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

[Shinehollow]

As said (multiple times) above,the online community.Insane difficulty,no difficulty and major changes from past games in the series *Cough*GatesToInfinity*Cough*,too.

[Moishe Oofnik]

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.

Have you ever played the dark souls port its the definition of utter crap pc port

[blah the Prussian]

I HATE it when a game pretends to be strategy. A good example is Clash of Clans and it's legion of rip offs. All you do is build stuff, but you can have everything. In games like Hearts of Iron, one of my favorite strategy games, what you build and research helps stylize your playstyl. For example, as Germany you'd research things that improve tanks, while as Beitain you'd focus on navy. There's nothing like that in Clash of Clans, and it really pisses me off when people consider it strategy.

[Thane]

Most of my more specific complaints come from story related content. Like most people I'm no fan of padding, too much grinding, handholding and what have you. However, since I usually play games primarily for the story, I can usually deal with that provided the story is entertaining.

So what makes a story bad for me? Well...:

Anything that ruins your immersion. I'm not much of a roleplayer, but if the flow of the game is constantly interrupted due to plot stupidity then that puts a damper on my enjoyment. Plenty of things can ruin a game's story, like forced conflicts, bad voice acting and general elements I'll write about in more detail.

A game using the story as a selling point even though it's not that important to the game. A rather specific complaint, but allow me to explain: games like Skyrim and Dragon Age: Inquisition have been praised by pretty much everyone, yet I couldn't enjoy them. Why? Because the story is obviously pretty much an afterthought. In Skyrim you don't even get a proper conclusion, and Inquisition's villain is one of the most boring ones I've ever seen.

Too much cheese and wish fulfillment. Strange, because I still like Persona series, but they're still elements that can ruin it for me regardless. I'm talking about villains delivering speeches that are supposed to be deep and epic but are just repetitive clichés, characters whose motivation revolve around the playable character (which is supposed to be you). Pretty much anything where you feel as if though the creators if the game are just a bit too proud about what they've written - you know, where you feel as if though they're teaching you a truth through their wonderful game and that you should think like they do.

Fan service. There are many forms of fan service, and I dislike most of them if handled incorrectly. The most common one is obviously strange armor and clothing for women, or that female characters are just there to be an accessory for the player. One of the reasons why I dislike most anime as well. Then there are the other forms of fan service like using a fan favorite character for no particular reason other than to please the readers/players.

Creators' pets. Oh dear lord there are some bad ones out there. Characters who warp the entire plot around them, get far too much attention and unique traits/assets in an attempt to make them into special snowflakes. Not necessarily Mary Sues, just a character the author got too attached to.

Clichés as motivations and backgrounds. Sort of goes hand in hand with a previous point, but I have to talk about this in a bit more detail. I know clichés are clichés for a reason, I really do; most of the time they're either what the majority prefers or they make writing things easier. However, how many orphan characters can we handle? I mean, that's not bad in and of itself, but when that serves as their main motivation, it's really hard to take seriously since it's been done to death. In Persona 3, I believe one character out of nine or so have both parents alive (and they don't get along), so having one of the characters complaining about only having her mother (who she doesn't get along with either) feels beyond stupid.

And finally, high school settings. Probably the most common setting in Japanese entertainment media, I'd say. This is also one of those things that aren't bad in and of themselves but due to excessive use you just get sick of it. They always use the same tropes, same characters and same school-related problems. The explanation I've heard that makes the most sense is that high school is usually the happiest time in the average Japanese person's life; sure, I can see that, but not only is that period portrayed in a highly romanticized way, but it also just gets so repetitive that I question whether or not that's actually the reason why so many stories take place in a high school.

[Splodge]

For me, there's quite a few, but the one that completely drains my fun more than anything is unskippable cutscenes and tutorials. I've never played games for the story (except for VNs obviously), but when there's a good story, I'll enjoy it, though I should still have the option to skip it if I don't give a monkey's. The same thing applies for tutorials, especially since so many of them can go on for far too long. I'd rather be stumbling around in the dark for twice the time and then discover that gameplay element.

To give an example, Mega Man 7 would definitely be my favourite entry in the series, if it wasn't for the long, unskippable tutorials and cutscenes. The beginning cutscene takes around a minute and a half, opposed to the other games in the series where the literal second you push start you are playing. It really grates on me.

I think that the game forcing the player to do certain things, or go to certain areas is equally unforgivable. Nobody enjoys that, people just want to continue playing the game. This is one of the only problems I have with Wind Waker, for the first two temples of the game, you can't go anywhere else but where you're supposed to go. You'll see an island in the distance and want to got there, only for the game to say "no".

Simplification of game mechanics also extremely annoys me. FF 15 seems to just be a one button game, and that really irks me. I want variance and new experiences, not simple button mashing. This is especially annoying when elements are removed from later installments of a series. Like in Smash 4, reaching 100% doesn't make your ledge recoveries slow down. Why? Because it makes the game harder? Surely that's a good thing, challenging the player. For me, that's the equivalent of removing aspects of what made a game fun.

[Dark Holy Elf]

A big deal-breaker for me is games which revel in excessive violence and mayhem as comitted by the player. The Grand Theft Auto series probably best encapsulates what I'm talking about here; those games revolt me. I know that it's just a fantasy; I'm not proposing they be banned or anything. But I am personally seriously put off by such games.

From a more game design perspective, I'm not a fan of things which I feel waste the player's time. I have lots of demands on my time, and I like games which respect that. Some common examples of things that annoy me:

-Games which make you repeat lots of action with each death, especially if that action is easy. Oddly enough the three-life system of NES games makes me much more forgiving, probably because now I have more than one mistake's worth of margin for error. But it can still be bad if, say, there's a really easy stage followed by a really hard boss and you have to keep redoing that easy but time-consuming stage. What does that prove?

-Overly long fetchquests. The artifact hunt towards the end of Metroid Prime completely put me off that game, for instance. I'm more forgiving if the game has such great gameplay that I don't mind the blatant padding.

-Games which don't let you save for long instances. Imagine if Fire Emblem didn't let you make suspend saves mid-battle. Terrible, right? I want to be able to put down a game roughly when I want. (I accept not being able to save all the time, like in battle for most RPGs, but the save points should be frequent at worst.)

I also have a particular sore spot for games which don't respect their female characters (e.g. they exist only in narrow female tropes, or exist only to develop the male cast) or just barely have any female characters (unless, of course, they don't have characters to start with; I'm fine with plotless games periodically). I don't think I really need to explain this one.

[B.Leu]

Long. Ass. Forced. Tutorial. I HATE those. I can accept a little fast tutorial, or a manual, but crap, in the latest Harvest Moon, it's one hours long before you can play the true game.

In Dark Souls, one minute is all you need before understanding the gameplay.

Shitty. Writing. Pretty much what Thane said about it. It's because of those that I avoid most japanese RPG. And manga.

It's void, they got zero originality no passion, no balls, to the point where reading a fanfic would be better, at least, I got a chance to not waste my time.

And let's not even talk about the vallue dissonance, or the general stupid aesop/morality then try to put in.

I dunno, but Eastern RPG seems more... tame, more subtle about it. Not that it make it better

I also dislike how sometime, they put the story and the character-development together. Now when I say, together I say really, together, together. You could do math with those parallels.

Linearity and the illusion of choice. In Awakening, it was clear the choices were bullshit, so I didn't get my panty in a twist, but in some games, like Dragon Age, Mass effect, or Persona 4 you really see that the choices are just fake. And boring. Then again, SMT is more about the gameplay than the story.

When you think about it, Skyrim is very linear actually.

In Kingdom of Amalur, for a lot of quests, you got choices, generally just three, but that's actually more than enough to be good, despite using the wheel from Mass Effect.

Wait, high-school is supposed to the happiest time ? Talk about a crappy life.

Edited May 2, 2015 by B.Leu

[Yula]

Forced level grinding for me, I cannot stand the idea of having to slog through an area, killing the same damned enemy over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, just because the game designers arbitrarily decided that I needed to be 10 levels higher than I previously was.

Another thing is forced repetition, which is what Bravely default was guilty of. I don't mind if a game is fun, I love Zone of the Enders, but in the end in that game, you're killing enemies, that's all you're doing, but it's fast paced and fun, while Bravely Default says, "Put the encounter rate at +100% and slog through enemies, also you have to go through the same stuff over and over and over and over again." in an attempt to just pointlessly pad the game. It's aggravating!

Edited May 4, 2015 by Gardevoir