25 votes

Do you ever feel like glitches can actually make the games MORE entertaining?

A lot of the time people will by default mark a game being buggy as a negative, and on the one hand I do understand this. But, at the same time, some of my most memorable gaming moments will be stuff like walking entering the wasteland to find an old barrel just spinning violently on the floor. Now, obviously a GAME BREAKING bug will always destroy an experience, but if you look at a civilian floating up a wall in spider-man PS4 and you're too worried about your immersion to find humour in it, I'm sure you're very fun at parties.

21 comments

  1. [4]
    Comment deleted by author
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    1. Barskie
      Link Parent
      The community in particular is very accepting of bugs, given that DF is free and in a perpetual state of development. As a result, the community not only does not abhor bugs, but celebrates and...

      The community in particular is very accepting of bugs, given that DF is free and in a perpetual state of development. As a result, the community not only does not abhor bugs, but celebrates and immortalizes them, oftentimes long after they've been fixed (eg. catsplosions, drunk cats, carp). The old DF quote being "It's not a bug, it's a feature".

      As an example, there was a recent-ish bug where settlements were being populated with thousands of horses. When you took an adventurer to that area, the sheer number of horses spawned would lag the game.

      Bugs from Normal Games: "The game stutters for six seconds before crashing."
      Bugs from Broken Games: "The lighting is weird and the characters have no faces."
      Bugs from Dwarf Fortress: "The horses outnumber us. I have seen settlements with a thousand horses to a man. I have seen them in the deepest caverns. They are everywhere. Liberate te ex equus."

      10 votes
    2. [2]
      Kiloku
      Link Parent
      Catsplosions have been mitigated in the last few years. But there was a new cat related emergent feature that was really interesting: The cats were cleaning themselves after walking around on...

      Catsplosions have been mitigated in the last few years. But there was a new cat related emergent feature that was really interesting:

      The cats were cleaning themselves after walking around on spilled alcohol. But since the game treated each lick as drinking a full dose, cats started dying of alcohol poisoning.
      Toady later fixed it, though

      6 votes
      1. Diff
        Link Parent
        That's what the video about cats vomiting to death is explaining.

        That's what the video about cats vomiting to death is explaining.

        5 votes
  2. [2]
    Diff
    (edited )
    Link
    Depends on the type. There's glitches that enable you to do new things, those are great fun. Glitches that let you crack the face of the world open and let you peek inside, those can be cool too....

    Depends on the type. There's glitches that enable you to do new things, those are great fun. Glitches that let you crack the face of the world open and let you peek inside, those can be cool too. Glitches that get in the way of normal gameplay suck though.

    15 votes
    1. thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      Of course. Nothing DESTROYS my day like losing everything a video game, and nothing can instantly inflict a rage in me like a glitch preventing me from continuing a game or doing something the way...

      Of course. Nothing DESTROYS my day like losing everything a video game, and nothing can instantly inflict a rage in me like a glitch preventing me from continuing a game or doing something the way I want.

      4 votes
  3. [3]
    NoidedWizard
    Link
    A lot of speed runs require glitches. Speed runs of games are so fun to watch because of the glitches, just because of the great lengths communities will go to discover glitches they can abuse to...

    A lot of speed runs require glitches. Speed runs of games are so fun to watch because of the glitches, just because of the great lengths communities will go to discover glitches they can abuse to save a few seconds.

    13 votes
    1. Spiraler
      Link Parent
      I think speedruns in this sense are one way to enjoy a game both as a spectator and a player. I can say with certainty that the game I've put the most time into speedrunning would not be nearly as...

      I think speedruns in this sense are one way to enjoy a game both as a spectator and a player. I can say with certainty that the game I've put the most time into speedrunning would not be nearly as enjoyable if it did not have glitches, and that another game, Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga is made extremely fun to watch by the glitches. However this is not the only way to enjoy games of course.

      3 votes
    2. thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      This is absolutely true, come on who would choose a normal speedrun over any%

      This is absolutely true, come on who would choose a normal speedrun over any%

      2 votes
  4. [2]
    psi
    (edited )
    Link
    Absolutely! Take Cube World as an example. Cube World was pretty barebones when it first released (and frankly, still is). Visually the game was appealing, the combat was decent, there was a...

    Absolutely! Take Cube World as an example. Cube World was pretty barebones when it first released (and frankly, still is). Visually the game was appealing, the combat was decent, there was a variety of (not especially varried) loot to collect... but after playing for a few hours you'd get the impression that you'd really done about everything that you could. And without any sort of end game, there was not much of a reason to continue with that gameplay loop.

    Nevertheless, I continued playing that game well past warranted because of a particular bug, allowing rangers (one of the games classes) to move much faster when using their retreat skill followed by the glider (check out this video and this video to see what I mean). The glitch wasn't limitless (eventually you'd hit the ground). You couldn't use it to go anywhere (you inherited the momentum of the retreat skill, so you needed to keep going in that general direction). The glitch resulted in skilled, fast movement that I'd never experienced before in an open world game. Eventually I realized the gameplay loop was only an excuse for me to play -- my real reason was that glitch.

    Of course, one of the few updates to Cube World patched that glitch out. That's when I lost interest in Cube World.

    7 votes
    1. thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      Shit! I forgot about cube world! I played the shit out of that game back in the day, but it always ended up with that feeling of "wait, why am I playing this again?" Back to the bug though, I...

      Shit! I forgot about cube world! I played the shit out of that game back in the day, but it always ended up with that feeling of "wait, why am I playing this again?"

      Back to the bug though, I never discovered that but I'm crying. I've definitely experienced that where a beloved glitch gets patched out. It hurts to lose an old friend like that.

      2 votes
  5. Ivar
    Link
    I'll just drop a few examples of some games and glitches that I've found have enhanced my enjoyment of the games. Loads of glitches I know basically just give you an easier game though, like in...

    I'll just drop a few examples of some games and glitches that I've found have enhanced my enjoyment of the games. Loads of glitches I know basically just give you an easier game though, like in Dark Souls you can fairly easily dupe Homeward Bones (warps back to the bonfire), Souls (the currency/exp) and buff unbuffable weapons. These glitches are all used by speedrunners, but I don't think think they're necessarily good examples of glitches that really add something, instead basically removing limits to make the game easier.

    One of the glitches can actually be fun to use though. It's used to swap one weapon's moveset to another's, so in speedrunning they use it to get a rapier's moveset (fast stabs) on a Ultra Greatsword with the high damage. But you can use it on any two weapons, and since Dark Souls is also a fun game to do challenge runs with, it basically gives you a lot of options to play with.

    There's some simple stuff, like when I was younger I played a lot of Tony Hawk games. In THPS4, if you were to stand in a corner and do a trick into it (usually a kickflip is easiest), you could relatively easily clip through the wall. Basically just giving you a behind the scenes look at a lot of the levels.

    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the only game I played for a year after it'd come out, and by the time we had our hours in, there had been loads of glitches found. I don't remember all of it, but I remember pressing certain button combinations, swapping weapons etc. to get your shotgun to do a weird animation (like it spun around in your hand or something, don't remember it all). There was also a trick where if you used a throwing knife, held it, locked onto someone with it and then backed off, you could melee teleport knife him from literally 20 meters away (yes, it was worse than the Commando perk, but it was basically unusable online).
    The thing that I remember most fondly though is in one of the levels (Quarry), if you were in a private match with a friend, you could (with friendly fire turned off) shoot each other with a shotgun, and by the knockback kick him up some stone steps that you wouldn't normally be able to get on to. Do that a few times, and you can reach the top of the level. Nothing major really, but I had fun dicking around with it back then.

    6 votes
  6. [2]
    wise
    Link
    I read somewhere that in the Starcraft remastering they tried to preserve all glitches so that competitive players who have exploited them would switch to the remastered version! I found that...

    I read somewhere that in the Starcraft remastering they tried to preserve all glitches so that competitive players who have exploited them would switch to the remastered version! I found that pretty cool

    5 votes
  7. [2]
    TheDrMonocles
    Link
    Tribes. There was a physics bug where if you mashed the spacebar on slopes, you'd get incredible amounts of speed. Combine that with rocket jumping/jetpack and you were moving faster than any...

    Tribes. There was a physics bug where if you mashed the spacebar on slopes, you'd get incredible amounts of speed. Combine that with rocket jumping/jetpack and you were moving faster than any object in that game. It became known as skiing, and became a core part of the gameplay; invalidating the use of most vehicles in match play. Super fun and made competitive play more challenging.

    It was built in as a core mechanic in later games.

    5 votes
    1. SleepyGary
      Link Parent
      Tribes Ascend had such potential to be huge on the competitive scene but in typical Hi-Rez fashion they hamstrung it by introducing unbalanced new features that you had to either grind forever or...

      Tribes Ascend had such potential to be huge on the competitive scene but in typical Hi-Rez fashion they hamstrung it by introducing unbalanced new features that you had to either grind forever or pay for and then once sales dropped off they would release a balance patch for it.

      I had really wanted that game to be a true successor to the original games, but it was a lifeless husk of a game because of greed.

      2 votes
  8. Isaac
    Link
    The first PC I played the original F.E.A.R. on had trouble with the physics engine. It would mean with sufficient force (like melee attacks or the nailgun-type weapon) to embed things (like enemy...

    The first PC I played the original F.E.A.R. on had trouble with the physics engine. It would mean with sufficient force (like melee attacks or the nailgun-type weapon) to embed things (like enemy corpses) partly into walls.

    I'd get distracted from the story for ages just seeing how much office furniture and dead clone soldiers I could kick into one wall.

    2 votes
  9. BlackLedger
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    One of the early Elder Scrolls games, Daggerfall, was absolutely full of this sort of thing. In the original 1990s version, you could make all sorts of game-breaking spells and items (permanent...

    One of the early Elder Scrolls games, Daggerfall, was absolutely full of this sort of thing. In the original 1990s version, you could make all sorts of game-breaking spells and items (permanent flight, etc). One particular glitch (or perhaps misguided design choice) was how the game decided on appropriate gear for NPCs. This was based on some value calculation involving the player's gear. It gave you to the option to start with a high-value Ebony Dagger, which meant the game would spawn NPCs with more valuable gear, allowing you to grind up high-quality gear very quickly.

    A similar design choice was that you could make a custom class. It allowed armor and gear limitation by crafted material. There was no requirement that these be tiered in any way so that you could be forbidden to wear relatively crappy leather and chain, but totally fine wearing high-end Daedric plate.

    2 votes
  10. [2]
    UntouchedWagons
    Link
    A glitch is the reason Gandhi is a nuke-loving mad man in the Civilization series. At launch in Civ 6 siege towers never went obsolete so you could use them with your modern armour (end-game...

    A glitch is the reason Gandhi is a nuke-loving mad man in the Civilization series. At launch in Civ 6 siege towers never went obsolete so you could use them with your modern armour (end-game tanks) to attack cities.

    2 votes
    1. thisonemakesyouthink
      Link Parent
      It was a glitch at first, and then people liked it so they brought it back haha.

      It was a glitch at first, and then people liked it so they brought it back haha.