Hated Design Decisions

[Gusington]

The mini game of Gwent in The Witcher 3 is awesome.

[Sir Slash]

The 'Lock-Picking' mini-game in Skyrim can be very frustrating at times. Gentlemen, your locks are all safe around me.

[Kushan]

Overly Complex Character Design in RPG's: This has killed games like Wasteland 2, Divinity, Pillars of Eternity, etc for me. Unless you've played through a game before, its not unheard of to make a game extremely difficult or impossible to complete if you choose the wrong set of character abilities at the start. I love all the options for character skills and abilities Wasteland 2 has but I wish they were in a format similar to Skyrim, where you started with a blank slate then grow into your character as the game progresses.

Every 4x that isn't made by Paradox copying Civilization Mechanics: There has been almost no innovation in this genre for the last 20 years. I hate it when I cant train a unit, build a ship, and construct a building at the same time. I am absolutely sick of the start with one planet/city mechanic. I'm tired of only being able to research one tech at a time. I really liked the vanilla Distant Worlds tech mechanic. It was a little flawed and needed refinement but nope, the developer gave into the masses and gave us a boring traditional tech tree. Although I really love the customization options in Distant Worlds. I've done almost any combination of set ups you can think of. One planet player starts and tech tree is a flaw I see in Stellaris but Stellaris partially makes up for it with the randomized tech tree.

Grand Strategy with Tactical Battles: I've never seen a game do this well. Total War is arguable since CAs AI is brain dead in both.

Time Limits: Most recent one for me was XCOM 2. I don't mind a time mission every now and then. But I hated that every mission in XCOM 2 had a hard countdown timer. If they had hidden it a little, like have increasing reinforcements if the mission continued for too long, I probably wouldn't mind. But when there is a hard 8 turn limit, I invariably seem to hit a huge number of enemies and/or get shitty hit rolls and can't make the objective in time.

4x Economies based around Gold/Money: Yes pretty much everything revolves around money in the real world and it does make sense in a lot of games. But I think one thing HOI4 does right is showing that you can have a complex economy that doesn't require you to directly pay money to building something or train a unit. I'd love to see how the HOI4 production line mechanic would work in a game like Stellaris.

I'm sure there is a few others but my flu racked brain can't think of them right now.

"Read a history book if you want historical accuracy" - Used to be yelled in the paradox forum, now it seems to be a core design philosophy of their games. Though I must admit, it's worked out really well for their sales though :)

I agree with paradox on this one. When I'm playing a 4x I want history to at least be a plausible outcome, but I don't necessarily want to recreate it. I like having the option to go my own route. Playing England in EUIV, I like the fact I've been able to keep my French provinces and be more involved in Europe rather then being forced out and having my only way of expansion being to colonize. Before that I was playing a game as Italy in HOI4 (really need to get back and finish it), I really like the fact I can not join up with Germany and form my own Italian empire.

[JasonPratt]

Note: the Long War 2 mod for XCom 2 hammers hard on hard-turn-limits. I'm not sure they're entirely gone -- some may be retained for flavor (the enemy is doing something that you want stopped and they'll be finished in 10 minutes) -- but they've largely gone to practical results: stick around in an area too long doing obvious things and you will be overrun to death, being a typical result.

I'm kind of okay with time limits in Panzer Generalish games if they fit the overall strategic narrative: you have so many days to keep the situation on something like a historical schedule, and if not well you aren't going to historically progress.

Having turn limits in other PGish games like, to pull a beloved example, Fantasy Wars/Elven Legacy, rarely makes inherent sense. But then FW/EL kind of fixed that by making the turn limits more of an opportunity for reward: take as much time as you want, but if you beat the map in ten moves then you get bling; and if in 8 moves then you get moar bling. This becomes an interesting tradeoff in risk going forward: if I shatter my core troops going for a gold win, I'm going to be screwed taking them into future battles. But if I can do it without major losses, I can pick up an item that will help me forever afterward, and/or gold I can spend on upgrading more of my troops than otherwise.

I made a point of reflecting their way of dealing with "turn limits" in my narrative AAR for the first half of the FW campaign tracks. Both sides get gold and silver wins, with more difficulty in getting even silver wins as the campaign goes on; but the final human mission I 'storied' (so far) I just couldn't push hard enough to get more than a minimal finish. And I put that into the story, too.  O0

[fabius]

Combat Mission's 'leap' to 2nd generation with CMSF.

1. Scripted Campaign Operations had their problems; going scripted was a step back to me. CM with a better AI and sandbox would be approaching Holy Grail.

2. CM's almost complete lack of AI. It's shocking how single player AI units barely react. There are some great user made missions; but even some of those kind of cheat to give AI  a chance making the missions 'puzzle' like. Try playing a Quick Battle- pointless in SP.


Graviteam Tactics
1. No We go Such a shame because it has a functional operational layer and looks pretty.
No 2 player yet


Stellaris
Looks to me like combat has super shallow strategy. One stack wipe and that war is won.

[dinsdale]

I agree with paradox on this one. When I'm playing a 4x I want history to at least be a plausible outcome, but I don't necessarily want to recreate it. I like having the option to go my own route. Playing England in EUIV, I like the fact I've been able to keep my French provinces and be more involved in Europe rather then being forced out and having my only way of expansion being to colonize. Before that I was playing a game as Italy in HOI4 (really need to get back and finish it), I really like the fact I can not join up with Germany and form my own Italian empire.

I don't necessarily disagree as long as its plausible. The solution paradox found though was to simply make everything plausible.

Two of the things I miss from EU2: 1) When it diverged from history significantly it was a neat, and interesting thing to see, now I find the how big will France get before it collapses or takes all Europe tedious. 2) Playing through the challenges of history, coping with the Reformation, or the Times of Troubles and coming out the other side. The generic events just don't have enough flavor as there's no context; we all know, or found out about major historical events, they have quite a backstory, getting a generic 'Things are going to suck' or 'Things are going to be great' event is much emptier to me.

[DennisS]

Don't know if one of these has been mentioned..but here goes:

Puzzles. Frequently a show-stopper for me. Once you're stuck, you're stuck forever. Either hope to find the answer online, or quit playing the game forever.

Next, AI ramping up in difficulty as you level. Specifically, the turn based WWII game, The Few. You CANNOT win this game. As you level, the game levels just a little more, until you are overwhelmed. I once demanded the fanboys post ANYONE showing the win screen from this game. No one ever did. The developer attempted to defend his design decision...but he could not. An unwinnable game defeats the purpose. Just total bullshit here.

Last, and by FAR the worst design decision I have ever seen, in 55+ years of gaming, is what they did to Master of Orion 3. I purchased the game, in advance, bought the Prima strategy game, in advance, and got ready for a real treat. Turn one, I set my research and build orders, and hit next turn. The results were not what I wanted. The AI, FOR MY SIDE, "corrected" my build order to build and research what THEY wanted me to build and research. I thought I screwed up. I tried again, with the same result. I got online, and peeps were SCREAMING about this. The developers still attempted to defend this design decision..that THEY, as developers, knew what I needed to research more than me, and screw me, and my strategies.

At that point, I deleted the game off of my hard drive, never to be played again.

[DennisS]

Turn limits were a good idea that turned into an iron-clad convention.  For the original Panzer General, they introduced a fascinating puzzle-like dimension to the campaign and promoted replay value.  After playing five or ten PG clones, I simply find this restraint artificial and tiresome.

The design decision I HATE MOST was the decision, in so many RTS, to make it impossible to issue orders or even survey what's going on, in Pause mode.  Did more to turn me off most games in that genre than anything else.  I like to figure out what's going on and plan my moves when I play a strategy game.  If I want to frantically mash buttons, I'll play a Diablo clone!

RTS games that cannot be paused to issue orders has to be right up there. A few go so far as to blacken the screen when you pause, so you can't use the time to review the action. Waaaay to often, RTS games rely on task-saturation of the player to provide the challenge, and NOT the capabilities of the AI. Big problem here.

[fabius]

Turn limits were a good idea that turned into an iron-clad convention.  For the original Panzer General, they introduced a fascinating puzzle-like dimension to the campaign and promoted replay value.  After playing five or ten PG clones, I simply find this restraint artificial and tiresome.

The design decision I HATE MOST was the decision, in so many RTS, to make it impossible to issue orders or even survey what's going on, in Pause mode.  Did more to turn me off most games in that genre than anything else.  I like to figure out what's going on and plan my moves when I play a strategy game.  If I want to frantically mash buttons, I'll play a Diablo clone!

RTS games that cannot be paused to issue orders has to be right up there. A few go so far as to blacken the screen when you pause, so you can't use the time to review the action. Waaaay to often, RTS games rely on task-saturation of the player to provide the challenge, and NOT the capabilities of the AI. Big problem here.

Oh that reminds me.  European Escalation- Whhyyy no pause.

Wargame Red Dragon- why simplify/ditch what was promising about the campaign of previous Wargame.

[Con]

I love the game but I am hating a design decision they did in Witcher 3

During a quest line you have to run multiple different fights/races in a tournament with a ton of cut scenes and dialog before and after.  There is no option to save during these cut scenes (you can save between the different events).  That means when you try and win your event if you lose you have to endure about 10 minutes of different cut scenes sometimes leading to another cut scene with no breaks or places to save etc.  You can skip through them but they all need to load and even skipping them requires prodigious amounts of button mashing.  Of course you need to win all three events in order to get the quest prize.  This mechanic has me literally foaming right now I am so irked.

Con

[ghostryder]

QTE's ---- seriously....has anyone....anywhere ever seen a post from a gamer saying; "man those qte's are great!"  In the old days it was mases that got me--but QTE's is about as lazy as it gets for devs.

Turn limits - if you game has an A.I. these are totally unwarranted and inexcusable. Tactical combat games are supposed to be about tactics---whereas a timer forces the player to throw out tactics and rush to the objective---and the obvious reason for their use is because the A.I. can't hold up to good tactics used by the player.

Bad A.I. -- has been with us so long many players think good A.I. is impossible and even defend bad A.I. til they are blue in the face. of all the devs I've worked for not one alloted more than 14 days to A.I.---this is why we have bad A.I.... My self projects my A.I. programming takes from one to three years----it is the heart of the game and a huge chunk of dev time. but a modular system can be ported from game to game---making the investment pay off if devs invested in it. They don't and won't as long as the public continues to accept the current state of A.I. in games.

PG-13 always --- If games really want wide appeal they have to stop with always centering on 12 to 16 age groups. The movie industry certainly doesn't. Games for adults are very rare--and i'm not speaking porno games-but say games like the Witcher. Even those  are barely a PG-13 movie. Story and lore are as important as the game itself----and can make or break the game--and what spoils many games for me and other adults.

Hampsters in Space suits------when will the nightmare ever end.

Game clients---want a new EA game...must load client. Gog even has one. Steam...uplay----ever step away from a Mass Effect 3 game for a few months and go back and have to spend a better part of an hour waiting for your out of date client to update before you can play? Gee it never saved your password and it's been months sense you logged in. what was it? Ever clicked the don't update game option in steam and have a client update reset that...which happens about weekly with steam. If these are sooooo great why all the updating? I don't put up with this with Fire TV, Amazon and netflix and hulu. No wonder gaming is playing second fiddle for entertainment dollars.