Gaming pet peeves!

[EmeraldSky]

What are some things that bother you enough to turn the game off or delete the download, and why? Long unskippable tutorial making your blood boil? Annoying character voices having you scrambling for the MUTE button? Does it take FOREVER to progress? Vent your frustrations here!

Some of my deal breakers:

Forced tutorials that have to show you every mode and mechanic whether you like it or not. Trust your audience to figure things out for themselves.
Forced PVP--If I want to play against others, I will say so myself. Phone RPGs are notorious for this.
Bad translations--I understand if English isn't your native language, but at least get a native speaker to check it over.
Annoying characters with an equally annoying voice--I'm not opposed to putting on my own music or playing on MUTE if the voices are nails-on-a chalkboard bad.
Overpowered bosses--a boss should not take two months to beat at the recommended level on EASY mode. ::glares at Bravely Default::
Boring or bad storyline--if you're throwing all these concepts around with no explanation, I'm putting the game back/deleting the demo.

[Chakramaster]

Really it's mostly just the insanely annoying game mechanics. I can deal with most. Card games or board games I don't understand? That'd be another. Not even bad voice acting really gets to me.

Now MMOs where you play alone or in parties is fine, but if there's PVP and other higher leveled players just continuously demolish lower leveled players for fun? That's another thing that really bothers me.

[Wookie Mistake]

For me it's the groundhog's day mechanics, I don't mind it so much in games like XCOM or Fire Emblem, mostly because the outplays and insta-lose conditions have a pretty big variance based off of earlier moves, and in some cases builds/xp gains from previous battles. But more from a game like dark souls. It reminds me a lot of the movie Edge of Tomorrow

[Neo Emolga]

EsCoRt MiSsIoNs!!! I hate having to protect incompetent AI allies and you're the one who loses because they did something stupid, like brain fart. It's even worse when they're incapable of fighting and defending themselves, and yet they insist on plunging face-first into all hell like Leeroy Jenkins on crack and caffeine.

I'm also not a fan of situations where you have your smaller army going up against a huge army, and god forbid you lose one unit like they're expecting you to be a better conqueror than Attila the Hun. Meanwhile, the AI army you're fighting against can throw endless mountains of soldiers and units at you and despite you killing them all, it doesn't even put a dent into the situation. If anything, I'd like my units to be more expendable and I want the war in the game to keep going even if I lose a battle. Though XCOM slightly achieves this (the original was way better for that), if you plunge into even just a tiny losing streak, forget it, it's impossible to make a comeback. The WORST offender I saw for this was Might & Magic: Heroes VI, which you could not afford to lose a single unit against neutral enemies or the AI armies would insta-kill your entire army and they wouldn't even let the battle play out because they were that pretentious. That game was horrible and the AI was ridiculously unfair even on "Easy."

Lastly, on that same note, I really dislike games that force you to be playing 100% perfectly for a really long time, but then one wrong move or mis-click and hours worth of hard work and effort goes completely to naught in a flash. If a game becomes so difficult that I end up having to consult a walkthrough time and time again just to keep going, chances are pretty good I'll end up pulling the plug on it.

[Fate]

EsCoRt MiSsIoNs!!! I hate having to protect incompetent AI allies and you're the one who loses because they did something stupid, like brain fart. It's even worse when they're incapable of fighting and defending themselves, and yet they insist on plunging face-first into all hell like Leeroy Jenkins on crack and caffeine.

THIS SO MUCH. Once in Dragon's Dogma, I spent half an hour escorting this old bastard through fields, a quarry, and a swamp to get to this fort. Then he decided to go fight a dragon when we were a minute away from our destination and died, wasting all my progress.

As for me, games with permanently missable content stress me out. It's one of the reasons why I'm always hesitant to go back and replay the old FF games. They have a lot of that. With FFV, for example, I had to keep a guide open as I played just to ensure I was filling my bestiary completely. I still enjoy the game, but I like to be able to relax while playing.

And also games that make you go back and redo the same dungeons over and over and over and over and over again.

[EmeraldSky]

And also games that make you go back and redo the same dungeons over and over and over and over and over again.

::glares at The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass::

[Wookie Mistake]

I forgot about escort missions lol. I hate those too, I've had the guy literally walk in crossfire, gets popped and yay back to mission start. Or hop into a car for a get-a-way, hordes of adds coming to get you, Bob, doesn't hop in the car, so you get out thinking something must be wrong, Bob hops in car, you then hop into car, bob steps out...put one in bob's head, turn off system and walk away in disgust.

[Fate]

I'd also like to add that I hate points of no return in games. I always prefer games that let me save after I beat the final boss and reload my save there, even if it throws me before the final boss again.

And on a similar note, games that trick me into saving my clear data WHICH AUTOMATICALLY THRUSTS ME INTO A NEW GAME UPON LOADING. ;_;

[Shruikan]

Permenantly missable content. Since I'm a completionist, I hate having to follow a walkthrough just to avoid missing one thing, and it stop me from enjoying the game. (Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, I'm looking at you)

As an addition, time limted event only or pre-order stuff. If you pre-order from this store you'll get a unique armour that is unavailable any other way. Oh, didn't know about the game until a few months later? Too bad, no way to get that anymore. Oh and you feel like starting a new save? Well say goodbye to that one-time event stuff. I rarely play Pokemon Conquest because I can't start a new save without losing Ranmaru's Storyline & Reshiram for good.

Also, games with an open world that's too open. Breath of the Wild & Xenoblade X, sure, you can go anywhere, but you always know where you should be going to move on the story. I tried Morrowind, and was flung into the wilderness with no idea what I'm meant to be doing, or where I'm going or why. Haven't played it again.

[Neo Emolga]

Ah, while on the subject of permanently missable content...

I hate how some games have such obscure extras that are completely impossible to find without a game guide or walkthrough. I remember Ogre Battle 64 was a prime culprit for this. SOOO much hidden stuff that was really neat, but there was no way you'd ever stumble across any of it by accident. You pretty much needed the guide to cheat because they were in such obscure spots that would never be found unless you intentionally did these specific steps because you knew what they would lead to. I don't mind one or two nifty hidden things or Easter eggs dashed in there that can be found by searching those clever nooks and crannies, but when a massive chunk of the game's extras are hidden with obscure instructions and hoops you have to jump through, it's just plain annoying as hell.

And that was another thing about Ogre Battle 64 I really disliked. There was this thing called "Chaos Frame" that sort of worked like a karma or reputation score, but you could not see it until the very end (and this game was damn long). It determined what kinds of heroes you could recruit and what kind of ending you would get, but since you couldn't see it, you had no idea how you were doing unless of course, you used the guide. I went through this game three times and got the same stupid lousy ending and only after Googling this nonsense did I finally learn what this whole stupid thing determines and what you need to do to make the score higher or lower depending on what route you want to go. The game itself does NOT explain this at all! When games do dumb things like this, it's really stupid and lame.