Forums

Topic: Gaming's pet peeves

Posts 41 to 60 of 513

JohnnyShoulder

Used to spend loads of time in character creation screens but used to get annoyed at myself for wasting so much time on them, so just spend a quick 5 mins on them now.

Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

PSN: JohnnyShoulder

Gremio108

Great thread, I'm going to be spending a lot of time here I think!

Trivial tasks that serve only to allow a character some exposition time. We all know that crate is how we're going to reach that window. Do you really need me to drag it over there for you while you bang on about your dead wife or whatever? This could have been a cut-scene, you could have said what you needed to say and I could have eaten a Pringle.

Bits where you get imprisoned (or otherwise inconvenienced), and when you get your stuff back it's all just chucked in your bag rather than equipped in the slots you had it in. I've got six party members here, do you seriously expect me to keep track of what they were all wearing? I'm trying to assemble a team that is capable of saving the world - I expect them to be able to dress themselves upon release from incarceration.

Edited on by Gremio108

Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.

PSN: Hallodandy

finalstan

Micromanagement, not to be mistaken by carefully tinkering with character builds, that can be fun. Worst recent example is Witcher 3. This killed the game for me, lots of lovely loot, limited by the weight you can carry (sic!). But hey, we'll give you a box you can store loot in and a way to teleport to it, which you will have to do every 5 minutes. In other words: games that feel like you're at work. No thanks.

FFVIII was brought up: that time when you tried to find that chocobo forrest in the time compressed world with camera at a really stupid, close-up angle. That drove me mad.

Unexplained, important game mechanics e.g. hidden/vague damage calculations based on something that isn't obvious etc. Not knowing what an accessory does because the description is vague etc. and requiring a guide to understand them. How many times was I surprised that this incredibly rare 'loop of luck' I found by chance and never wore fundamentally affected the damage calculations, and so on.

finalstan

PSN: Ezofil

Th3solution

Gremio108 wrote:

.... I'm trying to assemble a team that is capable of saving the world - I expect them to be able to dress themselves upon release from incarceration.

🤣 Oh brother, that cracks me up!
But on that subject — games that have an option to optimize your equipment or settings automatically with the click of a button, only to discover that the automated changes aren’t really all that optimized, so you still end up customizing the selections and spending the next 30 minutes in the menu screen.

It’s also a mild pet peeve of mine when equipment or items disappear from view when they are put away. This happens mainly in older games, but you have a sword the length of which is the equivalent to your character’s entire height and when he sheaths it — it ceases to exist! Well, until he pulls it out again. Or when you are give an item by an NPC, like a mcguffin of some sort like a tool, a book, or a computer and the player casually places it behind him, presumably in his back pocket and it spontaneously disappears and then he proceeds to run, jump, slide, fall, swim until he gets to where the item needs to go and when he pulls it out to hand off to someone, viola! here it is, magically pulled out of my back. Or worse yet, the character is handed something and the NPC is clearly holding nothing visible, even when said item is fairly large. Ex.: Here, take this invisible sandwich, it’s quite delicious.

Edited on by Th3solution

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

AdamantiumClaws

Excessive grinding in RPG's to level up your character to be able to handle a boss.

Even the rocks do not recall.

Rudy_Manchego

Negativity, particularly with fanboys. This is a hobby and a business. We are all consumers. Why be negative all the time or get annoyed if someone appears to prefer one console or brand over another?

Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot

PSN: Rudy_Manchego | Twitter:

WanderingBullet

@Th3solution I get what you mean and I usually go back and re-create my character if I don't like how he looks in gameplay or during cutscenes.lol

Edited on by WanderingBullet

Huntin' monsters erryday.

FullbringIchigo

@Rudy_Manchego to be fair that's not just in gaming, look at fanbases for various TV shows or films and the can be even worse, Star Wars comes to mind with the amount of hate being thrown around there, say you like the Prequels and the Original Trilogy fanboys jump on you, say you don't and the Prequel fanboys jump on you say you like the sequels and they both jump on you

it's a primal tribal behaviour you join a group and it becomes your tribe and you defend it from anything that's different or a potential threat, like most football supporters actually

"I pity you. You just don't get it at all...there's not a thing I don't cherish!"

"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!

Rudy_Manchego

@FullbringIchigo That's a fair point and you are right, it defo isn't gaming related. I guess I struggle with it most in games as it is my main entertainment medium. It is something I find baffling - I just don't get tribalism in general but especially when it is related to which company you buy a product from.

Unless anyone says anything about The Last of Us - I'll swat you off the internet

Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot

PSN: Rudy_Manchego | Twitter:

FullbringIchigo

@Rudy_Manchego it's mainly a sense of belonging, now i just copied this from one of my psychology books so this is just a basic definition but

"Tribalism implies the possession of a strong cultural or ethnic identity that separates one member of a group from the members of another group. Based on strong relations of proximity and kinship, members of a tribe tend to possess a strong feeling of identity. Objectively, for a customary tribal society to form their needs to be ongoing customary organization, enquiry and exchange. However, intense feelings of common identity can lead people to feel tribally connected."

you see the word "tribe" can be defined to mean an extended kin group or clan with a common ancestor, or can also be described as a group with shared interests, lifestyles and habits. The proverb "birds of a feather flock together" describes homophily, the human tendency to form friendship networks with people of similar occupations, interests, habits. Some tribes can be located in geographically proximate areas, like villages or bands, though the internet enables groups of people to form digital tribes using social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter.

and yes i did study Psychology if your wondering

"I pity you. You just don't get it at all...there's not a thing I don't cherish!"

"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!

Rudy_Manchego

@FullbringIchigo Well I'd be worried if you had studied cattle farming because you'd be barking up the wrong tree with your reading!

I guess the internet amplifies that by allowing tribalism on almost anything now, and also the organisation of that tribalism with near anonymity. I'm going back to just reading books in isolation.

Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot

PSN: Rudy_Manchego | Twitter:

FullbringIchigo

@Rudy_Manchego it's probably safer to be honest

"I pity you. You just don't get it at all...there's not a thing I don't cherish!"

"Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!

Ralizah

@Rudy_Manchego Y'Up, but it gets worse. It's not uncommon for others in the gaming community to attack you for not being negative enough about something they're upset about. It simply astounds me. I'm a part of this hobby because I want to enjoy myself, full stop. If I don't like something, I'll pass by it in favor of something I do like. I'm not going to squat in forums and message boards and bitterly rant about stuff I'm upset about when I could be enjoying myself instead.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

Rudy_Manchego

@Ralizah Yeah I get that - I'll happily have a moan about something I don't like in the gaming industry and will have a debate with people that have different views in forums because, in my mind, its part of the hobby. However, at the end of it, I'll happily walk away and go play a game. I think No Man's Sky, at launch, was really false advertising and I posted a few forum messages here and there stating though but what I mainly did was not buy the game when it was in a state where I knew I wouldn't like it. I didn't care if people did buy it or enjoy it. totally their right. Conversly, when I felt it had something to offer at a price I liked, I did buy the game. Because it is a game and that's all.

Anyone who doxxes or swats or whatever it is online just flabbergasts me.

Now I may be an idiot, but there's one thing I am not sir, and that sir, is an idiot

PSN: Rudy_Manchego | Twitter:

Ralizah

@Rudy_Manchego Oh sure, I'll voice my opinions as well, but I have no interest in dwelling on something that upsets me or attacking other people who feel differently.

I also find it interesting how personally some people take this whole business when a dev doesn't immediately start pandering to their pet multinational corp.

A good example is the reaction some Nintendo fans have had to A Hat in Time being ported to the Switch. Or the reaction of some PS4 fans to Rise of the Tomb Raider's port to the PS4.

I mean, I have my preferred platform, and I'll wait to buy games until they come to it, for the most part, but I'm not going to sit around obsessing about it, and I'll be happy when they do eventually come. Holding some petty grudge against a company because they were initially unwilling to support your preferred platform is insane.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

JohnnyShoulder

@Ralizah @Rudy_Manchego I just don't get the mentality of some people who just go out of their way to attack someone. When you hear of developers or people who work in the industry receiving death threats for something like delaying a game (or reporting a game being delayed), it just baffles me.

Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

PSN: JohnnyShoulder

AdamantiumClaws

RogerRoger wrote:

Okay, we were also asked about story beats that annoy us, and so I'm gonna list mine below. I've covered them up in case folks haven't played particular games yet and wanna remain spoiler-free, so please keep that in mind if you're replying and / or discussing specific points.

This one relates to Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception and Mass Effect 3, and it's regarding the boss battles that never were. I've seen a few other games do this, but these are the primary examples I can think of. Katherine Marlowe and The Illusive Man are two of gaming's greatest villains, chilling and sinister and all that excellent stuff, and yet they go out with a whimper rather than a bang. The whole point of villains in gaming is that you get to control their eventual defeat. It's cathartic and so incredibly fun. Now, okay, in Marlow's case I appreciate how it might've been difficult to think of an effective way to fight a pensioner in a boss battle, but perhaps some kind of sword fight or something involving a skill Nate doesn't have might've been workable. Instead, she falls in a sand pit during a thirty-second cutscene. As for The Illusive Man, I know a boss fight was planned and cut for budget / scheduling reasons, and they did the best they could (surprisingly, I actually quite like the ending to Mass Effect 3 overall) but it's still a little unsatisfying. At least I got to stab Kai Leng in slow-motion.

This one primarily relates to Batman: Arkham City and it's about hallucination sequences in games. As a general rule, I hate them. I was genuinely surprised that I liked the incredibly-crafted Scarecrow fear toxin sequences in Batman: Arkham Asylum and the Joker's presence in Batman: Arkham Knight (perhaps the only examples I do like) but where Arkham City falls down is the whole League of Shadows trial nonsense. In an effort to outdo the popular Scarecrow sequences in the previous game, Batman must leap around a surrealist Salvador Dalí painting and fight a giant sand sculpture; it was a stretch too far for a series trading on a more gritty, perhaps more realistic interpretation of the bat-franchise (awesome music, though). Luckily, I haven't played many games where drugs or other substances cause such trippy nonsense but, if I inadvertantly do, it usually knocks one or two points off my personal score. I like to keep a clear head, thanks, and that goes for when I'm in the digital world as well.

Finally, this one is a general point about games which profess to provide dialogue or action choices, but I'll cite a few specific examples, from Mass Effect Andromeda and Alpha Protocol in particular. Don't you hate it when you can see a very clear, obvious choice that the writers haven't included? Maybe it's because it'd break the game or story flow, or maybe they genuinely didn't see it, I don't know. All I know is that, more than once, I've been faced with a choice between two or three options and I've just screamed at my television, because none of them are what I'd personally do. With regards Alpha Protocol (a game with an incredible amount of choice, it must be said) there were moments where simple kindness and helpfulness led to, er... encounters of a personal nature, which I simply didn't want to engage in. I felt like some of the dialogue lacked context, or I'd press "Sure, I'd love to help!" and it came out as "Sure, I'd love to help... how about over dinner?" with little or no middle-ground to go back to.

The specific one that annoyed me in Mass Effect Andromeda was the evacuation and / or destruction of the Kett facility on Voeld. It's a nasty place full of experimentation and genocide, and you're given the choice to evacuate the innocent Angara being held there (but leave the facility intact) or immediately destroy the facility (killing all the Angara within it). Excuse me... what?! Why can't we evacuate the Angara, then destroy the facility? If not right away, then later, perhaps? It's forced drama, of course, because one of your crew is Angara and will most certainly have an opinion about your choice, but it's the most ridiculous binary choice I've ever encountered in a game. The choice mechanic caused bad writing. One element of the game forced the hand of another, and it annoyed me no end (because I was genuinely enjoying Andromeda up until that point).

COMPLETELY AGREE on Marlowe. We got robbed a fight there. There was even an arena and everything, WTF. And I wanted to see what was in that container/what it could do! Ugh, I hate Uncharted 3. Huge blunder for the franchise.

Even the rocks do not recall.

AdamantiumClaws

FullbringIchigo wrote:

@Rudy_Manchego to be fair that's not just in gaming, look at fanbases for various TV shows or films and the can be even worse, Star Wars comes to mind with the amount of hate being thrown around there, say you like the Prequels and the Original Trilogy fanboys jump on you, say you don't and the Prequel fanboys jump on you say you like the sequels and they both jump on you

it's a primal tribal behaviour you join a group and it becomes your tribe and you defend it from anything that's different or a potential threat, like most football supporters actually

Star Wars fandom can be downright toxic, I avoid it most of the time despite being a fan. Marvel fandom can also be quite toxic.

Even the rocks do not recall.

RogerRoger

Ralizah wrote:

I mean, I have my preferred platform, and I'll wait to buy games until they come to it, for the most part, but I'm not going to sit around obsessing about it, and I'll be happy when they do eventually come. Holding some petty grudge against a company because they were initially unwilling to support your preferred platform is insane.

Quoted for truth. With this, and the general discussion including @Rudy_Manchego and @Fullbringlchigo and @JohnnyShoulder about tribalism and extreme reactions to our chosen hobby, I completely agree. There's being passionate and caring about something, and then there's just plain wrong on a human level. It's a tragedy that examples of the latter have become the norm in online culture, particularly gaming.

@AdamantiumClaws Well, despite my issues with Marlowe's finale (or lack thereof) Uncharted 3 is still my favourite, so it's awesome that we have some common ground, at least!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Please login or sign up to reply to this topic