History ObviousRulePatch / VideoGames

*** ''9'' also had Bowser place a random number of Bowser Spaces in the home stretch of the board, with the player having to choose how many he was going to put down. This was removed from ''10'' due to the shock value of it happening losing steam since it happened every time.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' series:
** ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'' featured a few changes that were obviously responses to issues from ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'':
*** While Slag was an interesting idea in theory, it ended up being effectively mandatory at higher levels, since it boosted all other damage types with no downsides whatsoever. It got replaced by Cryo, which only benefited a few kinds of damage and suffered against shields, making it more situational.
*** ''2''[='=]s level scaling got way out of hand, to the point where you'd be lucky if your equipment lasted longer than a couple of levels in TVHM and UVHM. ''TPS'' tweaked the numbers a bit, allowing you to hold onto good items for a while.
*** Moxxi weapons were a major crutch in ''2'', since they'd heal you for a fraction of the damage you did. ''TPS'' opted to include only a couple, making them much rarer.
*** Relics mostly gave BoringButPractical stat boosts, and most players gravitated towards the Bone of the Ancient, which would increase cooldown rate and elemental damage of a certain type. Oz Kits got a much wider array of situational bonuses, and none of them could boost either cooldown rate or individual damage types.
** ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'' had a number of community issues that resulted in several obvious alterations to the game
*** When released, action skills did not scale in damage with Mayhem, resulting in the same attack dealing reduced damage against a target with higher health. This made M10 fights with characters like Moze and [=Fl4K=] almost impossible. Eventually, after numerous complaints, Gearbox added damage scaling, making everyone's action skills actively worthwhile. Ironically, this had the consequence of changing [[WalkingTank Iron Bear]] from [[AwesomeButImpractical near worthless]] to a OneManArmy.
*** Initially, Mayhem scaled to level 3, and was eventually increased to 10. To mitigate complaints of the difficulty, Mayhem 11 was added which was Mayhem 10, but with no modifiers and loot drops cut in half.
*** The Maliwan Takedown was added to the game to introduce proper Raid content. The goal of the Takedown was that enemies were scaled to four-party difficulty, and the fights along the way were designed to be as difficult as possible. Immediately there was backlash as the Takedown was basically impossible for solo players, and not everyone could get a team of four allies as easily as Gearbox seemed to assume. Eventually, Gearbox introduced a short event where, for the weekend, the difficulty of the Takedown would be dropped low enough for solo players to be able to complete it. The reception was so high that Gearbox just ultimately kept it that way and added an optional switch to the entrance which would restore it to the initial difficulty.
*** The Eridian Takedown also suffered from extremely high enemy health, with players complaining about the platforming, crystal charging segments, and bullet-sponge enemies. Just like Maliwan, they eventually retooled the Takedown by cutting enemy HP and redesigning some of the platforming segments to be easier.

** The Vanish spell gives its target the Clear status effect, which makes physical attacks always miss in exchange for making magical attacks always hit. In the initial release, players could exploit a loophole in the game's code by casting Vanish on a monster, then casting Doom on them to cause instant death, which always worked regardless of whether or not the target had ContractualBossImmunity to instant death spells, because the move was magical (even though other status effects did not work this way).[[labelnote:Explanation]]The reason that this happened is because of a programming error. The line of code that says "if attack is magical, and target has Clear status, attack hits" was accidentally checked before the code that read "if target is immune to Instant Death, and attack causes Instant Death, attack misses" as opposed to the other way around.[[/labelnote]]Since Vanish was considered a positive status effect, very few enemies were immune to this one-two punch. Later versions of the game corrected this bug by making Vanish-Doom only work on anything not already immune to instant death, which is to be expected and far less game-breaking.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' included one that was ''beneficial'' to players: To use the DualWielding "power stance", you must have at least 1.5 times the required Strength and Dexterity to wield each of the two weapons in one hand. However, ''Crown of the Old Iron King'' introduced the Smelter Hammer, which requires 70 Strength. This would require a Strength of 105 to power stance with, which is impossible as you cannot go above 99 Strength. So the developers altered the restriction on this weapon alone so that it could be power stanced at 99 Strength.

** ''Videogame/Borderlands3'' had a number of community issues that resulted in several obvious alterations to the game

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has been subject to a few:
** This is the purpose of the obedience mechanic. Once you unlock trading, there's really nothing stopping you from getting a high-level Pokémon from a friend. The obedience mechanic is designed to prevent you from using traded Pokémon to crush the game under your heel by making it so high-leveled Pokémon acquired from other Trainers have a very high chance of not listening to your commands until you collect the proper amount of Gym Badges (or Trials, in the case of Generation VII). In ''Sword and Shield'', this mechanic was extended to the ability to ''catch'' high-level Pokémon outside of Raids due to the presence of the Wild Area where you can meet high-level wild Pokémon early. In ''Legends: Arceus'' onwards, the catch penalty was mostly removed and obedience was changed so that it is based on the level the Pokémon is caught/traded at rather than its current level, preventing legitimate outsider Pokémon from going disobedient when overleveled.
** Generation I was rather notorious for a number of poor balance decisions that had to be fixed in Generation II.
*** Psychic-types in Generation I were very broken. Nothing resisted Psychic moves except Psychic itself, and its intended weaknesses, Bug and Ghost, suffered from underpowered moves and weak rosters, as well as a programming error that made Ghost completely ineffective on Psychics. When Generation II rolled around, the developers added two new types to act as counters: Dark did super-effective damage against Psychic while being [[NoSell completely immune]] to Psychic moves in return, while Steel simply resisted Psychic moves.[[note]] These types were not created ''solely'' to counter Psychic, but that was arguably their biggest impact.[[/note]] Meanwhile, Ghost moves became properly effective against Psychic as intended, and both Ghost and Bug got stronger moves and more capable Pokémon.
*** Unlike physical moves, special moves used the same stat for both attacking and defending. This meant that while an individual Pokémon could be good at using physical moves but bad at defending against them or vice versa, being good at using special moves automatically made a Pokémon good at defending against them. Add in the move Amnesia, which boosted the Special stat by two stages, and a Special-oriented Pokémon could quickly become a nightmare to take down. To make matters worse, at this point in the series, a move's type was what determined whether it was physical or special, and Psychic was one of the special types; see above for why this was such a bad thing. Generation II wisely split the Special stat into Special Attack and Special Defense, putting physical and special moves on more even footing, and later generations would determine which moves used which offensive stat (ie Physical Attack or Special Attack) on a move-by-move basis, and not base it on the type of the attack. For example, the elemental punches were all considered physical attacks in later generations.
*** Critical hits and instant-KO moves were both dependent on the user's Speed stat, to the point where faster Pokémon were almost guaranteed to crit. Furthermore, multi-hit moves would always crit on every hit or none per use. Generation II made the critical hit rate dependent on the move used instead and had multi-hit moves calculate crit chance independently for each hit, while instant-KO moves changed to depend on the level difference between the user and the target. That said, it wasn't a total loss for critical hits, since Gen II also fixed several bugs regarding critical hit chance and allowed critical hits to benefit from stat boosts during damage calculations.
*** Hyper Beam had a number of ways to bypass the cooldown turn after use, such as if it misses, the target faints, or it broke a Substitute. Come Generation II, all of these loopholes have been closed to give the move more of a downside.
*** Certain ongoing-damage moves such as Wrap would trap the target, rendering them completely unable to act for the duration. As of Generation II, the target still gets to attack; such moves now deal damage every turn without restricting a target's speed or ability to act.
*** Struggle, the unique move reserved for when a Pokémon runs out of PP, behaved as a Normal move, which made it completely unable to affect Ghost-types. Later games would have it behave as a "typeless" move instead.
** [[invoked]] Yellow version, which is premised on being a RecursiveAdaptation of the anime and thus gives you Pikachu and only Pikachu as your starter, rewired the appearance distribution and movelists of some early Pokémon to mitigate the natural DifficultySpike given to Brock, whose Pokémon are all part Ground-type. Mankey becomes available west of Viridian City, both Nidoran learn Double Kick at level nine, and Butterfree learns Confusion at level ten, immediately upon evolving.
** Generation II introduced the gender and [[CreatureBreedingMechanic breeding]] mechanics, and in order to prevent people from breeding a bunch of starters they made all of them nearly 90% male. However, as TechnologyMarchesOn this effort was largely made obsolete by features such as Wonder Trade that allows people to obtain starters with relative ease, but the tradition persists to this day leading to some awkwardness as starters with objectively feminine designs like Delphox and Primarina [[DudeLooksLikeALady being almost entirely male]]. Not to mention the fact that it was pointless to begin with as they put Ditto ''right outside the Daycare and third gym'' in Gen II.
** Just as Generation II brought in Dark and Steel to tame Psychic, Generation VI introduced the new Fairy type to revise imbalances in the type chart. This time around, Fairy had four existing types to tweak. Dragon and Fighting had run roughshod over the meta during Generation V, so they both took extra damage from Fairy while dealing less to it (or none, in Dragon's case); same with Dark, presumably because the Pokémon which most needed to be {{Nerf}}ed, Hydreigon, is a Dark/Dragon dual type. Meanwhile, Steel and Poison had previously been regarded as poor offensive options, so Fairy's weaknesses to them gave them a new niche.
** There are several moves that block the user from taking damage that turn, most commonly Protect. Attempting to use Protect multiple turns in a row sharply slices its success rate to prevent indefinite stalling. Furthermore, similar guarding moves like Detect, Endure and Spiky Shield all work on the same mechanic, so you can't just alternate between two such moves to avoid the success rate degradation.
** The games had constant problems with the Pokémon Wobbuffet. Designed after a punching bag, Wobbuffet cannot attack directly but must return an opponent's damage with interest. However, in its debut generation, nothing stopped the opponent from just switching out over and over while Wobbuffet burned all of its PP. When Generation III introduced abilities, Wobbuffet and its new baby form Wynaut got Shadow Tag, which prevents the opponent from switching out, to compensate. Unfortunately, in competitive matches, you could easily end up in a draw if two Wobbuffets with Leftovers ended up facing off, as neither could switch out or do enough damage to knock the other out. Generation IV quickly adjusted Shadow Tag so that it also granted immunity against its own effect, and the self-damage calculation for Struggle got altered to make it depend on the user's maximum health rather than the damage dealt to the target.
** In the fifth generation of games, there was a glitch involving the new move Sky Drop. The move makes one Pokémon take another into the air (and then drop it for damage), and when a Pokémon is in the air, it cannot move or be hit (except by a few moves, like Thunder). There was previously a move called Gravity which made Flying-types or levitating Pokémon come to the ground (this meaning they can be hit by Ground-type moves). In a double battle, if one of your Pokémon uses Sky Drop and the other then uses Gravity, both Pokémon will come to the ground... [[GameBreakingBug except while your Pokémon can move, theirs is treated as being in the air and cannot move, at all, until they are fainted by a move like, say, Thunder.]] The Obvious Rule Patch? Nintendo banned Sky Drop in Random online battles.
** In the fourth and fifth generation games, there were problems with [[RageQuit players disconnecting to preserve their win-loss record.]] In ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', however, disconnecting on players will count as a loss to the player who shut their game off.
** Pokémon with Oblivious as an Ability are immune to Infatuation, a status almost never used in any serious competition. In ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'', however, Pokémon with Oblivious were also now immune to the move Taunt, and specifically that move, essentially repurposing an Ability for an entirely different purpose (but one still marginally related to [[CaptainOblivious obliviousness]]). ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' would later add immunity to Intimidate, an Ability that lowers physical Attack.
** Dark Void is a very powerful move in Double Battles (putting both opposing Pokémon to sleep), normally mitigated by it being exclusive to [[OlympusMons Darkrai]], a Pokémon normally banned in competitions. However, Smeargle can learn any move in the game through Sketch, and as a result Dark Void Smeargle ran rampant through the Video Game Championships scene for years, annoying players to no end due to how difficult it was to counter. ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' not only [[{{Nerf}} Nerfed Dark Void's accuracy to 50%]], but made it ''automatically fail if used by any Pokémon other than Darkrai''.
** A meta example: when {{Website/Smogon}} decided that Mega Rayquaza was too much of a GameBreaker even for the [[CharacterTiers Uber tier]], they created the "Anything Goes" tier so they had somewhere to ban it to. The rules for Anything Goes are just what they sound like -- no bans, no restrictions... except that even in Anything Goes, the "Endless Battle" clause forbids movesets designed to [[{{Troll}} extend the battle indefinitely just to piss the other player off]].
*** The Endless Battle Clause itself had to be modified several times to account for [[{{Troll}} certain creative types]] finding ways around the convoluted ban, which at its core involved a Leppa Berry [[note]][[ManaPotion Restores 10 PP to any move that runs out of PP]][[/note]], the move Recycle [[note]]Recovers a used item, such as a Leppa Berry; in this case allowing infinite PP restoration[[/note]], and some method of keeping the opponent from suiciding from Struggle recoil, of which there are shockingly many methods.
*** ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'' gave Politoed the ability to make permanent rain, which gives numerous bonuses to certain Pokémon (including increasing the power of water type moves and activating certain abilities). One of these abilities, Swift Swim, doubled the Pokémon's speed under rain. At the beginning of Black and White, Politoed plus Swift Swim sweepers ran wild over the game. Smogon came up with a complex ban. Politoed could not be on a team with a Swift Swim Pokémon.
*** Smogon tier lists are usually determined by usage. The more a Pokémon is used, the higher the tier it is in, the logic being that players will use the better more often. However, there were Pokémon that were not used enough to be useful in a higher tier but came to utterly dominate some lower tier. For example, in Black and White, no one would use Kyurem in Overused, but it completely destroyed most Pokémon in Underused. Smogon created "borderline" (now called ban lists) for Pokémon that are too good to be used in one tier but not used enough to be placed into a higher tier.
*** Originally, tier lists were determined only by usage. After a user named "ihabt" decided to use several Neverused Pokémon in Rarelyused with terrible movesets and setups frequently with the intent of moving them up to Rarelyused, Smogon changed things to that such a Pokémon can't just be used in a specific tier, it needs to be viable and capable of winning enough battles in that tier as well.
** The UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole release of ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' does not allow Save States (a standard feature for other Virtual Console games released on the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS) to prevent players from cloning Pokémon, and prevents players from transferring [[OlympusMons Mew]] obtained through a glitch. In addition, all Pokémon transferred have their Hidden Abilities, otherwise people could use an Ability Capsule on Machamp to give it No Guard to ensure [[OneHitKill Fissure]] (which the TM for only existed in Gen I) would always land.
** ''Yellow'' changes the interaction with the Old Man in Viridian City who teaches you how to catch Pokémon from ''Red'' and ''Blue''. Thus, he can no longer be used to trigger the [=MissingNo=] glitch.
** On the SelfImposedChallenge side, some Nuzlocke runs of later generations will have additional rules to account for new mechanics not present in Generation 3, where the ''Webcomic/NuzlockeComics'' originated. For example, ''VideoGame/PokemonOmegaRubyAndAlphaSapphire'' introduced the [=DexNav=] and sneaking through grass, which would make the Nuzlocke rule of "You can only catch the first encounter on a route" a complete joke since getting a really good first encounter would be incredibly easy. Possible rule patches for this would be to either forbid using the [=DexNav=] entirely, forbid sneaking through grass to get to a detected Pokémon until you're right next to it, or consider the first detected Pokémon the first encounter (so if it's not ideal, too bad, and if you give it up, you can't try again).
** In its original appearance in ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire'', the Pickup ability was a classic DiscOneNuke. Since it's available on a ComMon that pretty much everyone catches immediately and it has the chance of acquiring excellent items that players typically have to grind for (including, most famously, [[RareCandy Rare Candies]]), it takes practically no effort to grind out an item trove that allows a player to roll over most of the game. In later games, it was tweaked so that the list of possible finds was dependent on the level of the Pickup user - it still had the potential for some of the best items in the game, but a Pickup user had to be higher level to get them, and the lower levels still would garner some useful items; just not unbalancingly useful ones.
** The introduction of non-legendary Pokémon with the abilities Drought, Drizzle, Snow Warning, and Sandstream (which would set up sunny, rainy, hail (now replaced by snowy), or sandstorm weather respectively) in Generation IV led to the so-called Weather Wars, in which the metagame (both in Smogon and Nintendo-sanctioned tournaments) stagnated around setting up the player's preferred type of weather (generally by simply sending out something with the appropriate ability) and using a team built around getting buffs from said weather (most famously, rain teams built around the aforementioned Politoed). Generation VI finally brought balance by making weather-inducing abilities function the same as the moves that induced weather and giving them a 5-turn limit (with a held item extending it up to eight turns).
** In ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'', you received the National Pokédex upon seeing every Pokémon in the Sinnoh Pokédex. The idea was that you would only achieve this after beating the Elite Four, in which you can get Palkia (Diamond) or Dialga (Pearl) recorded into the Pokédex; but it was possible to achieve filling out the Sinnoh Pokédex through trading and thus get the National Pokédex before beating the game. Come ''[[UpdatedRerelease Pokémon Platinum]]'' and in addition to seeing every Pokémon in the Sinnoh Pokédex, you also have to have beaten the Elite Four in order to get the National Pokédex.
** Mega Rayquaza is different from other [[SuperMode Mega Evolutions]] in that Rayquaza doesn't need to hold a specific Mega Stone to transform, and can therefore hold any item it wants. When ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' introduced Z-Moves (powerful attacks that can only be used once), a Rayquaza holding a Z-Crystal cannot Mega Evolve, preventing it from using both gimmicks at the same time.
*** The games have [[DevelopersForesight gone out of their way]] to ensure a Mega-Evolved Pokémon can't use a Z-Move under any circumstances. Example; if a Pokémon holding a Z-Crystal uses Transform or the Imposter ability to transform into a Mega Pokémon, if it tries to use a Z-Move it'll say that there's no compatible move even if it knows a move of a matching type.
** While a player can have both a Dusk Mane Necrozma and a Dawn Wings Necrozma in their party in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'', only one of them can transform into Ultra Necrozma per battle; transforming one will prevent the other from doing so, even if the transformed Necrozma faints.
** Moves that [[NoItemUseForYou take away a held item or otherwise supresses them]] (like Thief, Knock Off, and Magic Room) won't work on specific Pokémon holding items that they have unique interactions with (such as Arceus's Plates, Giratina's Griseous Orb, Genesect's Drives, and any Pokémon's specific Mega Stone), nor do they work on Z-Crystals. Stealing moves (and Fling) also won't work on those items if the user is a Pokémon that can use them (e.g. Arceus cannot steal an opponent's Plate or Fling its own Plate at them), and Z-Crystals are unaffected.
** ''[[VideoGame/PokemonLetsGoPikachuAndEevee Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee]]'' added the ability to access the Pokémon Storage System at any time, instead of needing to return to a Pokémon Center. Accordingly, it removed the [[AntiFrustrationFeatures Anti-Frustration Feature]] added in Generation II that instantly fully heals Pokémon deposited into a Box.
** Mimikyu's Disguise Ability meant that it could shrug off one attack per battle until it faints, regardless of power. This means that giving it the Focus Sash will allow it to survive at least two hits that would have knocked it out in one hit. ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield Sword and Shield]]'' made it so that it loses 1/8 of its max HP after it shrugs off the hit so that the attack wasn't completely in vain.
*** Speaking of the Focus Sash, prior to Gen VI, a Pokémon holding a Focus Sash would be able to shrug off all attacks from multi-hit moves like Rock Blast or Pin Missile. Afterwards, it only works on the first attack of such moves.
** Abilities that [[GeoEffects automatically generate terrain when the Pokémon is brought in]]--Grassy Surge, Misty Surge, Psychic Surge, and Electric Surge--were introduced in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon''. Among other effects, most of them they granted a 50% boost in damage to their corresponding types, like Grass with Grassy Terrain. At the time, only the Alolan Island Guardians could have these Abilities, and that boost caused them to have such immense damaging power that they could not only plow through in-game challenges, but they could be found on most people's competitive teams in all battling modes. For ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', the damage boost with active terrain was reduced to 30%. Its "Isle of Armor" DLC campaign also added in the move Steel Roller, a very high-damage Steel-type attack that removes any terrain in the battle. All of the Island Guardians are part-Fairy, which is weak to Steel-type attacks.
** Shedinja, a Bug/Ghost type Pokémon, has its HP permanently set to 1 to counter its ability, Wonder Guard. This blocks it from taking any direct damage that does not hit it super effectively, though it is still vulnerable to damage over time effects, damaging weather, abilities and items. Since it has ''five'' weaknesses, it's also pretty easy to counter on that front, leaving it basically unusable apart from a few gimmicks like hard countering Kyogre. However, wouldn't it be nice if you could drop Wonder Guard onto, say, Sableye? Which until Generation VI[[note]]Introduced the Fairy type, which is strong against Dark, while Ghost cannot resist it[[/note]] had no weaknesses at all? Nope! Banned! Can't be done, as moves like [[PowerCopying Role Play and Skill Swap]] are programmed to fail if used on this ability. The only way to get Wonder Guard onto another Pokémon is via Trace, or having Shedinja use Mimic to copy the move Entrainment, the former being only possible for your opponent and the second only being usable in Double Battles and [[AwesomeButImpractical requiring significant setup that can easily be stopped.]]

* The first level of the Genghis Khan campaign in ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' features a somewhat infamous EasyLevelTrick: This level involves completing tasks for various tribes to unite them under your banner, but it is possible to use a Monk to convert the tribes' units without completing their requests. In ''Definitive Edition'', this was fixed by having these tribes attack the Monk should you try to convert them.
* In ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'', Britain has access to the Manor, a replacement to the House that spawns a Settler upon construction. The Manor notably cannot be manually deleted, which is virtually the only thing in the game that is restricted in this way. This appears to be a measure against players trying to repeatedly build and demolish Manors as a way of creating Settlers, which combined with training them normally at your Town Centers could be quite potent as a strategy.

** The basic takeaway is that [=YandereDev=] does not it like when players exploit the game's... [[ObviousBeta quirks]] and would rather prefer if they dispatch the targets in the way he intended (in which the Schemes you can buy from Info-chan, which give [[{{Railroading}} very specific instructions what to do]], hints you towards) despite the game's sandbox nature.

* Players of the various ''VideoGame/{{Lego Adaptation Game}}s'' quickly learned they could quite effectively [[CuttingTheKnot Cut The Knot]] of a ''lot'' of puzzles by fandangaling a vehicle into a good spot, jumping on the roof, and jumping off of it to reach ledges, minikits, and studs. Later games disabled jumping when on the roof of a vehicle to prevent this.

** This is the purpose of the obedience mechanic. Once you unlock trading, there's really nothing stopping you from getting a high-level Pokémon from a friend. The obedience mechanic is designed to prevent you from using traded Pokémon to crush the game under your heel by making it so Pokémon acquired from other Trainers have a very high chance of not listening to your commands until you collect the proper amount of Gym Badges (or Trials, in the case of Generation VII). In ''Sword and Shield'', this mechanic was extended to the ability to ''catch'' high-level Pokémon outside of Raids due to the presence of the Wild Area where you can meet high-level wild Pokémon early; meeting a Pokémon outside of your level range will cause the game to call it "extremely strong" and make it near-impossible to catch. In ''Scarlet and Violet'', the catch penalty was mostly removed and obedience was changed so that it is based on the level the Pokémon is caught/traded at rather than its current level, lessening this factor (and it is possible to overlevel very quickly if you know what you're doing).

** The first ''VideoGame/MarioParty1'' has mini-games that require [[SomeDexterityRequired rapidly rotating the controller's control stick]]. In its original UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 version, this resulted in a lot of broken sticks and sore hands, to the point that Nintendo had to issue special gloves for people whose hands were blistered from all this rotating. Every ''Mario Party'' game after the first one fixed this issue by removing control stick rotation from its mini-games; the few that survived which previously required rotating the stick were changed to require rapidly pressing a button instead. The exception is ''The Top 100'', which includes a couple stick-rotating games- the [=3DS=] uses a flat Circle Pad instead of a protruding control stick, making the use of the palm to rotate the stick (which was the cause of most of the problems) an impractical strategy.

** Hidden Blocks were also removed at some point due to the blocks having a 50/50 chance of giving the player a free star.

** ''Mario Kart 7'' had a glitch in the Maka Wuhu track in which you'd fall off the course and be dropped back at a later point, letting you skip almost an entire lap. It became such a problem that Nintendo issued a patch to correct the respawns in 2022 - over a ''decade'' since the game's last patch.

** The introduction of non-legendary Pokémon with the abilities Drought, Drizzle, Snow Warning, and Sandstream (which would set up sunny, rainy, snowy, or sandstorm weather respectively) in Generation IV led to the so-called Weather Wars, in which the metagame (both in Smogon and Nintendo-sanctioned tournaments) stagnated around setting up the player's preferred type of weather (generally by simply sending out something with the appropriate ability) and using a team built around getting buffs from said weather (most famously, rain teams built around the aforementioned Politoed). Generation VI finally brought balance by making weather-inducing abilities function the same as the moves that induced weather and giving them a 5-turn limit (with a held item extending it up to eight turns).

** There are several moves that block the user from taking damage that turn, most commonly Protect. Attempting to use Protect multiple turns in a row sharply slices its success rate to prevent indefinite stalling. Furthermore, similar guarding moves like Detect and Endure all work on the same mechanic, so you can't just alternate between two such moves to avoid the success rate degradation.

** Cyan got a major change to his [=SwdTech=]/Bushido abilities after he sat on the [[LowEndLetdown low end of the tier list]] for a while. In the initial release, a player would have to charge up Cyan's special meter until it got to the attack they wanted, forcing them to do nothing while the enemies wailed on their party. While this could still work with {{Overly Long Fighting Animation}}s, few players bothered. This was changed in the GBA remake so that the player selects which [=SwdTech=]/Bushido attack they want from a list, and the meter charges on its own without further player input, letting everyone else act while Cyan is charging.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': Men are forbidden from entering [[LadyLand Gerudo Town]]. However, they'll make an exception for [[OneGenderRace Gorons]] because there are no female Gorons.

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[[folder: G-L]]

[[folder: M-Q]]

[[folder: R-Z]]

** Generation II introduced the gender and [[CreatureBreedingMechanic breeding]] mechanics, and in order to prevent people from breeding a bunch of starters they made all of them nearly 90% male. However, as TechnologyMarchesOn this effort was largely made obsolete by features such as Wonder Trade that allows people to obtain starters with relative ease, but the tradition persists to this day leading to some awkwardness as starters with objectively feminine designs like Delphox and Primarina [[DudeLooksLikeALady are almost entirely male]].

** In Battlegrounds mode, one peculiar minion was Pogo-Hopper. It worked the same way in regular ''Hearthstone'', gaining +2/+2 for every Pogo-Hopper you've played in the match. Its awful starting stats and the inconsistency in being able to find Pogo-Hoppers made Pogo-Hopper strats [[JokeCharacter mostly a joke]], although a few heroes were more successful with it. Then Battlegrounds added a new hero, Jandice Barov, whose Hero Power swaps a non-Golden minion with a random one from the tavern. This made Jandice the absolute best Pogo-Hopper hero in the game, since she can not only reliably scale its Battlecry every turn by re-buying it, she can ''stack its Battlecry buff on itself continuously''. She can scale a Pogo-Hopper so effectively that it can carry her the entire match against anything non-Poisonous, and this strategy alone placed her on the top of the tier list. Jandice did get nerfed, but not by changing her Hero Power in any way, but removing Pogo-Hoppers from the game altogether.

** ''Mario Kart 7'' had a glitch in the Maka Wuhu track in which you'd fall off the course and be dropped back at a later point, letting you skip almost an entire lap. It became such a problem that Nintendo issued a bug-fixing patch for the first time in its history, correcting the respawns.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemHeroes'', Resonant Battles is a mode where you chase down enemy Thieves and gain points depending on how many are defeated before they escape. To prevent players from cheesing the map via Galeforce (granting extra turns) or similar abilities, each enemy has a debuff where, if defeated, penalizes the unit that defeated it with a -1 cooldown, effectively preventing all pre- and post-combat skills from activating, including Galeforce. Also to limit extra turns, the mode penalizes the player's score if they deploy more than one Dancer during an attempt.

** Cyan got a major change to his [=SwdTech=]/Bushido abilities after he sat on the low end of the TierInducedScrappy list for a while. In the initial release, a player would have to charge up Cyan's special meter until it got to the attack they wanted, forcing them to do nothing while the enemies wailed on their party. While this could still work with {{Overly Long Fighting Animation}}s, few players bothered. This was changed in the GBA remake so that the player selects which [=SwdTech=]/Bushido attack they want from a list, and the meter charges on its own without further player input, letting everyone else act while Cyan is charging.