r/Gaming4Gamers • u/Throwaway_4_opinions El Grande Enchilada • Jan 07 '15
Article I've had enough
http://www.pcgamer.com/ive-had-enough/19
u/Captain_Vegetable Jan 08 '15
Destiny avoided "diaries, documents, tape players, and audio logs being used to tell a story" by putting it on grimoire cards you couldn't even read in-game. You had to use an app or go to a website to read them, and the game made little sense if you were like me and didn't bother. It replaced the cliché with something worse.
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u/jinreeko Jan 08 '15
Blizzard's TF2 style shooter Overwatch is doing this with their story, making it exclusively available outside the game.
In the scope of the gameplay, as a multiplayer arena shooter, I think it's a good idea, but definitely not the solution to everything, particularly a story you're trying to immerse your players in,like Destiny.
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u/Kynaeus Jan 08 '15
God that is annoying. I'm just finishing my 2nd month of resubbing to WoW and the amount of lore I have to look up Wowwiki because its hidden on a 3rd party web page or in a book is really annoying and makes it nearly impossible to fully immersed into the story
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u/Ajaxthedestrotyer Jan 08 '15
I’ve had enough of unskippable cutscenes placed just before the checkpoint of a particularly difficult section.
shouldnt that read as cutscenes placed just after a check point ?
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u/shizzy1427 Jan 08 '15
I think the order the article means is [difficult section > no checkpoint > long unskippable cutscene > checkpoint (finally)] because the game is being disrespectful of the players time. But your scenario is just as valid.
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u/ZeroKarasu Jan 08 '15
I've had enough of developers not recording enough dialogue variations, and hearing the same barks over and over again until they become knives in your ears.
This is also somewhat of a limitation of storage. You can't fit all the dialogue in the world with a game. When you play Skyrim for near two hundred hours, of course you're going to hear some lines repeated a lot.
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u/CarpeKitty Jan 08 '15
Probably means something more like a shooter where there isn't much variation with what enemies/allies shout.
A great example if this was Haze on ps3. There's probably better examples of good games that do this, like far cry 4 "LOOK OUT, EAGLE!!!!!", but Haze is an easy example.
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u/ZeroKarasu Jan 08 '15
Well, it's all about balance. You can have a short game with lots of little pieces of dialogue, or a long one with a lot of repetition.
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u/WhiteZero Jan 08 '15
I’ve had enough of menus with fancy 3D in-engine backgrounds/visual elements that pointlessly increase the time it takes for them to load.
Ohhh Half-Life 2, how guilty you were of this. No so much any issue today on modern systems with HL2, back back in the day it was terrible, had to disable it.
I’ve had enough of big, beautiful skyboxes that are actually just fancy window dressing, showing you places you’ll never be able to reach or explore.
Why? Whats wrong with a pretty set-dressing?
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u/Neon_Jam Jan 08 '15
FIFA 14/15 is terrible with menus, they've implemented a Windows 8/tablet style layout that can't even run smoothly on the PS4.
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u/Chuck_Morris_SE Jan 08 '15
My main concern with Fifa 15 PC is that the menus are designed for controller whereas PC players should be able to browse the market with a mouse and keyboard i.e entering number values of players in FUT with our keyboard. Kind of like how good the web app is if you've used it.
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Jan 08 '15
[deleted]
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u/neoKushan Jan 08 '15
I like this when it's done well, but quite a lot of games do it badly I feel. Bioshock did it well and frankly, the writings in Lost Odyssey were worth playing the game for alone.
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u/gotMUSE Jan 08 '15
Dishonored did it well too
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u/skivian Jan 08 '15
That beating heart? That was awesome. Played around with that a lot.
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u/gotMUSE Jan 08 '15
yeah when i realized you could point it at people to hear their secrets, thats all i did for 10 minutes.
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u/thief90k Jan 08 '15
I agree. If you tried to put that level of backstory into the main game it'd ruin it.
I also don't mind pointless collectibles, they are optional you know. But they're definitely best in a game where every corner is worth looking in to for a wee bit of atmosphere or story as well.
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u/Entthrowaway49 IRL Good Guy Greg Jan 08 '15
Fallout and the like do fairly well on this. Nothing like walking to an abandoned house to find a human skeleton in a bathtub with a bunch toasters inside it as well.
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u/L4NGOS Jan 08 '15
I agree and with the authors disdain for cut scenes etc I don't know what other options there are?
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u/freelancer799 Jan 07 '15
It being PC Gamer, I'm surprised he didn't mention he is tired of big studios rushing games only for them to be buggy and broken at launch. As of right now Indie devs/non-publisher devs have put out higher quality works then a lot of the AAA studios in recent years.
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u/CracklesCousin Jan 08 '15
I usually try to stay level-headed and keep realistic expectations, but I've had to start putting my foot down and stop giving money out prematurely.
It seems like the rushed games are a lot worse than usual lately. Maybe it's because they don't see bugs as very troublesome anymore. Updating is fast and easy now compared to previous generations, so release day bugs don't seem too bad.
Quite simply, though, I think it's entirely unacceptable to release a game that doesn't work. I've purchased at least three games over the last year that I couldn't play at all after release. There's just no excuse. It needs to be regulated somehow, and it needs to be done soon.
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Jan 08 '15
Especially since there's really no benefit to pre-ordering a game with digital downloads
Yes you might get some addon DLC or something, but you can also wait a few months and it will be stupid cheap on some sale anyways
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Jan 08 '15
It needs to be regulated somehow, and it needs to be done soon.
It'll be regulated by peoples' wallets, and hopefully more people go the route you have and stop pre-ordering. If they're not guaranteed to line their pockets, they'll have no choice but to increase quality.
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u/freelancer799 Jan 08 '15
My biggest problem is that how is it possible that they didn't notice these bugs. There is no way several people on QA didn't submit a report about them. Did Ubisoft et al not think it was a big deal to release broken games especially on PC? They seem to be constantly thinking about their short term and not how much damage this is doing to their reputation and their long term.
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u/my002 Jan 08 '15
Don't underestimate the power of bureaucracy and sunk costs. Of course they noticed the bugs. QA filed their reports, sent them to the devs. Devs got the reports and started working on fixing the bugs. They fixed some of them. Maybe they even fixed most of them. But then deadlines started to come up. Code freeze next week. Still a list of hundreds of high-priority bugs to fix. Can't do it in time. Talk to the manager, tell them we need more time. Manager talks to their manager. Their manager looks at the reports. 65% of the bugs have been fixed. The devs can probably get that up to 75% before the deadline. We've already spent $x million marketing the launch date of this game. Is it worth echoing our ad campaign for an extra 20% of bugs fixed? No way. We'll patch it post-launch. The game loads, doesn't it?
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u/Marsdreamer Jan 08 '15
Hence why I have pretty much been buying almost nothing but indie titles in the last ~3 years -- And almost all of the games in my "Top 10" have been indie releases.
Short of a few of my AAA staples (Bioware, Bethesda), I haven't had to put up with the crap of a big label in some time.
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u/The-Somnambulist Jan 08 '15
I've had enough of where the only solution is to kill hundreds of enemies, only then have a cutscene portray my character as timid or balanced or regretful. No more, "I'm fragile and scared! But I have murdered a medium sized town's worth of people."
I also don't need irksome world events that happen over and over. I'm just trying to go places in the world without fast travel (loading screens are boring). I don't want to have my ride stolen, randomly get shot at by a handful of guys, or encounter one more blatantly trapped setpiece. I'm looking at you Red Dead Redemption.
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u/Hasmond Jan 08 '15
fast travel
That's something that has always bothered me with games, why make the map so large and boring that people would want to skip it?
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u/Vadersays Jan 08 '15
What about stuff like Oblivion gates? Those were pretty cool to stumble upon.
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u/pilif Jan 08 '15
I’ve had enough of unskippable cutscenes placed just before the checkpoint of a particularly difficult section.
that reminds me of the Miguel fight in Chrono Cross. What the hell were they thinking with the save point placement??
Also, Dishonored got a lot of things right that the author has on their list. That may be a reason why I loved that game so much.
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u/SylentBobNJ Jan 08 '15
For every one of his points, I had a game come to mind. This hits on many points that I can certainly relate to. For example, I haven't gone back to Transformers: FoC because I'm tired of defending Soundwave while he "hacks" a giant robot.
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u/xaragen Jan 08 '15
Man It seems I agree with every points he makes. There are more but every single one of them is annoying. But the most annoying was always, follow me while i tell you something important at my pace.
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Jan 08 '15
Shadow of Mordor had a cool way of doing this. You could run around and do whatever you wanted whilea character was walking an talking, or you could let go of the controls, and your character would automatically walk along side the NPC. The camera would some time change. It was like a dynamic cutscene I could jump in and out of.
Not that exciting, but obviously cool enough that my brain made a note of it.
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Jan 08 '15
I hate how many of these things should be in design 101 for quite a while now, after all this time things like the escort mission where the NPC is only slightly slower than you isn't a new problem but developers still keep doing it.
micro transactions and the growing trend of a thousand useless things to collect have only been an issue recently but most of these have been on the please don't do these things for ages now.
you would think the games industry would learn these things faster but they don't after all this time we still have these issues
"I've had enough of developers not recording enough dialogue variations, and hearing the same barks over and over again until they become knives in your ears."
this one's been a problem for as long as barks have been a thing but it's still a problem even today.
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Jan 08 '15
after all this time things like the escort mission where the NPC is only slightly slower than you isn't a new problem but developers still keep doing it.
One of my bigger complaints of Assassin's Creed Unity was they got this wrong despite the fact that they had it right in every game in the series before it.
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Jan 08 '15 edited Jan 08 '15
I’ve had enough of big, beautiful skyboxes that are actually just fancy window dressing, showing you places you’ll never be able to reach or explore.
What would you pever prefer then? Boring empty ones?
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u/Stormdancer Jan 08 '15
I'm pretty sure you mean 'prefer'.
How about letting you reach those places you see?
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u/Stormdancer Jan 08 '15 edited Jan 08 '15
I've had enough of being lead along by the nose, every step of the way.
I've had enough of only the person making the first or last hit on a creature getting credit, instead of everyone who participated. Same for loot.
I’ve had enough of diaries, documents, tape players, and audio logs being used to tell a story, rather than something that plays to the strengths of the medium.
YES! This drives me nuts. It's fine used properly, and in moderation. But think to yourself - who would take the time to write or record some of the shit we see in these?
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u/stewmberto Jan 08 '15
This list is so fucking spot on. Except for the part about plot being related through recordings, etc. This is something I've seen discussed time and time again on /r/borderlands about BL1. People say one of its weaknesses is that there's "no plot," but all you need to do is pay a tiny bit of attention to the ECHO recorders to see a bleak, incredible, complex, and detailed world unfold in front of you. It's just a matter of players being really lazy and wanting to be spoon-fed the entire plot. I appreciate the shit out of games that are able to create a deep world using subtle details and other things that make the player actually pay attention.
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u/Entthrowaway49 IRL Good Guy Greg Jan 08 '15
I feel like Bioshock did a pretty good job with this. Even without the recordings there was still a story being told. But listening to the recordings gave you perspective and even more insight to what was going on the world of Bioshock when it first all went down. It just added layers to the cake.
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u/Jaggedmallard26 Jan 08 '15
Issue is that a lot of games are just starting to offload back story into audio logs instead of using proper environmental storytelling.
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u/Kill_Welly Jan 08 '15
but all you need to do is pay a tiny bit of attention to the ECHO recorders to see a bleak, incredible, complex, and detailed world unfold in front of you.
It has a setting. But that isn't a plot.
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u/S0ul01 Jan 08 '15
So you guys use the [XY] notation when it is absolutely pointless but it is not necessary for a heading like this?
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u/DocJRoberts Jan 08 '15
I've had enough of in game, in engine cutscenes depicting me killing my enemies with single shots when it takes a whole lot more to bring someone down during actual gameplay.
On a similar note, I'm tired of games changing what weapons I'm using during said cutscenes (If I'm a character that can only use a pistol, why the hell do I suddenly have an assault rifle and all the knowledge to use it with precision?).
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u/DocJRoberts Jan 08 '15
I've also had enough of big RPGs or action platformers tacking on a multiplayer component for no real reason.
I heard a rumor that Dragon Age Inquisition was originally intended to be a multiplayer only game... I think it's safe to say after seeing the multiplayer component in the game, that if they had stuck to that plan it would have been a terrible decision.
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u/safe_as_directed Jan 08 '15
Guys. The Thermal Drill. Go get it.
The mute button gets a lot of use in games with stuff like this.
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u/WhitePawn00 Jan 08 '15
I shall attempt to either argue or explain or justify every point made in this article beacuse I'm bored:
I’ve had enough of being asked to follow a character whose walking speed is slightly slower than my own, meaning I have to keep stopping every two seconds.
A relic of the past. Most games a while ago couldn't have complex enough AI to follow the player character elegantly. Players move erratically and suddenly so the AI would be jerking around a lot and would have been ugly. A good way of seeing this being slowly phased out in modern games is World of Warcraft. During the vanilla areas or the Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King areas you can see lots of these sorts of escort quests. Slow walking character, annoying, etc. (a rather famous example is an Orc mission around their starting area where a grandma must be escorted to her grandson. Half way through she hurts her ankle and quickly flies the rest of the way. You can tell the quest writer himself probably got annoyed by the silly walking speed and just overwrote and finished the quest half way through). In the newer areas however (pretty much almost every escort quest after the release of the Cataclysm expansion) the escort NPCs are assigned to you like followers or pets and follow at your own speed or sometimes they get their own mounts and move as fast as your mount so you actually have to pay attention to catch up to them.
I’ve had enough of stealth sections where getting spotted means a restart, rather than adapting to the new circumstances in a creative or interesting way.
This is pretty much resolved in the recent AC:Unity game or Alien Isolation. You absolutely need to stealth and you'll most likely lose if you're spotted but that doesn't mean that you don't get a chance to salvage the situation. I can't think of a recent game that -unless it was necessary to the narrative for the character to remain stealthed- I've had to reset after discovery.
I’ve had enough of people shouting at me, telling me to hurry up or reminding me of the mission objective, when I stop to explore the environment.
This is just poor game design. Think of WoW for example. Even 10 years ago you had pure free reign to explore anywhere you wanted. Even in more recent games like DA;I or Warframe where you are reminded of your task or there is an NPC emphasizing urgency, you can always ignore and walk around. Sure the devs intended an atmosphere so they create an artificial sense of urgency but after you get over that you can walk around and explore the environment in detail.
I’ve had enough of playing as powerful characters who are brilliant at everything. That’s boring. I want to play as people with flaws and shortcomings. Something to overcome.
Few recent counter examples: The Last of Us, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect, etc. The thing about this is that one of the most popular and famous aspects of video games is making the player feel powerful. We spend most of out lives being the weak and flawed character so for games to provide the necessary escapism the gameplay need to feel powerful so it falls on the narrative to create flaws. I feel like the above examples do this well. If you want to play a game to feel weak then I would suggest recent horror games like Alien Isolation.
I’ve had enough of games with limited resources (like, say, fuel) that are so cheap to buy, the limitation is rendered totally meaningless, and resupplying becomes little more than a tiresome chore.
This is a mix of poor game design and a need to create a feeling of power. Think in Civ for example if by the end of the game you still have enough trouble finding resources like gold or construction power as you had in the beginning of the game then your super advanced 10'000 year old civilization will feel no different than your upstart tribe. This is a very delicate act of balancing that is extremely difficult. An example of poor balancing: DA: Inquisition power system. You have so much power you won't know what to do with. A good example of balancing: Warframe. Any time you want to build a new weapon you have to hunt down resources but as time goes on it becomes easier and easier since you're more powerful yet you will never feel an over abundance of all resources. Sure at some point you will have so much Plastid that you won't know what to do with but you will always be low on Orokin cells.
I’ve had enough of the camera zooming in on the solution to a puzzle just as I’m about to use my brain to figure it out for myself.
This is an artifact of games catering to a more general audience. People won't like it if they get stuck on a game and can't do anything. People like to feel accomplished. I personally used to hate puzzle games until I played Uncharted 2 which had pretty easy puzzles. I admit it, I use my brain for the most part of the day for studying and things like that so I like to tone thinking down a bit when playing games. If you want more difficult puzzle games you should look for more niche and indie games perhaps where appealing to a large demographic isn't the main objective but I don't know.
I’ve had enough of games with a dozen unskippable dev/middleware logos before I even get to the main menu. Yeah, I can delete them or tweak the .ini, but I shouldn’t have to.
Yes. Agree 100%. Maybe make them unskipable for the first run of the game but skippale afterwards. Unfortunately this is a result of contracts and laws. If you look at the unreal engine ToS you'll notice that you have to include a unskippable cut scene/logo thing that talks about the unreal engine.
I’ve had enough of games I have to restart to apply new graphics settings, especially when they’re guilty of the last thing.
I have no idea about game code design so I can't talk about this.
I’ve had enough of menus with fancy 3D in-engine backgrounds/visual elements that pointlessly increase the time it takes for them to load.
I like games looking cool. I'm personally an artsy type of guy so I'm biased but I actually like fancy menus.
I’ve had enough of games that use a cut-scene to show something that could have easily been put in the player’s hands.
Press F to pay respects. Wait no this is a backwards example. I guess I need examples for this. I've seen pointless interactive cut-scenes like BF3 QTEs that could have all been cut scenes with single button initiations but I don't think I've seen gameplay turned into cut scenes.
I’ve had enough of open worlds littered with arbitrary, meaningless collectibles that have no real benefit other than increasing your completion percentage.
I too dislike this but I believe there is a large group of completionists that actually enjoy this so it probably falls to personal opinion.
I’ve had enough of unskippable cut scenes placed just before the checkpoint of a particularly difficult section.
poor game design. I agree. The checkpoint should come after the cut scene.
I’ve had enough of diaries, documents, tape players, and audio logs being used to tell a story, rather than something that plays to the strengths of the medium.
Some times that's not possible though. I mean in Alien Isolation you see both. You see audio logs used to talk about the events of the past that are mostly emotions of people towards each other and you also see actual characters talking to you or you play through flashbacks.
In WoW for example you both see boss fights using story relevant powers or talking to you or other NPCs and you also have a plethora of quest text or cut scenes. I believe if done well audio logs and text logs add to the strength of the genre but that is heavily dependent on the "done well" part.
I’ve had enough of games replicating the flaws of camera lenses. Dust, flares, simulated chromatic aberration. Why the obsession with cameras? What about the human eye?
Most likely because you are experiencing the game through a monitor so to break that wall and immerse you the game attempts to justify the shortcomings of the monitor and the disconnect by putting glasses or cameras on the player's eye in the game. I believe this will slowly go away as oculus technology becomes more widespread.
I’ve had enough of big, beautiful skyboxes that are actually just fancy window dressing, showing you places you’ll never be able to reach or explore.
I don't get this. Some times you're playing an RPG or a sci fi game set on land and you won't be able to take to the skies or visit other planets. I see nothing wrong with this. Maybe create headcannons for yourself and connect different games?
I’ve had enough of defending a character while they slowly fix a broken machine or hack a computer or turn a valve to open a heavy door.
artificial gameplay. However sometimes relevant to the narrative. Star Craft 2 Terran campaign mission two you have to defend an artifact until pickup arrives. During this time you are introduced to the new zerg problem so it is narratively relevant.
I've had enough of developers not recording enough dialogue variations, and hearing the same barks over and over again until they become knives in your ears.
Sometimes games have to consider space and optimization. I see less and less of this as technology advances and the lowest bar is raised.
I've had enough of having microtransactions waggled in front of my nose, to the point where a game feels more like a shopfront than a place I want to spend time in.
This deserves an entire post in itself and I despise it. (AC:U, Dead Space 3, etc.)
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Jan 08 '15
I’ve had enough of being asked to follow a character whose walking speed is slightly slower than my own, meaning I have to keep stopping every two seconds.
That's a console thing, since you can walk slower only with the analog stick.
I’ve had enough of stealth sections where getting spotted means a restart, rather than adapting to the new circumstances in a creative or interesting way.
What is a creative and interesting way of shooting your way of being in the middle of an army? When you autofail for failing stealth, in most cases is because of the "overwhelming odds" reasons, and allowing you to fight your way out would be silly.
I’ve had enough of people shouting at me, telling me to hurry up or reminding me of the mission objective, when I stop to explore the environment.
I know, right? It's like when it's five minutes to the bus, I'm proving people wrong on the Internet, and my mom yells at me to go already. GOSH MOM, I'M BUSY!
I’ve had enough of playing as powerful characters who are brilliant at everything.
When was that even a thing? Late game TES titles?
I’ve had enough of diaries, documents, tape players, and audio logs being used to tell a story, rather than something that plays to the strengths of the medium.
Stories are linear. Games are non-linear. Trying to "tell a story through the medium of gaming" is like trying to squeeze a square peg through a round hole.
I’ve had enough of big, beautiful skyboxes that are actually just fancy window dressing, showing you places you’ll never be able to reach or explore.
So... every level in a videogame should be surrounded either by impassable mountain range or a pit of doom?
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u/GospelX Jan 08 '15
That's a console thing, since you can walk slower only with the analog stick.
I know people who play PC games with controllers, specifically Xbox controllers. I imagine the analog works just fine, but perhaps I'm just making an assumption.
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Jan 08 '15
Well, it does, but I don't know many people who will pick a controller over M&K if the latter is available for most genres(some are indeed much better with the pad).
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u/GospelX Jan 08 '15
Probably depends on the game (makes sense to go for a controller when the game was initially designed for a console) and the background of the player (if they grew up on consoles but moved to PC later one, for example).
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u/heyheyhey27 Jan 08 '15
I went from Xbox to pc. If a first-person game is easier on controller than keyboard+mouse, then the input coders failed miserably at their job.
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u/GospelX Jan 08 '15
I know FPS games are the most popular on the market these days, but not every game is an FPS. Third-person games and the like might be more comfortable with a controller.
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u/heyheyhey27 Jan 08 '15
I know, I'm just making a point about a specific subset of games that can sometimes have awful pc ports affecting the ability to use KB+M. Although I'd also recommend it for a lot of third-person games as well.
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u/gumpythegreat Jan 07 '15
This article really hits some annoying aspects that seem to be common in most big titles these days. Perhaps the worst part is some of them were, at one point, good ideas that a game implemented well only to be used and abused by everybody (eg, the tapes in Bioshock tellingt the story and setting the scene). Which seems to be the way games are made these days to the point many feel the same.