Cardinal sins of game design

[mkreku]

Cardinal sin X+1:

 

Game bosses breaking the very rules that the game is supposed to have

THIS.

 

I remember the final fight in Dragon Quest: Journey of the Cursed King (yes, a JRPG).. I had spent the entire game coming up with a pretty complex and effective way of buffing my characters, defending and dealing lots and lots of one-time damage. It had worked well up until the absolute last fight of the game.. when you run into the end-game boss who just happens to have the power to completely and utterly destroy ANY tactics you've learnt up until then.

 

His one power was the ability to not only attack during a round, but also being able to completely reset my entire party with the wave of his hand in the same round! All my three characters lost all their commands (which were stacked), all their buffs, all their abilities, all their skills, whatever. They just disappeared when the game decided it was time. So the final fight of the game was the most boring fight of the game. Not only did the last boss have a billion hitpoints, all you could do was hit him and heal, repeat ad nauseam.

[Dark_Raven]

ooh, i got one: baddies that automatically level with the player ala those moronic bethesda games. i can understand sizing the main battles accordingly, but man, a 20th level goblin is taking things a bit too far. what's the point of having levels if all battles are equally difficult? at best it discourages progression. at worst it discourages future purchases.

 

taks

Yep. That concept is just plain stupidity.

 

As mentioned before skipping cut scenes or dialogs. You play it X amount of times, you seen or heard it before.

 

Not fixing bugs in patches. If the company can't front up the money to fix it, do it on your free time and release it as an unofficial patch. You know the ins and outs of the games you can fix it faster and better than someone who has to tinker around with the codes, scripts, etc.

[mrmud]

RTS fantasy games that give 'hero' units names and the odd upgrade then claim that this means that the whole joint has "RPG elements."

 

It doesn't. It has a couple of lame hero units.

Lets stay on the topic of cardinal sins shall we. This is mildly irritating but hardly something that you would quit a game over regardless of all other considerations.

[taks]

my specific reference is probably obvious to many that post here, but i'll point it out for those that don't know: oblivion. i never played wiz 8, btw, at least not for very long (i think i tinkered with the demo once). don't recall that leveling feature in it, however.

 

here's another that really irks me: stat based games with a broken random number generator. all of the IE games have a seriously broken PRN generator (that would be Pseudo-Random Number generator). i've never done any statistical tests but the numbers clearly cycle in strings, rather, successive rolls are correlated. hard fights are merely a reload away hoping on a string of high numbers. the converse is true as well, in which an easy fight requires a reload or two so you don't get 30 rolls in a row all under 5.

 

there are several generators out there that have known correlations from iteration to iteration, but are considered useful for most purposes. the most common that i know of is the quick'n dirty one from numerical recipes in C, and i'm pretty sure it has this issue (can't recall specifics). i don't understand why these suckers keep showing up in games.

 

taks

[H]

Bosses having attacks that can't be dodged/blocked/interrupted. You know, an AoE spell that fully covers the entire freaking room where the battle takes place. That's just cheap.

[alanschu]

ooh, i got one: baddies that automatically level with the player

 

Think the last game I played like that was wizardry 8. The encounters would scale to the party in pretty much any dungeon. Didn't play the game long...

 

 

I think there was some scaling but I do know there were plenty of areas that were way too tough at low levels, and the earlier levels became easier at higher levels.

[Morgoth]

Running long distances back and forth really pisses me off. Also, jumping on moving platforms over Lava is retarded. Wasting too much time in menus and inventories is tedious. Basically, everything that is too abstract, unnecessary or feels just too game-y.

 

What I really want from a game are.....emotions!

Edited September 13, 2008 by Morgoth

[Calax]

Morgoth reminded me. those stupid physics jumping puzzles in Half Life games. it's really annoying having to jump JUST right to get beyond a certain point.

[Gorth]

A few. Most them have already been mentioned.

 

Level scaling: Way to go in the way of making you feel like you accomplish absolutely nothing in the game.

Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight. Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight. Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight...: Yes, that was very funny in Invaders and Galaxians. Not in the 21st century.

Mini Games: If developers feel they need to waste resources on these, please at least make them optional and inconsequential.

Breaking your own rules: This goes for enemies and the tricks they pull on you.

Breaking your own rules II: Constantly respawning enemies (includes enemies that spawns in physically impossible locations, because you already killed them all). It smells of lack of imagination and ruins suspension of disbelief just as much as all of the above.

Romances: Arghhh!... I think that belongs under "minigames"

One foot tall rocks that are impossible to climb over: See "suspension of disbelief"

 

Just a few of my favourite pet peeves

[Musopticon?]

My longest-running pet peeve of all time is to only have a save point some strides before a boss monster and then having to go through parts of a level and to fight a number of basic enemies every time you want to retry the bossfight. It's especially annoying when the game is difficult to beging with, like Ninja Gaiden Black. It's an awesome game, but not having autosaves before a boss-fight is a drag. Soul Reaver 2 is not much better.

 

Save point systems in general are atrocious. I can understand in-universe save systems, like only getting to make a hard save in a safe house or when you find a secure spot to sleep, etc, but otherwise I hate the idea. It's only a mechanism to create arbitrary game lenght.

 

Another annoyance is gotcha-difficulty. Being lulled into a certain mindset of the general difficulty, the player is just having a great time and suddenly...HELICOPTER FIGHT IN A SINKING SHIP LOLELOL. **** you, Crytek.

[karka]

Time limited main quests. I can understand limiting the time for optional tasks and such, but giving the player only limited amount of time for the main tasks is frustrating as hell.

[random n00b]

Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight. Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight. Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight...: Yes, that was very funny in Invaders and Galaxians. Not in the 21st century.

I don't know about this, man. While action-driven games may not be your cup of tea, there isn't necessarily a stupid design decision behind them. I mean, I love story-driven games as much as anyone else, but sometimes I'm in the mood for just some good ol' hack & slash.

 

Of course, if the game is marketed as something else...

[Gorth]

Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight. Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight. Grind, grind, grind, Boss Fight...: Yes, that was very funny in Invaders and Galaxians. Not in the 21st century.

I don't know about this, man. While action-driven games may not be your cup of tea, there isn't necessarily a stupid design decision behind them. I mean, I love story-driven games as much as anyone else, but sometimes I'm in the mood for just some good ol' hack & slash.

 

Of course, if the game is marketed as something else...

I suppose it makes sense in a game like, say Painkiller? Since that is in many way an extension of ye olde arcade machines. Progress through level, shoot anything that moves. Kill Alien Mothership/Other Baddie at end. Level completed. It is however (IMHO) a mechanism that screams "Please Insert Coin and Select Number of players"

[Nightshape]

In the yahtzee thread we were talking about some rally annoying and frustrating stuff in games, so I thought Id beat everyone else to the.. pancake? And make a whole thread about it. I know I wasnt the first to bring up unskippable cutscenes so Ill let someone else do that.

 

 

 

cardinal sin of game design # X

 

Placing checkpoints too far back so that the player has waste time replaying large parts of a mission/level before he gets to the hard part when he dies.

 

This is one of the dumbest and most annoying things developers do, most recently it was GTA4 where you restart so far back that you actually have to drive to the mission startpoint before you can begin playing again. So not only do you have to replay an entire bloody mission, you have to drive all across the whole friggin' town to do it! This is increadibly frustrating and very boring.

 

Solution: use a regular save/load system(with quicksave), or place checkpoints before and efter every difficult stage of a level.

 

It helps developers appear to have more Game play than they do... Checkpoints can be place so far back purely for that reason alone.

 

While I agree with what you're saying, I can tell you this much, it's not going to go anywhere, it's the developers cheapest tool to make a game seem longer than it is, and if development goes wrong and the product seems a little skinny, such cheesey options appear viable.

[Nightshape]

inability to skip cut-scenes.

 

"We paid alot to develop that cutscene, you ungreatful sods will watching and you WILL enjoy it every time damnit!" - Some developer.

[Nightshape]

Thanks, Mote Carlo, now I don't have to write this

 

Thiefs in BG2 were teh ubar class, because you could kill e.g. demogorgon with traps only...

 

 

Sins:

 

Claiming on the game box that choices influence the game world.

Unwarned points of no return.

Inconsistent game design, including art.

 

If the art isn't consistent that's not a design flaw, it's an art direction flaw... Different department.

[Monte Carlo]

Forced, plot-critical NPCs you have to take with you.

 

Annoying VO 'talent' (most annoying ever? Easily Ira in JA2).

 

Turn-based mass rat fights. The thing that made me give up on Fallout 2.

 

My-way-or-the-highway tactical solutions (cf. unmodded Blitzkrieg / Silent Storm).

[samm]

Inconsistent game design, including art.

If the art isn't consistent that's not a design flaw, it's an art direction flaw... Different department.

Art should be designed to be consistent, otherwise it's badly designed. I don't care what part of a game development company is responsible for it

 

My-way-or-the-highway tactical solutions (cf. unmodded Blitzkrieg / Silent Storm).

What do you mean by that? Me Enghlish skillz r 2 low Edited September 14, 2008 by samm

[Nightshape]

Inconsistent game design, including art.

If the art isn't consistent that's not a design flaw, it's an art direction flaw... Different department.

Art should be designed to be consistent, otherwise it's badly designed. I don't care what part of a game development company is responsible for it

 

My-way-or-the-highway tactical solutions (cf. unmodded Blitzkrieg / Silent Storm).

What do you mean by that? Me Enghlish skillz r 2 low

 

Aye but the thread is called "Cardinal sins of game design", and I don't see bad art as bad game design, as game design concerns itself mostly with gameplay mechanics.

 

It's like saying terrible audio is bad game design, or a bug is bad game design they're a seperate complaint.

 

Artwork should be consistant but that complaint belongs in a seperate thread and that was all I was pointing out.

 

"Cardinal sins of game art" for example.

[Musopticon?]

game design concerns itself mostly with gameplay mechanics.

What's your basis for this?

 

And anyway, why have another thread for art? It's not like samm is breaking the fold set by the thread starter.

[Oerwinde]

Inconsistent game design, including art.

 

Inconsistent game design is huge... I remember getting Lionheart, having a blast in Barcelona, then the game took an about face and turned into Diablo for the last half of the game. I eventually just quit because it was terrible.

[Azure79]

Inconsistent game design, including art.

 

Inconsistent game design is huge... I remember getting Lionheart, having a blast in Barcelona, then the game took an about face and turned into Diablo for the last half of the game. I eventually just quit because it was terrible.

 

This is totally true. I loved the concept of an alternate history where you could interact with famous people in history. I really enjoyed the sequence of escaping from the inquisition jail, and making my way to Barcelona and then everything in Barcelona. Then it just seemed to go downhill from there.

 

Plus I couldn't stand that when you stood still you looked like you were in mid-stride. Drove me crazy.

[theslug]

Why you guys gotta hate on the romancing? I happen to enjoy it.

 

 

Mildly long trudging and back tracking. Like when your mission is to shut off valve 1, 2, and 5. And each time you have to navigate through the hallways back to a particular portion of the map to get to the next objective. Then repeat.

 

Getting completely trashed in a fight becuase you didn't choose the right skill points in certain skills or spells while the whole point of the game (being an rpg) is to play the game you want to play the way you want. (aka the witcher)

 

Crappy pacing. Long stretches without action or development and then just an insane amount of information and action all at once. Also when a game completely inundates you with quests and (npcs with) completely useless information.

 

And then of course releasing an unfinished and unpolished game. It's why blizzard is like one of the best developers in my opinion and why WoW sucked hardcore for the first 8 months and probably even beyond.

[Nightshape]

game design concerns itself mostly with gameplay mechanics.

What's your basis for this?

 

Because that's pretty much what game designers do, if we are to say boil it down to a finite solution. Game desigers design gameplay mechanics, flow etc... Artists deal with artwork, now it would be fair to say that a game designer has an idea of how things should look and work with the artists to achieve it, but genuinely inconsistant artwork is actually on the shoulders of the art director, and not a design flaw. It's bad art, and that appears to be a different question to me.

 

My experience tells me that there is a difference. I was under the impression that this thread was dealing with game design flaws, bad artwork is not bad game design anymore than good artwork is good games design.

 

edit: Blizzard are a special case in that they're able to spend as much time as required to, "Get it right", where your average developer doesn't have the option to do that, they're instead stuck with milestones and deadlines where the publisher lays down the rules. If the publisher aims to shift 500,000 units they tend to invest to those numbers. Most game design annoyances are like stability annoyances and down to the fact that basically a company works within time constraints.

Edited September 15, 2008 by Nightshape

[Monte Carlo]

@ Samm,

 

By "my-way-or-the-highway" I mean scenarios that have only one real way of winning. In resource-restricted games like Blitzkrieg (i.e. it's not an RTS where you get to create units - they're allocated to you) there can be a tendency to have battles where you have to do things in a particular sequence of events or you won't / can't win. It's very frustrating. And it's not as if it's tough: once you've figured out the magic formula it's actually easy. But dull and took sixty re-loads.

 

Happily, Blitz 2 and mods addresses this. Blitz 2 allows you to call on your reinforcements as and when you like, although the numbers of units is still controlled. However, if you want to call on three squadrons of tanks RIGHT NOW you can.

 

Cheers

MC