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[itisnotlogical]

I should clarify: Morrowind wasn't broken for me because I had no idea about any of the glitches/exploits until after I beat the game

Although I did make use of the "Caius gives you infinite money" glitch to level up a ton of skills early on

[RangerCado]

Multiplayer communities that get way too political in voice chat... Just... GRAH!!!

[blazing glory]

"The Brothel Mission"

In my experience it seems as if it's simply a requirement for every* "gritty dark urban-set videogame" to have a mission where you have to do something in a brothel filled with hookers and/or strippers, because 'gritty urban setting', because we can't have that without a bunch of naked potentially murdered prostitutes lying around.

Double the amount of annoyance points it gets if there's a cut-scene in the thick of it.

Triple it if it's obligatory.

Quadruple the points if it's a difficult/confusing mission.

*I am of course exaggerating but it is still incredibly annoying when it appears.

I also hate nightclub missions to a lesser degree because they tend to be frustratingly disorientating.

[Insanegame27]

"The Brothel Mission"

In my experience it seems as if it's simply a requirement for every* "gritty dark urban-set videogame" to have a mission where you have to do something in a brothel filled with hookers and/or strippers, because 'gritty urban setting', because we can't have that without a bunch of naked potentially murdered prostitutes lying around.

Double the amount of annoyance points it gets if there's a cut-scene in the thick of it.

Triple it if it's obligatory.

Quadruple the points if it's a difficult/confusing mission.

*I am of course exaggerating but it is still incredibly annoying when it appears.

I also hate nightclub missions to a lesser degree because they tend to be frustratingly disorientating.

I have done that exactly once in storywriting myself, do I get bonus points that the main character didn't even know until he was told by the guy who runs the place? (The MC was a 12-ish year old kid who climbed a building to get away from a gang chasing him)


However, I do agree with you here. GTA always has at least one of these missions, although GTA being GTA why am I not surprised?
HALO even had a nightclub mission, in REACH.
Saints Row and games like the such are also obvious mentions here.


Can I add another multiplier if it's an uber-criminal hiding there and you've got to find him/her/it?

[Neonivek]

Here is a relatively recent one but two MMOs I played have done it

Play the game our way or we will penalize you!

So DFO AND Black Desert Online have both combination pushes and just pressing a single button and both of them will pull off the attack.

However! if you do the combination instead of the hotkey (or the other way around I forget) you get a bonus... essentially meaning if you use the hotkey you are being penalized. I completely ignored it, because I wanted to have fun, but it always bugged me.

Luckily for me I don't really like the new DFO and found Black Desert to be kind of "complete" as soon as I started (though I might end up playing BDO anyhow)

[Shadowlord]

DFO? Now I know there isn't a Dwarf Fortress Online.

[Neonivek]

DFO? Now I know there isn't a Dwarf Fortress Online.

Dungeon Fighter Online. I actually kind of liked classic DFO, but was too money grubbing.

While the new one isn't AS money grubbing, but I am just not interested.

---

Also for the last time... Dwarf Fortress online is only available on Yuggoth. PAL issues and all that.

[Reelya]

EDIT I noticed some posts saying games were too easy, since anyone can finish these games, therefore death is not meaningful (clicked on the old posts by accident). This leads into one of my pet peeves about games which don't offer good value for money unless you're super-skilled.

While I'm all for meaningful death, there's an equity issue here that hasn't been resolved yet (it's inherent to games as narratives). Imagine if you were watching a movie, and at certain points, the movie would stop, ask you to do some sort of puzzle, and if you failed, the movie would turn itself off and go "fuck you! No movie for you" or in the case of a "dynamic" situation "fuck you, only <bad ending> for you!"

While "death = game over" was never a problem for short arcade games or 1-on-1 multiplayer, once games because quite lengthy narrative devices, the idea that the game locks you out of seeing any more of the game if you're deemed too shit to be allowed to continue is not very equitable. Remember, the person being locked out by a difficult challenge paid good money for the experience. Saying "sorry, fuck you, you're too shit to continue. Go play something else, and btw, thanks for the $100" to that person isn't the experience they paid for.

The basically reality is that riduculously hard challenges are basically flippin' the bird to almost your entire customer base, to pander to a tiny hardcore legion who'll play your game and move on to the next thing in no time. I'm for a dynamic level of difficulty, at least as an option. I guess some people will finish the game who "didn't deserve" to see the ending, because their skills weren't so leet. But fuck that attitude basically.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'm all for permadeath and the like but its not something I would ever want for all games.  Or even most games.

[SirAaronIII]

I heard someone say DFO and I had to jump in.

The manual bonus is minuscule: it's literally like 2% cooldown and MP use reduction. You'd save a whole 0.4 seconds and 14 MP cost off of, for example, Wild Shot with a cooldown of 17.6 seconds and an MP cost of 657... where your mana pool is over 35000 and recovers over 16 per second. The penalty, as you call it, is pretty much negligible

One class, Kunoichi, can charge up skills by holding the hotkey (or Z key if you do the manual input) to do more damage/effects and reduce the cooldown. They also have an ability to leave a clone to finish charging and casting the skill for even more bonus damage when they start casting another skill. In practice, this leaves you holding down one skill's hotkey, pressing another skill's hotkey, and letting go of the first hotkey. It's impossible to make full use of the class mechanics without using hotkeys.

There's kind of the opposite on 3 endgame weapons (Balmung, Ranger Rod Lord of Ranger, and some fancy silver dagger thing) that give you 5% bonus damage to everything for each empty hotkey slot, which is such a huge buff that it pretty much makes them the most desired weapons for anyone who can equip them. That's really the only thing close to a penalty for using hotkeys I can think of, and those weapons are rare enough that it's pretty safe to ignore manual inputs and just use all the hotkeys.

And the "new" DFO is much better than it was under Nexon... though that's pretty obvious, considering Nexon. It has its own issues, but those are much more easily overlooked.

[Neonivek]

And the "new" DFO is much better than it was under Nexon... though that's pretty obvious, considering Nexon. It has its own issues, but those are much more easily overlooked.

I just don't like how insanely fast it is now.

It isn't worse (In fact... it is better) it just shoved the game outside my tastes. Like Soul Calibur 5 did for it series for example.

To admit I could just need to play it more. I am still at the easy section of the game.

[SirAaronIII]

Definitely agree with you there. While the streamlining updates have been nice, sometimes it feels a little... TOO streamlined. In fact, it's so much easier to get to max level that I've seen a few people miss the whole learning-their-class aspect of leveling, and manage to take bad builds and weak to the endgame because "they worked for leveling so they should work for this too right???"

[Shadowlord]

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.

While I'm all for meaningful death, there's an equity issue here that hasn't been resolved yet (it's inherent to games as narratives). Imagine if you were watching a movie, and at certain points, the movie would stop, ask you to do some sort of puzzle, and if you failed, the movie would turn itself off and go "fuck you! No movie for you" or in the case of a "dynamic" situation "fuck you, only <bad ending> for you!"

While "death = game over" was never a problem for short arcade games or 1-on-1 multiplayer, once games because quite lengthy narrative devices, the idea that the game locks you out of seeing any more of the game if you're deemed too shit to be allowed to continue is not very equitable. Remember, the person being locked out by a difficult challenge paid good money for the experience. Saying "sorry, fuck you, you're too shit to continue. Go play something else, and btw, thanks for the $100" to that person isn't the experience they paid for.

I'm all for dynamic level of difficulty, at least as an option. I guess some people will finish the game who "didn't deserve" to see the ending, because their skills weren't so leet. But fuck that attitude basically.

I think you make a compelling case, but that shouldn't be the case for all games: Some people want punishingly difficult games like Dark Souls. It doesn't feel as rewarding to them, I expect, without the difficulty. You can say "well I want the plot without that" but... there are so many games out there to choose from. You don't need to play everything (hell, you can't, they're being created far too fast). Folks who don't want that experience will go elsewhere. I know I do.

[Reelya]

I'm all for permadeath and the like but its not something I would ever want for all games.  Or even most games.

Rather than permadeath, I was talking about hitting challenges that are too hard for the bulk of players. Being able to save/restore doesn't help with some of these. I've had a few games which are basically coasters because I hit an insanely hard level (well, I eventually got through one of them, but literally years and repeated attempts at the game before I could break through certain levels). Sure, you can reload and try again and again, but I'm very much against requiring players to do repetitious tasks to get ahead. So, pet peeve is shitty balancing in linear games meaning some levels are monstrously difficult, and you have to get through that level or you don't get to see any more content This probably comes about because they have the same playtesters all the way through development.

I think you make a compelling case, but that shouldn't be the case for all games: Some people want punishingly difficult games like Dark Souls. It doesn't feel as rewarding to them, I expect, without the difficulty. You can say "well I want the plot without that" but... there are so many games out there to choose from. You don't need to play everything (hell, you can't, they're being created far too fast). Folks who don't want that experience will go elsewhere. I know I do.

I agree there's a place for that, but where I disagree is in the way people are expected to pay for the experience. If you pay full cost new release prices for a full game, you should expect to get the full experience. It's the equivalent of buying a ticket for a movie, then being booted out halfway through. You're going to want your money back. If they move to episodic or subscription-based payments for such games, then that would be more equitable. I'm sure the market will adjust to fit consumer needs, eventually, but you're obvious still getting quite a few people who paid good money for what are basically coasters, without any right of refund. And the way games are going these days, you can't even give them to a friend if you can't play them.

And remember, I said dynamic level of difficulty as a game option. You'd be free to leave that option off, and run through the game on hard-mode. Does it really hurt you to know that someone else finished the game with dynamic difficulty setting, or easy setting? The only place that matters is online / competitive gaming, and you have other players to create the level of difficulty there.

[EnigmaticHat]

Mmh.  The ethic of modern game developers is if you buy the game you should be able to see everything in it regardless of how good you are at the game.  This gets looked down on a lot as casual but I would argue its a good thing.  Like you say its not necessarily a fun thing to get stuck.