Do you find any game design decisions baffling?

[the-pi-guy]

Don't have any examples off the top of my head, but I thought this would be a fun thread for a certain someone.  

A lot of games, I feel like aren't baffling but sometimes it feels like two features were involved in a give and take.  

Throw out some examples, while I think of things!  

[Legend]

Samus in Metroid Other M can only enter female bathrooms. They bothered to put restrooms into this space ship to improve immersion, and yet so far every single one has the female side open while the male side is blocked shut.

[BananaKing]

The marauder in doom eternal. As a boss fight i get it. But honestly he is just very annoying during regular gameplay. Not sure what ID were thinking.

for honor perk system. Honestly I've played over 600 hours of for honor, and I am still baffled how to get the best perks and upgrade your character in the best way. Thankfully perks aren't that important and play a very very minor role.

Control - having enemies that only race to get next to you and explode, and then having one enemy do that take almost all your health was frustrating as hell. I dont know what remedy where thinking but it was shame design. Its a shame game anyways.

[kitler53]

i was pretty confused by fable legends.  it's like,.. why make all of these gameplay mechanics if you are just going to cancel the game 10 days before release...

[Legend]

The marauder in doom eternal. As a boss fight i get it. But honestly he is just very annoying during regular gameplay. Not sure what ID were thinking.

for honor perk system. Honestly I've played over 600 hours of for honor, and I am still baffled how to get the best perks and upgrade your character in the best way. Thankfully perks aren't that important and play a very very minor role.

Control - having enemies that only race to get next to you and explode, and then having one enemy do that take almost all your health was frustrating as hell. I dont know what remedy where thinking but it was shame design. Its a shame game anyways.

I didn't love control either but our reasons why are completely opposite. I thought the gameplay was great and was loving most things about it up till the ending came way too soon and retroactively made the rest worse.

Control (spoiler)-having a laughably obvious fake ending, only for the fake ending to be essentially the real ending. Do not give a game a fake ending unless one of them is great! I think MGSV is the only game I've played that benefited from a fake ending.

[nnodley]

Control - having enemies that only race to get next to you and explode, and then having one enemy do that take almost all your health was frustrating as hell. I dont know what remedy where thinking but it was shame design. Its a shame game anyways.

This pretty much in any game is baffling.  Its the absolute worst type of enemy, imo

[BananaKing]

This pretty much in any game is baffling.  Its the absolute worst type of enemy, imo

I agree, I hate enemies that just run at you mindlessly. Worst enemy type by far.

Its lazy design, they do it so your character is forced to move, instead of making an AI that flanks you and forced you to do that, they just send an enemy that runs at you with no disregard for their life.

Which reminds me of another one, the stalker in UC4 multiplayer. (I think in single player too). An enemy you runs at you just to try and choke you out, its beyond annoying

[kitler53]

i don't know what you guys are talking about.  it's an enemy archetypes.   what's next, complaining about healers?  snipers? brutes? glass cannons?  swarmers? 

it's not like there are hundreds of ways to design an enemy.  if you take kamikaze off the table for all games you're just going to end up with boring games...

[BananaKing]

i don't know what you guys are talking about.  it's an enemy archetypes.   what's next, complaining about healers?  snipers? brutes? glass cannons?  swarmers?

it's not like there are hundreds of ways to design an enemy.  if you take kamikaze off the table for all games you're just going to end up with boring games...

Just because its an archetype doesnt mean its good. Its always been annoying and always will be.

[Legend]

Giving Drake a grappling hook in Uncharted 4 yet ignoring it exists during cutscenes.

Read Dead Redemption 2 being so restrictive and linear during most missions despite being such a massive sandbox.

[Legend]

Metroid Other M.

Instead of finding new abilities around the map, your commander randomly authorizes them. Was burning myself in an area for a while only for him to eventually give me permission to enable my better suit lol.

[the-pi-guy]

Dark Souls 1: healing is a big mix of weirdness.
Healing is kind of a process. Like it takes probably 3 seconds give or take.
During this time, you have no control. You can't move your character, you can't change your mind about drinking the estus flask. You either wait for the animation to finish, or you get killed.

[BananaKing]

Dark Souls 1: healing is a big mix of weirdness.
Healing is kind of a process. Like it takes probably 3 seconds give or take.
During this time, you have no control. You can't move your character, you can't change your mind about drinking the estus flask. You either wait for the animation to finish, or you get killed.

That sounds so annoying.

Im gonna add another one. Upgrading your car in Need for Speed payback.

you dont go to a shop and upgrade with parts. You upgrade buy getting "cards". Of course you buy card packs, which you can buy with in game tokens.. or you guessed it.. REAL MONEY. Now I know why they went with this system, to get people to pay to win. But its so bafflingly annoying im so suprised they allowed it.

Also sometimes your car just reaches a limit to upgrading. The system works that each card has a level and perks, the perks give extra speed, acceleration, brakes yada yada yada. At some point, some cars stop benefits from some perks, with no explanation what so ever. The system they have doesn't even work. And it ruins what is actually a really fun game.

[Legend]

Since we were talking about open worlds in the elden ring thread.

[the-pi-guy]

A lot of design choices make sense, but they're still funny to think about.  

Like usually secrets are put near walls. It wouldn't make sense to put them in the middle and in obvious places. But there's a goofiness that makes it so that the "optimal way to play" requires sticking by walls.