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The fanbase.
I'm sure I said these in a similar topic (or more) before, but let's see.

Arcanum: Fixed start levels of companions and them leveling when main character does, so need to recruit them just when you're their same level (or one below, they won't join if more below) so they won't always be behind. Experience gained when main character hits an enemy, obviously favoring a specific build. Bugs. Black Mountain Clan Mines.

Bloodlines: Bugs.

Deus Ex: Setting and being primarily an FPS.

Divine Divinity: The rushed last part.

Gothic 1 and 2: Combat controls. Lack of shields. Losing experience when enemies are killed by NPCs or other enemies, which can happen quite a lot.
Gothic 2 with NotR installed: increasing training cost according to skill level. High difficulty.

Heroes of Might and Magic IV: Still having those random skill choices on level up. And to some extent the AI.

King's Bounty: The Legend: The wife and kids thing. Story is just an excuse to go from one battle to the next.

Knights of the Old Republic 1: Some character development oddities and lacking the sequel's influence concept.

Knights of the Old Republic 2: The rushed ending.

Morrowind: Constant respawns. Merchants carrying pitful amounts of gold. Leveling system, such a pity to mess up the excellent train through use mechanic with that. Actual skills basically becoming irrelevant compared to potential alchemy boosts.

Planescape: Torment: Combat could have been much better. Pathfinding. AI in general. And maybe Curst quests feeling rushed.

The Witcher 1: Feeling like if I did one thing, made one choice, I broke three other things which I won't even know about until they'll bite me. Frequent lack of desirable choices.
Diablo 2 LOD: Immunities
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Cavalary: Arcanum: Fixed start levels of companions and them leveling when main character does, so need to recruit them just when you're their same level (or one below, they won't join if more below) so they won't always be behind.
I've had a similar issue in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, as well as in Geneforge 1 (not Mutagen).

I hear a game called Legend of the Ghost Lion has a similar issue as well.

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Cavalary: Experience gained when main character hits an enemy, obviously favoring a specific build.
Reminds me of Disgaea, where only the character who inflects the killing blow gets XP.

Disgaea 2 partially rectifies this, by giving XP for using healing magic, but unfortunately that mechanic is only significant at low levels (like up to 20 or so IIRC, in a game where 100 is the approximate endgame level). On the other hand, at least there's the geopanel effect that reverses damage and healing, so one specific map is great for leveling healers.

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Cavalary: Morrowind: Constant respawns.
I have the reverse issue; I don't like the fact that humanoid opponents never respawn when killed (except guards, but maybe I don't want to do something illegal just to be able to hunt enemies that can drop nice equipment).

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Cavalary: Planescape: Torment: Combat could have been much better.
I believe the combat in that game is at least better than Ultima 7's.
Post edited October 28, 2022 by dtgreene
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comradegarry: Diablo 2 LOD: Immunities
I watched someone do an Oops, All Skeletons Run and they encountered an all immune ghost type enemy (IIRC), meaning that no matter how much the skeletons wailed on it, it did nothing.
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neumi5694: Imagine you buy a puzzle games and one level requires you to finish a first person shooter section ...
I'm fairly certain I know a few adventure games that suddenly break into DOOM clones inexplicably.
Post edited October 28, 2022 by Darvond
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sanscript: This is more in general as many games share these "annoyances";

- Unskippable cut-scenes and unchangeable controls. Nothing is more clear than a developer telling you you can't make your own choices... and does what we have to endure by Microsoft already. Same goes for timed attacks and motion blur et cet. you can't disable.
Maybe you're chained to Microsoft, but I'm not~ But yeah, inaccessible options are a good dealbreaker.

- Perverse loot-mechanism. Filling up memory, computing power and screen space with utterly nonsense just to make it seem like the game has more of something with little to nothing special you can invest in. It's like filling your stomach with white bread (vs whole-grain) and leaves you empty and hollow after a moment or two. Animals, like us, needs proper building blocks to grow; proteins and fat!
This is one of my biggest problems with Tales of Maj'Eyal; so much of the loot you get is absolutely worthless for the chosen class. You're playing a magic elf who knows 8 schools of magery? Here, let me fill your pack with worthless anti-magic mindstars. I understand that a glut of garbage is also a problem in Diablo and Borderlands.

- Endless (and forced) puzzles and backtracking. Especially in action/walking games just to cover up the abysmal length it would have had if it wasn't for all of that.
Filler content is not so great at times, but especially in action platformers. Why should I want to solve Sudoku in Contra, ey?

- Prolonged battles. Tactics is one thing, but to buff an enemy to insane heights and/or needlessly make the combat slow to (yet again) drag the game out more than it really have to.
Or having battles where it basically starts over again because the scripted event had to happen first.

- Unfinished games. Nothing is more detrimental to the joy of playing a game when you get hooked like a worm and suddenly realize after some time; "is this all there is?" This is one of the reasons I skip unfinished games because I usually end up with a hole that can not be filled because, yes, it's not finished. And that also tends to ruin future gaming sessions even if the games really does get finished. Or rather, I try my best to not spoil myself too much but it isn't easy. :D
Or worse, games that claim to be finished but have gaping holes in plot, mechanics, or content. Forager, Blockhood, Luftrausers, Windforge, and Starbound all fit the bill for my personal take.
Post edited October 28, 2022 by Darvond
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Darvond: I'm fairly certain I know a few adventure games that suddenly break into DOOM clones inexplicably.
Well, that sounds intriguing. Can you name them?

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W1ldc44t: I enjoyed almost all of the minigames in Watch Dogs, for instance, so I got all the upgrade rewards really early.
Yes, there ist was done well. It's not about the "if" but "how" they are brought into the game.
Post edited October 28, 2022 by neumi5694
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Cavalary: Bloodlines: Bugs.
Could you be more specific?

(In particular, I can think of two different games (as in, not even the same genre) whose title ends with "Bloodlines".

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sanscript: This is more in general as many games share these "annoyances";

- Unskippable cut-scenes and unchangeable controls. Nothing is more clear than a developer telling you you can't make your own choices... and does what we have to endure by Microsoft already. Same goes for timed attacks and motion blur et cet. you can't disable.
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Darvond: Maybe you're chained to Microsoft, but I'm not~ But yeah, inaccessible options are a good dealbreaker.
Thing is, Microsoft has done some major work regarding accessibility, and it turns out that you don't actually need to be chained to Microsoft to benefit from it.

There's the Xbox Adaptive Controller, in particular. It's expensive, but it has a couple really big buttons on it (by big, I mean big enough to use your elbow or feet if needed). Furthermore, you can plug-in various accessories to get more ways of providing input to the game. Since this is a (modern-ish) Xbox Controller, it connects via USB, and can therefore be used on a normal PC, even if it's not running Wondows. (Xbox controllers work fine on Linux, for example; I even had rumble working when I was playing Skyrim via WINE.)

Furthermore, some other companies have followed Microsoft's lead here. There's apparently a controller by the Japanese company Horii, and even 8Bitdo with their Lite SE controller (only $35, as opposed to $99 + accessories for the XAC; can be placed on a surface and has dedicated buttons for L3/R3).

Then, for game developers, there's the Xbox Accessibility Guidelines, and many (perhaps most?) of those guidelines aren't platform specific.
Post edited October 28, 2022 by dtgreene
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Cavalary: Bloodlines: Bugs.
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dtgreene: Could you be more specific?

(In particular, I can think of two different games (as in, not even the same genre) whose title ends with "Bloodlines".
VtM: Bloodlines, then :)
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neumi5694: Well, that sounds intriguing. Can you name them?
I only have vague memories of these due to them being contained in Youtube reviews. And when I said "doom clones" I meant more in the line of the sort of quality found of Depth Dwellers; under the par of even the likes of H.U.R.L.

One I do recall taking place in a blurry pixelated mess in the upper left corner.
Etrian Odyssey 1: Not much variety in good builds for any given class, there's a severely problematic plot element (bad enough to warrant a trigger warning, and not even worth the trigger warning) in the 4th stratum.

Etrian Odyssey 2: The game overly favors an offensive playstyle, punishing players for trying to make use of classes like Troubadour (who lost two of their most interesting and useful abilities from 1), and boss fights are too short.

Etrian Odyssey 3: Boss fights are too long, and unlike in the previous installments, the boss music is headache-inducing garbage. (EO1 and EO2 both have good boss music.)

(For those wondering, I consider EO1's boss fights to be about the right length.)
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W1ldc44t: Yeah the integration of minigames and side content into actually game progression can really affect my attitude toward a game. It really depends on what I think of the game and what they affect in the actual game. I enjoyed almost all of the minigames in Watch Dogs, for instance, so I got all the upgrade rewards really early.
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dtgreene: Minigames can also create accessibility barriers. Specifically, it's easy to create a minigame that has an accessibility issue that the main game does not, and that can result in the player not being able to play any part of the game that's gated by that minigame, at least not without help from someone (or some cheat) to get past the minigame.
Wow, yeah that's a great point. An example of the blindness of privilege, I guess, I hadn't even thought of that.
Another one, which I actually count as an accessibility issue, though it is an issue that a lot of people who've played the game have complained about:

Final Fantasy 3: There is no place to save in the endgame. Specifically, after the game's last save point, you have to climb a tower (a fairly substantial dungeon itself), kill a boss, watch a cutscene (involving a fight you have to lose), go through *another* dungeon, kill 4 "mini"-bosses (which are actually harder than previous bosses, in particular harder than the bosses that guard optional (but highly recommended) treasures), and *then* watch the pre-final boss cutscene, kill the final boss, and then there's still the ending cutscene. All without any opportunity to save.

If you lose a fight (other than the unwinnable one), you have to start this all over.

If you have to go away from the game, because your parents limit your gaming time, or because you have other (non-gaming) obligations, then you have to start all over, unless you leave your Famicom on the whole time (which may not be healthy for the system, plus it wastes electricity, and what if there's a power outage?).

It doesn't help that there's a point of no return once you get up to that first boss fight.

Another issue, though not quite as severe, is that, even before the point of no return, the spell that normally teleports you out of the dungeon doesn't work here. This is particularly annoying when you go to the side area of the dungeon, kill the optional bosses, reach the town-like area at the end, buy stuff and use the fountains, and then it's time to go; you *can't* just warp out and instead have to walk all the way back, which is annoying. (At least you can leave and *save* the game after getting everything from here, before you start the final ascent.)

The DS version partially addressed this, by allowing Teleport to work up until the point of no return, and by providing a quit save feature, but a party wipe still sets you back all the way to your last hard save outside the dungeon. (The PSP port of this version lacks the quit save for whatever reason; perhaps the developers expected the player to use the hibernate feature. Regardless, it's worth noting that the PSP version seems to be the least buggy 3D version.)
I love the Fallout series. I enjoy the 3D versions of them almost as much as the original two, and I love Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 equally. Also, the 3D games are terribly buggy and I do not mind at all. All these free-roaming, multi-intertwined complex questy roleplaying games have to get conflicting parameters, odd combinations, and crashy coding. No biggie, I have fun with them toys.

But one thing that I detest in the fallout universe since Fallout3, one thing that completely overturned one beloved aspect, is the stupid "all the vault issues were in fact actually featured ON PURPOSE because it was a CONSPIRACY in order to MUHAHA and also dun dun dun".

This reaches Assassin Creed Animus levels of stupid. No actually, it goes beyond. It reaches toxic levels of stupid, because what was, at that time, a tiresome fashionable narrative trend has become an ideological trend, bleeding over everyday perceptions. I love Fallout because it was a satire of mankind stupidity, of the bureaucratic imbecility and childishness that turns a cold war into an apocalypse, full with the cheerful vault boy optimism, the advertisement tone of blind duck-and-cover jingoistic positivism. It was all "maniacs, you did it", with the idea of grinning madmen who barely knew what they were doing. It was all about stupidity, randomness and smug dysfunctions. Everything seemed futile and dumb, Brazil-like, with the end of the world putting in contrast mankind's self-absorbed pettiness and its ineffectiveness. It was a series of chernobyls.

And now, dumb is swapped with nasty. "Explained by incompetence" is replaced by "explained by GRAND DESIGN". What was a recurring joke is a plot device - it's like a Brazil sequel where Harry Buttle is revealed to be targeted on purpose because he's the secret son of the secret guardian of the secret key to everything. It's worse than Indy's explained hat and snake phobia, or Martin Riggs' wife suddenly getting avengable, or Blofeld being James Bond's secret brother all along. Existential satire and despair is replaced by the denunciation of The Man. If things go bad, it's not because we are dumb, it's because THEY wanted it, and are good at it.

And it's so tired, it already was. It's even more now (you hit your toe? pizzagate). It's fake edgy, it doesn't fit (it's nonsensical yet effective), it's overdone (yes yes big conspiracy reveal #56'876), it removes a running joke to shoehorn drama instead, it's less about the inherent futility of a system than the people-at-the-top who abuse it (and the clear it of its inherent weaknesses). It absolves mankind by splitting it between victimized innocent masses and elite evildoers. It simply dumbs it down to Prison-Break-like cheap twists.

And it cannot be corrected. Playing NV right now, and the stupid stuff stays. I roll my eyes at each Vault, each new "oh no the baddies did that, how evil", with nostalgia for the Douglas-Adams-ish joke it could have been. And with, actually, a broken suspension of disbelief, paradoxically. Because absurd mistakes, bureaucratic bug, carelessness, indifference, short-sightedness, absurd decision-making leading to outcomes nobody foresaw or desired, felt actually so much more realistic, so much more real, even to these absurd levels, so much more "they would, wouldn't they", than these marvel baddies plans.

It irritates me. Because it's a dumbing down that gets proudly reminded at every turn. Damn, they could have used that plot device for one vault, and continued their creative satires on the others...
Mount & Blade: Warband

For me, it is how the game would place hills around the battlefield in which your battles take place. It really takes away the immersion from the game, since those hills are placed really close to each other in a tight formation, making them look so unnatural. The mod Gekokujo solves this problem by replacing those hills with plain flat (well not exactly flat, but way more natural than having multiple hills acting like giant fences) landscape. Another alternative is from mods like the Prophecy of Pendor, Warsword Conquest, and Bannerpage, where those mods would basically surround the battlefield with wallpapers of the landscape in which the battle is currently taking place. That said, the Gekokujo mod does it a lot better.