What makes a game "Not Fun"

Ungood

We see all these discussions about games, what makes them fun, what we want to see, and all that jazz. But, when you get into a game, here is my question.

What makes a game "Not Fun" and Why.

iixviiiix

being too complex **** i want my edit button back !!!

Basically when a game gave you too many tabs and you have to remember what button to open them . That's not fun .

Next is being left out , aka gap

yeah , power gap level gap what ever gap . Cause of that you can't join contents you wanted and have to play ****ing low level content for while and by the time you get higher , everyone move to high place left you behind . That's not fun

Then next is retard developers's patching .

Those ****er like to **** up everything with they **** patch , a day before you was a meta , next day after the patch you are **** . That's not fun

Then the end is the inventory bag limited and bind items . I can deal with inventory bag is limited but bind items is **** p*ss me off . Of course how can i be fun when i going to loot something and my bag is full with bind items that can't be throw away because it's limited earning or pain in *** to grind but no need right away .

Caffynated

I really dislike daily features and I find myself losing interest in games when they have them.

First because it feels like you "have to" log in and do your checklist every day or you're losing out.

Second, because you feel like once you've done your daily checklist that your playtime is less rewarding. You're in the mood to run some dungeons but you've already done your daily dungeon quests? Enjoy getting 1/10th as much reward! Enjoy doing world bosses? Sorry, you only get a reward for them once per day.

Third is the repetitive nature of it which makes it feel less like you're playing a game and more like doing chores.

Akulas

When you only logging on to complete a daily check list. Time to move on.

Cryomatrix

When the game causes less neurotransmitter release to your reward centers

Solar_Prophet

Excessive use of QTEs pisses me off to no end. There's no skill involved in them, just reaction times, which for many of us older gamers just aren't what they used to be.

Grinding for anything for too long. I love Monster Hunter World to pieces, but this made me take a good, long break from it (still ongoing, started just before Behemoth fight release). The RNG on the gems is insane, and when you add in RNG on part drops, well... fun as the game can be, the repetition does get extremely stale, and the frustration finally got to me. It ceased to be fun and felt like work. 

Fake difficulty. Another problem with MHW. Late game monsters just have too many cheap shots, to the point where avoiding them felt like it was up to sheer dumb luck rather than skill. Add in the fact that many of them can KO you in a single hit, and it can be absolutely infuriating. MHW's use of fake difficulty is definitely the least egregious of the series, but it's still very much present. 

Convoluted mechanics. When you need an equation that looks like something Stephen Hawking wrote just to find out how much armor your character really has, the developer has done something very, very wrong. CRPGs and ARPGs are notorious for this, but plenty of MMOs do this too. There's a REASON 3rd edition D&D got rid of stuff like THAC0; it was needlessly complex for the sake of being complex. Looking at you, PoE passive skill tree. 

Galadourn

Having a very clear goal in a game is fun; if you embellish the journey to that goal with trivia that add flavor without distracting from the main objective, you make it even funner. See what Classic did: it's basically a "level up and get better gear" game, but so fun in the process...

Tokken

Grinding. Theme parks.

VengeSunsoar

Galadourn said:

Having a very clear goal in a game is fun; if you embellish the journey to that goal with trivia that add flavor without distracting from the main objective, you make it even funner. See what Classic did: it's basically a "level up and get better gear" game, but so fun in the process...

You know. I think this is my problem three days. I don't really have a goal in any of the games I play anymore. other than getting more powerful to get more powerful to get more powerful.hmmm

Galadourn

VengeSunsoar said:

Galadourn said:

Having a very clear goal in a game is fun; if you embellish the journey to that goal with trivia that add flavor without distracting from the main objective, you make it even funner. See what Classic did: it's basically a "level up and get better gear" game, but so fun in the process...

You know. I think this is my problem three days. I don't really have a goal in any of the games I play anymore. other than getting more powerful to get more powerful to get more powerful.hmmm

what other type of goal could you have in a game except getting more powerful/ better (depending on the type of game)? it's only a game after all, not a reality simulator.

VengeSunsoar

Getting more powerful just isn't enough. In Skyrim I like the building. Masters of Orion I take over the Galaxy. There doesn't seem to be anything  in MMO's other than getting more powerfulI anymore and you only do that to get more powerful. at least that's how I think I've been playing them lately. I'll need to change that.

deniter

When a game leads me and makes all the decisions for me, it's not fun. I want to be on the driver's seat. Following a pre-defined path and doing exactly the same things as the players around me doesn't belong to a multi-player game.

Wizardry

For myself,two things.
1 Trying to sell me the same old new skin
2 ideas that are so unrealistic it makes me wonder just wtf was the designer thinking if at all.The biggest example is stuff like markers over npc heads,hand holding markers floating in the air like destination points or target goals or glittering particles to tell you ,hey dummy over here etc etc.

Cryomatrix

You know i bough5 Ark, played it, graphics were good but the problem is it feels like it is similar to all the other survival games. Albeit, subnautica is so different and the exploring is good in that one.

For me, it is a lack of feeling of wonder. 

k61977

For me in things like MMO's a lot of the time it has nothing to do with the game itself.  It is the other players that make it frustrating or not fun a good portion of the time.  It's the elitist, min-maxers, have to run through stuff as fast as possible people.  They take the fun out of taking your time enjoying things, when you are forced to group with them to do things like instances/dungeons which are normally core to the MMO genre.  You don't get to sit back and find all the little things like easter eggs, hidden little jems that devs might have place, because you know they have already pulled the entire instance without taking a breath.

As for games themselves, I would have to say not have a variety of things to do.  Having to do the same quest 100 times just to get that one skin or mount you know because it is fun to do that same quest over an over.  It doesn't show investment of the player, it shows lack of effort on devs when that is what is required to get simple things like that.

 

AlBQuirky

Reasons and Motivations.

Why am I camping this spawn again? Oh, right. It has a unique armor piece. Why does it have a unique armor piece? ummm... errrr... uhhh...

Or that awesome unique sword that the Big Bad Boss Guy keeps... and he leaves it in his other pants? (didn't get that loot table roll...)

Basically, asking "why" I am required to do something, go somewhere, get some item is what makes it fun or not. Is it just to slow down progress, as is the case too many times?

I guess in other words, Asinine Busy Work.

PS: I want my EDIT BUTTON back!!!!!

yucklawyers

Open world PVP without some working anti-ganking mechanism.

Games that think multiple mouse clicks (black desert) or RNG (every free to play) are replacements for content.

Games that have appalling drops but find some more controllable mechanism to deliver nice drops, such as daily log in rewards.

Daily quests replacing content.

Artificial limits with no attempt to make them part of the game, such as dungeon cool-downs.

Too many currencies because the game designers are too thick to balance just one.

Games that have addons like crafting or horse training or diplomacy but make them completely irrelevant by making the grind the be all and end all.

Asian games that all seem to be released with gigantic security holes for bots and cheats because they operate in their home land with a identity card system. Every friggin' time. This is a totally avoidable failure than can be negated by using good programming practise.
 
Gutter games that remove competitiveness of play and replace it with competitiveness of who can spend the most cash, GWII, Neverwinter etc.

yucklawyers

cont. (where the weasel has the edit button gone? that sucks)

Plastic theme parks like black desert which doesn't even have a player economy.

Unnecessary binding of weapons and items.

Not written to allow player add-ons. (hell, not the same thing, but related..... someone somewhere, sometime is going to realize that letting players design and build whole areas is a fantastic free way to get content released. Neverwinter actually got halfway there, but just bottled it at the last hurdle and pushed them all into irrelevance by not having the player build areas in the world or allowing decent rewards).

Not enough creativity, every game seems to be a copy nowadays. It's not like we have run out of good ideas. A single player game RPG was released recently where players could 'design' spells. A new idea that could fit nicely into an MMORPG. Plenty of new ideas out there, but apparently not in MMORPG world. To many companies view it as a cash cow, it's become stagnated.

Blah.

Vermillion_Raventhal

Too easy, repetitive, predictable and pointless gameplay.  Pretty much the whole genre.  

I am always amazed how developer could manage the take player content and turn it into the most boring crap ever.  Learning the genre and having chaotic player interactions is like the crack the brings me back.

Never would have guess innovation in the genre would be in monetization and making a multi player game play single player.  I still rather play my story alone with saved games and challenge then having players play around me in reskin quest grinders.  

Scorchien

                                                Balance

Ungood

AlBQuirky said:

PS: I want my EDIT BUTTON back!!!!!

Same! 

H0urg1ass

For me:  Rails.

Any kind of funneling my play through this area, and then next to this area, and then to the other area.

I'm not a fan of carefully curated experiences, except in very rare circumstances where the curation is so good that I don't even notice I'm riding a train.  One notable example is Alien Isolation, which is completely and totally on rails, but I didn't even notice it until the end looking back.  That, game developers, is how you put someone on a ride without them even knowing they're on a ride.

In general, however, I much much prefer to be dropped in a world and told:

"Ok, go."

"Go where?"

"How the fuck should I know, pick a direction and go."

"JOYYYYYY!"


In recent times, a more upsetting, fun ruining experience is being sold whatever I'm playing in bits and pieces.  I want the whole experience in one tidy package for one tidy sum and if you have DLC on day one, then go slide down an acid drenched cactus straight to the ninth circle of hell.

If you come back with DLC three months later that you were working on that whole time, then I can forgive you.  Keep extending the experience with new chapters... Ok, I'm good with that, but one week after release you add 50% more area to the game.  Go to hell, I know you had that shit ready at release.

Ungood

H0urg1ass said:

For me:  Rails.

Any kind of funneling my play through this area, and then next to this area, and then to the other area.

I'm not a fan of carefully curated experiences, except in very rare circumstances where the curation is so good that I don't even notice I'm riding a train.  One notable example is Alien Isolation, which is completely and totally on rails, but I didn't even notice it until the end looking back.  That, game developers, is how you put someone on a ride without them even knowing they're on a ride.

In general, however, I much much prefer to be dropped in a world and told:

"Ok, go."

"Go where?"

"How the fuck should I know, pick a direction and go."

"JOYYYYYY!"


In recent times, a more upsetting, fun ruining experience is being sold whatever I'm playing in bits and pieces.  I want the whole experience in one tidy package for one tidy sum and if you have DLC on day one, then go slide down an acid drenched cactus straight to the ninth circle of hell.

If you come back with DLC three months later that you were working on that whole time, then I can forgive you.  Keep extending the experience with new chapters... Ok, I'm good with that, but one week after release you add 50% more area to the game.  Go to hell, I know you had that shit ready at release.

Speaking of Rails, I will say, even if I personally hated the Heart of Thorns expansion for Guild Wars 2, the story moved you through the zones, so by the end of it, you unlocked access to all the zones which you may not have been able to do otherwise without needing to get heavy into the meta events. So it was sorta on rails with the "Bring this Wabbler to Gooba, in Tangles Depths" it was also up to you, on how you got there, but the way was made open to you to access those areas, which otherwise required completing meta events. So.. in that regard, the story helped you unlock the zones for later progress and exploration.

aummoid

Games that treat me like the only reason I'm there is to do exactly what they want me to do, in the exact way they want me to do it.

Last time I checked, nobody was paying me to play their game and I'll play it however I feel like it or I'll find a different place to spend my money.

Scot

The word "fun" and gaming is now so overused. It has made the raison d'etre of all gaming as "what I immediately like" and nothing else. Do you only get fun out of playing a team sport or chess? Can gaming not have a sense of achievement, camaraderie of the team, worthwhile social activity in a guild, can players not roleplay?  There is much more to gaming than the "fun" you see so overhyped in the first ten minutes of play, but you need to be in game for a while to see that and a 20 minute review by a casual won't show you a jot of it.

Palebane

One thing that always immediately turns me off in a game, is being told what (not) to do. Tutorials are good and all, but when I play a game I like, I like to play with that game; do unconventional things, test limits, etc. If I can't do that in a game, it gets boring pretty fast usually.