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Continuing the trend of glomming off of Massively's excellent articles; here's another question article.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/29/the-daily-grind-whens-the-last-time-you-logged-out-in-frustrat/
There were several times I've logged out of something because it was frustrating. The last one was Alan Wake, at one of the combat checks. It was a gas station or warehouse kind of thing and the area was kind of tight. As per usual the bad guys would fade in out of the darkness and I'd have to fight them. This was after a couple hours of playing, learning the story, getting tense and then moving on, so my plan apparently consisted of running into the bad guys, not shooting them and dying. AAARGH!
When I logged back in, the event took about thirty seconds to complete and I couldn't figure out why it seemed so hard before. :-)
What about you guys?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Comments
Awesome question. I was just talking about this with guildies in Age of Wushu. How every other new game is all happy all the time.
I logged out monday morning discouraged and slightly disheartened. After becoming leader of my sect, through pvp and vote from the players, over the course of 3 weeks. Then leading, and winning the 2 biggest wars the server had seen. Outnumbered and against all reasonable odds we won. Only to be voted out by a coup from the Rival schools I just beat!
You never know in Wushu. Super high highs, and super low lows. It's a hell of a ride.
One of the few games I've ever ragequit is League of Legends, and it's only happened maybe twice in the 3 or so years I've played it. I think in both cases I was just having such a miserable game and I had grown so worthless to the team that I rationalized it would be better for everyone if I just left the game and logged off. Better for my own sanity as I really needed to cool off and calm down, and better for my team because I was so far behind in both levels and farm as a low-utility damage dealing champion that I would only funnel the other team more gold. Calm down, regroup, log back in later.
Then there's also Portal 2. I don't think it was ever quite frustrating. I didn't find the game particularly hard, just appropriately challenging. But occasionally, after playing for a few hours, I'd stumble upon a puzzle that stumped me. After working on it for a couple dozen minutes and just not seeing the solution, I'd log off. Always in such situations, when I log back on, I'd almost instantly see the solution. Sometimes your brain just needs a break or a quick reboot.
Then there are games that are almost entirely centered around mechanical execution, like platformers or sports games. I find that extreme frustration arises around the issue of control. When button A is supposed to make your character jump, for example, and you press it but your character doesn't jump or doesn't jump in the way you want, you experience a disconnect between what you think you should be able to do and what actually happens. You experience a lack of control, when you feel like you should have complete control. And that can be incredibly frustrating. I think of Madden Football. I read the oncoming blitz. I adjust my pass protection accordingly. I audible the fullback to block to the right side. I snap the ball and sit in the pocket the way I'm supposed to. As I'm looking down field for an open receiver, the play suddenly ends with me getting sacked. ? I check out the replay to see that my fullback just casually stepped aside, apparently refusing to block and allowing the blitzing linebacker direct access to me. GG. It can feel like the computer just gave me the middle finger and said, "sorry there's nothing you were going to be able to do on that play; we determined we were going to sack you no matter what." It can make you feel extremely helpless and frustrated.
My three most recent in memory are:
TSW with the Mayan apocalypse zombie event, whatever it was doing to the servers was no fun, and constant zombies all over the map was a dumb idea. I just logged off after a few days of slogging through and sadly never turned the game back on - I've lost all interest in it at this point, was enjoying it too.
Batman Arkham Asylum, killer croc boss battle. Up until this point the game had been fair - but something about the combination of controls and the need for accuracy made this impossible for me. I really couldn't beat it, and I kept going back day after day and tried after about a week I gave up and uninstalled, haven't gone back.
I really couldn't wrap my head around the fact that you have to hit croc in the face with the batrang which requires a slow aiming control but he could pop up in front or behind you and even if you started turning the thumbstick as soon as you hear him pop up, it just didn't turn fast enough to face croc before he was on top of you. I don't know if a mouse would solve this, either way hated it.
Darksiders, similar to Batman it's a control scheme that doesn't really allow you to react quite as quickly as you need to considering everything that needs to be done. I was loving this game, and then I got to Tiamat.
Seriously, to beat this fight you have to dodge her ranged attacks (which are constant), pick up bombs, throw them at her face, then charge up your crossblade and aim it at the braziers and then at the bomb to stuck to her and keep doing that until she's on the ground. Then she has a million attacks to kill you with and if you die you have to do it again. And no matter if you've gotten used to phase one, it's a freakin nightmare.
Now, I did beat this boss and got most of the way through the next chapter but this fight had taken so much out of me simply due to the number of times I had to do it that I just lost interest in continuing. Though I might go back as I really was enjoying this game.
Developers need to be aware of their control system, you can't ask players to do so much when the only thing limiting them is your crappy controls. If you want me to dash + grab + aim + dash in quick succession then make sure I can do it as fast as my fingers will allow me. Don't artificially restrict me with a camera that ends up facing the wrong direction after I dash or needing to slowly turn the screen to aim. Blah.
It really only happens to me in group situations.
World of tanks is always good for a little nerd rage. Watching some guy in a high tier tank taking hits from the side or rear while he blindly ( ha) tries to "snipe" something across the field. Really there's just an endless list of how people fail at that game. It's a game that takes a lot of situational awareness and that's a skill I don't think people can just learn.
Normally in solo games I log out before I hit that point, but it is funny how easy it can seem after a break some times.
I'm with you on the control schemes. Alice: Madness Returns felt nearly unplayable using the keyboard and mouse, but switching to a controller made the game at least playable, and nearly fun. Fallout was kind of like this too. The game was just much smoother to play with a controller. I did stop playing those games for a bit until I tried the controller.
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And then the opposite experience with the Walking Dead game. Mostly accuracy in the game doesn't matter, but there are a couple of points where you need to aim and shoot a rifle or a gun and the interface was so wonky that I had to use a mouse to get through those parts, even though the rest of the game was better using a controller.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Currently bored with MMO's.
The very last time was in Demon's Souls. My favorite thing to do in the game is see how far I can go as Human before dying (and I'm at least proud to say I went through all of 2-1 to 2-3 without biting it on my first run through ^^ The Archdemon at the end got me once though with its 50 ton fist shortly after I discovered what I had to do). Now, dying to monsters, bosses, getting overwhelmed, or even when the double Man Eaters sent me flying off the bridge: not an issue. it sucks, but thems the breaks in the game.
But dying because my camera got stuck behind a wall and i could no longer see what was going on, or dying because my character is stuck on a piece of geometry and I can no longer move, THAT frustrates the daylights out of me. Funnily enough, it was all on the same world (5-x).
That was a while back though. There's other games that may frustrate me, but very few that make me straight up rage quit. Usually its when things happen that aren't even intended gameplay elements (ie getting stuck on objects etc.) that then screw me over in whatever tense encounter I'm playing through.
gw2!
I was trying to do the latest event, when after trying it several times, I managed to solo the monster (my char was scaled up to lvl 80), only to walk away with my health returning to full health, I suddenly just dropped dead. This seems to happen EVERY time I have tried to event. I vented my frustration in map chat, and got banned from playing for several days!
The game makers should investigate why you vented, instead of banning you, this only makes you dislike the game even more!
Oh! in league of legends, I am playing with my friends and it's just that I am pissed because they blame me because I always get killed by our enemy. So I QQ and log out hahahaa
Torchlight 2 short to easy and terible replay co-op eventually game is to small and boring logout and never came back what waste(played it 40+).
Other aRPG i have alot more fun with are PoE and Van Helsing.
Still playing after all these years top notch Titan Quest.
OMG the stage check point was such a pain. I think I went back to that twice, but the second time it was like the checkpoint in the warehouse/garage. I beat the checkpoint easily, and didn't even realize it was over after I beat it because I was expecting more shadows.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It feels very clunky for me. Granted I haven't played an MMO for quite some time but I remember it being much smoother.