We’ve all been there. You’re playing a game, and you’re enjoying it. Everything’s going well, and then the developer announces a new patch. You’re initially excited, but when it rolls out, the patch breaks something you liked, or changes the game in a fundamental way. Our community picked these eight games as some of those hardest hit by bad patches and updates.
Special thanks to Vausch for starting the thread!
Terraria
First mentioned by Fallow
The biggest problem with patches in Terraria is the same problem that you encounter in Minecraft and other games that use procedurally generated worlds: Whenever something new gets added, you won’t be able to access it in any area in your saved game that’s already been generated. That leads to players having to make decisions between continuing to play on a saved world that they’ve sunk countless hours into, or starting from scratch to get access to the newest additions to the game.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
First mentioned by LetalisK
When the first major patch hit Star Wars: The Old Republic, it made some changes to class balance and PvP warzones. Prior to the patch, the warzones felt fairly balanced, and the bump that lower level characters got made them feel on par with higher level toons. Post patch, the importance of having good PvP gear went through the roof, and lower level characters began to take a beating on a regular basis. That patch also introduced the max-level gear grind to PvP, which is always tedious.
Team Fortress 2
First mentioned by Lightspeaker
No matter how you feel about Team Fortress 2, you have to admit that the Sniper vs. Spy update was a turning point in the history of the game. For the first time, players could get drop that contained not only cosmetic items, but weapons. While some people applauded this development, others were turned off the game by it, and understandably so. Overnight, it became almost impossible to have the same options for your character that other players had, which led to players idling on servers in an effort to amass enough drops to get the weapons they wanted.
Medieval 2: Total War
First mentioned by baddude1337
When the great Gamespy server shutdown of 2014 occurred, Medieval 2: Total War owners could no longer play multiplayer. After a few weeks, Creative Assembly launched a patch that allowed Gamespy keys to be recognized on Steam, and implemented Steamworks multiplayer support. That all sounded great until it actually rolled out. Mods broke all over the place, many people couldn’t get the game to work at all, and some of the fixes were as extreme as finding old copies of the game and non-Steam .exe files just so you could play single player.
Hawken
First mentioned by Angelblaze
Everyone loves traversing a battlefield in a giant mech, and Hawken gave players a taste of that experience. That is until the game moved to Steam and removed tuning points. Tuning points allowed players to further customize their mechs, dialing things in to match their playstyle exactly. Of course, tuning points were a source of much discussion in the community, as many new players felt they gave veterans too much of an advantage. That said, the patch also reduced average armor as well, lowering survivability across the board.
Star Wars: Empire at War
First mentioned by Fox 12
Star Wars: Empire at War is a great strategy game, and there are a ton of great mods for it. But it got a little broken when the Forces of Corruption expansion came out. Why? Well, the devs decided to add a third faction called the Zann Consortium. While that may not sound like a big deal-breaker, you need to know that the Zann units were stronger and faster than Empire or Rebel units, plus they were cheaper to produce. They also made more money, and could steal from you. Then, in an attempt to balance things out, the Empire got access to the Executor Super Star Destroyer, which was almost an instant win button. It made a mess of what was a great game.
Lord of the Rings Online
First mentioned by Tayh
If you’ve never played Lord of the Rings Online, you’re probably not familiar with its PVMP system. Instead of having players fighting each other in PvP areas, LotRO allowed high level players to create a monster character, level it up through PvP, and fight against players using their regular characters in a special area. It was a cool system that let you play as an Uruk-hai or a spider, among other things. But it broke down when Turbine kept adding different stats and points that monster players had to grind, and since there was no PvE area for monster players, every addition meant you were hamstrung in PvP until you got caught up again.
Star Wars: Galaxies
First mentioned by luckshot
Quite possibly the largest post-launch ever made to any MMO, the “New Game Enhancement” or NGE, as it was called, fundamentally altered the landscape of Star Wars: Galaxies. It replaced the game’s combat system, greatly reduced the value of both crafting and entertaining, and turned SWG’s wide range of 34 professions into nine classes. It also made Jedi powers, something that players had to grind and work hard to acquire, available to almost everyone. The response was more than the typical “You nerfed my class!” posts on forums. People felt betrayed, and rightly so. Many stopped playing, and SWG really never recovered from the blow.
