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What makes a game "Not Fun"
Ungood
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,530
We see all these discussions about games, what makes them fun, what we want to see, and all that jazz. But, when you get into a game, here is my question.
What makes a game "Not Fun" and Why.
What makes a game "Not Fun" and Why.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
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You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Grinding for anything for too long. I love Monster Hunter World to pieces, but this made me take a good, long break from it (still ongoing, started just before Behemoth fight release). The RNG on the gems is insane, and when you add in RNG on part drops, well... fun as the game can be, the repetition does get extremely stale, and the frustration finally got to me. It ceased to be fun and felt like work.
Fake difficulty. Another problem with MHW. Late game monsters just have too many cheap shots, to the point where avoiding them felt like it was up to sheer dumb luck rather than skill. Add in the fact that many of them can KO you in a single hit, and it can be absolutely infuriating. MHW's use of fake difficulty is definitely the least egregious of the series, but it's still very much present.
Convoluted mechanics. When you need an equation that looks like something Stephen Hawking wrote just to find out how much armor your character really has, the developer has done something very, very wrong. CRPGs and ARPGs are notorious for this, but plenty of MMOs do this too. There's a REASON 3rd edition D&D got rid of stuff like THAC0; it was needlessly complex for the sake of being complex. Looking at you, PoE passive skill tree.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
1 Trying to sell me the same old new skin
2 ideas that are so unrealistic it makes me wonder just wtf was the designer thinking if at all.The biggest example is stuff like markers over npc heads,hand holding markers floating in the air like destination points or target goals or glittering particles to tell you ,hey dummy over here etc etc.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For me, it is a lack of feeling of wonder.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Games that think multiple mouse clicks (black desert) or RNG (every free to play) are replacements for content.
Games that have appalling drops but find some more controllable mechanism to deliver nice drops, such as daily log in rewards.
Daily quests replacing content.
Artificial limits with no attempt to make them part of the game, such as dungeon cool-downs.
Too many currencies because the game designers are too thick to balance just one.
Games that have addons like crafting or horse training or diplomacy but make them completely irrelevant by making the grind the be all and end all.
Asian games that all seem to be released with gigantic security holes for bots and cheats because they operate in their home land with a identity card system. Every friggin' time. This is a totally avoidable failure than can be negated by using good programming practise.
Gutter games that remove competitiveness of play and replace it with competitiveness of who can spend the most cash, GWII, Neverwinter etc.
Plastic theme parks like black desert which doesn't even have a player economy.
Unnecessary binding of weapons and items.
Not written to allow player add-ons. (hell, not the same thing, but related..... someone somewhere, sometime is going to realize that letting players design and build whole areas is a fantastic free way to get content released. Neverwinter actually got halfway there, but just bottled it at the last hurdle and pushed them all into irrelevance by not having the player build areas in the world or allowing decent rewards).
Not enough creativity, every game seems to be a copy nowadays. It's not like we have run out of good ideas. A single player game RPG was released recently where players could 'design' spells. A new idea that could fit nicely into an MMORPG. Plenty of new ideas out there, but apparently not in MMORPG world. To many companies view it as a cash cow, it's become stagnated.
Blah.
I am always amazed how developer could manage the take player content and turn it into the most boring crap ever. Learning the genre and having chaotic player interactions is like the crack the brings me back.
Never would have guess innovation in the genre would be in monetization and making a multi player game play single player. I still rather play my story alone with saved games and challenge then having players play around me in reskin quest grinders.
Any kind of funneling my play through this area, and then next to this area, and then to the other area.
I'm not a fan of carefully curated experiences, except in very rare circumstances where the curation is so good that I don't even notice I'm riding a train. One notable example is Alien Isolation, which is completely and totally on rails, but I didn't even notice it until the end looking back. That, game developers, is how you put someone on a ride without them even knowing they're on a ride.
In general, however, I much much prefer to be dropped in a world and told:
"Ok, go."
"Go where?"
"How the fuck should I know, pick a direction and go."
"JOYYYYYY!"
In recent times, a more upsetting, fun ruining experience is being sold whatever I'm playing in bits and pieces. I want the whole experience in one tidy package for one tidy sum and if you have DLC on day one, then go slide down an acid drenched cactus straight to the ninth circle of hell.
If you come back with DLC three months later that you were working on that whole time, then I can forgive you. Keep extending the experience with new chapters... Ok, I'm good with that, but one week after release you add 50% more area to the game. Go to hell, I know you had that shit ready at release.
Last time I checked, nobody was paying me to play their game and I'll play it however I feel like it or I'll find a different place to spend my money.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.