Topic: Things That Bother Me About Games

[nickclone]

I'm bored, so I figured I'd go on a mini rant:

Mirror Reflections: Games nowadays how great graphics, but for some reason I don't see mirrors anymore. Deus Ex and Postal 2 had mirror reflections in them, but many games now have taken that out. A lot of games either have no mirrors in them or all of the mirrors in the game are broken. The only reason I can think of this is laziness on the programmers part, but how hard could it be?

Pain Skins: While we're on graphics, I miss pain skins. For those of you don't know, pain skins are the damage you see on a character when you do damage to him. Its minor and only for aesthetics, but seeing an enemy get shot and seeing absolutely no damage done to the body takes me out of the game. Once again, I don't know why so many games in this day and age don't have this anymore...more laziness?

Notepad: In every Elder Scrolls game I've played, I've had to keep notes. I don't like having to alt + tab and use notepad, so I usually write it down on a piece of paper or in a note book. However, why can't developers just let me take notes in game? The only game I've seen do anything like this was Deus Ex. It doesn't seem like much, but I think it would be a big help.

In Game Browser: I don't expect anyone to ever do this, but I would like the option to use this. Several years ago (before smart phones) this would have been more useful.

[gpw11]

In Game Browser: I don't expect anyone to ever do this, but I would like the option to use this. Several years ago (before smart phones) this would have been more useful.

Steam pretty much killed any need for this on the PC.

[W7RE]

The mirrors and pain skins are probably mostly for performance reasons. There's probably a way of doing mirrors these days similar to water reflections, but I know old games used to create a duplicate of the room so it just looked like a mirror. Either method would put more strain on the system, and most developers would probably rather use those resources for other effects. The pain skins, you'd be loading in another texture. I agree both should be in more games though.


Things that bother me?

I hate fighting waves of enemies in first/third person shooters. (not talking about horde modes) It's okay once in a while, but not as the primary method of introducing enemies into the environment. Painkiller and Serious Sam do this. I like the games, but don't care for the enemy spawn systems.

Invisible walls. Give me a logical reason why I can't go there. Invisible walls take me out of the game too much.

Hand-holdy tutorials. Make the tutorial quick and simple, engaging enough to not get bored, or implied through gameplay (a wall blocking your path teaches you to jump).

Long cinematic intro sequences. If the game is really story heavy I guess this works fine, but if I'm jumping into a game that's got more of a combat focus, I don't want to sit through a bunch of story before I can play.

When text or audio information breaks up the pacing of the game.
Examples of what not to do: long text logs that are boring. Audio logs in areas where enemies will be attacking you. Walls of text when you pick up a quest in an MMO. Long audio exposition when picking up a quest in an MMO.
What should be done instead: short text logs. Audio logs in places where you're moving through an empty or quiet environment. Concise voice acted quest instructions in MMOs.
If you want to vary the pacing of the game, that's fine, but don't give me 5 minutes of reading material, or make me sit around doing nothing while waiting for an audio log to finish playing. RPGs get a pass, as long as the dialogue is interesting and not overly long. The dialogue pulls you into the world, if done right.

[Xessive]

I don't know why mirrors are disappearing. Even in Bioshock Infinite, all mirrors are these weird foggy sheets that reflect nothing.. That is despite water being fully and dynamically reflective along with certain metal environmental objects. Weird.

As for pain skins, from what I know the industry is moving away from the old-fashioned technique of multiple skin textures and more towards dynamic damage models and impact textures. In Skyrim the Crimson Tides mod adds blood effects but more notably slash marks and arrow wounds in the exact location where you struck your enemy, pretty awesome. In Bioshock Infinite, where you strike your enemy also shows in the form of blood marks or impact marks if they're not organic. It no longer feels like "arbitrary damage inflicted" and more like "I just hit him with an arrow in the knee! Look, it's bleeding!"

There are some other games that incorporate more advanced methods involving fully destructible objects and models with partitions, allowing you to sever limbs etc.

When nit comes to the player character though, there are few games that actually reflect health status/effects on the player model.

[W7RE]

There are some other games that incorporate more advanced methods involving fully destructible objects and models with partitions, allowing you to sever limbs etc.

I recall reading somewhere that to achieve dismemberment in Dead Space (at least the first one), the necromorphs are built in pieces. When you see one walking, it's actually like 6-7 separate objects moving together, and they detach based on where you're shooting them.

[K-man]

I wish audio logs weren't so popular.  Who does that?  Do any of you record thoughts onto tape and leave them laying around haphazardly?

I'd rather read a long text log than listen to an audio log.

And while in-game note taking would be great, I still enjoy writing it all down in a notebook.  In fact I have a great time revisiting notes on games I played over a decade ago.  I've got some primo stuff on some of the later Zork games, and I basically created a strategy guide for Ultima VI

[Cools!]

I'm playing System Shock 2 right now and audio logs are a big thing in that game. It works well in keeping with the setting and not being able to pause the game while in the inventory. In other games, it's just stupid.

Oh and one other thing I like about SS2 is that you can leave notes right on the map. I wish more games would let you do that.

What I dislike about current games:

1) Even with all the graphical power we have now and amazing looking levels the actual map design is still very basic. I still find that most single player maps just don't make much sense though there are a few exceptions.

2) The current focus on providing content (DLCs) instead of focusing on game balance. Example: BF3 has had numerous DLCs that have added new weapons and maps, but for the most part the maps themselves haven't been fixed even though some of them have serious issues. Like being able to mortar spawning points without being able to do it back, shelling of spawning points with tanks from across the map, etc.

[idolminds]

Mirrors require the player character to be modeled and animated. If the only time you'll ever see it is in a mirror then its easier to just cheat the mirrors. Plus mirrors are usually done as portals, with a camera at the mirror location and then rendering its view to the surface. If a room has several mirrors (like a public bathroom, for example) then you're having to render the scene multiple times, and with all the shaders and such thats going to start bogging things down in a hurry. You can "cheat" that by building a special low poly bathroom area outside the normal map and then link the portals to it but still...its a lot of extra work for what is a minor effect that most people won't even care about past the "Huh neat" when they see it.

[Cools!]

The reason we don't have mirror reflections is so you know you are in a game!

[nickclone]

I just started playing Assassin's Creed for the 360 and I realized that there are no subtitles. Why would a game not have have an option for subtitles?

I don't like the current map designs either. The game world has become more detailed, but the maps guiding you don't? I also hate when games don't let you mark a location.

[Pugnate]

Hahaha that's a good point about the mirrors. It is definitely because of performance issues. Think about how crucial a mirror is to a driving game, yet even those games have ghetto graphics mirrors now.

[MysterD]

I know, I know - old thread resurrection.

But, I do have a few pet peeves.

1. Poorly placed auto-saves.
It's okay to throw-out auto-saves quite a bit. But, something else that drives me bananas is where they are placed - especially if you cannot quicksave manually or bring-up a saved-game menu manually at any time.
A. Sometimes, auto-saves are placed right BEFORE a cut-scene. Please, place your auto-save AFTER this. I don't wanna watch the same cut-scene (if it's unskippable) or have to skip through it a bunch of times, if I have to re-load a save.
B. Sometimes, auto-saves are placed right BEFORE a branching dialogue decision. I can see in some instances, where this makes sense - where there's a branching decision that fails, so you can re-do the sequence properly. But, if I make a decision that continues the games - please don't make me skip through a lot of this. Please place the save right after my decision. If I don't want to live w/ it - I'll reload an older save (if it's allowed and saves don't overwrite themselves).
C. Poorly spaced-out auto-saves. I understand in some games, they want to make a game challenging. That's fine and all. But, please - don't space these auto-saves way too far apart. It's annoying to have to re-do a big chunk of an area that takes quite a bit of time or a long-winded boss-fight, if you likely will have to save and re-load quite a bit.

2. Unskippable Cut Scenes.
We don't need to be forced to see cut-scenes (especially if they are long-winded). On a 1st playthrough - yes, I won't skip them; especially on a story-heavy game. But, if there's no interaction element to them and no change in outcome if there's some illusion of branching dialogue "choices" and "decisions" - don't waste me time if I fail and have to do reload, making me go through it again. Also true, if I'm doing a replay of the game and just want to get back to the actual game itself.

[MysterD]

What I dislike about current games:

[snip]

2) The current focus on providing content (DLCs) instead of focusing on game balance. Example: BF3 has had numerous DLCs that have added new weapons and maps, but for the most part the maps themselves haven't been fixed even though some of them have serious issues. Like being able to mortar spawning points without being able to do it back, shelling of spawning points with tanks from across the map, etc.

I think one of the problems w/ DLC's is DLC's can split your fan-base - especially if the game is MP-focused like a BF or COD game. It's quite annoying that some players having premium maps + equipment, some players don't. This split in the fan-base can get even worse, especially if the DLC's never goes on sale cheap.