So after dropping multiple 1000$+ in respawn fees in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands as I wandered off random edges ( with what appeared to be safe zones below) what are some game "features" that drive you crazy?

There are two that come to mind immediately:

• I find it really annoying when a game has a massive difficulty spike, seemingly out of nowhere...especially when it's near the end of the game. Don't get me wrong, if a game is supposed to be difficult, that's fine...I'm only talking about when there's a major spike in difficulty. For example, I played Story Mode on Tekken 5 recently and the difficulty felt fair for the most part, maybe even a little easy (especially since I had never played the game before), but then I got to the final boss. Oh. My. Goodness. That guy was ridiculous! I probably spent more time on him than I dd the previous 4 or 5 fights combined. I even checked online to see if it was just me and nope, it's apparently a well known thing
• As I've gotten older, I really can't be bothered with games that have no respect for my time. What I mean is, I really don't want to replay the same thing over and over because you wouldn't let me save or give me a checkpoint...or if there's a huge map and you don't give me fast travel in some capacity...or if you're going to pad content with boring tasks / quests just so you can appease marketing. I know the first two are more for older games and some of it was limited by the hardware at the time...but that's why retro compilations (or even straight emulation) are my go-to these days. For the third one (padding content), well, that's most AAA games that I've played in the past few years. I know this is a common debate, but give me a rock-solid 10 hours over a 40 hour bloat fest all day long!

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but not a huge fan of multiple endings for the most part. I think I appreciated it more back in the day, when I had fewer games and more time to replay them over and over, but now the thought of replaying the same content four or five times to see everything makes me wince.

It bothers me less when it's something like Virtue's Last Reward, where the many "endings" are really just steps towards the game's actual singular conclusion, and where it's easy to jump between branches to explore different choices. And I don't mind at all when every ending feels like it's had an equal amount of care put into it and all act as adequate conclusions to the story, as there's not the same pressure to see them all. But when you have three or four endings that are just blatantly unsatisfying and are expected to use a walkthrough or replay the same content repeatedly to get a proper conclusion to a story, it just feels a bit obnoxious to me.

I've gotta second the multiple endings bit. As a player who likes to complete what he starts to the best of his ability, multiple endings are the bane of my existence. For regular gameplay it's fine, but when I'm going through grabbing unlockables/trophies/achievements/whatever and things are tied to having to replay an 8 hour plus game multiple times, I get frustrated.

Also, I don't like time trials. Almost at all. Those are fine when games are based around momentum and movement and things like that, but a lot of games will force you to speed through a level or stage (or even the ENTIRE GAME) because they think it's a gameplay template or a completion criteria that "all games have", and that irks me as well. I can find this fun in something like a Sonic the Hedgehog or a Mirror's Edge because it feels like I'm just getting better at the mechanics. But for me at least, most of these games have me feeling not like I'm getting better at the controls and gameplay, but rather that I'm abusing the system or manipulating the environment to get me through faster. And I don't really find that fun at all.

Bad camera controls. There are a lot of games that would be good/great but suffer greatly because you're spending so much time and effort fighting with the camera. Mostly a symptom of older 3d games, but it's certainly not an eradicated issue with modern games either.

What a great question! I totally agree with the padded content. A solid short game is way better than a game that just ropes you along!

• I am not a big fan of escort missions. I think Goldeneye probably scarred me in many ways for that but most games where you have to protect someone ends up being frustratingly dependent on how well the AI is programmed.

• This one is a little specific but I don't really like when a player has to constantly switch between characters or items when the UI doesn't a lot for quick switching. Having to pause or go through multiple menu steps constantly breaks the immersion and gets tiresome to me very quick. Resident Evil 0 is my least favorite of the main series because of the switching aspect!

Oh, escort missions is a really good call. I can pretty much count on one hand the examples of that trope that I've not found insufferable to play.