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[EnigmaticHat]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

DoomRl is a pretty good example of this.  So many of the good strategies involve attacking enemies that are outside your line of sight where they won't shoot back, or dropping items to lure in enemies to close range, not to mention all the corpse antics you kinda-sorta need to get through Nightmare! difficulty.  It was all fun and games when I would shoot shotguns out of LoS using intuition but now I don't even need that and every fight is just grabbing a corner and right clicking until the screaming stops.  And gift dropping just sounds like a bottomless pit of tedium and cheese I don't even want to start descending.

[hops]

Well, to be fair the spirit of the Nightmare! difficulty in DoomRL is that it's supposed to be unfair.

[crazysheep]

Once again I necro-reply as I consume a thread...

Missions where you "almost rescued your friend."
Max Payne 3 and, to a lesser extent, Borderlands 2. When your failure to rescue someone repeatedly is the excuse for 3 levels of gameplay, I want to kick the story writer in their testicles.

It's actually possible to rescue that person in time in Borderlands 2. It's difficult, but I remember doing it on my first run through. So that one is actually an example of a proper branching mission with a penalty for failure. I'll probably go back to this thread later and actually make a post that's more on topic.

Anyone know what rescuee is being discussed here?  I'm pretty familiar with BL2 but I don't know what quest this would be.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think this refers to the story mission where you have to rescue Roland from the warden robot that's also a constructor. Can be hard to beat on the first chance if you don't know where the constructor weak spots are.

I'd post something on topic, but I haven't encountered a major peeve recently, so I'll pass.

[Neonivek]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

DoomRl is a pretty good example of this.  So many of the good strategies involve attacking enemies that are outside your line of sight where they won't shoot back, or dropping items to lure in enemies to close range, not to mention all the corpse antics you kinda-sorta need to get through Nightmare! difficulty.  It was all fun and games when I would shoot shotguns out of LoS using intuition but now I don't even need that and every fight is just grabbing a corner and right clicking until the screaming stops.  And gift dropping just sounds like a bottomless pit of tedium and cheese I don't even want to start descending.

The game that probably has that the WORST is Enchanted Arms

It is a game CREATED on the premise of being able to create over a hundred different golems each one with a vast array of unique powers. Even the Gingerbread Golem is a great healer!

Great game right?

Too bad the PCs, non-golems, are so superior to even the best golems you can make that you will never EVER have to use them.

The optimal strategy completely ruins the point of the game. It would be like making a Pokémon game where the trainer OR the pokemon can take part in battles... but the trainer is better then all your pokemon combined.

[pisskop]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

DoomRl is a pretty good example of this.  So many of the good strategies involve attacking enemies that are outside your line of sight where they won't shoot back, or dropping items to lure in enemies to close range, not to mention all the corpse antics you kinda-sorta need to get through Nightmare! difficulty.  It was all fun and games when I would shoot shotguns out of LoS using intuition but now I don't even need that and every fight is just grabbing a corner and right clicking until the screaming stops.  And gift dropping just sounds like a bottomless pit of tedium and cheese I don't even want to start descending.

The game that probably has that the WORST is Enchanted Arms

It is a game CREATED on the premise of being able to create over a hundred different golems each one with a vast array of unique powers. Even the Gingerbread Golem is a great healer!

Great game right?

Too bad the PCs, non-golems, are so superior to even the best golems you can make that you will never EVER have to use them.

The optimal strategy completely ruins the point of the game. It would be like making a Pokémon game where the trainer OR the pokemon can take part in battles... but the trainer is better then all your pokemon combined.

Thats what I imagine firearms would do to pokemon . . .  Or samurai, to draw a RL analogue.

[Levi]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

I had that problem when I tried to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion.  I was having a great time until I read an article on how to level "Optimally".  I then couldn't play without making sure I was getting the full benefit every time I levelled(which was fairly complicated), and then the game lost all of its appeal. 

[Culise]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

I had that problem when I tried to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion.  I was having a great time until I read an article on how to level "Optimally".  I then couldn't play without making sure I was getting the full benefit every time I levelled(which was fairly complicated), and then the game lost all of its appeal.

Same, only with Morrowind.  It made me quite glad to find and obtain mods that changed how the characters leveled up, so it was more intuitive and less contrary to regular gameplay. 

[pisskop]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

I had that problem when I tried to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion.  I was having a great time until I read an article on how to level "Optimally".  I then couldn't play without making sure I was getting the full benefit every time I levelled(which was fairly complicated), and then the game lost all of its appeal.

Same, only with Morrowind.  It made me quite glad to find and obtain mods that changed how the characters leveled up, so it was more intuitive and less contrary to regular gameplay. 

I never understood that:  why do you need to be optimal?  Especially in a game so easy to cheese in.  Half the fun was trying to get somewhere you shouldn't be at your level, and beat it legitly.  And as poor as everyone thinks the combat was in Morrowind, it prevented combat chesse like you can do in Skyrim and to a lesser extent Oblivion.

[Rolan7]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

I had that problem when I tried to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion.  I was having a great time until I read an article on how to level "Optimally".  I then couldn't play without making sure I was getting the full benefit every time I levelled, and then the game lost all of its appeal.

Same here, although I did enjoy spending several hours levelling optimally and designing incredibly OP magic spells.  Getting those 5/5/5 level-ups was like scratching an itch.  It wasn't adventuring anymore, though, just reveling in gaming the system.

My pet peeve is unskippable startup screens.  I finally gave the remastered Spelunky a go, and it takes much longer to actually get into the caves each session.  Kinda bad for a "hop in and play" game like that.

I just checked and it's nearly a full minute of spamming Z. 
5 second ESRB screen,
5 second Mossmouth logo,
skippable walking-through-the-desert screen (which is the only one you might not want to skip, since it randomly generates a brief monologue!)
5 second torch-lighting cutscene to reveal "Press Z to begin"
10 second cutscene of a stone head rotating and sliding into the ground to reveal the actual main menu
Spam Z to select Play Game, Adventure, select your character, confirm that all characters are ready because apparently there's co-op
Two 5-second cutscenes of climbing down the rope
Run over to the cave entrance and enter
10 second cutscene of a spinning glyph saying "The walls are shifting", then a 1-second long loading notification in the bottom right.

Don't get me wrong, all this stuff looks cool once (and once you die, there's a quick-restart button which gets you back to playing a new level with no delay).  But I usually want to hop in and kill 15 minutes on this.  Spending nearly a whole minute on unskippable scenes seriously discourages that.

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

I had that problem when I tried to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion.  I was having a great time until I read an article on how to level "Optimally".  I then couldn't play without making sure I was getting the full benefit every time I levelled(which was fairly complicated), and then the game lost all of its appeal.

Same, only with Morrowind.  It made me quite glad to find and obtain mods that changed how the characters leveled up, so it was more intuitive and less contrary to regular gameplay. 

I never understood that:  why do you need to be optimal?  Especially in a game so easy to cheese in.  Half the fun was trying to get somewhere you shouldn't be at your level, and beat it legitly.  And as poor as everyone thinks the combat was in Morrowind, it prevented combat chesse like you can do in Skyrim and to a lesser extent Oblivion.

The idea of "wasting" stat points forever just... bothers some people (like me).  It's not like the game was hard to complete, it had a difficulty slider and yeah some exploitable AI.  Not to mention custom spells.
It's probably the same reason some people hate it when a colorful mineral vein cuts through one of the rooms in their fully pre-planned dwarf fort.  A very slightly above average rating on the asbergers spectrum, I think.

[Bouchart]

Games where the optimal strategy isn't fun.

I had that problem when I tried to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion.  I was having a great time until I read an article on how to level "Optimally".  I then couldn't play without making sure I was getting the full benefit every time I levelled(which was fairly complicated), and then the game lost all of its appeal.

Same. I never got far in the main storyline for precisely this reason.  Next time I play Oblivion I'll use a mod that reworks the experience system.  It's worse than FF2 or FF8 could ever be.

[Ai Shizuka]

Obsolete inventory management from the early 2000s.
Can't believe how many game developers still think players enjoy sorting through piles of junk drops.
This is especially aggravating in most MMOs.
Give me the fucking money already, instead of troll's testicles and rusty spoons.

[Sergarr]

Obsolete inventory management from the early 2000s.
Can't believe how many game developers still think players enjoy sorting through piles of junk drops.
This is especially aggravating in most MMOs.
Give me the fucking money already, instead of troll's testicles and rusty spoons.

What about the puzzle-style inventories, though? I thought they were fun!

[Shadowlord]

Obsolete inventory management from the early 2000s.
Can't believe how many game developers still think players enjoy sorting through piles of junk drops.
This is especially aggravating in most MMOs.
Give me the fucking money already, instead of troll's testicles and rusty spoons.

What about the puzzle-style inventories, though? I thought they were fun!

Someone will have to make a Tetris-inspired inventory just for you, with a minigame with rotation and falling when you pick up an item, and if your backpack fills up, you drop ALL YOUR STUFF ON THE GROUND. And then you have to play Missile Defense to stop crows and magpies from stealing your stuff.

[Parsely]

Obsolete inventory management from the early 2000s.
Can't believe how many game developers still think players enjoy sorting through piles of junk drops.
This is especially aggravating in most MMOs.
Give me the fucking money already, instead of troll's testicles and rusty spoons.

What about the puzzle-style inventories, though? I thought they were fun!

Puzzle inventories like in RE are cathartic, but there should still be quick-sort/quick-sell/quick-drop for when I'm feeling lazy or doing a replay.

[Bouchart]

Obsolete inventory management from the early 2000s.
Can't believe how many game developers still think players enjoy sorting through piles of junk drops.
This is especially aggravating in most MMOs.
Give me the fucking money already, instead of troll's testicles and rusty spoons.

You know, I hate Dungeon Siege 1, but the one thing they did right is to give you a spell that converts an item to cash at a percentage of its sale price.