Unnecessary Online Features

[Moonface]

I just got onto a tangent with @ShiraNoMai about how Animal Crossing: New Horizons is stupid about some of the stuff it makes as online features and figured it'd make for a good thread idea, and so now I can go on my tangent again!

So a big thing AC:NH does that I hate is everything is crafted using recipe cards, but there isn't really a way to get every single possible recipe card in the game by yourself. Instead, Nintendo expected players to trade their cards with each other online, except doing so requires you to visit another persons island (or vice versa). You can only visit another island if you have the code for it, and you only get that by finding it shared wherever online by the owner of that island, so already just even getting to another island is a pain. The whole card trading idea rests on finding other people online outside the game who have the card you want and are willing to give you it, which just led to a lot of people making islands that are designed purely for giving away these cards to save people having to spend ages collecting them all. Don't have an active NSO subscription though? Then tough shit, you just won't ever get all the recipe cards and if you're missing ones you want for items to craft and decorate your island/home with, then you'll probably never get to decorate with the things you want to use. The whole system should have never been reliant on having an online connection at all if you ask me but Nintendo could have at least made finding others to get cards from actually easy and doable entirely in-game.


Elden Ring is another with a feature that is tied to being online that I hate, but I don't blame the game for it so much as I blame Sony and Microsoft. Player messages should absolutely not require having a PS+/XBL subscription to see them and should be usable just by being connected to the internet like it has been in every other FromSoft game (which all came out before PS+ was mandatory for online play). Co-op play and invasions being online and behind PS+/XBL subscriptions are fine for me, but I hate that the player messages have to be tied to that same online requirement.


So what about you guys? What features do games have that require being online (or behind an online subscription) that isn't really necessary to make players be online for?

[Maniakkid25]

For reasons that still baffle me, Lightning Returns had a leaderboard and online rewards system! Yeah, the Outerworld Services allowed people to rank their Boss Kills, gain special rewards, and trade snapshots and other online shenanigans. Why? No one knows, and SqueEnix killed it two years after release, showing just how much people were using it!

[Moonface]

For reasons that still baffle me, Lightning Returns had a leaderboard and online rewards system! Yeah, the Outerworld Services allowed people to rank their Boss Kills, gain special rewards, and trade snapshots and other online shenanigans. Why? No one knows, and SqueEnix killed it two years after release, showing just how much people were using it!

What was used to decide if someone got a reward? If it was the ranking their stuff got from other players I don't see why everyone wouldn't just give the maximum rating for everything and break the entire system.

[Maniakkid25]

No, it was prizes like Garbs (that is what the game calls the class system; long story) and cosmetic trinkets for doing basic challenges. It was stupid, and I don't know why they implemented it, but they did!