What's Your Gaming Achilles' Heel?

[racketboy]

Attention span on puzzles and wandering, I think?

I would really like to enjoy the likes of Zelda games more, but Link's Awakening was the only one I spent a lot of time with.
I really enjoyed some good RPGs, but the attention span is always an issue for me.

[Sarge]

I don't play enough RTS games to be good at them. I'm competent, but not spectacular, in FPSs, for the same reasons. And, come to think of it, with puzzle games like Tetris as well. I won't be challenging for any high scores any time soon. Really, anything that requires a massive time investment, I'm probably going to skip over; I prefer too much variety in my gaming habits, even if that variety comes in the form of playing different games in well-established genres.

[ZeroAX]

I can't stop losing it when I get stressed during a match of a realistic sports game. If I fall too far behind in NBA 2K I start doing desperate attacks, making more mistakes leading to the opponent widening the lead (it seems to not matter if I'm playing against the CPU or another human player)

[Erik_Twice]

I take an extremely long time to get used to a game's controls. Like, I crash into walls and turn around by mistake even after many hours playing a game. I'm also very sensitive to, well, mouse sensitivity.

[Nemoide]

Stealth is definitely mine. I think back to the DS game "Lost in Blue" which I absolutely loved right up to the point at which it turned into a stealth game and then I stopped playing.
I half-dread playing through the Metal Gear Solid games, despite having a serious curiosity about them, because I just don't handle stealth well.

The only game in which I felt kind of comfortable with it was Beyond Good & Evil because I could figure out ways to kill every single guard rather than just sneaking by.

[pook99]

Open world games are mine, running mindlessly for x number of minutes just to start the next mission literally puts me to sleep. It is extremely rare that an open world game can hold my attention for any length of time, with breath of the wild being the only notable exception for me. For some reason that game completely captivated me and made me want to explore the world.

[nightrnr]

Yes, Zelda is very good at reinventing the spirit of exploration. I remember thinking Wind Waker would put me off, not by the art style (which I liked), but by the seafaring, who I thought would be tedious and constrictive. How wrong I was, as I loved sailing to new adventures and it gave the game a lot of wonder.
More on topic, I too hate stealth, but Wind Waker was manageable.

Can't wait to get a Switch.

As to my AH, I think it's "that stupid missed plot point" to progress the game. Be it ARPG, Adventure game, JRPG, or the like, I can't tell you how many times I've just got fed up with a game because I spent hours wondering around trying to figure out what to do next and too stuborn to look up a guide. It's always something stupid that I just missed, something I didn't know you could do, or thought I had already tried.

I was never too prideful to look up a guide when I was younger, just bugs me to succumb to it sometimes now.

[Sarge]

I take an extremely long time to get used to a game's controls. Like, I crash into walls and turn around by mistake even after many hours playing a game. I'm also very sensitive to, well, mouse sensitivity.

While I don't have issues with it anymore, I used to worry about whether I'd be able to pick up a game's control scheme, especially when I'd purchase games with a reputation for being hard, like Devil May Cry 3 or Ninja Gaiden. Heck, even the addition of all the extra buttons of the SNES gave me pause, and I remember not particularly liking Street Fighter II for quite some time until I started practicing all the stuff necessary to actually be passable at the game.

[marurun]

Shoulder triggers are my Achilles' heel. Even the best shoulder triggers are inconvenient to me. Only in driving games can I use shoulder triggers effectively. I either can't hit the triggers with reliable timing, or focusing on the triggers screws up my other button presses. I just can't trigger my shoulders. Trigger warning: shoulders.

[pierrot]

Shoulder triggers are my Achilles' heel. Even the best shoulder triggers are inconvenient to me. Only in driving games can I use shoulder triggers effectively. I either can't hit the triggers with reliable timing, or focusing on the triggers screws up my other button presses. I just can't trigger my shoulders. Trigger warning: shoulders.

Sounds like you might be in a similar boat I am, with controllers that have four shoulder buttons. I feel pretty capable of learning to work with any control scheme, but anything that requires meticulous use of all four shoulder buttons would make me pretty anxious. My main problem with that many shoulder buttons is that I can't keep a finger on each one, without feeling like I've given up too much leverage in my thumbs for face buttons/control sticks.

On a related, but still off topic note, I was fiddling around with my Saturn wireless pad recently, and noticed that the shoulder buttons are of a bit different construction than the standard OEM pads. They're a lot closer to PS1 and N64 controller shoulder buttons in their response. I find it to be a semi-reasonable wireless controller, too. No idea how many arms and/or legs one would cost these days, though.

I also struggle a bit with FPS. Control pad, or KB&M, I'm just not very good at aiming a reticule on screen with very much accuracy, and with a mouse, can end up looking at the ceiling, without really realizing how or why.