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[Catastrophic lolcats]

So now that a whole bunch of next gen games have been revealed I decided it would be nice to open a thread like this. This is a venting thread for bitching about design decisions or mechanics that you just plan either dislike or had enough with.

I'll start:
Slow walk communication.
You've all seen the slow walk communication. Hand in one ear our hero gets a convenient plot update from some tosser while walking as slow as humanly possible. Perhaps one of the most tedious things you'll experience away from your parents' house.

Highly stylised menu screens.
Menu screens that are either visually noisy or are animated to the point of stupidity. I've seen games that needed to load between each menu frame. Cut that crap out.

Unskippable and flow breaking tutorials.
As insulting as they are annoying.

Orange Deus Ex floating graphics nonsense.
This is more of a personal petty dislike. Those little orange holograms or letters splayed across games now because it's the future. It can be cool when used sparsely just don't go full Remember Me. Never go full Remember Me. 

Regenerating health.
Over used in modern gaming. Bring back health packs for linear shooters and promote exploration. STALKER's health pack system is my prefered. Get off my lawn.

No inventory screen.
Some games just seem to have a severe phobia of inventory screens. I would argue that game series such as Metro and Bioshock were harmed by this phobia.

Needless RPG elements in multiplayer.
Why do I have to play hours on end for certain weapons or classes? Why broaden the gap between new players and experienced? The worst offenders are games that block items that benefit/support the team until you're deemed worthy by the exp deity. 

Awful FOV/locked low FPS.
No excuse for this, ever. Affects accessibility.

Long scripted set pieces that add nothing to gameplay.
Those set pieces that are basically you running down a corridor while awesome shit goes on in the background. Could be interesting if I had any real impact on the scene at all.

Too many QTEs
Simon was popular in the '80s, it's time to let go.

Slow movement speeds + lack of decent sprint.
Obesity is an endemic in gaming protagonists.

3D freeze-frame picture things replacing trailers/teasers.
Does anyone really like these? 

No rebindable keys.
Again, no excuse for this. Affects accessibility.

Lazy level design/linear walling.
Worst offender is likely War Fighter where if you stray off the predetermined path you just get mission over. Be less lazy and start constructing some real levels which have excuses for linear paths. Use invisible walls sparsely.

Bad checkpoint saving.
While I prefer a good ol' quick save sometimes checkpoint saving is a decent design choice. Please make sure that you save after lengthy dialogue or cutscenes.

Lack of health bars.
Having blood splash on the edges of the screen is not anymore realistic or immersive than a simple health bar. Let me just see how much damage I can take before dying.

DRM.
No.

[TripJack]

add quest compasses and you have a pretty good list

[timferius]

My biggest one probably is following a walking NPC who's walk speed is faster/slower than my walk speed!
I have no problem walking/following an NPC through a base or market or something, where it fits the story (beats a cutscene any time, and I like downtime in my actiony games), but it really ruins my immersion (more than a cutscene) when i constantly have to start/stop to follow them, or walk/sprint to keep up. How hard is it to match walk speeds? Or vary your walkspeed depending on your distance to the character, or anything!
Also to add to this, games that don't let you walk (perferably a toggle) OR games that force you to walk in certain areas.

[Shakerag]

Make death meaningful
Feels like anymore you can beat most games as long as you plug enough time into it.  You die?  No loss, just go back a room/minute/other side of this field and try again.  Which leads into something I'd like to see more of ...

Make failure an option
You fail to meet the mission objectives?  Fine, story moves on but differently now.  No do-overs, if you fail, the story changes to accomodate that failure. 

[Spaghetti7]

My biggest one probably is following a walking NPC who's walk speed is faster/slower than my walk speed!
I have no problem walking/following an NPC through a base or market or something, where it fits the story (beats a cutscene any time, and I like downtime in my actiony games), but it really ruins my immersion (more than a cutscene) when i constantly have to start/stop to follow them, or walk/sprint to keep up. How hard is it to match walk speeds? Or vary your walkspeed depending on your distance to the character, or anything!
Also to add to this, games that don't let you walk (perferably a toggle) OR games that force you to walk in certain areas.

This, a lot.

Also, it's a fairly obvious one, but

Invisible walls
Seriously game, if you don't want me to go somewhere, show it. Put a wall there. Make it full of lava. Shove a freakin' mountain there, I don't care what you do, but don't just make it look like I can go there only to crush my dreams at the last minute.

[PrimusRibbus]

Unskippable and flow breaking tutorials.
As insulting as they are annoying.

This a thousand times. I have quit more than one game due to ridiculously long and condescending forced tutorials.

Tutorials are great things, particularly for certain types of learners, but at no point should they be forced on the player.

[timferius]

Cut scene incompetence, shields or armour that stop working upon entering a cut scene, that sort of stuff.

To add on to this, games that let you customize characters clothing/weapons visually, but reset them when you enter a cutscene.

[PrimusRibbus]

Typical MMORPG Quests
Standing in one place for 45 minutes and hoping that the RNG Gods will let you collect your 10 Wolf Assholes is not compelling gameplay.

EDIT:
Having to invest multiple hours to get to the fun part of a game
See MMORPGs as a prime example where "multiple hours" sometimes means "100 hours." I remember trying TERA after one of my friends raved about it. "When will I get to the fun part? I've been playing for an hour and I've done 30 minutes of fetch quests, and 30 minutes of fighting slow individual junk mobs." "It gets fun about 20 hours in! Just keep going, man, it's totally worth it!"
Not. Acceptable.

[burningpet]

That combat mechanic, a la the witcher 2, where it gets into a sequence where you have to Press A or something so they could show a cut-scene of a combat blow.

[sjm9876]

Typical MMORPG Quests
Standing in one place for 45 minutes and hoping that the RNG Gods will let you collect your 10 Wolf Assholes is not compelling gameplay.

Quests.
I don't care that your sword got stolen by bandits. Nor that the guy next to yous daughter got kidnapped. You're all idiots who haven't thought to move out of the place where everything is out to get you. Stop flooding my quest log and give me something to do that is logical rather than taking a break from saving the world.

[Krevsin]

30-ish, caucasuan, short-haired brown-haired male protagonist

I really hate the fact that this has become a trend. Is diversity and original character design something too hard for game developers to grasp?

That combat mechanic, a la the witcher 2, where it gets into a sequence where you have to Press A or something so they could show a cut-scene of a combat blow.

Yeah, QTEs are annoying as all heck.

[PrimusRibbus]

Typical MMORPG Quests
Standing in one place for 45 minutes and hoping that the RNG Gods will let you collect your 10 Wolf Assholes is not compelling gameplay.

Quests.
I don't care that your sword got stolen by bandits. Nor that the guy next to yous daughter got kidnapped. You're all idiots who haven't thought to move out of the place where everything is out to get you. Stop flooding my quest log and give me something to do that is logical rather than taking a break from saving the world.

You know, you're right. I can't think of a game where Quests actually added to my enjoyment of it. There are some where they didn't detract from it, but in the vast majority of games Quests are a distraction from either continuing the storyline or doing fun free-world stuff.

[Ameablable]

Enemies that level up with you.
remember the good ol days where certain dungeons had more powerful enemies and some have weaker enemies, instead of them all matching you in power every goddamn time?

[PrimusRibbus]

That combat mechanic, a la the witcher 2, where it gets into a sequence where you have to Press A or something so they could show a cut-scene of a combat blow.

Yeah, QTEs are annoying as all heck.

QTEs: They weren't fun when Sega did them in Die Hard Arcade in 1996, and they aren't fun today.

[Steele]

Unskippable Cutscenes
Do I really need to say anything more?