they are just straight forward action games. There is not all this needless cluttered bullshit attached.

So many action games have been ruined by stupid crap like this. "hey guys - Let's ruin the experience by putting this vehicle into the level. I like putting sticks in my own wheels when I got a good thing going. fuck the players. they are too dumb to know the difference between shoveled in shit afterthought features and good game design that only takes years to conceptualize, implement and make fun. we can easily trick those morons" - Developers probably.




I remember I read a interview with Yuji Naka from the early 90s. He was talking about how they approached levels in the Sonic games was that they wanted skilled players to move through the levels without stopping or slowing down. The whole idea was to reward high level play, and basically give novice players something to aim for. It was frustrating for a skilled player looking at a rookie who had trouble getting through the level by stopping so many times.

That really spoke to me. It's a shame that that philosophy was not carried into the later Sonics.
 

hwy_61

Banned
Alright. Assassins creed unity has some damn good kissing. If you YouTube "assassins creed unity kissing", a couple clips will come up.
 

Evo X

Member
Fuck the rain in Drive Club. Especially in 3rd person view when it smears the screen so much, you have no idea where you're going.
 

Bishop89

Member
Doors - usually built to a ridiculously large scale compared to the characters and almost always double hinged even when in real life they wouldn't be. Also in third person game doors just open by being walked into and they magically swing open.



Gliding up and down stairs/slopes - at least make the effort to record more than one walking and running motion, this is just silly in modern AAA titles.
.
so basically you want games to be less games and more real life simulators?
And you want everything to be slowed down by having unnecessary animations. Did i mention they slow down everything?
 
I remember I read a interview with Yuji Naka from the early 90s. He was talking about how they approached levels in the Sonic games was that they wanted skilled players to move through the levels without stopping or slowing down. The whole idea was to reward high level play, and basically give novice players something to aim for. It was frustrating for a skilled player looking at a rookie who had trouble getting through the level by stopping so many times.

That really spoke to me. It's a shame that that philosophy was not carried into the later Sonics.

Go into any "sonic is overrated" thread and you'll see why; for the vast majority of players, stopping is viewed as the game's fault, rather than the players. Can't do flashy shit immediately, game must suck. :p
 

Vorpal

Member
NPCs walking in place in 2D JRPGs.

ibeZcCF.gif


What about PCs?

The thing that annoys me is when voice clips/audio samples are attached to the actions you'll be using most frequently. I picked up The Legend of Dark Witch on 3DS and the character yells "YA" every time a shot is fired (which, in a Mega Man style game, turns out to be pretty much always).

You can turn that off in the audio options though, thankfully.
 
When they put giant-ass objective/hint text in the middle of the screen that obstructs your vision during fights in games like Batman: Arkham Origins.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
NPCs walking in place in 2D JRPGs.

ibeZcCF.gif


What about PCs?

The thing that annoys me is when voice clips/audio samples are attached to the actions you'll be using most frequently. I picked up The Legend of Dark Witch on 3DS and the character yells "YA" every time a shot is fired (which, in a Mega Man style game, turns out to be pretty much always).

You can turn that off in the audio options though, thankfully.

lol.

Trying to walk into a bush..turns out it was a brick wall. (in the more realistic games.) This irked me about TLoU last gen. I cant remember if it was changed for current gen.
 
Constantly nerfing and buffing the same bunch of characters every patch in multiplayer games.
League of Legends

Failure to maintain solid 30FPS on consoles, I don't care how fucking great your game looks at a fluctuating 22 to 27FPS because I'm not here for Powerpoint, I'm here to have fun. Turn the graphics settings down you incompetent devs.
 
Thief: The Dark Project's "map" system. Look, I know what they were trying to go for by having scratched-out maps that vaguely point out various landmarks. But that usually works when the environments themselves aren't horribly repetitive.
I spent hours, HOURS in the Theives' Guild forgetting where to go, then died and accidentally lost a save.

Right now, the Cathedral isn't looking any better.

Please tell me this gets better in Thief II.
 

Wil348

Member
Batmobile: The Thread

Seriously though, I would have to say the Werehog in Sonic Unleashed. It's not a bad idea on paper though the result was a painfully average brawler that overshadowed the actual Sonic gameplay. They could have done more with it to make it more interesting and even fit better into a Sonic game.
 
[snip] Doors - usually built to a ridiculously large scale compared to the characters and almost always double hinged even when in real life they wouldn't be. Also in third person game doors just open by being walked into and they magically swing open. [snip]
I hate how in the Witcher 3 Geralt basically just slams doors, even heavy gates, open with a light hand gesture.

Also: currently playing through Yakuza 3 and its really annoying how you have to click through 3 messages every time you want to pick up a locker key (iirc it was the same/similar in 1+2).
 

Crossing Eden

Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
A character in a first person game usually doesn't cast a shadow because there's no character model there to react to the light. Just a pair of arms and sometimes legs, which wouldn't reflect light correctly. Applies to alien isolation. A little thing that annoys me is that characters in From Software games don't emote at all when talking, not talking about lack of lip sync, the mouths don't even move at all, really is a disservice to the excellent voice work and looks extremely silly and creepy.
 
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