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General discussionWhat video gaming fads/trends grind your gears?(139 posts)(139 posts)
(139 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 28, 2019
So much that it's hard to know where to begin. Or end without forgetting half the stuff.

I think all of us here on GOG can agree about DRM, so that's a superfluous inclusion.
Then we have to ever increasing predatory and exploitative practices of aspects with gambling practices.
https://youtu.be/9Ywdh1on_HU

When it comes to gameplay, I have a lot of bugbears. Mainly to do with releasing for consoles AND PC at the same time. Or even console first and porting to PC later.
The increasing use of controllers this has pushed on PC isn't helping either.
Mouse and Keyboard is superior in almost all ways as a control-scheme compared to controllers, but trying to program a game for both will include a lot of compromises to its detriment.
Especially in the form of quick-time even or not-so-quick-time event where you press a button and perform a complicated action sequence a la Arkham style combat or AssCreed parkour. Not to mention characters turning on the dime the size of Jupiter. Or Engine shortcuts like tying it to framerate or limiting it to 30fps..

I'd better stop there while I can..
And continue on with smaller things. That mostly has to do with leaving out options or choices for players.

Lets take the semi-recent release of Space Trading and Combat Simulators.
Most if not all of them release with a cockpit-only cam style. Sadly, in my old age, I need the 3D awareness such a cam brings to vehicle games. If it's not PVP/multiplayer only, the inclusion of a third person cam style (I prefer chase, some prefer static) doesn't deter from the game at all. In fact, even in MP the inclusion of such a cam For All, wouldn't be detrimental. I no longer see the same complaint directed at FPS's that offer both first person and third person.

Which segues nicely onto another horrible cam choice. This this in RPG/FPS or ARPG games (The broad genre, not only the H'n'S or Spectacle Fighter ones) The Skewed Over-the-Should cam. I don't usually have much of an OCD problem..Much.. but that cam rubs me wrong in so many ways. One of the reasons I don't like the Witcher series. The main one.

Well..that's enough for today. ,)
Posted July 28, 2019
Early access. Granted, there are some that are decent enough, but still, the whole idea does not appeal to me. I mean, you wouldn't go buy a car with only three wheels. "Erm, it's only got three. Where's the other one?" "Oh, don't worry, we're working on that. We'll let you know." What if the fourth wheel ends up being square?
Posted July 28, 2019
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DieRuhe: Early access. Granted, there are some that are decent enough, but still, the whole idea does not appeal to me. I mean, you wouldn't go buy a car with only three wheels. "Erm, it's only got three. Where's the other one?" "Oh, don't worry, we're working on that. We'll let you know." What if the fourth wheel ends up being square?
Better yet, "Three wheels is the final design".
Posted July 28, 2019
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Breja: but still it's super annoying when I have to re-load and start a conversation over, beacuse the super-short description of a dialgue choice can suggest something entirely different than what the character ends up saying.


The same kind of thing would happen in Mass Effect games. I miss RPGs that let me see the actual thing I will say, rather than a three word summary that often ends up being misleading. I can't be the only one who thinks this sucks, right?
Holy shit I forgot how much this used to bug me, Mass Effect is the worst perpetrator when it comes to this. You could basically tell someone to go fuck himself when all you wanted was friendly cheeky banter since that was the context of the whole conversation and previous banter with that person.

Mass Effect dialogue is terrible at "reading the room" and taking its own context into consideration when presenting the alternatives. The Witcher 3 also had some terrible outcome of some dialogue alternative where you were, with no intent, downright a mean tyrant against a person Geralt should have cared more for than anyone.

RPGs without voiced main characters have a huge advantage in this area, they say exactly what you intend them to say.
Post edited July 28, 2019 by user deleted
Posted July 28, 2019
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DadJoke007: RPGs without voiced main characters have a huge advantage in this area, they say exactly what you intend them to say.
While this has became something of a a staple of fully voiced RPGs, it's does not actually have to be connected. Like ConsulCaesar mentioned, the first Witcher worked like a "classic" RPG in this regard, but it was fully voiced including the main character. But then that's part of why I still think the first Witcher is the best of the series - it went against the trends and was basically a classic RPG designed for modern times.

Also I jsut rememberd another game that had this issue - Oxenfree. Which was particularly inexcusable, since dialogues are pretty much the only interactive part of that game at all, and there are no manual saves, so whatever you chose, no matter what it terns out to be, you're stuck with it.
Post edited July 28, 2019 by Breja
Posted July 28, 2019
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DieRuhe: Early access. Granted, there are some that are decent enough, but still, the whole idea does not appeal to me. I mean, you wouldn't go buy a car with only three wheels. "Erm, it's only got three. Where's the other one?" "Oh, don't worry, we're working on that. We'll let you know." What if the fourth wheel ends up being square?
Yeah, early access games annoy me. They shouldn't be sold at stores but instead be advertised until completion on kickstarter or somewhere similar.
Posted July 28, 2019
Games that call themselves "roguelikes" but don't adhere to the Berlin Interpretation.
Posted July 28, 2019
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Crosmando: Games that call themselves "roguelikes" but don't adhere to the Berlin Interpretation.
We need severe punishments for that. Like, forcing someone to win Nethack with no prior experience and no help from other people and/or wikis. After that, they will know. They will know...
Posted July 29, 2019
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Crosmando: Games that call themselves "roguelikes" but don't adhere to the Berlin Interpretation.
Well, yes that.

http://nethack3d.sourceforge.net/

also Valkyrie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKDqhl9GcHo
Post edited July 29, 2019 by fr33kSh0w2012
Posted July 29, 2019
Earlier tonight I lost 90 minutes of progress in Wolfenstein: Youngblood because it has zero checkpoint saves during missions (or manual saves) and some missions are super long. To say that ground my gears would be an understatement.
Posted July 29, 2019
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StingingVelvet: Earlier tonight I lost 90 minutes of progress in Wolfenstein: Youngblood because it has zero checkpoint saves during missions (or manual saves) and some missions are super long. To say that ground my gears would be an understatement.
You think that's bad try 15 YEARS of savegames down the toilet I wanted to SHOOT BILL GATES!
Posted July 29, 2019
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Crosmando: Games that call themselves "roguelikes" but don't adhere to the Berlin Interpretation.
Also, games that call themselves "RPGs" but play like action games.

(My personal definition of "roguelike" doesn't require it adhering to the Berlin Interpretation (it doesn't even require permadeath), but it does require that the game be turn-based and does require procedural generation (I don't want to count the DROD games as roguelikes here, because someone looking for a roguelike is probably not looking for something like DROD).)

By the way, I would like to see more roguelikes with puzzle modes. (Shiren the Wanderer is an example of a roguelike with a puzzle mode; just play through Fay's Puzzles (not the Final Puzzle, which is the (now) "traditional" 99 floor dungeon that you can't take anything into which is very common in the branch of roguelikes that were spawned by it and Torneko).)

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StingingVelvet: Earlier tonight I lost 90 minutes of progress in Wolfenstein: Youngblood because it has zero checkpoint saves during missions (or manual saves) and some missions are super long. To say that ground my gears would be an understatement.
I have this issue with a few much older games:
* Mega Man 4-6: No way to save progress in the post-robot master part of the game, and there are *two* castles, amounting to a total of 8 stages, that you have to go through to beat the game. (MM1-3 avoided this problem by having only one castle to go through, and in MM3's case, you could still save progress after doc robots, allowing you to save progress further than in any other MM game (not counting MM10 easy mode, and I don't know how MM11 handles it).)
* Final Fantasy 3, though I've never played the original without access to save states, and the DS version has a quit save (as I like to call it) that is deleted on reload, but which at least lets you put the game down. The final compound dungeon is *long*, and the only way to save is to leave the dungeon entirely, which becomes impossible after a certain point. It doesn't help that one branch of the dungeon leads to a dead-end (albeit one with shops, and there's lots of nice treasure on the way), and in the original, you couldn't just teleport out, as that spell is blocked in the *entire* final compound dungeon. (The remake made it so that Teleport would work up until you reach the point of no return, mitigating that issue and making it so that you no longer have to walk all the way back out of Eureka.)

Permadeath is another gaming fad/trend that should have died with the classic Wizardry games (1-5, excluding 4 in this case).
Post edited July 29, 2019 by dtgreene
Posted July 29, 2019
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dtgreene: I have this issue with a few much older games:
Most of the time I see this kind of lack of save and massive time loss defended as "old school" because of console games like those. The problem is that games like Wolfenstein... or another example on GOG recently, Project: Warlock... were PC focused and had quicksave even back in the "old school" days. Every Wolfenstein game before this had save anywhere functionality, so to remove it in the latest installment and not have checkpoints either just seems insane to me.

I get that it's online focused in a way previous Wolf games were not, but you could at least checkpoint at loading screens or something. Online is a decent excuse for lack of save anywhere, but not for lack of checkpoints.
Posted August 17, 2019
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DivisionByZero.620: In today's video game market filled to the brim with copycats and bad clones, what are the fads and trends that you wish would fade away?

I'll start with mine.

Lootboxes/gacha and pay-for-convenience. I don't think I need to explain further and I assume probably 99%+ of the people here will agree.

Extremely difficult "masocore" games. It started with Dark Souls, then Cuphead, and is now spreading like wildfire across PC, console, and mobile. I don't see anything entertaining about a largely unplayable game that's basically a giant reset button.

Roguelike/permadeath. In the 2013-2015 years, this was extremely common among indie video games. I hate permadeath (and any other effort to shortchange the player out of rightfully managing their own local save files on their own terms).

Battle royale. I hate PvP already and team vs. team is bad enough, I don't see how pitting the player vs. 99 others is any better or more entertaining. I also don't see an fun in a PvP game with no respawns.

DOTA/League of Legends style MOBAs. While these could potentially be great without the heavily competitive PvP culture - as it stands, they attract and foster some of the most toxic communities known to video gaming. Every 1-2 months I see a new copycat of this genre on Steam or the iOS App Store, which all follow the same formula.

Zombies. Cheap unoriginal "jump scares", generally boring stuff to fight, and gratuitous gore for a "shock factor" that expired 8 years ago. It started with Left 4 Dead and skyrocketed to popularity with the Walking Dead TV franchise. Since then, zombies have never really gone away and the copycats never end across all major platforms.

Survival. One of my favorite things about regular combat-focused role playing games is that you don't have to concern yourself with survival "needs". There is nothing balanced, skill based, or fun about losing a fight because you ran out of inventory resources or food (imagine the uproar if that happened in a heavily balanced PvP game???), or your equipment broke. Sorry, that isn't skill, that's just a rewrite of broken D&D-style balance where you have to keep a storage depot full of consumables to have a fighting chance. Get to the interesting stuff already, there's nothing fun about virtual foraging for resources.
Nice thread, OP. If I may i'll critique yours and then add my own(or which ones I can recall atm) -

1. Lootboxes: Tbh as long as they are not randomized(and the odds to get good items very slim to almost be zero) and the prices are fair then I see both as fine to sell to consenting adults. Minors should be limited, though, imo....or at least told the odds/etc beforehand.

As for pay 2 win: As long as the game can be won easily/fairly without paying then I have no problem with it as with lootboxes.

2. "Souls-like" games: Those games and the Dead Rising series(1 or 2 saves and played in real time with no way to do all missions without a guide the first time) irk me to no end. A simple option to shut off the mission timer in the dead rising games would make them accessible to many more people and not ruin the experience for anyone else, and the souls games basically require you to be a certain build/with certain gear to do some enemies or areas which I feel is also bs because they don't "train" you to handle such enemies beforehand.

3. Permadeath: Fine if optional

4. Battle Royale/MOBAs: Eh, to each their own....I don't find them too apealing for long, though....maybe for short term play to let off steam.

5. Zombies: I love em and can't get enough.....if they are done right and the styles are varied(rage zombies in the 28 days/weeks series and other types in other series) then they can be good for those into them for a good long time.

6. Survival: Some like it....if optional or part of a game and done right I have no issue with such.

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I will add my own later(have to go to bed soon and am tired so not thinking well atm). Have a good one, OP.



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Randalator: Games as a Service

For me personally there is nothing more mindnumbingly boring than a video game with no real story, no narrative arc, just context-less gameplay drowned in monetization mechanics. Mention "service game" in your pitch and you have lost my interest forever.
This......I dislike the MP games with little to no story that have come out lately. They might be fun for short bursts of fun here and there but I more like games with story and world building.
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DadJoke007: Regenerating health is boring as F and a sad excuse for a lazy game design where you don't have to plan difficulty with health packs.

That every game released today needs to be open world and last for 100 hours+. Just give me quality before quantity. Besides, it's just not manageable to invest that much time into games.

Crafting is also common these days, and it bores me to tears. Come on, do I really have to loot everything and manage restricted inventory with the fear of throwing anything away in case it becomes useful? Terrible design choice.
Regen health can be done well in some games, and managing health packs could also be seen by some as "boring micromanagement" as well. ;)

Also I tend to like longer games....they give me more value for my buck....although if it's the same areas copy pasted 100+ times then yes it gets boring quickly.
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StingingVelvet: Honestly my biggest pet peeve is probably too much story focus. Too much *cinematic* story focus maybe I should say, as I'm fine with lore and conversations and stuff like that. There's way too many cutscenes in many games though, and that's been the case for a while. Even big popular games like Witcher 3 are too focused on cinematic storytelling for my taste. You're not making a movie, you're making a game. It's probably been my pet peeve with games for 10+ years, easily.
If games are to ever be seen as less of a "kid's" thing and a legit art form they need to be made in such ways sometimes.....also if the cutscenes are skippable after the first time or so then it's not so bad.
Post edited August 17, 2019 by GameRager
Posted August 17, 2019
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BrainPains: Those annoying tutorials on mobile games that seem to have made it into every modern game. You know the ones where they have to point out every single little thing, taking away all your control, and taking up 10-15 minutes just to do it? Yeah, those. What's wrong with letting the player figure out *anything* on their own.
I had this in Modern Warfare 2 and some other games.....leave the area/don't follow the commander/etc and you die quickly or it reloads.

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kalirion: I don't like sports or competitive multiplayer or real time strategy games. But it would be extremely arrogant and selfish of me to wish for them to "fade away".
I say let people wish what they will. It is just people criticizing and blowing off steam against things they dislike....and we all have things we dislike....so we should let them do so and not take offense where none was intended(just my two cents plus inflation).

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CMOT70: Then the modern trend that I truly cannot comprehend- the rise of the "gamer" that spends more time on Twitch watching other people play games, instead of just playing a game themselves. That one is a true mystery to me.
I cannot speak for others, but I sometimes watch youtube let's plays to see others play games I liked/played to see how they play them or to share a bond, so to speak, with them. I also like seeing secrets I may have missed and how to find them myself or some bit of content I might have missed as well.
Post edited August 17, 2019 by GameRager
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionWhat video gaming fads/trends grind your gears?(139 posts)(139 posts)
(139 posts)