What do you hate in a game?

Yes, I know this is the all things LitRPG thread. But I thought this might be useful for writers - not everyone plays the way I do. Not everyone will play the way they do, either. It might be helpful to see what others hate in a game.

For me, it's inaccessible places - like the Rash Merchant's Fall in ESO, an uncrossable damaged rope bridge that leads to an inaccessible rocky spire jutting out the sea. There's no reason to go there except it exists and I can't.

What do you hate in a game?

 

For me, it's power creep. I'm cool with the grind. I don't mind the hoops we jump through and the mud we slog across. Random drops, crafting, seasonal loot, raids, etc. Fine. But burn me a couple of times by making the item I (essentially) devoted my f**cking life to obtaining worthless because the expansion needed "somewhere to go" in terms of power? Well, there goes the trust. It's not a grind anymore, it's bait and switch for the rest of my time in that world.

 

lol your rage is palpable. I can laugh at this because I've witnessed it in Hearthstone and I know what you are talking about.

As for me, incessant clicking. I like to macro all the things.

 

Ah, programmable keyboards and mice ftw!

 

Every game has power creep though even if it is small. As each new expansion needs bigger and better things for people to want to get to keep them playing. At least any MMO is like that.
Clicking is fun Felicity, click click click click click click

For me its poor story, I hate poor story telling in my game forcing me from point a to point b with the barest threads to hold it together. I don't mind a little railroading but at least give it a good story to make me believe I should follow the invisa-train.

 

Man, I had a lvl 70 Paladin in World of Warcraft. This was before they'd released any of the expansions when lvl 70 (I think it was 70) was the maximum level. They decided that Paladins were overpowered and nerfed them. After that, Taurens could wipe the floor with us.

I love incessant clicking. Diablo was my favorite game back when I was playing.

The thing I hate though are the raids and dungeons that require you to be in large parties to clear them out. I loved playing solo because I didn't have patience to stand around for forty minutes trying to form a group.

 

Alert! NEMESIS SIGHTED

 

I HATE THE FRICKING HANDHOLDING! Oh mi GAWD! Who has a quest, probably the guy with the huge QUESTION MARK over their head! Then the next step of the quest? The guy with the big diamond over their head, who shows up on the main map, the mini-map and the freaking overhead compass just in case you missed it! Why not use something to turn all that off? Because the clowns who WROTE the damn games figure you'll be using the bigmap, the mini map, the compass and the huge freaking floating diamonds, so they don't bother putting any effort into writing the damn thing so if you turn them off, you'll have no clue what to do.

Walk around town and talk to everyone, oooo found a quest! "Take this to Jones". Ok, where is Jones? AUUUGGGGGGHHHH!

They're like the online equivalent of "Everybody gets a trophy!"

 

I hate it when characters and monsters can walk through one another while fighting, and all fire and forget DoT builds combined with pets and mana efficient nukes.

What I would like instead?

Allies who can play intercept roles and actually create a front line / formation based experience in a game.

Non homogenized healer / tank / damage dealer roles. Warlocks and Necromancers (WoW & EQ) served as great templates for what could be great about an efficient pet class with crowd control and group utility. Making every class in a game like that while only one class retains fast cast ranged DPS, survivability in all quarters, and mindless damage (dot and pets), creates a set up where everyone else has to play with brute force and flawless execution against even average Death Wielding Undead Masters.

Things that just don't make sense to me... arena and ladder set ups where people don't get ahead by fighting, but by picking and choosing their enemies (by stalking them) and creating a top end of the ladder built around preserving a score earned fighting mostly favorable match ups. Not sure if WoW ever improved their Arena system, but last time I played they didn't have a "special" top 100 team league where points were counted differently to encourage people to fight as much as possible with skill still remaining a relevant measurement of the system (somehow). I get the point exchange thing when the field is wide, but when you can only be matched with a handful of teams and people are getting ahead by actions that don't take place by playing the game and competing, thats wrong.

This wasn't true for many of the EQ expansions, which introduced truly high end Alternate Advancement Tiers that most players at the time of release would never gain, and then many more ways to provide casuals with better "grind" pathways to gear and fun. Kunark to Velious was by far my favorite transition ever in any MMO, mid to high level zones that were difficult to travel across made the previous expansion and original release content still useful for those who logged on and off at leveling hubs, or that didn't have a set group to help them travel across deadly large zones to niche hunting spots. The creep in that era of EQ was one that elevated everyone, and previous cycles of hard grinds became not easier, but smoother with new leveling spells and armor sets that came out of the new expansions dungeons that were way more difficult for the limited rewards compared to just flat out leveling in junk and making it to the raid scene.

Casuals with friends that wanted an epic experience on a shoe string budget could, if they were persistent and competent, build themselves up to have pre-raid quality characters from all their own adventures. The dungeons from old content areas that had been too difficult before also became way more manageable with the introduction of new gear and spells, and so while the rewards for grinding those spots weren't as great, revisiting old content on a new set of characters with better gear provided an experience that wasn't about efficiency, but personal satisfaction. People chose to challenge themselves on new (old) content just for fun.

Compare that to the WoW system in place when I quit that had incentives for "easy dungeons" that were so good that taking on new content with fewer bosses which dropped badges (I think that was how it worked) and more difficult content that gave little in the way of rewards... the shortest dungeon with the most bosses where luck wasn't a factor became my "daily" grind. Yeah I ended up with casual purples to go with my Arena gear, but if those incentives are being tossed out why not make an effort to reward players that try stuff out that is way more challenging than they should be taking on? I really don't know what design path WoW game has taken since I quit, but it never seemed to improve in any way that inclined me to play more.

The addition of gear score was just such a turn off, and I was already five boxing before its implementation just to try and recapture some of the fun of the early game by wearing all the hats in a group. So I guess my largest pet peeve of all is design that doesn't encourage players to play exactly how they would like to.

It didn't matter if you got on a highly rated arena team if no one wanted to que once they had hit their desired rating for a new tier of upgrades that they couldn't afford for a week until the point rollover. Everytime a "gap" like that for a subscribers preferred playstyle exists, let players dick measure and create outside the box solutions to problems... Asian RPGs always do that sort of crap with dungeon leaderboards. Instead I could solo grind battle grounds or log off if I wanted pvp, world pvp died with flying mounts anyways, except for that brief window with the blood elf island and cruising Capital cities for PvP flagged players pre-cataclysm.

My irritation over all that stuff is now ancient history, but its fresh in my mind compared to any of the single player stuff I've been frustrated by since quitting WoW.