Hear me out. A few games have shader installations that will usually apply any new settings you put down AFTER you restart the game, and a lot of other games have graphics settings that will only apply after you’ve rebooted the game.
I don’t think it would cost developers ANY amount of money or any significant development time to add a “Reboot game” button (or toggle) every time the player presses the quit button, or give the player a prompt every time they change a setting that requires a game restart (like in both PC versions of GTA V).
I also think ANY game should have a “full potato” mode capable of running in older computers with NONE of the fancy graphics stuff that we have access to today, despite having a decent computer now.
Here’s a simple one. On PC, a lot of games let you use the keyboard/mouse or a controller. On some games it’ll switch the prompts to the layout of the last type of input you used. However I tend to use a controller for everything, except I’ll use a mouse for more fine tuned control since I suck at aiming with a joystick. But then what happens is the input notifications switch to keyboard/mouse and sometimes don’t switch back.
I’d love to see an option to force which input style gets displayed on screen. Keyboard/Controller/Auto
That was the worst. One time I had a remote desktop host software running, nothing was even connected, but it was detected first or something stupid, and I couldn’t input the game at all. What an absolute nightmare to troubleshoot. I ended up just never actually playing that game with those friends because I couldn’t, and everybody ended up not playing more of it or any of the sequels as a result.
Same do it some don’t. Standardization would be great! I personally HATE when a game pauses when I tab to something else but I can see the benefit for others.
I’m talking, down to at least the thousandths place decimal, and up as high as I fucking want. This allows your mouse sensitivity to not only account for how you play, but also how everybody else plays.
And if you’re one of those devs that has the aiming be different than mouse cursor, or even MULTIPLE mouse cursor speed settings, HAVE ENTERABLE VALUES FOR THOSE TOO!!
Sometimes I’m at 1% and it’s too high still.
Sometimes I’m at 1% and it’s too low and 2% is too high.
Every time I see a slider for any damn setting that ends up going from, say, 3.48 to 3.51 unless I go REALLY SLOWLY, in which case maybe it goes 3.48 3.49, 3.51, or whatever nonsense where I can’t just get my nice round number. Let me type the stupid number.
Fucks sake this for me. Why the fuck there isn’t standardization between games on this is beyond me. I have to go through fucking with mouse sensitivity on every damn game. This is part of the reason I died out of multiplayer tbh.
also, a standard to mouse sens values, a value of 10 should be same across everything, games made in the same engine usually handle the values the same which is great, I for example have the same sens across all source games, but this usually doesnt carry to diferent engines let alone random one off games with custom engines
If I’m going to put 100+ hours into a game, there better be a setting to mute BGM, because no matter how good the OST is I will eventually tire of it and want to listen to something else.
Similarly, granular audio options that separate dialogue from ambient from music from system sounds. Definitely don’t need my ears blown out just to hear dialogue.
I like having the background music very low, but not off, system sounds a bit above that, sound effects higher than system but lower than dialogue, which is maxed. And of course ambient sound levels really depend on the game and what kind of ambiance it has.
Same thing with granular contrast/gamma/etc. Don’t just provide a few preset options, especially if they can only be set before you start the game (also they should never only be set from the main menu, never). Let the player choose whatever they want on the fly. I love playing with everything bright so I can see wtf I’m doing, I don’t give half a shit if the devs think it should be so dark it’s not navigable. I disagree.
I’d love it if a group could collude on a standard for music signals.
Imagine this: You have a music player following this signal standard.
Game starts, it signals GAME_STARTED, and the media player signals STOP_GAME_MUSIC, so the game itself plays no BGM, leaving it to the music player. But, then the game can also signal later on: THEME_MENUS, THEME_EXPLORE, THEME_COMBAT, THEME_BOSS; and the media player can respond to that by cross fading between playlists built for each.
Please let me invert y-axis for games where I control the field of view. Nothing takes me out of a game like suddenly staring at my feet when I try to look up.
I can’t think of a setting that would universally apply to all games, like I’d be hard pressed to say a setting in Tetris that would apply to Minecraft. Vision and auditory accessibility is probably about it, but those settings would look pretty different I think depending on the game or genre of game.
I cannot name the amount of times I’ve tried to press escape and skipped a cut scene when all I’m trying to do is bring up the menu to pause. I’ll add to this ‘cinema mode’ which some games have. Let’s you go in and view cutscenes again. Should be standardized.
A way to start a fresh save. Or better yet, allow multiple saves/profiles. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to search online for where save files are located and delete them myself.
And if it’s a Steam game, you also have to worry about cloud saves undoing whatever you did. Please, just make it simple for players to do this.
for that matter, why can’t we ever add a note or a tagline to save files? too many rpg’s and console rpgs have multiple save slots, multiple endings and all that other added content jazz, but no way to internally identify the save files that matter?
Description of the effects and hardware demands of graphics options.
An actual benchmark for ‘optimized settings’ (even if it’s just crunching numbers) instead of hardcoded GPU names.
Clear indication of which difficulty the game was balanced for.
Msaa. Hate running old games at 200 fps with jagged edges and blur thanks to fxaa.
Instant controls switching between controller and keyboard. Tired of games that pick input type at startup, pick input glyphs at startup, ignore first button press from a different input before switching, disable controller if keyboard input is detected etc etc. Edit: exciting new addition courtesy of arkham origins: detecting steam input as a keyboard
Not games but steam: just let me force steam input on all games like Proton.
Also how ‘full potato’ do you want it to be? I assume the settings don’t scale below low, so it’d be just turning off shadows, reflections etc. Would even the lowest resolution textures fit in the vram of an older card? And besides, the engine is probably designed for modern multi core cpus so even if the graphics could be scaled down it might not run well
I always dread picking up a new game that is kinda demanding on the hardware because I hate to keep testing all graphical settings to have the best graphics with good fps. The least they could do is show a split scene with each setting on or off so you can judge with your eyes, but a button that you set the fps and the game crunches some numbers and benchmark to find the best quality graphics settings it can do at the target fps.
If it can adjust the graphics on demand would also be awesome because some games can have variable demands during gameplay.
The ability to pause should be a requirement for single player games. Not being able to pause long cut scenes, combats, etc. is so frustrating when nobody else is impacted.
Any game completely opposed to pausing for whatever design reason should instead be required to have a minimum of 30 seconds between pauses to allow for interruptions while playing without it allowing for rapid pauses to impact game play. 30 seconds minimum is because of how many interruptions are immediately followed by another interruption by kids/spouses/parents/pets.
Cutscenes especially. The pause button should pause cutscenes, with an option to skip the cutscene on the pause menu. The pause button should never just outright skip the cutscene. It should always pause the cutscene.
So many times as a kid that my mom would walk in and start talking right as a cutscene started. And when I’d go to pause it, it would just skip the entire fucking cutscene instead.
Yeah, pause and skip should be separate things. I have some games pm PC where the ESC key pauses and brings up the menu but to skip the scene you have to be watching it and then hold some specific button like mouse 1 for a couple of seconds to skip. Those are my favorites because I have time to reconsider skipping!
Oh yeah that was the worst. Game devs really shooting themselves in the foot with that design.
Once paused, should it just be a single button? Maybe a menu with an “are you sure? Y/n”, or maybe a hold down one or two buttons together for a couple seconds like on consoles?
I recently started another play through of RDR2, while figuring out the settings on my old Linux gaming PC. I’d forgotten how long it is between save points during that oh-so-long first segment up in the mountains. Christ. Having to play for half an hour just to get to a point where I could save up.
I’m sure I have seen it before, but I can’t think of a single game that lets you pause during a cutscene. It really sucks for turn-based games where you need to watch whats happening when it’s not your turn in order to respond correctly.
I remember a game I used to play years ago that had no ability to pause, so what i would do is alt+tab to the task manager and suspend the process, and then resume it later. Obviously that’s way more clunky than just hitting a pause button.
I have played a lot of games where pausing the game to get to game menus pauses cutscenes, generally ones where they use in game assets to do the cut scene. I would have to check to confirm, but I think BG3 let you pause by going to the menu and there was also a separate option to skip the cuts scene.
Definitely played a lot with unskippable cut scenes too. Mostly avoid those games now.
It’s been a very common feature for the last few years and has been very rare before that so it really depends on when you started playing new releases. I’m in my mid-30s and pausing mid-cutscene definitely happended after I stopped being excited about my birthday.
Yeah no-pause feature was cool for one or two games as a gimmick, but Jesus h christ I’m an adult now and sometimes you need to freeze everything RIGHT NOW and single player games that you can’t pause are stupid as hell. Like I get maybe not pausing for accessing gear menu. But then at least give us a separate pause in case I have to run to the post office or take a business call or something
Watch Dogs 2 had an “invasion” system like Dark Souls, but it also allowed pausing in the world anytime you weren’t being invaded. It’s been a nice thing to point to anytime Souls fans make that excuse.
in general: settings which have multiple levels, display it as a slider so I can visually see which ones are actually maxed out and which arent. It’s insanity when most settings have off/low/med/high/higher and randomly some of them have additional levels like epic/ultra/psycho/gigaultrapseudobullshit. You have to go each and everyone through to figure out which have higher settings. Now, this is not a flex, my system can’t run new games on gigaultrapseudobullshitultra++, but older ones? sure.
for fps & tps games: FOV.
otherwise, in no particular order, option to toggle off entirely:
motion blur
chromatic aberration
otherwise, must haves:
subtitles on/off
master volume/music/sfx/dialogue as separate sliders.
don’t default volume to max, this is instant ear explosion if you happen to use different audio devices
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Here’s a simple one. On PC, a lot of games let you use the keyboard/mouse or a controller. On some games it’ll switch the prompts to the layout of the last type of input you used. However I tend to use a controller for everything, except I’ll use a mouse for more fine tuned control since I suck at aiming with a joystick. But then what happens is the input notifications switch to keyboard/mouse and sometimes don’t switch back.
I’d love to see an option to force which input style gets displayed on screen. Keyboard/Controller/Auto
And some games don’t let you use both at the same time!
That was the worst. One time I had a remote desktop host software running, nothing was even connected, but it was detected first or something stupid, and I couldn’t input the game at all. What an absolute nightmare to troubleshoot. I ended up just never actually playing that game with those friends because I couldn’t, and everybody ended up not playing more of it or any of the sequels as a result.
Pause on focus loss/main menu. It’s so simple, but often missing.
Same do it some don’t. Standardization would be great! I personally HATE when a game pauses when I tab to something else but I can see the benefit for others.
…with a toggle in settings.
Toggleable, please.
Enterable values for mouse sensitivity.
No sliders.
I’m talking, down to at least the thousandths place decimal, and up as high as I fucking want. This allows your mouse sensitivity to not only account for how you play, but also how everybody else plays.
And if you’re one of those devs that has the aiming be different than mouse cursor, or even MULTIPLE mouse cursor speed settings, HAVE ENTERABLE VALUES FOR THOSE TOO!!
Sometimes I’m at 1% and it’s too high still.
Sometimes I’m at 1% and it’s too low and 2% is too high.
Every time I see a slider for any damn setting that ends up going from, say, 3.48 to 3.51 unless I go REALLY SLOWLY, in which case maybe it goes 3.48 3.49, 3.51, or whatever nonsense where I can’t just get my nice round number. Let me type the stupid number.
Fucks sake this for me. Why the fuck there isn’t standardization between games on this is beyond me. I have to go through fucking with mouse sensitivity on every damn game. This is part of the reason I died out of multiplayer tbh.
also, a standard to mouse sens values, a value of 10 should be same across everything, games made in the same engine usually handle the values the same which is great, I for example have the same sens across all source games, but this usually doesnt carry to diferent engines let alone random one off games with custom engines
If I’m going to put 100+ hours into a game, there better be a setting to mute BGM, because no matter how good the OST is I will eventually tire of it and want to listen to something else.
Similarly, granular audio options that separate dialogue from ambient from music from system sounds. Definitely don’t need my ears blown out just to hear dialogue.
I like having the background music very low, but not off, system sounds a bit above that, sound effects higher than system but lower than dialogue, which is maxed. And of course ambient sound levels really depend on the game and what kind of ambiance it has.
Same thing with granular contrast/gamma/etc. Don’t just provide a few preset options, especially if they can only be set before you start the game (also they should never only be set from the main menu, never). Let the player choose whatever they want on the fly. I love playing with everything bright so I can see wtf I’m doing, I don’t give half a shit if the devs think it should be so dark it’s not navigable. I disagree.
I’d love it if a group could collude on a standard for music signals.
Imagine this: You have a music player following this signal standard.
Game starts, it signals GAME_STARTED, and the media player signals STOP_GAME_MUSIC, so the game itself plays no BGM, leaving it to the music player. But, then the game can also signal later on: THEME_MENUS, THEME_EXPLORE, THEME_COMBAT, THEME_BOSS; and the media player can respond to that by cross fading between playlists built for each.
Ohh, that type of setting.
One option I really appreciated in Uncharted 4 was the ability to restart cutscenes, and I wish it was in every game with cutscenes.
Please let me invert y-axis for games where I control the field of view. Nothing takes me out of a game like suddenly staring at my feet when I try to look up.
And x-axis, just to be thorough. Especially for third person games since they still can’t all agree on what the default should be.
I can’t think of a setting that would universally apply to all games, like I’d be hard pressed to say a setting in Tetris that would apply to Minecraft. Vision and auditory accessibility is probably about it, but those settings would look pretty different I think depending on the game or genre of game.
Pause and save during cutscenes.
I cannot name the amount of times I’ve tried to press escape and skipped a cut scene when all I’m trying to do is bring up the menu to pause. I’ll add to this ‘cinema mode’ which some games have. Let’s you go in and view cutscenes again. Should be standardized.
A way to start a fresh save. Or better yet, allow multiple saves/profiles. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to search online for where save files are located and delete them myself.
And if it’s a Steam game, you also have to worry about cloud saves undoing whatever you did. Please, just make it simple for players to do this.
for that matter, why can’t we ever add a note or a tagline to save files? too many rpg’s and console rpgs have multiple save slots, multiple endings and all that other added content jazz, but no way to internally identify the save files that matter?
Om that note, see the save-tree would be nice. So you know when saves diverge and such.
For real. Especially if there are settings that permanently and drastically alter the game that you select when you start.
An FOV slider. I don’t care if you’re a 2D game, you’re honoring totalBiscuit
In his honor, I still lick walls in videogames to this day.
Also how ‘full potato’ do you want it to be? I assume the settings don’t scale below low, so it’d be just turning off shadows, reflections etc. Would even the lowest resolution textures fit in the vram of an older card? And besides, the engine is probably designed for modern multi core cpus so even if the graphics could be scaled down it might not run well
I always dread picking up a new game that is kinda demanding on the hardware because I hate to keep testing all graphical settings to have the best graphics with good fps. The least they could do is show a split scene with each setting on or off so you can judge with your eyes, but a button that you set the fps and the game crunches some numbers and benchmark to find the best quality graphics settings it can do at the target fps.
If it can adjust the graphics on demand would also be awesome because some games can have variable demands during gameplay.
The ability to pause should be a requirement for single player games. Not being able to pause long cut scenes, combats, etc. is so frustrating when nobody else is impacted.
Any game completely opposed to pausing for whatever design reason should instead be required to have a minimum of 30 seconds between pauses to allow for interruptions while playing without it allowing for rapid pauses to impact game play. 30 seconds minimum is because of how many interruptions are immediately followed by another interruption by kids/spouses/parents/pets.
Cutscenes especially. The pause button should pause cutscenes, with an option to skip the cutscene on the pause menu. The pause button should never just outright skip the cutscene. It should always pause the cutscene.
So many times as a kid that my mom would walk in and start talking right as a cutscene started. And when I’d go to pause it, it would just skip the entire fucking cutscene instead.
Yeah, pause and skip should be separate things. I have some games pm PC where the ESC key pauses and brings up the menu but to skip the scene you have to be watching it and then hold some specific button like mouse 1 for a couple of seconds to skip. Those are my favorites because I have time to reconsider skipping!
Oh yeah that was the worst. Game devs really shooting themselves in the foot with that design.
Once paused, should it just be a single button? Maybe a menu with an “are you sure? Y/n”, or maybe a hold down one or two buttons together for a couple seconds like on consoles?
I recently started another play through of RDR2, while figuring out the settings on my old Linux gaming PC. I’d forgotten how long it is between save points during that oh-so-long first segment up in the mountains. Christ. Having to play for half an hour just to get to a point where I could save up.
I’m sure I have seen it before, but I can’t think of a single game that lets you pause during a cutscene. It really sucks for turn-based games where you need to watch whats happening when it’s not your turn in order to respond correctly.
I remember a game I used to play years ago that had no ability to pause, so what i would do is alt+tab to the task manager and suspend the process, and then resume it later. Obviously that’s way more clunky than just hitting a pause button.
Conversely I can’t remember a game in recent memory that didn’t let me pause in cutscenes.
Just off of my head: Ubisoft games, Control, Shadow of Mordor, Crysis, Witchers, Borderlands 2, Devil May Cry, Celeste had it.
started Red Dead Redemption 1 last night, seems like just hitting esc during cutscene pauses it.
Admittedly I was wanting to go to settings and drop some settings, but that’s only allowed during gameplay, not cutscenes x)
I have played a lot of games where pausing the game to get to game menus pauses cutscenes, generally ones where they use in game assets to do the cut scene. I would have to check to confirm, but I think BG3 let you pause by going to the menu and there was also a separate option to skip the cuts scene.
Definitely played a lot with unskippable cut scenes too. Mostly avoid those games now.
Ghosts of Yotei lets you pause during cut scenes. It doesn’t let you skip most cut scenes, though.
It’s been a very common feature for the last few years and has been very rare before that so it really depends on when you started playing new releases. I’m in my mid-30s and pausing mid-cutscene definitely happended after I stopped being excited about my birthday.
Yeah, I’m probably what you’d call a patient gamer. Usually not playing anything more recent than 5 years old, and often way older.
Yeah no-pause feature was cool for one or two games as a gimmick, but Jesus h christ I’m an adult now and sometimes you need to freeze everything RIGHT NOW and single player games that you can’t pause are stupid as hell. Like I get maybe not pausing for accessing gear menu. But then at least give us a separate pause in case I have to run to the post office or take a business call or something
Watch Dogs 2 had an “invasion” system like Dark Souls, but it also allowed pausing in the world anytime you weren’t being invaded. It’s been a nice thing to point to anytime Souls fans make that excuse.
in general: settings which have multiple levels, display it as a slider so I can visually see which ones are actually maxed out and which arent. It’s insanity when most settings have off/low/med/high/higher and randomly some of them have additional levels like epic/ultra/psycho/gigaultrapseudobullshit. You have to go each and everyone through to figure out which have higher settings. Now, this is not a flex, my system can’t run new games on gigaultrapseudobullshitultra++, but older ones? sure.
for fps & tps games: FOV.
otherwise, in no particular order, option to toggle off entirely:
otherwise, must haves:
A combined off switch for TAA, Ray Tracing, DLSS, frame generation, and all of that nonsense.
I hate that games now turn to soup when in motion, even with motion blur off.
???
Why have you included ray tracing and DLSS among the actual blur causers?
Ray Tracing is still not good enough and needs “de-noising” which basically just blurs the image.
DLSS is also absolutely horrible for blur. I would rather have a clear pixelated image than an upscaled mess. (And AMD superFX is barely any better)
Do you not know how DLSS works? I almost never find sacrificing clarity for FPS an improvement
A negligible downgrade in visual fidelity and a few shimmers for more performance.
A combined button would be great, but just having all of these settings able to be directly turned off would be great.
Games with third person peaking should have server options for first person only.
The thing about that is thats a big playerbase split