Top Five Things Game Devs Do That We Hope Brings Krampus to Their Christmas

Christmas time is here, and maybe I know Santa Claus isn't real, but that doesn't stop me from hoping Krampus is. Adulthood hasn't made me bitter, what do you mean?

Well, I bring to you today my top five things I hope Krampus punishes game developers for this year! 

Pay to win

All The Bravest is a very ironic name for a notorious P2W

I'm going to be honest with you here (don't wanna get on Krampus' good side with lying, if you know what I mean) because I had to search on Google what pay to win games there were. I avoid them like one should avoid the plague as I think they are one of the worst things out there in gaming. 

All I learned from my search is that it's obviously some sort of lucrative business because one of the results was a Reddit question posed back in 2016 about the most notorious pay to win, and the first comment nominates APB Reloaded. The reddit commenter nominated the game because after killing a player that had bought a bazooka, he wasn't allowed to pick up their weapon because he hadn't paid for it. I thought maybe it would be unfair to mention it since it's been five years and some developers turn over a new leaf, but then again...

... I guess not. Yeah, I hope Krampus gets ya.

Unskippable cutscenes

We all know the pain of getting an autosave right before an unskippable cutscene and then proceeding to get kicked in the arse repeatedly by the boss. At the end of it all, we end up with more memory of the cutscene itself than the success of actually beating that one boss. In fact, some may go as far as to say that they ended up hating the game itself because the cutscene only adds to the feeling of failure. Namely, Kingdom Hearts on the Playstation 2 is up there for some of us.

We get it, Sora. You love Kairi.

Multiplayer achievements in single-player games

I may not have experienced this in a personal way yet, but I have through my wife. You see, she is obsessed with trying to 100% everything she gets her hands on, even if it means playing that one particular game for hundreds of hours as she struggles against the really grindy ones, and she's a really good sport about it! Up until she gets an achievement that involves multiplayer.

What a show off!

Now, I'm not saying that she's wrong to hate it; I'm just saying that's one way to make my wife red-faced in irritation. The very first time I remember this becoming an issue was in the re-released version of Tomb Raider from 2013, because she didn't actually get around to playing it until 2018, and the multiplayer was pretty dead by then. I don't think the developers added it with ill intentions, but it's just not okay to not remove it. Props to NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 for actually freeing us from the online achievements.

Escort quests

This. This is why I hate escort quests.

I've always been a very anxious person and I know this because looking back at my childhood I can see I would be plagued by anxiety over some missions, namely timed objectives and freaking escort quests.

It got to the point in which I would just straight-up avoid playing the game for days on end, until the obsession with the game would get the best of me, or I'd ask one of my brothers to do it for me instead (even my younger one who was surprisingly courageous). 

My first encounter with this type of mission was in Fable on the Xbox. I hated it so bad because the people kept freaking dying, which would pile up more anxiety for me at the prospect of more of these types of missions; it only got worse as I discovered that it wasn't just a Fable thing. Even in World of Warcraft I had to deal with it; thankfully, at that point I had become apathetic to death.

And maybe it wouldn't even have been such a dreadful thing if it wasn't for the fact that the NPC you're escorting always takes the worst path in human existence. 

And on that note...

Not syncing our walking speed with NPCs

If Red Dead Redemption can get it right, why can't you?

Admittedly this one is a little less bad, but it's still bad! One of the easiest ways to make me lose my attention is forcing me to keep up with the NPC's walking speed by doing strange maneuvers around them whilst they tell me about the latest bandit raid that destroyed their home.

Seriously, how difficult is it to make everyone walk at the same speed? This is something my wife and I have been pointing out and moaning about since we were children. Do you have any idea how long that's been? Okay, actually, don't think too hard about that.

And that's it for the top five things I hope developers get punished for this Christmas! Did I miss any that are particularly irritating to you?