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Got any pet peeves for things in video games? Whether it is mechanics, marketing, storytelling, or something even spicier get it off your chest!

I don't care for deck builder video games. If I wanted to play with cards I'd play something using actual cards. "Rogue Like"s are wearing a bit thin. There are some excellent ones but for awhile it felt like we were getting flooded with them. Rogue Like Deck Builders can just go all the way away, obliviously.

VHS static on the screen. This is really more of a indie horror game thing but once one did it it seems like everyone seemed to think it was a shortcut to atmosphere. When the gaame starts or key points/cut scenes it would be fine but having it going the entire time is just grating, and not in a way that sets the mood.

And of course a classic: Escort quests where the npc moves faster than your walk speed but slower than your run speed.

Call of Duty has the whole thing in every game where you get knocked flat by an explosion, the screen is blurry, your audio is muted, but here comes someone along to pull you back onto your feet, to remind you that you are part of a squad! Even though the game has this mechanic where it can't progress unless you go to a place and shoot x-amount of enemies, your squad's contributions are diddly-squat unless the game calls for it.

Games that forcefully pull you out of gameplay to give you a cutscene, over and over and over again. Tying into that.. games that rely heavily on a lot of dialogue for exposition and plot building (tell, but don't show, nope!), especially horrible if they try to be funny, deep or witty about it, but horrendously fall flat doing so. It's also why I personally don't like many of Kojima's games (and I played most of them..), he lays it on too thick with the exposition.

Games that have poorly spaced out / placed quick save points, especially those where you die right after a lengthy cutscene happens beforehand, so you're stuck watching that again first, because some games have unskippable cutscenes, yay!

 Ahtman wrote:

I don't care for deck builder video games. If I wanted to play with cards I'd play something using actual cards.

Hell yeah. My son is currently working through Midnight Suns, and I just can't see that the deck building and management is anything but detrimental. It would be a much better game if it was just a strategic RPG XCOM-but-Marvel game.

Ohh I've got a few things!

1) Visual settings based off a camera. Unless your game character is looking through a lens you should NOT be having lens flares and bloom and other REALLY annoying things that people who actually take photos often try to remove in general unless its for a very specific effect.

It's totally fine if you're looking through a glass sheet in-game (eg in a cockpit) but even then you shouldn't be getting dozens of flares (you don't have a dozen sheets of glass in the way)

2) Depth of Field - this is another one that annoys me. Sometimes its good in a cutscene; but as a general game setting I find it super annoying. All it does is render stuff you want to look at out of focus. Again our eyes are NOT camer lenses running on f1.2. Yes we do have limited depth of field but we constantly resample scenes so that we don't see the world through f1.2.

Again this can have its place and I'm all for it in cutscenes where it enhances the moment; or for camera modes and such. But for general actual playing of the game its pointless to annoying.

3) Story getting in the way of the gameplay. I'm 100% all for story, but if every 5 seconds of gameplay is being interrupted by a cutscene or a huge break in the game and such - then it becomes annoying. A game needs to pace itself so that the player has time to actually play the game part of the game without being swamped with other elements.

4) Fetch quests that lead nowhere. A great example of this is Digimon Cyberslueth where there are quite a few "quests" which are basically you running from A to B to C and then back to A and you're done. Sometimes you don't even have to do anything battle/digimon related or if you do its a tiny number of fights over a very small area.

You don't actually puzzle anything out; you don't think or engage your mind to solve something; you don't fight or do level grinding - you purely just run back and forth.

5) Escort missions where the AI controls the thing you are escorting. Just freaking heck let me tell them to stop and wait a moment; or not to go down the pathway that leads to certain death; or not to run away into enemies.
Yes I get that that is part of the challenge; but darn it they are still frustrating experiences

6) Missmatched walk speeds. This was touched on above, but there are SO many games where every NPC moves at a different speed to the character. Really annoying that you're making me follow someone, but at least make them move the same speed or have a REASON for the speed missmatch. Eg them running ahead is intentional. If they rae slower at least allow me to match their slower speed.

You know like normal people do in reality when walking with someone slower.

7) Clipping details. Especially when its because you've taken "generic human character skin" and then given it horns and tails and fills and other non-human elements; but then not bothered to change your clothing to suite. I hate seeing something with a tail wearing a cape and the tail is just clipping through the cape all the time; or horns/spikes moving through shoulderpads and so forth.
This one always strikes me as just "lazy". I know there's a lot of work in remodelling; but if you chose to give yourself non-humanoid characters at least spend the time to do it properly!

Multiplayer games. If it's competitive, it's obnoxious and aggressive. If it's co-operative, it becomes a social obligation to show up and play regularly. I don't want either. Couch co-op with IRL friends, yes, playing with people I only "know" online, no thanks. I've played a few MMOs, but I play them like single player games and don't interact much with others.

Related, counters in games that count down in real life. Only really encountered this in Elite Dangerous, but I was really in the target demographic for that game but the "real time countdown" aspect totally killed it for me. I absolutely hate anything where I perceive the devs are trying to manipulate me into playing more through anything other than pure enjoyment of the game. Daily challenges fall under this as well. I was so annoyed by this that even after jury rigging a head tracking rig for the game I just stopped playing it. I have too many responsibilities, I need to be able to put a game down and come back to it 3-6 months later or it's a no go.

 Da Boss wrote:

Related, counters in games that count down in real life. Only really encountered this in Elite Dangerous, but I was really in the target demographic for that game but the "real time countdown" aspect totally killed it for me. I absolutely hate anything where I perceive the devs are trying to manipulate me into playing more through anything other than pure enjoyment of the game. Daily challenges fall under this as well. I was so annoyed by this that even after jury rigging a head tracking rig for the game I just stopped playing it. I have too many responsibilities, I need to be able to put a game down and come back to it 3-6 months later or it's a no go.

I'm going to agree with this in part.

Eg I hated how in Pokemon silver the time was based on real time because when you're a kid all those daylight hours - that was school... so when you got home in the evening you could just play with hoothoots and rattas till the weekend.

Another I hate are singleplayer (or singleplayer capable games) with limited access items. Eg the Diablo 3 seasonal rewards. Again its the same as you; its not the developer rewarding play its the developer forcing you to play (and play a LOT) over very long intense periods in order to win prizes. Fail to do so and you can't get the prize ever.



I can accept some of those within MMO games because in part that's the style of game that they are and building elements the encourage and reward regular play is part of those games. This is one of those "its not for me but I get why" because those people who are regularly playing want to be rewarded for it and the game is going to be improved by encouraging players to turn up regularly so that social groups form and player teams and guilds and so forth build up. In that context I think such mechanics, done right, are a positive thing.

But in singleplayer you shouldn't have those limits.



Oh wait another - can we just throw Ubi in there? Ubi management?
I'm still absolutely surprised that they get away with paid experience and loot boosters in a SinglePlayer game and even removed user created quests that gave too much loot/exp when people did that. And they've done this for several games that continue to get top reviews and be best sellers. Back in the 90s if you tried that you'd have got 0 across the board from every review magazine and your sales would have tanked.

I really don't like it when a game like Life is Strange or most Telltale/RPG game is marketed as "all your choices matter" and they try to emphasize how a bunch of choices at the beginning will tie into the ending, but then it becomes either an arbritray choice between 2 options where your previous choices have little to no bearing on the final result OR the final result has such little variation between the endings that it amounts to having a different color filter on each one (looking at you ME3). I'd much prefer a well written linear story with a well crafted ending than one with multiple "branching" storylines but with several lukewarm ending choices.

Another one is when games (particularly looter-shooter type games), don't have a good progression of weapon types as you move forward in the game, as you presumably want things to at least add flavour or get access to better weapons as you level up or go against more difficult enemies. Nothing wrong with the basic weapons remaining staples, but it's very demotivating to find out late-game or newer weapons are functionally pointless or incredibly niche in their use. Bonus bad points if they just end up as a reskin of older weapons.

I'm also not crazy about the weird move to naming "body type" at character creation rather than male or female for some games, since it's pretty clear which body type is what and it feels like pandering to a specific type of crowd. If you're going to do this, at least let me choose apache helicopter body type.

"You can play as Body Type I or II!"

"why can't body type II go topless?"

"because body type II is female"

:^)

1) Default sound is way. too. damn. loud. Literally every game has to blast your eardrums till you can get to the settings and nuke it.

2) Bloom, lensflare, and camera shake being on by default. Efff dat shiz! I want to be able to see the dang game. Total Immersion is for VR bros.

3) Games where the only thing that increases difficulty is "HP and Damage go up" on enemies. Late game Fallout is a good example where enemies just become bullet sponges and can take thousands of rounds to kill while doing absurd damage to you. I much prefer games where everything(including yourself potentially) is a glass cannon and enemies stay alive by manipulating the environment than just face tanking, or just throwing human waves at you which is also valid.

#3 is actually a thing I've used as a DM before. I don't make enemies tougher for my players, I just throw more of them. It lets the player feel powerful and these enemies can still be a threat.

 Grey Templar wrote:
1) Default sound is way. too. damn. loud. Literally every game has to blast your eardrums till you can get to the settings and nuke it.

One thing I've found some games is sound being equally balanced. So your music, your explosions, your voiceovers are all at the default same level. This means that loud music and explosion drowns out the characters talking. So its not so much that its too loud/quiet (that just requires turning the dial on the speakers) but more that its poorly balanced between the different audio sources in the game




At least its better than in films where its even worse because you can't selectively boost the whispering characters and quieten the deafening explosions. You have to suffer both at once.

1. Long cut scenes. Even more so, long cut scenes with button pressing in a certain sequence mid scene, so you can't just go and make a cup of tea. Even more, more so the timing has to be spot on or the whole tedious scene starts again. (eg: 'Guardians of the Galaxy')

2. Dull boss fights (ie all boss fights). At least you can flick to story mode and get it over. Eye rolling tedium award goes to games where you get the fight out the way, there is a cut scene for dialog, and then you have to fight them again. And again in some situations. (Eg Spider-man 2).

3. "Aha! You think you'll be doing this, but you're going to be doing this!" Looking forward to a type of game, only to have to do some other action you wouldn't think would be 'in theme'? It's also required to master to progress the quest, and it doesn't get easier in story mode. (Eg 'Jedi Survivor').

I just forced myself to complete Diakatana last night, and I have to say, I do not like the 90s quake style movement of super fast strafe jumping. It was an entirely 90s thing. Quake, all the Build games, Half Life, it was a silly Multiplayer style of gameplay they force single player games to use, and I hated it.

Also a bad 90s trope, stupid names on NPCs. Hiro Miyamoto, Superfly Johnson, Duke Nukem, Gordon Freeman, Lo Wang. Stop it. We get it. You never grew out of your teenage years.

Badly binded keyboard controls. If you have to reach away from the AWSD config, further then the "R" key, you're playing a simulator, or Mech Warrior, and shouldn't be using a keyboard. You mostly see this in Slavjank. But occaisionally it pops up in REALLY bad console ports. Looking at you FINAL FANTASY X, X2, XIII, and XIII-2? Really? 105 keys, and you have to use the ones on opposite ends of the pad? Who thought this was a good idea? Please fire them as soon as possible and put tomatoes in their chairs.

... games should be bound to ESDF not WASD.

WASD is for people who don't touch type!

Reading through this, I think a lot of likes and dislikes in games is contextual.
Like if playing a RPG I want lots of dialog, and cutscene and to have places to explore.
But it’s less fun if I going into a game as a liner shooter.

I also dislike the how much sexualisation is normalised in gaming, by men who then turn around a shame women for expressing there sexuality. Very spicy take, but I think it’s a problem now.
This less about the sexualisation itself and how some people are acting about it.

This also leads into how much it’s used essentially as an easy button to manipulate money from a group of people who probably need help in other areas.
It’s a huge issue in gacha gaming, which is a genre that I actually play a lot.

Hopefully not to much, but it’s been on my mind last few weeks for a few reasons.

Online Multiplayer.

I’m not exactly anti-social. But I’m 43. I have a full time career, which takes up 35 hours a week. I have chores and other duties to attend. Like cooking me dinner so I don’t starve.

I therefore do not have the time to dedicate “gittin’ gud scrub” just so I stand half a chance against some basement dwelling, lice riddled, sweaty Neckbeard who does nothing all day but play this game in a misguided attempt to find a purpose and meaning in their life, whilst hurling abuse at their doting mother to bring them more tacos, Cheetos and Mountain Dew, and desperately wondering what it might be like to feel the tenderness of a woman.

Game specific? Doom Eternal is a mighty, mighty fine game. Except for that bit where a FPS decides “sod it, I’m a play former now, enjoy trying to make precision jumps with precision timing when you can either look where you’re going, or where your feet are”. That bit can sod right off.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Online Multiplayer.

I’m not exactly anti-social. But I’m 43. I have a full time career, which takes up 35 hours a week. I have chores and other duties to attend. Like cooking me dinner so I don’t starve.

I therefore do not have the time to dedicate “gittin’ gud scrub” just so I stand half a chance against some basement dwelling, lice riddled, sweaty Neckbeard who does nothing all day but play this game in a misguided attempt to find a purpose and meaning in their life, whilst hurling abuse at their doting mother to bring them more tacos, Cheetos and Mountain Dew, and desperately wondering what it might be like to feel the tenderness of a woman.

Game specific? Doom Eternal is a mighty, mighty fine game. Except for that bit where a FPS decides “sod it, I’m a play former now, enjoy trying to make precision jumps with precision timing when you can either look where you’re going, or where your feet are”. That bit can sod right off.

Back in the PS4 launch days, my wife got me the PS4 with Vader on it, with the crap version of Star Wars Battlefront. It came with 48 hours of free online play. And was s**t. Utter s**t. Spawn and die, spawn and die. Repeat. Some people may like that in a game, i suppose. If they're deranged.

1) QTEs. Never enjoyed these in games and never feels like it adds anything to the experience. Thankfully doesnt seem to be as common now as it was about 10-15 years ago but it still pops up. Ended up with joystick drift because of the joystick waggling QTE in Dave the Diver last year.

2) Unpausable cutscenes. Again thankfully less common in modern games but really frustrating when it is needed but not available. Also the whole gamble of "if I press the start button will it pause or skip the cutscene".

3) Differing walking speeds with NPC's. Having to follow someone who is talking to your character and having to either walk then run because they go to fast. Or keep stopping for them to catch up when they're too slow. Best solution I saw for this was in Yakuza 0 I think where you could just hold down a button to make Kiryu automatically walk at the same pace and follow the NPC character.

4) Motion Blur. Always the first setting I turn off in games that have it. Never seen it done well in a game.

5) Escort missions: A part of my soul dies everytime a game has these. It's never a fun mission type. Worst case I ever saw was in the Scarface game where you had to protect a restaurant owner from some guys attacking his restaurant. Unfortunately the restaurant owner was suicidal and would repeatedly charge out of cover to be gunned down.

The fact that many AAA games have now larger budgets on psychologists for Fomo, Lootboxes, and other gatcha mechanics, despite charging full prise. NVM AA and mobile games.

The fact that whale hunting has become the default sales tactic, especially with allways online nonsensery in singleplayer games.

The push of companies like ubisoft that want you, the buyer not to OWN your actual game.

ESG and companies like sweet baby inc. Thanks, i own the red booklet of the garden variant of socialist chinese moronicism, if i want propaganda i can just pick it up again.

Ship now, fix later(never) and the deterioration quality of programming, that has come with permanent patchability.

"TOxIc FaNdOm" excuses and attempt to paint criticism as "ReViEw BoMbiNg" to avoid beeing held accountable for said shoddy product. Or for swallowing ESG money and Sweet baby inc dictat and ruining their own games stories especially. Doubly ridiculous when the games journalisms (read vetted corrupted shills not media) help the AAA dev.

I'm not fond of loot... almost in its entirety. I'll make an exception for things that result in mechanical gameplay changes, but I lost interest in "numbers go up" before WoW was in beta.

Similarly most monetization strategies turn me away pretty hard. There are things like major expansions, new courses or characters and the like that I don't mind, but digging through all the avatar stickers or cosmetic purchases usually stops me from interacting with the game at all.

Enforced Stealth in action games. Especially the M.J. bits from Spider-man.

Not Online!!! wrote:
ESG and companies like sweet baby inc. Thanks, i own the red booklet of the garden variant of socialist chinese moronicism, if i want propaganda i can just pick it up again.

I'm a little confused on this one.

 Ahtman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
ESG and companies like sweet baby inc. Thanks, i own the red booklet of the garden variant of socialist chinese moronicism, if i want propaganda i can just pick it up again.

I'm a little confused on this one.

Sweet Baby inc is directly f.e. to be blamed the massacring of the story of suicide squad in the very typical "current day" fashion for "modern audiences". Which is done to become eligible to get esg money.

 Ahtman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
ESG and companies like sweet baby inc. Thanks, i own the red booklet of the garden variant of socialist chinese moronicism, if i want propaganda i can just pick it up again.

I'm a little confused on this one.

I'm gonna try to side-step this minefield a little bit and just say Sweet Baby Inc. is one of those companies that has been hired by games companies to be "diverse" and "inclusive" (whatever those words mean anymore). Normally companies do this in a very surface level way to get ESG money from a big hedge fund. For instance the "Warhammer is for Everyone" post where they did very little to actually employ more people of color or make the game cheaper for everybody to play including people that might be poor. It's basically all talk and no action. Honestly it should make both of the main groups in the culture war unhappy but it doesn't.

Don't ask questions. Just consume product and be excited for new/more product.

I'm honestly trying not to get involved in the political stuff here.

---------

Don't like? Hmmm i'd have to go for the cartoony fortnite gameplay, FPS games and the PUBG/Fortnite style of last man standing shooter. I've seen it enough already.

 Ahtman wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
ESG and companies like sweet baby inc. Thanks, i own the red booklet of the garden variant of socialist chinese moronicism, if i want propaganda i can just pick it up again.

I'm a little confused on this one.

Like what Not Online! said, they're basically consultants hired to make "changes" to an existing games story and framework to fit what they consider is "appropriate" and meet DEI requirements according to what is deemed current day sensibilities. They were the reason why Angrboða was race swapped in God of War: Ragnarok, and a lot of the weird side missions (mainly for Miles) and the removal of spider-cop for Spider Man 2.

- I quit the Farcry series because of their stupid drug/dream sequences that are spread across their games. They were unskippable, changed gameplay mechanics, oft times scripted and painfully slow, and made what were graphically beautiful games look poor quality. Whichever one had the Cult-fanatic family was the last one I touched.

- While I love open world games, I hate when they are devoid of anything interesting or fun. Whats the point of a sandbox if there aren’t any toys in it to play with ?

- Also with open world games, I dislike seeing a big map to explore, but significant parts of it are locked/inaccessible due to plot progression. That’s usually a tool used by the devs to hide how barren they made their sandbox, as I mentioned above.

- Hamfisted ‘romance’. Seemed like everyone wanted to feth me silly in Baldur’s Gate 3 at the slightest piece of positive dialogue. Unexpectedly, WH40K : Rogue Trader as well. There are “romance” sequences for the aeldari and drukhari characters ffs.

- Lack of New Game+ modes in games that would greatly benefit from it.

Proceduraly generated content. Starfield? It's often boring, badly handled and horrifically designed.

Yeah I also don't really like romance options as they are presented in most games. Really shallow, put in the good boy coupons and get your reward. Yuck.

 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah I also don't really like romance options as they are presented in most games. Really shallow, put in the good boy coupons and get your reward. Yuck.

I wanna second this. <mod edit -removed> And I just....why? Why is this in the game?

I often feel like romancing in games feels odd because very few games (esp these days) like to do time advances or such. So you never really get the sense that a great amount of "time" has passed within the setting for a relationship to form.

Another thing is the need for game to put romancing in; but not dancing, clubbing, drinking, socialising, hobbying or just cooking meals. Ergo anything outside of combat, questing or romancing dialogue. Even camp events can feel a bit forced/muted in their impact.





Then again some games go all in for it - newer Fire Emblems are all about romancing between characters (which is mostly if they stand next to each other in fights and such....).

I think it appeals greatly to a romancing market of gamers; who honestly are often also writing more story outside of the game and the ingame events are just part of that greater narrative that they create themsleves.


Ergo the missing parts don't feel missing because they are scripting it themselves with imagination.



It's something that more formal adventuring games with set storylines can often get a bit better because they do sometimes take the time to show time advance or out of combat events and so forth.

I don't mind a well written romance plot in a game, where it's developed as part of the established characters. My issue is when your character is more of a blank slate self insert and the romance system is just some cheesy dialogue choices, and after 3 of the right ones that NPC is all over you.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Online Multiplayer.

Online Singleplayer :|

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Game specific? Doom Eternal

It was an interesting case against making a game too skill based - a relatively small difference in battlemode experience would quickly turn every game into a one-sided blowout so every new player felt like they were running a gauntlet of sweatlords.

With a large enough player base for tiered matchmaking it would have worked but the wall was too high and the curve too steep.