Little things that annoy the hell out of you

[Sumez]

If you have a setup for playing Neo Geo games, and the controller you're using doesn't conform to the standard used by arcade games in general, you're going to have trouble with every single Neo Geo game. Seems to me like it's easier to just switch out two spade terminals in your controller/control panel, than to complain about 150 games each not having remapping options individually.

Again, I'm not opposed to the customization options, I just think it's fair that you shouldn't expect it in a Neo Geo game.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Man, the only valid reason for a game's controls to not be configurable is laziness. It is, in short, bad design.

This. I remapped the utter crap out of games with defaults I simply couldn't wrap my head around (Sekiro, I much prefer blocking on the left face button). It's also essential to have robust control remapping for people who are playing with an alternate control scheme (having to play one-handed, etc). Plenty of games have set the bar very high, with games such as Raiden Fighters Aces and Sekiro being at the top of their class in terms of how customization is done.

As a side note, I'm very mildly irked by Hamster's console port of Halley's Comet. The control allow you to map autofire at 15 hz, 20 hz, and 30 hz... but these are all way too fast and unnecessary. Because of how strong the weapons are per hit, it's actually better to have it at something a touch slower like 10 hz to have more space between shots, particularly when at low shot power. Otherwise 15 hz is fine when maxed out. It's nice being able to hear the SFX that MAME can't emulate properly.

[null1024]

Laziness is absolutely the best reason, but if the game you're making is essentially a 3 button arcade game, designed to play just like an arcade game, and even released on actual arcade hardware, I'd still say it's absolutely justifiable. Ain't never seen an MVS game with a button config menu.

If I boot a game up in AES mode and it's made after 1995, I damn well expect button config.

[Specineff]

When you ask they leave something out of food you're ordering, and it's f-ing precisely what they slather it with. I understand a lot of people appreciate the flavor that sour cream brings to an item, but I prefer not to taste like someone blew their load onto a taco shell when I bite it.

[null1024]

Youtube's auto CC feature deciding that the language in a video is not English, but rather <some other language>, despite that being 100% not the case.
Maybe some of this is on the part of the uploader [I just checked, and you can set a video's language instead of just letting Youtube guess], but it still sucks.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

There's some shmup on Steam called "Moon Dancer" and it uses traced artwork of GG Aleste for its main character portrait.

[Mortificator]

Desktop applications that put their minimize / resize / close buttons in odd offsets, so muscle memory screw me over

[drauch]

I hate that everyone wants to shit at the same time as me at work.

I also hate when the seat is warm after some degenerate has been defiling it. I refuse to sit on it.

Let me shit in peace. Thanks for reading.

[TransatlanticFoe]

I guess be grateful it's warm because it's had an arse on it, rather than being pissed over. One thing I do not miss from office working is the sheer number of men who don't know the toilet seat can be lifted. And also that the toilet has a flush

[null1024]

At some point in the last week or two, Chrome broke how image downscaling works.
Downscaled images now look like they were resampled to a very low resolution and then upscaled.

[Udderdude]

I noticed that too, and I hate it. Thanks, Google.

[BulletMagnet]

The new ad infusion on Hotmail/MSN - it appears right at the top of your inbox and at a glance looks like an email, so even if you know to avoid it you still end up clicking on them out of habit and feeling like a sucker each and every time.

Working around the house and 95% of me is sweating but my feet are still freakin' cold.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Websites that disable video controls on MP4 videos arbitrarily. Youtube is now doing this with a category called "Shorts". Videos uploaded this way can't be controlled by the watcher, so if there's a couple seconds in the middle you want to examine you have to rewatch the entire thing. Imgur does this too for some videos, but not others (although there you can at least use a desktop browser and right click to get a "Show Video Controls" button, though the controls disappear after you use the slider). Instagram never offers video controls on their videos.

It's at the point where you basically need plugins to fix user-hostile site design. Ugh.

[null1024]

Youtube Shorts are terrible and even channels I know who do the whole vertical format short video thing aren't actually setting them as shorts because the experience is so bad.

Bit miffed the misery has finally made it to desktop. VERY glad that yt-dlp exists [youtube-dl is dead and no longer gets updates].

[Udderdude]

YT Shorts clog up my subscription feed and I want them to die.

[emphatic]

YT Shorts clog up my subscription feed and I want them to die.

They're not as terrible as the Premiere-videos you can't even watch until... when exactly?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

In case you're not aware (not sure if you have a YT channel), "Premieres" are a fancy term for withholding the video upload until a specific date and time. The claimed purpose is so that it can be watched with live chat. It's... kinda bad, and you can get more engaging commentary and viewer participation from the normal comment section since it's a lot harder to engage with the live chat if it's weeks after the video upload.

I'm sure it's extra annoying if you see someone upload a video you want to watch but they've set the "Premiere" date to be a month away.

[orange808]

Live chat often seems to encourage better overall behavior in the conversation. It also gives experts and hosts the ability to immediately embarrass and disarm trolls.

For instance, I was looking over comments on a nice new piece of Genesis software the other day; the comments are an absolute train wreck of bonkers shit. Ignorant and entitled children that apparently don't know the definition of "shovelware" and obviously have no appreciation or knowledge of what went into making the game--and (of course) no acknowledgement for the fact that the game is actually pretty good. The fact that there are any new games worth playing from hobby devs (software capable of legitimately standing alongside professional releases from the console's heyday) is remarkable all by itself. There's also the stupid rumour that mythical (non-existent) "modern tools" somehow made game design and programming an easy paint-by-numbers exercise.

Entitled little pricks. That goes double because most of them are going to download a stolen copy for free (for faux "preservation" purposes, no doubt). What more could you possibly ask for?

[Udderdude]

So, uh .. what game was it? lol

[null1024]

Analog stick drift. My Series S/X controller, despite being less than a year old, now has the right stick occasionally drifting upwards to full tilt despite it physically being in neutral position.

I barely play anything that uses the right stick, but boy, is this annoying. I've never had this happen before with other controllers. I've had sticks die and just report being tilted up+left forever, I've had sticks with awful deadzone issues that don't center right, etc, but I've never had this issue where the stick will just act like it's being actively pushed around despite no input being applied.

It's a real shame, because like, it has otherwise been one of the nicest controllers I've used. It's comfortable, it's responsive, and now I have to tape the stick to the down position so it doesn't interfere when I'm playing Guilty Gear [right stick up shows the user ID number over the hud, which is VERY distracting].

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It should be considered an embarrassment that consoles with analog sticks don't have deadzone adjustment tools built into the OS. There's so many old controllers people have that would be perfectly usable again by simply increasing the deadzone a bit on the stick that's drifting. The same goes for games that are still getting released without robust button remapping options. I find there's a lot of stuff I play where the deadzone is way too small by default a lot of the time and it causes me concern about drift inputs. Utilities that address this for PC games are a godsend (Steam allows you to adjust deadzone size for their games in their controller interface).

It's not like it has to be complicated. Even a % slider bar that lets you adjust deadzone size in a circular shape works wonders.

[Udderdude]

They want you to buy a new one. lol

[orange808]

Most likely not supported because users aren't very smart and it's more trouble to support. The computer and Steam universe is defined by a wide open atmosphere, support is known to be limited, and many hardcore gamers are hunting mods/tweaks from day one. From the days of editing the memory config and autoexec to now, PC gaming has always been a somewhat obtuse "hands on" chore.

On a console, users and vendors seem to agree on higher overall expectations. So, if some dumbass digs into the menu and changes the deadzone settings, support probably gets a nutty phone call about a "broken" controller. It's just one more thing to consider and explain.

If I had to guess, it's not there because users don't know or care about things like deadzone. In my younger days, I honestly would have believed that vendors "underestimate" users and the feature should be there. That's only half-true. These days, I think the feature probably should be there, but people are too unpredictable/naive to provide it without additional hassle. Everyone is right.

Unfortunately, the interest hardware/console manufacturers wins out--because they are the ones that would have to deal with the stupidity of people playing around with things they don't (and often don't want to) understand.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Most likely not supported because users aren't very smart and it's more trouble to support.

I have no doubt it's some combination of laziness as well as underestimating their end users. The problem is that it's a poor reason to do so. An entire generation of PC gamers grew up with those awful joysticks for DOS games that would wobble crazily and required constant recentering. Nowadays, controllers are generally pretty solid and don't require too much tweaking for the average user. As long as you're sensible about how you position the control options (hide the advanced stuff away unless you're looking for it, make it easy to reset) it should be fairly accessible for all end users.

The Nintendo Switch is regarded as the epitome of user friendly for instance, but it actually has robust recalibration tools. A friend of mine was complaining he'd need to replace his Joycons due to drifting, but after guiding him to the recalibration function the analog stick was working as normal. Sure, it wasn't easy for him to find, but the instructions on screen were easy to follow once he got there.

The Switch also has button remapping which allows you to remap buttons for use in all software including the interface. The remapping isn't perfect and isn't a good substitute to in-game remapping due to various reasons like not working with all third party controllers, but it's better than nothing. It also sensibly reminds you you're using custom mappings and asks if you want to reset your mappings any time the console is woken up from sleep mode, preventing another user from getting confused if a family member had remapped the controls.

It's a good example that it's possible to add these kinds of advanced quality of life features without making it too confusing to use for the average end user. And with the internet making tutorials on this sort of thing more widely accessible, there's no reason not to include them and educate users on how they work. There's way more disadvantages to not offering stuff like this. If the Switch can do it and still be widely regarded as user friendly then surely others can too.

[emphatic]

In case you're not aware (not sure if you have a YT channel), "Premieres" are a fancy term for withholding the video upload until a specific date and time. The claimed purpose is so that it can be watched with live chat. It's... kinda bad, and you can get more engaging commentary and viewer participation from the normal comment section since it's a lot harder to engage with the live chat if it's weeks after the video upload.

I'm sure it's extra annoying if you see someone upload a video you want to watch but they've set the "Premiere" date to be a month away.

I have my Youtube set to Swedish, so it's called Premiär here, not sure what it says in English on the overlay. It messes up the flow of your "watch later" playlist though, as it just shows dead air.

[Ed Oscuro]

Some pinhead at TechRadar wrote an entire article about the "existential nightmare" of CRT gaming. Skimmed through it but I counted two issues the guy faced: 1) finding the SCART cables 2) finding a remote to switch over the channel. I dunno, my existential dread is understanding that people like this get paid lots of money to write articles that we're going to be seeing for the rest of our lives...

[o.pwuaioc]

Some pinhead at TechRadar wrote an entire article about the "existential nightmare" of CRT gaming. Skimmed through it but I counted two issues the guy faced: 1) finding the SCART cables 2) finding a remote to switch over the channel. I dunno, my existential dread is understanding that people like this get paid lots of money to write articles that we're going to be seeing for the rest of our lives...

Are you sure he gets paid lots of money? Fluff writers generally make shit.

[Ed Oscuro]

Enough money for avocado toast is too much! I'm grumpy from having read "separate power brick" listed as a negative in 'tech' reviews for too damn long already. To be fair, I don't really have anything against the author or Techradar in particular outside this specific article, but I expect more from tech sites than to be barely-disguised arbitrage plays like those "DOG BARKS AT TREE, FAKE SKELETON INSIDE! 40 PAGES" ads cluttering up the web.

There is a little bit of redemption in that the Twitter comments thread for the article got pretty roundly thrashed by critics for what is, in the end, quite a brain-dead article.

[Sumez]

To be fair, trying to fit in scart plugs at the back of a TV you can't look at while doing it is probably one of the worst experiences in life.

[Ed Oscuro]

At least you guys had the option of a keyed connector to use by feel. No such luck for the 99% of American consumers stuck with the trio of RCA jacks (and the round S-Video and RF jacks aren't great gifts to humanity either).