Nothing frustrates me more than not being able to pause for no seemingly good reason. I'm playing Wild Hearts right now and even though I never play online I cannot pause for some reason. To simulate pausing, I can turn off the xbox and the quick resume feature makes it look like the game was paused when I turn the console back on.
Other games guilty of this are Fromsoft games: Dark Souls, Elden Ring and so on.
Obviously all of these games have an online component. Not allowing pausing when this component is activated makes sense. But if I am playing completely online why cannot I pause? In Soulslike the worst exploit I can think of is switching equipment on the fly but is that really that bad? When stuff comes up in the middle crucial moments it frustrates me a lot.
Haha! I feel you. I dont get when people put so much of their egos into a hobby where they feel the need to police their fellow hobbyists. Its an old and tiring tale, but one that never ends.
For myself, the souls games tickle my exploration and co-op bug, the former especially in DS1s map. However fromsoft does some dumb crap too, and things i simply don't enjoy. i understand the allure but personally have never enjoyed playing video games with strangers and despite many, many messages telling me the reason they think I'm wrong and dumb, that will never change