I am a collector, and inventory management is always the thing that makes or breaks an RPG for me. Unlimited inventory is just completely unrealistic, but on the other hand, making an RPG inventory completely realistic is just no fun. Of course I want to be able to lug all that sweet loot home, including battle axes, broadswords, several full armor sets, myriad other weapons, potions, etc. Having an encumbrance such as Skyrim has makes total sense to me. I love the idea of being able to sort and filter my inventory, and store items in whatever container I own. I also like to be able to compare the stats of new items with ones I own so I know if something is a trade up.
I hate storage block inventories, where items physically take up one, or a few “squares”. I don’t want to play a tile puzzle with my items.
RDR2 has one of, if not my favorite, inventory systems. Your own 'backpack' that had a weight limit and could only carry smaller things. Big things you'd have to lug onto the back of your horse or find a cart. All of your equipped weapons are displayed on your person. If you want to swap weapons you have to run back to your horse and exchange weapons at your saddle bags
I often find mechanics that only exist to waste time incredibly annoying. In the case of loot, a limited inventory is kind of that. You could absolutely just portal/teleport to town, sell your stuff, and then get back to playing. There’s no challenge involved, EXCEPT that it wastes your real-world time.
I liked the pets in Torchlight for this reason. You could send them off to sell loot, while you kept playing the part of the game that’s actually fun.
One exception is something like Resident Evil, where the choice is relevant to the gameplay directly. But even then, I would’ve preferred limits on individual elements (Only X weapons, only X healing items, etc.) and having extras automatically stored.
-Real Time Timers: Think FF13 Lightning Returns. It doesn’t matter how many mechanics there are to alleviate the pressure, they make me so stressed out that I don’t enjoy playing the actual game.
-Unrepairable Durability Mechanics: I mean things like Breath of the Wild where you can use a weapon X times before it breaks with no way to repair it. I end up never wanting to use “my good weapon” and tryto beat entire games with a 2x4. If I can go to a vendor and repair my gear, I don’t mind as much.
-Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.
Love:
-Meaningful Choices: Not two dialogue options with the same end result, but things that shape either story or gameplay. This could be a major branching story choice OR something like a talent tree.
-Base Building: I like build base. It doesn’t have to be a city builder or strategy game (Though I absolutely love those), but I am a sucker for games including any degree of base building. It’s my favourite part of the XCom games as an example. Bonus if I have to make choices about my base, see previous point.
Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.
careful, you might alert the horde with a take like that. (i do agree tho)
I am kind of used to sometimes poking the bear on this one in particular. It’s what I personally dislike though, I don’t necessarily think they are badly designed. I totally get some people absolutely love that kind of thing in games, and I am glad they have games that scratch that itch. It’s just an instant turn-off for me though.
That said, I have never quite understood the people vehemently opposed to having a difficulty slider though; just keep it on hard and it’s literally no different.
Yeah I get why people like hard games too! It’s just baffling that so many are so opposed to others wanting to play on easy. I think maybe for these people they like to be “different” and be fans of something that’s “different,” in that it doesn’t have “medium” or “easy” difficulties. They want to feel like they’re part of a special club.
There are online modes in most of those games, besides Sekiro, that difficulty options would have an effect on, particularly invasions. Fortunately, invasions have been getting scaled back as time goes on, and the games have gotten easier in general, so we might converge on a game with difficulty options.
I am not the expert on the genre by any means, but would limiting invasions to “only other people on the same difficulty” just segregate the player base too much?
I think adding difficulty options is fine but the accessibility of difficulty is risky because lowering difficulty is so enticing to the average person. I love souls games but I admittedly, in games where I can change difficulty on the fly, swap the difficulty to quickly move forward if I hit a wall. On the other hand, I spent 8 hours fighting the Guardian Ape in Sekiro and beating them is my favorite gaming experience of the last 5 years. I am pro accessibility but there should be some disadvantages to doing so (ironic, less accessible accessibility options). The easy one is making them a one-chance option. For example, moving your difficulty down from hard to normal, forces you to play the rest of the game at normal (Dragon Quest XI does this). There are other considerations that can be done, hidden difficulty that gives concessions (Crash Bandicoot, RE4) or attempt to estimate a flexible difficulty.
I think with difficulty there’s always going to be a question of “can we make this easier”.
I think the obvious query is “why should I be punished because you can’t hold back your urge to decrease the difficulty” but the reply could easily be “why should Devs do more work so you can play a game not aimed at you?”
Tl;dr: Shits complicated, cheat engine is always an option for the time being. People who mock you are losers.
If Dark Souls had easier difficulties, they wouldn't have the reputation they do. People would turn down the difficulty instead of learning the bosses and how to beat them.
The games aren't as hard as people make them out to be. They just force you to adjust and learn to play in control. There's a reason people can play them with all kinds of goofy input options, though. If you pay attention to what enemies do and don't blindly spam attack every second, they're all beatable
I have definitely heard that argument, and I understand it, but at the same time there are a good number of us who would just simply not play the game then.
I realise it is up to the devs who they want to make their game for, and I am probably not their target audience, but banging my head against a wall until I get through something doesn’t give me any kind of feeling of triumph when I manage it. I just feel frustrated. Whereas the soulslike games I have played where I could turn the difficulty down, I enjoyed way more.
If Dark Souls had easier difficulties, they wouldn't have the reputation they do. People would turn down the difficulty instead of learning the bosses and how to beat them.
Which is hilarious because people 'turn down the difficulty' constantly by using summons or 'jolly cooperation' all the time in the games and don't seem to differentiate that from a difficulty option.
But some people play them with just a Dance pad. Doesn’t that, by your logic, mean they are too easy? Shouldn’t they be even harder? Maybe they’d be even more famous. The point is that difficulty is relative, therefore there OBJECTIVELY isn’t a correct difficulty. You’re just lucky enough to fit into their “difficulty demographic”.
But it’s moot anyway. Games with easy modes will still get played with high difficulty by people that actually enjoy it. Your own enjoyment of a game should not depend on other peoples difficulty levels.
There’s pros and cons to having a single standard difficulty. But anyway, you can use mods/editors to make the souls games (or any game for that matter) much easier.
I'll be one of the "horde" (albeit more tame) but personally I don't think developers should make their games easier or change their vision in order to broaden its audience. It kinda reminds me of the "rated R" debate. Certain people want movies like Oppenheimer to be rated PG-13 over being rated R so it can reach a bigger audience. But I don't think Nolan should be changing his vision of the movie just so it sells better
Your comparison doesn’t make a whole lot of sense though? Movies can’t be rated PG-13 and R at the same time, but games can have easy and hard difficulty levels at the same time. The developers don’t have to “change the vision,” they can just put a little tooltip that says hard is “as it was intended to be played” or something like that. I’ve played plenty of other games that did that.
I’m not out here wanting the game to “sell better,” I’m here wanting to enjoy the handcrafted and detailed story and setting without having to worry too much about it being difficult. I’m sorry for not being interested in the challenge?
Superhard Games without difficulty options. Looking at you Soulsborne games; I appreciate that some people like a challenge, but I really think that whole genre would only benefit from giving the player options. I have noticed that seems to be getting more common though.
I'm torn on this... I love playing Dark Souls 1/2/3/etc for the world and the enemies and exploring and overcoming the difficulties and finding cool gear and weapons and trying out new builds.
But I also absolutely hate pretty much every single boss fight in the games.
Love: When mystery games actively draw attention to the idea that you need to draw your own conclusions about what you find in the game, and make your own truth, instead of just following a track
Hate: when the above is expressed as a formalized “Mind Palace” mechanic à la the more recent Sherlock Holmes games. That’s just covering the track with a tarp instead of letting you build your own theories. Either let people accuse who they want with the evidence they have (once again I plug Paradise Killer) or acknowledge that there’s only one acceptable answer
I’ve played a little. It’s okay. The one I was playing didn’t do anything approximating the Mind Palace and was very, very linear-- which I think is better than the Sherlock Holmes style games. It was the everything else about it that annoyed me into turning it off!
Base building. Fortifying against enemies and being creative is a blast.
Exploration and big worlds. Games like Borderlands, Fallout and Far Cry with unique environments and ambiance.
Hate:
Escort missions. After all these years they’re still not fun.
Excessive health bars. Having to carry several different kinds of potions, etc. One of my favorite games is Dark Cloud for the PS2, but I think it had health, mana, weapon health, thirst and effects like poison that never cleared until you took a certain potion. I believe I used a GameShark or similar to get rid of thirst and weapon health.
I hate not being able to pause a game, particularly a single player game. I think Elite Dangerous solidified my hatred of this, by not telling you the game is still running when you’re on the “pause” menu.
“B-B-BU-BUT it’s a simulation and you can’t pause real life so it makes it more real”
It’s a game, even if it’s a simulation game. It’s a toy for grown-ups. A very nice and fun and relaxing toy, but a toy nonetheless. It’s not more important than a phone call, call at the door, crying child, hungry cat, partner who needs a hand with something etc.
This probably extends to being able to save anywhere and rejoin later, but I think that one is covered pretty well by everyone else :)
The problem with Elite Dangerous is that it is basically an online game, even in solo play and they never bothered to figure out a way for solo players to pause.
I think it probably has something to do with online play, though, since Fromsoft’s multiplayer model revolves around invasion. Granted you can turn it off, so obviously there should be a pause option, but I have a vague hunch that the two issues are related from a dev/engineering perspective.
Elite dangerous is a multiplayer game. If you want to go do something else and don’t have time to put your spaceship somewhere safe, you can always exit to the main menu. It only takes a few seconds and when you come back your ship is exactly where you left it.
The game definitely has issues, but not being able to pause isn’t really one of them
I never really bothered with the multiplayer mode in it - I know the game was built with a multiplayer back end, but they did promise a single player mode, and they do present the game as having a single player/solo mode.
Obviously different things annoy different people, and I do get what you mean about quitting and restarting etc, but it was enough for me to stop bothering to play it and play X4:Foundations instead. I did still get over a hundred hours play out of it, so I don’t exactly feel hard done by, but if quitting to the main menu works, then it’s clearly mechanically possible for them to let you pause it, they just didn’t want to.
I hate when games are open world just cause. I only ever enjoy an open world when there’s an insane amount of lore like in Skyrim or Fallout, but in most games I prefer a linear gameplay or semi-open (Mass effect, Dragon Age)
At some point something happened and literally every game has to be open world now 😭
A Plague Tale is an incredible example of what can be done with a linear design. Both Innocence and Requiem were amazing.
Open world games like the Witcher 3 leave the player with this really weird interaction with plot urgency. I’m looking for someone but just barely missed them? Hurry to the next town so I don’t miss them again? But then zero consequences when I ignore that quest for twenty levels.
And that Halo game I can’t remember what it’s called, but there’s an open world Halo game and it’s awful.
The biggest problem in that game, and in general, is the fact that, yeah it’s an open world game, but there isn’t really a lot to do, so you have to run around through the level, which is usually boring, to get to the actual next bit of the game.
It wouldn’t be so bad if they just teleported you to the next bit. Then the open world aspect could be played around with on your terms, but you could also just ignore it if you wanted. But they never do that because they’ve made an open world, and they want you to look at it.
While I don’t mind openworld games, they definitely feel off, esp. with regards to the main quest. Can’t save the world, gotta get this granny laid.
One of the only games with a open world that actually REQUIRED it for the game to make sense is Paradise Killers. It’s a detective open world game on an island. The open world makes a lot of sense, because a detective has to find their clues. It’s not a detective game if there’s a counter of “clues found” or there’s a linear progression. The game never tells you that you’re done finding clues. Like a real detective in a real open world, you have to decide whether you’ve seen enough.
I mostly dislike open-world games because of the lazy travel systems. Either you have to run everywhere or you free fast-travel from any point, too any point.
There is no middelground.
I miss games like Morrowind, where you not only had to pay for fast-travel, but it functioned more like an actual transportation system. Like, you had to go to this city and take a Strider to that town and then a boat ride to get to your destination.
Giving the world some infrastructur and natural money drainers helps with immersion and facilitates the need to go do some side-quests every now then. You get fast-travel, but you also get to see the world that was build for you. And you don’t run around as the richest douche in the world by level 10 with the best gear available because nothing costs anything.
Bethesda skipped this aspect entirely back in Oblivion and never looked back. Making your characters golden gods from the get-go, with no reason to interact with anyone or do anything except screwing around and collecting trinkets.
There’s more to it, ofcause, but this is the biggest pet-peeve I have.
Absolutely, I would still play DA:O and even the storylines of SWTOR over some other games that bloat the main story with unnecessary parts because otherwise the game is not long enough.
I agree that is clearly broken and overused in many games but if we were able to actually control the walking speed on PC with a keyboard similar to what is possible with a controller, it would probably be more bearable tbh.
limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.
In some sense that’s correct. You’d have more options, but you wouldn’t take them. Having a limited inventory forces you to make choices. Yes, you can use that scroll/potion/whatever, because you’re gonna run out of room, so feel free. On the other hand, I think that many devs don’t consider inventory management enough! I think that it’s often an afterthought and could use more dev attention.
What game mechanics do you love and hate?
Hate: instakills. Diablo 4 and Risk of Rain 2 are my current games that have this. ROR2 is not as bad, you can prevent this by getting enough defensive items. D4 is worse about this. You can be chewing thru trash mobs just fine but get to a boss and immediately die. There’s no ramp up to this.
Inventory management is one aspect of Diablo 1 that I liked a lot. If you played MP, you could either transfer your gear to mules… But if you wanted to play “as the game is intended”, you had very limited space to carry between games and had to choose which items you want to carry with you to the next game. I did a playthrough through the 3 difficulties with Warrior a few years ago and I loved having to make these choices.
On the topic of instakills, I always mod them out of Fallout 4 and Skyrim, because it’s annoying as hell that I can be instakilled from full HP, when it would otherwise take several hits to even endanger me.
If you play RoR2 on PC, you owe it to yourself to install some Quality of Life mods, like one that fixes or improves the game’s built in one shot protection. Also, auto sprint.
There are certainly many games that shouldn’t have limited inventories that have them, but I also think there are many games for which a limited inventory enhance the game. I do enjoy games that make me make decisions about what I want to take with me and budget my inventory space when it makes sense.
Slow grounded movement in open world games is so dumb. Why the fuck do you think I want to spend 5minutes walking across a plain or on a path I can’t that forces me to move slowly. I do appreciate how some games like this actively just take control for you so you can do a chore (Final Fantasy XIV autodrive, RDR2 lets you automatically move on a path while riding a horse) butIf your open world is that boring, can you just add a mode that brings me to my destination?
I’d much rather a more densely populated world on a smaller scale (Yakuza) some fun extreme forms of movement (Gravity Rush, Tears of the Kingdom). Heck even just have a faster option for mobility on basic terrain is better (Elden Ring). If there was a big desert and you gave me a dune buggy that goes 100mph, that feels way better then having to walk/trod around a hilly or mountainous landscape dotted with areas you have to move around or carefully move through.
Obviously if you lean into that mechanic as being intentionally frustrating, feel free.
In a similar vein for me, I really dislike cutscenes in a lot of first person games where you still have control of your character, but the only thing you can do is sloooowly move forward or move your camera slightly to the side. Just make it an actual cinematic so I can just sit back and watch instead of pretending it’s gameplay.
Death Stranding is a game completely about grounded movement, but it makes it enjoyable. Usually traveling in games is mostly about turning your brain off and moving forward. DS you need to pay attention to your environment and character and plan a path forward. It’s actually engaging. I don’t expect other games to do as well as a game where that’s 99% of what they were trying, but I’d hope they learn from it at least. I haven’t seen much, if any, of that yet though.
Death Stranding 100% gets this right, although it’s a bit weird in the end-game when your optimal choice is typically some combination of vehicles and ziplines.
Paying attention to the elevation, pathing around rocks and trying to stay level is a lot more fun than it sounds. Some of the best moments in that game it just lets some chill music play while you carefully walk from A-B and it’s a ton of fun the whole time.
Then you finally reach your destination and the story feels almost entirely detached from the walking experience and characters with the dumbest names imaginable explain some made up bullshit to you for 45 minutes.
This is one big reason why I liked Fenyx way better than Breath of the Wild. The Fenyx world is far smaller, but also more dense with actually interesting things to do. You have a horse in both, but the distances in BotW are still just pointlessly big, esp. when 90% of the things you can find are just the same two things: shrines and koroks.
I absolutely hate that concept, as even when, or especially if, it matters, it’s in the most cookie-cutter binary in-your-face kind of way, literally “(a) eat baby (b) safe baby”.
I don’t mind choice in games, but it should be actual choice, i.e. you do things because you want to do them, not because you think they will make the story go to the “good ending” or worse yet, be forced on you to stay on the good path, as the game is only build for good and bad path and everything in the middle is just mechanically broken.
The best choices in games are fully mechanics driven or just cosmetic, though that’s pretty damn rare in narrative games. In most games choice is generally just bad and annoying, as you aren’t focused on the actual game or story, but on what the writer might consider to be the “good way”.
That good old fragile “suspension of disbelief” gets shattered by choice systems very very easily.
I personally find the most important part of those choices isn’t the actual effect, but whether the game managed to immerse me enough so that I care.
For example, in Life is Strange, there’s a string of choices you can make that will get someone killed (or save them). The game invests enough time in the character before hand so when you come to the crossroads, the decisions FEEL very important. Do those choices have any big effects on the game? Not really. The character isn’t part of the main story line anymore after that, you only get some people referencing the difference. But if FELT important.
Think about the polar opposite: Choices that change the entire game, but you aren’t invested in. Would those be interesting choices, or would that just be 2 games in the form of one, and the choice is just a kind of “game select screen”.
It’s a minor thing, but whenever I get into a pokemon game, I deposit my starter ASAP. I don’t want to rely on the pokemon which is spoon fed to me from start, it feels a lot better to play the game with whatever I’m able to catch along the path.
I tried to play Ultra Sun using only my starter Rowlet, and had to put it down when the game forced me into a double battle. I would have been okay with hatching a second Rowlet from an egg but it didn’t work.
My first time playing Pokémon Blue I did the opposite because I didn't realize you could change the order of the pokemon so my Bulbasaur was in my #1 spot and even if I knew the other trainer was going to use a fire pokemon i'd end up starting the battle and wasting a turn switching pokemon. Needless to say he was super overpowered by the end of the game from all the forced XP
I did the same way back when playing pokémon red. My Blastoise was up in level 60-70 when I approached the last gym. Being a small kid, I didn’t understand tactics of effective types - only that my pokemon was an awesome heavy turtle with cannons on its back. I never really tried to use other pokemon or switch out during battle.
I love me an underrated Bug superstar. In Black I used a Leavanny as mine and it cleaned house. When I played Omega Ruby my Masquerain carried my team and took me totally by surprise.
Stealth games. The last one for me was MGS5, I loved it even with its shaky story line. Hitman is really nice but it feels more like a puzzle game if that makes sense.
I concur. Hitman can be a somewhat true stealth game but the design steers you away from “free form” stealth with its mission stories. I like the idea but the puzzles are too small, few short steps to the goal.
I hope for Metal Gear Delta to succeed, not only because I have a soft spot for MGS3 but also to revive the genre.
Hate soulslike stuff other than combat, bonus points when there’s no checkpoint before a boss fight so you have to redo 50 fights just to die again and repeat the process until you’ve learned the boss moved… or shot yourself. Oh and you can’t pause so tough luck if you ordered food or kids want something. Fromsoft are masters or marketing to sell this bullshit as something great
Also hate unskippable cutscenes, good story like witcher, ffvii remake or kotor defends itself. If you feel the need to do it chances are your story is bad and so you shouldn’t. Just look at ghost of tsushima, good combat, great world and visuals. Easily an 8/10 or better potential but mostly bad story without skips makes it tedious and just not fun. A samurai fetching herbs for peasants 😂 Bonus points if you can’t even pause the mighty cutscene
bonus points when there’s no checkpoint before a boss fight so you have to redo 50 fights just to die again and repeat the process
DS1 I feel is decent with this (could be Stockholm syndrome) and Elden Ring removes the issue almost completely. But Jesus Christ DS2 was awful in this regard. At least they added the mechanic where mobs stop respawning after you’ve killed them N times; I removed every single enemy from along the Smelter Demon corpse run lmao
The fear mechanic in games like Diablo is really obnoxious to me. Having my character run halfway across the screen uncontrollably over and over during a fight is super fun!
Pretty much any mechanic that just takes away control from the player is a bad one. It’s much better when the player can affect a negative event in some way in order to lessen the event, or just bring it to an end. I bet a fear mechanic that at least allowed you to steer your panicking character would make it a lot more palatable.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne