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[sigmaZ]

What is your gaming pet peeve? Something that gets your goat, grinds your gears, jams your steeze?

My #1 gaming pet peeve at the moment is the unnatural delay between lines of dialogue when players are having a conversation with an NPC. Playing Final Fantasy XVI, this happens A LOT. Here's an example:



In real life, people don't often take a full second to respond to someone or to begin their next sentence. I've heard that this awkward cadence & delays in games is due to having to load in the next animation/audio track, but surely with modern hard drives and memory, this is no longer necessary?

I want to play a game where people speak like people: accidentally stepping on each other's responses, giving cues that they want to cut in, reacting to each other more seemingly spontaneously. Recording with voice actors in the same room would go a long way to making things feel more organic. That'd increase the budget and time necessary to record, but I'd love to see it. Let me know if you know of any games that did that.

What's your gaming pet peeve?

Based. Yeah, I hate hate hate this crap. This totally destroys any immersion I have with the game.

Other pet peeves I have:

• Walking and talking scenes unless they are really short
• Needless QTEs. QTEs like the beginning of God of War are alright because you are directly influencing input.
• Exclamation marks everywhere for quests and copy paste quests. I much prefer quests to be character focused and side stories each with their own unique design.
• Times when games freeze you or take control from you too long. Also when it takes too long to get up from being knocked down.
• World building and exposition beyond what is necessary for the plot and side content.
• Boring level design.
• Bosses that don't have a gimmick or challenge to overcome and are essentially just endurance matches.
• Bad camera controls

 

[Valt7786]

Hand holding, tutorials for the most basic shit like walking forward or something.
The Rule of 3 or 5 if your ToTK. 5 keys to unlock a door etc etc.
Clipping hair/cape physics, always looks shit.
Character Creators that look amazing as your creating, then your character looks half as good in the actual game.
"AAA" games not utlizing 40fps modes now. Just do it, ffs.

 

[sigmaZ]

PC games that make you quit to the menu before letting you quit to the desktop.

This should be outlawed by international law.

 

[belteshazzar]

• Unskippable splash screens when booting the game.
• Winning the fight during gameplay but then immediately losing during the post battle cutscene.
• Trailing/walk from point A to point B missions where you're forced to walk at 1 mph.

 

[RoboFu]

Sheath clipping through cape

That's a very shallow thing to hate but whatever... That will not be fixed anytime soon. Games do not do collision detection on every polygon and a lot don't do collision on the polygon at all but a delegated box and others do path based collisions. Collision detection is one of the most computationally intensive functions in video games.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Recently started over in Red Dead Redemption 2. It is amazing how frigging bad the first few hours of the game are. Slow, depressing, just downright booooring.

Once you get to the train part and set up your camp it's all good but WOW those first few hours are bad.

Good to know it gets better. I tried the first part of it when it was on GP and it literally was like a tranquilizer to me.

 

[sigmaZ]

Recently started over in Red Dead Redemption 2. It is amazing how frigging bad the first few hours of the game are. Slow, depressing, just downright booooring.

Once you get to the train part and set up your camp it's all good but WOW those first few hours are bad.

Oh god remembering that triggers my timbers. I also can't stand Rockstar's rigid quest designs where if you even breath outside the limited boundary you fail the mission.

 

[Valonquar]

Everything present in Resident Evil 6.

 

[sigmaZ]

Gimmick situations/bosses for which you can have no foreshadowing and that wipe you out so fast unless you happen to have the right skill/equip by pure chance. Recently happened to me in Persona 4:

Ah. This reminded me of one pet peeve of some RPGs though its somewhat rare these days. When the late game enemies all just keep casting instant kill spells all the time.

 

[BbMajor7th]

1. Developers that won't leave me alone with their games: endless tutorials, stacked cutscenes, on-rails gameplay, pop-ups, map markers and 'helpful' NPC dialogue drive me nuts. Having the developer constantly interrupting you to tell you you're going the wrong way, or that you need to check a menu, or 'try that ladder over there!', grates like nothing else.

2. Overstatement. Tell me once, not four times in four different ways: Title card: "Defensive Maneuvers" > Tutorial overlay: "Block three of Vincent's attacks in a row. Use L1 to block." > Vincent: "Let's test those survival instincts, shall we? I hope you're not expecting me to go easy on you!" > Quest tracker: "Block Vincent's attacks: 0/3" > Button mapping reference in bottom right: "L1 Block." > Vincent, after a successful block: "Impressive! Let's see if you can do it again!" Honestly, you can trim all of this crap out and just let me figure it out for myself.

3. Any RPG (and FromSoft are terrible for this), where fancy, hard-to-acquire magic items, weapons or armor are no more interesting or effective than basic stuff: +10 Spiral Sword of Chaos, acquired from ball-breaking optional boss and upgraded with Rare AF Ore of Awesome: '415 DMG', +10 Peasant's Long Sword acquired from Training Mob A upgraded with rusty scrap: "410 DMG"

4. Special call-out for Dark Souls:

"You should totally make a boss weapon! They're super powerful and unique!"
"Awesome! I saved all my Boss Souls just in case. Can't wait to trade in my trusty rapier for--"
"Dex build? Nah, sorry, we only have 400lb ultra-greatswords, tower shields the size of a family sedan and this one hammer that looks like a shipping container strapped to a caber."
"Oh... any armor?"
"One mage robe that looks tatty pyjamas and then ten sets of shit so heavy you'll be fat rolling all the way the final boss."

 

[Jack Videogames]

Fuck crafting and durability. I don't want to make databases of my available materials in order to kill a fucking goblin

 

[SEGA_2012]

NPCs pestering me when i am searching for collectables. This happens a lot in Gears 5.

Me: Searching for collectables or upgrades for Jacky

JD: Guys it is better we move on

Del: Is there any reason we still are here ?

Fahz: GUYS LET'S FUCKING GO NO REASON TO STAY HERE

Shut up, bitches, let me explore the open world

 

[Johnny Concrete]

NPCs pestering me when i am searching for collectables. This happens a lot in Gears 5.

Me: Searching for collectables or upgrades for Jacky

JD: Guys it is better we move on

Del: Is there any reason we still are here ?

Fahz: GUYS LET'S FUCKING GO NO REASON TO STAY HERE

Shut up, bitches, let me explore the open world

I have kind of the opposite of this: the disconnect between story urgency and actual gameplay.

"We have to hurry, she's in trouble!" - goes on doing 5 hours of side-quests first. I rather have the game run a timer and if I'm too late to save the person then he/she is dead and the story continues without that character.

 

[mxbison]

Completely unnecessary 2 second "cutscenes" like your character pressing a button. FF7 Remake did this a lot and it drove me crazy.

 

[BbMajor7th]

I have kind of the opposite of this: the disconnect between story urgency and actual gameplay.

"We have to hurry, she's in trouble!" - goes on doing 5 hours of side-quests first. I rather have the game run a timer and if I'm too late to save the person then he/she is dead and the story continues without that character.

FFVII R Train Graveyard segment...

 

[FoxMcChief]

The fucking noises characters make in games, especially in games made in Japan. The gasps, the breathing, the noises made when swinging a sword, all of it. It’s taken straight from anime and it’s annoying as fuck.

 

[TropicanaTwista]

Pointless tutorials. I don't mind tutorials in general to get a feel for gameplay/how combat works, but some do not need to be added on at all. Like "use the left analog stick to move your character." " Press 'X' to jump"

Seriously wtf. I get it isn't overly long or that much of a waste, but who in there right mind doesn't know that.

 

[JCK75]

Unskippable cutscenes are the worst.. and they especially piss me off when you are doing another playthrough and they still force you to sit through it.

 

[MayauMiao]

Too many time needed to press "skip cut scene" until I get to actual game play .

Death Stranding is a great example.

 

[MayauMiao]

Pointless tutorials. I don't mind tutorials in general to get a feel for gameplay/how combat works, but some do not need to be added on at all. Like "use the left analog stick to move your character." " Press 'X' to jump"

Seriously wtf. I get it isn't overly long or that much of a waste, but who in there right mind doesn't know that.

 

[Hydroxy]

• Unskippable cutscene right before a broken-ass fight that gets you killed like six times before you figure out how to cheese it.
• Slow walk masquerading as an expository dialogue scene.
• Squeezing through a crack in a wall only to get grabbed by something upon exit.
• Pointless climbing that poses no challenge or even has a possibility of failing.
• Mashing a button to open a door/pull a lever/overpower an enemy in a sword lock/wedge a finger up your ass/etc.
• Rubberbanding in racing games that is really fake and obvious.
• Having a health bar in a racing game and then losing it so fast that you'd think your car is made out of chocolate.
• Pointless skill trees that offers no branching character builds and only serves to gimp the player early on in the game (what is even the point? Just have the abilities unlock on their own like in a normal game).
• RPGs where the world scales up to your character level.

Yes I dislike the last one a lot. The whole point is the feeling of getting stronger as you progress but usually its the opposite that happens. The later you get into the game the harder it becomes. Defeats the whole point on an rpg.

 

[cash_longfellow]

What is your gaming pet peeve? Something that gets your goat, grinds your gears, jams your steeze?

I remember one time down in Florida in my military days, I jammed my steeze. It was painful, but she enjoyed it

 

[Games of Today]

When playing a Naughty Dog game that has interactable vegetation and I find a plant (sometimes the same type of plant) that doesn't interact with my character. It can also be fun trying to find spots where they cut corners in production. But it just makes my brain twitch.

Also not being able to walk with a character. Permeant jog drives me crazy.

 

[trent_the_gent]

Tough bosses having a one hit kill that they only use towards the middle/end of a fight. Bonus points if it's tied to passing a QTE.

Checkpoints before a 30 second unskippable dialogue that precedes a hard bit of a game that you'll end up retrying multiple times. I'm ready to break my controller after I'm forced to hear Chad Mc Hero say "Sure hope i can kick this guys ass and save the Dylentium crystals! Time to terminate this mangy muskrat!" fifty times in the space of a half hour. This has made me quit otherwise good games entirely in the past.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

In real life, people don't often take a full second to respond to someone or to begin their next sentence. I've heard that this awkward cadence & delays in games is due to having to load in the next animation/audio track, but surely with modern hard drives and memory, this is no longer necessary?

Are you sure it's not a localization issue; with the original studio being Japanese and making the animation for Japanese voicework while ensuring the same animation can be quickly adapted for many different language audio options?

I don't think this has anything to do with loading.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Are you sure it's not a localization issue; with the original studio being Japanese and making the animation for Japanese voicework while ensuring the same animation can be quickly adapted for many different language audio options?

I don't think this has anything to do with loading.

Nah, you can see the same thing to varying degrees in just about any open world or RPG game where you're interacting with NPCs.

Another poster pointed out a major symptom of it, where a line of dialogue is "interrupted", only for it to take a second for whatever interrupted to actually come across on screen. I remember this happening in Mass Effect, for instance.

 

[Hunter 99]

When a boss has a slither of health like literally one blow of hot air and he's a goner..you manage to land the hit but somehow it hits you first and your dead before its dead and your back to facing it again. From the beginning...Pisses the shit out of me. Pure bullshit..

 

[Barakov]

What is your gaming pet peeve? Something that gets your goat, grinds your gears, jams your steeze?

My #1 gaming pet peeve at the moment is the unnatural delay between lines of dialogue when players are having a conversation with an NPC. Playing Final Fantasy XVI, this happens A LOT. Here's an example:



In real life, people don't often take a full second to respond to someone or to begin their next sentence. I've heard that this awkward cadence & delays in games is due to having to load in the next animation/audio track, but surely with modern hard drives and memory, this is no longer necessary?

I want to play a game where people speak like people: accidentally stepping on each other's responses, giving cues that they want to cut in, reacting to each other more seemingly spontaneously. Recording with voice actors in the same room would go a long way to making things feel more organic. That'd increase the budget and time necessary to record, but I'd love to see it. Let me know if you know of any games that did that.

What's your gaming pet peeve?

Definitely one of the problems I have with the game. It drags out dialogue scenes in the game for far too long. It completely ruins the flow of the game itself. If the dialogue was done in real time from a gameplay perspective it wouldn't as big of a issue. But since it's done in a separate scene, it's very jarring also it's very irritating.

 

[DragoonKain]

Can't pause during cutscenes. On a 20 minute cutscene and need to take a shit? Looks like you're gonna miss major story developments!

Games that have auto-save checkpoints that have purposely lengthy gameplay sections between auto-saving. There's no reason for this other than to be pricks. I loathe it enough to where I've quit games and never gone back out of sheer principle. Gonna make me replay 40+ minutes especially when it's not a single fight or story part? Fuck you, I'm done with your game.

Enemies who can hit you through walls. Especially in games that are Souls-like. You can't make your game unforgiving and also make it cheap. Fix your fucking game.

 

[fart town usa]

Hmm, when games take themselves way too serious. I know it's entirely subjective but the story in XVI, RE6, TLOU, GOW, stuff like that. I just can't get engaged, I roll my eyes, etc. Maybe it's because I experienced some really heartbreaking things as a kid (loss of a parent, etc) but I just really dislike being surrounded by fictional grief porn. Again, I can only speak for myself but it just irritates me. Not that I'm cynical, I guess I just prefer other things because life itself can be incredibly difficult, I want my games to be an outlet into something that engages me in a different way. I'm also really blessed with my day to day life and I try to avoid drama whenever I can, whether it be videogames, TV shows, movies, etc. I just don't want that energy in my life.

I've also come to really dislike when games take control away from you, force you to walk, etc. Sometimes it's alright and I don't mind, other times it's like, "get on with it! Just let me play the damn game!"

 

[Mythoclast]

Usually the thought of playing a hyped game before it releases exceeds the actual fun I have when I finally play it. I can count with my hands the amount of games in my life that have managed to meet or exceed that expectation.

On topic, I hate games that are made excessively long via padding with useless collectibles and side quests, like the recent Assassin's Creeds. Like Bro, I'm fine with a 12 hour linear-ass game once in a while. Not everything has to be open world.

I'm the guy who actually buys COD for the campaign. They are way underrated.

 

[BaldingAshCrimson]

Generally obtuse game design.
If I need a guide to beat a certain game, I skip it. Regardless of how good it is.

Romancing Saga games have some of the best art direction I have seen in any game, great music, and interesting gameplay, but I can't stand how obtuse they are.

People complain about games that tell them what to do, or where to go, and I totally understand their complaint.
But for me personally, be as transparent as possible, I don't mind It, I prefer it.

 

[Mythoclast]

Fuck crafting and durability. I don't want to make databases of my available materials in order to kill a fucking goblin

So true. Durability was the worst thing that could happen in general. Also in general potion crafting, trap crafting or any kind of crafting I hate. I resist to use any of those mechanics in ANY game.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Generally obtuse game design.
If I need a guide to beat a certain game, I skip it. Regardless of how good it is.

Romancing Saga games have some of the best art direction I have seen in any game, great music, and interesting gameplay, but I can't stand how obtuse they are.

People complain about games that tell them what to do, or where to go, and I totally understand their complaint.
But for me personally, be as transparent as possible, I don't mind It, I prefer it.

I haven't played those. What's obtuse about them? Do the puzzles have "moon logic" like in Myst, where you have to be on the developer's specific acid-influenced wavelength to understand the solution?

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

when the game just wont let me play the damn game

 

[Kakax11]

A certain company pays money to 3rd party devs to force them to not release the PC port, why? those devs all the profit sources from everywhere

 

[Laptop1991]

Too many cut scenes and tutorials, when i just want to play the damn game, and especially bad PC ports. also QTE, i hate them.

 

[BaldingAshCrimson]

I haven't played those. What's obtuse about them? Do the puzzles have "moon logic" like in Myst, where you have to be on the developer's specific acid-influenced wavelength to understand the solution?

Romancing Saga games are OPEN, in every sense.
You can do quests in whatever order you want, go wherever you want to go.
But it still follows the typical "talk to x npc" or "go to x" to advance what you are doing, but you have no idea who or where. You have to find that out for yourself, which for some people can be a fun, but for others, is very much a "guide game".

The gameplay too, it may look like traditional JRPG gameplay from a far, but it's not, it's more complex, and that complexity a lot of the time, is either poorly explained, or not explained at all. You again, have to find out for yourself.

It's a love it or hate it type of thing...
They are older games, by the way. Early to mid 90s, and there are spin-offs later on.

 

[Vandole]

Too many cut scenes and tutorials, when i just want to play the damn game, and especially bad PC ports.

I tried playing The Ace Attorney Chronicles a few weeks ago. The first two cases are essentially tutorials and they crawl at a snail's pace. I recognize there are bound to be some first time players, but most people have played at least a couple games in the series before at this point and we don't need our hands held for 5+ hours.

 

[Laptop1991]

I tried playing The Ace Attorney Chronicles a few weeks ago. The first two cases are essentially tutorials and they crawl at a snail's pace. I recognize there are bound to be some first time players, but most people have played at least a couple games in the series before at this point and we don't need our hands held for 5+ hours.

Yeah, they drive me mad now and i end up not taking any notice of them and shout at the screen "will you hurry up and get the **** on with it" lol

 

[Fuz]

My #1 gaming pet peeve at the moment is the unnatural delay between lines of dialogue when players are having a conversation with an NPC. Playing Final Fantasy XVI, this happens A LOT. Here's an example:


In real life, people don't often take a full second to respond to someone or to begin their next sentence. I've heard that this awkward cadence & delays in games is due to having to load in the next animation/audio track, but surely with modern hard drives and memory, this is no longer necessary?

The worst about this is when a character actually gets interrupted while talking by another character, and they take the pause nonetheless

Character 1: "So, as I was saying, we have to..."
(awkward pause)
Character 2: "Yes, we know, we have to storm the castle."

Gives me the "scratching needle of a record player" feeling.

 

[Fuz]

I tried playing The Ace Attorney Chronicles a few weeks ago. The first two cases are essentially tutorials and they crawl at a snail's pace. I recognize there are bound to be some first time players, but most people have played at least a couple games in the series before at this point and we don't need our hands held for 5+ hours.

Ace Attorney games are particularly bad with handholding and tutorials that overstay their welcome. Maybe the very worst in the whole industry.

That's intentional and good game design.

Spoiler

 

[Three]

Ace Attorney games are particularly bad with handholding and tutorials that overstay their welcome. Maybe the very worst in the whole industry.

Spoiler

But seriously, it is. It lets you see what the person is seeing/aiming at without his head blocking your view and it lets you easily align shots with the gun with the reticle being aligned as best as possible.

 

[LordCBH]

When an NPC I’m supposed to follow is faster than my walk speed but slower than my run speed. If you aren’t going to just have the Npc match my speed, then fucking quit your job and go work at a Wendy’s.

 

[simpatico]

UbiSoft type HUDs and UI design. I think they’re a deal breaker for me at this point. I just can’t do it anymore. “Look how clean and minimalist we are” yet it becomes the lion’s share of the experience memory and pulls the visual presentation into a fluorescent sterile office building. No matter where the game takes place

 

[M.W.]

This is more of a pet peeve while watching streamers. Nothing grinds my gears more than a PC gamer starting a game for the first time and just hitting "play" without messing around with all the settings. Why the fuck are you on PC, you twat?

 

[Fuz]

But seriously, it is. It lets you see what the person is seeing/aiming at without his head blocking your view and it lets you easily align shots with the gun with the reticle being aligned as best as possible.

It's not. There are tons of games with a good camera that don't go for this retarded route.
Having the character walking diagonally instead of straight up is unsufferable. Being able to see less on one of the sides of the character is unsufferable.

 

[Dynasty8]

Hand-holding
Too much map markers
Companions telling me where to go
Hints when doing puzzles
Marked ledges when climbing

In short it feels like the devs think I’m a kid. Meanwhile the violence is rarely for kids, so I still can’t give the games to my kids instead but has to play this kids game with ultra violence that is probably making my brain into goo from not giving me enough stimulation.


Slow story walks or story rides or story climbs.
That’s usually where I fall asleep. For real.


Invisible walls.
Just put up a real wall. Seriously. Don’t make me try to climb or jump over a pile of small rocks if it’s clearly not possible.

I mean it’s so simple to hide it. I wouldn’t try to jump over a wall… But yes, a rock that is 20cm high I will try to jump over… and get annoyed when it’s not possible, because it actually makes perfect sense to try that instead of walking away 5 kilometers and use 3 keys on a door to get some special pants so I can talk to a guy called Urban who wants those pants and will trade me a grappling hook so I can get past that pile of rocks that a toddler would’ve managed to climb over.

Bad third person cameras
Elden Ring - Elden Beast. The camera is your real final boss. Mechanically the boss is actually easy but it becomes difficult simply because you can’t see what’s going on.
Why not zoom out when an enemy is bigger than the screen?

This is exactly how I feel. Nailed it perfectly.

Games today just treat you like you're incredibly dumb, clueless and can't figure anything out on your own.

The funny thing like you mentioned is that I enjoy the more mature storylines, but the games are in fact designed to be easier for a child's first introduction to a game. FFXVI is a perfect example...it's a "baby's action game" but the story is for older people. Ironically the more immature and childish storylines are more challenging and don't hold your hand as much (some games).

This shit is becoming extremely annoying...which is why I have started enjoying more indies now than triple A titles that makes me feel like 99% of gamers need to be coddled.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Having to exit to the title screen, and going into a menu to exit a game. - Every single Japanese PC game.

 

[The Stig]

timed missions
escort missions