What are some things that just get under your skin about games?
For me, it’s games that do not allow controller rebinding. I have neuropathy and my fingers don’t all work. If I can’t rebind buttons so that I have necessary moves (for example: parry) be on buttons I can reliably press the entire game becomes unplayable.
And on console, where I can’t refund a game after I downloaded it (fuck you Sony) then it really screws me over wasting what limited funds I have on games I just can’t play.
Gawwdan preventing rebinding is so annoying! Or it’s monkey paw wish cousin, letting you rebinding but the on-screen prompts are hard coded to display the default key.
In a simmiliar accessibility vein, I’m hard of hearing so when a game has no option for subtitles then at best I catch 1/3rd of the story.
Too many games are “survival” games now which really means they will make you do a bunch of chores to get to the sub par shooter or adventure game the chores gate you from. No, I don’t want to chop wood and get rope or whatever for the 50th game that never innovates on any of these mechanics to get to the “good part”
Also lots of fun games seem to be ruined because they are battle royales.
Survival mechanics only work when the elements are the main antagonist like in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (the zombies are just obstacles blocking my path to the fridge)
spongy bosses don’t always mean they’re challenging. I can’t count how many times I’ve fought a boss who isn’t hard or interesting but just wastes time cause they have a ton of health.
I love my older retro games, like I’m a huge Metroid fan, but jebus to Betsy, they fall for this trapping all too often.
I don’t fault them, those were the Wild West of gaming when devs were still figuring things out, but damn does it make going back to older games a bit rough.
please download and install the new launcher. please login to the new launcher. your login does not work, please go to the website to reactivate your account. you must restart your system to reset the launcher login screen. please wait a full minute for the launcher to finish loading. please wait thirty seconds for us to process your login credentials. please wait fifteen seconds for us to begin the process of launching the game.
The fact that games act like climbing doesn’t exist. You reach a path blocked by a small rock that any normally able bodied human could climb and it just pisses me off.
Like Pokémon games with a rock you could easily just walk around but noooo you gotta travel to this other town to get a special item or learn a special skill to get around this thing you could easily climb over or walk around.
It’s even worse in VR games. As much as I love Half Life Alyx, there were certain barriers that are literally just a pile of rubble or a chain link fence.
Games with abird sounds. This wouldn’t be too bad if i could turn them down or off but because of this I can’t play some games or spend time in specific areas of some games because it make my birds go crazy because they think there’s another bird in the house.
I wish we could individually turn up or down all of the different elements if sounds not just music/sfx/voice etc
When a game rereleases with an enhanced version or remake and it ruins the atmosphere. Been playing SMT Strange Journey Redux, and the new artstyle feels so generic and bland compared to the OG Strange Journey. The original had this kind of dark and oppressive atmosphere that Redux is sort of missing. Its really minor, since Redux does add a ton of stuff, so its probably still the better way to play, but that original tone just isnt the same.
No save option during stealth sequences or generally in stealth-heavy games. Allow me the option to either improvise and enjoy messing up or plan and execute and test every section of a stealth route carefully without having to replay the mission a thousand times, especially when the slightest hiccup will have the whole mission going awry. If that leads to some people save-scumming their way through the entire mission, so be it. Let them play their way.
Quests that demand that the player finds X of an unimportant item in a world which has exactly X instances of said item. Thankfully most games nowadays will offer up more of said item than needed to complete the quest, so that one doesn’t end up scouring the map over and over again, in search of that elusive last bottle/scroll/pigeon, because nobody got time for that. And not even talking about optional collectathon quests for those who want that sort of thing, some games would have this sort of quest in the main storyline.
Multiple un-skippable product and company credits at the start. Show a blinking “Loading…” if that is what is going on but let me skip this stuff on the second start onward.
I’ve got perhaps an unusual one - 99% of the time I play games with the music turned off. I just find it much more immersive and I enjoy, for example, not knowing that combat is about to start because the music’s just changed.
There are plenty of games where you can’t turn the music off. I’m not a fan of that, but I get it. The devs want you to play their game in a certain way, and turning the music off isn’t part of that. No complaints.
But then there are games which allow you to turn the music off, but all the rest of the sound has been made under the assumption that the music will be playing. The music often covers up a litany of jankiness like background sound effects not looping well. And sometimes the atmosphere sounds (say the drone of an engine in a spaceship) are also controlled by the music slider.
So, if you’re going to give the option to turn the music off, make sure that the game still sounds good without the music.
Excessive reliance on audio recordings and written text for storytelling / world building. Oh look another game where I’m alone in this world and I have to listen to a ton of audio recordings or collect snippets of text throughout the entire game to learn anything about this world and what happened to it!
If anything, let it be audio, not text, I’m tired of reading through often very subpar writing, I just glaze over it. Better yet, have actual (skippable) voice actors read any text out loud. Ideally, weave all that info into the game’s main storyline or side quests, and have it communicated to the player via interesting NPCs. Also, use environmental storytelling more than info-dumps. Show, don’t tell.
Text/in-world notes/memos/books and found audio recordings have a place but don’t let that be the main way of learning about the world or my place in it.
I understand it’s also a budget issue, so I’ll cut indie games some slack.
I agree on everything except the audio over text bit. If it has to be anything, let it be text. Let me be able to skim it if I want, don’t make me sit through an audio file to get background lore.
If it isn’t gonna be presented through the actual storytelling of the gameplay, put it in a text file.
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Abuse of quick time events. Some overrated games are horrible about it. I think it should never be used.
Gawwdan preventing rebinding is so annoying! Or it’s monkey paw wish cousin, letting you rebinding but the on-screen prompts are hard coded to display the default key.
In a simmiliar accessibility vein, I’m hard of hearing so when a game has no option for subtitles then at best I catch 1/3rd of the story.
Too many games are “survival” games now which really means they will make you do a bunch of chores to get to the sub par shooter or adventure game the chores gate you from. No, I don’t want to chop wood and get rope or whatever for the 50th game that never innovates on any of these mechanics to get to the “good part”
Also lots of fun games seem to be ruined because they are battle royales.
Survival mechanics only work when the elements are the main antagonist like in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (the zombies are just obstacles blocking my path to the fridge)
Challenges that require replaying a level several times to achieve them can be very rewarding
Unless the level also comes with unskippable cut scenes or long conversations on horseback
spongy bosses don’t always mean they’re challenging. I can’t count how many times I’ve fought a boss who isn’t hard or interesting but just wastes time cause they have a ton of health.
mechanics matter.
I love my older retro games, like I’m a huge Metroid fan, but jebus to Betsy, they fall for this trapping all too often.
I don’t fault them, those were the Wild West of gaming when devs were still figuring things out, but damn does it make going back to older games a bit rough.
Logins. I hate games with accounts. Just let me play.
oh, hey, you haven’t launched this game in a year
please download and install the new launcher. please login to the new launcher. your login does not work, please go to the website to reactivate your account. you must restart your system to reset the launcher login screen. please wait a full minute for the launcher to finish loading. please wait thirty seconds for us to process your login credentials. please wait fifteen seconds for us to begin the process of launching the game.
The fact that games act like climbing doesn’t exist. You reach a path blocked by a small rock that any normally able bodied human could climb and it just pisses me off.
Like Pokémon games with a rock you could easily just walk around but noooo you gotta travel to this other town to get a special item or learn a special skill to get around this thing you could easily climb over or walk around.
It’s even worse in VR games. As much as I love Half Life Alyx, there were certain barriers that are literally just a pile of rubble or a chain link fence.
Games with abird sounds. This wouldn’t be too bad if i could turn them down or off but because of this I can’t play some games or spend time in specific areas of some games because it make my birds go crazy because they think there’s another bird in the house.
I wish we could individually turn up or down all of the different elements if sounds not just music/sfx/voice etc
Headphones?
When a game rereleases with an enhanced version or remake and it ruins the atmosphere. Been playing SMT Strange Journey Redux, and the new artstyle feels so generic and bland compared to the OG Strange Journey. The original had this kind of dark and oppressive atmosphere that Redux is sort of missing. Its really minor, since Redux does add a ton of stuff, so its probably still the better way to play, but that original tone just isnt the same.
No save option during stealth sequences or generally in stealth-heavy games. Allow me the option to either improvise and enjoy messing up or plan and execute and test every section of a stealth route carefully without having to replay the mission a thousand times, especially when the slightest hiccup will have the whole mission going awry. If that leads to some people save-scumming their way through the entire mission, so be it. Let them play their way.
Quests that demand that the player finds X of an unimportant item in a world which has exactly X instances of said item. Thankfully most games nowadays will offer up more of said item than needed to complete the quest, so that one doesn’t end up scouring the map over and over again, in search of that elusive last bottle/scroll/pigeon, because nobody got time for that. And not even talking about optional collectathon quests for those who want that sort of thing, some games would have this sort of quest in the main storyline.
It’s OK. You can say crimson nirnroot.
Why must you remind me of this repressed memory? The reward wasn’t even fucking worth it.
Multiple un-skippable product and company credits at the start. Show a blinking “Loading…” if that is what is going on but let me skip this stuff on the second start onward.
I’ve got perhaps an unusual one - 99% of the time I play games with the music turned off. I just find it much more immersive and I enjoy, for example, not knowing that combat is about to start because the music’s just changed.
There are plenty of games where you can’t turn the music off. I’m not a fan of that, but I get it. The devs want you to play their game in a certain way, and turning the music off isn’t part of that. No complaints.
But then there are games which allow you to turn the music off, but all the rest of the sound has been made under the assumption that the music will be playing. The music often covers up a litany of jankiness like background sound effects not looping well. And sometimes the atmosphere sounds (say the drone of an engine in a spaceship) are also controlled by the music slider.
So, if you’re going to give the option to turn the music off, make sure that the game still sounds good without the music.
Games that are artificially limited to 60fps
The only games that should be limited are fighting games and that’s because it isn’t arbitrary for them, it’s integral to the frame data for moves.
Excessive reliance on audio recordings and written text for storytelling / world building. Oh look another game where I’m alone in this world and I have to listen to a ton of audio recordings or collect snippets of text throughout the entire game to learn anything about this world and what happened to it!
If anything, let it be audio, not text, I’m tired of reading through often very subpar writing, I just glaze over it. Better yet, have actual (skippable) voice actors read any text out loud. Ideally, weave all that info into the game’s main storyline or side quests, and have it communicated to the player via interesting NPCs. Also, use environmental storytelling more than info-dumps. Show, don’t tell.
Text/in-world notes/memos/books and found audio recordings have a place but don’t let that be the main way of learning about the world or my place in it.
I understand it’s also a budget issue, so I’ll cut indie games some slack.
I like the way bioshock did it
I like the way bioshock did a lot of things (1 & 2, anyways)
I agree on everything except the audio over text bit. If it has to be anything, let it be text. Let me be able to skim it if I want, don’t make me sit through an audio file to get background lore.
If it isn’t gonna be presented through the actual storytelling of the gameplay, put it in a text file.