Design laziness

Case in point: Modern Warfare 2. You know, it lacks atmosphere after the first mission in Afghanistan. And something really caught my attention after I got to thinking about it.

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Enemies never hide behind anything else. Well, they do, but it's hardly ever mentioned by your teammates. But man, are they obsessed with those second floor windows.

Hell, even in the Afghanistan mission, when I was INSIDE THE SCHOOL, they said "ENEMIES BEHIND THE SECOND FLOOR WINDOWS!" Those enemies were IN FRONT OF ME, DOWN THE HALL. Thanks for the tip, idiots!

And now, to drive this into the ground...

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Why complain about a game, where most levels are ripoffs homages to various Hollywood movies? Oh yeah, I guess that would be design laziness.

Wooden crates.

Exodia's Right Leg wrote:

Wooden crates.

Lazy bitch. What next? Exploding red barrels?

MW2 had exploding barrels. And cars. And... really, if it caught fire, it would eventually implausibly explode. I'm surprised the refridgerators didn't explode.

Penguin wrote:

MW2 had exploding barrels. And cars. And... really, if it caught fire, it would eventually implausibly explode. I'm surprised the refridgerators didn't explode.

Maybe it was running on an updated version of the Goldeneye 64 engine.

It wouldn't surprise me, since the friendly AI is completely unevolved.

To the point of being able to pile up corpses by sitting under a staircase and letting auto-aim go nuts?

Any game where things respawn. Not basic regular respawning but "You left the room" respawning. I hate that.

God i hated random encounters in Chrono Trigger. "my character is really so oblivious that i don't notice any of the creatures sneaking up on me? and i just traipse into any trap that's been set for me? maybe i deserve to die." admittedly, this was my first encounter with turn-based strategy games. and i loved it. but i've hated every turn-based game i've played ever since. that's either a standing ovation for CT or a damning statement against games which trap me in a catatonic state until my enemy has had adequate time to consider his 999th level spell to kill me. in real life at least i can maybe dodge around a little bit, maybe dive out of the way of the horrible, purple, necromantic spell of dooooom doom doom

Um... Chrono Trigger has no random encounters, last I checked. It is also not a strategy game...

Nope. You had to trigger the monsters in an area to get in a fight. If you knew how to slip by them you could.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Any game where things respawn. Not basic regular respawning but "You left the room" respawning. I hate that.

What about "you left the screen" respawning, like in the NES Ninja Gaiden? One of the main factors that made them so difficult was that any enemies you killed outside the screen would respawn once you retreated even an inch.

I understand it takes time to come up with maps. But I get really, really, really sick of seeing the same map again and again, in places that are supposed to be different buildings, etc. CoH is p. guilty of this, to the point that now I know exactly where enemies spawn on each map.

I finally decided that the reason the inside is often smaller than the outside, and the layouts make no sense, is because all the buildings in Paragon are modular units designed and produced by Portal Corp.

Also lazy: not giving us more for the base builder. There are literally hundreds of items that already have the art done for them, since they are in use on multiple maps. But they never add them to the base builder. e.e

rae wrote:

I understand it takes time to come up with maps. But I get really, really, really sick of seeing the same map again and again, in places that are supposed to be different buildings, etc. CoH is p. guilty of this, to the point that now I know exactly where enemies spawn on each map.

I finally decided that the reason the inside is often smaller than the outside, and the layouts make no sense, is because all the buildings in Paragon are modular units designed and produced by Portal Corp.

Also lazy: not giving us more for the base builder. There are literally hundreds of items that already have the art done for them, since they are in use on multiple maps. But they never add them to the base builder. e.e

Yup. I have all the maps memorized too. I'm always thrilled when they add new ones... for at least a month until I have THOSE memorized too. ...I think I might play a weee bit too much.

Dragon Age 2 reuses maps as well. Only some passages are inexplicably blocked--they have doors and everything, but you can't get through. I've seen the same map for five different caves/houses/mansions now, and they all look exactly the same apart from the fact that I can't go left here or right there, even if it says on the map that I can!!!

kleine_kat wrote:

Dragon Age 2 reuses maps as well. Only some passages are inexplicably blocked--they have doors and everything, but you can't get through. I've seen the same map for five different caves/houses/mansions now, and they all look exactly the same apart from the fact that I can't go left here or right there, even if it says on the map that I can!!!

Yes, this was the one thing I really hated about that game (though I loved the rest). Almost every environment is reused art least five times. It's ludicrous.
This is why you give the game a longer development cycle, so the level designers don't have to scramble and panic like that.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Any game where things respawn. Not basic regular respawning but "You left the room" respawning. I hate that.

Exception: The Bioshock/System Shock games, where they didn't respawn in the same place every time and the respawning kept the game scary even as you went through areas you'd supposedly cleared.

kleine_kat wrote:

Dragon Age 2 reuses maps as well.

I hated that, too, though I thought the rest of the game was awesome. But those stupid caves and buildings? Ugh.