Given a video link from playlist, a whole playlist will be downloaded

[nagisa]

A link from playlist looks like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K0pu4yd9Lc&index=34&list=PLm9ij2x_v01EtvP5_-TNeaBL9Px1XdEw5

Note the index and the list parameters. youtube-dl will download all the videos in the list regardless of a precise video being selected and requested.

[AGSPhoenix]

You can use the --no-playlist parameter to suppress this behaviour.

PS C:\Users\Phoenix> youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K0pu4yd9Lc&index=34&list=PLm9ij2x_v01EtvP5_-TNeaBL9Px1
XdEw5" --no-playlist
[youtube:playlist] Downloading just video 3K0pu4yd9Lc because of --no-playlist
[...]
[download] Destination: Let's Play Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney - Part 34-3K0pu4yd9Lc.f298.mp4
[download]   5.4% of 214.29MiB at  3.85MiB/s ETA 00:52

If you never want the whole playlist, you can also add that parameter to your configuration file.

[nagisa]

The interesting thing that with a -g flag, it will only generate links for that exact video, making behaviours inconsistent all across the board.

[dstftw]

The interesting thing that with a -g flag, it will only generate links for that exact video, making behaviours inconsistent all across the board.

Wrong. It will generate download URLs for each video in playlist if you quote URL correctly.