Most frustrating thing in a video game

[Skywalker_T-65]

Man...I need to slow down on the threads...but this is so fun!

Moving on: This is another old thread I found that I figured I should re-make. Namely since the last one was from '06, and a lot of games have come out since then. Now, that being said, the worst thing for me was, ironically enough, in an old game. Skies of Arcadia Legends...specifically, getting the best weapon (Sky Fang) for Vyse. You quite literally have to get everything in that game to get it. All discoveries, all bounties, all treasure chests, kill 2500 enemies...I swear, I grinded all the up to level 70 trying to do that. In the end I just went to 'Looper Land' and used a black map to slaughter hundreds of the things. Though it did make the final boss fights pitifully easy...

So, what's the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you?

[LaCroix]

Unique items...

In EVERY player's inventory.

[Sarevok]

Levelled enemies are highly frustating. I will not play Skyrim untill a mod fixes ALL forms of level scaling.

Invincible NPCs are another.

[TheFeniX]

"Enemies EVERYWHERE!"
"I will destroy you!"
"I will destroy you!"
"Enemies EVERYWHERE!"
"I will destroy you!"
::There's 3 fucking enemies in the area......"

::Exceedingly long unskipable cut-scene::
::die::
::Exceedingly long unskipable cut-scene::
::die::

"Who isn't spacebaring?"
"Dude, I want to listen to this."
"We've run this instance like 50 fucking times."
"I like the voice acting."

[Panzersharkcat]

"Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter."
"Retribution!"
"I saw a mudcrab the other day." "Horrible creatures. I avoid them when I can." "Bye." "Bye." *beat* "I saw a mudcrab the other day."
"Why don't you watch where you're going?"

[Vendetta]

When you fail and it didn't feel like your fault.



Now, see, that's not frustrating* because if you die it was your fault. You didn't dodge the bullets, they were right there, you've no excuse.

Y'see, I'm perfectly willing to put up with a game being hard, as long as when I fail it feels like it's because I did something wrong. If you fail for reasons that are clearly not your fault, like shitty controls, or reasons that feel arbitrary (highly random events, especially those where the odds are hidden in advance), then it becomes frustrating because you couldn't change your approach in any knowable way in order to achieve success.

* It's also lies. The last boss of EspGaluda 2 is way harder since the dirty bastard turns invincible any time you bomb or die for far longer than your mercy invincibility or the respite from his barrage lasts.

[The Vortex Empire]

"All Rome will be amazed by such a victory! THE DAAYY IS OOUUURRRRS!"

[Losonti Tokash]

I think you will find that "Enemies everywhere!" and "I will destroy you!" are the finest moments in ME1.

As for myself, any time an open world game decides it needs hidden collectibles or checkpoint races, I want to strangle someone. Even worse if it's like every Rockstar game ever and is part of the storyline for some reason. I think RDR had at least 3 stupid horse/cart races to pad out the first half of the game.

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

When you fail and it didn't feel like your fault.



Now, see, that's not frustrating* because if you die it was your fault. You didn't dodge the bullets, they were right there, you've no excuse.

Y'see, I'm perfectly willing to put up with a game being hard, as long as when I fail it feels like it's because I did something wrong. If you fail for reasons that are clearly not your fault, like shitty controls, or reasons that feel arbitrary (highly random events, especially those where the odds are hidden in advance), then it becomes frustrating because you couldn't change your approach in any knowable way in order to achieve success.

* It's also lies. The last boss of EspGaluda 2 is way harder since the dirty bastard turns invincible any time you bomb or die for far longer than your mercy invincibility or the respite from his barrage lasts.

Dear god I hope your being sarcastic.

But yes games where there is no way to "win" without dying since it simply comes down to a "how many lifes am I willing to lose before I stop trying and just sit in the middle spamming attacks until the boss dies while continuing myself." I like feeling like I can dodge, get out of the way, etc.

Shitty camera controls that lock you into into one POV regardless if you have enemies behind you or in a camera position that isn't advantageous esp on 3rd person games. I'm talking about you Dantes inferno.

[Block]

In sports games when upping the difficulty level means that suddenly linebackers can jump 15 feet in the air to knock down a pass over the middle and low rated opposition players suddenly become as fast as the fastest players on the field.

[Vendetta]

Dear god I hope your being sarcastic.

Only slightly. Bullet Hell games require a great deal of skill (way more than I have. I can get to the stage 2 boss on one credit of that game on its easiest setting, for instance), but there is always a way through the barrage if you're good enough.

But they're not necessarily frustrating, and Mushihimesama Futari is a good example why, it's got solidly responsive controls, which you need, but also the bullets are all very clear against the background. They may be overwhelming in sheer number, but once you train yourself to process that much going on at once you're not going to die because the bullet that hit you was indistinct against the background.

If you die it's your fault. Frustration happens when there was nothing you could do about it, no matter how good you got at the game.

[Darth Wong]

"All Rome will be amazed by such a victory! THE DAAYY IS OOUUURRRRS!"

The really annoying thing is that it would be so easy to make a large inventory of random victorious audio or video clips, and then randomly choose among them based on the decisiveness of the victory. Many parts of video games involve esoteric programming techniques or massive CPU loads or some other practical difficulty, but adding more voice or video clips for variety is easy: it's just a matter of taking the time to do it.

[spaceviking]

Actually I missed the lack of opening speeches in Empire total war. I have not played any recent ones so I don't know if they put them back in the game.

[The Vortex Empire]

Actually I missed the lack of opening speeches in Empire total war. I have not played any recent ones so I don't know if they put them back in the game.

Napoleon has none. They have them in Shogun II, but they're all in Japanese.

[Steel]

Actually I missed the lack of opening speeches in Empire total war. I have not played any recent ones so I don't know if they put them back in the game.

Napoleon has none. They have them in Shogun II, but they're all in Japanese.

Well the speech is Japanese, the text is English. As I can't distinguish anything they say I have no idea if they match up...

[The Vortex Empire]

Yeah, there are English subtitles, but I don't want to have to read what they're saying. I want to hear some guy with a goofy French accent yelling about Imperial puddingheads and green pixies.

[HeadCreeps]

Man...I need to slow down on the threads...but this is so fun!

Moving on: This is another old thread I found that I figured I should re-make. Namely since the last one was from '06, and a lot of games have come out since then. Now, that being said, the worst thing for me was, ironically enough, in an old game. Skies of Arcadia Legends...specifically, getting the best weapon (Sky Fang) for Vyse. You quite literally have to get everything in that game to get it. All discoveries, all bounties, all treasure chests, kill 2500 enemies...I swear, I grinded all the up to level 70 trying to do that. In the end I just went to 'Looper Land' and used a black map to slaughter hundreds of the things. Though it did make the final boss fights pitifully easy...

So, what's the most frustrating thing that has ever happened to you?

That's one reason to hate on Final Fantasy 12 as well, which punishes the player for actually taking the time to loot every treasure chest as they proceed in the game. You can't get the best weapon because you looted some random chest earlier in the game, congrats.

I hate overusage of random number generation quite a lot more, though. It's difficult to understand why people think the Fire Emblem series is great when the entire game is so heavily reliant on blind luck to succeed. You can be playing perfectly in terms of your tactics in that game but still fail just because you got unlucky with the RNG, forcing you to spend 10+ minutes per mission only to fail near the end over and over. They even prefer to rely more on RNG in that game than on implementing credible AI; enemy units do nothing more than wait for you to come near them and then blindly rush you most of the time, allowing you to pick them off, except oh no, you died from RNG. Artificial difficulty.

[Lord Revan]

personally I find enemies whose "difficulty" is based on the fact that clearly are "cheating" rather then being actually difficult (once you figure out what to do and can perform it successfully), fighting game bosses are the worst imho at this but it's not limited to there.

at worst this cause bosses to be actually easier then non-cheating regular cannon fodder as you actually might have to have skill to beat a large group of the no-name mobs, but with a boss once you figure the pattern it's a walk in the park.

[RogueIce]

"All Rome will be amazed by such a victory! THE DAAYY IS OOUUURRRRS!"

The really annoying thing is that it would be so easy to make a large inventory of random victorious audio or video clips, and then randomly choose among them based on the decisiveness of the victory. Many parts of video games involve esoteric programming techniques or massive CPU loads or some other practical difficulty, but adding more voice or video clips for variety is easy: it's just a matter of taking the time to do it.

Well, they did have, "This is a HEROIC victory, worthy of Roman arms!" Even though I never got the little crossed swords icon on the map. That dishonest fucking sonofabitch announcer guy.

personally I find enemies whose "difficulty" is based on the fact that clearly are "cheating" rather then being actually difficult (once you figure out what to do and can perform it successfully), fighting game bosses are the worst imho at this but it's not limited to there.

at worst this cause bosses to be actually easier then non-cheating regular cannon fodder as you actually might have to have skill to beat a large group of the no-name mobs, but with a boss once you figure the pattern it's a walk in the park.

Cheating AI blows. As I march across the US in HoI2: "Ha ha, I took out all your Atlantic ports, my eastern seaboard is secure!" But wait, they get unlimited naval range, so fuck me. I have to rush units back to Newark and shit. Damn them!

But I, of course, run into problems as I must respect the transport's shitty and unchanging range. The last US victory point province, before I can annex them and declare victory? Goddamn Attu Island. Out of range of every port on the western seaboard, and even the only port in fucking Alaska itself! I'm not sure if some port in Japan or Russia would be in range, but since I was neither of them I would have had to declare war on one of 'em just to find out. Or try to ally with them which I wasn't interested in doing.

So fuck it, I had to cheat by savehacking in extended range on my transports. And that is frustrating where I have to cheat because the AI cheats and I have no real legitimate way to win short of doing something that makes no practical sense.

[CaptHawkeye]

Cheating AI is the absolute worst thing in any video game to me. If the AI is not held to the same gameplay mechanics I am, then they're pointless.

[Alyeska]

Cheating AI is the absolute worst thing in any video game to me. If the AI is not held to the same gameplay mechanics I am, then they're pointless.

Ai is very difficult to program. In some games, cheating Ai is the only way to get a challenge.

[Sarevok]

"All Rome will be amazed by such a victory! THE DAAYY IS OOUUURRRRS!"

The really annoying thing is that it would be so easy to make a large inventory of random victorious audio or video clips, and then randomly choose among them based on the decisiveness of the victory. Many parts of video games involve esoteric programming techniques or massive CPU loads or some other practical difficulty, but adding more voice or video clips for variety is easy: it's just a matter of taking the time to do it.

It takes money though. Good voice actors are not cheap. And Voice Acting usually gets a small slice of production budget.

[Sarevok]

Cheating AI is the absolute worst thing in any video game to me. If the AI is not held to the same gameplay mechanics I am, then they're pointless.

Ai is very difficult to program. In some games, cheating Ai is the only way to get a challenge.

It is very much possible to have non cheating AIs that can win in shooters, real time strategy and even turn based. Heck part of Galactic Civilizations 2s claim to fame was that the AI could mop the floor with most players without any cheating.

The reason you have cheating AI in games is players. AI receives the LEAST amount of focus when making a game. This is because there is no financial incentive towards good AI. Games with horrible AIs are still praised to high heavens and make tons of $$ so why should we bother ? Why make real AI when smoke and mirrors is more than sufficient ?

[Crazy_Vasey]

Missions that require keeping some idiot NPC alive are always, without fail, horrendous. I remember one mission from Mafia where you were ambushed in a car park along with the main character's two buddies and keeping the idiots alive was harder than beating the ridiculous number of enemies in the place. Grenade? Why, I'll just stand here and wait for it to explode! Mass of people with tommy guns? Why, I see nothing wrong with charging out in the open! Ugh.

The race level in the same game was also monumentally awful. Before the patch, which allowed people who don't give a fuck about stupid fucking racing games to switch the difficulty down, it was enormously difficult and took me hours to beat. Endless frustration right there. I don't like racing games and I don't buy third person shooters to get dumped into one. Not fun.

I actually liked the game quite a lot, but those two levels, and the endless drudgery of driving from mission to mission at legal speeds in 30s cars that also handle like bricks, really got on my nerves.

[Eleas]

Bethesda is a great giver. I love the fact that whenever story-critical dialogue happens, passing guards and townsfolk are just itching to ambush you from behind with unrelated platitudes. Even more fun is the way said ambushing will cut the sound from the ongoing conversation.

"...so what do you say, men? Shall we go kill us a dragon?!"
"Yeaaaah!"
"Yeaaahhhh..."
"YeNo lollygagging."

Sure, the voice acting in that game is generally cringe-worthy as it is, but the shit handling of multiple sound sources doesn't exactly improve matters.