What can suck the fun out of a game for you?

[Raven]

Pay to win

"Free" games where you must pay to advance or wait like a day or more to advance, like most of EA's shitty mobile games

shitty loose controls and/or shitty button configuration that is unchangeable

competitive edit: repetitive gameplay

boring as shit story

and probably a number of other things i can't think of right now

Edited March 19, 2015 by Raven

[omglmaowtf]

Over-dependence on the RNG.

If I lose/game over, I rather it be because the AI cleverly outsmarted me, not because the RNG screwed me over.

[Xyr]

Several things can make the experience terrible:

- short stories

- bad game mechanics

- bad character design

- nonsensical story

[Magical CC]

Also, bugs and glitches are horrible. No matter how awesome a game can be, if it keep crashing every hours, I will not play it until it's patched.

For example: Skyrim. I got this annoying bug that keeps the previous soundtrack playing no matter where I go. I entered the dungeon, got out and the dungeon soundtrack kept playing no matter what I do short of reinstall the whole game. Can you image having the sound of winds and eerie breathes keep blowing on you ears for hours? I have to replay the whole sector to get rid of the bug but then I got this annoying paranoid feeling. Everywhere I go, I have to ask myself...is the sound I am hearing is right or not? It basically sucks the fun out of me.

For short: it's god damn horrible. Do your god damn job, QA testers.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Magical Amber

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Also, bugs and glitches are horrible. No matter how awesome a game can be, if it keep crashing every hours, I will not play it until it's patched.

For example: Skyrim. I got this annoying bug that keeps the previous soundtrack playing no matter where I go. I entered the dungeon, got out and the dungeon soundtrack kept playing no matter what I do short of reinstall the whole game. Can you image having the sound of winds and eerie breathes keep blowing on you ears for hours? I have to replay the whole sector to get rid of the bug but then I got this annoying paranoid feeling. Everywhere I go, I have to ask myself...is the sound I am hearing is right or not? It basically sucks the fun out of me.

For short: it's god damn horrible. Do your god damn job, QA testers.

'but if you put in 9000 mods in skyrim its game of the year!" - every skyrim defender

[Skynstein]

Collectibles, and generally unfair difficulty. Most old school games weren't legitimately hard, they abused terrible hitboxes, bad physics and cheap enemies to punish the player. Although they sorta had to do it, since games weren't very long (there was no cart and floppy space).

[Rxmonste]

Story and characterization is never my top priority in games. I'll like it as long as it's well designed, has great music, fun gameplay, etc.

So naturally, what sucks the fun out of a game for me is a poorly designed boss, tedious level, frustrating objectives and annoying, repetitive sound.

Examples of a poorly designed boss would be the Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls or Lorithia from Xenoblade Chronicles.

Examples of a tedious level is the great bay temple from Majora's Mask which is sad coming from my all time favorite Zelda game, and the Great Maze from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. God, I hated that one to death!

A frustrating objective would be like finding an item with the most vague clue as to where it is.

And when I mentioned say repetitive sound, I'm not just talking about music. Have you heard Tyrea's voiceovers in the boss fight against her in Xenoblade? My ears were destroyed on that day.

• Mandatory grinding Only if it's too repititve, otherwise fine.
• Unskippable cutscenes If I die a lot, then it's definitely a problem for me.
• 3D shooters where the right analogue stick does not control weapon aiming (I am looking at you, Metroid Prime) I played the trilogy version of MP so I can't comment on that.
• Sequels that remove features I enjoy (Grand Theft Auto 5 pls) Yeah, all GTA games do it in some way or another, lol.
• Games with no post-story singleplayer As a game designer myself, I know how hard that can be as you have to make the world change after you have defeated the antagonist. Every NPC needs to react differently. Otherwise, it would break the immersion and feel awkward.
• Games that offer online multiplayer but no local multiplayer Happens a lot, sadly.
• Escort missions Depends on how frustrating it is. Jak 2 had some horrendus ones.
• Unforgiving checkpoints Tell me about it. Or those hardcore RPGs that only let you reload from a save point that's pretty far and have you watch a cutscene all over again.
• JRPG Designs Not sure which JRPG designs frustrate you in particular.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Rxmonste

[Jester Capri]

Examples of a poorly designed boss would be the Bed of Chaos

God I hated having to go through her in my NG runs.

Well for me it's when:

- It's too easy

- The community are a bunch of degenerate douches

- When I play a game way too much/gets repetitive (Which is why I don't stick to fighting games long term)

- The storyline being utterly poor, sometimes having unanswered questions unintentionally (Souls series don't count, because it's actually one of its charms)

- When people hack to make themselves even more powerful than they are (I'm looking at you, Edgemaster +10 Talisman users... and MS)

[Delphi Sage]

The realization that the game is pandering to fetishes.

[FlipFlopMist]

Worst would be exceedingly large amounts of grinding being the only way to progress, but the two runner ups would be a final boss that completely throws out everything you've learned up to that point and forcing you to fight'em with entirely new controls, and repetitive anything(FE 13's mission variety, Skyrim's Quests/dungeons/puzzles, etc).

[Ragnell]

My big annoyances are required level grinding and pointless padding to otherwise full games.

For the former, it's the reason I never have finished a handful of games like Final Fantasy III DS. Every time I got a new job I'd have to grind for hours to get the job leveled up high enough not to be a liability. The earlier Pokemon games got a little aggravating because of this as well (until X&Y's EXP share broke balance in half). Just putting enemies at higher levels than you does not make the game challenging, it makes it tedious. Grind-to-win is one of the lamest types of difficulty. I much prefer games that force you to think, react, and strategize better, not just slog it out for a dozen hours in the grass with low-level enemies.

As for padding, I definitely like longer single-player games, but pointless padding can get pretty annoying and has even led me to quit playing some overly-drawn-out games. Big examples I can think of (though I completed and overall liked these games) are the Triforce Map quest in Zelda: Wind Waker, all the lame late-game dragon quests in Zelda: Skyward Sword, and several of the quests in Xenoblade Chronicles that require you to go trek around hitting switches to open a door that's right in front of you to progress the story. All of these games are amazing, and they're all really full games, so why they felt the need to waste players' time just to drag the hour count up is beyond me.

[Zera]

For the former, it's the reason I never have finished a handful of games like Final Fantasy III DS. Every time I got a new job I'd have to grind for hours to get the job leveled up high enough not to be a liability..... Just putting enemies at higher levels than you does not make the game challenging, it makes it tedious. Grind-to-win is one of the lamest types of difficulty. I much prefer games that force you to think, react, and strategize better, not just slog it out for a dozen hours in the grass with low-level enemies.

Final Fantasy III had a severe grinding issue. One extra thing I dislike about grinding games is that there will often be enemies that give you relatively high EXP right after the boss you had to grind two hours for. The worst part of FFIII is that you have to go through the entire Crystal Tower, AND the Dark World, AND the final boss - without ANY save points! If FFIII were made today, it would probably have a metascore of 50 or less.

[Kiseki]

The community's negativity toward the game that stands out in the series.

...let's leave it at that.

Ayy.

Overly repetitive situations the player is forced to do. (Example: Silent Realms and Imprisoned fights in Skyward Sword, Orochi fights in Okami, etc)

Fake difficulty only designed to prolong progress.

Bad control schemes.

Samey, uninspired story telling.

Yep.

Handholding.

Basically every chapter in Kid Icarus Uprising. That didn't stop me from enjoying the game though.

Collectibles, and generally unfair difficulty.

Reminds me a lot of Marduk in the first Bakugan video game (the one that was the most true to the real-world game). Specifically the battle that unlocks Battle Ax Vladitor in the shop. You have to win a perfect game and not let him capture a single Gate Card on the Darkus battlefield (which Marduk's Bakugan have an natural advantage on) to get the reward, but the gimmick is that his AI is literally pushed to its limits and is legitimately hard to beat (pretty much a massive difficulty spike). It's normally very easy to win with no losses on the DS version (which was the one I played), but it's also very easy to have Hard Mode!Marduk capture a Gate Card if you aren't careful and/or on the Haos battlefield (the arena he has a disadvantage on). Thankfully said battle is entirely optional and only available during the post-game. I've cleared said objective three times on different playthroughs now and even today I still have a lot of trouble with it.

tl:dr I have an OCD for not completing a game 100% of the way.

Some more to add:

-Stupidly easy final bosses that are massively hyped up and are really a pushover (pretty much Grima).

-Not enough content

-Typos (and minor graphical glitches to some extent)

-Inconvenience

-Way too easy for comfort

-Stupidly game-broken stuff (it's worse when it can't be patched)

-Every installment of the series being literally the same thing

-DLC that is pretty much the same thing

-Linear gameplay with absolutely no alternative routes

-Rushed and poorly thought out stuff (lack of good game design also counts)

-Poorly implemented and overused cliches

-A downright terrible story

I think I might have more. but I think someone else will eventually say it.

[Magical CC]

The realization that the game is pandering to fetishes.

But if you have those fetishes, it's like heaven for you, no?

[Maritisa]

But if you have those fetishes, it's like heaven for you, no?

Only if it does them justice.

[Ein]

Only if it does them justice.

That's funny

[NoNameAtAll]

The community's negativity toward the game that stands out in the series.

...let's leave it at that.

Building upon what was said here:

Or one person being obnoxiously loud about a certain main character while ignoring a lot of legit critique.

But yes, let's leave it at that.

[Captain Wesker]

Being stuck on a boss really. I'm totally fine if the boss has good fight music (I.e the Mission 10 Dante fight in Devil May Cry 4. I'm a sucker for songs like Blackened Angel and Forza Del Destino.). If not, then I won't play the game for weeks. Also misleading/kinda not mentioning things/where you need to go. I'm kinda at fault because I don't read instruction booklets, but I didn't know Golden Sun had a map if you hit R until halfway through The Lost Age.

[Kirie]

Games requiring level grinding is a big killer for me. I remember playing the FF rerelease on DS (I don't remember which one it is, 3?) and having a vaguely good time only to come up to a boss that kicked my ass in a single round and the game basically told me I'd have to level for a while. I don't think I ever turned the game on after that. I simply don't have patience for that kind of boring, repetitive "gameplay" when so many other RPGs have learned to handle the pacing and flow of games to not require grinding and it's a much more rewarding game experience.

Excessive repetition is another big one. I wanted to like Pokémon Conquest and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon so much, but there's way too much "play this procedurally generated level over and over and maybe some plot will happen at some point" and I just got bored and gave up. Never finished either, and I don't even know how far I got.

Another one that is thankfully less of an issue now is motion sickness. A lot of older 3D polygon graphics have the tendency to make me ill. I only managed to beat Majora's Mask by playing in 15-20 minutes increments spaced out over several months, and I played OoT The same way, though I never ended up finishing that one, and I still had to have my husband play the entire dungeon inside in the fish belly because that background just made me want to puke. A lot of other games of that era I hardly got into for the same issues. Now that graphics are improving, my motion sickness is becoming less of an issue, though I still avoid a lot of FPSes and stuff that have a lot of shaky movement.

[Paper Dragon]

This isn't a very common one but time limits. Okay, not all time limits are bad but they can kill a good game for me. For example, I'm trying to get into a game called Oreshika: Tainted Bloodline, but the time limit in dungeons is sapping the fun out of the game for me.

Bad music. When the same obnoxious score is used over and over again, it really bothers me. This isn't for all game, like Skyrim's soundtrack can be a bit boring but it never bothered me. Sonic Unleashed on the PS2 had this obnoxious jazz score for when you're in combat. While I didn't enjoy that game for many reasons the music was one of them. At least I got the game for free and Sonic wasn't really part of my childhood so I couldn't feel betrayed by Sega.

[Zera]

Now that graphics are improving, my motion sickness is becoming less of an issue, though I still avoid a lot of FPSes and stuff that have a lot of shaky movement.

You get motion sickness from bad graphics?

This isn't a very common one but time limits. Okay, not all time limits are bad but they can kill a good game for me. For example, I'm trying to get into a game called Oreshika: Tainted Bloodline, but the time limit in dungeons is sapping the fun out of the game for me.

If you like the art style of that game, you might dig Okami. I'm fine with time limits, but only when they make some contextual sense, like the 3-day cycle in Majora's Mask, the curse-timer in Pandora's tower, the power plant explosion timer in F-Zero GX, or a self-destruct sequence in a Metroid game.

[phokingbeast]

if the game is too tedious or a lot of backtracking is involved.

[Zodok the Priest]

For me it's games like Ninja Gaiden on the NES I hate because without a lot of luck and a shit load of skill you can't get through it. I.e. I hate games that are ridiculously hard for the sake of being hard especially that BS at the end of the final boss of ninja gaiden where if you die once you return to 6-1 and you have redo 6-1 - 6-3 again. That's what grinds my gears.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Zodok_the_Priest_666

[Kirie]

You get motion sickness from bad graphics?

Specifically poor 3D graphics, yes, with lots of blocky polygons and such, especially if there's lots of movement. As a result, I've always generally preferred 2D games. Things aren't so bad now and haven't been for some time, but it was worst back in the N64 era.

[omglmaowtf]

When a developer studio who does almost-only games on home consoles makes the most crash-prone PC port in human history as a FUCK YOU to PC gamers

I'm looking at you, Rockstar North.