Baffling game design decisions

[SleepSmasher]

So, I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for a few days now and I just can't understand why there is no menu item to review the tutorial hints whatsoever. I'm 10 hours in and the game keeps throwing mechanics at me like there's no tomorrow and there's no way to read them all again. Worse, I found out that some shops sell "hints" and I bought one for fucking 1000G just to realize it's a "tooltip" kind of thing and not actually a comprehensive explanation.

Suffice to say, to get the grasp of the game's mechanics, seeking for online tutorials is almost a requirement.

Also, Zelda BotW "Pro" HUD STILL displays dozens of hearts at all times, instead of fully hiding them outside of combat situations (like it works with the stamina bar). My OLED loves it.

So Era, what other bad game design decisions can we list here?

 

[Gold Arsene]

Not being able to have platonic relationships with the female characters in Persona 3. If you want to max their Social Link you must romance them.

It was thankfully fixed in 4 and 5 but still weird looking back.

 

[Kindekuma]

Metroid Other M has you stand perfectly still, hold the Wii mote vertically and "focus" to recharge health and missiles instead of just giving drops when killing enemies. So better find a safe corner in a boss fight to stop what you're doing and focus. Oh and you can only use missiles while standing completely still.

 

[Dice]

So, I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for a few days now and I just can't understand why there is no menu item to review the tutorial hints whatsoever. I'm 10 hours in and the game keeps throwing mechanics at me like there's no tomorrow and there's no way to read them all again. Worse, I found out that some shops sell "hints" and I bought one for fucking 1000G just to realize it's a "tooltip" kind of thing and not actually a comprehensive explanation.

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This. And also no quick-access to the Affinity Chart (which sucks because skills only activate/progress when you open the clunky-ass menu for it).

Breath of the Wild's "inventory is full" menu is annoying.

Ocean King dungeon from Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

Final Fantasy X's Kimahri.

 

[texhnolyze]

You can't access your inventory and change your gear in the middle of a mission in a looter game (Anthem, Warhammer Inquisitor, now fixed).

 

[spam musubi]

Mario Odyssey locking certain movements behind motion controls when it barely uses half the physical buttons on the system to begin with

 

[ClickyCal']

Metroid Other M has you stand perfectly still, hold the Wii mote vertically and "focus" to recharge health and missiles instead of just giving drops when killing enemies. So better find a safe corner in a boss fight to stop what you're doing and focus. Oh and you can only use missiles while standing completely still.

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And last boss makes you use power bombs without telling you.

 

[AppleKid]

Splatoon 2 not offering 2-4 player splitscreen for Salmon Run.

 

[Pirate Bae]

Not making the Iron Boots equipable from the C-buttons in OoT. Still annoys the shit out of me to this day.

 

[Kapryov]

Not being able to have platonic relationships with the female characters in Persona 3. If you want to max their Social Link you must romance them.

It was thankfully fixed in 4 and 5 but still weird looking back.

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Yeah the reasons behind this are just as stupid too.
P3P FeMC fixes this and has much much better social links in general, minus one particularly weird one.

 

[Trisc]

Releasing Battlefield 5 in the state it was in. Utterly baffling how a game with so many great ideas was marred so heavily by being launched in a clearly unfinished state. Half the updates coming out for the game are meant to fix bugs and exploits, while the other half are adding new maps and weapons that introduce yet more bugs and exploits. It's maddening. Unlike Battlefield 4 and 1, there's no CTE where things can be tested before they go live, meaning several updates, including one major TTK update having been walked back due to crippling the game's infrastructure.

Also, DICE caving into the pressure from diaper shitters who complained about women and "unrealistic" cosmetics being in a series known for crazy shit like a guy leaping out of a jet, shooting an RPG at the jet tailing them, and getting back in the jet they initially leapt out of.

 

[Dullahan]

Capcom's handling of Dead Rising: The Thread.

 

[BrightLightLava]

Not making the Iron Boots equipable from the C-buttons in OoT. Still annoys the shit out of me to this day.

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One of the best changes in the 3ds remake.

 

[Glass Arrows]

Not being able to have platonic relationships with the female characters in Persona 3. If you want to max their Social Link you must romance them.

It was thankfully fixed in 4 and 5 but still weird looking back.

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Hashino gave out an interview where he said he had trouble reconciling the idea of platonic friendships with women, which I think unfortunately says a lot about him and explains this terrible design decision. At least it was fixed with the next installments.

 

[Quinton]

Hashino gave out an interview where he said he had trouble reconciling the idea of platonic friendships with women, which I think unfortunately says a lot about him and explains this terrible design decision. At least it was fixed with the next installments.

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Yeah, it's so stupid.

 

[Kindekuma]

Skyward Sword also has the memory of a gold fish and must CONSTANTLY interrupt you (after every save reload) to tell you what an item is when you collect it and open a long menu animation to show it in your collection. Did you forget what an amber relic is? How about a tumbleweed? Don't you dare tell me you forgot what a Monster Claw is!

 

[Heshinsi]

Everything outside of the actual basketball in NBA 2K19. I picked up 2K19 a few months back, and I don't know if any game has made me more annoyed with how idiotic and cumbersome of design the developers chose for it.

 

[Moist_Owlet]

In bloodstained why does B/Circle drop a waypoint on the map instead of exiting the menu?

 

[trevofour]

In bloodstained why does B/Circle drop a waypoint on the map instead of exiting the menu?

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I didn't know I was dropping markers on the
map for a good 6-7 hours, so it was very confusing when I was visiting those points during that time wondering what the hell those symbols were.

 

[Parisi]

In bloodstained why does B/Circle drop a waypoint on the map instead of exiting the menu?

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This, and also why do they map ability upgrades to shards? For instance, the beam ability is a shard and I have to keep switching between it and my lightning shard... Why can't they just make these new abilities active, like Double Jump? It's so annoying trying to figure out what Shard I need to progress to another section of the castle.

 

[MrConbon210]

Having to collect blood vials in Bloodborne instead of just being able to replenish them at lamps like in Dark Souls. I would just spend an hour grinding the same few enemies to collect a bunch and not have to worry about running out.

 

[Forkball]

Why does Bowser throw hammers in the final battle of Super Mario Bros.? Easily the most annoying mechanic in the entire game, and the concept of Bowser throwing hammers was dropped forever after that.

 

[Lulu]

Tripping

 

[Cort]

WoW's Azerite Traits not being spec specific is a huge one for me, like how.

 

[GrrImAFridge]

For Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog finally added the ability to throw back enemy grenades only to exclude it from both subsequent games. I hope whichever studio is working on Uncharted PS5 picks it up off the cutting room floor.

 

[Smash-It Stan]

Holding 'blank' button to do literally any and every action nowadays. I think Destiny started it years ago and now every single fucking game wants you hold some button to do literally anything. Holding a button down was used as an extra command back in the day, like assassins creed would do a different action if you held the button down. Destiny wants you to hold triangle down to get the bike out, hold circle to exit, hold touch pad to bring up the map...literally can all be achieved by just PRESSING the button. So many actions are lost because pressing the button does nothing, you HAVE to hold it.

 

[MoonlitBow]

Lunar Dragon Song made you choose between battles dropping loot or giving EXP, which meant that it always felt punishing to not get one of the rewards. There were other odd design decisions like sprinting draining HP and something else I forget.

Why does Bowser throw hammers in the final battle of Super Mario Bros.? Easily the most annoying mechanic in the entire game, and the concept of Bowser throwing hammers was dropped forever after that.

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Considering that Super Mario Bros. had very limited space for graphics, it was probably easier for them to just reuse the hammer to add difficulty progression.

 

[Tovarisc]

Basically everything Battlefield V.

That game is one big weird and baffling design decision.

 

[Mcfrank]

Anthem overheating after a short time of flying.

 

[Doggg]

Doom 3's flashlight.

 

[Arebours]

the whole crafting system in tactics ogre.

 

[Deleted member 2669]

Samus in Smash has a jab combo that doesn't work, as in the second hit is completely ineffective because foes can block it. She also can't follow up the first hit with anything other than the second hit.

This is even mentioned in an in-game tip, meaning they...intentionally designed a move to not work? Like, what?

 

[Gilver]

In DmC Tameem's Night out there are red and blue enemies and if you use a weapon that is not the enemies color it bounces off and does nothing (normal attack also bounces off). Not a good idea to limit your combo variety in a DMC game.

 

[Elfforkusu]

Xenoblade 2's whole first half is a series of baffling design decisions

Xenoblade X having you click the stick to run was wack

 

[Bishop89]

Mash x to run
A shit fast travel system.

I'm looking at you rdr2

Unskippable cutscenes.
No prompt to skip a cutscene in case you accidentally hit a button

 

[GlassCup64]

So, I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for a few days now and I just can't understand why there is no menu item to review the tutorial hints whatsoever. I'm 10 hours in and the game keeps throwing mechanics at me like there's no tomorrow and there's no way to read them all again. Worse, I found out that some shops sell "hints" and I bought one for fucking 1000G just to realize it's a "tooltip" kind of thing and not actually a comprehensive explanation.

Suffice to say, to get the grasp of the game's mechanics, seeking for online tutorials is almost a requirement.

Click to shrink...

Huh? I thought you could review the tutorial text. I think it is in the options menu or something?

EDIT: I guess not. Strange.

 

[gutterboy44]

The entire story co-op situation with Monster Hunter World. It was the first MH game for my friends and I, and the campaign was likely as far as we were going to get, so trying to sync up all the weird cutscene solo, then group up stuff was off putting for such an amazing game. It really killed the momentum of us grouping up when we had free time and just playing the game together. Co-op games have solved the drop in drop out campaign/story missions thing for quite a while now, there was no reason for such a bizarre system. I know for end game it doesn't matter, but this was our first time in MH so playing the story together and learning together was important and there were lots of hurdles that made it more difficult that necessary.

 

[Cheezeman3000]

Final Fantasy XV... press "X" to jump, but also press "X" to pick things up or interact. Which means instead of interacting, you're always jumping like an idiot. Frustrating to no end.

(Posted this in the last thread we had about this stuff)

 

[Rickenslacker]

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 introduces a brand new species of antlion and queen, then later has you fighting regular antlions in a 10 minute enclosed survival encounter. The same single enemy type. For 10 minutes. In an entry that introduces new ones.

The way Monster Hunter World hides your health and stamina bar when you're out of a fight for a moment, with no way of disabling that.

 

[Weiss]

Hollow Knight making you use up a crucial Charm Slot in order to mark yourself on the map feels completely ass backwards for how modern the game is. Having to earn the ability to orientate yourself feels like something even Symphony of the Night at the dawn of the genre wouldn't make you go through.

That, and cutting your magic limit by a third when you lose your Shade means you're never allowed to just ignore the loss of Geo if it's not worth grabbing.

Hopefully Silksong acknowledges both of these bugbears.

 

[Deleted member 42484]

Mario Tennis launched without a court select screen and you had to deselect all the levels you don't want to get the one you want.

The game still requires split screen for multiplayer at all times.

 

[Boiled Goose]

So, I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for a few days now and I just can't understand why there is no menu item to review the tutorial hints whatsoever. I'm 10 hours in and the game keeps throwing mechanics at me like there's no tomorrow and there's no way to read them all again. Worse, I found out that some shops sell "hints" and I bought one for fucking 1000G just to realize it's a "tooltip" kind of thing and not actually a comprehensive explanation.

Suffice to say, to get the grasp of the game's mechanics, seeking for online tutorials is almost a requirement.

Also, Zelda BotW "Pro" HUD STILL displays dozens of hearts at all times, instead of fully hiding them outside of combat situations (like it works with the stamina bar). My OLED loves it.

So Era, what other bad game design decisions can we list here?

Click to shrink...

Xenoblade 2. Just keep playing without worrying about understanding everything.

 

[Boiled Goose]

Pokemon let's go. The fucking docked controls. Why the fuck.

Donkey kong country returns. Mandatory waggle. Miyamoto ruining a great game.

 

[EchoSmoker]

• Borderlands 1 DLC having zero fast travel points when the base game is full of them. TK Baha's brain quests exacerbates this by having you run allllllllllll the way back to him to turn it in instead of just having a fast travel station somewhere.
• Wolfenstein 2: Or How I Learned to Stop Dying and Love Easy Mode. This game's difficulty curve is a fucking mobius strip. Almost zero visual feedback on where you're getting hit. The New Order was fine so what the hell happened??
• Dark Souls 2 soul memory.

 

[Glass Arrows]

• Dark Souls 2 soul memory.

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Adaptability too. I don't think it's as big a deal once you know to actually put points into it, but it doesn't add anything to the game and makes rolling really janky at lower levels.

 

[Kroz]

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 not allowing you to customize the colours of the clothing items from the original series, despite being able to recolour the clothing items of your instructor.

For example if you have Goku's Gi you cannot recolour it to purple, green, etc. However if you choose goku as you're instructor, you can recolour his gi...

it's such a simple thing to do that would vastly improve the customization.

There is a lot of dumb design in Xenoverse but this one sticks out as the most baffling.

 

[ForlornFate]

When games place barriers or invisible walls between areas that look otherwise explorable. The police tape barriers in some sections in Arkham Origins were particularly frustrating.

 

[Rei no Otaku]

The rain in Breath of the Wild. Guess I'll just put the controller down and go browse on my phone until the rain ends before I can finish climbing this mountain.

 

[Crushed]

Deus Ex: Invisible War has two incredible ones.

• Biomods. So in the original Deus Ex, augmentations worked via canisters you found that correspond to a slot. Each canister contained 2 choices, and they're permanent, to make you think about which you'd rather have installed. You could upgrade them multiple times to increase their effectiveness. Invisible War works in a similar way, though streamlined: you find "biomod" canisters that allow you to install one of two options for each slot, they can be upgraded, and there's also rarer "black market" mods that contain a third option. It's more streamlined and forgiving in that each canister isn't tied to a specific slot, you can replace installed augmentations (obviously to make it so you can experiment more freely), you don't need to find a medical robot to install new mods, and you can upgrade with the same canister instead of finding a specific upgrade canister. But here's the baffling part: if you choose to replace a mod, then all of its upgrades are wiped out. So say you find a head mod you like, then you upgrade it some, then a couple hours into the game you find a rare black market mod and want to try it out on the head; you find out it sucks, and now you have to use up like four canisters to reinstall your original head mod and re-upgrade it to its previous level. So instead of the system actually giving you the freeform build experimentation it intends, you actually just get anxiety and stick with the first mod you put in each slot and keep upgrading them to avoid nerfing yourself with a new mod.

• Universal ammunition. That's right. Every weapon in the game uses the same ammo and the same ammo pool. That makes it so much simpler than managing an inventory, right??? So now you fire a rocket or a few sniper shots and suddenly you have like 90% less bullets for your silenced pistol. Great design.

 

[Sprat]

For Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog finally added the ability to throw back enemy grenades only to exclude it from both subsequent games. I hope whichever studio is working on Uncharted PS5 picks it up off the cutting room floor.

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They said they did this to make people move around during combat rather than just sit behind one piece of cover.

The biggest crime was they took out the dodge, grab and counter actions from the physical combat and returned to just mashing one button