WHAT IS THE BIGGEST DESIGN FLAW IN GAMES?

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In your personal opinion, what's the biggest design flaw found in games?

For me, it would be not being able to change the key bindings for games or having a huge list of key bindings and having to change each one manually because the game sought to be different. I also don't like having three difficulty levels but four or five.
This pretty much sums up my answer:

Brandish

By the way, just a quick off-topic question, I see you joined RMN about four days ago, have you been a member here before? Something about your name and avatar seem somewhat familiar...

*edit*
Hm probably not though seeing as how you have only been speaking the English language for about four years.
Too many to list, but summing things up I'd say not making things intuitable.
Both for story and gameplay mechanics.

author=Blinkster
I also don't like having three difficulty levels but four or five.

Why?
I think the biggest flaw is I want to play a game and there's a lot of reading in RPGs.
Biggest design flaw is if they just focus entirely on prettiness and not the mechanism.
biggest design flaw is having a large portion of the game just not be any fun at all

gamemakers who aim to make a game that is "challenging" are particularly susceptable to forgetting about what is fun and what isn't, you have to really know what you're doing to make a hard game work
Biggest design flaw? cumbersome esper / GF mechanics (FF8) that need to be changed every 5 minutes or less.

A game that makes you play an hour without a save point.

A game like WOW where there are specific class / skill branches that are the best instead of balancing it and making people choose.

One dimensional characters in battles. I'm not talking about making a fighter mage. I'm talking giving your character the ability to be either a fighter or a mage instead of just a fighter or a mage the whole game.

Games like Zelda 2 that can fuck you over and make it so you can't beat the game because you were too stupid to get all the keys in a palace that now gets sealed off forever when you're 20 hours into the game.
arcan
Having a signature is too mainstream. I'm not part of your system!
1866
I'm pretty sure having the game unbeatable is more of a glitch than anything else. One of the big problems I see is having useless skills.
Well truly gigantic design flaws in my opinion tend to be putting the game into an unbeatable state. Doubleplus badpoints if it's a case where you don't realize the game is unbeatable until later on (I'm looking at you 80s games!).

Other than that there are minor niggles. Yeah I agree somewhat with keybindings but in some games I can live without. The worse offense in my opinion is when you change the keybinding but then the tutorial doesn't and the text in that is all hardcoded in and for every help message it talks about a button that actually doesn't do anything. (I'm looking at you Mass Effect 2!) Also not being able to customize settings in a game properly (including but not limited to resolution, sound settings, numerous performance options) is another one of those minor niggles. Also windowed mode. If only more games had a proper windowed mode.

But those are technical things that are just annoying. Not gamebreaking flaws.
It's a shame The Angry Video Game Nerd isn't actually what Rolfe wanted to do in the first place and reduced to one video a month. The best way to make a great game is to learn how not to make a great game.
author=WolfCoder
It's a shame The Angry Video Game Nerd isn't actually what Rolfe wanted to do in the first place and reduced to one video a month. The best way to make a great game is to learn how not to make a great game.

Yes, very talented person, too bad he got into the vicious cycle of having to please his fans with over-the-top game reviews instead of doing what he wanted to do. Funny stuff though.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=eplipswich
Biggest design flaw is if they just focus entirely on prettiness and not the mechanism.

This.

Though, I guess it depends on if by "biggest" you mean "most common" or "most serious".

I can definitely think of a few thousand problems that are worse than bad key-bindings. Like, for instance, that one game that deleted random files from your hard drive every time you got a game over. Or that one game that was Superman 64.

I can also think of plenty of problems that are more common. Like bad writing, or being rushed to meet a deadline.

Designers that have bad priorities are definitely both extremely harmful to the game and extremely common, which I guess is why I quoted the post above. But your question is so vague that it's hard to answer for real.
author=heisenman
Too many to list, but summing things up I'd say not making things intuitable.
Both for story and gameplay mechanics.

author=Blinkster
I also don't like having three difficulty levels but four or five.

Why?


Because it further divides the difficulty of a game. When playing RPGs, I prefer four difficulties: casual, easy, medium, hard. Casual if one is more interested in the story than the actual combat.
author=Blinkster
Because it further divides the difficulty of a game. When playing RPGs, I prefer four difficulties: casual, easy, medium, hard. Casual if one is more interested in the story than the actual combat.

I don't really know how casual fits in that scale. Your scale should be something like Beginner, Casual, Experienced, Veteran.
author=Shinan
author=Blinkster
Because it further divides the difficulty of a game. When playing RPGs, I prefer four difficulties: casual, easy, medium, hard. Casual if one is more interested in the story than the actual combat.
I don't really know how casual fits in that scale. Your scale should be something like Beginner, Casual, Experienced, Veteran.

A few of today's RPGs have a casual difficulty that focuses on story and progression rather than combat. It's not really a difficulty but more of a play style.
Does that mean it removes the combats? Does some difficulty levels take out parts of the game? (I know some games do. There's games where certain levels/areas are removed on easier difficulties)
author=Shinan
Does that mean it removes the combats? Does some difficulty levels take out parts of the game? (I know some games do. There's games where certain levels/areas are removed on easier difficulties)

Not that I know of. I believe it just makes combat really easy and quick so there is more time for story, character progression, exploration, etc. It's basically, as the name suggests, a casual playthrough where everything that conflicts with the story continuing is easier.
I think RPGs should not have difficulty levels at all like they're some kind of arcade game because they're not.
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