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[itisnotlogical]

I even tried to get the smartphone app just because I'm sick of having worthless trading cards that could instead be money. And then the app never worked.

[Darkmere]

I even tried to get the smartphone app just because I'm sick of having worthless trading cards that could instead be money. And then the app never worked.

I had Nox emulator installed for unrelated reasons. Tried to install Steam and whatever on it, it refuses to work unless I give them a phone number AND a login. What possible legitimate use could they have for that?

It reminds me of a promo from hearthstone some months back where you got some cosmetics if you signed up for a "free trial" of Twitch Prime. I had no interest in it but I tried the "free trial" anyway.

They won't let you use the free trial without your credit card information. Totes not gonna charge you, tho. It's just insulting, everyone with two brain cells knows exactly what you're up to.

[SeriousConcentrate]

It would be fine if it was an opt-in type of thing, like if you do a lot of trading of expensive things (I'm assuming things like loot crates or whatever for certain games are expensive, anyway) and want an extra layer of security even at the price of handing over personal information, but all I do is sell cards. My cards usually aren't even worth a quarter. If someone hacked my account, I would not give two shits if they sent themselves what few cards I have. Forcing everyone to hand over their phone number so they can get bombarded with text ads (which is what I'm sure would happen) is bullshit.

[AzyWng]

Poorly Explained Bonuses:

Probably already been ranted about covered here, but I kind of hate it when things like buffs or bonuses are poorly explained.

Saint's Row 2 (hey, the only reason I'm using this game as an example so much is because I love it so much) has the "FUZZ" activity. One of its two instances gives you unlimited pistol ammo...

But only for the two pistols that you equip in the weapons stash.

If you even pick up an enemy's pistol by accident (which is very likely to happen in SR2 because you only have to press R to pick up a dropped weapon), your ammo counter loses that lovely infinity symbol, even if you pick your original guns up again.

Very irritating.

[Neonivek]

I never thought I would have to add this

Rare resource! (Except not really due to convolution)

So... in Prey there is something called Exotic Material. It is used to create Neuromods which is the most vital thing you can make in the game (essentially think of it as a skill point). Even the game says that Exotic material is particularly hard to come by.

So it must be the limiter to how many Neuromods you can make right?

OHHH HECK NO! You could spend all your resources on just Neuromods (a difficult but not impossible prospect) and you will still be lugging tons of Exotic material why? Because it requires a lot of both Synthetic and Minerals which are FAR more limited because they are used for everything.

Better yet? Some of the rewards challenges is more Exotic Material AND the ability that lets you get MORE items from corpses? Often gets you just more exotic materials. It isn't unusual for people to beat the game having over a hundred Exotic material.

---

It kind of bugs me when games have a rare resource and tries to gear you towards obtaining it... Only to find out that the real limiter was something else entirely. ("Ohh you have 10 diamonds? Well we will need one and about 1000 iron")

[itisnotlogical]

Mission Rankings

Any game that has grades/ranks for missions will annoy the shit out of me. My first time through I'll end up with a string of B's, C's and D's, with a handful of A's at the beginning. Having a tiny perfectionist streak when it comes to games, this will bug me to no end and I'll replay the first half of the game over and over trying to get a perfect grade until I can't even stand to touch the controller anymore.

It's not as much of a problem if it's just points, since it's hard to tell the maximum score anyway and it's granular enough that you can let a few go. But letter grades, or bronze/silver/gold ranks, can die in a fire.

Extreme low enemy count

From the same game that set off the above peeve, Senran Kagura. (Don't judge, DS games are expensive and it's not bad for 20bux.)

I rarely play beat-em-ups, but occasionally I'll play one that's focused on crowd control and dealing with large groups of enemies. And in that very same game they'll make a mission/level that very slowly drip-feeds you one basic enemy at a time, just to fuck with and annoy you.

This can be more broadly expanded to any game where the designer thinks they're cleverly subverting the game's mechanics, but in reality just enforcing a gameplay style that doesn't fit the genre at all. For example a strategy mission that forces you to use a single hero unit, or an FPS stealth section, or a stealth game with a forced action/alert phase.

[Darkmere]

This is complicated, I'll try to keep all of these separate.

I snagged Starpoint Gemini 2 on the Steam freebie giveaway a few days ago. I'm hopelessly addicted to space choose your own games, so I love the game.

For the most part. Except for these:

No Campaign for the Wicked

So you're the "Goody Two Shoes" by default. They control the most interconnected space, which is fine. But there's a karma meter that lets you push into "Outlaw" mode, so you can do what you want coz a pirate is free. But there's not much of a story to it, despite a lot of hooks being set up in the main campaign that the bad guys are actually incredibly desperate because reasons and you actually hook up with some of them for a brief time.

But nah, never addressed. In fact, for most of the game's life you couldn't even ally with the big bads, leaving a third of the map (including starbases and planets) completely inaccessible to you. But that was patched out so you can visit those places now... If you can get past

Annoyance Mode

Being "evil" is hard. Not because you're outgunned and limited to certain parts of space, that's fine. But keeping your karma meter negative is difficult.

When you start out, the Good Guys are neutral and the bad guys hate you. Do a few naughty things, and the Good Guys start to hate you... but the bad guys STILL HATE YOU. You must kick this many puppies to proceed. Once you do get access to more Outlaw areas...

There's a faction that always hangs out in Outlaw space, that will always attack you regardless of karma. They're EEEEVIL so defending yourself gets positive karma. You have no choice but to defend yourself, so your karma meter is climbing if you don't just avoid them.... but you can't avoid them, they're fucking everywhere.

The EEEEVILest factions don't trust you until your karma gets really low. But killing them raises your karma. They ALSO hang out with the rest of the bad guys, but will single you out constantly and none of your other groups will help.

They Just Didn't Care

Oh and the good guys keep offering you Freelance work, even if they hate you. Pick the wrong mission, and you get more positive karma. This actually includes... some smuggling work, for some reason. I guess you're delivering drugs and knives For Great Justice.

Also for some reason, your assassination targets WAY WAY WAY outclass you as an Outlaw. Got a frigate? Cool. Go kill two frigates, a cruiser, and a dreadnought at the same time.

Balance, lol?

Still, the control scheme is amazing for keys + mouse, and I really like most of the game in spite of all this. Just needed a whinge.

[Eclectic Wizard]

Automatic, untoggleable bolting and pumping in first person shooters, please let me handle my gun myself!

[AzyWng]

What's the alternative? An additional button for working the action of a bolt-action, or pumping the pump of a pump-action?

Because that sounds like extra work on the player's end...

The reason that most characters automatically bolt or pump their weapons is the same reason we don't have Reciever-esque reloading in every shooter game: Convenience.

I don't really understand your complaint, honestly. You're going to want to fire the weapon again (unless you're switching weapons), so you're gonna have to chamber a new round sooner or later if you want to fire the weapon again. It may as well be automatic rather than something up to the player (and thus something that might be forgotten when the player is under pressure).

[Eclectic Wizard]

Bolting and pumping regularly requires you to break aim in games, Rising Storm and its sequel, plus Verdun and Escape from Tarkov all allow for manual bolting, the latter requires it and also has some pretty nifty reloading mechanics.

[AzyWng]

I guess that makes sense if you're using a sniper rifle (you're forced to zoom all the way out), but shotguns?

Most video game shotguns are most effective at close range, or, in more realistic titles, at medium-close range.

Even then, most of the video game shotguns I have experience with can pump while still aiming at the same time.

This is, of course, assuming you're talking about pump-action shotguns and not pump-action sniper rifles or something of that kind.

[itisnotlogical]

Not being able to shoot through a gate that you clearly could

Pretty self-explanatory. I hate it when an arrow or bullet bounces off the air between the bars in a door. Happens a lot in ye olde fantasy games.

[Eclectic Wizard]

I guess that makes sense if you're using a sniper rifle (you're forced to zoom all the way out), but shotguns?

Most video game shotguns are most effective at close range, or, in more realistic titles, at medium-close range.

Even then, most of the video game shotguns I have experience with can pump while still aiming at the same time.

This is, of course, assuming you're talking about pump-action shotguns and not pump-action sniper rifles or something of that kind.

In EFT and Rising Storm 2: Vietnam you can theoretically kill someone from across the map with a shotgun if one of the pellets happen to hit in just the right way, pump shotguns in RS2:V are thankfully able to be manually pumped, all long barrel shotguns are used in midrange, I would say depending on the profile of the firearm distance doesn't matter, breaking aim is a stupid thing to do if you show any form of care in the battlefield. Also manual pumping of shotguns, individually reloading chambers on a x>1 barrel break action shotguns has a certain effect on pacing many games don't have.

Another pet peeve of mine is uninterruptible reloading, it has killed me countless times in games like Rust. Also games that cancel reloading at the slightest movement, especially when they have internal magazines and the value you reached to doesn't get saved.

Also a certain mod for Receiver has convinced me that the difficulty of receiver style controls is vastly exaggerated and would work fine in a multiplayer shooter. Any level of basic practice in Receiver and you can blindly and autonomously operate the gun as if it was any other shooter.

[Egan_BW]

I remember playing a mod for Receiver with a pump shotgun. Was a lot easier to use than the pistols because it doesn't use a magazine, and hitting spacebar to pump after every shot is fun.

[Rolan7]

I really wanted to like Receiver, and I did like the reloading mechanic.  I loved SS13, so I loved the weirdly complex and arbitrary system to do something that isn't even that complicated.  Learning it felt like an accomplishment.
Unfortunately the actual gunplay was just awful, with meta-walls being a large part of it.  I would shoot inaccurately at a fast-moving thing, and sometimes it would fall but still be dangerous...  Or be blind.  That was cool, but I never could get a good sense of what parts of the model were actually vulnerable.  I couldn't tell which nondescript block in a drone I actually hit, to cause which response.

I also liked the campy story-tapes a lot.  I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

Anyway, I finally got my Pokemon Go Plus, and I like a lot about it.  I particularly like that it doesn't count distance while driving, which would basically ruin the game for me.  What I don't like is what happens if you're out of (standard) pokeballs, but near a pokemon (at this point, basically anytime you're in a city in motion).

It vibrates to tell you there's a pokemon.  You press the button.  It responds with three short buzzes to tell you you're out of pokeballs.

It does this...  every 30 seconds.  Or sometimes 2 seconds.  I timed it, it's very random.

Maybe I'm just too used to having my phone on vibrate, but it's REALLY BAD to notify the user for fuckall reason.  CONSTANTLY, also randomly.  You had one job (exaggeration but still).  I really wouldn't blame them for this on launch, but it's been almost a year.

Also kinda bad that you can't authorize the use of non-basic pokeballs, but that really pales in comparison.

It's also kinda pay-to-win since I was able to harvest several pokestops with a simple drive wherein I never looked at my phone or the device, simply pressed it when it buzzed.  But on the plus side it lets me hike for distance without keeping my phone unlocked (a completely arbitrary restriction they implemented, simply to sell this $35 donglet.  Might as well charged a subscription fee to allow operation when locked, but selling a $2 piece of plastic triggers people less).