What are the worst post-release changes that you've seen?

I'm noticing a disturbing trend lately, with games being changed through online patches due to something that the developers didn't intend, or developers altering intended features due to a change of opinion.

The problem is that intentions and current opinions don't matter with any other product. You pay your money, you get what you purchased, and you can count on it staying that way. If I own Return of the Jedi on laser disc, George Lucas isn't going to sneak into my house, break my disc, and replace it with a new ending that goes along with his prequels. But increasingly, that's not how the game industry works anymore. Lately, this can even be true for single player / co-op games.

Perhaps the best example of the worst changes I can think of belongs to Battlefield 3. Aside from the absolute mountain of balance adjustments made to weapons, vehicles, equipment and just about any other aspect of gameplay, there were two huge changes that personally ruined the game for me, and basically made me swear off the series.

When the game was first released, the enemy spotting feature could have been argued to be a little too powerful. You could hammer on the "mark enemy" button throughout the game--which would put enemies on every player's mini-map--and it would end up marking enemies who you couldn't even see yet, or who even might be hiding in bushes. If one team was marking enemies and another wasn't, the first team would have a huge advantage.

I didn't mind this, but I guess the developers did, because three or four months after release, they made a rather large adjustment to the feature. They broke it. They reduced the range, but in doing so they somehow also destroyed the reliability of the feature. Many times, there would be an enemy 10 feet in front of me with nothing blocking my view, I would hammer on the mark enemy button, and nothing would happen. They broke the feature, and even after several updates later, they never bothered to fix it. I quit playing several months later--soon after the first DLC expansion--and it still hadn't been fixed. I'm not even sure if it's fixed now.

Then came the private console servers. When I bought the game, everyone used the publisher's servers. But after several months, these previously reliable servers had been rented out to people who wanted to play one map over and over with a ridiculously inflated score limit, that often turned simple matches into grueling affairs that could last for hours. This went on for weeks, and even after it improved, it was still never as easy again to find a standard game with default settings.

I could name other games and other examples, but I'd like to hear about some of your experiences. Which post-release game changes upset you most?

Gears 1 recieved a patch that got rid of the weapon slide glitch. Obviously it was the downfall of the series' multiplayer.

Star Wars Galaxies was ruined by the NGE patch. People claim it was the CU, but at least that was still truer to the original game. But the NGE was such a bad fucking idea that people just straight up left after that. The changed everything that SWG was supposed to be thanks to WoW's success.

In the later end of life for Earth and Beyond they made a change that completely broke the economy of the game. What used to take half a min to a min to mine a resource from an asteroid now took three to four min. They basically tripled the time it took to collect resources and made the explorer class that much worse to play as and in turn made the trader class that less unappealing because it was more expensive and harder to find resources to craft with.

The worst example however is when they just made an entire new game in Star Wars Galaxies. I never had as much fun with an MMO and been so terrible at it as I was with SWG, but before they "fixed" the game it was such an enthralling world. I have never felt like I was living in a world like I was in that game.

Terraria was updated to make it more challenging which just sucked the fun out of that game for me. I played that game to relax and forcing me to relearn how to play the game before being unable to do a bunch of things I used to enjoy pushed me away from that game completely.

I know they meant well but all of the add on stuff for Burnout Paradise really took away from the game for me, which is a shame because it's my favourite game of this gen. I liked it more when it had no main menus etc. and no stupid DLC cars. Although the modes they added were okay. They also repeated this trick with their version of Need For Speed: Most Wanted which I just bought. Incredibly frustrating driving round and every car I find at jack spots are DLC cars, its just not fun.

I would argue the lighting change ruined that game more. Orb of Light used to be more than enough light now it's like "eh that shadow has a yellow hue"

Yup x 100.

@jams: Did they add Evas to the game??

Brimstone nerfing in The Binding of Isaac ;__;

ok, I understand why they did it, but original brimstone was just so awesome.

I don't have one of these that I feel strongly about, but the worst one I was personally a party to was the change made to druids over the course of WoW. I don't really play anymore except for an hour here or there, and I haven't played seriously for years, but druid was my first (and was always my favorite) class in WoW. The way talents were originally built, you put a few points into everything and you had an all purpose character who could heal through most 5-mans, could off-tank when an add got loose, and could even do a little damage with dots while that was all going on. (damage was the weakest aspect of this build)

Nowadays, spreading your points across different skills isn't even an option. I realize that the structure of raids make specialization a must, but I never got much joy out of playing a druid once they began to sap out the viability of the class as a hybrid option instead of a catchall class for a bunch of separate, specialized options.

I haven't touched Minecraft since they added all the survival elements. So fucking dumb.

Oh absolutely this. It's kinda insane how much they ruined that game. Before it, being a Jedi meant you were nuts and super powerful. After? Well it meant nothing.

You could just watch as they ruined the game patch after patch. Not even counting all the jedi crap. Though I do believe SWG was fundamentally broken from the start with the doctor buffs. That's why the CU was not as bad as the NGE (in my opinion). They could have handled it so much better. I just wish they never went with the Star Wars license because we wouldn't be talking about SWG in the past tense and it'd probably still be pre-CU.

I remember playing zombies on Cod Black Ops, there was a funny glitch so you could stand on a table the entire round. They patched that shit, but Call of Duty sucks anyway in my opinion.

The awful final boss and ending they added to Minecraft was a nail in the coffin for me falling out of love with that game.

@lackingsaint: It was dumb but it did not change any of the existing stuff so i don't understand why that would make you dislike the game.

@familyphotoshoot: I agree with that sentiment. I do go back and play it, but it certainly is not as engrossing as it used to be. I just have this thing where I feel bad (this is going to sound silly) killing animals for their meat and that is the easiest way to get food in Minecraft so I feel like I have to do it. Before I just kind of lived in communion with the beasts and sheared them when I needed wool or followed them around when I needed eggs or milk. It was part of my game playing experience.

I can grow wheat of course, but that takes time and animals will get to it if you aren't careful. (I made a greenhouse so that wasn't a problem really) In the end I just kind of decided that it was a minor annoyance that really hampered my desire to play the game in a fundamental way.

I'd say Minecraft, it became really dumb real quick when it lost it's vision.

Star Wars Galaxies. Yikes.

SW:G after its original release to just after the light speed expansion is, in my mind, the best MMO ever made by far. Possibly the best game ever made. I would have to write essays to explain why. Never in the history of gaming has a game gone from near-perfection to utter dog shit in a 6 month series of updates like SW:G did. Just thinking about it pisses me off. I hope SWG: EMU catches traction.

Pretty much any fighting game where people started whining about stuff being "broken" on day 1, before anyone really had a chance to figure out how the game works... then because patches take time to implement, three weeks later when everyone's already stopped giving a damn, they patch out what is no longer considered "broken".

Backwards-flying dragons in Skyrim. By far and away the most hilariously terrible post-release patch ever.

Though I played after the fact anyway, I think some people were a little miffed that Dead Island made your kick attack use up a little stamina.

europa universalis 3: Divine wind's changes to Japan, China (oh god ming is so terrible) and the mongol hordes were all kinda terrible.

I mean, it has some good stuff, but man

So they made survival elements a requirement? That sounds awful.

And yes, as silly as it may sound--especially seeing as I'm far from a vegetarian--I also dislike killing animals in video games, even though I don't mind killing humans. Far Cry 3 wasn't too bad, because most animals were trying to kill me, but I always feel a little uncomfortable when it comes to virtually killing defenseless animals for no good reason.

A similar quirk I have is when playing GTA or any other sandbox type game, I can save my game and then go on a violent killing spree, as long as I turn my console off afterward without saving again.

Not to focus the entire post on off-topic discussion, Mass Effect 3 multiplayer--which is co-op only--nerfed the hell out of the most powerful weapon and class setups, and even remade a large portion of an entire level's geometry, when it was discovered that it could be exploited to provide an easily defendable position that could be used to earn some easy credits.

Again, this was in a co-op only game, where you could buy random upgrade packs with credits earned in-game, or you could spend real life money if you didn't think you were earning credits fast enough. I think you can see why the developers did everything in their power to limit and devalue the most successful and reliable characters, weapons, and strategies.

I was just about to mention this. This actually kinda broke the game for me, I didn't enjoy it as much after they changed that

My vote goes for Gears 3. I far preferred the game at launch then after all the patches were implemented. They not only broke the balance of the game but it also got super laggy making it rather unpleasant to play.

At some point Dark Souls was patched to say "Victory Achieved" instead of "YOU DEFEATED," but then they patched it back to the way it should. At least on PS3. The last time I saw someone playing on 360 it still said "Victory Achieved."

Not necessarily something that directly affects me per se, but I think that Dominion mode in League of Legends is sort of dumb and unnecessary... though I guess it's a decent way for new players to get a handle on the characters without having to do any of that pesky "Laning" business. As I said, not something that affects the core game in any way, but still something I think the game could do without.

I imagine Star Wars Galaxies is the most correct answer, though I can't vouch for it personally, other than listening to the rage of people who liked the game before the NGE ruined everything.

@spaceinsomniac: I think you can turn it off server side. My husband and I ran a 2 person server and managed to successfully turn it off during one play session. But then we had issues with turning it off after that. We did what we thought would work and didn't have luck.

Even if you turn off the monsters and play on peaceful, the food was still an issue. You would think choosing peaceful would turn it off, but it didn't. Anyway, I consider it more of a minor annoyance, but it still impacted play in a big way for me at least.

And I feel the same way about sandbox games. For the longest time I only needed 2 achievements in Skyrim. One was the pickpocketing achievement (50 pockets picked and 50 locks picked) and one was for getting 1000 gold bounty in every town. I knew that if I wanted an S rank I would have to do them, but I just couldn't bring myself to outright murder and plunder just to get the achievements. I just like playing my games as a really good, kind of boring do-gooder. It is fun to cause havok, but I wouldn't want to save my game like that.

Oh, motherfucking mother of God. You are completely right. I've been playing Dark Souls: PtDE on PC after letting it "rest" for some months and I was noticing that something was... off. "Retrival"? "Humanity Restored"? "Victory Achieved"? Weird. But I wrote it off as just me not remembering the game the way it used to be. But now that you mentioned it... yes, they totally changed those lines to a less awkward English.

And it fucking sucks.

SWG has to be the right answer. Dat NGE.

There are very few patches in any game that I haven't been able to adapt to, but nerfing bio grenades in Eol made me sad, despite how lame it was to tranq and kill someone before they could move again. Oh yeah, and the disruptor nerf in TP.

OH YEAH, something someone might actually recognize, the Massive Air nerf in Super Monday Night Combat suuuuuucked especially since I main(ed) Leo.

Oh and at one point (years ago) in WoW Blizzard (unintentionally) changed the sound effect for Cheap Shot for a few patches which fucked me up a bit since I rely pretty heavily on sound cues in PvP.

@arbitrarywater: Dominion is the only way I will play LoL. Whenever I end up in a conversation with someone who wants to talk about League of Legends, I tell them that I think dominion is a better game than the traditional moba. They generally make a snide remark and then the conversation is over - fair trade for me, I think.

You're right. That's pretty much exactly what I'd do in this situation.

In the case of Far Cry 3 the writer would say that you were very much meant to feel uncomfortable slaughtering all them endangered animals. For some reason or another

@familyphotoshoot:

@jadegl:

Creative Mode is a thing in Minecraft. Flying, no hunger, etc.

If you don't want that specifically, you can turn on cheats, put it on peaceful, turn off mob griefing, give yourself stacks of bread with creative and go back to survival mode.

It was sort of representative of the theme that had been present in development of the game ever since hunger and villages were introduced; taking the "free-form exploration" nature of the game out of focus in favour of adding structure which honestly I think totally went against the spirit of the game. "Unlock the last level and defeat the dragon to win!" just seems in spite of how the game felt basically all the way up to release.

And it doesn't help that the end-credits scroll itself is absolutely laughably written pseudo-philosophical rubbish.

@capum15: I know. I tried creative, it feels cheap. I don't know. Like I said, it's a small annoyance comparatively, but it really changed how much enjoyment I was getting out of it.

Yeah I would also have to say all the dumb weird RPG stuff they added to Minecraft.

As far as things I've experienced, I'll have to go with the Dead Island "fixes." I loved playing with friends when the game was still kinda broken (duplicating weapons, the Duke Boot, zombies that match the host's level), but shortly after they started patching the game, it just didn't feel the same any more.

From the way it's always sounded, though, is that Star Wars Galaxies will always be the correct answer for this question.

The transition of Team Fortress Classic to Team Fortress 1.5 was a drastic downfall to me (and probably the reason I stopped playing it after several years). It may have improved the balance, but the addition of two new valve sanctioned maps ultimately seemed to lead into the death of the 3rd party map side (which really thrived under valve's map neglect).

There were also balance changes in grenades, and limiting concussion grenade jumping abuse, that had been really fun in PUBs. E.g. Battlement to battlement jumps in 2fort (and a few really interesting skiiing tricks in the 3rd party maps).

Guild Wars 1 came to mind, mostly because of the "dude wtf?" balance changes. Then they (I assume begrudgingly) added PvE skills to try to balance the PvE vs PvP game play which would have work, but it seems like they hated the idea so much that they refuse to counterbalance the past "dude wtf" changes even with the solution right in front of them. Then the entire game took a weird turn from the no need for grind to the grind for "fame" points to make your PvE skills better. It might be better now, I have not gone back for years. Looked into GW2 for a little bit, was actually sort of excited from what they said about multiple weapon options and end of the dependent on a healer, but then it lost me when I found out about how it is kind of grindy and cumbersome build options.

I would agree with this. It was also a pain to start a new world everytime a new patch came out. Obviously you weren't forced to do so, but knowing that a bunch of new features await made it hard to resist. This actually turned me off of buying and playing "alpha" games. I realized I rather wait for the full game to come out and experience it freshly then, because I really do not care for waiting for new features to come in. By the time they arrive, I am done with the game.

I hated it when Valve put a cool-down on the melee in L4D. I was heavily into the versus mode for awhile and it really pissed me off. I mean, I understood why they did it but that little tweak made for huge changes in the way you play. After a bit I got used to playing smarter, plus not having everyone sit in a corner and melee nonstop was nice. I was also bummed when they got rid of some of the funnier glitches/exploits, like falling through the elevator in No Mercy.

Some of the BF3 changes have been bothersome in the past, too, but they were nothing I couldn't adjust to. in the end, the game plays almost the same.

probably some of the worst changes that happen in games, are in the EA NHL games, this years game when it came out, had amazing goalies and defense, people complained it was too hard to score..and 4 days later there was a patch that made everyone dumb.

I could tell you about 20 weapon nerfs in TF2 that made me sad when they happened. Tomislov, Phlog, Enforcer, all nerfed into oblivion.