Do some developers make video games frustrating on purpose?

[louie54]

I was just playing Resident Evil 0 which features a co-op (sort of) experience and I realized that this game is pretty frustrating. It's not the controls or camera angles (I think that's what makes these types of games unique), but this game forces you to do a lot of backtracking at times. In most of the classic Resident Evil games, you are given an item box to store all of your stuff, and of course, very limited inventory space. This game takes it not one, but two steps further and now not only do the bigger items such as the shotgun and grenade launcher take up 2 whole slots, but the item box is nonexistent. So you will have to drop items for later use. Or if you go from one area to another and want to bring some health items you stocked up on, you will have to run back and forth several times. These items just get scattered all over the floor. There is another thing in this game that when you and your partner are separated, sometimes there is actually some kind of item box that you are able to send your partner from an unreachable location, it has to be smaller items, but it works. You can only send one item at a time and there isn't any kind of confirmation. Once you select your item (whether or not it was accidental), right away it sends to your partner. Then you have to switch partners, open the box, remove the item, close the box, click the box, select your item again to send it back, then switch to the other partner, open the box, and remove the item you accidentally sent. Also, a while back I was playing Skate 2 and every mission you have this timer that counted back from like 3-5 seconds which got annoying on the harder missions because every time you failed or were about to fail and you hit retry, you have to start the countdown over. However, the only time you don't have a countdown is when you are racing. Any mission that involves a race gets started automatically. What kind of fuckery is this? Sometimes I wonder if they do stuff like that on purpose? Is this their way of trolling gamers?

[dutchraptor]

Games nowadays are a pile of shit, they're all way too simple. I find that when a game is frustrating or hard I have much more willpower to actually spend time trying to win/achieve something. I have played through the entire Myst series and they are almost impossible to finish, I kept leaving them because they were so hard, yet I would always return to try finish and see the end of the story.

[Xei]

If it's frustrating it's probably just poor design. Many games have a limited number of weapons. Famously Halo. I think the main reason is realism, but the gameplay can be made to work, too. I prefer the Half-Life style though, where you can have as many weapons as you like, but are forced to use them intelligently by limited ammo.

[Original Poster]

I prefer killing floor, where you can carry whatever you want as long as you stay within your weight capacity and the more you carry the slower you go. Honestly I think most developers are fucking stupid, especially at big companies like EA and Activision. They do the dumbest fucking shit sometimes it makes me want to beat them with a dildo.

[Marvo]

I prefer killing floor, where you can carry whatever you want as long as you stay within your weight capacity and the more you carry the slower you go. Honestly I think most developers are fucking stupid, especially at big companies like EA and Activision. They do the dumbest fucking shit sometimes it makes me want to beat them with a dildo. That has more to do with limited budgets and deadlines, than poor designers.

[Original Poster]

Budget and time limitations can explain certain things, but they cannot explain a fucking Mystery Box. Seriously, fuck Black Ops. That does not excuse game mechanics where they throw the baby out with the bath water, either.

[Marvo]

Budget and time limitations can explain certain things, but they cannot explain a fucking Mystery Box. Seriously, fuck Black Ops. That does not excuse game mechanics where they throw the baby out with the bath water, either. What I meant, is that a lot of developers have their hands forced, or rather, they are not being paid to make a cool new game, they are being paid to make a clone/sequel, within a very short time. You could argue that developers are selling them selves out, but they are not necessaily incapable of developing a good game, they just take the easy money.

[Original Poster]

I agree with that. Like everything else in the entertainment industry, the money is in grinding out cheap, worthless shit. I don't think it's time constraints or pressure from above that causes a lot of frustrating aspects in games though, I think it's stupidity. I cannot fathom a reasonable explanation for a lot of what I see in video games other than sheer stupidity. The shining example of this is the Mystery Box from black ops: zombies. This is a stupid idea that appears to have taken more work than a system that wouldn't be nearly as frustrating. Any reasonably intelligent and non-sociopathic developing team would have included a gun store instead of a fucking Mystery Box. Who ever came up with that idea should be shot in the face and then have their bullet wound fucked by an orca. Or here's another one, why do some games decide to have one single control scheme rather than customizable controls or at the very least a handful of options? What kind of prick decides "They have to learn our control scheme" and doesn't let them customize it so they can retain the play style they always use in every game they play? Why? It's not that fucking hard you arrogant bastards. If you can spend half your budget on cut scenes and voice acting you can at least make sure that I don't throw a grenade every time I try to crouch until I figure out your control and then go back to my other game and crouch every time I try to throw a grenade. Fuck you.

[makeastar]

RE0 is nothing, nothing compared to Dark Souls. I know, different genres and all, but still. It might be that I've played RE0 a thousand times now, but I don't think it was that frustrating the first time I finished it. Yeah, going back and forth for dropped items can make one a little impatient, but it's not a frustrating game overall. Maybe I'm biased when it comes to the RE series. I don't know. I like it when games hit you right on the nerve. Of course, whenever that does happen, I always feel like throwing my PS3/Wii/GC/DS/whatever against a wall and screaming, "Motherfucking stupid game. I hate you!" but it comes with the job. Dutchraptor's right, though. Extremely hard games are always the best, 'cause you always end up returning to finish them, even though you know you'll end up enraged and probably will pop a vein somewhere in your body.

[Marvo]

I agree with that. Like everything else in the entertainment industry, the money is in grinding out cheap, worthless shit. I don't think it's time constraints or pressure from above that causes a lot of frustrating aspects in games though, I think it's stupidity. I cannot fathom a reasonable explanation for a lot of what I see in video games other than sheer stupidity. The shining example of this is the Mystery Box from black ops: zombies. This is a stupid idea that appears to have taken more work than a system that wouldn't be nearly as frustrating. Any reasonably intelligent and non-sociopathic developing team would have included a gun store instead of a fucking Mystery Box. Who ever came up with that idea should be shot in the face and then have their bullet wound fucked by an orca. Or here's another one, why do some games decide to have one single control scheme rather than customizable controls or at the very least a handful of options? What kind of prick decides "They have to learn our control scheme" and doesn't let them customize it so they can retain the play style they always use in every game they play? Why? It's not that fucking hard you arrogant bastards. If you can spend half your budget on cut scenes and voice acting you can at least make sure that I don't throw a grenade every time I try to crouch until I figure out your control and then go back to my other game and crouch every time I try to throw a grenade. Fuck you. To be fair, MW3 is a shitty game and I pitty you if you actually paid for it. A lot of games currently suffer from the consequences of being console ports. It's hard to find a new game that won't bring your blood to a boil with weird console tendencies. Constantly loading, poor texture quality, no customization of graphics and hotkeys and so on. I think the biggest crime of modern games is how we can't mod anything. I'm no modder, but mods are incredibly important and play a big role in keeping games alive, and apparently also selling copies. DayZ (ARMA II mod) is responsible for around one million sales now. It's been out for less than half a year. The most popular games in the world are mods for fuck sake. Thinking of Counter Strike and DotA (Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends, DotA 2) here. You have to be an idiot to not see the potential in making your game moddable.

[Original Poster]

MW Black Ops is not MW3 though I will agree the entire MW series is kind of shitty. However, that doesn't the change the fact that battlefield: bad company and basically every other war game released for console is far, far shittier. At least MW has some form of split screen co-op and custom controls. That's pretty much its only saving grace.

[slayer]

Thread is now about Dark Souls

[dutchraptor]

Look at morrowind, oblivion and skyrim. The console players lose intrest in like a few months while the modded computer players go on for years. Hell I still play age of mythology online and its still as good as ten years ago.