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What game design choices do you consider 'not respecting your time'?

JimiNutz

Banned
Anything where checkpoints are really far apart. A game can be as hard as it wants to be but if every time I die I need to replay large sections of gameplay I quickly become frustrated - especially if I have to wade through loads of easy 'fluff' to get back to the interesting/difficult part where I died.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Playing any souls games.
Hollow knight.
No pause button.
Buggy games like ff7 the switch that can freeze up on you forcing to redo 1 hour of x3 grinding.
BR games that reward you pants or hats.
Dumb ass save points.
Forced cutscenes.
Boring AF stealth sessions in games that don't work.
Forced tutorials. (Look how it can be good like botw)
 
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deriks

4-Time GIF/Meme God
Trailing missions and bad exposition/writing
Tutorials. I hate them... in the past your learn alone how to use a technique or weapon or even better you have a manual with color in 50 pages.
There are tutorials and there are tutorials. The first stage in Super Metroid is a tutorial, but don't really notice because is well done.
 

Rodolink

Member
-Grinding: is bad when it becomes a matter of running around in circles battling the same enemies over and over again. (Is good when they do it in interesting ways like sidequests)

-Unskippable texts, voice overs, cinematics (its fine once, its terrible after a second time)

-Too far apart checkpoints

-Filler quests and overall filler content that its obvious to be there just to make you spend more with the game. (at least they try)

-No fast travel options in open world games
 

zenspider

Member
Unecessary crafting systems.

Horizon handled it pretty well with it's mid-battle crafting, but pretty early on it's just a convulted reload button in practice.

Either make me make hard choices with my resources or don't waste my time.

I understand the concept of the thread, but it sounds super entitled. A game isn't wasting your time, you're wasting your own time by playing a game.

If games have mechanics that you don't like, don't buy them if you think THEY are wasting your time.

Games can have annoying parts to them, and you can dislike things about them, but the moment you say "These developers are wasting MY time" you're entitled, because you made the conscious decision to get hype over a game, go out and buy the game, and then play the game.

On the topic of the thread: I think sluggish controls (looking at Kingdom hearts 1 and 2) where an enemy can turn its trajectory midair during an attack, or whatnot, but the player has no way out of it. No air dodging, nothing. Hollow Bastion was the most miserable gameplay I've ever experienced.

A lot of times it's little things that chip away at our time - few games really 'deal break' on these kind of things.
 

Nymphae

Banned
When you force me to watch credits before I can save my game. No other media tries to force you to watch it's credits. In movies, books, tv, etc. the credits are there but only visible if you want to view them (ok TV they force them but it takes seconds, and they barely do it like they used to with the huge rolling credits lists going by at light speed)

But in games, there have been multiple times where I just want to save the game and shut it off, since I just finished it, but I'm forced to sit through insanely long credit sequences, I swear games have the longest credit sequences by a mile.

I understand a lot of people work on a game and want recognition, but put it in the menu somewhere for those who are interested to watch.
 
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BunzLee

Member
When you force me to watch credits before I can save my game. No other media tries to force you to watch it's credits. In movies, books, tv, etc. the credits are there but only visible if you want to view them (ok TV they force them but it takes seconds, and they barely do it like they used to with the huge rolling credits lists going by at light speed)

But in games, there have been multiple times where I just want to save the game and shut it off, since I just finished it, but I'm forced to sit through insanely long credit sequences, I swear games have the longest credit sequences by a mile.

I understand a lot of people work on a game and want recognition, but put it in the menu somewhere for those who are interested to watch.

Agreed, although I do appreciate it when they try to put some creativity into the credits. I think it was Smash Ultimate that had a pretty neat minigame while the credits were rolling.
 

Nymphae

Banned
Agreed, although I do appreciate it when they try to put some creativity into the credits. I think it was Smash Ultimate that had a pretty neat minigame while the credits were rolling.

Yes that's like the only good credit sequence ever lol, I'm thinking of the shooter one from Melee not sure if there are more of those in subsequent games.
 
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Game intros that fucking drag on and on and on, and then they finally give you the controls, only to wrench them away three seconds later for more cutscene.

Knock that shit off devs, get to the point with the story and then don't take control away from me. Or, if you're going to have stupidly long intros, don't tease me with the game starting, just do your stupid long ass shit uninterrupted, so I can go get a sandwich or something, and come back when it's time to play.

This. Games should be played, not being watched half of the time.
 

Geki-D

Banned
Cutscenes before checkpoints?
You mean after checkpoints, right? So that every time you die you have to watch a cutscene again. I hate that.

Also bosses with way too much health. Even worst if they deal you massive dmg or even have one hit kills. I recently played the craptastic Operation Raccoon City, at the end you can kill Leon in a boss fight. Cheapest shit ever, he takes a million hits and has a weapon that shreds you. He also has infinite grenades. Getting close to him triggers an army of crimson heads to attack you, too.

One last thing, stunlocks. Seriously, fuck games where NPCs can stunlock you. Fuck PVP games where other players can stunlock you, for that matter.
 
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zcaa0g

Banned
Missions that are designed to fail no matter what. If you don't know that, you spend a lot of time retrying. I think Descent Freespace had one of those missions
 
Not labeling radiant quests in FO4 properly. I've climbed every goddamn rooftop, ledge and scaffold in the Commonwealth to place MILAs and just realized I'm getting jack shit for it.
 

Hellblueboy

Member
1. Long dungeon with few very checkpoints.

2. Grinding quest (All Korean MMO ever)
Example 1: Collect 15 bear hearts, with 10% drop rate (Lineage 2).
 

ROMhack

Member
I'm struggling to think of many. There's a lot of design choices that I find a waste of time but I mostly avoid them all. Assassin's Creed as an example i a game built on design choices to waste as much of your time as possible. I don't play it and it is what it is.

Grinding in JRPGs might be one I do encounter regularly but I find it's much less of a big deal if you try not to skip random encounters.
 
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"you can play the fun game we painstakingly designed to be enjoyable from start to finish.... OR...... you can pay even more money on mtx to avoid "playing" the game you already bought and intended to enjoy!"
 
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Melubas

Member
Jrpg dialogue, no contest. Been playing through Octopath Traveler recently and every, single, time there is a conversation I find myself going "right, that's the end of that, time to go back to the game..... Nope, they're still going.... They can't possibly drag this conversation out any longer.... Nope, they can. More filler that adds nothing to the story.... Oh god this is torture."

This saddens me because some Jrpgs really do have interesting plots that get completely destroyed by filler dialogue, and I always get so pissed since I feel that they're just shitting on my time. I don't know if it's due to japanese dialogue traditionally being more "talky" and that gets lost in the translation or what, but I find it very frustrating.
 
heres 10 fighting game characters for 60$!

heres the rest of the cast! piecemealed out for 10$ a pop! oh you want to change an outfit. gimme 5$ and enjoy the nostalgic look for one of the 30 characters.

okay fine they arent respecting my wallet me
 
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DonF

Member
I hate timed frames for anything. I can't play everyday. So Splatoon or destiny. Like I want to play Salmon Run oh no you can't.

Xur? Pfff, you just missed him. Next week it is!
 

Zog

Banned
-Tutorials (just print a manual or an onscreen manual accessible from the menu)
- Holding a button to do something
- Button mashing
- Unskippable Cutscenes
- Logos at startup
 

Wings 嫩翼翻せ

so it's not nice
Traveling time is a big one. These days, it's better because expansive, traversable worlds are all the rage and also encouraged in the development sector, allowing for more desirable experiences all-around; however, when places are not necessarily the most scenic it creates heaps of boredom.
 

Greedings

Member
Forced stealth in a game not built around stealth.
Unskippable cutscenes. Especially those directly before a boss or difficult section.
 
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Meccs

Member
- Changes like the healing mechanic from Bloodborne compared to other Dark Souls games. Where they know you will end up dying a lot to bosses and will eventually have to farm healing items because you run out. The healing item replenishes after a death in DS games, it does not in Bloodborne.
- Long tedious running around from point A to B
 
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Silvawuff

Member
Poorly-designed and unskippable minigames/races with nebulous and floaty mechanics that require you to beat them to continue the game. Permanently removing characters from the game for story reasons, along with all their equipment and progress you've made on them.
 
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Moochi

Member
Diary entries or in-universe books in games like Dishonored 2. I get that you guys have big ambitions for the story and the world-building, but if it's not part of the gameplay and interactive, it's an impediment to finding that ideal, immersive flow state the best games can induce.
 
Microtransactions.

Any premium game (with maybe one or two exceptions) that offers me a quick path to progress through a monetary payment) can immediately fuck right off. 9 times out of 10 the game has deliberately slowed down or stunted progress in order to incentivise you to throw the company in question a few extra pennies, just to push that slow progress to go little bit faster...

The latest Assassin's Creed game was especially bar for this.
 
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To add another thing, other than unskippable tutorials and unskippable cutscenes, it's unskippable intro credits/logos (like the videos when you start the game) to games. I can't possibly believe they need to show animation of logos for everything related to the game, just to load the necessary assets for the menu screen.
 

Zog

Banned
To add another thing, other than unskippable tutorials and unskippable cutscenes, it's unskippable intro credits/logos (like the videos when you start the game) to games. I can't possibly believe they need to show animation of logos for everything related to the game, just to load the necessary assets for the menu screen.

Atleast they could put all the logos on one screen instead of 3 or 4 separate screens.
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
The one that annoys me is when upping the difficulty and all that happens is bosses become hit point sponges. Add more mechanics, not more health, devs.
 

Fbh

Member
- Any sort of unskippable and time consuming element put right before a challenging part. Like a cuscene, or a long traveling time to get there , or a bunch of easy rooms you need to clear before the actual challenge, etc. I love a challenge but hate when games make me waste like 10+ minutes before I can try again
- Mandatory fetch quests
- Grinding
- Shit that the game presented as optional but then 30 hours later it turns out it wasn't really optional and now you have to go back and do it to continue with the main path
- Crappy F2P game mechanics in games that aren't F2P (looking at you Xenoblade 2)
- Persona 5

Why should games respect your time. If it's an open world game, RPG, JRPG, MMO. Then you know exactly what you're getting yourself in to. There's plenty of other games out there that are shorter.

I've played tons of RPG's and Open world games as well as some JRPG's that did a good enough job respecting my time.
So no, I don't "know exactly what I'm getting into"
 
Atleast they could put all the logos on one screen instead of 3 or 4 separate screens.

4-5 long animated logos that are unskippable and you have to watch through them all, every time. Ugh... that's basically saying you don't respect my time and will not be a game I'll pick up and play when I feel like gaming. Don't think I've experienced it with many games, but those that you experience it with stand out.
I think some of the driving games I've played have had ridiculous long logo intros AND some set-up, long tutorial before you ever hit the menu. And you can't skip it. That has me crying... :messenger_loudly_crying:
 

Zog

Banned
4-5 long animated logos that are unskippable and you have to watch through them all, every time. Ugh... that's basically saying you don't respect my time and will not be a game I'll pick up and play when I feel like gaming. Don't think I've experienced it with many games, but those that you experience it with stand out.
I think some of the driving games I've played have had ridiculous long logo intros AND some set-up, long tutorial before you ever hit the menu. And you can't skip it. That has me crying... :messenger_loudly_crying:

The Sega Genesis Collection on Switch has to load the long intro movie everytime you load it up. If I were to guess I would say that it takes 30 seconds to load it in while you stare at a loading bar. I don't need to see the intro movie every time I start the game.
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
Effing...collectathons. I hate having to collect items in game that somehow magically have a supreme effects on the game's economy or gameplay mechanics.

I think the worst example of this was DC Universe Online. The collectibles, would give you skill points AND you could sell the collectible in the market.

Oh and the collectibles had spawn timers...like frickin FFXI notorious monsters.

When I realized how broken this was I just quit the game.
 
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TheUsual

Gold Member
It's a hit or miss for me: but spawning at a check point that isn't right outside of a boss room (i.e., your Dark Souls and Bloodborne games) when you die in a boss fight.
Most of the time you aren't far away anyways from the fight, but god damn sometimes I just want to restart the fight immediately.
Make a disposable item to use in those instances.
 
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Putting in a mandatory mini-game with completely different mechanic to the rest of the game and make it harder for some reason.
Also putting back to back boss fights with no way to take a break in between. Looking at you Dark Souls 3 DLC.
 
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Aurelian

my friends call me "Cunty"
timed events that are tied with an exotic weapon

fuck you Destiny

Now having flashbacks to earning The Last Word. I got it with just minutes to go on the last day of the event, and only after replaying the last segment about a dozen times. It was great to know I'd earned it, but at the same time... please don't make me go through something that rough again, Bungie!

I suppose you could tie this to a larger issue with games like Destiny, where it feels like work (albeit highly entertaining work) to earn the sweet equipment. I shouldn't need to schedule a three-hour team raid day or commit to playing Crucible most of the week when I should be spending time with my partner or going to the gym.
 

Nymphae

Banned
Confusing UI elements, like when you can't tell which item in a 2 option box is actually selected. Not the biggest waste of time, but it's a huge annoyance and I don't know how that stuff gets through QA.
 
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