Things you wish designers would stop doing?

[Ack]

Unskippable custscenes.

Invisible walls.

Making first person shooters.

I realize you don't like them, but as someone who enjoys first person shooters, I would modify this statement to say "Making the same first person shooter over and over again."

I would also add "Making graphics the focal point of the game in lieu of gameplay," but that's honestly a trend we've had since the 1970s when graphics started being hyped and I doubt it will ever go away. That said, it's annoying when I see a game sweep up awards and receive rave reviews only for me to play it and discover the shiny, pretty coating is hiding a terribly flawed game. Crysis comes to mind as an excellent example of this.

[Mr.White555]

Anyone else hate that glossy shiny lighting effects that are so popular right now? The modern warfare games come to mind. Everything fucking glows, and makes the game look unrealistic.

[Ack]

Anyone else hate that glossy shiny lighting effects that are so popular right now? The modern warfare games come to mind. Everything fucking glows, and makes the game look unrealistic.

It didn't really bother me in the first Modern Warfare game in the Call of Duty franchise, but you better believe it's bugged me since Fable.

[slowslow325]

Respawning enemies. They're annoying in megaman games, and they downright ruined the super star wars games.

Respawning enemies aren't always bad, just don't make it annoying. Like in Mega Man, if you just move slightly to the left to get a powerup after you spent time killing a difficult to reach enemy to the right, then coming back to see it's there again. But I think it's fine in Metroid and Metroid Prime.

[visual_death]

I agree with almost everything that has been mentioned.

Here's someone that has bugged me so much.

Ghost ships. I just got so sick of rpgs thinking they always needed a ghost ship level .I hate them. They're so stupid and annoying and they're usually the stupidest level/board in the game.

That's just me.
I bitch about them all the time. They're so stupid . I hate them.

[Jrecee]

Respawning enemies. They're annoying in megaman games, and they downright ruined the super star wars games.

Respawning enemies aren't always bad, just don't make it annoying. Like in Mega Man, if you just move slightly to the left to get a powerup after you spent time killing a difficult to reach enemy to the right, then coming back to see it's there again. But I think it's fine in Metroid and Metroid Prime.

I agree it's not bad in "room based" games like metroid, or zelda where the screens are separated. Megaman does the same type of scrolling as zelda in parts, but the enemies respawn if you move too far away from them even on the same screen.

[TheFuzz]

2. Tedious and mandatory backtracking. Not all backtracking makes me squirm. There are some games that make the concept work, like you visit the same area and it has changed somehow, or you revisit the area in a different dimension/time. If there's backtracking involved, it should be at least optional. There are stages/maps that get kind of boring if you have to revisit them within the same playthrough.

I remember playing Jetforce Gemini when I was home sick from school for a week or so as a kid. I was really enjoying the game, up until I had to redo every single level in the game and search for the stupid tribal things that were hidden all over the levels. I never played the game again after I was told to do it. It was a needless gimmick to make the game seem longer, which added nothing but frustration. I'll take quality over quantity any day, give me a short, fun game over a long, tedious one.

Kind of in the same vein, having to redo large sections of the game when you die. I absolutely hate having to do something over and over again. It's one thing to have to redo a small section, like a boss fight, but when you have to start from the beginning of the level when you die on the boss, it completely ruins the flow of the game. I generally stop playing the game if that happens. I'm not saying everything needs to be like Bioshock and have no consequences to dying, but it shouldn't set you back more than 5 minutes or so.

[AppleQueso]

2. Tedious and mandatory backtracking. Not all backtracking makes me squirm. There are some games that make the concept work, like you visit the same area and it has changed somehow, or you revisit the area in a different dimension/time. If there's backtracking involved, it should be at least optional. There are stages/maps that get kind of boring if you have to revisit them within the same playthrough.

I remember playing Jetforce Gemini when I was home sick from school for a week or so as a kid. I was really enjoying the game, up until I had to redo every single level in the game and search for the stupid tribal things that were hidden all over the levels. I never played the game again after I was told to do it. It was a needless gimmick to make the game seem longer, which added nothing but frustration. I'll take quality over quantity any day, give me a short, fun game over a long, tedious one.

Oh man, that was a wonderful game, until that part. I never played it after that part save to just randomly explore. Still think it's a good game but man I hated that too.

[MrPopo]

I would also add "Making graphics the focal point of the game in lieu of gameplay," but that's honestly a trend we've had since the 1970s when graphics started being hyped and I doubt it will ever go away. That said, it's annoying when I see a game sweep up awards and receive rave reviews only for me to play it and discover the shiny, pretty coating is hiding a terribly flawed game. Crysis comes to mind as an excellent example of this.

Personally I thought Crysis's gameplay was interesting. The nanosuit powers was a good concept that unfortunately wasn't executed as well as it could have been; stealth was awesome and strength was neigh useless.

But to build on your point, just the general feeling that you need to spend a ton of money to get a super pretty game with physics accurate to the atomic level or people won't buy it. We need this to go away so we can stop seeing so many games that seem so similar to each other. If every game costs a shitton to make then it's only natural that companies will try to make games that are like the last one that sold. In the 16-bit era even though the platformer had a ton of entries they were far more unique than the console FPS's of today. If development costs were lower we wouldn't see so many rehashes of the same good idea.

Although as I got Warren Spector to admit, we would be fine with a Deus Ex 47, 48, and 49.

[Jrecee]

2. Tedious and mandatory backtracking. Not all backtracking makes me squirm. There are some games that make the concept work, like you visit the same area and it has changed somehow, or you revisit the area in a different dimension/time. If there's backtracking involved, it should be at least optional. There are stages/maps that get kind of boring if you have to revisit them within the same playthrough.

I remember playing Jetforce Gemini when I was home sick from school for a week or so as a kid. I was really enjoying the game, up until I had to redo every single level in the game and search for the stupid tribal things that were hidden all over the levels. I never played the game again after I was told to do it. It was a needless gimmick to make the game seem longer, which added nothing but frustration. I'll take quality over quantity any day, give me a short, fun game over a long, tedious one.

Kind of in the same vein, having to redo large sections of the game when you die. I absolutely hate having to do something over and over again. It's one thing to have to redo a small section, like a boss fight, but when you have to start from the beginning of the level when you die on the boss, it completely ruins the flow of the game. I generally stop playing the game if that happens. I'm not saying everything needs to be like Bioshock and have no consequences to dying, but it shouldn't set you back more than 5 minutes or so.

Yeah, Rare really liked pulling that shit. I never got very far into that game, or any other Rare platformers. Even recently I played the demo of the new Banjo game, and in 5 minutes was totally overwhelmed with all the "you have to collect 5 of these and bring them here, then you get 6 screw drivers and you put that there and then you can open this ball and enter the ball and collect 100 of these yada yada". I think overall they're talented but can't made a 3D platformer for shit.