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[Telgin]

Which actually brings me to another point I noticed long ago but really started bugging me today: apparently nothing in New Vegas is worth more than 50 XP to kill.  Cazadores, Death Claws, Nightstalkers and so on are worth the same experience as an upgraded but still laughable protectron in Old World Blues.  Actually, this DLC has been testing my patience with combat in New Vegas in general.  Enemies seem to attack constantly like ants, are wielding anything from 10mm pistols and die to two hits or have twice that HP and can bite your leg off in two hits through power armor.  And all are worth 50 XP.  Don't get me started on the robo scorpions that are harder to kill than a Death Claw but are only worth 50 XP.  I pretty much ran completely out of ammo before I relented and picked up a proton axe to kill them.

[itisnotlogical]

Morrowind's segmented bodies. I normally don't complain about graphics, and everything else in Morrowind looks absolutely gorgeous, but segmented bodies are one of my biggest pet peeves (unless they're stylized like in Toribash or Sumotori Dreams). There were continuous bodies in Goldeneye of all games, Morrowind could probably have had them. Even joining the ends of the vanilla model's segments would look a lot better. I know about Better Bodies, but we're talking about the game as released.

And climbing. Even though Daggerfall is my least favorite Elder Scrolls game, climbing was a stroke of brilliance. Why was it removed from successive installments? The world may never know.

[itisnotlogical]

So you couldn't climb the invisible walls?

They could make the invisible walls not climbable. I'd imagine it's more so that you don't climb into places where you're not supposed to be, although I can't think of any places that are specifically excluded for sequence reasons.

Ironically, bump mapping in Skyrim made it look like there were all sorts of totally climbable walls, but you can't climb in that game. except with a horse and some patience

[Iceblaster]

Dishonered Dunwall City Trials.

The aesthetics break my suspension of disbelief in terms of environment.

They couldn't spend time making environments where the place doesn't look like Fallout became reality(Burglary) or that it felt like I was in some otherworldly place(First stealth challenge, don't recall the name.

For some, it makes sense. Bend Time Massacre etc. etc. but it annoys the little aesthetics guy in my head.

A minor one is that there are only two stealth challenged(four of you count expert) while action and mobility have the most. Stealth is some Dishonored is great for, yet they ruin a chance to show off their prowess.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

So you couldn't climb the invisible walls?

They could make the invisible walls not climbable. I'd imagine it's more so that you don't climb into places where you're not supposed to be, although I can't think of any places that are specifically excluded for sequence reasons.

Ironically, bump mapping in Skyrim made it look like there were all sorts of totally climbable walls, but you can't climb in that game. except with a horse and some patience

I intended it to be a bad joke.

Bad jokes are not logical.

[IronTomato]

There are 3 Louis Letrushes outside of my Whiterun in Skyrim.

This is unacceptable.

[itisnotlogical]

Cliff Racers in Morrowind. I got lost looking for Arkngthand and I've killed 30+ Cliff Racers with the console. I don't even feel guilty about using the console to kill them instantly from 50 yards off, they're just that annoying.

[Teneb]

Dishonored (base game): Some enemies barely appear during the game, such as the hounds. In low chaos they only appear in two levels, I think, and even then they appear in out-of-the-way areas you are unlikely to visit. I didn't even see the hounds in my first playthrough.

[BFEL]

To those complaining about New Vegas being hard: Rad Child. Just...Rad Child. It is the answer to everything.

Also while certainly not my "favorite" game (New Vegas has that honor) I want to talk to you about the Mass Effect series.
Which present day seems to garner the same reaction as "I want to talk to you about Jesus"

But yeah, Mass Effect series. Lets just ignore the ending, because ARGUED TO DEATH, and focus instead on what I personally believe to be where it all went wrong.
Specifically, Mass Effect 2. Now Mass Effect 2 seems to be the first time that Biowares new fad of "sequel where you twiddle your thumbs till the third game is out" started. While its definitely not as obvious as in Dragon Age 2, its definitely there.
I mean, kidnapping space bugs? We just got through the knowledge of "sentient starships are coming to eat the universe" and then we spend an entire GAME on their space bug lackeys?
Sure they kinda killed you and are nabbing a bunch of dudes, but still, bigger picture man.

I think Mass Effect 2 should have been what Mass Effect 3 was, specifically, it should have been spent gathering support against the galaxy ending level threat that was just on the horizon and shunted the space bugs right into DLC territory.
This would in turn allow ME3 to have focused on adding up all your decisions up till that point and spending the whole game in the super awesome galaxy shattering war against all odds that should have been the climax to this series instead of some Deus Ex Machina that the devs pulled out of their asses at the last moment.

[blazing glory]

Mech warrior online.The match maker is just TERRIBLE mainly pairing me on a team of novices while the enemy are 2-4 year players

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Planetside 2: Awesome scale, cool bits and pieces, but it needs some things.

It needs a graph for every gun that gives the DPS at each range, the damage per magazine at each range, and these graphs need to change depending on weapon mods like ammo type. All the graphs need a line for each body part hit, so you can see whether one gun does a lot more damage or if they're all like double damage or something. Also a toggle for scoped weapons when firing through scope - if that makes a difference.

It needs a better weapon shop interface where you can actually compare guns side by side, see them with various mods at the same time, search mods based on a selected gun, search guns based on a selected mod.

People defending need to get a buttload more certs because right now nobody bothers to defend. Or bump up the resources gained from holding territories and give anyone holding them a steady diet of bonus resources.

Need more shrubbery, broken land, etc. which impedes vehicles and gives cover for infantry, improving infantry survivability and stealth opportunities.

[choppy]

You want a shrubbery. 

[MorleyDev]

Elder-Scrolls Series in general: More choices. Not necessarily moral choices, but each instalment has felt more and more like a Roller-coaster experience.

The Great House Dagoth mod improves Morrowind's main quest so much by making joining House Dagoth possible, as well as making it possible to betray Dagoth Ur and become a god alongside the Tribunal, or betray the entire Tribunal as well as Dagoth Ur and become the sole god of Morrowind. Or you can even commit a Heroic Sacrifice, and destroy the heart to kill both yourself and Dagoth Ur.

All of this whilst still fulfilling the deliberately poorly worded prophecy of Nerevarine and staying completely within the themes of the game to the point it feels like a natural part of the game.

That kind of thing, that you can do this kind of thing but only if you are smart enough to realise you can do it and not just blindly follow the quest marker, is what Elder Scrolls is truly missing. What Role-playing games in general lately have been missing.

Oh, and level scaling: Stop it. I much prefer Morrowind's static world to Oblivion and Skyrim's approach.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I totally agree about level scaling, HOWAYVER, as a D&D DM I've seen firsthand what happens when the players end up in a low-level area you expected them to tackle earlier.

Spoiler: These are their stories (click to show/hide)

The mountain valley has a ruined city in the middle, where four small villages have sprung up under four mid-level friendly NPCs. There are also four main dungeons around the valley which all connect. The boss dude at the bottom is trying to get four antagonist NPCs to bring him all the pieces of the MacGuffin so he can slip completely into this world - or they could banish him completely. Either way, you need all the pieces, and these four antagonist NPCs don't want to share whatever rewards there are from the boss, so they all struggle against each other.

There are also dozens of small dungeons scattered around and more than four MacGuffin pieces.

The problem is I wrote up the dungeons when the game started, so each of the four could be tackled at roughly the same party level. Let's say one of them was easier, and its four dungeon levels before the conjoin with the others at the boss were at difficulty 1/2/3/4. Two of them were harder, more like 2/3/4/5. One was the hardest, more like 3/4/5/6.

The structure of the dungeon allowed for people to plumb to the bottom of one dungeon, recognize they're connected because the boss says "hey man, posh rewards going out to whoever brings all the MacGuffin parts", and go through the bottom entrance to the next one. That's the hardest part of the next dungeon because the antagonist NPC there set up defenses to keep the others from ambushing him. But if you get through, it's a shortcut to the higher-difficulty segments.

My players cleaned out one dungeon, noted that the entrances were all tough to get into, and left to go into another dungeon from the top. Becoming a little bored with how easy it was for their 5th-7th level characters.

Here's my hypothetical solution to dungeon scaling vs. static dungeons that are boring because you go in at a super high level.

One dungeon has, at the end, a strange ritual that you can interrupt and break the thingy. If you break it, a bunch of evil spirits get released and scatter throughout several dungeons. If you let the ritual finish, you fight a big boss guy and a bunch of his cultists escape, setting up shop in several dungeons where it would be appropriate. Either way, you finishing the dungeon makes a bunch of other dungeons harder but also more rewarding - the cultists gather loot, and the spirits drop ectoplasm or whatever.

A sewer level has a valve at the end and if you close it, the outflow is no longer tainted so the waters around the town no longer spawn mutants, but the deeper levels of the sewer become backlogged with the nasty stuff and the monsters inside are tougher. Or what if you open the valve, weakening the monsters deeper in but polluting the nearby waters completely? Maybe there's a holding tank for corrosive stuff that you can release into the dungeon to open certain pathways and change how the sewage is distributed.

Help a wizard in the guild defeat his rival, and the rival is no longer a concern - but the wizard you helped is now doing some stuff.

Seven wizard-princes share the power of their father the conjurer-king. If you slay a prince, his powers are redistributed to the other princes making them more powerful.

If you defeat a gang of bandits, some will inevitably survive. These will flee to other bandit gangs, slightly strengthening them. Without the bandits' depredation of the roads, the local Thieve's Guild (which controls the teamsters) flourishes. The bandit camp, over time, becomes a lair for orcs or something, and with this forward base they're able to strike deeper into inhabited lands.

Anyway, the general theme is that completion of a dungeon (which is kind of like passing a test showing that you have a certain level of character development or player skill) causes specific changes in the world, which include changes in difficulty in various areas.

EDIT: Way too many "of course"s

[Sensei]

Oh, and level scaling: Stop it. I much prefer Morrowind's static world to Oblivion and Skyrim's approach.

Morrowind actually used a mixture of level-scaled and non-scaled enemies (most people with names aren't scaled, for example). Generic mobs were level scaled, but to within a limited range- for example, a mob spawner spawns a certain mob if you are level 1-15, 16-20, or more than 25. This makes the area balanced to be hard for low level characters, an even match for a while, and then easy after level 25. Sometimes the enemies that spawned also depended on quest progress- if you hurried into the main quest and started fighting blight monsters at a low level, things could get nasty. I think there's even a couple areas that specifically spawn something really nasty if you wander in at too low a level, which is a bit of a cheap trick but still doesn't stop power gamers from grabbing grand soul gems in the first hour...

That said, while it's not static, I think Morrowind's level scaling did a good job of leaving you with the impression that your character was progressing as you level up, and that certain areas were harder than others. It's not possible to be like in the worst example, Oblivion, and make all your Major Skills once you don't use so you stay level 1 fighting level 1 enemies while you actually have 100 in the skills you actually use.

I totally agree about level scaling, HOWAYVER, as a D&D DM I've seen firsthand what happens when the players end up in a low-level area you expected them to tackle earlier.

Make it a race to get the macguffin before the level-scaled anti-party does.