I've been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don't mind so much the fact that it's different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I'm bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
What game did you hate even after sinking a lot of time into it?
572 Comments
FilthyHands@sh.itjust.works · 113 pts · 7d
No Man's Sky. Close to 300 hours across pc and ps4. I sunk a lot of hours into it when it was relatively new and still very sparse (well before the nexus). I end up playing every 4-5 updates, just to see what they added. Everything is a slog. I have been trying to hatch my living ship for what feels like literal years now. I always seem to be one resource shy of whatever tasks I chose for myself, yet I have billions and billions of spacedollars. I have half-finished bases across the galaxy. I never feel like I accomplish anything in this game, and feel like my time is always wasted playing it. According to steam I haven't played in over a year.
eurodyne@piefed.world · 37 pts · 7d
Eh, I didn’t hate it, I just found it rather disappointing. A huge amount of buildup, and even in-game— a lot of effort… Just for very little delivery.
This is a game and a game engine with nearly infinite potential, but once he got into it, once he started playing it, it just falls completely flat. Beyond a few initial and rather novel game mechanics, it just goes nowhere. Immedately
Like, the game devs produced this incredible game engine, and then just expected it to produce the game for them, and it didn’t. You have this incredible, infinitely generated open world, but there’s no game to play. No story.
It’s just… there. that’s not really much of anything to do. that is the major shortcoming. If, in the last 15 years, they bothered to fill this incredible space with anything worthwhile to actually do, it would be amazing
That’s why Star Trek online is still so active. It’s a nonstop universe, full of missions. Also, it runs very well on multiple platforms.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 18 pts · 7d
I don't like Star Trek online because it's got too much combat. Star Trek is about philosophy and science, not phasers and proton torpedoes.
lumpyluggage@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 7d
It's easier to create a game around combat than science and philosophy though
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 10 pts · 7d
Then I guess I'll have to keep playing Fallen London instead
jtrek@startrek.website · 4 pts · 7d
Oh wow a fallen London reference in the wild. I played that like ten years ago, and picked it up fresh this year as something to do during the workday.
The current festival is interesting. I missed the "hell is missing" story when it was new. Turns out climbing into the furnace is a bad idea, even in a dream!
Currently annoyed that I didn't bring the right thing into the waswood to get a particular item, and I can't draw the dream card to get one of those pearls. But it's a very interesting game.
It could also descend into total "pay for power" nonsense, but I have resisted.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net · 3 pts · 7d
Here, I have a present for you!
Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
I'm relatively late to no man sky, the original scandal burnt the bridge and I didn't bother trying to fix it until about 5 years ago when it came up as an option for a space game to play with my brother. He ended up a bigger fanboy space engineer and NMS stayed the only unplayed game in my library until last year.
I genuinely feel like it's a great sandbox. That is to say, the fun comes more from the people you play with and your imagination than the sand itself. I genuinely feel that it would be my favorite game if I still had 2 or 3 friends to play it with. RPing as the haywired droid pilot of the Vagabond Moon as it smuggles goods to and from free space just doesn't hit without a captain and crew.
eurodyne@piefed.world · 6 pts · 7d
See, I like my own private world. I can just build it and run around and discover stuff. That’s why I loved fallout 4 so much. No man’s sky is great for that because it’s infinitely generative. But that’s kind of all there is in that game. It’s just a big open world. There’s no real “game” to that game beyond the first 30 or 40 hours of gameplay.
Unlike you, however, the one thing I hate the most in any game is other people. I wanna be alone and do my own thing. I never ever encountered another game player who has done anything than just fuck up my gameplay experience. maybe I’ve just had bad luck, I don’t know. But co-op playing has never been anything other than an extremely negative experience for me. other people are assholes.
So, when left on my own in no man’s sky, it’s fine in small doses, but it’s easy to get bored. Because there are no Ongoing gameplay objectives. It really wouldn’t be difficult to build into the game, constant ongoing objectives and achievements that a single person could achieve on their own. Repetitive missions, etc. Star Trek online managers to do it. And it doesn’t have to be combat (although, combat in no man’s sky is actually very well done and quite fun). No man sky has ongoing rewards for discovery and exploration stuff, but it isn’t really structured very well and the rewards are really rather small.
No man’s sky feels like a really fancy version of Second Life, but in space, where you can have a bunch of your own planets and build bases and whatever. And have entire fleets of ships. But to what ultimate end? It doesn’t seem like there’s any purpose to any of it. That’s what’s missing from the game.
Postmortal_Pop@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
I think the key distinction is that you have to know and like the people outside the game. I used to have about 8 other people that regularly played Minecraft together and we did some impressively large scale things for a hand full of people with jobs and lives. It was honestly fun to just chat while we're collectively digging a massive tunnel to build a functional rail network. Crack open a cold one with the gang but the cold one is actually a 4 month civil engineering project requiring us to terraform a continent.
Ethalis@jlai.lu · 20 pts · 7d
I haven't spent as much time as you did in NMS but I have the same feeling. It feels like I should be loving this game but everytime I try to play it for more than a few hours I end up hating it for the same reasons you listed
Swaus01@piefed.social · 5 pts · 7d
I heard all about how bad NMS was. Also overwatch. Then I went to university and one of the first friends I made was like "Those are my favourite games!" And I practically bit my lips to avoid blurting out "...um aren't they crap??"
Obviously it's not a big deal. I squeeze enjoyment out of shitty games myself. I found it jarring at the time because there was so much Internet discourse about both those games being not worthwhile.
Gerudo@lemmy.zip · 71 pts · 7d
WoW. I sank hundreds of hours in vanilla. Spent forever getting tier 3 armor completed and most end game content completed and then Burning Crusade was launched. I was so excited that myself and about 15 guildmates road tripped from across the country to meet up and play in person for launch.
I remember crossing the portal and within 15 minutes a common mob dropped an item that was better than one of my tier 3 armor pieces. Pieces I had spent weeks farming for. I was so frustrated that I couldn't enjoy the next 2 days playing, even with everyone there. I got home, played a few more days, and had already replaced half my armor. I quit WoW cold turkey and since then have only logged in once in all these years.
I wasn't even that mad that my armor was replaced, I was mad that it was replaced so quickly, and not even at boss fights. It was normal mobs dropping rares.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 47 pts · 7d
Similar experience here. You missed the biggest turd though, flying!
So cool eh, no more need to walk eh!
What happened was that instead of roaming about with everyone else, you flew everywhere all alone (just point the "fly" in the right direction and wait ... Soo funny).
And to alleviate this they tried to make it so you "had" to walk everywhere first, before getting your "fly", but that just made it worse because now you'd be as slow as before but also alone, everyone else were flying.
Then it became a sort of dungeon-run slot machine, argh.
Vanilla was truly amazing though, what a game...
ICastFist@programming.dev · 5 pts · 7d
It's one of those great ironies, because flight was a requested feature since the beginning and being locked into fixed flight paths left people wanting free flight even more. Back in 2006-7, I don't think most people, or even Blizzard, could predict how much it'd hurt the social aspect of the game.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 7d
That was an integral part of the game design.
Those things, like underpowered weapons for example, is something "gamers" pester about and want changed, but any good gamedesigner knows better than to listen to them, it breaks the gameplay.
Today it's worse in many games because the "annoying" things still exist but you have to pay to get around them, and it just makes the gameplay suck. IMO.
Enekk@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 6d
I'd never be able to find it, but back in the Vanilla days, there was an interview where one of the designers literally explained that flying was a bad idea and would ruin the game for the exact reasons it did. They knew, but someone must have overruled that.
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz · 24 pts · 7d
TBC was the worst for that. Modern expansions let you keep your high end gear for most of the leveling process.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
It was also the first time it happened, so people were more put off by it.
Anybody who plays now knows that their gear is only going to be useful for the current expansion and that they'll have to start from scratch again if they play the next one.
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 3d
Its not even current expansion, ita just current season/content patch at this point.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 10 pts · 7d
I am completely turned off by mmo rpgs. I like my videogames to convince me that I'm not wasting time playing them; things with short levels or engaging gameplay loops....
Rpgs just take so long, and so little progress is made.
Now I haven't play WoW specifically, but these mmo rpgs usually have this problem where people get insane loot and xp bonuses for playing in a party. But nowhere in the game does it say "please for the love of God join a guild and play with them all the time!!" No sir-ee, so when people play in a guild or a party for the first time, they notice this. And many completely lose interest in the game, seeing how much time they wasted. I've been the same way.
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 7d
The only mmo I've really engaged with for more than a few months on one go is FFXIV which for me is more of a social game with stupid amounts of random side content and a fairly relaxed long story to chip away at. Wow was just a series of ever moving goalposts. I've played loads of MMOs and the best ones are good because you're playing them with people tbh.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 7d
WoW is a tough one for me because I played it for years and some of my all-time favorite moments in my life as a gamer are associated with WoW. But also those moments are extremely socially-dependent. Hard to extract from the experience what was the game and what was the joy of hanging out with like-minded friends.
And it's extremely difficult for me to judge now because frankly I think that WoW today is still an incredibly good game, especially as a solo player today, but it is impossible for me when playing it not to get sad longing for the absolute peak moments I've had with the game.
For me it's kind of like if you love cheesecake but can't buy the grocery store frozen kind because every bite makes you think of the perfect $200 gourmet restaurant version you ate once 8 years ago but will never get to have again because the restaurant closed.
stopforgettingit@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 7d
I hear this. I kept trying to get back in to it over the years but without my old guild and friends at my back its a hollow shell of the game I loved.
jtrek@startrek.website · 6 pts · 7d
This is one of the reasons I liked guild wars (1 and 2). They didn't do the gear grind. They added one tiny equipment tier early on in the game's life, and never again in ten years. They add different stat spreads, but that's it. (Ok, and infusions, which are like a single percentage point of stats.)
kazerniel@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Yeah I love that GW2 doesn't do vertical progression. I'm a casual player and kitted out my characters many years ago, and since then - unless I want to try out a new build - I don't have to touch them again.
Gerudo@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 7d
GW was my jam back in the day. I couldn't get GW2 to click for me because by the time I got into it, it was information overload and I found it hard to keep up. However, GW3 is going to be a no brainer buy when it releases.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 7d
I had a similar experience with BC, though I was only in tier 2 armor (our guilds just couldn't must the runs to get much of the tier 3 stuff). I played further than you did, but I realized that I had been really ready to be done with WoW for a while and had held on just for the expansion. It didn't revive my desire to play at all, and honestly I haven't wanted to play an MMO since.
merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
As someone who joined late in Vanilla, I think the fact that tier 3 armour became meaningless a few days into Burning Crusade was a great move, and necessary for the game.
In Vanilla, if you were late joining, you could never catch up unless someone was really nice and basically carried you for a few weeks. I spent months hearing tales about all the fun that my friends were having, but I couldn't join them because farming the gear to catch up to them was essentially impossible on my own, and would have taken them a lot of time to level me up.
The game needed a reset so that people who hadn't been playing for over a year could catch up. When BC came out, the Tier 3 stuff helped people for the first 2-3 levels, but by the time everyone hit 70, all the gear was reset and everyone was on the same footing again.
That was really healthy for guilds and for the game. If you already had a bunch of people who you liked playing with, you could start on the harder dungeons and then the raids immediately. Everybody started out in crap gear that kept those initial things challenging, and then everyone slowly got better gear. If you had just joined the game, you could catch up to those groups, and either join them, or form your own new group and you weren't behind.
What killed WoW for me was all the borrowed power stuff, where you got new abilities and learned a new way to play, which they'd then just reset with the next expansion. There was also ridiculous button creep, where in the early days (ignoring downranked spells) you'd have maybe two dozen abilities, half of which could be used in combat, and a third of those were rare and situational. By the time I quit, you might need two full bars worth of abilities in combat, your typical "rotation" would use 8 or more, and so-on. On some characters, I had so many buttons that even with maxed out button bars, there were some that had to remain in the spellbook.
The story also got stupider. In the beginning, your character wasn't the centre of the story. You could earn personal achievements, or group achievements, but it was clear that it was a game being played by millions of people, half of whom had also done those same achievements. In later expansions, they tried to pretend that you were the unique person. You weren't an archdruid, you were the archdruid... and so were the other 100 people on your screen. Or you were the maw-walker, but so were the other 1000 people in the maw. And, of course, the lore got more and more incoherent as they kept trying to find corners of the lore that they hadn't yet exploited.
The other major issue with WoW is that both time and the advance of technology, but also Blizzard's choices, killed the social aspect of the game. In the beginning, there weren't good resources to learn how to play, what kinds of equipment were out there, that sort of thing. That meant that one of the best ways to find that out was chatting with other players. That was great. Even if other players were sometimes obnoxious, the fact that you had to chat with them meant that the game felt alive. The only way to join a group for something was to send messages to other people in the game. And, since servers were isolated, people got reputations. If someone was nice to other people, they'd be known for that. If someone was a jerk, or tried to cheat other people, they'd get known for that too.
These days, people use communications not tied to the game at all. There are amazing resources to learn about the game and optimize how you play outside the game, which means there's no need to chat with people in-game. They added a group finder and raid finder so you could join a group for something without ever talking to anyone, which also killed socialization. They merged servers and made cross-realm events so that there was always someone to play with you... but now everyone was effectively anonymous to everyone they played with, so being nice wasn't something that gave you a good reputation, and being a jerk carried no long-term penalties.
Combine all the technological changes with all the lore / storytelling changes and you get a very good, very polished single-player online game, where other people happen to be there sometimes. These days you can be doing a 25-man raid and feel lonely because you're not actually interacting with any of the other players in any meaningful way.
I really wish another MMO would come out that would add back all the social things that Blizzard broke. But, even if someone did everything right, I don't think you could ever capture the magic of that early Vanilla / BC experience because the world has changed.
tacosanonymous@mander.xyz · 52 pts · 7d
Destiny 2. Best platform shooter I’ve ever seen. Worst everything else: monetization+FOMO, some really shitty loot tables, locking away paid content/sunsetting.
Kept going back because the core gameplay loop is solid. Kept leaving bc it inevitably got boring quickly.
FilthyHands@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 7d
This game was so good for a few years. On PS4, I got to play all the OG cut content, it was awesome. I think I played up to Forsaken. I really enjoyed the lore, and I usually skip that stuff. I even have a ghost statue on my bookshelf, one of my only gaming nicknacks (8 bucks at target). I went back to play on PC a few years ago and I didn't have a good time. I was also pissed that I couldn't transfer my PS4 character (or I lost my dlc loot or something).
Eggyhead@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 7d
Good one. This is probably it for me as well. I tried so hard to like it, but the whole thing felt like it was punishing me for not being there day one. A convoluted mess of whatever was leftover from what I assume was all the fun.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 7d
I was there Day 1 and it punished those players too. See my long rant touching on but two or three of the 50 issues I had with it hahaha
Goodeye8@piefed.social · 3 pts · 6d
Yeah, Destiny 2 pretty much lived in the core gameplay loop. To this day I don't think there's another game that felt as good to play as Destiny. But without refreshing the core gameplay or giving some actually meaningful progression. I remember at one point I was doing a strike and those who have played the game will know what I'm about to talk about. After clearing the second wave of enemies and waiting for the third I realized that I was just going through the motion of threes. I was going to fight the third wave of the encounter so I could get to the second stage of the three stage strike and those strikes I have to do 3 times because that's the weekly goal and that's the entire 3 months of the season. It just started feeling like a treadmill where I'm running just for the sake of running. Just a carrot in front of the treadmill and if you get it then the next season the treadmill resets and the and carrot is put in front.
Once I saw that I could no longer get into Destiny. It just feel like I was there only to go through the motions. No emotion, no engagement, just doing the same thing over and over.
Rawrosaurus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 7d
The moment I noticed they were docking xp back in the early days, I quit instantly. I enjoyed the game up to that point, but the way they had done that was just so dishonest that I have just never bothered with anything Bungie since.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 7d
Ooo I forgot about that one. And their horrible excuses like “oh we’re so sorry you think our algorithms are unfair, we’ll be more transparent about our great game mechanics so you don’t complain more”
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 7d
Oh my god Destiny 2 is such a good example for me. I never played the first one, because I quit consoles with the PS4/XBox One generation. Got Destiny 2 for free with my video card, and was so excited to play, hearing so much about the first game. I bought the expansion pass and played immediately when it came out. I maxed out all three characters, did the raid, and played for a couple more hours, before realizing there was nothing to strive for.
The fuck is up with “We have a chat in the game, but nonono, you can’t actually use it to TYPE to people like, y’know, EVERY OTHER ONLINE GAME EVER—it doesn’t actually DO anything unless you’re in a party.” Also every weapon drop was exactly the same, no variance, no random rolls. Then they added in text chat, Woo!
…but made it OPT-IN, and nested the toggle in settings. Meaning NOBODY DID IT. Fuckin idiots on Reddit were defending the decision too, like “oh what if you don’t want to have that toxicity” THEN DISABLE IT IN OPT-OUT, don’t make it opt-in in the first place!
Then a few months after it came out, I told my partner “look I bet they put random rolls back in and fix a ton of QoL stuff WIIIITH the first full-priced DLC that isn’t included in the expansion pass so everyone has to buy it.”
Then Forsaken dropped, for full price. I don’t even care about the money, it’s the principle of it all.
I never bought Forsaken, never logged in again. Fuck you Destiny 2, I’m glad you’re dead. I wish you died harder, sooner, and less lucrative.
(Also more Reddit defenders were screaming “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY FORSAKEN, YOU CAN STILL PLAY” like fuckin EVERYTHING wasn’t locked behind the paywall now, and like I wanna support that shit by giving them more engagement to log for their investors…)
artyom@piefed.social · 42 pts · 7d
Helldivers 2 is a blast but somehow still so bug-ridden that I've quit like 3 separate times.
Klordok@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 7d
Then stop fighting Terminids /s
It's a little glitchy at times, but I haven't noticed any major issues since the "terminal stuck in the ground" bug.
My characters arm still occasionally goes stiff on the ship. Some enemies might spaghettify to 100 feet tall. But that's just the beauty of Super Earth engineering.
artyom@piefed.social · 13 pts · 7d
I mean the whole mechanic of throwing a stratagem and having no idea what's going to happen when it his the ground is infuriating. Throwing an SOS and having NO ONE drop in is infuriating. Conversely joining a open lobby and immediately being kicked for no reason is infuriating. Getting stuck underground or in a random corner and having to kill yourself to get out of it is infuriating. The seemingly random difficulty of any particular mission is infuriating.
volore@scribe.disroot.org · 13 pts · 7d
Stratagem bounce and "mashing stim key and the stim key does nothing, even hearing the sound, but no heals" are two bugs that have been in the game since launch; and the latter has become such a sore point for me that the moment it happens in a game and I die because of it, I just close the game for the rest of the day. Game wants to be a fuck today, it can go be a fuck to someone else, maybe see how it's behaving tomorrow. They say they recently "fixed" that one, but I'm positive this still happens.
When I saw their recent "you asked for a fairer fight" post about clamping down on super credit hacking, I just about did a spit take. Really, Arrowhead? We asked for this? I'd really like them to cite their sources, because I -- and almost every other player -- have been asking for these two specific bugs, in the game since launch, to be fixed since launch (to say nothing of other common player requests that have gone largely ignored or paid mere lip service to). And since launch, and in over 900 hours of playing, I have heard not one single fucking complaint from another player about getting free super credits. So again -- "we asked for this"? When? Where? How? I gotta know, so that I can use the same method to ask them to fix the fucking bugs we've all been begging them to fix for years, and maybe then they'll actually get fixed.
/rant
ieGod@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 7d
The utter absurdity of this game makes it fun regardless of the bugs and balance gymnastics. I've never felt as satisfied to reign down absolute madness on friends and foes alike as I have playing this game.
volore@scribe.disroot.org · 1 pts · 7d
this is the really tragic part to me, you can tell there's all the bones, all the structure for a genuinely amazing game; and I believe this is why so many people picked it up and made it a hit and stayed for so long through all the bullshit, hoping it was just growing pains. The only thing truly holding it back is the developers constantly stepping on rakes. (Frequntly, rakes they themselves set down in their path!)
Like, it's still fun, but it could be so much better than it is.
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 7d
Arrowhead has lost a lot of respect due to the way they run Helldivers 2 and I say it's quite deserved. Every time you get a new piece of kit it comes pre-nerfed. New enemies are often so intensely frustrating to play against that people will simply stop fighting them. Old bugs keep returning CONSTANTLY, telling me that their internal version control and review process is not working. If something is fun, they will stealth nerf it and hope we don't notice.
I have largely stopped playing.
VM_Abrantes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6d
pachrist@lemmy.world · 36 pts · 7d
Lego: The Hobbit
I give this answer in every one of these threads to raise awareness. My wife and I used to get a little drunk and play Lego games. It's a lot of fun, and a decent couch co-op.
We get into the Mountain, start screwing around with Smaug, and he flies off to burn Laketown. Roll credits. Game over. The 3rd movie flopped so hard they never finished the game. They don't say it's 2/3 of the story, and at that point it's way too late to return it.
Fun game, terrible experience.
Dustin03@lemmy.zip · 35 pts · 7d
Elden Ring can't stand it
Montagge@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 7d
Same. It was so boring. There was so much empty space, and when you got somewhere it was just a copy paste you'd already been through. Then there's the basic ass story that's capped off with the dumbest final boss I can think of.
Mika@piefed.ca · 10 pts · 7d
It's not empty space, it's called the lands between.
Montagge@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 7d
Well it can kiss the lands between my buttcheeks because I want by $40 back!
merc@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4d
I don't like that kind of game, and have barely played any of the Elden or Souls games.
But, in addition to the gameplay, for some reason the graphics really are off-putting to me. Even though they look really good, there's just something off about them. Maybe it's a kind of uncanny valley thing. I even find the fonts they use to be just slightly wrong. Like, the weight and spacing of the characters is subtly off.
IWW4@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 7d
Elden Ring was utter shit.
It certainly doesn’t fit the criteria the OP is asking for. I noped out of that shit game pretty quickly.
SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world · -20 pts · 7d
Git gud.
Carl@anarchist.nexus · 18 pts · 7d
My complaints with the game weren’t based on the difficulty. Elden Ring was just a lifeless world that used “open world exploration” to pad the playtime. In contrast, I loved Sekiro because it was a tight concise game with solid progression and a sense of exploration without needing to cross vast swaths of nothing in between each area.
Plus I tend to dislike games that use animation locks as an artificial form of difficulty. In Sekiro, you’re consistently the fastest character in the game. The game feels responsive. If you fail to parry an attack, it’s because you as the player failed. But with most FromSoft games, they use slow animations as a way of artificially introducing difficulty.
SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
There's plenty of fast weapons in the game. The huge range of different playstyles with different builds is a big part of the appeal.
This is an ignorant take. It's fine if you didn't like the game but this is just objectively wrong. There's an enormous amount of information to be found exploring the world, it just isn't thrown in your face like most games.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 2 pts · 7d
It sounds like it would take a HUGE amount of time regardless of how good someone is, which is why I avoid playing it myself.
Mika@piefed.ca · -3 pts · 7d
Slow animations is a way to make multiplayer manageable. Add latency, and slow animations are barely reactable.
hakase@lemmy.zip · -3 pts · 7d
Checks "artificial difficulty" off my FromSoft bitching bingo card.
All difficulty in video games is artificial - the only real distinction is "difficulty I like" and "difficulty I don't like".
It's fine if you don't like Souls combat, but own your own shit and don't hide behind empty bullshit insults like "artificial difficulty".
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 7d
For the first 30 hours, bosses kept dying to summon jellyfish roll roll heavy attack roll roll heavy attack before I got to learn any interesting mechanics. I heard a streamer say that the underground stag enemy was a beautiful fight, but when I got there I kicked its ass and hardly got to see it do anything. If anything, the game is too easy.
hakase@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 7d
The first time I played through I did it without summons and weapon arts to get a more typical Souls experience and thoroughly enjoyed it.
The second time I played through I cheesed everything with summons and Lion's Claw and had a blast too.
MissingInteger@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 6d
Did you end up enjoying Elden Ring later in the playthrough?
I love hearing so many people voice their opinions on Elden Ring's difficulty. It's way too hard! Artificial difficulty! Delayed attacks are too hard to dodge! It's way too easy!
And I agree Elden Ring is both the hardest Fromsoft game and the easiest: the bosses have intricate, difficult movesets with great variety and get even more complex later in the game; on the other hand, you have so many different tools to deal with the challenges of the game; if you explore a little and try out some of the many options the game gives, you can make the game incredibly easy for you.
Did you know that there are two Ancestor Spirit (stag bosses)? The fight can be quite interesting, but they just have too little health. The second one with a more complex moveset should especially have more health since you have to beat Radahn to access it.
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 6d
I quit before it got fun.
RecallMadness@lemmy.nz · 35 pts · 7d
Breath of the Wild and moreso Tears of the Kingdom.
Not bad games. But not Zelda games.
BoTW did not play into the metroidvania that I felt defined a Zelda game. Plus it lent on the “sim rpg” style of eating, cooking, durability, etc.
Then ToTK just felt like a gimmicky cash grab. Copy paste terrain, “gadget building” straight out of some steam early access game.
Ultimately, both games felt like a hodgepodge of stolen concepts, slapped together. And the adoration that they received just makes me hate them more.
Asonyxi@sh.itjust.works · 34 pts · 7d
As much as I hate to say it, No Mans Sky probably. Has that same problem I get with playing Minecraft. Everything feels too empty and aimless for me.
Tiefkuehlkost@feddit.org · 14 pts · 7d
MC has at least the building part for me thats cool for some time. And the Modding and Server with friends part.
NMS has this boring flat tile building system and also just forgets terrain modification after some time or plants respawn into your buildings so you can even build on the ground...
Multiplayer is wonky and annoing and as far as i know it does not have much modding...
All planets feel the same after a few hours. The existance of medium Asteroids and Gas Giants is completely missing. And you cant build spacestations withoud weird stack up from plannet hacking.
I want to love the game cause like the idea and the ongoing support from the devs but when ever i try it again its just sad.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 6 pts · 7d
I get that problem with MC too.
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 7d
MC I never get that with, though I haven't really played vanilla Minecraft in years so the sheer amount of stuff to do usually offsets that.
peteypete420@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 7d
Iv been wanting to back to no mans, iv read good things about the updates, but yeah. Last couple times i found myself wondering what the fuck i am doing.
stephen01king@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 7d
Like he said, it's like vanilla minecraft, so you have to make your own goals and your own fun. I spent hours just walking around collecting resources to build the things I decided I want that time. Hours more building my Corvette, Freighter and bases. If that's not fun to you, that's ok.
shani66@ani.social · 4 pts · 7d
It's way worse about that than Minecraft, imo. I find Minecraft to be exceptionally boring, but building is at least passably fun (or was before hytale completely blew it out of the water), but it feels like NMS doesn't even give you a real creative outlet. From what I've seen even starfield is better than NMS for creativity, although i haven't played starfield myself.
ICastFist@programming.dev · 2 pts · 7d
Starfield? I would argue it's much worse than NMS, though I don't know how the current game is. Back when I played, a couple of months before the first dlc dropped (before the buggy update, even), you were extremely limited in choices for base building. You had like 4 or 5 prefabs of a living quarter which came pre decorated.
Starfield offers good ship customization (and stupidly talent-locks a lot of it), unlike NMS, which only added a tiny bit of that in an update last year I think
Noggog@programming.dev · 3 pts · 7d
Terraria is the Minecraft that's meant to be played. Actually has dungeon crawling and a world to experience. Minecraft is just 3D Microsoft Paint that decides to chase your cursor with a zombie every so often.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net · 29 pts · 7d
Didn't hate it, but I just sort of slid off Baldur's Gate 3.
I love Larian's other games and even pre-ordered bg3 to play on vacation, but the combat just isn't as fun as Divinity 2. I kept trying to avoid combat but then I walked into a new area and combat started automatically and I just groaned and turned off the game.
I got to act 2, which isn't a lot of time, but it felt like it
ThunderComplex@lemmy.today · 29 pts · 7d
Expedition 33. I’m not a huge turn based fan anymore but gave it a shot because of the rave reviews. And initially I liked it a lot actually. It had the UE5 default realistic look I loathe but the combat was fun.
And then it became unfun. Severely so. I started to dread every major combat encounter.
But the reviews were so positive so I pushed thru, I hated playing the game but told myself I’ll see it through to the end, and I did.
I regret that. Having to keep playing despite disliking it probably soured my experience way more than if I had just stopped playing. On the other hand I now have the full picture of the game and know it doesn’t get better and it’s not worth finishing.
The worst combat encounters were the fights where the attack itself is a minute long cutscene, then without warning you get 150ms to time your party perfectly, or you die and restart. Unforgivable.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 10 pts · 7d
Bah
Yes quick time based combat for that group fighting dynamic isn't a good match. If a game asks you to command a whole group of people, like one after the other, it's a good idea to make it more of a puzzle or "carefully select the right moves" experience. See: Occidental Heroes
Again, always seems to me that shiny new games which focus on aving great graphics are letting people down 🤔
ThunderComplex@lemmy.today · 19 pts · 7d
Initially the parry and dodge mechanics are great. They're presented like an option for higher skilled players who are used to tight timings to get an advantage in combat while people more accustomed to the traditional "trading blows" style can still enjoy combat that way.
But the game never tells you that perfect parrying and dodging are actually not an option but the required style of combat since taking any damage later on is basically instant death. You're just not gonna be able to tank a full combo while ignoring the dodge and parry mechanics.
Oh and then the enemies do that Elden Ring delayed attack thing. I like ER but seriously fuck that game for introducing this style of attack pattern. Yeah let me just swing my giant sword but mid-swing take a coffee break... ER wanted to present a challenge to the absolute wizards who play Dark Souls SL1 no-hit, so why did E33 copy that?
oxideseven@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 6d
You can absolutely play without dodge, parry, and even attack triggers. You have to build you character for it obviously. I'm terrible at reaction your stuff and just tanked the whole game. I even learned that the telegraph was easier based on sound but still I'm so slow I just continued to build tanky.
Katana314@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 7d
I generally enjoyed the game, But found myself disappointed by the story.
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler It’s bookends. At the beginning you see what terrible tragedy Lumiere is suffering, and wonder what sacrifice you must achieve to save them.
Ending: Oh, Lumiere is fucked either way, either today or very soon. Now it’s just a question of who you want to torment. :::
ThunderComplex@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 7d
Yeah the story absolutely didn't grab me. Spent most of the time confused and asking myself lots of questions, then the big twist happens n I'm like yeahnah this ain't it chief. And the ending ugh.
::: spoiler spoiler I wanted one outcome in the binary choice and accidentally chose the option which gives me the ending I didn't want xD :::
KuroiKaze@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Easily the most controversial comment in here. I don't think e33 is considered very difficult unless you do the optional content which has ridiculous stuff. I loved the story and characters and think it's one of the most enjoyable and memorable RPGs of all time.
okmko@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6d
I found parry difficult to learn (but once it's down for an attack it's muscle memory) and I play fighting games where people count frames, where you have to make 300ms reactions out of multiple incoming prompts, and where you have 2 frames parry windows as opposed to E33's 16 frames (I believe).
The most frustrating thing is that the telegraphing is just not that clear. I actually wish they increased the FOV change so that it's more apparent when it's at its maximum.
oxideseven@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 6d
The telegraphing was a sound more than visual. Learning that made things much more manageable. But I'm terrible at even that so I just made no dodge/parry builds and just tanked it all.
okmko@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6d
Yeah, the two main cues are a sound ("swoosh" sfx) one and a visual (FOV rubber band) one.
... That's smart, why didn't I think of making a tank build, lol.
Simon_Shitewood@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 6d
Because it's not particularly encouraged by the game. Like you can, they give you the tools, but theres a bunch of stuff you can get earlier with perfect parrying, or is gated behind it entirely, so you feel like you should be doing it.
Personally I found a mod to make the parry and dodge windows a little longer so I could reliably hit them, after which it became much less frustrating.
KuroiKaze@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6d
I'm also a fighting game player and I think that's why I found it not too difficult compared to what's required to Parry six frame normals and what not. Fighting game execution is so complicated that I find almost all genres are comparatively easier to handle.
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 6d
the screen zooms a bit when you're about to get hit. It helps a lot with learning timing
justdaveisfine@piefed.social · 29 pts · 7d
Rainbow Six Siege.
It was a combination of things. There was definitely hackers, some funky seasons, the grind, and toxic players, but at some point I went to launch and I was dreading playing it and thought maybe I'd feel better if I just uninstalled this? And sure enough, I did feel better.
OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 7d
The first few years it slapped so hard, and then somewhere down the line it felt like a chore playing. Weird
thejml@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 7d
Destiny was exactly like this for me. I really enjoyed the first 20-30hrs. Then it was "just something to do" when one day I realized "this game actually kinda sucks" and I haven't played since.
als@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 7d
I enjoyed it for a while but realised that it was effectively a subscription as the new operator was always very powerful. Then I switched to solely Linux anyway and haven't missed it much
KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
As a former r6 player with >1000 hours and a negative review on steam, I can confirm.
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz · 28 pts · 7d
No Mans Sky. At a certain point it all becomes meaningless.
STUNT_GRANNY@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 7d
Among Us.
My friends kept suggesting it for game nights, but the social demands are just not compatible with actually hanging out with your friends.
When everyone's out and about, doing their tasks and getting murdered, we're all discouraged from actually talking with one another, for fear of revealing a dead body or whatever. Whenever there's a meeting going on, sure, we're "free" to talk again, but there's not enough time to talk about anything but the game. When you're dead, and thus finally relieved from the pressures of completing tasks or getting kills... there's still no chit-chat allowed, because ghosts "can't" talk.
It's worse whenever random players are involved; having to coordinate between voice chat with friends, and text chat with randoms, or worse, when the randoms are in a voice chat of their own, coordinating to be assholes.
The moment that finally made me say "I don't enjoy this game", was a round with two random players in it: one of them spent the whole round watching security cameras, and the other was blocking the one doorway into the room, both players working with each other and refusing to do their tasks. No way for the lone impostor that round to kill them both. When we started calling them out on this, they flat-out said "we're going to keep doing this just to spite you". Timer ran out with unfinished tasks. Crewmates lost.
chunes@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 7d
I can't think of a single one. I stop playing games I don't like.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 25 pts · 7d
Hollow Knight is an tremendous game, but it is also a terrible game, and while I true ending'ed it, looking back I spent more than half my playtime annoyed and ultimately don't think the game is good when considered in full.
Balinares@pawb.social · 19 pts · 7d
Wow, that's incredible. I feel pretty much the exact opposite (and don't get me started on Silksong, I'll rave for days) but that must mean there's a game I missed that's your Hollow Knight? Please tell me about it!
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 17 pts · 7d
I dunno, I play a lot of indie games and stuff but I won't pretend to be some kind of refined critic or anything; many of my favorite games are pretty standard fare. But I do have my opinions and I'm happy to share them.
Are we talking just metroidvanias, or games in general? I'll start with metroidvanias:
First off, some people consider Shovel Knight a metroidvania, I don't really, but if you do then Shovel Knight is absolutely top of my list. That's basically a perfect game for me.
But after that, my favorite metroidvanias are, roughly in order:
Ori & the Blind Forest - what a game! People often say the best part of Hollow Knight is the atmosphere and environment and I think Ori's is at least as strong, and with an art style I enjoy more.
Guacamelee 2 - Look, I'll concede that some of the jokes (especially background gags) were questionable from the start and have aged like milk, but in literally every other way I think Guacamelee 2 is an actual masterpiece. Just does an incredible job of taking the metroidvania formula and adding great touches of beat 'em ups and precision platforming. Incredibly tight, fluid, and intuitive combat and controls, and I loved how the vast majority of moves/upgrades were equally utilized as combat options and traversal tools. I think a lot of people bounce off the aesthetic and some of the questionable humor before getting into the game, but goddamn I personally can't recommend it enough on sheer gameplay alone.
Guacamelee (1) Super Turbo Championship Edition - Everything I said about Guacamelee 2 just 2% less enthusiastically and about 8% less tight in controls.
The Messenger - Kind of Hollow Knight meets classic Ninja Gaiden? I feel like if you liked Hollow Knight then The Messenger is a really safe bet.
And now expanding outside the genre, here are some of my favorite non-Metroidvania games, but this time the only order they're in is indies/small games first:
Enter the Gungeon - I think this the hardest game I've ever played, period. It's also an actual masterpiece. I'm not good it, but I still absolutely love it. I'm late to the party and just purchased it in the beginning of 2026 and I already have over 100 hours in the game and I've only killed the past ("beaten" the game) once but I'm still obsessed.
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark - If you, like me, rank Final Fantasy Tactics as one of your GOATs, you should play Fell Seal. It's not a perfect game, but it is the closest experience I've ever had to FFT (including FFTA and FFTA2!) while not feeling at all like just a clone game. More people should play this one.
Cassette Beasts - Everything I said about Fell Seal & FFT, except about Cassette Beasts and the classic Pokemon games.
Celeste - Everyone should play Celeste, and it has one of the best sets of difficulty options in gaming so everyone can play Celeste. On standard, it's delightfully hard as balls (at least the extra/side content), but if you're not interested in that kind of challenge it never makes you feel lesser for choosing to make the path easier for yourself. The gameplay is fantastic, the art is adorable, and the storyline is better than both. Play Celeste.
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale - This one is super niche but if you like cozy shopkeeper games or spent way too long in chapter 3 of Dragon Quest 4, then you should play Recettear. Peak of the genre, imo, though if this is your niche then Moonlighter is a very close secondary recommendation.
Valfaris - Realistically this probably isn't quite "favorite" tier but it's damn close, and considering that I constantly see this game on sale for under $4 I think it merits mention. A really fun retro shooter a la Contra with some interesting mechanics (like having to choose whether to sacrifice max health to establish checkpoints) and one of the best, clearest parry mechanics I've experienced. Add in a metal-centric soundtrack composed by an actual touring metal musician and I just think Valfaris is an excellent little hidden gem that almost nobody knows about. I do not like the sequel very much though, sadly.
Hades 1 & 2 - I feel like these games are already huge but imo they deserve every drop of praise they receive. Great games and some of the best dollar values ever in gaming.
Disgaea 5 - I love the whole Disgaea series for so many reasons but 5 is unquestionably the peak of the series, imo.
And then finally just for context, my other favorites that are big enough I don't feel like they need to be recommended:
FFT (as mentioned), Dragon Quest 4 (best game on the NES and still underrated, imo), FF7, the Playstation Spider-Man games, Portal 1 & 2, Persona 5, Sid Meier's Civilization 6, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (yes I think TPS is better than BL2).
Cheers ✌
Swaus01@piefed.social · 5 pts · 7d
Have you played the Trine series? It's a platformer with similar atmosphere to ori and hollow knight.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 7d
I haven't. I'll add it to my list 👍
ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 7d
If you liked the messenger and shovel knight, you might wanna look into Bloodstained: Curse of The Moon. It was an NES style spinoff of the main Bloodstained game, and is a spiritual successor to the older pre-metroidvania castlevania. It's quite a fun little game, short and sweet.
Balinares@pawb.social · 4 pts · 7d
Well damn, that's a super thorough answer! Thank you so much! ❤️
Those of that list I've played, I definitely enjoyed. Celeste in particular is special.
I haven't played Shovel Knight but I'm really intrigued by Mina the Hollower from the same studio, and will likely grab it sometime!
VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 7d
I haven't played many games from your list, but I can attest to
The Messenger, Ori & the Blind Forest, Celeste, Hades 1&2
being very awesome games; (I'm also happy you mentioned The Messenger specifically, great game and awesome soundtrack!)
KuroiKaze@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Wow one of the only people ever that has also played Recettear, I really liked my time with it but didn't finish.
I also didn't like hollow Knight that much and wound up leaving it at like seventy percent complete but I did beat Ori which I liked more.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 7d
Have you checked out Moonlighter? I think anyone who enjoyed Recettear should check out Moonlighter; it's a bit more focus and more Zelda-like, a bit less cozy.
KuroiKaze@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6d
Never even heard of it
oxideseven@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 6d
Cool list. I can agree with everything said except for Valferis which I never heard of but want to check out now.
FFT is a pure masterpiece!
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 6d
Well all I did was play them, but hey I'll take the compliment on my good taste anyway, thank you 😋
Swaus01@piefed.social · 3 pts · 7d
Hollow Knight is definitely there for me. I've had trouble getting controller support on steam games (maybe this is intentional since they released a new controller?) so I've only been able to play keyboard... the controllers are clunky and the world at the beginning is empty and unengaging. I get that this is intentional design but I feel like it lacks clear direction for new players. The npcs speak with wall of text. No good for my brain.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 7d
I can't even imagine playing HK with M&K!
I also think HK's slow burn beginning is too slow. I did eventually get engaged but frankly the fact that I felt kind of ambivalent for much of my gameplay is a big part of my conclusion, though not as big as the design choices made for no motivating reason beyond to annoy players. The crossroads becoming blocked by infection is forever my #1 complaint about HK's design. It serves no purpose aside from annoying the player. There's no new skill challenge, it doesn't make the game any harder or more engaging, it's just tedious and time-wasting.
I find HK to be close to an amazing game, but I think from a game design standpoint the devs seem to conflate punishing with difficult, and that's just a philosophical divide that I find myself too far the other side on to connect with fully.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 4 pts · 7d
Yes i hate this as well. Developers throw in things to make sure you have to spend more time playing the game. In most cases, they already have their money from you. They'd actually make more money by not wasting players' time, and instead convincing them to buy the next game that the studio releases.
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 7d
I tried it years ago and got stuck on the mantis boss, managed to get back into it around September cause I bought silksong on release to support the devs. Anyway I actually got through it that time and into skong which is a much better experience and one day I'll start act 3.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 7d
Imo bosses are the best part of HK, I loved every boss fight.
If Silksong was promised to be 80% less tedious, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. But from what I've heard, that's not the case, though of course I could be wrong.
JakoJakoJako13@piefed.social · 24 pts · 6d
Cities Skylines 2. I've got thousands of hours in the SimCity franchise. Over 500 hours in the original Cities Skylines. CS2 is a fucking mess of a game. It actually ran pretty decently on my PC when it first came out but you could tell it was an incomplete mess right away. The simulation was non-existent. The game looked like dog shit. The only way to get it to run decently was to turn everything down to low and medium. Somehow I squeaked out 75 hours in that first 3 month release window. For a working adult with responsibilities, that's a lot of time for me now. I install it occasionally and see if it's any better. It's not. I did this last week and it actually runs worse on the same PC than it did at launch which is counter to what most people are experiencing.
Mods through the Paradox launcher is a necessary evil for the game to function. I can barely get it to run stable without mods, I don't think tricking out the game is gonna help the situation. It's such a sad case of a game killing a whole genre. Especially when it's my genre. I love city building games and no game has hurt more than Sim City 2013. I didn't even play SC2013. I watched my favorite franchise die and made probably the smartest decision of my gaming life by saying fuck no to that mess. Fucking Cities Skylines 2 is right there with it, but I made the opposite choice. I gave it a chance and it stings all the time.
What's even worse is how such a staple of my childhood has turned into an almost impossible task to recreate. I'll never understand how gaming went from being able to produce 4 generational city building titles in ~10 years to not being able to get one to function at the same level at all in 20. You can count CS1 sure, but even that game was missing something compared to SC4. CS1 is not even close to the same level of SC4. Even now when the game is hard to run on modern hardware.
What's even more killer is we see other examples of Maxis era staples getting second life in new franchises all the time. Planet Zoo 1 and 2. Transport Fever for Transport Tycoon. Planet Coaster taking it's place next to Roller Coaster Tycoon. Hell even the Jurassic World Evolution series fills a gap from the old Jurassic Park Genesis game. But the modern city building attempts are all backwards attempts.
They all focus on the wrong thing. Agents. They all want to be able to simulate every living being and everything they do. It never works. It's why the newest Citystate is such an intriguing project. They're not doing every individual agent. And the dev finally decided to focus on modernizing the engine to work with fully 3d spaces. There's a couple contenders out there that are a year or two away. Citystate, Metro 1998 even though that's more of a throwback. City Masterplan. If just one of these games hit, we're back in business. Until then I've watched my favorite genre die twice. Hopefully the third time is the charm in terms of longevity.
Jarlsburg@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 7d
Elden Ring - Beautiful game, but without the context of other FromSoft Titles, I'm not sure how you are supposed to enjoy it. Most people would say "well you're not supposed to enjoy it!" but it feels a bit like one of those restaurants where the gimmick is they are rude to you. The story is impenetrable, the "tutorial" pop ups lie, and quests are hidden behind specific actions that 90% of players would not organically try. That said, I completed it.
Murse@slrpnk.net · 24 pts · 7d
Dark Souls.
Got Dark Souls II to see what the hype was about, and 100%-ed it cuz I was post-surgery with nothing better to do.
Fast forward, and a friend gifted me Elden Ring, so, here we go again.
It's famous difficulty was just a combo of clunky controls and obnoxious health pools, which made mastering that type of difficulty really unsatisfying.
I gitted gud, but Dark Souls never gitted fun.
Same applies to Souls-likes.
I really wanted to believe. Fucking love the aesthetic, but that's about the only positive I can recall.
SoloPhoenyx@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 7d
Since I cant afford a console or gaming PC, im stuck with mobile games. With that said Star Trek Fleet Command is a game I quit after sinking a year into it. I was an active member of a group the whole time.
This was several years ago when it became abundantly clear they were starting an even more aggressive push for microtransactions. It also became clear that the updates to the game were only for the benefit of the "whales" (big spenders).
I made the announcement to my group, parled my ship in a graveyard that most of the server respected, let those around my level harvest my ship, said goodbye, then deleted my account.
It was weird almost going through withdrawals and the sadness of no longer playing with my group.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 7d
Ever play fallout shelter? There are emulators you can put on android phones to if you like retro stuff.
ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 7d
Do you have access to a low-spec PC? There are plenty of great retro games and modern low-spec games that run great on very low-end hardware.
Folstar@lemmus.org · 20 pts · 7d
Every single mobile game.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net · 19 pts · 7d
The Sims. They keep changing things and making it worse.
Carl@anarchist.nexus · 16 pts · 7d
The Sims will be a great case study for some future game design student, in how to take a massively popular IP and ride it straight into the fucking ground. It’s like EA intentionally makes the wrong choice at every single turn. You’d think that eventually they would stumble across the right thing to do, but somehow they seem determined to keep making bad decisions.
AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social · 5 pts · 7d
I loved The Sims, especially with expansion packs like Makin' Magic. I still think that was one of the best expansion packs in the entire franchise. I'm firmly a The Sims 2 gamer, though I haven't played in years, because it's too addictive. The Sims 3 always performed so poorly for me that I never played past 3 minutes on each install. I was looking forward to The Sims 4, so I was so disappointed and shocked they managed to fuck it up. How are the freedom and customization worse than any of the previous versions, like wtf?
I recently bought Paralives, but haven't tried it yet. It might scratch an itch, however, probably not in the right way. All EA had to do was take the best of The Sims 2 and 3, improve performance and expand on customization. But I guess that would make them actually competent, and we can't have that.
Liz@midwest.social · 5 pts · 7d
You looking into Paralives? I've enjoyed it in early access.
brsrklf@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 7d
Gave up on Sims too, I don't even care enough to pirate it no matter how trivial it is at this point.
I got Paralives. It's still very early, but it could get somewhere.
For now my main problem with it is it's very light on autonomous simulation. And though I like the idea of storytellers, at this point they barely do anything. I want freaking chaos in my game, and it should be more varied than just "Hey, what if sudden crush on that random person?".
The cards and progression system are good ideas though. Again, they need nore variety.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 7d
Weird, I got Paralives on launch and asked for a refund after 45min because it was nearly unplayable with bugs for me. It took ages to load, I couldn't edit my para because the sliders were covered by something, and I couldn't edit the buildings without the editor just deleting random stuff. My para also refused to do anything because she had low fun, but a bug was keeping her from filling her fun needs.
I might check it out again if it ever leaves early access, but I don't typically have high hopes for early access games.
Liz@midwest.social · 2 pts · 7d
Yeah I mean, they were pretty clear that there were gonna be bugs, but I can understand the frustration. For me it's about building houses, and playing as your character is just a minor annoyance needed to get more money. XD
I also had bugs on launch, but only a few and they were minor. Software is weird.
faythofdragons@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 7d
Yeah, they were pretty clear about having bugs, but at that price point, I was expecting a game I could actually play with some bugs on the side, and not a game that was broken at every turn. It seriously soured me on the whole thing.
I couldn't even build houses because the editor kept randomly deleting stuff, so I tried reloading an earlier save, but the roof and some walls vanished and parts of the house were no longer "inside" the house somehow?
Swaus01@piefed.social · 3 pts · 7d
I really don't get the sims. Everything you do in it is stuff you can make yourself do in real life. It's a life inside a computer simulator. Except for easily getting a job and designing a house freely. That's certainly not tue case for real life me.
I do however really love The Sims Medieval. That's a game with epic replayability.
kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 7d
That depends which of them, and the style you play it. I have played the Sims 2 for twenty years, and do not remember when was the last time I played some boring everyday life with a single family. I do things, like create huge family trees and play the entire neighborhood as one, tangling the relationships, and making drama and whatever I feel like. Murder mysteries, cults, monasteries, a nursing home for the elderly, fill big graveyards with a serial killer, build random stuff like an opera house or an art gallery, and run them as a businesses... Adding mods especially lets you play however you want. I even played a genuine Zombie Apocalypse scenario, with mods, that made the zombified sims npc's, that would attack everyone on their own, and infect the attacked, who would then soon die and turn into another zombie.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 2 pts · 7d
I'm glad that you enjoy playing with it that way, I've also started to enjoy role-playing and story writing elements more as I get older.
kazerniel@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
I would have loved Sims Medieval if it didn't have that roguelite meta progression where it expected me to restart my game from zero all the time and repeat the same quests over and over to progress the "god" unlocks. In every game I like long campaigns that I can sink my teeth into and build up meaningful progress, so this one aspect just sucked the joy out of any replays after the first run.
But I remember I loved the graphics (and music!) bc they used my fav Sims 3 engine, just made the textures prettier.
slazer2au@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 7d
Pretty much any moba. cs, r6, overwatch, lol, dota
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 6d
I played this Gameboy advance game as a kid where you adopted a puppy and cared for it and all that and then after a certain amount of time your parents in-game made you get rid of it.
I've never felt so fucking betrayed in all my days. I was so mad that I threw the game cartridge out of the car window and my parents weren't even mad because the ending to the game was so fucked lmao
Foreigner@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 7d
Hades - I haven't seen anyone list this one yet. It was the first roguelike/roguelite I ever played and it taught me that I don't like roguelikes/roguelites. It tried to like it, but it's just not for me. Luckily, son boy loves it so it's not a total waste.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 7d
Dead by Daylight.
I stopped playing when The Walking Dead stream "Incident" happened. The worst thing about the game is the players.
I don't mean that they are not skilled at the game. I mean, they aren't, and quit matches at every minor inconvenience. But the way players treat each other out of the game is horrendous. Players will go out of their way to verbally assault you for no reason in particular other than you are playing the same game as them. If youre a streamer they will go to your stream, if you're a Steam player they will leave negative comments on your profile, or complain in the end match chat if you have a private account. They report you for just playing the game.
I have been called more names, slurs (none of which applied), received more death threats, rape threats, and whatever else in Dead by Daylight than any other game I have ever played online. Including League of Legends, Call of Duty, Halo, CounterStrike, and many more.
I don't play it anymore. Not because I care about what other people say in an online game (words don't change my mood because I don't let them), but because the developers just straight up ignore when Killer Main players complain or ask for stuff. The Survivors get stuff all the time, but if youre a Killer Main the game feels like the developers hate you personally. And I was done with that. Its easy to get into High MMR as Killer, and then literally every game becomes a sweatfest. Also, multiple Killer characters have been gutted and left like that for years while Survivors just keep getting buffed. I dont need any of that.
The gameplay is genuinely fun, when you don't get a 4 man SWF or Bully Squad, but the times the game is like that when you get to High MMR as Killer is basically zero. So the tradeoff isn't worth it.
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 7d
Oh yeah I've had toxic survivor parties on so many occasions. Haven't touched that game in at least 4 years now though
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 7d
Literally any open world survival game.
ARK
Valheim
Rust
No Man's Sky
Grounded
The entire fucking genre is tired and tedious. Exploration is the best part of the game, but you spend 90% of the time base building, researching upgrades to your base, gathering more stone/wood/BS to improve your base, optimising the layout of your base, crafting automation to produce MORE stone/wood/BS to further improve your base. And all this with a cumbersome inventory or weight management system.
And they always look like absolute crap. It's either clean sci-fi structures that stick out like a sore thumb, or shoddy ramshackle buildings that look like they were slapped together by an ambitious crack head. So you spend hours placing decorations (that you also have to research and gather materials for) just for it to look kind of ok.
I fucking hate base building.
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu · 16 pts · 6d
Blue Prince. After reaching room 46 and realising that the game was just getting started, I immediately gave up. This is probably the game that respects the player's time the least that I ever played.
It has amazing lore and overall feeling but is ruined by the RNG. It's somewhat bearable in the first part but becomes extremely annoying when you know what to do but can't because of unlucky draws or not enough steps left.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 7d
∆V: Rings of Saturn is a top down realistic physics based space mining game. I love the game but the high frequency of random encounters made the game feel less like a mining sim and more like a space combat game where you have to survive against constant pirate attacks.
While all that sounds bog-standard for a space sim, it's the realistic science that kills it. High speed mass driver rounds from far off map, mining lasers outside the visible spectrum (only revealed with steam or dust) that will cut right through your ship, microwave beams that cook the crew alive and are impossible to evade - the game is not made for such weapons with the very limited combat format.
It became unfun to have a load of minerals that took IRL hours to harvest become scattered across Enceladus orbit as the added mass of minerals made my ship unmanageable during evasive maneuvers causing me to slam into an asteroid.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 15 pts · 7d
Town of Salem would be another one for me. It's a game like "murderer," the party game, with a harmless innocent fsction and a dangerous mafia faction. The game devolved into foregone conclusions every match because everyone devised a formula for town to win 100% of the time.
als@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 7d
You might like blood on the clocktower. It's a similar premise but with some key twists and some very interesting role options, depending on the script you run
Swaus01@piefed.social · 1 pts · 7d
Thank you I'll definitely look into it! Town of Salem seemed to bring me out of my shell a bit as a kid because I liked the test of logic
Oka@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 7d
Jailor here TPLO
It did suck that there was a meta around Jailor. NK usually only won with NE working with them, or all/any
What i hate about TOS now is that its dead and making a lobby takes forever.
als@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 7d
als@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 7d
Albbi@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 7d
Marvel's Midnight Suns.
Supposed to be a tactics based card battler. I played 10 hours and I think I did 3 or 4 battles. So much talking and relationship stuff where saying just the right things out of 3 random options will help advance your status. Just really not what I wanted but too late to refund once I realized that the real game wasn't coming.
Oh yeah and so much running through the forest looking for shiny things.
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 7d
I always felt Midnight Suns was let down because of how it was marketed. It was sold as that tactics battler and wore the studios XCOM games and I avoided it for ages even though the mystic sci-fi setting was right up my alley. Turns out the game is one of my favorites.
If they had said "It's Fire Emblem but less grid" I think it would have landed much better.
scops@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 7d
I really enjoyed the game, but I may have just gotten lucky with the timing. I wanted a slower paced decision-making game.
I do think the game would benefit hugely from a Quickplay and/or Challenge mode. The combat was a blast once it got going. That's the biggest thing keeping me from replaying it
Swaus01@piefed.social · 4 pts · 7d
Game devs keep on trying to make games for everyone. But then they end up being for no one.
FenrirIII@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Exact same boat. Endless enemies unless you manage to defeat all enemies fast enough is a bullshit design.
adaveinthelife@lemmy.ca · 14 pts · 7d
Fallout 4
Nms
The entire elder scrolls series now that I think about it, except maybe Morrowind but also Morrowind
Fallout 3 and NV were worth it, as were 1 and 2
Honorable mention to GTA5 tho I played the story to completion in the first few weeks after release and haven't touched it since, so not really the same but similar vibe
titanicx@lemmy.zip · 14 pts · 6d
I always dislike The Witcher 3. As many times as I tried to like it as many reviews as I read that it was amazing. Dear God the controls sucked and I hated that game. No matter how many times I try it.
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 7d
Fucking don't starve together. It's just ragebait and I'll not hear otherwise.
Inucune@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 6d
Oxygen not included.
Factorio spoiled me on resource calculation. ONI fudges it to a noticable level.
randombullet@programming.dev · 13 pts · 7d
Elite Dangerous. The early game up is brutal and you don't get much help. Mid game is very long and a grind. I'm only on a few engineering trees and still haven't left the bubble.
I haven't even gotten to end game.
I can't even do PvP because I get gonked too fast.
Tikiporch@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 6d
Overwatch, because: Overwatch 2. Now they're back to the original Overwatch format, and I just can't even.
mohab@piefed.social · 13 pts · 7d
I got 60 hours in Death Stranding. I hate that fucking game so much and I never beat it.
I was gunning for 100% though, which can be tedious AF in this game.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 2 pts · 7d
Seems that a lot of recent games are getting hate
mohab@piefed.social · 2 pts · 7d
I can name a few recently released games I enjoyed: Jenny the Witch, Eden's Eclipse, Unbeatable, Mahou Arms, Dead As Disco, and Homura Hime all came out this year.
None is AAA/Kojima affiliated though. Maybe that's where the issue is.
psyq@piefed.social · 1 pts · 7d
I tried this right after Baby Steps (which I enjoyed a lot), because DS was one of the inspirations for Baby Steps. I did get some of the same vibes from DS and the areas I visited were beautiful. The atmosphere is great and all. But even without 100% it just feels like a slog in every other way. I think I didn't even hit the 10 hour mark.
mohab@piefed.social · 1 pts · 7d
I don't even play this genre, and I typically have no interest in Kojima/AAA games, but I wanted to branch out and play something new I typically wouldn't consider playing… that did not work out, to say the least.
ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 7d
I weirdly enjoy DS more than I thought. I only wish the paranormal encounters weren't there, they just feel like an unnecessary slog, I just want to worry about the terrain and weather stuff.
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 13 pts · 7d
Factorio. I'm "only" 100 hours or so in. Don't like it one bit honestly but it's the main game my friend wants to play so I still just hang out doing whatever in it
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 7d
What do you dislike about it?
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 15 pts · 7d
It's just spreadsheets basically.
I get enough of that in my day to day life as a programmer; data flow, ratios, connecting the pipes, everything Factorio is just programming and spreadsheets.
Don't get me wrong, I say I hate it because it's not for me and drives me crazy. I recognize for others it's a great game and objectively quite well done.
octobob@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 7d
There's a few ways to play this game, saying this as someone who has sunk nearly 1000 hours over the years.
The main bus strategy is one of the most popular, and it is highly efficient. However this sucks all the fun out of the game for me. It feels like just tacking on yet another section of the factory and everything is already mostly figured out for you. The grid strategy with trains surrounding each square is even worse.
If this is how you guys are playing and it isn't enjoyable, try just going full spaghetti. Half the fun for me is trying to squeeze in some new area and figuring out all the turns, underground belts and pipes, etc.
And the game really opens up when you get to Vulcanus. Most people pretty much abandon their Nauvis base other than for a few things like importing science.
Carl@anarchist.nexus · 6 pts · 7d
Yeah, I always ended up doing custom bases for each resource, and then tying it all together with trains. It kept things fresh, because main bus designs absolutely suck the fun out of it. A properly organized and optimized train network is truly a marvel to behold. I always avoided going full grid with my trains, simply because I wanted to avoid the exact “micro factory inside of each square” problem you touched on.
I used a grid for my trains, but only to make blueprinting easier. Nothing worse than bringing two tracks from different parts of your base together, only to realize they can’t actually mate because the damned tracks are off by one square (one started on an odd square, another started on an even) and the tracks literally won’t let you bend them into place to meet in the middle. The grid was simply a standardized track length, so I knew my intersections would always meet up cleanly. Basically, I wanted to avoid this problem:
But I also haven’t touched Space Age at all, so maybe trains are an old meta by now.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 7d
Tracks not being able to touch have not been a problem for years, I think.
Noggog@programming.dev · 2 pts · 7d
Try playing with the mod Rampant with extra water to make a more mazey map. Deathworld settings if you can/want. It changes the mentality away from spreadsheet megabase optimization minmaxxing to instead be tower defense "slap something together and get it done, soldier!".
Makes it way more enjoyable for me as it gets rid of the perfection mentality and beings it back to being a game again. Things dont need to be perfect, and if you try to do so the bugs will just punish your fiddling by smashing your base. You gotta do things well enough to work but at a pace fast enough to stay alive. Whole different game. Way more fun, imo.
I recently played a game with Rampant PLUS a mod called Bobs/Angels that makes the recipes more convoluted and hard. Was an amazing time. Here is the end base after 250 hrs in all its messy glory
24/7 there was hordes of bugs assaulting the walls with crazy abilities. If a train didn't pull up with bullets every few minutes the walls crumble
MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social · 13 pts · 7d
If Genshin Impact was a Steam game, it would be the game from the screenshot for me (and if anything, 1.4k hours is a lowball - I've racked up over 500 hours this year alone on PC, not to mention the years before on mobile).
It would have been goated if it wasn't a gacha game and battlepass timesink, but now I can't recommend it to anyone, at least not if you're strong-willed and can resist the gacha and fomo or willing to try setting up a private server ... which I imagine people here on fedi might be more likely to be, now that I think. (The private server thing, that is.)
Jax@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 7d
Destiny 2.
Every time Destiny 2 approached a point where you could call it improved, Bungie would shit the bed. They could never figure out what they wanted, was it a PVE game? Was it a PVP game? Was it a PVPVE game? Yes! Though it was a poor excuse for each compared to what could have been if they just picked a fucking lane.
Underrated grift of the decade by Bungie, Sony got hardcore scammed.
bananabread@lemmy.zip · 12 pts · 7d
In counter-strike you can win and still be angry with your teammates
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 6d
Solitaire. I found out later that the deck only had 51 cards.
untorquer@quokk.au · 12 pts · 7d
War thunder.
It breaks a little more with every update. Like watching an alcoholic be taken by the onset of a degenerative disease a decade after displaying a true brilliance.
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 7d
This and World of Tanks have the same degenerative disease. It really sucks when you get maybe one or two good matches out of ten, and then you slowly begin to realize that the very obvious problems you see are not getting fixed and the developers are doing it on purpose. The only winning move after that is not to play.
untorquer@quokk.au · 2 pts · 7d
I only hop on when friends are on. Some of us have been playing more Windrose and Helldivers recently, but WT is always around.
I can't wait for their patent on the control scheme is up, which I think is in the next few years...
I guess it's natural WoT and WT would go the same route in the end.
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 5d
I was well within the top 1% of World of Tanks players, my friends and I were getting scouted by top clans and we played a lot of competitive rounds as well as the normal gameplay most people experienced. We knew the timing of when scouts would/could show up in specific spots on the map, how long it would take artillery to line you up in different places, etc..
It was funny to me that some people thought win rate was essentially random, it really isn't.
All that to say I knew the game very well and I could describe with intimate detail exactly what was wrong with the game. Honestly my info would be out of date by years now so I'll spare everyone that and just say the biggest mistake that I know is still in the game: premium ammo. It utterly invalidates armor making entire trees of tanks pointless to play. Was it hilarious the first time we drove a Maus over the front of an IS-3, crushing it? You bet. But the Maus got shelved pretty quick because it kept dying to frontal attacks with premium ammo.
I didn't play War Thunder at anywhere near that level (gave up once the grind really set in, couldn't bear to do it again) but I could see a lot of the same problems cropping up.
I focus on games that don't abuse my time these days.
untorquer@quokk.au · 1 pts · 4d
It would be pretty great if Gaijin just fixed bugs, but each major patch brings more than were fixed since the last.
Plenty of other problems too.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 4 pts · 7d
Sad and hilarious
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 7d
Dota 2. 2000 hours and I mostly played in 3k mmr games. The game was fun, especially when I had 2 more friends to play it with and we were the majority of the 5 team and could turn the game in our favor. Playing with less people was 50% of the time a miserable experience, 30% of the time neutral and 20% actually fun. The team mates were just too conflictive in most games I played and the negativity just ate me down. I also didn't love the game as much to keep up with its constant changes. The last meta I remember was making Luna illusions to slowly chip away at towers till the game is over.
AbsolutelyClawless@piefed.social · 1 pts · 7d
Typing this as I have a Dota stream in the background, lol. Also well over 2k hours in it. I haven't touched anything but Turbo every since it was introduced. But at this point I play one match evey 4 months, and that's with my SO. I don't do more than that because either teammates are toxic/griefing, or my SO gets toxic or I get annoyed at everyone else. Back in the day it would bring the absolute worst out of me. Now even if I feel like playing a bit more, I quit as soon as the negativity starts hitting. I just go play a single player game instead. It's rarely chill to play without a full stack.
Donkter@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7d
I log in once a week to play ability draft. Nobody cares about the game in ability draft and it's a blast.
ScriptSage@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 7d
Mine is MTG Arena. I don't really have anyone I can play with locally so it's basically my only option but my God it's like a textbook example on how to make the greediest and shittiest user experience
bigboismith@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 6d
GTA 5, meh story, boring combat, no real progression. Don't really get the hype
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 7d
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a lot of fun, until the very first time you have to fight more than 1 person. The combat system is horrendously designed, and apparently they fixed it in 2 by just nerfing enemies.
Davel23@fedia.io · 11 pts · 7d
I wouldn't say hated, but I've sunk almost 500 hours into Diablo IV and just feel like it's meh. Nothing particularly special about it.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 7d
I just started playing this and question what the hype was.
radiouser@crazypeople.online · 2 pts · 7d
Quit after 9 hours.
I probably sunk at least that much into D2 (and more) but just fell out of love with D4 so quickly. It felt so repetitive and dull.
dditty@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 7d
I put 130 hours into it at launch and enjoyed the grind to endgame with my first build but the endgame grind was just way too much for me and I haven't picked it up since.
NihilsineNefas@slrpnk.net · 11 pts · 6d
Warframe. 3500 hours in about 5 years.
I watched it develop from just a fun little "be a magic space murderhobo" into a game with some actual story behind it (and some kinda cool cinematic story missions... that went a bit off the rails when they made time canonically non linear)
The unfortunate part for me was the reputation gating and crafting materials grind. Every new update brought another new material and another new hub world with another dozen or so NPC's to increase your popularity with by running the same missions ad nauseam, just to get another weapon you were going to level up for the Mastery Rank exp and never use again.
I started in the days before Mastery Rank 30 was anywhere near possible, after hitting L1 (30+1) and realising there was no appreciable difference to gameplay I completely lost any reason to play.
I had hopes that there would be something big once you hit the original "max rank", even if there was intent for the devs to continue adding more after that. I had thought there would be some change in the way the game played, like they would reduce the crafting times from 4 days (a new warframe requires 4 blueprints, a head, systems and torso, all 12h crafts, then a 24 hour craft to stitch them all together, all 4 steps requiring blueprints and materials which are RNG drops from different specific enemies on specific map types/planets/hub world areas gated behind reputation)
The GRIND was unreal. They had to roll back their crafting quantities on Railjack after each individual component, of which there were 6, took 1 million credits and 4 sets of 4 figues worth of materials. I nolifed that game hard enough at the time that I spent an entire week (including wait times for the crafting itself) just to build a ship that was advertised as a 'dropship for you and your mates to use both in space and as air support on the open world areas' but that became a "use in very specific missions and one big gamewide event that's never coming back"
Don't even get me started on trying to earn platinum (RMT currency to instantly complete a blueprint that's crafting or buy a new cosmetic/weapon/frame without the crafting steps)
Saying all that, it was a good way to spend time during covid.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 7d
I already answered another title but I also want to say Tales from the Borderlands.
I hated this "game" so much that when I was finished I was genuinely offended by what I'd just experienced. First off, it's meandering and uninteresting, with characters that scream personality at you, not in a good way. And it's filled with the illusion of the choice, the episodic nature of the project immediately making actual choice a non-possibility. But worst of all, it had the audacity to present and market itself as a game. A small handful of "push button when lit" QTEs do not make your visual novel a game. Visual novels are great, just be what you are, a visual novel.
Fuck Tales from the Borderlands.
zerofk@lemmy.zip · 10 pts · 7d
I am currently paying through Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and I have a love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand the story, the acting, the visuals, … are all top notch. However, they also made it impossible to play as assassin - even more so than in Origins. The protagonist constantly reminds the player to stay hidden, but then none of the bigger targets are killable in one hit. Having to use an assassination hit once, and then hide until they forget you, is no fun. Especially if you need to do that 5+ times for one enemy. Some of the later game skills help, but it’s still more fighting than assassinating. In an AC game. It sucks.
Even worse, there are a ton of scripted fights, where you simply cannot do assassinations. Open a door in a cut scene and immediately get jumped by five guys. Kill a whole camp and sneak up to the boss, only to start a cut scene where you brazenly and openly challenge him. It sucks.
But then there’s an emotional reunion or a cool side quest, and it’s all good again. Until the next fight.
whoisearth@lemmy.ca · 10 pts · 7d
Halo. Lord knows I've tried on multiple occasions. The controls are just ass. I can't get used to them. I want to like the game I really do.
SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 7d
Halo was the first FPS designed to be played on console controllers rather than with mouse and keyboard. That's why it feels like shit and why I hate it.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 7d
It's also why it was so popular. Halo definitely wasn't the best shooter of the year, but it was by far the best (and only) shooter on the Xbox.
TAG@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 7d
Pokemon Legends Arceus. I rage quit after playing more than 200 hours.
On paper, it is the best Pokemon game for me. I can complete the in-game collection without having to trade with other versions of the same game. The end-game is moderately grindy and gives a fun sense of progress (catch 15 of this pokemon, defeat 20 of that one with ice attacks).
Unfortunately, the spawn rates are very very broken. When you first enter an area of a map, it is swarming with creatures, but as you catch or defeat them, they do not respawn. It takes some combination of distance and in-game time to get a map to repopulate so I have to travel away for several minutes, travel back, and then find that the map only partially refilled. Plus, there seems to be some sort of back-off that reduces the spawn rate of rare Pokemon the more often I clear a zone in quick succession which only resets when I teleport back to the hub area and teleport back. It is all very painful when certain Pokemon seem to have a 5 or 10% chance of spawning and the game asks me to catch 15 of them and then defeat 20 more.
And don't get me started on Space-Time Distortions, random events where a small part of the map gets unique creatures for a short while. The game does not explain how often they are supposed to occur, that certain player actions (like battling) pause the timer, and that in-game weather events can reset it. A player can wait hours for a distortion to appear before looking up the formula online and being told that the best strategy is too load into a map, put down the game for exactly 5 minutes, and if a distortion is not starting, teleport out of the map and back in, wasting a minute looking at loading screens.
Overall, it is so frustrating that I cannot imagine it is all intentional, but that it is caused by bugs that the developers never patched. I have heard that it is fixed in the new Pokemon Legends.
missingno@fedia.io · 10 pts · 7d
I begrudgingly put up with Puyo Puyo Tetris back when it was the only way to officially play Puyo Puyo in the west, but it is the worst thing that ever happened to the franchise. Only thing I hate more than the game itself is the impact it had on the series, because Sega has done nothing but lazily rehash it four times. It's been a full decade since the last proper main series game and there's still no word on when or if we'll ever get another.
Juice@midwest.social · 10 pts · 7d
Oh god, Destiny 2. Do I hate it? I'm not sure. I def don't like it and don't play it anymore. Something like, 1400 hours over covid, probably more. Sometimes I pick it back up and play for like 15 minutes and the feeling of meh is so overwhelming I wanna throw the controller. I got all the guns I'll ever need, my armor is completely maxxed out on multiple sets. My drip is impeccable. All of it is kinda worthless now because I couldn't tolerate the seasonal grind any longer. Having to go back to zero every 3 months when I've already mastered everything is gut wrenching for a completionist. "Oh you have to try this new gun, new build." Yeah and once I get it, a month later it will get balanced into oblivion.
Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 7d
Cyberpunk 2077. The game seems so perfect for me, but after 4 hours, dropping it, trying again for 4 hours, it just wouldn't stick.
I do wonder if it was 3rd person if I'd enjoy it more. I tend to love visual environments, and I think the first-person perspective hurts the game (for me).
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 9 pts · 7d
Dragon's Dogma 2. A lot of time is spent simply finding the quests and only the Sphynx ones are actually fun. Even the MQ is a shitty mess that leaves you more confused than you were when the game started, even when doing all the extra stuff needed to see the "true" ending.
The combat is infuriating because it pretty much never stops the moment you leave a city (and even in a city, large monsters can show up randomly and fuck you over like a gryphon randomly picking you up and taking you across the whole damn map to its nest) and no matter tour weapon or level, you never really feel like you get any stronger. It takes forever to kill even basic trash mobs unless you're a Thief using instant kill moves. Your pawns don't help much as their AI regressed from DD1, too.
For example, you and your pawns get moves that require team work, like a fighter can throw you up a ledge that's too high to jump or a mage can give you levitation; but they have to choose to initiate these, you can't ask, and even when they say something like seeing a chest that's one of those moves away, they never fucking offer to use them.
It also wastes time like a motherfucker. Lot's of waiting for quests to progress after random time periods, hella times where control is taken from you without warning like doing celebration animations after killing a dude or NPCs with absolutely fuck all importance initiate dialogue with you while traveling along in the middle of nowhere to sell their services as a pawn, getting fucked over by random monsters like the gryphon situation mentioned above, and more.
The most infurating thing about it is that DD1 wasn't this bad; it had some rough edges and climbing on big enemies was janky, but it wasn't an utterly annoying piece of shit with barely anything of substance behind it.
orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts · 8 pts · 7d
When I got to the doomed world where there was a timer, I dropped that game like a rock. I hate forced timers when I’m trying to have fun and explore.
Also, those goddamn harpies that would snatch you up in their talons and throw you off a cliff… They killed my entire party and the difficulty of it all felt insanely cruel.
psyq@piefed.social · 9 pts · 7d
Europa Universalis IV, 244 hours. I don't think I understood a single thing of what was happening. And with every free update, some of the rules changed, sometimes in unpredictable ways.
I was told "don't worry, even the big-brains who plan out their entire campaign with spreadsheets don't really understand the mechanics". But that's no consolation, I felt stressed and confused for every single one of those hours.
May I just say that it's so nice and refreshing to see lots of people mention these supposedly amazing 10/10 games in this thread and hate them, I largely feel the same about all those titles. I used to think my taste was just broken.
ugo@feddit.it · 6 pts · 7d
I have an order of magnitude more playtime than you (though most of it modded to be fair), and I still play it regularly. It is absolutely not true that people good at it don’t understand the mechanics.
What is true though is that it’s an objectively bad game. Or at the very least is supremely frustrating. It’s “unplayable” in single player because the AI is braindead and that plus the actual mechanics will just hinder your fun, and it’s unplayable in multiplayer because it’s slow as fuck (plus you need like, friends or something). Plus past the early game the game becomes a huge slog, with infinitely wide countries spread across multiple continents with effectively infinite money just hiring all mercs.
The only way to win wars is often total or near total occupation of the enemy. I could go on for a long time explaining all the ways in which it’s a bad game. I guess I play it mostly because of familiarity than fun.
psyq@piefed.social · 3 pts · 7d
For a second I wanted to defend myself by saying "that's just what I was told", but I think that's not even necessary, it seems it really is objectively a very odd game then, even for people who know the rules.
I can understand getting fun out of a bad game, I had fun in Two Worlds and other janky titles. And I see some "famous" streamers like Sseth just enjoy completely breaking all the systems in a bad game. My trouble is that I can't recognize those systems in enough depth to start abusing them, that's probably one reason EU4 didn't click for me. I tried to just play it straight, and then you run into all those problems you mentioned. From what I casually observed in EU4 forums and the like, people really tear apart the systems to find anything that can be abused to their advantage.
maltasoron@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 7d
I did have fun with it (for 262 hours) by setting very limited goals (i.e. forming The Netherlands as a trading empire). It helped to focus on only a few mechanics at a time and doing the same run a few times over.
I'm meaning to try out EU5 to do the same, but I haven't had a lot of time for gaming recently, and I want to wait for the first few expansion packs first.
9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 7d
Same with ck3. over 300 hours and i still feel like i dont know what i'm doing.....
I dont hate it though
elvith@feddit.org · 9 pts · 7d
Accidentally stumbled upon Overwatch when a streamer that I follow played it a bit on stream while experimenting with other games.
It scratched an itch. I hadn't played competitive FPS in ages. All friends were either ignoring that genre or were playing games where a death kicked you out of the match basically (no respawn). That meant that you'd end up spectating a lot or waiting in queue if you played with them. Also the concept of a hero shooter and those abilities looked fun.
I sunk hundreds of hours in it, even got some proficiency in the workshop when that was released. I drifted more and more into custom games and ignored the ladder but still had fun.
Then there was a content drought. They were preparing for OW2 and neglecting the current game. It felt more and more like a chore. I played less and less. Then OW2 came out as a forced upgrade - you couldn't play the original anymore, there was aggressive monetization, 5v5 instead of 6v6 and most of my used synergies as a tank player wouldn't work anymore. I encountered way more toxic players than before (probably partly because of the influx of new players). Either the workshop and custom games were gone, or they were hardly played - I can't remember. Then I quit for good and haven't looked back.
Akasazh@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 7d
I skipped overwatch. I was hyped when it was announced and thought it would be f2p to compete with TF2.
The price tag was a bit too hefty for my linking so I decided to wait a bit, figuring it would get f2p eventually.
Only when it did they managed to trash the game at the same time, so I just never bothered. Instead playing TF2 on the remaining active servers.
VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 7d
Overwatch was BIG in my circle of friends when it came out, and many of my friends' first team-based shooter.
I had been playing TF2 and was deep into the characters and lore, and got a few of them to try it, but it sadly never really stuck. Overwatch just became the default shooter everyone was playing, and that didn't really change. I still play it with them, and I actually enjoyed the Stadium mode, since it brought something fresh to the game. Some recent updates (Jetpack Cat) are clawing away at that enjoyment, though...
I got a few people to try out Deadlock, which has big problems, but I feel is a lot better than OW. I'm not really into MOBAs, so I honestly hope i can convince some people to give TF2 a shot again.
jerkface@lemmy.ca · 9 pts · 6d
Rocket League and Rust have each taken thousands and thousands of hours.
I fell in love with RL the very first weekend and bought all the DLC as it came out because I wanted to support an indie developer. I was rewarded by having the thing I loved sold to a corporation who systematically used my love against me until I could no longer tolerate it.
Rust of course decided that I wasn't worth having as a customer anymore and cut me off along with every other Linux user.
Audacious@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 7d
Path of Exile. Spent probably thousands of hours in it for years. I even made my own home grown loot filter, not compatable with neversink's. I left after they kept trying to sneak archnemesis back into the game. Never liked the gamble crafting system, and it felt like every update made less and less builds viable in maps.
I still watch Chris Wilson's videos on YouTube though.
hopesfall@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 7d
Did not play PoE1 a lot, but I have like 500 hours in PoE2 and I love some of the mechanics (souls-y combat, skills and supports, visual style …). It took me a while to realize the fact that it’s basically a medieval fantasy themed casino, and that just made me not wanna play anymore. Just couldn’t believe the amount of gambling as you even just approach endgame.
Edit: I also watch Chris Wilson’s videos on YouTube haha
jtrek@startrek.website · 3 pts · 7d
One time I made it to the tier16 maps by just following my intuition on a build and using loot I found. It was really fun!
Then the chaos trial guy one-hit me when I missed a dodge, and I realized I'd need to get the key things again to redo the fight. Nope. It's been fun but I'm done.
On subsequent patches, none of my characters have done quite as well. I also just can't figure out how to make ranger, monk, other ranger, go.
zeroclue@sopuli.xyz · 9 pts · 7d
Almost 4k hours in ARK: Survival Evolved. I was one of the 10 players playing it on Linux, with a total conversion mod that was abandoned shortly after the dev was hired by Wildcard. I hated that game...but it was so addictive.
stephen01king@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 7d
Have you tried Palworld?
GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 7d
I'm amazed Chores: Survival Evolved wasn't higher on this list. So much potential, wasted, to cater to the worst gamers on earth.
Mac@mander.xyz · 9 pts · 7d
How does one hate a game and play it anyway?
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 7d
Pokemon on the DS.
I spent like 3 hours and it was just the grindiest crap.
Kuma@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 7d
Unpopular opinion, I dislike all Pokémon games, I have never understood why ppl like pokemon unless they only like to collect. It isn't challenging, there is no story (I would call the story just random quests because of the lack of depth) and it is just a grind. And ultimately it doesn't really matter what Pokémon you pick most of the time, for example Aaron and all the evolve of it, I could play with only it until a water Pokémon came along. It is aimed for kids so I get why it is as it is but even as a kid did I have a hard time liking any of them, I never finished because I got bored, but I still got multiple versions of it because so many liked it. I am fine with it being easy if the story is great, but there isn't really any story either.. And maybe I would had been fine with it without the grind and the forced fights as a relaxing game but I do not know.
Rant over, sorry
Flamekebab@piefed.social · 6 pts · 7d
People talk about the story sometimes and I'm baffled. What fuckin' story?
ICastFist@programming.dev · 3 pts · 7d
Evil org tries to take over the world, 10yo kid beats them with the power of
animal abuseFRIENDSHIP. Absolute cinema, my friendforbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 6d
I like it for some of the reasons you don't. I can play it kinda on autopilot, without giving it my full attention. When cooking for example. I can also play it when I don't have much mental energy left. It's cute and often funny. And especially in some of the later titles I enjoy the positive vibes, which, even though it's a game, it can be nice to hear someone say something nice about me. So I am usually in a better mood from laughing and feeling more positive after playing it.
Kuma@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6d
Very understandable, and i am happy for you that you found the games meaningful. I am mostly frustrated I can't see the fun in it (and tried many times) and be part of the happy nostalgic conversations haha
shani66@ani.social · 1 pts · 7d
I stand firm in the belief that the only sorta good Pokemon games are gen 4 and the originals, and even then it is a 'good for their time' kinda deal. The originals are highly flawed and i would never recommend anyone actually play them, but they did at least attempt to design an actual game. Gen 4 was the first generation that could be considered actually good mechanically and aesthetically, imo. After gen 4 the games almost universally stagnated where they didn't actively get worse.
peteypete420@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 7d
Werent all the gameboy pokemons like that? Its been awhile since I played one, but I used to go back every couple of generations and play a pokemon game. The map was a little different each time, but it always felt like the same game.
Donkter@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 7d
Yeah, everyone has their first pokemon game that they loved and every other game is so similar it falls off fast. At least for me the reason my first pokemon game is so beloved is because it was also one of the first video games I ever played front-to-back.
Pokemon also has the rare distinction that (at least for kids) the world and aesthetics carry some of the worst mechanics on their backs allowing you to finish it.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 7d
I don't know, it's the only one I tried and it was just grind grind grind... I just don't get it :-D
Neural_drift@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 6d
I know I am late to the party here but the Final Fantasy 7 Remake Trilogy just didn't work for me. I played the first game and suddenly my guard was up. Some of the combat is cool, and of course the graphics are better. But every story change from the original was worse, all of the new characters were boring and clearly shoe horned in, and the general game seemed to lack direction despite having solid rails to coast on.
Still, I finished Remake and bought Rebirth and just couldn't. In the first town all the flaws of the remake trilogy were on display. Uninstalled, sold the game, and have zero plans to buy Revolutions (is that the last one?)
I do not see SE capturing the spirit of FF again, which is such a loss.
shani66@ani.social · 8 pts · 6d
Cataclysm dark days ahead. You think a low scifi world set in the close future where 5 (maybe more) apocalypses went off at once? The original developers did, sadly the new guys seem to hate the idea. Every update for years has focused on stripping the fun out of the game, it's only a matter of time before they remove the zombies for being too unrealistic.
Freefall@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 7d
EvE Online It was LIFE, and I love the game....nothing like it and it is NOT for everyone. When I finally freed myself from it...I'd never go back and never suggest others do. It is life consuming.
Ice@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 7d
Hate is an overstatement, but the game I have most hours on steam in (and likely will never surpass) is Europa Universalis IV.
Back in the day I used to enjoy the semi-plausible alt-history scenarios that would arise. Similar to real life but different in distinct and interesting ways that often could be traced to noticeable deviations.
Nowadays, it is much more arcade-ey and soulless. By the end of the game (1800's), the entire world is basically at the same technological level of advancement, constituted of soulless blob-empires that ends up looking basically the same each time albeit with slightly different flags for the blobs.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 7d
Yeah, Paradox tends to do that. Strip all the fun weird shit from their games for the sake of "balance", and then introduce so many new mechanics in their DLCs that old things break all the time. By making every nation equally good, they absolutely ruin the fun.
HOI4 has it, Stellaris has it, EU4 has it.
Though, the games all make for EXCELLENT modding bases. All of them have really fun mods.
CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 7d
Stellaris traded away so much of the games soul when they removed the alternate FTL drives.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 1 pts · 7d
Yeah I never imagined the end game of those historical map-painters would be good; either it ends right away or, like you said, stagnation.
I've only played one map painter game and I never went back to the genre because it was too complicated for me. This was like... 7 or 8 years ago TBF. I'm more interested in ones with base building elements or economic planning - Victoria and EV ask you to look at some spreadsheets and use that to guide your nation towards greatness. I would have given Victoria at least one other go since then but I bought it on amazon and lost the install I think 😒
Ice@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 7d
I can heartily recommend gicing vicky 2 a try despite its' age (kinda clunky and less polished but plays fast, a campaign can be done in maybe 10hrs). It's actually the game that got me back into grand strategy during the pandemic. Pick it up on sale like I did or via yarr, heart of darkness is a necessary dlc and not included in the base 25$ price tag, kinda insane for a 20 y.o game.
EV - europa universalis 5?
Part of the problem with Eu4 is that they in the "later" (somewhere post 2018) updates aimed to make every nation "viable".
JakenVeina@midwest.social · 7 pts · 7d
Metroid: Dread. Awful controls, and REALLY awful late-game bosses. Sucks, cause there's otherwise a lot to love about it.
Nine Sols. With only one exception, every boss started with a good, fun, design, and then felt compelled to escalate to the point that all the fun was ruined, and then keep going. Again, really sucks, cause there's a ton to love about it.
Carl@anarchist.nexus · 3 pts · 7d
Interesting take with Dread, because it’s one of my favorites. The only section I legitimately dislike is
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler the one EMMA that can fucking see through walls :::
That one specific boss can get fucked.
huey_m@piefed.social · 7 pts · 7d
Baldur's Gate 3. Game falls apart after the first act imo. Voice acting was great, first act is very fun and I can still play it, but I just can't manage to make myself even finish act 2. I do get why people like it, but maintain that as a game it was very much overrated. It's made my wife swear they should only do GOTY selection for the previous year after the full game has been released and played through entirely. I get the sense their early testing allowed for lots of tweaking an adjustment in the first act but they ran out of time to give the rest the same treatment.
kyub@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 pts · 6d
There's also the very valid situation of a game you previously liked becoming noticeably worse after some update or addon, which might cause a previous recommendation and engagement to flip.
Neptr@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 7d
Wizard101.
I probably have over 10k hours in that piece of shit. Autistic obsession for like 5 years straight. Been playing on and off since it came out. Fuck Kingsisle, fuck microtransactions, fuck them lying about it being "free-to-play", fuck features that only exist to incentivize paying. I still like the game in some ways, it just isn't a good game.
arc99@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 6d
Almost every MMORPG. They start off fun and then the fun becomes grind - tedious quests, upkeep, travel time, hp recovery, crafting, rare spawns, penalties & debuffs for death.
My first experience of all this was Everquest. I quit because Verant screwed up a series of expansion launches leading to crashes and downtime and I questioned why I was playing this thing and realised it hadn't been fun for a long time. But pretty much every MMO is the same.
lorty@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 7d
Octopath Traveler. I struggle to finish jepgs but I was genuinely enjoying it, until I stopped unlocking new skills and finding good stuff became an exercise in running around aimlessly.
Enekk@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 6d
This isn't a "lot" of time, but I spent 19 ish hours to complete Under the Island. I don't want to be harsh on an Indie game, but the game let me down so badly. I wanted a Zelda-like and this had some really interesting ideas. It was just that everything between the ideas was terrible. The plot was predictable and boring. Characters weren't. The mini games were some of the worst I have ever seen. Navigation was obnoxious and often relied on the top down perspective hiding the REQUIRED path with little to no indication that you could walk "through" an obstacle. I could go on.
Why did I play it through? I just kept hoping that everything would live up to the interesting ideas. It did not.
BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
World of Tanks. The reason I hated it was the slow, ugly downfall. Each change since 2016 was gradually fucking up game in favor of either unfun perfectly balanced but utterly boring maps or utter pay to win tanks.
Gumus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 7d
Clicker Heroes. I left a negative review at 1200 hours played and it took me over 200 hours more to stop playing and finally uninstall the game.
Gutek8134@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
OMORI - oh, how I've despised every time story sidetracked and I had to go do random unrelated things (mostly fight) in the mindspace. I've heard that the other ending explains why things are this way, but I'm not going to play this overstretched shit again. IMO it's a 10-hour game artificially stretched to 20 (or 40). Also, since they've already created pretty much all facial expressions for combat, they could put them into the dialogues.
Both Nier games - I've heard that the devs' previous games didn't have good combat either, which begs the question of why they decided to turn yet another game into a slog, twice. As for the story, I could predict the events way before things have happened. Maybe I've seen too many games that came after and got inspired, since I only played them last year.
Chaos;Head Noah - for the 4chan incel protagonist and all the unnecessary graphic gore. The fact that world ends in pretty much every ending didn't help, either.
KuroiKaze@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Automata combat is mostly a poor slog but I did get all the endings so I totally feel this
Katana314@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Haven’t played Chaos Head, but I have hated how much Japanese writing feels like children that never grew up trying to present “maturity” through pure shock value (gore, sadism).
Can’t forget the mystical phlebotinum that is Despair in the Danganronpa games (the odd hypnotic zombie force, not the emotion)
Radical_Socialist_t00t@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 7d
Darkest dungeon
itsoveranakin_@piefed.zip · 6 pts · 7d
3,300 hours in Fortnite. The worst thing about it is that I spend money in it.
VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 7d
I think Fortnite is pretty fun with friends ... if you don't care about the battle pass or skins.
HollowNaught@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
Probably MtG: Arena
I have a pod I usually play the physical card game with, but sometimes when we can't get together that week I'll boot up the online version and play some casual games
I've spent ~100 hours in it and I've decided I really don't like it, and all for a single reason: the matchmaking
It is abysmal. I started up the game, made a shitty deck with the free stuff they give you, and go on a 15 game win streak. Over the course of my playtime I'll be upgrading my deck, when suddenly out if nowhere I'm facing the sweatiest assholes with the most juiced decks that will waste your time if it means a 1% increase in win rate
After a week of this I realise that even the casual format has a deck ranking system - the more powerful cards in it, the harder the opponents you'll face
Now, I'm all for this, if your deck was given a visual rank so you'd know the opponents you'd face before you spent resources to make it, but being faced with the problem of being unable to upgrade your deck, else you might be put in the same pool as those who'd played the game all their lives, is somewhat demotivating
Of course, going on 15 game win streaks where the opponent barely does anything isn't fun either
Pxtl@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 7d
Disgaea. I was trying to unlock all the classes and play with some of the monster classes but it was so tedious and slow that after 100 hours I looked up a power leveling guide and found out the optimal play was just to ignore the whole team strategy part of it and grind the main character into space. Dropped it then.
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 7d
Disgaea is a weird one because what the game is and what the game looks like are two very different things.
It looks like a cute story-driven RPG, but that's like 2% of the content. The main game is and always has been a challenge to break the game through exploiting unbalanced systems.
Whether that's appealing or not as a concept with vary, but it definitely has almost nothing to do with the aesthetics and marketing of the series, weirdly
Pxtl@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 7d
I was just hoping for interesting tactics and a simple plot, which it delivered at first... but as the game develops it's as you said, mostly about learning to optimize your grind through exploiting systems that are basically only documented in wikis (what do all the stats and attributes do? Google it.)
Vespair@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 7d
Extremely reasonable assumption, and not your fault that Disgaea is secretly something it doesn't really advertise well
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 7d
Really deeply disappointed by Claire Obscura: Expedition 33
The combat is semi-turn based, so it feels unnaturally slow and clunky. But then it requires you to respond to the boss animations with twitchy reflex commands if you want to have any hope of beating even the first couple of levels. So, I'm supposed to strategize on offense but twitch-defend on defense? Bleh.
The game also took a hard turn into gratuitous gore very quickly. And the gore didn't really add anything to the story or even the atmosphere. Especially when the opening scene is people turning into flower petals, implying the much more romantic melodrama. The scene on the beach is this sharply contrasted pile of mutilated corpses that took the game from sweetly sad to needlessly gross.
Like, if you want to do an Elden Ring knock off with some French flair, cool? But this got a zillion awards. It shouldn't feel so derivative and hack.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 6d
Rogue Legagy. after a while it suddenly occurred to me that if my characters were slowly getting more powerful as a result of how long i played the game, the game wasn't challenging me to beat it, it was challenging me to invest my time until i'd customized the experience to be easy enough for me. so i switched back to playing more traditional roguelikes and roguelikelikes (which is what we called roguelites at the time) where you reset to 0 each play
FreddiesLantern@leminal.space · 5 pts · 6d
Rage 2. I really wanted to love it because I did love Rage 1. But 2 was fun in short burst between saves not working and the game just crashing. And overal the game just lacked that certain desolate atmosphere of the first.
I hate it when they populate games with meaningless npc's just because they can. Each village easily could have done with half of them if they felt somewhat believable.
They tried a bit too hard to be Postal 2 in a setting that clearly doesn't call for it.
Eventually I just powered through begrudgingly to get the main campaign over with.
TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 7d
Dota.
Dagnet@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 7d
League for me. Played while I was in the US and my laptop was trash so couldn't play many games, also the uni monitored downloads so I couldn't pirate shit (didn't know how to bypass it back then)
zer0bitz@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 6d
Counter-Strike Global Offensive. Too many cheaters and the skins just ruin the game. I still play 1.6 and Source sometimes. CS2 I don't even bother, because my pc is potato.
Khrux@ttrpg.network · 5 pts · 7d
As a teenager, I played a lot of the early Assassin's creed games, but fell off the franchise around Origins, when they stopped releasing to steam and kept it on the Ubisoft store, and in general fell away from gaming in general in this era.
Eventually I pick up Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla together, probably about 3 years ago and play each. I put about 60+ hours into the first two, and somehow put 200 into Valhalla, basically just mentally switching off and getting 100% of the content, which is a lot for Ubisoft game.
Perhaps it filled a good 'get home from work and crash' need for me, and the experience wasn't wholly bad by any means, but it's so bland. I've dropped off the franchise entirely now, after being an obsessed fan a decade ago when I was younger and more naive. The entire game basically has 0 positive memories attached, basically no memories at all, good or bad.
I tend to hold off calling anything that's not AI slop, but this game needs to be an exception. Assassin's creed doesn't deserve all the hate it gets, if you ever boot into the historian exploration mode and just walk around ancient landmarks hearing the development commentary, the respect for the historic is monumental across all the games, and in the gameplay there are lots of interesting aspects amongst everything else, but that everything else is very much the problem. Slop is the perfect word, it's blended pulp where the quality of the ingredients vary from gourmet to rotten, and I was the pig at the trough.
I could honestly give e the exact same feedback for the Lego Star Wars Skywalker Saga game. I have find childhood memories but that game doesn't have an ounce of passion in it.
These games aren't helped by the fact that the 3 games I played through after this era were Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium and Hollow Knight, which IMO are the three pinnacles of what games as a medium can be.
farmgineer@nord.pub · 5 pts · 7d
Whenever I'm considering a game, I always look at all the recent negative reviews. Depending upon what it is, I may or may not purchase, even if it was something I was quite looking forward to. I can't think of the most recent game that happened with, but something in the last year had some negative comments that felt spooky enough to keep me away.
Deaderik@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 7d
Not really sure if it's been posted yet, but for me that's GTA Online. I can't pretend it was ever masterpiece material, but it was compelling enough for me to sink over 4000 hours into (over 12 years). It's remarkable how much GTA has become a parody of itself. GTA 5 had materialism and insane money spending as some of its themes, something it parodied hard throughout the story. Hell, shark cards in GTA Online seemed to follow this a bit.
And where does GTA Online sit nowadays? Normal boring vehicles costing millions, a subscription service to get quality of life content, mediocre mission design wasting a lot of your time, every update feels more disconnected from the last, and most insulting of all. The shark cards from 2013 cost the same, but have only had a 25% increase in ingame cash. A 2014 update released a LaFerrari inspired supercar costing 500k, a 2026 update released a BMW 5 Series inspired sedan costing 1.4 million. Police cars were added, but can easily cost over 4 million each, and then they still have the audacity to remove all resale value from them. Final nail for me, the last big update nerfed payouts on a lot of big heists.
I haven't touched it in 7 months, and from what I'm seeing online, I'm not missing much.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 7d
Five Nights at Freddy's was just...disappointing, and got worse after the 1st. 3 at least had interesting atmosphere.
It's just jumpscares and frustration.
trslim@pawb.social · 5 pts · 6d
Dark Souls 3. I have 160 hours in Dark Souls 3, and I hated probably 90% of it. Its just such a boring slog, it's when Fromsoft imo jumped the shark with what i call, "flailing boss syndrome." So many bosses and enemies in DS3 just flail wildly with such little telegraph or strategy other than, roll away, and mash roll. Dodging should be a strategic maneuver that lets you avoid damage and change your position, but it really hasn't been that since Dark Souls 2.
DS3 is what started the whole dodge slop thing thats so prevalent in modern souls likes. Ironically, Bloodborne, which also has flailing boss syndrome, is one of my favorite games of all time, but the game is a lot more deliberate in its design around those kinds of bosses... minus a few.
I think DS3 is too Action, not enough RPG for me as a Souls game. Bloodborne is unique enough to be a separate category for me, and Elden Ring's weapon ashes really add a lot more flavor and gameplay, along with letting you really diversify your build more. Plus I think the bosses in Elden Ring are more readable, and block is actually something you can feasibly do. (Though I do think they need to decrease the dead angle that can hit you when blocking.)
I just despise Dark Souls 3 so much, all everyone talks about are the late game bosses, but dont mention the slog of areas you need to get through to get to any of the good bosses.
But is DS3 a bad game? probably not, its probably a me problem. DS2 set my expectations up in the sense that DS2 was completely different gameplay wise to DS1, where as DS3 felt like a more generic sequel to DS1 rather than expanding and making the game feel different or unique. DS3 was just DS1 but super fast and that's really it. I guess i just wanted something different.
Yaky@slrpnk.net · 5 pts · 7d
Not an avid gamer and play mostly indie.
Tunic. Was recommended for fans of Outer Wilds (fantastic game), but I see no similarities. Tunic's cover art looks like a Zelda ripoff, world borrows from Hyper Light Drifter, and the game plays like a Zelda + Hyper Light Drifter ripoff, but very poorly tested, unfair, and misleading at times. I get the impression that game designers had zero external opinions and very little playtesting.
Exploration is "bump into every nook and cranny to find a way forward". Bosses are absurdly difficult, clearly catering to the "git gud" crowd, and do not feel fair (as a counterexample, HLD felt difficult but fair). Puzzles are all backloaded to the latter half of the game, they are mostly fun, but at least one relies on a mechanic that is never hinted at nor used in the game otherwise. The untranslated manual, main gimmick of the game, is misleading at times. Midgame apocalypse / dark world is not that, it's... Night time (not putting the spoiler because that is just absurdity)
Yes, I finished it, and got the good ending, which only elicited "Um, ok?" from me.
Mika@piefed.ca · 5 pts · 7d
ToME4 for me.
I was looking for a roguelike experience. It is hardly it, cause the single game run is about a week long, the default mode of play is with limited amounts of respawns (afaik about 7).
That, and that after spending some 250h+ in, i barely unlocked 30% of playable classes and races. The triggers are easy to miss, random (not in every game loop) or awkwardly specific.
It felt like I'm playing MMO RPG but singleplayer.
offspec@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 6d
Hunt Showdown.
Katana314@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 7d
My Friendly Neighborhood.
Basically a Resident Evil game; BUT, you get far, far less ammo. The enemies attack via insta-grabs with no discernible lunge. They get back up from falling anytime you leave the room, unless you consume a duct tape item to keep them down.
I eventually realized I just wasn’t having fun by avoiding enemies every room. On top of that, the game has no music and makes you listen to psychotic muppets in the background in every room.
SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 7d
To be fair sometimes a game is great for a time, but then the DLC treadmill breaks the balance.
It can have many great reviews from people who have since stopped playing, while the 500+ hours players become increasingly unhappy with what happens to a great game.
2 examples that come to mind at Stellaris (it has 57 DLC addons now) and Hearts of Iron 4. (Paradox games). Those games are dead to me now.
Warhammer total war 3 is going down a similar path, but not quite that extreme.
Civ 6 was also getting there.
Its usually the publisher pushing the DLC every 2 months train.
Its fine if a game has a core game that is complete and then get expanded upon in a yearly DLC. Rimworld and owlcat games like Pathfinder and Rogue Trader come to mind.
IEatDaFeesh@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 7d
Satisfactory. It's a slog to play even after 2 hours. I would have dropped it in 10 minutes were it not for the overwhelmingly positive reviews.
crypt0cler1c@infosec.pub · 4 pts · 6d
Dota
Skyrmir@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 7d
Company of Hero's. I got into a mod community that did tons of pvp. After a various complaints of hacking and group drama, we figured out there was a visibility sync bug. Made me stop playing and never reloaded the game again.
Superdooper@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7d
I feel like that's more an issue with the people you played with. The game itself is pretty awesome.
Skyrmir@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
Nah it was a technical issue in multiplayer, units that would show their owner as stealthed, were not. We reproduced it, and after that I was just done with it.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 7d
The most recent things that come to mind are games that are way slower and/or grindier than expected. One was Octopath Traveler, where after finishing all the characters' stories for chapter 1 (or maybe it was 2?) leveling starting taking a million years for no good reason. I wanted to just progress in the story but I was getting killed by everything. And it's not like the fights are interesting once you learn the basics of the (somewhat interesting at first) battle system. Unless I was missing something it's just a massive slog, worse than anything I can remember from the S/NES days, like the Dragon Warriors or Final Fantasys.
More recently it hasn't been quite to that extent, but Dave the Diver feels way slower than necessary. You make decent progress at first, but somewhere around the time when you make it to the sea folk village you earn money really slowly and the crap around the village has zero challenge at all, but takes awhile to get through.
Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 7d
Warframe. After 5k hours and multiple accounts, I cannot recommend it whole heartedly.
And for a lot of people that one is not going to make sense. The game itself is not bad or poorly made. My issues with that game are so small that for a majority of the players they will never experience the issues I've had. It's been a death of a thousand cuts, and unfortunately soulframe (the next thing they are making) has also left a bad taste after trying out. Each issue stems from the way in which the development team set about doing things (it's been 7 years, some people have moved on, they might have gotten better)
orochi02@feddit.org · 4 pts · 7d
Porn games
calcopiritus@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 6d
FFXVI
I saw the trailer years ago and seemed good, so I wanted to give it a try. I of course looked for online reviews and game journalists were praising it so I bought it.
It's horrible. The only reason I played a lot of hours is because there's an endless stream of cinematics.
The strong point is supposed to be the story. But the story is so fucking stupid. The lore and world building is good, but the story is shit.
I don't know how game journalists are even allowed to exist.
EDIT: mistakenly wrote XIV instead of XVI
Flamekebab@piefed.social · 4 pts · 7d
I just finished Batman: Arkham Origins. I kept hoping it'd become fun and then the game was over.
HC4L@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 6d
Red Dead 2 for me.
I constantly get everything wrong. Never understand the quests or what I'm supposed to do, always making the wrong decisions. Constantly having to retry.
It felt like it was designed by aliens that just read a few books on life on earth and cowboys and made an open world game.
"Hurry you have to do this one thing RIGHT NOW" means you can do that thing whenever you want. Hell. You can even take and 8 year old on a fishing trip but I get tricked into losing sleep on a workday because of appearant lies.. I never knew when I was in a quest or not.
BG3 I straight up refunded because it reminded me why I hated D&D. I just end up save scumming and hating melee combat against ranged targets. I walk 2 steps towards the enemy the enemy also walks two steps and throws a dagger in my face. Repeat. To be fair I hated XCOM for the same reason. I loved Fallout 1 and 2 though.
Krudler@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 6d
Wizardry 8
They just beat the ever-loving fuck out of you with random encounters to the point that it was painful to play... and yet... I kept going
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 7d
Dark Souls 2. With the game just not being very good objectively and playing it during the worst period of my life I just can't even go back to it.
blackbeans@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 7d
King's Quest III. The story is great but that damn wizard keeps appearing out of nowhere.
grumpo_potamus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
PGA Tour 2K25 and EA Sports WRC - both iterations of previously released "sports" games. I know not everyone's cup of tea for "gaming".
I play both cross-platform with my family in other locations and it's a nice way to stay connected with them.
But for the golf game, forcing us all to buy new versions that don't improve on anything (or arguably make it worse than the previous release) while shutting off access to the previous is maddening.
For the rally game, similar sentiment, but also for not living up to the potential of the license/previous releases, not fixing issues that have been around since first release, killing off codemasters, and squandering the WRC license just to abandon the title.
bimbobear@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7d
For me? Rogue Trader. Maybe it got better but after sinking a lot of time into it, what I found was that you'd get to a certain point and after that the game fell apart. Each patch pushed the point back, but it never fully went away.
Stewbs@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 6d
I am a huge fan of the Blackbox era of Need For Speed games and when I tried Undercover, I knew it had a reputation but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt as Carbon is often overlooked because of Most Wanted but it's actually my favourite in the series (and its short af campaign is a famous sticking point for Carbon's detractors)
When I launched the game, I couldn't stop noticing how... off everything looked. The graphics were ugly. I knew from playing ProStreet that this engine could look absolutely stunning and going to this was just... baffling. Then I did some of the races and I was constantly experiencing issues. The handling was very poor, the camera angles were really bad and most of the races just felt meh.
I wanted to drop it then but I decided to power through a week with it, playing on and off. I actually really liked the ambient police chatter and the arrest cutscenes (Some of them are shockingly brutal, police brutality much?) but the racing felt bland, the police chases felt even blander and the world overall just didn't interest me. The story didn't pull me in but then again, who really plays NFS For the story anyways.
This was one of the first instances of me disliking a game so it left me really confused and puzzled. This was a series I loved and then I came across this entry that just felt like it was completely alien to the series it belonged to. It was so, so, so weird.
Darako@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 7d
I only played like 30 hours, but I hated every minute of Mina The Hollower.
Hueristic_Autistic@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 6d
TransNeko@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5d
Sid Meier's Civ Beyond earth. Sid Meier's civ's version of Anno 2205. the only cool part of that game was the water cities that could move.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 6d
Subnautica: Below Zero.
Subnautica is one of my favorite games I've ever played. My understanding is there was enough of a shakeup of crew behind the scenes during BZ's development that it effected the final product, and it's evident that they didn't know what about the first game was so good.
Every single area in the game is a twisty turny confusingly self-similar maze of corridors. The twisty bridges, the sea monkey dens, the icebergs, the glacier, the lilypad caves, the crystal caverns, the wreck, the game is a bunch of mazes. The story doesn't make sense, the characters kinda suck...I've played it through 3 or 4 times, and that's probably it. I've played through Subnautica dozens.
UpperBroccoli@feddit.org · 1 pts · 6d
Flashback and Ultima VIII
Both games were inspired works of art with unbelievably frustrating mechanics, often involving jumping onto moving platforms. I think I actually broke a keyboard playing Flashback. And yet I kept playing.
Back then, if you had a game, you finished it, even if it made you cry. Because you didn't have anything else.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 7d
Battlefield 2.
I only got into it because my gaming friends did. It was never very good, but my friends liked it because it was a much slower game compared to the arena shooters we played before and they wouldn't admit their reflexes were getting bad. The game isn't very realistic or very fun. You can bend realism for fun gameplay or you can have an unbalanced game if it's for realism, but BF2 was neither.
oh and another thing. The official maps are very repetitive and because stat tracking only works on them, they would be the only ones ever played. I've played some custom maps that were much better at LAN parties, but those rarely got played because a bunch of grown adults needed to have their rank for all to see.
TheUnsungRooster@sh.itjust.works · -15 pts · 7d
Subnautica. It continues to be stupid no matter how long I play it. You all have shitty taste!
FilthyHands@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 7d
Agreed. This is a game that I should love, but I am bored to death by it. Maybe it gets better later, but I never get more than a few hours in.
Gutek8134@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 7d
Meanwhile I had to stop playing because I was too scared
kazerniel@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 7d
and I never even started playing because I was too scared xD base building yay, jumpscares nay
TheUnsungRooster@sh.itjust.works · -8 pts · 7d
Not in my opinion. The best part of this game is that it ends.