What are some of the most annoying and enjoyable things in games?

[Penumbral Evanescence]

To begin, I'd like to thank the OP for posing such a great discussion question to ask here. My thoughts as listed below:

+ The Pluses:

+ Solid renders with exceptional attention to detail that make the character models look almost life-like to a certain degree. IMO, A Wife & Mother comes to mind when I think back to games that had made good use of renders.
+ A well-thought-out and intricately woven plot that does not explicitly harbour around the typical stealing a coworker's wife, and/or sucking off your bosses' dick to move up the corporate ladder and become the new head of the company. As an example, I think that Of Birds & Bees did a phenomenal job with the plot elements of the game, and it actually was something quite unique that I had personally not come across before in other adult games within its genre.
+ Good use of expressive and intensive animations. These always make the scene more stimulating to watch. Personally, I found the animations & use of facial expressions in the Fashion Business series to be quite exhilarating at times.
+ Nice varied use of music between different scenes. It is always a treat to hear some nice soundtracks in a game, that does not always revolve around moaning and sexual thrusting/penetration. As an example, Free Pass had some nice tunes that I particularly liked hearing in-game.
+ More impactful and creative use of well-ingrained choice-based gameplay system. It encourages modest amounts of replayability, and makes the player think twice about their actions, and always keeps themselves on their feet and engaged with the storyline. In particular, I found this best reflected and implemented within Seeds of Chaos.

- The Minuses:

- Too much navigation between different parts of the world map. It is infuriating and/or quite the repetitive process in having to navigate across large expansive maps, just to get from point A to B to talk with some random insignificant NPC/do a pointless fetch quest that does not even result in a sexy scene/CG. RPGM games tend to fall under this category from time to time.
- A superlinear & bland storyline. This is, of course, to be expected in kinetic novels. However, I am not so much of a fan, because it does not give you (as the player) much freedom to exercise what choices you can choose to make over the course of the game's plot.
- Needlessly pointless farming that does nothing to reasonably advance the plot in some tangible way.
- Zero use of sexy time music/and or sexual moaning sounds during the obligatory human procreation scenes. This might just be me being overly picky, but sometimes renders/animations are not quite enough, and I would like to hear some light moaning, or at the very least body parts colliding between the participants involved to glean some form of sexual stimulation during the sex scenes.
- Pointless dialogue that does not seem to proactively move the plot in any form of special direction. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love reading the banter and dialogue between different characters in a game, it helps with character development, and makes the characters appear more genuinely relatable in a sense. However, at times, I have played games where the dialogue/narration can come off as a bit repetitive and cumbersome to have to sit through at times.
- Combat systems that are insufferably complex to learn. Again, I love when some games do implement some form of a combat system within the game, but I believe that the learning curve should be fairly shallow in scope, as opposed to steep. As (for the most part) people play these games to relieve some form of sexual tension, and/or indulge in their fantasies. Not get caught up in some uber-complex combat system (e.g., akin to the likes of games in the ogre battle/Tactics ogre series as an example).
- Titties the size of NASA rocket ships. Not only do these look incredibly unrealistic and offputting, they just kind of detract from the other appealing features of the women per-se. So, at times (at least in my experience), it comes off as a boner killer for me, if the bodily proportions of the females are not at least somewhat realistic.
- Lack of a sense of direction. Some games make it quite difficult to understand where the next quest marker is and/or who to talk to, and where, to advance the plot and narrative.

Overall, these are just my two cents on the matter. Albeit, development is always a tricky area to pull off well, and chances are, you are not going to be able to satisfy everyone equally with some of the features and designs you implement in the game. But, at the very least, there are some areas wherein the broader community can reach a general consensus as to what they find reasonably sufficient to include/exclude.

 

[Loganfin]

To begin, I'd like to thank the OP for posing such a great discussion question to ask here. My thoughts as listed below:

+ The Pluses:

+ Solid renders with exceptional attention to detail that make the character models look almost life-like to a certain degree. IMO, A Wife & Mother comes to mind when I think back to games that had made good use of renders.
+ A well-thought-out and intricately woven plot that does not explicitly harbour around the typical stealing a coworker's wife, and/or sucking off your bosses' dick to move up the corporate ladder and become the new head of the company. As an example, I think that Of Birds & Bees did a phenomenal job with the plot elements of the game, and it actually was something quite unique that I had personally not come across before in other adult games within its genre.
+ Good use of expressive and intensive animations. These always make the scene more stimulating to watch. Personally, I found the animations & use of facial expressions in the Fashion Business series to be quite exhilarating at times.
+ Nice varied use of music between different scenes. It is always a treat to hear some nice soundtracks in a game, that does not always revolve around moaning and sexual thrusting/penetration. As an example, Free Pass had some nice tunes that I particularly liked hearing in-game.
+ More impactful and creative use of well-ingrained choice-based gameplay system. It encourages modest amounts of replayability, and makes the player think twice about their actions, and always keeps themselves on their feet and engaged with the storyline. In particular, I found this best reflected and implemented within Seeds of Chaos.

- The Minuses:

- Too much navigation between different parts of the world map. It is infuriating and/or quite the repetitive process in having to navigate across large expansive maps, just to get from point A to B to talk with some random insignificant NPC/do a pointless fetch quest that does not even result in a sexy scene/CG. RPGM games tend to fall under this category from time to time.
- A superlinear & bland storyline. This is, of course, to be expected in kinetic novels. However, I am not so much of a fan, because it does not give you (as the player) much freedom to exercise what choices you can choose to make over the course of the game's plot.
- Needlessly pointless farming that does nothing to reasonably advance the plot in some tangible way.
- Zero use of sexy time music/and or sexual moaning sounds during the obligatory human procreation scenes. This might just be me being overly picky, but sometimes renders/animations are not quite enough, and I would like to hear some light moaning, or at the very least body parts colliding between the participants involved to glean some form of sexual stimulation during the sex scenes.
- Pointless dialogue that does not seem to proactively move the plot in any form of special direction. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love reading the banter and dialogue between different characters in a game, it helps with character development, and makes the characters appear more genuinely relatable in a sense. However, at times, I have played games where the dialogue/narration can come off as a bit repetitive and cumbersome to have to sit through at times.
- Combat systems that are insufferably complex to learn. Again, I love when some games do implement some form of a combat system within the game, but I believe that the learning curve should be fairly shallow in scope, as opposed to steep. As (for the most part) people play these games to relieve some form of sexual tension, and/or indulge in their fantasies. Not get caught up in some uber-complex combat system (e.g., akin to the likes of games in the ogre battle/Tactics ogre series as an example).
- Titties the size of NASA rocket ships. Not only do these look incredibly unrealistic and offputting, they just kind of detract from the other appealing features of the women per-se. So, at times (at least in my experience), it comes off as a boner killer for me, if the bodily proportions of the females are not at least somewhat realistic.
- Lack of a sense of direction. Some games make it quite difficult to understand where the next quest marker is and/or who to talk to, and where, to advance the plot and narrative.

Overall, these are just my two cents on the matter. Albeit, development is always a tricky area to pull off well, and chances are, you are not going to be able to satisfy everyone equally with some of the features and designs you implement in the game. But, at the very least, there are some areas wherein the broader community can reach a general consensus as to what they find reasonably sufficient to include/exclude.

It can be interesting to see how many different viewpoints we all have. Your minuses are some of my big plusses. For me, a map of some sort is HUGELY important. I absolutely want to be able to click from place to place to do what I need to and choose who I interact with next and when. Take that way, and it feels a lot less like a game and more like a comic where I don't have any control.

And for me, porn games are for fantasy and don't need to be realistic. I don't watch "regular" women when I watch real porn. I watch ones with huge tits, big asses and full, strong legs. And until the point where it gets comically silly (I do have my limits), I absolutely want a lot of the girls in the game to be built like that too. There have been a number of games on here I might have otherwise enjoyed, but I just wasn't attracted to the thin models that they used. Their choice of course, their game, and clearly there's a market for it. But just not for me. As you said, boner killer, but in the opposite direction.

 

[Penumbral Evanescence]

It can be interesting to see how many different viewpoints we all have. Your minuses are some of my big plusses. For me, a map of some sort is HUGELY important. I absolutely want to be able to click from place to place to do what I need to and choose who I interact with next and when. Take that way, and it feels a lot less like a game and more like a comic where I don't have any control.

And for me, porn games are for fantasy and don't need to be realistic. I don't watch "regular" women when I watch real porn. I watch ones with huge tits, big asses and full, strong legs. And until the point where it gets comically silly (I do have my limits), I absolutely want a lot of the girls in the game to be built like that too. There have been a number of games on here I might have otherwise enjoyed, but I just wasn't attracted to the thin models that they used. Their choice of course, their game, and clearly there's a market for it. But just not for me. As you said, boner killer, but in the opposite direction.

Yes! Indeed. I really like all of our own unique viewpoints being discussed here in a very open and expressive manner. Always a real treat to see what other people's opinions consist of, and how our respective opinions might differ from one anothers.

Having said that, I do agree with your first point about the map. No doubt some form of a map is indeed an important element within a game. However, it moreso has to do with how well the Devs effectively allocate the amount of space distributed across the map itself. So as to not overwhelm the player with too much inconsistent and bland landscapes, that doesn't exactly inspire adventure and reward exploration. As an example, for me personally, I find that Seeds of Chaos had done quite an effective job at formulating the overarching map system they had integrated as per their gameplay options.

To your second point, I do find it" "sexually stimulating" if the proportions sort of mix both thin/heavily built and/or robust character models. Too little, and too much, seems to put off a large number of players in the market from what I have seen/read. So balance is key, I believe. It is just that if it gets too (as you had mentioned) comically silly is where I draw the line. An example (and I am not trying to throw shades here by saying so), Karryn's Prison is an example wherein I think that the FMC's tits were drawn a bit too big for my personal liking. Of course it is meant to be fantasy, but a certain small degree of realism is something I personally like to see integrated within certain female character models. But in any event, to each their own, right?

 

[Cryswar]

How do you bypass this if there are a lot of characters involved, with only say a month to update? Render times and set building are some of the most time intensive things with the 'modern/current' way of creating these smutnovels so it's all about having to dedicate time to specific things - that or everyone gets a small bit of something and that isnt enough?

My complaint was about having to grind points with a girl I dislike to progress with a girl I like. I don't mind if the dev spends a month working on a girl I don't like as long as I can ignore it, I just don't want to be forced into it to progress another girl.

I don't think there is a universally correct answer to your question, and I certainly won't pretend to know it if there is. If I had to posit a guess, I think either way can work; spending that month on just one girl will give a huge chunk of content for her, which her fans will love, but spreading out the love is more.

For my game I try to do a mix; each update tends to focus more on one character arc (ex. a romance start) and then have smaller amounts of content for other girls. Mostly seems to do OK. I'm not a great dev by any stretch of the imagination though.

 

[Multy2k]

Annoying:

Story
- pointless guro. If done tastefully, guro can add depth to the story (good ones; Dies Irae, Tsukihime, Kara no Shoujo)
- all those shy harem protagonist or all those weak NTR significant others

Mechanics
- RNG based item drop mechanics at times when the RNG goddess hates me (that panties)
- RNG based level up in a difficult battle system (ex; Kamidori)

Graphics
- graphics with heavy resources needed to render (recent Illusion games)

Enjoying:

Story
- unique or engaging (Wizards Climber, Fate)
- good music (Deardrops, Clannad, Sengoku Rance)

Mechanics
- Trainer or management or strategy, anything that can make me use my brains

Graphics
- The best body proportion (not too big, not too small). Old ones like Sagara Family has them good body proportions

 

[Stalker Seducer]

Question is simple really,

What aspects of these games do you find annoying and what are some aspects that you enjoy the most?

Such as;
- In RPGM games there's a lot of travel time
- Going in and out of a certain areas to 'farm talismans' for money.
- Maybe a game has too much management and not enough pay off, too much reading?
- Typical tropes of dumb young sister, older punk sister
+ Games that have consequence to your actions
+ Games that utilize great camera work and render detail
- Button mashing 'events' that require you to keep a meter high to get 'stealth'

Very interested to see your thoughts, maybe we can build a collective list.

I fucking hate when dating sims or any VN has fake choices, i want choices in my game this isn't a book and i want them to actually effect either the story as a whole or a characters opinion of me.

Also i hate when Yandere games don't have a happy ending with the girl you can only be killed by her or escape her.

I like when games have a lot of choice in your actions and a lot of unique endings, also when a game has a lot of "you died" or game over endings that actually take some thinking/skill to avoid.

 

[S3vatari0n]

I like when games have a lot of choice in your actions and a lot of unique endings, also when a game has a lot of "you died" or game over endings that actually take some thinking/skill to avoid.

To add onto this part, I'd also go on to say the skill/thinking needs to follow some sort of consistent logic that the game doesn't go out of its way to try to hide from you, even if it's logic unique to that game world, not some batshit insanity the author/dev pulled out of their ass for that one section/choice.

 

[Stalker Seducer]

To add onto this part, I'd also go on to say the skill/thinking needs to follow some sort of consistent logic that the game doesn't go out of its way to try to hide from you, even if it's logic unique to that game world, not some batshit insanity the author/dev pulled out of their ass for that one section/choice.

That is true, point and click puzzle game logic can really get out of hand in normal games much less hentai.

 

[Gunizz]

I don't like games that exclude NTR from the start, or more precisely, that tell you there won't be any, spoiling the plot. Not because I look for NTR (I'm quite indifferent to it, I only judge the story overall, but most NTR centred games are badly made), but I like the struggle to avoid it. To me, it's like playing a shooter game where you know you cannot get killed, no matter how bad you play, you never face the worst consequence. It does not look engaging to me but I know that most people are very sensible and emotional to this subject, so developers prefer to avoid it and spoil the plot since the beginning.
I wish there was more surprise effect in VN, like in films or books.

Another thing I miss in most games is the plot path explorer, so when replaying you can see if you have seen all the paths/scenes or you missed something. Galleries can achieve this, but I've seen a game where there is also a map of the tree of choices and it was really helpful (uneplored paths were coloured differently, without spoilers).

 

[SecretSal]

My pet peeve is a really trivial one, but since I run into it in so many games, it's a frequently recurring annoyance. I don't like when games use Renpy's default text box that covers up a chunk of the screen. Since most devs render their screens like the text box doesn't exist, considerable detail gets covered up most of the time. It's an easy enough fix, but it's still annoying to start a game and immediately go "Ah fuck. Penfold patch time."

Enjoyable things ... well, good sex scenes. Seems obvious, but I don't mean just the render and animation quality. Everything from the buildup, the crescendo, the expressions, the dialog between the characters, the humour, the occasional bit of awkwardness. Really satisfying when a dev can nail all those elements and make a memorable scene.

 

[woody554]

"My name is John McShlong. I came back home after graduating from the Technical Institute of Sleep Moslesting. This is my mom. She is a lovely woman. She has huge tits and is a gentle woman. When I was young, my dad left to get some milk and never came back. We had a hard time. I had to be the man of the house at a young age. My cock grew 12 inches because of all the responsibilities like doing chores. And this is my older sister. She is a bitch. Bla bla bla." It's a pretty clear sign of a poor writer.

lol. that's so true. bonus points if tits are described with a bra size instead of words. "She has 36 DD tits and is 5'2. big sister is 32 E and 5'7, and the totally 18yo little sister is 24 A." when I see numbers I just skip a few paragraphs trying my best to actively forget the cringe it just gave me.

I wanna add though that I don't mind the story itself at all, just the way it's presented.

 

[WIRProductions]

Negatives:
Corruption that is too slow. I understand for some stories the girl can't be sucking cock at the first conversation, but farming corruption is overly tedious.

Speaking of farming corruption, story mechanics where not seeing the porn because I missed the one-shot only corruption opportunities. I'd rather not have to use a guide just to see the entire point of the game.

Positives:
Games where the H-scenes are not missable, can be finished post-game, or the entire set gets unlocked automatically by completing the game.

Artwork. Its half the battle. Some games I've played specifically because one of the female character's artwork just checked the right boxes.

Good stories. I admit half of the time I play the game for the H-scenes but the world around it can make a jerk-off game into something I legit enjoy playing without the porn. It doesn't have to be a triple-A level, mind wowing story, it just needs to make sense and appeal to me.

 

[UltraSymmetrical]

annoying:
-when your game doesn't work. um, players can't enjoy your game if it freezes, items are stuck in midair, enemies glitch through the floor, hit detection is non-existent

enjoyable:
-a game that has attention to detail, good audio, investing time to the story, characters & design of its level and keeps the player immersed & doesn't pull them out of the experience
I can put up with small quirks or a difficult challenge or long load times, etc if the developer/creator took their time to complete said game.

 

[IvoryOwl]

Negatives (when it comes to porn):
- Combat (It's usually boring and just gets in the way of the good bits.)
- Sandbox (grinding stats, repeating tasks and having to figure out the specific time and place to unlock the next stage of the story/quest/path. Like above, it gets in the way of the good stuff.)
- Management (don't have the patience to manage stats/finances in porn games.)
- Stereotypical/boring/shallow protagonists/NPCs and overused tropes/personalities (male or female, doesn't matter)
- Early bad endings (hate these so much... why give people fake options that lead nowhere?)
- Obscene body proportions (not a fan of XXXXXXL sized boobs and dicks...)
- Interesting/promising/unique games getting abandoned because they were too niche, whereas overused/generic game formulas gets all the money and attention in the world...

Positives (when it comes to porn):
+ Consequential choices
+ Character creation (optional)
+ Interesting, thought-out story and lore
+ Professional attitude and approach towards development (developers)

 

[Pyonbunu]

Terrible netcode in Fighting games..

 

[Sharingan33]

In short i hate:

1) Sandbox gameplay without a guide: when it's required a "trigger" to progress the game but you can't find it because the developer it's too lazy to write a hint section and you get stuck; it all becomes very frustrating.

2) The insane grinding required in some games but luckly i know how to cheat my way to progress the story faster.

3) The choices in Visual Novel that all point to the same result; basically they're fake choices, why bother to put them there in the first place?

4) Game breaking updates: that's insanely common, when you load your previous savegame and it doesn't work or the game crashes (Error message: Couldn't find a place to stop rolling back).

5) Lazy developers who tell excuses to justify their always missed deadline.

6) Games with HUGE potential abandoned because the developer has no will to continue working in their project.

 

[Banality]

Life is too bitter, and I'm in a good mood so I'll only post what I enjoy in porn games:

1. Breeding. I love games where my MC can impregnate every girl he meets.
2. Incest, especially mom.
3. A young boy/man acting as the Man of the House.
4. The holy combination of the three bullets above: a young man takes over his family and impregnates every girl in the family.
5. "Loli" games. Of course they are all over 18!
6. Playing a "Sexual Asshole: Blackmail, abuse, rape and generally act as a complete bastard. No live girls were harmed during the rendering of this game.
7. Sleep sex: completely silly and unrealistic, yet super hot.
8. Silly groping: oh, you want help with Yoga? Sure mom! How about suntan, let me give you a hand with that!

That is convenient. You just listed all the things i HATE THE MOST.
Plus i hate it when the Tags are misleading. For example: If you like Futas (i hate that too) search on DL-site for "lesbian" ..... you get a shitload of trannies but maybe 0.02% of actual lesbian stuff. In general i hate the whole Pedo-trash. There is such great artwork out there but it is ruined by disgusting preteen-boys and girls.
What i enjoy is actual gameplay with real choices.... for example to avoid certain "sexpartners" without consequences.

 

[Tristin4857]

Things that i have come to DISLIKE most in games:

Penis sizes and shapes: why do game makers think I want to play a guy who has a weird shaped penis, or one that clearly would never fit into a girl without causing massive damage?

Tit sizes: I hate seeing stories where all the girls have the same tit size, or even worse - big, bigger and biggest. give a variety from flat to large with different experiences with both, and dont make the itty bitty titty girls either muscular or trap. many women have small tits and are sexy as hell.

Underwear: dont make my female character ware underwear at the start of the game just because one of her stats is not high enough. many innocent people do like to go underwearless for comfort reasons.

Dreams and Memories: A dream sequence with a sex scene in it does not count as a sex scene, its not actually relevant to the story, so dont put it in. I don't care about what happened to the mc before i started playing, you gave me a quick summary in the prolog and thats enough.

Daily recaps: in visual novels, at the end of the day you often find the mc laying in bed recapping quickly everything that just happened. We know what just happened, we just read through it, dont need a recap every ten mins. I skip through these so they are a waste of your time and a waste of my pc's memory.

Futa in male mc games: Why do you put a futa in a story that has a male mc when the futa's penis is almost irrelevant? most games with this (i think ive seen one exception), the mc will be surprised by the futa's penis, will touch it, sometimes puts it in there mouth for a min, and then the mc fucks the futa in the ass, in which case such swap the futa for a female. Have the futa fuck the mc, it only seems right.

Game controls: please make all dialog progress by pressing spacebar, i dont know why you havent. Also, in visual novels, specially ones with choices, please make it so you can always scroll the dialog back. I usually know what option i am going to chose, but like to read the reactions to every choice before i progress.