Quit it, devs!!!

[shadow_archmagi]

In this thread, all the little things in game design that make you rage.

For instance, in any RTS based around the idea of building a base and designing an ideal army, it seems mandatory to include one mission where you don't get a base and just have to "find" units laying around, and if a particular unit dies you lose instantly.

Loading screens for your menus must die. Force Unleashed actually had menus with menus, meaning that I had to go through two brief loading screens just to change lightsaber color. WTF. It's a box where I mention how I'd like to be playing the game. There should be no delay!

Re-skinning the same unit and changing the statistics and calling it a different unit. This goes double if you declare the upgraded version to be a boss.

[Maxymiuk]

Grossly skewing the RNG in the computer's favor in order to make up for deficiencies in AI design. I'm looking at you, Puzzle Quest. How many times have my opponents gotten 10+ bonus rounds in a row due to a very convienient distribution of gems? Every damn battle. How many times did that happen to me, in comparison? Twice.
(the fact that I continue to play this game probably makes me a masochist on some level)


Almost any hack'n'slash game out there: if you're going to rip off Diablo, at least do it right. A major boss battle should not boil down to whether or not you brought enough health potions, because the enemy closes to melee range immediately and proceeds to tear you a new one. Honestly, look at how Diablo II did it: PC's had high enough mobility to employ hit and run tactics. Bosses had powerful, but heavily telegraphed attacks you could dodge. It made for a fun, but still challenging battle. Hitting "attack" and "use potion" interchangeably just. Isn't. Fun.

[Oregano]

Cover systems. I don't need a button for me to hide behind a wall, I can do that myself thank ye.

[warty goblin]

In this thread, all the little things in game design that make you rage.

For instance, in any RTS based around the idea of building a base and designing an ideal army, it seems mandatory to include one mission where you don't get a base and just have to "find" units laying around, and if a particular unit dies you lose instantly.

Amen to this. I absotely cannot stand the single player in most RTS games due to the agony of all the stupid crap they make me do. Escort missions, limited resource missions, hero missions, 'stealth' missions...blarg.

Men of War, oddly enough, does all this stuff, and still is a lot of fun in single player. Probably because for hero missions you can really take control of your dude and play like an action game. Of course MoW's definition of a 'hero' unit is a dude who has 3 proficency in all weapons- a world conquering badass he ain't- just somebody who can use machine guns.


Loading screens for your menus must die. Force Unleashed actually had menus with menus, meaning that I had to go through two brief loading screens just to change lightsaber color. WTF. It's a box where I mention how I'd like to be playing the game. There should be no delay!
Another thing that needs to go away is the endless confirm screens. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are prime offenders here. Yes, just possibly, I want to load a game...



Re-skinning the same unit and changing the statistics and calling it a different unit. This goes double if you declare the upgraded version to be a boss.
Depends on how radical the reskin is.


Actually boss fights are a concept I generally would like to see wither and die. I cannot remember the last game I played with a boss fight that was any fun. Most of the time they just muck up the basic gameplay anyways.

[warty goblin]

Cover systems. I don't need a button for me to hide behind a wall, I can do that myself thank ye.

Yeah, Crysis got this one right, with standing, crouched, and prone positions. In a particularly nice touch you could lean left and right from any one of those, and even sprint. Yep, the belly sprint was actually useful as well, because sometimes you wanted to be someplace else reasonably quickly but didn't feel like standing up and getting a cranial exam via 5.56mm FMJ.

[SilentDragoon]

Grossly skewing the RNG in the computer's favor in order to make up for deficiencies in AI design. I'm looking at you, Puzzle Quest. How many times have my opponents gotten 10+ bonus rounds in a row due to a very convienient distribution of gems? Every damn battle. How many times did that happen to me, in comparison? Twice.
(the fact that I continue to play this game probably makes me a masochist on some level)


I kinda like the limited resource missions as I'm forced to micromanage and utilize my units more efficiently, and unique boss battles like Force Unleashed (except the ending kill). That said the EA artificial difficulty and assorted other various kinds of screwing over the human to help the computer win get under my skin. How does the enemy with one small completely surrounded base manage to keep on par in unit productions and research without going bankrupt or having even built any infrastructure at all? How does the computer always manage to pull off Hail Mary pass(es) whenever it appears that it might be falling slightly behind? It badly breaks my enjoyment of the game.

[Setra]

This is a small pet peeve to me, but probably not to most people...

In RPGs... I hate non-random battles.

I always ALWAYS end up avoiding every single battle and fight the first boss at something near the initial level.

[Oregano]

Something that has only really become prevalent this gen but annoys me about this gen's JRPGs. They seem to have areas larger than necessary with very little in them. Sure it gives you a sense of scale but it's gosh darn boring running all the way through it.

[AgentPaper]

I really hate random encounters. This seems to be going away more, but damn, is it annoying.

[warty goblin]

Something that has only really become prevalent this gen but annoys me about this gen's JRPGs. They seem to have areas larger than necessary with very little in them. Sure it gives you a sense of scale but it's gosh darn boring running all the way through it.

That depends. I dream of one day seeing a game that's nothing but exploration. Just me, a wilderness and a compass. Dynamic terrain generation, active (and interrelated) wildlife AI, tools to be found and used, stuff like that, but no overarching purpose or story. Just the biggest, most exotic landscape you could put into a game.

[Zevox]

This is a small pet peeve to me, but probably not to most people...

In RPGs... I hate non-random battles.

I always ALWAYS end up avoiding every single battle and fight the first boss at something near the initial level.
I like both random and non-random battles myself, though I do tend to prefer random. But it really bothered me to learn recently that Dragon Quest, the series that created and continues to define the traditional JRPG genre, is moving to non-random battles in DQ 9. That just seems... wrong.


For instance, in any RTS based around the idea of building a base and designing an ideal army, it seems mandatory to include one mission where you don't get a base and just have to "find" units laying around, and if a particular unit dies you lose instantly.
Agreed, definitely.

For myself, a big one that has annoyed me while playing through some Square-Enix games over the last year: never-ending "The End" screens. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Didn't anyone think that you may want to continue playing and load up your file to do some fooling around, or go do optional parts you didn't do before finishing the main game, or go play newly-unlocked post-game material after the ending? Or that it would be confusing to someone not expecting it, who just sits there, waiting for the screen to fade? What possible purpose could it serve but to annoy people? Those who want to turn the game off after they get to the end will just do it anyway - there's no reason to force it on everyone.

Zevox

[shadow_archmagi]

I really hate random encounters. This seems to be going away more, but damn, is it annoying.

There's nothing wrong with random encounters on the whole; they add variability and variety into the incredibly static environment of a video game.

What's bad about them is that 90% of the time they're executed poorly. Pokemon, I think, offers us an example of the worst possible way of doing them. Between the screen flashing, the fight music playing, the dramatic "A WILD BEELZEBUB HAS APPEARED" opening, the time it takes to laser the thing to death, you've basically hit a 30 second loading screen. A 30 second loading screen every 6 steps in a journey of like 600 steps.

Fallout 3, on the other hand, has the correct approach to random encounters. It picks from a large table of different scenarios, each one enameled with self-encapsulated sidestory. They are non-intrusive to the point that a wanderer fleeing for his life, or busy rooting through ammo piles might completely miss them and never know.



EDIT:

There should be no delays between "YOU DED LOL" screens and being able to jump back into the game. This isn't that I'm against respawn time, which is a different issue. I'm talking about minimizing the time between me failing and me trying again. I've just died. I'm crabby now. I want to forget about my failure, I want to try again, and since I'm crabby, I don't have any patience for pointless dithering.

The last thing I want is for giant red "GAME OVER. YOU HAVE FAILED AND THE WORLD IS DESTROYED" letters to just float there on my screen for 20-50 seconds, mocking me.

I really, really don't want you to automatically go back to the main screen. Hell, why is there even a "Main Screen"? Valve knows that you can put the basic "NEW GAME LOAD GAME OPTIONS MULTIPLAYER" buttons on a simple ESC menu without making people quit their current game before loading another.

[Stormthorn]

Cover systems. I don't need a button for me to hide behind a wall, I can do that myself thank ye.

What about games where you take cover just by pushing onto a wall/sandbag? Like Mass Effect.

[warty goblin]

There's nothing wrong with random encounters on the whole; they add variability and variety into the incredibly static environment of a video game.

Amen. I'm all for more randomness, non-scriptedness and procedural content.


What's bad about them is that 90% of the time they're executed poorly. Pokemon, I think, offers us an example of the worst possible way of doing them. Between the screen flashing, the fight music playing, the dramatic "A WILD BEELZEBUB HAS APPEARED" opening, the time it takes to laser the thing to death, you've basically hit a 30 second loading screen. A 30 second loading screen every 6 steps in a journey of like 600 steps.
Exactly. Anything that introduces another loading screen needs to do some serious work to justify its existance.


Fallout 3, on the other hand, has the correct approach to random encounters. It picks from a large table of different scenarios, each one enameled with self-encapsulated sidestory. They are non-intrusive to the point that a wanderer fleeing for his life, or busy rooting through ammo piles might completely miss them and never know.
Or sometimes it's another bleeding mole rat.




There should be no delays between "YOU DED LOL" screens and being able to jump back into the game. This isn't that I'm against respawn time, which is a different issue. I'm talking about minimizing the time between me failing and me trying again. I've just died. I'm crabby now. I want to forget about my failure, I want to try again, and since I'm crabby, I don't have any patience for pointless dithering.
Another thing Crysis does right. After dying it'll autoload the last save in 10 seconds, or immediately if you press 'fire.' Even better, doing so is pretty much instantaneous. But then Crytek builds engines so well that the rest of the industry should feel ashamed...


The last thing I want is for giant red "GAME OVER. YOU HAVE FAILED AND THE WORLD IS DESTROYED" letters to just float there on my screen for 20-50 seconds, mocking me.
Depends. I've played some games that give me a specific cutscene of my funeral whenever I die. Although I seldom watch it all the way through every time, I do have to admit it's awesome. The original Fallout does something like this, with different voice overs depending on how you died. Again, not a big thing, but a nice touch.


I really, really don't want you to automatically go back to the main screen. Hell, why is there even a "Main Screen"? Valve knows that you can put the basic "NEW GAME LOAD GAME OPTIONS MULTIPLAYER" buttons on a simple ESC menu without making people quit their current game before loading another.
Very true, although I don't see that many games that inflict this on me anymore.

Actually let's just come out and say it. Loading screens need to die. I don't want to see one- unless I die- anymore than once per thirty minutes of gametime- minimum. I understand that they used to be neccessary for technological reasons, but streaming technology is good enough now that they're simply inexcusable. Really, go and get a decent engine already.

[Cheesegear]

Escort Missions.

Now, don't get me wrong, some of them are quite good. But, it all falls apart when the person you're escort is weak as f*, gets hit once and dies. Okay. I get it, I'll stand in front of her and just blow all the d00ds to crap. I can dig it.

Oh...No...Ambush scenario, they're coming from all sides. You can't defend your escort. She's dead. You fail. Game over.

...I'm actually stuck on Hunter: The Reckoning because I can't beat the hospital level where I have like...6 bajillion (I'm not kidding) enemies and five minutes to get out. It doesn't help that every second other enemy in that level is the equivalent of the first level's Boss Monster. And, Power Creep in H:TR is somewhat minuscule. The Boss Monsters are still Boss Monsters no matter how far I've progressed in the game.

Yeah...Timed Missions. Where if you don't do something at a certain speed, it's Game Over. Especially if it's not actually possible to make it through the enemies...

Hunter: Redeemer actually has power creep, and is actually possible to win. And features the little s* girl from Reckoning that I had to escort through the graveyard in the first one...Which had multiple ambushes...With poor AI-following...With...Argh! I hate the girl from H:TR, and I still didn't like her All Growed Up in H:R.

Escort and Timed Missions are the worst. Timed, Escort Missions would just make my head explode. Luckily I can't think of any off the top of my head, so they can't be that prevalent - or memorable (read; Controller/Keyboard-Snappingly Hard).

[Lord Seth]

Being unable to move the camera.

I don't care how good a camera is, there are going to be times when I want to move it, either to get a better view or because it isn't at a good angle. I'm grateful to developers who work hard to make the be good by itself, but there are still going to be times I want to move it. It's even worse with bad cameras.

[Kyouhen]

Giving us fun toys then either not giving us enough chances to play with them or deciding halfway through the game that using them will get you killed.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is a good example of this. You get tons of fun weapons to use, but most of them never get to see much action and are only used in maybe 2 puzzles outside of the temple you get them from. Personally I loved the spinning top of doom and wish there were more places to use it.

Crysis is another prime example. Loved messing around with the different options the suit gives you, but after the big twist if you don't use the shield you die. You can't use the cloak long enough to get out of the enemy's sight, there's nothing worth using the strength on, and speed is useless as you can't outrun the enemy attacks. Personally I was happier beating on the Koreans.

[shadow_archmagi]

Giving us fun toys.

Slow buildup of the player in non-RPG settings at all, really. Halo 2 is a great example of this done correctly: every single weapon can be found in the first two-three levels and it remains that way throughout.

The idea of "halfway through the game we'll give a player new weapons and abilities that will completely change the way the game plays" is a terrible one. Even my beloved Valve is guilty of this, with their "You don't actually get the gravity gun until just before chapter 5, with 9 chapters total. And then it'll still be chapter seven before you find the last of the weapons!"

Seriously. Give me EVERY option at the start, and then let me enjoy them at my own pace. Because while the "OH COOL SOMETHING NEW" mechanic works the first time, I like my games to have replayability. And if I fall in love with the crossbow, and then I want to replay the game, and the crossbow isn't there until level seven.. that's six levels of me whining.

Spiderman 2 also had this retarded RPG aspect to it, where you ground for "hero points" (AKA XP) and then spent them on cool moves. And the result was that if I couldn't find my memory card, I was constantly losing fun because I'd try to do advanced and stylish maneuvers on the enemy only to have nothing happen because I hadn't bought them in this playthrough.

[Kyouhen]

Slow buildup of the player in non-RPG settings at all, really. Halo 2 is a great example of this done correctly: every single weapon can be found in the first two-three levels and it remains that way throughout.

The idea of "halfway through the game we'll give a player new weapons and abilities that will completely change the way the game plays" is a terrible one. Even my beloved Valve is guilty of this, with their "You don't actually get the gravity gun until just before chapter 5, with 9 chapters total. And then it'll still be chapter seven before you find the last of the weapons!"

Seriously. Give me EVERY option at the start, and then let me enjoy them at my own pace. Because while the "OH COOL SOMETHING NEW" mechanic works the first time, I like my games to have replayability. And if I fall in love with the crossbow, and then I want to replay the game, and the crossbow isn't there until level seven.. that's six levels of me whining.


I don't mind this part so much, as most games I play that have that also let me cheat my way back into having them and if I'm going to want to play through using only the crossbow I'll need infinite ammo anyway. Though it would be nice if they made it so you could unlock the ability to do that just by beating the game the first time.

[Haruki-kun]

I hate weapons that "break" or deteriorate.

Sure, it adds to the "realism" (read: no, it doesn't), but I don't want my games to be realistically annoying. I bought the damned weapon in a shop, let me keep using it until I find a new one, thank you.

[chiasaur11]

I hate weapons that "break" or deteriorate.

Sure, it adds to the "realism" (read: no, it doesn't), but I don't want my games to be realistically annoying. I bought the damned weapon in a shop, let me keep using it until I find a new one, thank you.

Seconded. I barely tolerate it in Fire Emblem. In Baldur's Gate, it managed to be tremendously irritating before the first town was out.

[Phase]

Things that hurt you, or, even worse, things that insta-kill you, that have no introduction. So I'm strolling along, minding my own business when BAM, I'm dead? How? I didn't see anything dangerous. Just that- wait, those kill me? Well thanks for telling me, game.:smallannoyed:

[Destro_Yersul]

Actually boss fights are a concept I generally would like to see wither and die. I cannot remember the last game I played with a boss fight that was any fun. Most of the time they just muck up the basic gameplay anyways.

I can. It was Dead Space. There are a couple very entertaining boss fights because... well, they just feel like part of the game. They did them very well.

[Crow]

Seconded. I barely tolerate it in Fire Emblem. In Baldur's Gate, it managed to be tremendously irritating before the first town was out.

Well at least in Baldur's Gate it was done for a plot-related reason, and then not really done again.

[warty goblin]

I hate weapons that "break" or deteriorate.

Sure, it adds to the "realism" (read: no, it doesn't), but I don't want my games to be realistically annoying. I bought the damned weapon in a shop, let me keep using it until I find a new one, thank you.

I've yet to find a game that impliments a weapon breakage and wear system that I haven't liked. Sure it can be annoying, but that's the entire point. If you fail to plan ahead and go out with a well maintained weapon, you'll suffer the consequences. It's the same thing as going into a major fight in an RPG with only 1 health potion and the spellcaster totally out of mana. You're going to get brutalized, because you screwed up.

Plus tools do wear out, break down and require maintenence. I sharpen my machete after every two or three uses. Shovels need cleaned. Guns jam, particularly if you fire them very rapidly for long periods of time. Swords need cleaning, sharpening, polishing...

All in all I'd say weapons wearing out is a good system, it makes me think, plan ahead and pay more attention to the state of the game.

Also, I'm surprised this hasn't come up yet, but under no circumstances should long cutscenes be placed after a checkpoint but before a large fight. Yes it's cool the first time, and maybe even the second, but probably not the third or fourth, and certainly not by the tenth. Ditto all those annoying company logos before the main menu. I'm aware of who made the game, and if I'm really curious, I 'll go look at the credits. Until then let me play the bloody thing already.

[Joran]

Quick Time events.

It happens out of the flow and mechanics of the game and there's no real way to succeed at them unless you have good reflexes or have died so many times that you've memorized which buttons you have to press. UGH.

[Setra]

In RPGs, I tend to dislike it when mages spells are weaker than the melees standard attacks...

Also, a recent trend in FPS games... I hate unlocking weapons and abilities. I mean, I suck at FPS games in the first place, so giving the people better guns just because they are better at it, or have played longer.. kinda urks me... It's not as bad as being able to PAY for better guns, but it's still annoying.

Oh, and I dislike any system where it gives you an advantage to be able to horribly own people... As a person who is often horribly owned, it's really unfair to me that the people who do so just get stronger... I'm not saying that I should get a bonus for sucking.. but it just frustrates me.

[Cheesegear]

Plus tools do wear out, break down and require maintenence. I sharpen my machete after every two or three uses. Shovels need cleaned. Guns jam, particularly if you fire them very rapidly for long periods of time. Swords need cleaning, sharpening, polishing...

...I guess...Say...In the case of Fallout 3 (because it's recent and everyone knows about it); You actually get an indicator of how soon your weapon will break, or be unusable. Not only that, but you're given a chance to fix it. Providing you find the right parts. Sounds reasonable. I have no problem with F3's weapon breakages. I'm warned about it. I can fix it. And there's an incentive to fix it (better damage). No problem.

The game actively tells me "Your weapon is about to break. You should fix it. That way you can do more damage."

Baldur's Gate...Your weapon is broke. Nope. You can't fix it. Nope. There's no warning. Your Two-Handed sword is gone. Just. Gone. No, the game doesn't care about you. You have no weapon. Have fun doing unarmed damage (at penalties) and being unable to kill your opponents.
(Because BG functions under 2E and that's how unarmed combat {sans Monk} works)

Is it just me, or do the Two-Handed Weapons {Halberds, 2h-Swords, Bastard Swords} break a lot more than Longswords and the like?


I'm aware of who made the game, and if I'm really curious, I 'll go look at the credits Box.

People read Credits? Weird...I just look at the box. It's not a big deal if those Pre-Game Credits are skippable (like DoW). But, one of the first Mods for WAR was the ability to skip the fifty pre-game logos.

Whilst we're on Credits...End-Game Credits sequences. Really annoying because they take for-f*ing-ever, and I really don't care who made the game except for logos I can recognise on the Box art. Made doubly annoying if, before the End-Credits, there is an option to view the Credits (from a start-menu) that I have still never cared about anyway.

[shadowxknight]

*snip*

Also, a recent trend in FPS games... I hate unlocking weapons and abilities. I mean, I suck at FPS games in the first place, so giving the people better guns just because they are better at it, or have played longer.. kinda urks me... It's not as bad as being able to PAY for better guns, but it's still annoying.
*snip*

This one.
I think in some online-only FPS this is just an attempt to get people to pay real money. Heck, sometimes the only way to get the best weapons is to pay up.

I dislike any RPGs without some sort of New Game+ but I hate games that takes multiple playthroughs to obtain 100%. Somewhere along the middle would be nice.

[Godskook]

I've yet to find a game that impliments a weapon breakage and wear system that I haven't liked. Sure it can be annoying, but that's the entire point. If you fail to plan ahead and go out with a well maintained weapon, you'll suffer the consequences. It's the same thing as going into a major fight in an RPG with only 1 health potion and the spellcaster totally out of mana. You're going to get brutalized, because you screwed up.

Actually, what pisses me off about weapon breakage systems is that I've never see one that implemented anything remotely akin to a weapon maintenance mechanic. Supposedly my nigh-invincible army of fighters and mages is incapable of finding ways of maintaining a sword to last more than 40 swings. I mean, I'm walking around with enough magic to make people dead with a wave of my hand, but I can't fix a sword. Also, since I'm stuck on fire emblem for this, how come my spellbooks deteriorate just from reading them? Better still, really powerful spells have fewer uses naturally, for some strange reason. At least D&D doesn't make you rely on these weird consumables as much(scrolls are useful, but not necessary to spellcasting)

[Kyouhen]

Quick Time events.

It happens out of the flow and mechanics of the game and there's no real way to succeed at them unless you have good reflexes or have died so many times that you've memorized which buttons you have to press. UGH.

Yeah, they really do need to get rid of those. Why do they have them? For big cinematic finishes? I can't pay attention to all the flashy attacks because I'm too busy watching for the stupid cues.

[Cheesegear]

This one.
I think in some online-only FPS this is just an attempt to get people to pay real money. Heck, sometimes the only way to get the best weapons is to pay up.

Example?

Maybe I only just play TF2, where weapons are unlocked just by playing the game (regardless of how good you are), and some more weapons are rewards for getting achievements (i.e; Being good).

The former I don't especially like, since "You don't get weapons unless you play our game!" doesn't strike me as...Good.

The latter I like, since I have to get better at the game (or just grab a friend and get him to let me shoot him in the head ten times in a row). TF2 is good 'cause all the 'classes' are pretty much balanced in the first place, and getting the better weapons takes skill. Which you get from getting your head shot off a few times and thinking "Well...Maybe I shouldn't just stand around...".

Following around other players is a good way to learn. Which, may or may not get annoying, especially if they have found a super-special-hiding spot and you're broadcasting your location by being a n00b.

...Or, just watch YouTube and see what's a good idea.


I dislike any RPGs without some sort of New Game+ but I hate games that takes multiple playthroughs to obtain 100%. Somewhere along the middle would be nice.

I think it's only JRPGs that have 'New Game+', since most (good) W/RPGs just have a huge replay value. But, I don't like very many JRPGs.


Originally posted by Godskook
Actually, what pisses me off about weapon breakage systems is that I've never see one that implemented anything remotely akin to a weapon maintenance mechanic.

I mentioned Fallout 3.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Rubber. Band. Racing.
Seriously, it pisses me off to no end.
I'm good at F-Zero GX, I'm damned good. Through years of playing, and countless hours building and testing, I built a ship that could fly just from boosting and hitting a slight ramp. But the one thing I would absolutely hate is when I have pushed myself so gods be damned hard, that I'm going 3500Km on the track, and someone PASSES ME! NO STOCK SHIP CAN PULL THAT WITHOUT CONTINUOUS TRACK BOOSTERS SET AT 2.5 SECONDS APART OVER THE COURSE OF THE ENTIRE TRACK! I'M WINNING! LET ME WIN!

And Mario Kart has become nothing more than an exercise in pissing everyone off. Nintendo just needs to quit making Mario Kart.

[Cheesegear]

And Mario Kart has become nothing more than an exercise in pissing everyone off. Nintendo just needs to quit making Mario Kart.

Obligatory XKCD strip (http://xkcd.com/290/). May contain a rude word. I've warned you.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, games in which the AI is a cheating bastard are annoying. If you want to include real difficulty, fine, but don't make the AI cheat to give the illusion of difficulty.

[king.com]

Autocover in Dow2. Drives me absolutely insane.

[Cheesegear]

Autocover in Dow2. Drives me absolutely insane.

Huh? I like it. Means I have to control my guys less (in a good way).

My greatest annoyance in many RPGs is that after I've spent 'points' (whatever 'points' means is up to the game) in an area of character development, I progress through the game, only to find out that my selections were totally useless.

Baldur's Gate; There are only a few good weapons in the game. The other good weapons that are actually useful to someone who is 'sub-optimal' is found much later in the game.
...Icewind Dale is less bad at this. Plenty of good stuff. For everyone.

Fallout 1/2/3; Same as BG. Some skills are worthless. Some only become useful very late game, when I could've put points into useful things early which would've made the game much easier.

DoW II; Avitus has a talent that lets him do extra damage when firing from behind cover. His capstone 'range' ability is that he can fire a Heavy Bolter, Plasma Cannon or Missile Launcher anytime he wants. Slap on Terminator Armour, he runs right through cover, and he can't use any of the aforementioned three weapons at all.

Neverwinter Nights 1/2; Don't bother with Rogues (my favourite class :smallmad:). Any enemy worth a damn is immune to Sneak Attacks and criticals.

Diablo 1/2; Chances are, the next unique/boss monster you come across, will have Resistance - or outright Immunity - to your favourite thing.

Shining Soul 1/2; About 90% of all the skills/weapons are junk. You can get through the whole game using one weapon, or using one spell (depending on class).

Pokemon/Digimon; Most of the 'mon are crap, and have no use whatsoever. Or, are outclassed entirely by something you got much earlier in the game.

"Y'know that really crappy fish you caught early in the game? Yeah...It's like, the best Pokemon around. Same goes for that stupid little thing that can only Teleport...You didn't know? Sucks to be you..."

...Yeah. Some games give you the illusion of having heaps of options. But, in truth, most of those options suck. And, it's usually a long while before you figure that out.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Obligatory XKCD strip (http://xkcd.com/290/). May contain a rude word. I've warned you.
I love XKCD.

Long, "You be dead sucka, reload dat shizzle straight up!" scenes drive me nuts. Though PoP:Warrior Within is my second favorite game, it suffered from this to no end.
Game: "Kill dat bozz yoh!"
Boss: "Die sucka!"
Me: *Dead.*
Game: "Check out diz kick arse screen dat say you be dead. Wait for it. Wait for it."
ten minutes later.
Game: "Wait for it..."
Me: "Screw you!"

Menus in PC games are a pet peeve of mine. If American McGee's Alice can be a game by EA AND be fun, AND have a simple navigate-able menu brought up quickly by pressing ESC, why can't all PC games have this?

As for game credits goes, games are entertainment, that'd be like asking them to remove credits from movies. Credit HAS to be given by LAW for anyone whom worked on the game/movie, and if they do not give credit, they can get sued.
However, them being skippable if I've already seen them would be nice.


Something than needs to go: Pride in your game. It's one thing to be proud of a product, but sometimes telling the world you made it gets out of hand. I'm looking at you Hideo Kojima (and also Molynueax). I know you made MGS4, I love it, but I want to play the game, not see your name sixty five times in the opening credits.
Seriously, in the opening it says Developer/Director- Hideo Kojima, like 40 times, then, at the end of the credits it freezes on it!


Another thing that needs to go away from video games: titles in the game. MGS4 is one of the perpetrators that make a prime example.
If it has been more than 45 seconds since I pressed "new game", then you need to have already told me what game I'm playing. What is it, 35 minute intro for MGS4, and only after that first half hour of Snake yammering on to Hal and Roy do they have the testicles to tell us it's MGS4, even though it said so at the menu screen!?

[Kyouhen]

Pokemon/Digimon; Most of the 'mon are crap, and have no use whatsoever. Or, are outclassed entirely by something you got much earlier in the game.

...Yeah. Some games give you the illusion of having heaps of options. But, in truth, most of those options suck. And, it's usually a long while before you figure that out.

This too. There's lots of games where you can get new team members over the course of the game, but you'll never use them unless you're forced into it because the people you've had at the start of the game are a good 10 levels higher than the new ones and you haven't even bothered grinding levels. I liked it better in games like .Hack, where the people you aren't using are considered to be off gaining levels on their own while you're doing all the work. At least then when PLOT happens and you're forced into using a character you got and forgot about they'll be somewhat useful after a quick visit to the local weapons shop.

[shadowxknight]

Yeah, games in which the AI is a cheating bastard are annoying. If you want to include real difficulty, fine, but don't make the AI cheat to give the illusion of difficulty.

I agree with this one, sort of.
It gives me the peace of mind that AIs haven't yet been developed to the point where they can easily beat humans.
I'm fine with the AI generating more resources, but it's cheap that instead of constructing units the AI just get a set of units at certain interval.

[factotum]

The thing that gets on my wick most in games is limited save points. A game, to my mind, is supposed to be fun. Playing the same 10 minutes over and over again because the save point is at the beginning of it and the ultra-difficult boss fight is at the end is NOT fun. At least if you're going to do that, put the save point right before the boss so I don't have to go through 10 minutes of mook bashing before the proper battle!

(Worst example of this by far was Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos. Fabulous game generally, but you could only save at the beginning of a mission, and someone on the dev team--you know who you are--decided to include a mission where you had to take down THREE enemy bases. Then, just for good measure, they had you get jumped by a gigantic fleet on the way home. Took me six attempts just to get all the bases done--when I got killed by said gigantic fleet I threw the game CD in the bin and never played it again!).

[The Orange Zergling]

Diablo 1/2; Chances are, the next unique/boss monster you come across, will have Resistance - or outright Immunity - to your favourite thing.

Guh, I hate that too, and not just in Diablo. This is not actual difficulty, this is just a pain in the ass that takes away a third (or more, in Diablo 2 I once came to an area where literally none of my spells were effectual because all of the enemies were immune to Lightning damage) of your abilities and thus a third (or more) of your playing options. It's like if you're playing any game, any at all, and somebody comes by and pries off half of the keys on your keyboard or buttons on your controller. It may force you to think of alternate tactics but it just feels cheap and shallow.

Also, stunlocking. Whether it's a multiplayer game with classes based around this or boss fights that do this (Prototype went way overboard with this) it's just frustrating to play against and does not at all feel challenging or fun.

[king.com]

Huh? I like it. Means I have to control my guys less (in a good way).


Just makes micro so much more difficult when your trying to face a particular direction or move out of the way of a grenade etc, or try to have them shoot at an incoming target only to have that unit charge forward to seek cover (most painful with zoanthropes).

[Zeful]

Actually, what pisses me off about weapon breakage systems is that I've never see one that implemented anything remotely akin to a weapon maintenance mechanic.

Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite. Your weapon loses "sharpness" as you fight, making it harder and harder to fight. You apply a whetstone to restore sharpness.

[ShadowFighter15]

I hate weapons that "break" or deteriorate.

Sure, it adds to the "realism" (read: no, it doesn't), but I don't want my games to be realistically annoying. I bought the damned weapon in a shop, let me keep using it until I find a new one, thank you.

I didn't mind Fallout 3's since it made sense; if the gun you're using isn't 200 years old then it's something that was put together with random, 200-year-old junk. It was a bit egregious with the alien weapons in Mothership Zeta, since they'd be new enough to be in active use, but then again that epoxy stuff the aliens had probably meant they could get away with flimsier construction.

As for what I hate; I have to agree with escort missions in just about any genre. It's forgivable if the other person can reliably fight on their own and there's a way to heal them (like how Fallout 3 let you give stimpacks to people following you), but if they're a non-combatant it just gets stupid. Combine that with bad pathing and it just gets ridiculous.

I also hate level-scaled encounters to a degree. Fallout 3 had it perfect; where areas would have a level range - so if an area scaled from level 1-6, it would be challenging for those levels, but if you came back there at level 12 or so, it wouldn't be any more dangerous than when you were level 6. That was a good system; it kept areas challenging, let you come back to earlier areas for curbstomp battles to let you feel how much stronger you've become, and there were still areas that would be suicide to go to early on (ie; Old Olney).

Then they released Broken Steel. The only thing they got wrong with it was how absurdly durable Ghoul Reavers and Super Mutant Overlords was a bit over the top. It's forgivable with the reavers; because they're the only type of feral ghoul that won't go down after one or two shots, but the Overlords are just stupid. The worst example was when I finally got around to doing the "Big Trouble in Big Town" quest. When I got to the basement to rescue the last captive; what I was expecting to be a normal super mutant was an Overlord. By the time me and a captive I'd rescued killed it, the other captive was long dead.

It didn't affect the reward at all, but I would've felt better if I could've rescued both captives, rather than letting one get killed because his interrogator had tank armour for skin.

[shadzar]

Putting items needed to beat the game/progress the story as some prize for a carnival sideshow arcade mini-game.

[Cheesegear]

It would be challenging for those levels, but if you came back there at level 12 or so, it wouldn't be any more dangerous than when you were level 6. That was a good system; it kept areas challenging, let you come back to earlier areas for curbstomp battles to let you feel how much stronger you've become, and there were still areas that would be suicide to go to early on (ie; Old Olney).

FO3 random encounters definitely scale, and the entire Wasteland 'shuffles' every three days or so. If there are new items in a 'shop', that also means that there a few enemies in certain (random) areas have respawned. And, probably better if you've leveled up once or twice.

At level 2-3, I'd be wandering around Springvale...Raiders and Molerats attack me.
I later came back at level 12, because I remembered that I stored a few things in Springvale...I get attacked by Yao Gai...In Springvale. The difficulty does not stay the same. And I don't have Broken Steel. So, it's normal.


The worst example was when I finally got around to doing the "Big Trouble in Big Town" quest. When I got to the basement to rescue the last captive; what I was expecting to be a normal super mutant was an Overlord. By the time me and a captive I'd rescued killed it, the other captive was long dead.

I think the Super Mutant Overlord in the bottom of Germantown is normal (i.e; Is the 'Boss Monster'). At least, I told the captives to stay put until I came back for them. So, nobody died for me...

...Although, one captive (not Red) is scripted to die if you wait long enough. That's part of the game. He's on his knees for a few minutes whilst the Super Mutant talks to him. He finally says something like "Fine! Kill me!" and the SM shoots him. Be quick! I had to reload (Well, I didn't have to...I wondered "I wonder if I can save him?" ...And it turns out that I could). If you've done everything else, that SM should be the last one in the building, and you can go back, get Red, and go back to Big Town with both of 'em.

[TheThan]

Cut scenes you can’t skip- seriously, after seeing the cut scene once or twice I’m probably not going to watch it again.

Level grind- you should be able to play through an RPG without having to go out and level grind. Some games solve this by scaling with level (oblivion), but then people whine about how it scales with your level. *sigh*

[shadzar]

Pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Stop making games as if you think everyone from age 4 to 400 will want to play it and trying to include something for all races, creeds, etc within that age range.

Make games for the purpose of the story you are trying to tell in the game. All games have some kind of underlying story, or they are just point and click games. Even Tetris has a story to it!

Find the story you want to tell, and find the best way to tell it, rather than find some fancy new technique or gimmick and write some lack luster story around it. (Are we still talking about games, cause I think this applies to movies as well. :smallbiggrin:)

[shadow_archmagi]

Actually, I don't mind if a game has no real plot. I can pretend there's a plot while I'm playing. What I mind is when your idea of where the plot should go takes me someplace not fun. Like putting spiderman in a tunnel where there's no room for the web-swinging and maneuvers I loved so much.

[Emperor Ing]

I swear to god if I see another FPS with a mission where you have to rescue Bravo Squad, only for them to turn up (almost) all dead, i'm gonna hurt someone. :smallannoyed:

[Green-Shirt Q]

Making everything dark (or, to a lesser extent, brown. But only lesser because I don't play those games anyway).

Seriously. Is that the only way to make things dramatic anymore? And I can't see where the hell I'm supposed to go! :smallannoyed:

[shadow_archmagi]

NOTE:

As far as "The better players get better weapons to make their advantage bigger" goes (I AM GLARING SO HARD AT YOU RIGHT NOW, STAR WARS BATTLEFIELD TWO. MEDALS. NO.), TF2 is excused because the extra weapons are not by default "better;" they are meant to be just different; an alternate option for when you've gotten tired of the default.


Effects that alter my movement/aim in a first person shooter. It's ALWAYS irritating to suddenly be flung across the map, but somehow in an FPS it feels especially violating and disorienting.

[Jibar]

That depends. I dream of one day seeing a game that's nothing but exploration. Just me, a wilderness and a compass. Dynamic terrain generation, active (and interrelated) wildlife AI, tools to be found and used, stuff like that, but no overarching purpose or story. Just the biggest, most exotic landscape you could put into a game.

This would be simply fascinating.
I'd like to see something similar with a realisticly built city and NPCs who go about their lives as normal. If I'm wandering about at night, there shouldn't be as many people on the street while early morning should see hordes of traffic in the rush hour. Having the world react to what you do would be awesome as well.
Actually I had an idea for a game like this, but this isn't the thread for it really.

In terms of what developers should stop doing, cosmetic rewards alongside mechanical rewards. Looking at you Team Fortress 2. If something changes the way the game is played, it should be considered on a level higher than the pretty model you can choose with absolutely zero effect. Cosmetic rewards are fine by themselves, but as soon as you add in something different you raise all this questions about what value you have to apply to different items that is just unnecessary.

[shadow_archmagi]

This would be simply fascinating.

In terms of what developers should stop doing, cosmetic rewards alongside mechanical rewards.

Oh god, this.

I hate when there's some "SPEND YOUR XP/GOLD/JUST PLAIN POINTS" store and then there's all sorts of useless cosmetic crap in addition to useful things.

On that note: Systems in which players have to make choices they can't easily undo based on insufficient knowledge. For example, if I'm playing Fable, and I think the fireball spell is a good idea, and then it turns out that it's a terrible spell, but I had no way of knowing that because my sum total of knowledge was "FIREBALL COSTS 500 POINTS AND MAKES EXPLOSIONS" that is a bad thing.

Likewise if I'm picking guns and it just gives me a brand name and a picture. I hated CoD for this.

[Kyouhen]

Cut scenes you can’t skip- seriously, after seeing the cut scene once or twice I’m probably not going to watch it again.


How about cut scenes you can't skip that are also a good 15-20 minutes long? I'M LOOKING AT YOU, CRYSTAL CHRONICLES INTRO! :smallannoyed:

[Oregano]

What I really hate it little things that are hidden in game but not only can they only be got in a certain place but at a certain time as well. Even worse if it's something important. I hate that about some games!

[shadow_archmagi]

Putting things unnecessarily far apart. The ingame equivalent of putting the coffee and the creamer on different floors. If you're a real **** you can put some Tall Grass in between them as well.

Anything the player is liable to want to go between a lot, there should be a fast and easy route between.

Example of it being done wrong:

In diablo 2, it's very important to identify all your items, since not only can you not equip an unknown, it'll also probably sell for less. Plus you want to KNOW when you've found the Magic Staff Of Super Magical Magic as opposed to a wooden stick. Early on, you meet an old man who promises to identify everything you bring him. He likes to stand in the middle of town, and the shop keepers hang out at the edges. Scrolls of Town Portal like to drop you a few screens away from either of them.

[warty goblin]

Cut scenes you can’t skip- seriously, after seeing the cut scene once or twice I’m probably not going to watch it again.

Level grind- you should be able to play through an RPG without having to go out and level grind. Some games solve this by scaling with level (oblivion), but then people whine about how it scales with your level. *sigh*

I'm at a point right now where I question the validity and utility of the entire level up mechanic in games. There's a lot that's appealing about it, but it leads to some very large problems. Grinding for advancement, scaling enemies, becoming completely overpowered...

The thing is I think there's a lot of ways to get that same feeling of advancement without the massive power increases. They just take a bit more creativity and work. Consider for example an FPS where you increased your skill with various weapons as you used them. Instead of doing more damage* why not make reloading take longer when you aren't skilled with the weapon? For somebody who's not really familiar with a weapon, reloading isn't neccessarily something you can do one handed without looking the way one does in most FPS games. So at level 1 with a weapon when you reload your view would focus entirely on the weapon and you'd move much slower for the duration of the animation. At level 2 your view would still mostly focus on the weapon, but reloading wouldn't take as long and you could move normally. By level 3 you could do the standard FPS reload.

You could do the same thing with accuracy fairly easily. Just make your skill determine how much recoil you suffered for every shot.

I think a system like that would still make you feel like your character is progressing. It would also encourage some attachment to weapons, something I feel is really missing in a lot of games.

*This is another thing that needs to stop. When I'm firing a gun in a game, I want the amount of damage I do to be determined completely by where I hit, what weapon I'm using, and how far away I am. Changing my accuracy is one thing, but bullets are bullets. This always bugged me about Mass Effect.

[Setra]

I'm at a point right now where I question the validity and utility of the entire level up mechanic in games. There's a lot that's appealing about it, but it leads to some very large problems. Grinding for advancement, scaling enemies, becoming completely overpowered....
I like how Lost Odyssey handles leveling

You gain XP based on the enemies you're fighting. Every level only needs 100 xp.

You could level up in one battle if you're too low, but if you're around the right level it could take like 30+ battles... It was nice because while you didn't end up too low, it made it rather hard to end up too high too.

But since this is about things we hate.. um

Well.. any system where you either end up ridiculously overleveled without trying, or where you have to try hard just to hit the correct level.

[shadow_archmagi]

Faster Reload



This isn't something that will feel GOOD to the player (at least, I can't imagine thinking "excellent, that half second of time shaved will really help) but it *will* feel irritating as hell for the second playthrough in a singleplayer game, and in a multiplayer game I can see it being incredibly frustrating.

[warty goblin]

This isn't something that will feel GOOD to the player (at least, I can't imagine thinking "excellent, that half second of time shaved will really help) but it *will* feel irritating as hell for the second playthrough in a singleplayer game, and in a multiplayer game I can see it being incredibly frustrating.

On the contrary, I think it would be far more engaging than the normal stuff an RPG gives you. I mean I know I don't go "Hey, I do an extra 5% damage with shotguns now. This certainly makes me identify with how much my character has learned!" Seeing myself reload that shotgun faster or clear a jam more efficiently, that I think would.

Remember the first time you used any tool requiring a mediocum of manual dexterity? Odds are it was clumsy, felt weird and awkward, and if you had a teacher who knew how to use the tool you noticed how much more natural and easy to use it looked in their hands.

How many times have you read a book where a character divined that somebody was skilled with a sword because of the way they held or moved it ?

Things like how people hold tools are visible signals of their knowledge and experience with the tool. Reflecting this in the animations would, I suspect, give me, the player a real sense that I'm actually better with the tool or weapon than I used to be. Far more than a simple numerical bonus would.

As for being more irritating the second playthrough, why would it be any worse than restarting a traditional RPG where your attack bonus is entirely puny and you miss as often as not?

In regards to multiplayer, simply let the player decide how proficient they want to be in various weapons before the match. Let 'em buy proficiency with a set pool of points. Easy as that.

[Emperor Ing]

One other thing that bothers me: Multiplayer. More specifically, lack thereof.

You could get away with it a decade ago, but now, unless your game is majorly open-ended with a masssively long single-player (Oblivion, sort of), there's really no excuses for your game to not have multiplayer. I'm looking at you Bioshock and Force Unleashed. :smallmad:

[Setra]

One other thing that bothers me: Multiplayer. More specifically, lack thereof.

You could get away with it a decade ago, but now, unless your game is majorly open-ended with a masssively long single-player (Oblivion, sort of), there's really no excuses for your game to not have multiplayer. I'm looking at you Bioshock and Force Unleashed. :smallmad:
Some games just aren't meant for Multiplayer..

I don't know about Force Unleashed but I have a tough time imagining how Bioshock multiplayer would work...

[Oregano]

Some games just aren't meant for Multiplayer..

I don't know about Force Unleashed but I have a tough time imagining how Bioshock multiplayer would work...

Bioshock 2 has multiplayer....

[Setra]

Bioshock 2 has multiplayer....
So can you stun people with lightning and one shot them with wrenches?

That doesn't sound particularly enjoyable..

[factotum]

*This is another thing that needs to stop. When I'm firing a gun in a game, I want the amount of damage I do to be determined completely by where I hit, what weapon I'm using, and how far away I am. Changing my accuracy is one thing, but bullets are bullets. This always bugged me about Mass Effect.

And I'd disagree, because the whole point of an RPG is that it should be the skill of my in-game character who determines what I can do, not my own skill as a gamer. If I choose to play a character who's rubbish with guns I shouldn't expect to do the same one-shot kills as I could with one who's practiced with them all his life!

As for the pure exploration game you mentioned, you could try Noctis--it's not been updated in a while and the graphics are largely shocking, but it's pretty much pure exploration of the type you said you were interested in.

[Kyouhen]

On the contrary, I think it would be far more engaging than the normal stuff an RPG gives you. I mean I know I don't go "Hey, I do an extra 5% damage with shotguns now. This certainly makes me identify with how much my character has learned!" Seeing myself reload that shotgun faster or clear a jam more efficiently, that I think would.

Remember the first time you used any tool requiring a mediocum of manual dexterity? Odds are it was clumsy, felt weird and awkward, and if you had a teacher who knew how to use the tool you noticed how much more natural and easy to use it looked in their hands.

How many times have you read a book where a character divined that somebody was skilled with a sword because of the way they held or moved it ?

Things like how people hold tools are visible signals of their knowledge and experience with the tool. Reflecting this in the animations would, I suspect, give me, the player a real sense that I'm actually better with the tool or weapon than I used to be. Far more than a simple numerical bonus would.

As for being more irritating the second playthrough, why would it be any worse than restarting a traditional RPG where your attack bonus is entirely puny and you miss as often as not?

In regards to multiplayer, simply let the player decide how proficient they want to be in various weapons before the match. Let 'em buy proficiency with a set pool of points. Easy as that.

The key thing to remember about this is that it isn't a tool. Key difference between your first time trying to load an air rifle and trying to load a hunting rifle in a game? In the game I just push a button and watch it get reloaded. It isn't that simple in real life. Slowing down the reload time just means I'm forced to sit there and watch the hands on the screen move around longer and I'm not playing a game to spend half of it reloading.

Actually that's another thing that needs to be fixed in RPGs. Excessively long animations for attacks you'll use often. Yes, I know that the big demon I just summoned wants to look all cool, but if he's the first thing I get in the game and the best attack for the first half, I don't want to spend 5 seconds watching him come out during every single turn.

[warty goblin]

One other thing that bothers me: Multiplayer. More specifically, lack thereof.

You could get away with it a decade ago, but now, unless your game is majorly open-ended with a masssively long single-player (Oblivion, sort of), there's really no excuses for your game to not have multiplayer. I'm looking at you Bioshock and Force Unleashed. :smallmad:

At last inventory, I own something in the ballpark of 60 games. I can count on one hand the number of them I've ever played online.

I'm not alone in this by any means. In fact for just about any given title, most people who buy it don't take it online. For people like me, every dollar spent on netcode and servers and all the other things multiplayer demands that does exactly nothing for single player is money down the drain. And we're the majority in most games.

No excuse for not having multiplayer? I think games need a damn good reason to have multiplayer. I'm tired of subsidizing other people to the direct detriment of my own experience, and I can't imagine I'm alone in that.

[Kyouhen]

No excuse for not having multiplayer? I think games need a damn good reason to have multiplayer. I'm tired of subsidizing other people to the direct detriment of my own experience, and I can't imagine I'm alone in that.

Agreed. Putting it in is far from a requirement, and should only be done so when it helps add to the game. Squad-based war FPS? Sure, put multiplayer in that. Bioshock? No. Part of the fun of Bioshock is being in this new, unknown world alone. That's the entire point behind having Atlas lead you through it, he's the one friendly voice you can count on to help you out. You wouldn't be so desperate for his help if you had a friend with you, and at that point the plot just falls apart.

[Shpadoinkle]

In RPGs: Attack animations. Yeah, they're cute the first few times I see them, but every single time after that they just feel like a waste of time. Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 handled this very well: attack animations were about half a second long except for spells, and those were only very slightly longer with only a handful of exceptions, and those tended to be very powerful spells that didn't see use in every battle anyway. The reason I gave up on replaying Chrono Trigger a few weeks ago was because so many of the attack animations were so much longer than they needed to be. Yes, they look nice, good for you, programmers. I stopped giving a damn about that a long time ago.

Unskippable cutscenes were mentoned before, but it deserves repitition.

[Setra]

Generally it takes me an entire playthrough of a game to get tired of the attack animations, which is one reason why I generally don't replay games too soon...

I definitely agree about unskippable cutscenes.. Especially when you die to a boss with a huge cutscene beforehand. Luckily the ability to skip them is becoming more common.

[warty goblin]

The key thing to remember about this is that it isn't a tool.
No, but it is a representation of me using a tool- in the sense that a weapon is merely a tool designed for inflicting bodily harm on others. If we're going to use a system that attempts to represent the increase of skill gained by the character over repeated uses of the tool, why not try to do in a way that in some way resembles the way a person actually improves?


Key difference between your first time trying to load an air rifle and trying to load a hunting rifle in a game? In the game I just push a button and watch it get reloaded. It isn't that simple in real life.
OK, I've loaded and fired a fair variety of rifles in the last year or two. Prior to that I'd never held, let alone fired, a gun. The guys I went out shooting with had mostly been handling and shooting guns for years.

My observation was that my bullets, assuming they hit the target, made just as big of a hole as theirs. It took me significantly longer to load and operate the weapon than it did them. I was also, not surprisingly, less accurate.

Since that time, and over several more shooting trips, I have become much more comfortable, familiar and proficient with the operation and loading of weapons. I no longer try to pack rounds into box magazines backwards or pull the priming handle on an M4 after changing magazines.

Representing a gain in proficiency by speeding up the things that actually become faster and better seems to me to be preferable in many cases to increasing something that really doesn't increase all that much.


Slowing down the reload time just means I'm forced to sit there and watch the hands on the screen move around longer and I'm not playing a game to spend half of it reloading.

So how would you represent somebody becoming more proficient with something over time in a game then?

[Miss Nobody]

In RTS's, I absolutely hate the "Survive for X minutes" missions. Especially when the devs think it would be so cool if you're attacked by an overpowered and huge enemy horde of doom and epic proportions of epicness when you've got 2-3 minutes left.

In RPGs, level scaling with rats that magically transform into wolves that transform into bears that transform into trolls and so on.

In shooters, enemies that keep respawning until you cross an invisible line. I'm looking at you, Call Of Duty. :smallmad:

[Ziren]

MMOGs with an infinite Status Quo, that make me feel like nothing I ever do has any impact on anything.

RPGs that give me no freedom at all about my characters development (Stat- and personality-wise).

Trial&Error gameplay à la Hitman: Blood Money.


That's all I can think of right now that hasn't already been said.

[PLUN]

Encouraging you to slap the reload button like a trained seal. 'Tactical Reload' is the most moronic action movie cliche ever to stay popular, and while perfect for a fast paced deathmatch, even 'realistic' games love it. When I throw a magazine away after firing all of two rounds, I should be penalised for it. When I find a bunch of bullets on the ground, I should be taking the full ones, not 3 or four bullets which magically pop into the elaborate feed belt contraption I seem to have somewhere on my person. Essentially when I reload every time I clear a room or kill someone, I should be looking towards a scenario where my ammunition is not magically replenished by the firearms fairy.

Actually, ammo in general. Ammo should be a challenge, not just a general nuisance or a reason to switch guns occasionally. About the only gun they ever do this for is the Garand in those Inevitable World War 2 shooters, as it was difficult to unload the thing without accessories and time, which actually creates a nice tension.

[Dragor]

I hate, hate, hate it when an item I prefer aesthetically isn't stastically as good as something which looks like a cat sicked it up. This really gets to me, and Fallout 3 is a good example of this. Whilst the T-51B Power Armour may be better for me than, say, the Merc Troublemaker outfit, I know which I prefer looks wise.

How my character looks is very important to me, but at the same time I find myself unable to resist statistic improvements. So usually I'm immensely torn between stats and aesthetics.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Some games can learn from what you are suggesting PLUN, though I am of the opinion that most first person shooters would only be harmed by any reloading-realism.

Also I totally agree Dragor. That was one reason as to why I loved Fable 2.

[warty goblin]

Encouraging you to slap the reload button like a trained seal. 'Tactical Reload' is the most moronic action movie cliche ever to stay popular, and while perfect for a fast paced deathmatch, even 'realistic' games love it. When I throw a magazine away after firing all of two rounds, I should be penalised for it. When I find a bunch of bullets on the ground, I should be taking the full ones, not 3 or four bullets which magically pop into the elaborate feed belt contraption I seem to have somewhere on my person. Essentially when I reload every time I clear a room or kill someone, I should be looking towards a scenario where my ammunition is not magically replenished by the firearms fairy.

Agreed. I'd like more games to keep count of ammo per magazine, not as an floating pool of bullets that instantly pack themselves into the mag. There are games that do this, but there needs to be more. I'm also tired of picking up bullets by walking on them. Crysis actually made you pick up dead dudes' guns to get the bullets, STALKER by picking them up, going to the inventory then unloading them. This was awesome and atmospheric.



Actually, ammo in general. Ammo should be a challenge, not just a general nuisance or a reason to switch guns occasionally. About the only gun they ever do this for is the Garand in those Inevitable World War 2 shooters, as it was difficult to unload the thing without accessories and time, which actually creates a nice tension.
Another one I could do without- weapons mysteriously capable of firing quite different calibers of ammo. The most egregious example that comes to mind is looting 9mm rounds to use in my .50 Desert Eagle in Far Cry 2- incidentally the 9mm rounds won't work in the (actually 9mm) MP5. Give me more games like STALKER, where guns can only take certain ammo types. It makes things a lot more interesting to realize that as much as one likes that nice NATO weapon, all the people around here use Soviet Block, and once you're out of bullets that gun is nothing more than dead weight.

[chiasaur11]

Some games can learn from what you are suggesting PLUN, though I am of the opinion that most first person shooters would only be harmed by any reloading-realism.

Also I totally agree Dragor. That was one reason as to why I loved Fable 2.

Makes me remember Marathon. No reloading unless you empty the entire clip. Leads to a lot of wasted bullets.

[Jibar]

One other thing that bothers me: Multiplayer. More specifically, lack thereof.
'm looking at you Force Unleashed. :smallmad:

...wha'. How would that even work? The Wii Multiplayer was just a case mashing random buttons and wiggling the remote and hoping for the best so it didn't work there, why would it work on any other platform? The game was about absolute destruction as you slaughter hordes of enemies the 1 vs 1 combat required for multiplayer wouldn't work as demonstrated by aforementioned Wii mode and the sometimes appalling boss battles.


STALKER by picking them up, going to the inventory then unloading them. This was awesome and atmospheric.

Give me more games like STALKER, where guns can only take certain ammo types. It makes things a lot more interesting to realize that as much as one likes that nice NATO weapon, all the people around here use Soviet Block, and once you're out of bullets that gun is nothing more than dead weight.

Stop bigging up STALKER man, otherwise you'll force me to buy it one of these days. :smalltongue:

[warty goblin]

Stop bigging up STALKER man, otherwise you'll force me to buy it one of these days. :smalltongue:
But you know you want to. Just don't be surprised when the ratio of your presses of the fire button to the quickload is about 3:1. The thing about all the wonderful features STALKER has is that it's brutally hard, and often your mistake was about forty minutes ago, if not more.

[Zeful]

One other thing that bothers me: Multiplayer. More specifically, lack thereof.

You could get away with it a decade ago, but now, unless your game is majorly open-ended with a masssively long single-player (Oblivion, sort of), there's really no excuses for your game to not have multiplayer. I'm looking at you Bioshock and Force Unleashed. :smallmad:

There are some games where multiplayer actually makes sense. Force Unleashed and Bioshock are not those games. Force Unleashed could get by with a competitive beat'em-up. But anything more doesn't make sense with the game's plot.

[Zevox]

Slow buildup of the player in non-RPG settings at all, really. <snip>
I'm going to have to disagree with this. I don't find it to be a problem at all - in fact, in games like the Legend of Zelda series, or Banjo-Kazooie, I like it. Starting out with few skills or little equipment and slowly gaining more effective weapons or better abilities as you progress is quite fun, RPG or not.


One other thing that bothers me: Multiplayer. More specifically, lack thereof.

You could get away with it a decade ago, but now, unless your game is majorly open-ended with a masssively long single-player (Oblivion, sort of), there's really no excuses for your game to not have multiplayer. I'm looking at you Bioshock and Force Unleashed. :smallmad:
Er, what? The Force Unleashed had multiplayer. I never got to use it, since it isn't online and nobody I know cares to try it, so I don't know if it's any good, but it's there. And really, there are plenty of games that don't have any reason to have multiplayer. Most RPGs (though I would say that tactical RPGs should really start including that more often). Action/adventure games in the vein of Legend of Zelda. Platformers ala Mario.

Another one of my own I thought of, which mostly applies to RPGs: making any enemy that is worth using a status effect on (poison, stun, etc) immune to it, including every damn boss in the game. Seriously, if the only things that can be affected by those abilities just die easily enough from normal attacks, what's the point of even having them? On the same vein, poison and similar effects need to do decent damage each time they take effect. If I can do more damage to my enemy by using a stronger attack rather than the poisoning one than the poison will do throughout the whole fight, it's completely pointless to even have the ability in the game to begin with.

Zevox

[Jahkaivah]

In RTS's, I absolutely hate the "Survive for X minutes" missions. Especially when the devs think it would be so cool if you're attacked by an overpowered and huge enemy horde of doom and epic proportions of epicness when you've got 2-3 minutes left.


So... you don't want it to get exciting? :smallconfused:


Cover systems. I don't need a button for me to hide behind a wall, I can do that myself thank ye.

Also hyping Cover Systems as if it's a new feature, a cover system is where you put a wall between the you and the enemy that prevents attacks. We've pretty much had a "cover system" since the start of the shooting genre.

Also:

-Stealth games which are third-person, wouldn't there be much more tension if I couldn't see the enemy either and had to sneak peaks around corners?

-Most multiplayer fps games appproach to creating it's context, it either takes random elements from it's single player mode and threw them together (which only really worked in Timesplitters because of how silly it got), creating a really generic and soulless background, or is Team Fortress 2.

-RTS games approach to campaigns, choose your adventure style storytelling is already an underused element in games but RTS campaigns are really appropriate for it given how the how strategy is about making decisions.

Incidently if you do happen to hate the hold the point levels in strategy games it would then be possible to go back a few levels and make a decision where doing that would not then be the logical conclusion.

-The "pick your race" style of RTS, just gives players a confort zone and encourages cookie cutter strategies, how about a system where your not garunteed the units you will combat and control , so therefore have to develop your strategy on the fly?

[warty goblin]

So... you don't want it to get exciting? :smallconfused:

I think the main source of irritation is that it only usually gets exciting with three minutes left on the clock, and if you die then (read: where it's most bloody likely) you have to get through the previous 27 minutes of boredom in order to have another go.



-Stealth games which are third-person, wouldn't there be much more tension if I couldn't see the enemy either and had to sneak peaks around corners?
I can't say as I've ever really played a 3rd person stealth game. I mean, I've played 3rd person games where a bit of sneakery was possible, but it was hardly the point.


-Most multiplayer fps games appproach to creating it's context, it either takes random elements from it's single player mode and threw them together (which only really worked in Timesplitters because of how silly it got), creating a really generic and soulless background, or is Team Fortress 2.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars does a good job of this. Each map is very much the events of one battle unfolding according to a set and scripted master plan, with you the grunts merely trying to execute it. Either that or you are defending and trying to keep the enemy from completing all of their objectives. It's about as close to to real story based multiplayer as we're likely to see for a very long time, and it's totally awesome.


-RTS games approach to campaigns, choose your adventure style storytelling is already an underused element in games but RTS campaigns are really appropriate for it given how the how strategy is about making decisions.
The trap here is that you end up with something like the Total War games, which always felt a bit wishy-washy to me, as in they never really made up their minds what they wanted to be. Or Total War light, ala Battle for Middle Earth 2 in War of the Ring mode, or Empire at War.

Of course sometimes you end up with something as totally awesome as Sins of a Solar Empire...

[PLUN]

Some games can learn from what you are suggesting PLUN, though I am of the opinion that most first person shooters would only be harmed by any reloading-realism.

Complete agreement. When im fighting zombies or being a power armoured badass, I want to see this sort of thing as background noise, if even that - in combat I can assume my guy has a lot of gear and is flat out better than me. The line blurs in games like Infinity Ward's Call of Duty titles, which have realistic scenarios and characters but highly cinematic gameplay and presentation. Really this could go either way and i'd be satisfied. Multiplayer is obviously going to be, for most games, too fast paced for this kind of thing.

So most FPS titles It sits fine with. Like you said, it can be so much better that way. The real shame is games priding themselves on a realistic combat feel or at least trying to put you in a throughly real 'this could happen' situation just always plump for this route. It's not even the road less taken, aside from a half dozen titles its the only road.


actually made you pick up dead dudes' guns to get the bullets, STALKER by picking them up, going to the inventory then unloading them. This was awesome and atmospheric.

These are good examples. You don't want to sit there in downtime meticulously loading loose bullets into a selection of splayed out magazines, but you want an mechanic where, in combat, you have to think about how to use the ammunition you started with and in STALKER, prepared yourself. Even though Crysis and STALKER are fantastic scenarios, they want to take you to a grittier place and I hope its realised this is a good way to do it.

[Thanatos 51-50]

-Stealth games which are third-person, wouldn't there be much more tension if I couldn't see the enemy either and had to sneak peaks around corners?

The thing about stealth games, is they require the use of senses other than sight, and I figure giving a 3rd-person view is a pretty good equivlancy and non-cluttery version of the character's situational awareness.

Additionally, games Like Splinter Cell handle this very well, methinks, where the camera was third-person and player-controlled, but kept tight around the PC.
You could, theoretically, look around corners without using the "Peek" move, but you're going to be looking at alot of wall and very little passageway where the scary guys with guns stand.

[Ziren]

I can't say as I've ever really played a 3rd person stealth game. I mean, I've played 3rd person games where a bit of sneakery was possible, but it was hardly the point.

The only first-person stealth games I know of are the Thief-series. Third person has Splinter Cell, Hitman: Silent Assassin an later parts (if you play it the way it's meant to be played and not just gun everyone down) and the Metal Gear Solid series (though the focus here is mostly on the action)...

[Jahkaivah]

I think the main source of irritation is that it only usually gets exciting with three minutes left on the clock, and if you die then (read: where it's most bloody likely) you have to get through the previous 27 minutes of boredom in order to have another go.

Only it's an RTS game, you have the freedom to save at anytime :smalltongue:

[Emperor Ing]

Another annoyance: In some hack-and-slash games, Cameras usually seem to be on a rail, making some boss fights and regular enemy battles unnecessarily annoying. I'm looking at you DMC4.
:smallannoyed:
...
no seriously. :smallannoyed:

[Setra]

The only first-person stealth games I know of are the Thief-series. Third person has Splinter Cell, Hitman: Silent Assassin an later parts (if you play it the way it's meant to be played and not just gun everyone down) and the Metal Gear Solid series (though the focus here is mostly on the action)...

Would Deus Ex count as First Person Stealth?

[chiasaur11]

Would Deus Ex count as First Person Stealth?

Depends on how fond one is of the GEP gun.

[Ziren]

Would Deus Ex count as First Person Stealth?

It can certainly be played that way, yes.

[warty goblin]

Some other things that need to die:

1) 3 person light jeeps with machine guns in them. It's one thing in a modern setting, but in a sci fi one I'd like to see something a bit more creative. How 'bout a four person half-track with a machine gun and 40mm cannon in the back? Wouldn't that be more fun? Wouldn't anything but a vehicle that looks totally not at all like a warthog nosiree but doesn't handle as well be nice for a change? Yeah, I thought so.

2) Unlimited vehicle ammo. Unless they're lasers, I'll forgive lasers so long as they overheat. I don't mean low vehicle ammo, but 2000 rounds for the machine gun and 40-60 for the main gun in a tank should really be enough. Pretty much every non plot device gun in single player anymore runs out of ammo, so why should every single vehicle be large diesel chugging plot device?

3) No optics in vehicles. Sometime in the last few years games noticed that, gee willigers, a lot of people in armies put advanced optics on their guns. So games started putting red dot sights and ACOGs on their guns, and all was good. Apparently nobody has noticed that tanks have had telescopic sights on them for quite a while now. Like over sixty years. This allows them to shoot things very far away with their very powerful guns. You know, like you do with very powerful guns. I shouldn't have a harder time targeting something at 500 meters with my 120mm smoothbore tank gun than I do with my crappy little assault rifle, now gimme my damn scope already!

4) Missions where I have to shoot a bunch of dudes from a fixed machine gun.
This is never fun. Ever. No, not even if they're zombies or giant bugs or something. It's just boring. Yes, I understand I'm playing a shooter, in which things are shot by my shooting them. Usually this is done in a point and click manner. The thing is I'm also playing a game in which usually I get to move around and figure out how best to shoot things with the shooty clicking. In the turret segment all I do is hold down the fire button and move it left and right in a slow, rythmic fashion. After three minutes I've even seen all of your death animations, it's all downhill from here. What's this, a flying enemy? Whatever will I do? Oh, right, I'll shoot it too.

Here's an idea, give me a flamethrower, a giant barrel of fuel, and let me move around while wrecking havok on that giant scripted wave of enemies you insist on unleashing! Doesn't that sound like more fun? Walking around through the blackened, slightly crunchy remains of your vanquished foes even as your pour forth fiery retribution onto their companions? Watching them run around in little circles, setting fire to the scenary? Taking bets when they start to keel over?

Man, I need a shrink.

[deuxhero]

Real time with pause - Remind me, if turn based is apparently bad because it is "slow" and this system is slower than turn based, why is it worth a copper? Turn based goes as fast as I can select my attack, RTWP has a minimum time before I can kill the random mooks the game throws at me.
Identify spells - Except for Nethack, they are just a quick drop in town or casting a cantrip. This is one of the few (tempted to say only) thing base NWN2 does right, a high lore skill auto ids items, the spell is only needed for stuff if you lack a party member with the skil or you have an item with a really high requirmentl
Rubber band AI and other forms of punishing players for doing well. - do I need to explain.
Attempts to make games fun for everybody that are basically just taking out what made it fun for a good amount of people. - 4 words:Super Smash Bros:Brawl. What was wrong with hit stun? Speed?
Tolkien plagiarism - I want to play something fantastic, not the same *something* elfs and dwarfs.

[Zeful]

Identify spells - Except for Nethack, they are just a quick drop in town or casting a cantrip. This is one of the few (tempted to say only) thing base NWN2 does right, a high lore skill auto ids items, the spell is only needed for stuff if you lack a party member with the skil or you have an item with a really high requirement.

This depends on setting. If I were to design a game in which magic is rare and expensive, skill based id would be fine, for mundane things, like a high quality sword. But once you find magic items you need a spell and it will cost you. Conversely if the setting is a Magic-Is-Everywhere setting, then it would likely be part of the skill to ID things. Anything else is stupid.

[Dublock]

Depends on how fond one is of the GEP gun.

For me it was always depended on how much amo I had. For some strange reason I never had a to much amo problem....

The limited save spots annoy me, To many "random encounters" does get annoying, level grinding, unfinsihed games being published that should have spent more time with the Devs...at least we know Blizzard doesn't have that problem :p

[Stormthorn]

Level grind- you should be able to play through an RPG without having to go out and level grind. Some games solve this by scaling with level (oblivion), but then people whine about how it scales with your level. *sigh*

+1 on that. You wont see me complain.


Also, someone a ways back mentioned repetitiveness of attack animations. I suggest you play Prince of Persia. The new one. It would take a while to exhaust the whole combo tree for the game.


2) Unlimited vehicle ammo. Unless they're lasers, I'll forgive lasers so long as they overheat. I don't mean low vehicle ammo, but 2000 rounds for the machine gun and 40-60 for the main gun in a tank should really be enough. Pretty much every non plot device gun in single player anymore runs out of ammo, so why should every single vehicle be large diesel chugging plot device?

Yea but, think of how much more annoying it would be if they made you hand load every 20 pound shell into the tank each time you set out.
At least in Mass Effect the lack of ammo was well justified. When the basis of pretty much eveyr technology in the game makes it trivialy easy to accelerate things to great speeds you only need ammo the size of a sand grain.

[warty goblin]

Yea but, think of how much more annoying it would be if they made you hand load every 20 pound shell into the tank each time you set out.
At least in Mass Effect the lack of ammo was well justified. When the basis of pretty much eveyr technology in the game makes it trivialy easy to accelerate things to great speeds you only need ammo the size of a sand grain.

I'm not calling for that, or anything near that extreme. For one thing I've never really heard of tanks rearming in the field, so I don't see much need to simulate that. But why not simply make it so whenever you get a tank, it comes with 30 or 60 or however many rounds of ammunition in it? Mercenaries 2 did this, and it worked pretty well, you simply had to pay attention to making shots count. At the same time is wasn't restrictive enough that you couldn't blow holes in walls or stuff like that if the need arose. Same thing with Crysis, although there's about three different tanks you can acquire over the course of the Onslaught level, and they aren't really at all neccessary to proceed either.

Actually, that's another one. If you're going to give me a tank, you'd damn well better let me blow some stuff up with it. Call of Duty: World at War is perhaps the ultimate offender here, since it models bullet penetration but not tank shell penetration.* This leads to such fascinating events as being able to shoot a guy behind an inch of concrete with a rifle but not with a 70mm cannon. Folks, I hate to break it to you, but the cannon's going to go through that wall, regardless of whether it's firing AP, HE or teddy bears.


*It's one thing if the game just throws up its hands and doesn't bother modeling penetration or structure damage at all. That's fine. Boring and conservative, but fine. Doing a truly half assed job of it however is another thing entirely. But then CoD 4 was worse than half assed about it, and instead settled for deliberately vindictive whenever the mood struck it. I'm thinking of that part in the Warpig level where you've got to get rid of the machine gunners in the top story of the building with the airstrike. The windows are boarded up with some half inch planks, yet are completely immune to everything except walking to the glowy spot and pressing the 'E' key.

[LiteYear]

Here's one that I can think of off the top of my head.

- Putting abilities needed for exploration on equipables. Although I'm specifically thinking of the Castleroids, I'm referring to any games where I need to equip an item to grant a conditional ability. Generally, I only need to have the ability for like 2 seconds at a time, so having to equip the thing needed for the ability, use the ability to pass the obstacle, and then re-equipping my combat item is just annoying. Either bind the ability to a key command, have some sort of location where that ability activates, or even just remove the obstacles once you have the ability for them.

[factotum]

Only it's an RTS game, you have the freedom to save at anytime :smalltongue:

I think the point he was making is that if you get kerbstomped 3 minutes from the end, chances are you didn't build your base properly (wrong defences, anticipating attack from the wrong direction, etc) and that's not something that a reload is going to fix.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Here's one that I can think of off the top of my head.

- Putting abilities needed for exploration on equipables. Although I'm specifically thinking of the Castleroids, I'm referring to any games where I need to equip an item to grant a conditional ability. Generally, I only need to have the ability for like 2 seconds at a time, so having to equip the thing needed for the ability, use the ability to pass the obstacle, and then re-equipping my combat item is just annoying. Either bind the ability to a key command, have some sort of location where that ability activates, or even just remove the obstacles once you have the ability for them.

I mostly agree: But with an addendum:
If the challange of the dungeon is to get through it without the +5 boots of Asskickery you acquired three dungeons ago, then yes, make the PC wear the -4 Boots of OMG I need to wear these or the lava will make me explode.
Otherwise, yeah, agree.

[Cheesegear]

Any game that punishes you for quitting. Specifically, I'm thinking of Dawn of War II (although I do remember others)...There are no save points, within the missions, and, if you quit, you not only fail the mission, but you also automatically 'lose' a Mission Day. And the Bad Guys swarm all over your map in accordance with the progression of a Day.

[shadow_archmagi]

Dawn of War II

Ah, speaking of which, it breaks another central tenant:

Thou Shalt Not Make A Single Player Mode Which Doth Not Preparith Thine Player For Multiplayer.

Seriously. You spend the entire campaign as super-powered doom-slaughtering death-machines, and then you get to multiplayer and it turns out that you only play as the tiny people you've been killing all along. It's like if you played through the warcraft 3 campaign and then found out that in multiplayer everyone had to play as gnolls and didn't build bases at all.

[Optimystik]

Randomizing the **** buttons in quick-time event sequences. I'm looking you dead in the eye, Resident Evil.

[warty goblin]

Ah, speaking of which, it breaks another central tenant:

Thou Shalt Not Make A Single Player Mode Which Doth Not Preparith Thine Player For Multiplayer.

I'm of two minds about this. While I don't give the backside of a rat about multiplayer, there are some things about multiplayer design ethos that I rather enjoy. I enjoy objective based shooters ala Enemy Territory: Quake Wars due to being able to die heroically doing something stupid like strapping explosives to a vehicle and using it to open a breech in enemy lines, then capitalize on the gaping hole I just made next respawn. Dying not resulting in a 'game over' screen is something of which I am generally a fan.

On the other hand since I don't give the backend of a rat about multiplayer, I'm seriously suspicious of making the entire singleplayer experience revolve around getting me 'ready' for something I have no interest or intent ever to play. Partly this is because there are some things that work in singleplayer that simply wouldn't in multi, and I see no reason why I should have to go without those things so that a bunch of other people can have fun blowing each other up online at my expense.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Creating Classes which encourage kamikaze playstyles (a la, the Scout in TFF2), and not having an alternate class that can capitalise on the opertunity your kamikaze player just opened, becuase it's going to close by the time the ten second respawn time elapses.
Like the OTHER eight classes in TF2.

Seriously. Stop letting me harass the enemy and doing nothnig to A) Kill them or B) Sneak around their lines.
I'm drawing fire, do something useful, Gar!

...
No, that does not mean Ubercharging/Kritzkrieging me.

[shadow_archmagi]

gragh margh scout grrr

I'm going to say that the scout is just fine the way it is and you're just frustrated. I know loads of great scout players who can wreak serious havoc on a team.

Not saying you are a terrible player, just that the scout can be a great boon in the hands of some. Personally, I have no idea how they do it and so his ways remain mysterious.

He is not a kamikazi class.

[Thanatos 51-50]

No, you'd be right to say I'm terrible.
I'm actually pretty bad.

I just get to complain, anyway.

[Optimystik]

This depends on setting. If I were to design a game in which magic is rare and expensive, skill based id would be fine, for mundane things, like a high quality sword. But once you find magic items you need a spell and it will cost you. Conversely if the setting is a Magic-Is-Everywhere setting, then it would likely be part of the skill to ID things. Anything else is stupid.

FR is definitely Magic-Is-Everywhere, so NWN is justified. Also, Lore is a special skill developed just for NWN in place of all the Knowledge (X) skills anyway.

[warty goblin]

FR is definitely Magic-Is-Everywhere, so NWN is justified. Also, Lore is a special skill developed just for NWN in place of all the Knowledge (X) skills anyway.

When was the last time anybody had fun screwing around with identifying items anyway? I'm fairly certain I never have.

[Cristo Meyers]

Man, I need a shrink.

...or a dev contract. You speak much wisdom.

I've got one, but it only really applies to FPS without a cover mechanic a la Gears of War. No "lean" function. I shouldn't have to step completely out into the hallway (and resultant hail of gunfire) because the devs were too lazy to give me the ability to lean out.

[Zeful]

FR is definitely Magic-Is-Everywhere, so NWN is justified. Also, Lore is a special skill developed just for NWN in place of all the Knowledge (X) skills anyway.

Yes it is. But my point was not all settings are FR, so the assertion that identification of magical items should be free and skill based is wrong.

[Oslecamo]

Also, since I'm stuck on fire emblem for this, how come my spellbooks deteriorate just from reading them? Better still, really powerful spells have fewer uses naturally, for some strange reason.

Actually, this one makes some kind of sense:
1-Books are made of paper.
2-You're holding the book in your hands
3-Those hands are also channeling fire/lighting/the darkside
4-Paper burns quite easily.
5-?
6-Don't profit.

So of course the stronger the spell you're using, the faster the poor book is reduced to ashes from the forces invoked scant centimeters from it!:smalltongue:

warty goblin:I enjoyed the identify game from PSO, where what you believed the item was was what it would become, allowing for customization.

Now, for my personal issues:
1-GFWL. Seriously so I need to connect to the freaking net every time I want to play? And then it lags like hell? In return for what?
2-Crappy AIs. No seriously games already proved that one can make decent AIs, yet for some strange reason devs insist on creating suicide minded mooks that are only a threat in huge numbers and/or huge statistics(cough DoW II cough).

Hmm, that'll be for now. I just got an idea for a thread...

[Optimystik]

Yes it is. But my point was not all settings are FR, so the assertion that identification of magical items should be free and skill based is wrong.

And I agree with you, in low-magic settings at least. Of course, sometimes the macguffin has instructions on it, or at least a key to its use, even in a low-magic environment (see also: the One Ring), so it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility for simple lore to uncover a magic item's goods.

There are also low-magic environments that USED to be high-magic, and those are also likely settings for lore-based identification. Consider the Wheel of Time, where artifacts from the Age of Legends are all but inscrutable in the time period of the main story. Yet it is not a prophetic dream, a surge of magic or an insightful potion that reveals the lore of the Portal Stones and the Waygates, but instead a bashful Ogier that enjoys reading old books.

[Jahkaivah]

I think the point he was making is that if you get kerbstomped 3 minutes from the end, chances are you didn't build your base properly (wrong defences, anticipating attack from the wrong direction, etc) and that's not something that a reload is going to fix.

Your set up doesn't really matter at that point, the final attack ismassive and comes from all directions and has a mix of every one of their units, it's not supposed to be prevented, just stalled. If there was anything so wrong with your set up that you had to reload back at the begining, you would never have reached the 3 minute mark to begin with.

(I'm thinking of the Hearthglen defense in Warcraft 3 here, I'm sure there's probably an example that doesn't do it well but that falls down to execution, not the idea itself)

[Narudude360]

Cover systems. I don't need a button for me to hide behind a wall, I can do that myself thank ye.

So many reasons this is helpful. When was the last time you played Call of Duty? Or Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell? Or any Gears of War game? Or the new Gears expansion? All those games make covering ESSENTIAL.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Or Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell?

If you're using cover for firefights, you're doing it wrong. If you're using the BTW toggle to turn on your wall moves and lower your visiblity rating that extra smidge or to allow the guards to walk right past you, however, you're doing it right.
It's a "Moar stealth" button, not a "Don't get shot" button.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Don't think you read his post, he's not complaining about using cover, he's complaining about having to create a button to press for it.

I've tried this in games where "Take Cover" was assigned a button.
You know what happened? I got shot.

[Jahkaivah]

I've tried this in games where "Take Cover" was assigned a button.
You know what happened? I got shot.


Well done, you managed to quote a post I had deleted :smalltongue:

But yeah, that's probably because of the way the game was designed.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Cover systems. I don't need a button for me to hide behind a wall, I can do that myself thank ye.

You would rather press the crouch button to crouch behind the wall? Its still a button. Hell, they could make it the same button.

Only in one, you get a nice different cinematic perspective, where as in another you are just crouching. It just so happens you are behind a wall this time.

edit: I will admit though that in any 1st person game, a cover system will probably suck. 3rd person games I love them.

[warty goblin]

You would rather press the crouch button to crouch behind the wall? Its still a button. Hell, they could make it the same button.

Only in one, you get a nice different cinematic perspective, where as in another you are just crouching. It just so happens you are behind a wall this time.

I think the point is that with lean keys combined with crouch/prone stances, a skilled player can take cover much more effectively. Part of this is that no matter what, I'll want to use something for cover that the dev team didn't think of letting me cower behind. This usually results in what many call a 'cheap' death, a leading cause of loadicus ragicus- or loading screen rage in laymen's terms.

Plus lean keys give me a much higher level of control of how much of myself I stick out in order to shoot some dudes.



edit: I will admit though that in any 1st person game, a cover system will probably suck. 3rd person games I love them.

Yeah, I wasn't a terribly huge fan of the cover system in Rainbow 6: Vegas, which was first person right up until you took cover behind something. Then it cut to third person. It was sort of disorienting, although some of that might have been due to the bit where Ubisoft apparently hired a leprotic llama and a manic depresive monkey to do the PC optimization, which meant I had to play in something like 4x2 resolution in order to get a frame rate north of 'slideshow of a sloth's vacation*.'

*Which goes something like this: "And...in...this...pic...ture..... ...... ..... I'm...at...the...beach....It... was...sun..ny..."

[Optimystik]

edit: I will admit though that in any 1st person game, a cover system will probably suck. 3rd person games I love them.

Even in 3rd person games it would be nice to let you crouch/use cover on command as well. Resident Evil 5 is a particularly egregious example, with you only being allowed to use cover late in the game when the Majini get firearms (and a small sequence early on where one has a turret,) yet they're able to fire crossbows at you and chuck dynamite, axes, bottles, megaphones and god knows what else all the way up through the game until those points.

Gears of War is a little better about this; generally, if it looks like you can hide behind it, then you can, whether its a car, fountain, or even a windowsill.

Army of Two has the nifty trick of breaking off a car door to use as a shield that you and your partner can hide behind as you advance on the enemy's position. Pity that's the only improvised shield you can use, no matter what else is lying around in the area.

[Oregano]

Yer, warty and opti(hope you don't mind me calling you that) got it how I meant. The cover system in games like Resi 5 or Gears are too context sensitive but I think it's also basically a "press here not to die" button especially in the cases where the character will instantly move into cover even from a moderate distance.

Also depending on the game the cover system can actually prohibit movement.

I just don't like it.

[Johnny Blade]

As a very general note about RPGs, if I get a party, I want at least 4 people in it, but usually 6 or even more. If I have less, battles become boring fast for lack of actual tactics involved.

Also, I want to hear what my companions have to say. That doesn't work when I can only have two of them with me at a given time.

[Dark Faun]

I agree, especially when no reason at all is given to explain why you don't have your whole party with you. I'm trying to save the world; why can I bring only three people with me?

I'm looking at you, Neverwinter Nights 2.

[shadow_archmagi]

I'm looking at you, Knights of The Old Republic

Agreed.


Was playing Jedi Outcast today and I found a new one:

No matter what my character knows, having vital NPCs radio me "I'll meet you in the valley" or "come here, I am trapped and under fire" is completely rage inducing. How the hell am I supposed to know where "here" is?! I HAVE NEVER SEEN THAT VALLEY BEFORE.

[Johnny Blade]

I agree, especially when no reason at all is given to explain why you don't have your whole party with you. I'm trying to save the world; why can I bring only three people with me?

I'm looking at you, Neverwinter Nights 2.
NWN2 actually gave me some hope for future games. At least I usually had at least 4+ people in the party.

Main offenders for me were the KotOR games. Especially since you had to do most important fights with only one character.
Boring, and probably the main reason why I've only played them once although I actually would have liked to learn more about some of my companions.


(Also, this issue goes both ways. Having 6 people in the party is nice, but still offers not much of a tactical challenge if you only go up against single enemies or completely homogenous groups.)

[warty goblin]

Agreed.


Was playing Jedi Outcast today and I found a new one:

No matter what my character knows, having vital NPCs radio me "I'll meet you in the valley" or "come here, I am trapped and under fire" is completely rage inducing. How the hell am I supposed to know where "here" is?! I HAVE NEVER SEEN THAT VALLEY BEFORE.

NPCs*, unlike us silly PCs, understand that the world is nothing more than a curvy sort of path leading inexorably from one end to the other. Thus to them, telling you to meet them in the valley makes absolute perfect sense- there's probably only one valley in the world.

In the unlikely event of there being more than one valley, since the world is linear the instruction is still completely clear in NPCish, since you'll have to traverse any other valleys in order to reach the one they are in. It's only us retarded PCs who don't understand this.

In fact NPCs are well aware that we are a 'special' breed of person. Special in that we're the only ones who can save the world, but also special in the sense of having been clonked a few too many times about the cranium by tire irons. Thus the instruction 'meet me at the valley' is supposed to clarify things for our poor, primative, two dimensional brains. NPCs of course have highly advanced 1D brains, and don't bother with landmarks at all when communicating with each other. Instead NPCs use an advanced, confusion free system of forwards and backwards. Most of the time they don't even bother with that, since everybody knows you can't back up past the beginning of the level, so forwards is really the only direction that makes any sense for a long trip.

* I refer here to Noneplarericus Linearis, the most common species of the Noneplayarii. Strictly speaking, the Linearis does not have a completely 1D mind. More intelligent examples are capable of moving side to side in order to better participate in combat, or more commonly to step in front of me and getting their stupid asses shot off while I'm trying to kill that crotchweasel with the rocket launcher over there. Nevertheless, when it comes to thinking about distances of more than 8 meters, the Linearis is completely incapable of understanding anything other than forwards or backwards. Other, less common NPC species, such as the Sandboxii are capable of more advanced spacial reasoning, although this appears to strain their primative minds, which is why they are so often to be found walking into walls, closed doors, fire hydrants, or other non-interactive objects.

[Mx.Silver]

I agree, especially when no reason at all is given to explain why you don't have your whole party with you. I'm trying to save the world; why can I bring only three people with me?

I'm looking at you, Neverwinter Nights 2.

In fairness, for the last battle of the OC you got to bring your band of followers to bare. Even if a couple ended-up stabbing you in the back. But yes, this annoys me wherever it's used, be it in your typical RPGs or squad-based TBS (e.g. Fire Emblem). I can kind of see that it's necessary for game balance but there should still at least be some kind of justification.

[warty goblin]

In fairness, for the last battle of the OC you got to bring your band of followers to bare. Even if a couple ended-up stabbing you in the back. But yes, this annoys me wherever it's used, be it in your typical RPGs or squad-based TBS (e.g. Fire Emblem). I can kind of see that it's necessary for game balance but there should still at least be some kind of justification.

The thing is there's a lot of ways around this. Irreconcilable personality differences, NPCs being unwilling to spend oodles of time simply sitting around a tavern/castle/whatever waiting for you to come give some purpose to their pathetic, empty lives, things like that. It'd make choosing what companions to take along and pay attention to much more interesting I'd think.

[TheSummoner]

Know what I hate? Achievement points. They break game flow and just annoy me. Typically they fall into one of two categories: Annoyingly impossible (kill the final boss with 1 HP left using the weakest weapon in the game while doing a backflip), or not an achievement at all (turn the game on! Kill some power of 10 enemies in a game where you'll fight tens of thousands before beating it).

You see... I'm the kind of OCD idiot who strives for 100% completion. It bothers me if I have anything less than that, it eats at me. My skin still crawls because I don't have "Mr. Perfect" on Megaman 9 (which, for those of you who don't know, is unlocked by beating the entire game without getting hit... at all). If I wanted a real challenge, I don't need the dev team making me feel obligated to doing it. I'd simply do it.

(example: The minimum possible time to complete Pikmin 2 with 100% of the treasures is 8 in-game days. It requires you to finish the final zone, which has one treasure (the Doomsday Aparatus) that is so heavy that it takes a quarter of a game-day to carry back to your ship despite it being fairly close, in one game-day. I have done this)

On the other side, why are the developers breaking the flow of the game to announce some pointless and incredibly easy "achievement"? I'm holed up in a shack with my AI controlled ally giving me cover. The two of us are fighting off a horde of enemies pouring into the shack through the windows and door. They die easily enough, but they are in great numbers. My AI buddy calls out for me to cover him as he reloads. An enemy comes through the west window and goes at him, a second later another runs through the door to the east and charges me. I blow off the first enemy's head as it tries to attack him. I try to turn quickly to finish off his friend, but nope!


*BING!* Achievement Unlocked! Killing Machine!
-Kill 500 enemies-

Not only has a tense and action packed moment been ruined, but having lost my rhythm, the enemy latches onto me as soon as I prompt the annoying message away. My partner finishes reloading and shoots him off me. My character is alive, but needs to waste a healing item. In real life, I'm quite annoyed because not only did it ruin my immersion and make me use a healing item that I might've not needed otherwise, but it did this to let me know I killed a number of enemies in the first quater of the game when theres still hours of time left. Why not just keep record of how many enemies I've killed in a menu accessable from the main screen? If I gave a damn, wouldn't that be a better way to tell me how many I've killed?

Another similar scenerio. I enter the enormous doors and enter the dimly lit room. Across the large arena I see the final boss (oooh... lets say Ganondorf since I have Zelda on the mind), Ganondorf, Prince of the Gerudo, wielder of the triforce of power, recurring villian and plot hijacker. I battle him and after 10 minutes or so of clashing blades, I deliver the final blow.


*BING!* Achievement Unlocked! Hero of Time!
-Defeat Ganondorf-

Really? I just beat Ganondorf? I mean, the sword sticking out of his chest kinda made me wonder, and the way the music changed from a battle theme to a calmer one of peace and victory was pretty convincing, but thank you for clarifying. Thanks for letting me know that I beat that guy that I just beat.

Microsoft does it as a way to make people buy more games... Gamerscore, what a load. Yep, you're a better Gamer because you have a higher Gamerscore. The fact that theres a maximum number of points you can add to it for any given game has nothing to do with that.

I don't play anymore, but I know Blizzard added achievements to WoW a while back. What a better way to keep people playing than by giving a list of goals for people to pursue? Afterall, its not like you have to pay more to play for longer and go after these goals... wait...

As someone who wants to develope games in the future, let me just say that if I ever made a game for Microsoft, who requires developers to put achievements in games, there would be one achievement.


*BING!* Achievement Unlocked! You Turned on the Game!
-Now, lets get past this this bull**** and actually play this thing-

[Dogmantra]

As someone who wants to develope games in the future, let me just say that if I ever made a game for Microsoft, who requires developers to put achievements in games, there would be one achievement.


*BING!* Achievement Unlocked! You Turned on the Game!
-Now, lets get past this this bull**** and actually play this thing-

Too late, Bethesda beat you to that with Oblivion.
Or close enough. You get an achievement for completing the friggin' tutorial!

[Green-Shirt Q]

The achievements bugged me at first, mainly because the XBox Live thing can go &%$#@ itself. Although now I don't care about it anymore and it doesn't break immersion.

Probably because I started getting achievements in real life.

I'm not kidding. Sometimes when I'm on a walk or on the computer or doing exercise I'll hear the *pup-plink* of an achievement being unlocked. I don't actually see what it is I've unlocked, but I can take a guess based on what I was doing at the time.

It's a little scary, to be honest. And it makes me wonder if perhaps I might just play too many videogames.


Too late, Bethesda beat you to that with Oblivion.
Or close enough. You get an achievement for completing the friggin' tutorial!

Lots of games give you an achievement for completely the tutorial. That's not special for Oblivion.

[Thrawn183]

I don't like rpg's where the beginning takes forever.
- Golden Sun's near 2 hour intro (because it involves mostly scripted gameplay)

I also don't like rpg's where the party size is <4.
- I can't think of any of the top of my head because I refuse to play them.

Games where a weapon becomes completely useless at some point. Ok, I understand that if you use swords, some swords really will be better than others, but I want my shotgun and machinegun to still be useful by the end of the game.

Games where defeating an enemy is more about picking the right tool than about skill.
- Zelda is all about this one.

Games where checkpoints preceed an unavoidable time suck before a really hard fight.
- Gears of war had one or two of these.

[Green-Shirt Q]

I also don't like rpg's where the party size is <4.
- I can't think of any of the top of my head because I refuse to play them.


I'm not a huge RPG guy (I'm more of the platformer-y cartoon-y action-y game type) but to me that sounds like kind've a dumb reason not to play them.

I would imagine that with less then four characters that they would be easier to level up (I once played an RPG with, like, 12 characters, and I found it to be intimidating and hard to level them all up to a good level) and with fewer characters they would recieve better characterization. As a "writer" myself (the fingerquotes exaggerated to no end) I have recently learned that having more then a handful of characters can make them all very difficult to give equal screen time.

[Mando Knight]

I also don't like rpg's where the party size is <4.
- I can't think of any of the top of my head because I refuse to play them.

Active party, or total party?

[Myatar_Panwar]

Man people have some dumb complaints.

[Setra]

I'm not a huge RPG guy (I'm more of the platformer-y cartoon-y action-y game type) but to me that sounds like kind've a dumb reason not to play them.

I would imagine that with less then four characters that they would be easier to level up (I once played an RPG with, like, 12 characters, and I found it to be intimidating and hard to level them all up to a good level) and with fewer characters they would recieve better characterization. As a "writer" myself (the fingerquotes exaggerated to no end) I have recently learned that having more then a handful of characters can make them all very difficult to give equal screen time.

You would have loved Suikoden =p

Honestly I like achievement points, I don't care about comparing them to anyone else.. but I feel happy whenever I earn one, plus they can add replay value to a game.

[Arutema]

Limited continues/extra lives on home systems. The Wii is not coin-operated. Neither is the XBox. Neither is the PS3... There is no need to artificially limit the number of virtual coins we can spend to complete these games that we have already paid $20 or more for. No, online leaderboards are not a valid reason either.

PS3 installs. Yes, Sony allows up to 5GB, you do not need to use all of it and waste 20 minutes copying data before I can play. If I wanted to muck with freeing up HD space and install times I would have bought a PC game.

[warty goblin]

PS3 installs. Yes, Sony allows up to 5GB, you do not need to use all of it and waste 20 minutes copying data before I can play. If I wanted to muck with freeing up HD space and install times I would have bought a PC game.

Which, funnily enough, you seldom have to do on a PC. I've got a 240 gig hardrive*, and I've never really had any difficult decision making visa vie what to leave installed or not. I'm not even close to having all of my games installed of course, but all the ones I feel an urge to play at all frequently are on there, and I leave enough free space so I can install an older/new title without any fuss.

And I only have to do this because I'm cheap and don't want to cough up for a larger drive.

*Console owners, eat your heart out.

[Thrawn183]

Active party, or total party?

Active. Wait! Now I rembmer why I came to hate it. FF 10. Too often I'd only have one party member that was actually worth a d*** against an enemy and then they'd get taken out. I had way, way more difficulty with the random encounters in that game then I did with the bosses. Hence why I stopped playing.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Too late, Bethesda beat you to that with Oblivion.
Or close enough. You get an achievement for completing the friggin' tutorial!

SCIV did it better. The second you get past the title screen (where the dude tells you what game you're playing because you can't read and it says, "Press Start" because we're apparently retarded), you get an achievement.



PS3 installs. Yes, Sony allows up to 5GB, you do not need to use all of it and waste 20 minutes copying data before I can play. If I wanted to muck with freeing up HD space and install times I would have bought a PC game.
You can thank their blu-ray decision for that. The blu-ray reads too slowly, and if you didn't have to muck around with installs, you'd have insanely long loading times and would probably have terrible frame-rates in games. Seriously, Blu-ray was obsolete when it debuted.

As for buying a PC, look up everything you can do on a PS3 and tell me it's not a PC already.

[Zeful]

Active. Wait! Now I rembmer why I came to hate it. FF 10. Too often I'd only have one party member that was actually worth a d*** against an enemy and then they'd get taken out. I had way, way more difficulty with the random encounters in that game then I did with the bosses. Hence why I stopped playing.

Err, how? I've played the game heavily and could still get everyone to meaningfully contribute to any battle.

[PLUN]

Which, funnily enough, you seldom have to do on a PC. I've got a 240 gig hardrive*, and I've never really had any difficult decision making visa vie what to leave installed or not. I'm not even close to having all of my games installed of course, but all the ones I feel an urge to play at all frequently are on there, and I leave enough free space so I can install an older/new title without any fuss.

And I only have to do this because I'm cheap and don't want to cough up for a larger drive.

*Console owners, eat your heart out.

Installing a laptop drive into your PS3 is so simple I did it, and I mean I nearly fatally electrocuted myself after doing so at the 'plug it back in' stage, so it's a video tutorial, flash memory and basic tool lore stuff. You can get a 160GB or a 320GB compatable one if you're feeling big. I'd recommend any PS3 owner who uses PlayTV or downloads a lot looks into it a bit, but am irritated that i'm back to the installation days of my old PC gaming habit. It's still more plug and play, but decidedly more fuss.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Okay if there is one thing that bugs me (that pure video game designers don't have anything to do with really), its the 360s storage capacity. I mean seriously SOMETHING (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8909595&type=product&id=1213047091732) IS WRONG HERE (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8267751&type=product&id=1170290207575)

[Jibar]

I don't play anymore, but I know Blizzard added achievements to WoW a while back. What a better way to keep people playing than by giving a list of goals for people to pursue? Afterall, its not like you have to pay more to play for longer and go after these goals... wait...

See, I don't like Achievements but Blizzard did it right, as did BioWare and Valve. Those achievements are more like quests in WoW, with completing sets of them getting you unique items and cosmetic titles for the easier ones. BioWare similarly added bonuses to your character for achievements in Mass Effect that changed the way you play the game, while Valve have attached the weapon unlocks to achievements in Team Fortress 2.
Achievements that are worth getting, and actually reward you, are a very good idea. Achievements that award you for doing weird stuff you wouldn't normally do are also good. It's all about improving the game experience.

[Arutema]

Installing a laptop drive into your PS3 is so simple I did it, and I mean I nearly fatally electrocuted myself after doing so at the 'plug it back in' stage, so it's a video tutorial, flash memory and basic tool lore stuff. You can get a 160GB or a 320GB compatable one if you're feeling big. I'd recommend any PS3 owner who uses PlayTV or downloads a lot looks into it a bit, but am irritated that i'm back to the installation days of my old PC gaming habit. It's still more plug and play, but decidedly more fuss.

Unfortunately, my job often requires me to work with 40GB PS3s with stock hard drives. *hatred*



You can thank their blu-ray decision for that. The blu-ray reads too slowly, and if you didn't have to muck around with installs, you'd have insanely long loading times and would probably have terrible frame-rates in games. Seriously, Blu-ray was obsolete when it debuted.

As for buying a PC, look up everything you can do on a PS3 and tell me it's not a PC already.

Soulcalibur and most other fighting games let you decide whether or not you want to devote HD space to the game or suffer Blu-ray load times, why can't other developers do the same?

It's almost a PC. Pity most FPS devs don't realize that and support keyboard and mouse aiming on it.

[Fiendish_Dire_Moose]

Okay if there is one thing that bugs me (that pure video game designers don't have anything to do with really), its the 360s storage capacity. I mean seriously SOMETHING (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8909595&type=product&id=1213047091732) IS WRONG HERE (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8267751&type=product&id=1170290207575)

You're just now noticing this? What happens if Microsoft starts carrying competitive HDD for the 360? Think about it for just a moment. If they put anything above 120 GB, they'll probably start losing money. And yes, my friend has 3, 120GB HDD. Two of them, are full.


Unfortunately, my job often requires me to work with 40GB PS3s with stock hard drives. *hatred*



Soulcalibur and most other fighting games let you decide whether or not you want to devote HD space to the game or suffer Blu-ray load times, why can't other developers do the same?

It's almost a PC. Pity most FPS devs don't realize that and support keyboard and mouse aiming on it.

1: Where do you live/work? I want to see about getting a terabyte HDD in my PS3.

B: Soul Calibur is a fighting game. Those are kind of exempt from most conventional game rules, as per my earlier statement of the 360 version giving you an achievement for literally turning the game on. They're not hard to load and the information is generally small and only needs to be loaded once at a time. Compare that to MGS4 with scripted levels, events, and respawning enemies in certain areas....And about 7 hours of cutscenes.

3: I did not actually previously know that. I've not played it on the PS3.

4: It kind of goes both ways really. Being a PC you'd think all games would support joystick, but they don't (ex: American McGee's Alice.). Last I checked the only good FPSeseseses out for the PS3 were Resistance and Killzone. So, maybe you can find someone to build a mod for the games.
UT3 is of course excluded from the list because it's not a PS3 exclusive. Interesting note however, it supports mouse and keyboard as well as mods on the PS3, and I think that's super awesome.

[factotum]

Active. Wait! Now I rembmer why I came to hate it. FF 10. Too often I'd only have one party member that was actually worth a d*** against an enemy and then they'd get taken out. I had way, way more difficulty with the random encounters in that game then I did with the bosses. Hence why I stopped playing.

Well, since sticking to this rule means you've presumably never played Fallout or Fallout 2 (where you only have a single character you directly control, and generally it's easier to finish the game if you stick with just that character--too much chance your "allies" will shoot you in the back if you happen to be standing in just the wrong place), then you're majorly missing out. To be honest, if an RPG has a party of less than 4 people, one assumes it ought to be balanced for a group that size; anything else is poor game design, not a flaw in RPGs in general.

[Avilan the Grey]

Amen to this. I absotely cannot stand the single player in most RTS games due to the agony of all the stupid crap they make me do. Escort missions, limited resource missions, hero missions, 'stealth' missions...blarg.

Another thing that needs to go away is the endless confirm screens. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are prime offenders here. Yes, just possibly, I want to load a game...

Actually boss fights are a concept I generally would like to see wither and die. I cannot remember the last game I played with a boss fight that was any fun. Most of the time they just muck up the basic gameplay anyways.

Escort missions, too. I loathe them; thank god you can fast-travel with the person you escort in FO3.

As for the confirmation screens... I don't see a problem; AFAIK it is usually just a "are you sure, you will loose all your progress if you do not save first". And you know, in FO3 you can map the Quick Load button.

Boss fights fit RPGs and Hack'n slash. Modern FPS and RTS... not so much.
Basically, I expect my knight in shining armor to fight a mega-evil super dragon. I do not expect my special-op soldier to fight a super-nazi.

[Avilan the Grey]

In RPGs: Attack animations. Yeah, they're cute the first few times I see them, but every single time after that they just feel like a waste of time. Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 handled this very well:

I think you mean JRPGs, not RPGs.


A few of my own:

Too much Multiplayer - Games where the single-player campaign seems tossed in as an afterthought

Controls that cannot be re-mapped - I am left handed, that should be all the explanation you need.

[Oslecamo]

Basically, I expect my knight in shining armor to fight a mega-evil super dragon. I do not expect my special-op soldier to fight a super-nazi.

However, I do expect my special-op soldier to have to take down the super-nazi heavy tank/chopter prototype before it reaches the allied base.

And I will ask my money back if my space special-op in the future doesn't have to fight the super-armored module of the enemy general, or some giant badass alien who eats bullets for breakfast.

[shadow_archmagi]

This is a thread to complain about game designers, not about your chosen platform's limitations or to bicker about ecksbockseses vs pee seas.

@The long, silly response to my NPC troubles:

Jedi Outcast has a retarded habit of expecting you to backtrack to find newly opened areas. That is, in a facility with something like eight different rooms and five long hallways, each room connecting to two rooms and each hallway connecting to four, they expect me to find to remember that earlier the second door on the right was locked and now it isn't?

I've gotten stuck before simply because I didn't NOTICE a door. It wasn't locked or anything, it was just sitting in the room and apparently I managed to only look at three walls before deeming the room uninteresting and moving on.

[Yora]

Make more use of Auto-Saves.

I really hate it when I'm just exploring the town, talk with dozens of people and only have to fight some rats that don't really scratch my hp bar, so I don't think about saving because there's nothing dangerous.
And then without any warning drops a mini-boss fight or reflex-button-pushing event that can easily kill you.

Probably the number 1 reason when I quit a game after the 1st thrird and never tried to play it again.



And save points.

Imagine my surprise when I found out PS2 can make a save at any time you want to. Maybe it was neccessary back at the NES, but on the newer consoles, save points are only there because the developers chosed that you are not allowed to save every time.



And organic alien levels in Sci-Fi shoters shortly before the end of the game. I have to say in Halo 3 it was kind of fun, but any other time, its just anoying. That goes also for any other types of "let's make the last level completely different to play than the rest of the game". Nobody ever liked that.

[DeathQuaker]

I'll echo the hatred of save points. Apparently there's a breed of gamer that never has to eat, pee, sleep, or work, but I am not one of them, and I would like to shut off the game when _I_ say it's time, not when the game does.

(But if I work hard enough, maybe God will grant me the Steel Bladder Reward...)

I also hate random encounters. Those should have stopped being a game feature by the mid-90s. They're a lazy way to program in combat, and I especially hate when they involve a loading screen going into the battle. I also really like exploring, and I always feel like random encounters punish me for trying to explore (because trying to see what goes down that hallway costs me another 20 minutes in fighting the same formless blob over and over again).

No-win battles and/or cutscenes that take the boss you're fighting away from you, when you know you're capable of taking him out. This has happened in a lot of games I've played, but I remember one particularly infuriating moment in KotOR, where Darth Malak attacks you, and I was cleaning his clock, when the game took control away from me and he ran away due to the great Force Power known as Plot-Required BS. It's just crappy game/story design--if you don't want a character killed at that point in the game, DON'T PUT HIM THERE. And DON'T force me to play through a fight and waste my resources if I don't have a chance of winning. If you must, make the whole freaking thing a cutscene so I don't feel like the game just ripped my ability to play the game and my enjoyment of playing right out of my hands.

"Choices" that end up being "win or lose" choices. I _like_ choices, mind. I like things that let you take different paths to the same conclusion. Like, in Baldur's Gate 2, where you could choose to work for the thieves or Bodhi. You still ultimately ended up in the same place, but you got a slightly different story and different opportunities out of it. Or like in Torment, where... well, everything that happened had awesome consequences, for good or ill, but they almost always pushed you forward. But I've played other games where you're given a choice, you pick one, and then if you've picked the "wrong" one, you actually get punished for it--game over, or whatever. Like in Suikoden V, there's a point where you have to choose between retreating from your stronghold or defending it. It's not clear-cut as to which is the better/wiser thing to do, but if you defend it, one of your recruits dies, which screws you over from getting the happy ending to the game.

[Phexar]

Active. Wait! Now I rembmer why I came to hate it. FF 10. Too often I'd only have one party member that was actually worth a d*** against an enemy and then they'd get taken out. I had way, way more difficulty with the random encounters in that game then I did with the bosses. Hence why I stopped playing.

I found that it wasn't so bad; there were generally 2 characters that could handle any particular foe I came across.

Agile enemies: Tidus, Wakka
Flying enemies: Wakka, Lulu
Armored enemies: Auron, Kimahri (Auron's Armorbreak fixes this for everyone else too)
Flan enemies: Lulu, Yuna(summon Aeon)

Using Kimahri's Scan against new foes also helped let me know what I was up against too. Stealing with Rikku also provided me with lots of items to utilise. I also chose to make Kimahri go and pick up Steal, Holy and Curaga later for a good variety and back-up.

On another note, I didn't mind having the 3 character party limit in FFX because it allowed you to switch characters in and out, though it does bug me in other games.

On weapon breakage in Baldurs Gate, that's why I went and carried multiple swords around and stashed spares in barrels. You get enough of them from hobgoblins running around and the like anyway. And I like going for magic weapons early, which don't break. :smallsmile:

[shadow_archmagi]

I also hate random encounters. Those should have stopped being a game feature by the mid-90s. They're a lazy way to program in combat, and I especially hate when they involve a loading screen going into the battle. I also really like exploring, and I always feel like random encounters punish me for trying to explore (because trying to see what goes down that hallway costs me another 20 minutes in fighting the same formless blob over and over again).

I'll say again that random encounters can be an excellant compliment to regular gameplay if

1. Every encounter is different from the rest in such a manner that you could fight two in a row and not feel like it was "just two darn monsters bothering me"

2. There are sufficient random encounters so that there will be only a handful of repeats and plenty of "rare" encounters that make you feel like you experienced something neat.

3. In the correct proportions; 1 random encounter per 6 feet is a bad idea. A 20% chance for a random encounter per long journey is less so, although if you broke the previously stated rule of "PUT THINGS CLOSE TOGETHER IF I AM GOING TO BE GOING BETWEEN THEM OFTEN" then this may work less well.

[TheSummoner]

I honestly don't mind escort quests provided the person you're escorting it smat enough to not get themself/you killed, but not so overpowered that they can do it all themself (why does Seargent McBlastyoutodust need an escort again?). If course... these are rarely done well, but that doesn't mean they cant be done well.

Hell, even Ashley from RE4 had enough sence to get the hell out of my way or hide in a box until I finished wiping up all the enemies... as opposed to Sheva from RE5 who decides to waste all of your good healing items if you got so much as a scratch on your pinkey finger.

[Erloas]

No-win battles and/or cutscenes that take the boss you're fighting away from you, when you know you're capable of taking him out. This has happened in a lot of games I've played, but I remember one particularly infuriating moment in KotOR, where Darth Malak attacks you, and I was cleaning his clock, when the game took control away from me and he ran away due to the great Force Power known as Plot-Required BS. It's just crappy game/story design--if you don't want a character killed at that point in the game, DON'T PUT HIM THERE. And DON'T force me to play through a fight and waste my resources if I don't have a chance of winning. If you must, make the whole freaking thing a cutscene so I don't feel like the game just ripped my ability to play the game and my enjoyment of playing right out of my hands.

I always hate those sort of boss cutscenes too. Its not too bad when they just find some way of running away. What I really really hate is when you have to win a battle just to have the cutscene flip it around, make the boss beat you and take you prisoner or you getting saved by some 3rd party that you didn't need saving from. It is especially annoying if you had lost in that fight earlier and got a game-over and then reloaded and beat it just to find out you loose in the end anyway, but if you lose normally you are dead.


I would echo others in the issues with single player versus multiplayer. So many games seem to assume everyone is just going to play multiplayer and don't do much of anything for single player. I really dislike playing RTSs in multiplayer because I don't have the 40 hours a week to dedicate to the games to get to the point of being able to play them competitively online. Since they don't even do anything with the single player aspect it pretty much means it is a game I would never buy, even if I liked the concept.

Shooters can be similar, it depends on the shooter design. Tactical shooters I like online, but so many seem to be action games with guns instead and I really don't like those in multiplayer. But that is what about 95% of the shooters are anymore.


As far as cover in shooters go, I like the system used in the newest Rainbow Six games, but I haven't played a lot of others to say for them. Some aspects need a little work, but overall it is good. I really didn't like the cover system in Mass Effect because it screwed up what I was trying to do way too often when I was trying to do something and the game flipped me around and stuck me to something I didn't want to be stuck to. With the button press cover system you still have the option of not using it and doing normal ducking and leaning and such to shoot around the cover.

[factotum]

I always hate those sort of boss cutscenes too. Its not too bad when they just find some way of running away. What I really really hate is when you have to win a battle just to have the cutscene flip it around, make the boss beat you and take you prisoner or you getting saved by some 3rd party that you didn't need saving from.

Cutscene logic is sometimes strange...I remember playing the last mission on the original Starcraft, where you get a human base and a Protoss base. Since I'd discovered the joys of siege tanks backed up by Goliaths at this point, I essentially just built up the Protoss base enough to counter any attacks aimed at it and used the humans to obliterate the Zerg infestation--which made it somewhat a surprise when Tassadar (who'd never got near the fighting, much less taken any damage) piped up saying his ship had taken severe damage and he had to sacrifice himself to kill the Overmind!

[Joran]

On another note, I didn't mind having the 3 character party limit in FFX because it allowed you to switch characters in and out, though it does bug me in other games.

I really dislike it when I form a party and then have to game the system so my party remains the same level. For instance, in FFX, I had to rapidly switch in party members, have them do an action, then swap them out, so the party would share all of the experience.

That means when I'm forced to use a character I don't normally use for a mission or I decide to experiment and try out a new party make-up, I have to drag a dead-weight behind me. Absolutely no fun.

[Joran]

Cutscene logic is sometimes strange...I remember playing the last mission on the original Starcraft, where you get a human base and a Protoss base. Since I'd discovered the joys of siege tanks backed up by Goliaths at this point, I essentially just built up the Protoss base enough to counter any attacks aimed at it and used the humans to obliterate the Zerg infestation--which made it somewhat a surprise when Tassadar (who'd never got near the fighting, much less taken any damage) piped up saying his ship had taken severe damage and he had to sacrifice himself to kill the Overmind!

Or I got overrun when the Zerg attacked my base in a set encounter. So, I reloaded, built up enough siege tanks, marines, and missile turrets to eradicate everything and completely destroyed the Zerg force and still got "overrun".

This was when Kerrigan was taken.

[Indon]

I also don't like rpg's where the party size is <4.
- I can't think of any of the top of my head because I refuse to play them.

Chrono Trigger is making big sad puppy-dog eyes at you.

And they're really big, 'cause the artwork is all anime. So we're talking bowling ball puppy-dog eyes here, probably much larger than the head of the puppy they're only loosely attached to.

Staring at you.

Wistfully.

Personally, I love achievement systems so long as they don't provide in-game bonuses for ludicrously difficult or impossible-after-X-point things. I really liked the system behind the LotR MMO, for instance.

And as for things I dislike, I hate any aspect of a game in which you're clearly not expected to be able to deal with it until you're already familiar with it (for instance, in a platformer, from dying to it). From what I glean from TvTropes, if I ever played IWBTG, I'd probably go on a murderous rampage the next day.

This means, for instance, I lost all interest in playing FF10 after talking to a friend about getting 100% completion (which apparently basically requires a players' guide).

[Lord Seth]

No-win battles and/or cutscenes that take the boss you're fighting away from you, when you know you're capable of taking him out. This has happened in a lot of games I've played, but I remember one particularly infuriating moment in KotOR, where Darth Malak attacks you, and I was cleaning his clock, when the game took control away from me and he ran away due to the great Force Power known as Plot-Required BS. It's just crappy game/story design--if you don't want a character killed at that point in the game, DON'T PUT HIM THERE. And DON'T force me to play through a fight and waste my resources if I don't have a chance of winning. If you must, make the whole freaking thing a cutscene so I don't feel like the game just ripped my ability to play the game and my enjoyment of playing right out of my hands.I actually often like hopeless boss fights, but I think it should be OBVIOUS they're hopeless boss fights. If you're dealing one damage each hit and your enemies are wiping out half of your life with each blow, it's obvious enough to the player that they don't have a chance. What I don't like is when you're required to lose, but it seems like you have a real chance.


But I've played other games where you're given a choice, you pick one, and then if you've picked the "wrong" one, you actually get punished for it--game over, or whatever. Like in Suikoden V, there's a point where you have to choose between retreating from your stronghold or defending it. It's not clear-cut as to which is the better/wiser thing to do, but if you defend it, one of your recruits dies, which screws you over from getting the happy ending to the game.I hope you never played King's Quest, because that game series was full of those.


I would imagine that with less then four characters that they would be easier to level up (I once played an RPG with, like, 12 characters, and I found it to be intimidating and hard to level them all up to a good level) and with fewer characters they would recieve better characterization. As a "writer" myself (the fingerquotes exaggerated to no end) I have recently learned that having more then a handful of characters can make them all very difficult to give equal screen time.Fire Emblem pulls it off fairly well, but it's a combination of Strategy and RPG rather than a straight RPG.

As for me: It's probably been mentioned, but don't put unskippable and long cutscenes before a boss. You can have them be unskippable if they're short (though still making it skippable would be nice) and you can have them be as long as you want as long as they're skippable. But don't force me to go through the same lengthy scene every single time.

[Setra]

I really dislike it when I form a party and then have to game the system so my party remains the same level. For instance, in FFX, I had to rapidly switch in party members, have them do an action, then swap them out, so the party would share all of the experience.

That means when I'm forced to use a character I don't normally use for a mission or I decide to experiment and try out a new party make-up, I have to drag a dead-weight behind me. Absolutely no fun.
Honestly the solution is to just use everyone equally...

Though I don't...

I never use Wakka... dunno why, but everyone else.. yeah

[Hunter Noventa]

On the topic of switching people in RPG, sort of, I'm tired of RPGs where the only appreciable difference between your characters after a certain point is their limit break. This started in FF7, sure Cloud does more physical damage than Aeirs, but after a certain point, everyone is exactly the same except for their limits and looks. It was even worse in FF8 since you only had to set up junctions for three characters and could switch them at the drop of a hat. And once you opened up the sphere grid in FFX Lulu became so laughably obsolete because yuna could learn black magic, had a better limit break, and didn't have an idiotic minigame associated with her ultimate weapon.

*deep breath*

Yeah.

[Setra]

On the topic of switching people in RPG, sort of, I'm tired of RPGs where the only appreciable difference between your characters after a certain point is their limit break. This started in FF7, sure Cloud does more physical damage than Aeirs, but after a certain point, everyone is exactly the same except for their limits and looks. It was even worse in FF8 since you only had to set up junctions for three characters and could switch them at the drop of a hat. And once you opened up the sphere grid in FFX Lulu became so laughably obsolete because yuna could learn black magic, had a better limit break, and didn't have an idiotic minigame associated with her ultimate weapon.

*deep breath*

Yeah.
Actually in FF7 there's another noticeable difference.

Final Weapons, but yeah I understand your point..

I much prefer different characters.. like in Final Fantasy IX

[Joran]

Honestly the solution is to just use everyone equally...

Well, yes, but when I'm being attacked by a random encounter, which I can defeat easily, it gets wearying to have to swap in 6 different characters, have them do a useless maneuver (like debuffing the enemy), then swap them out for someone else, just so they can split the experience.

[Setra]

Well, yes, but when I'm being attacked by a random encounter, which I can defeat easily, it gets wearying to have to swap in 6 different characters, have them do a useless maneuver (like debuffing the enemy), then swap them out for someone else, just so they can split the experience.
If you can beat it easily, then there's nothing wrong with just beating it with the weaker people, right?

I'm not saying use everyone in every battle, I mean like.. switch it up every now and then. I almost never used the character switching in battle outside of boss battles, but sometimes I'd get bored of a character and switch them out for a little while, trying to use them all equally. Except Wakka.

[Oregano]

I don't have a problem with any size of party but I hate it when people that aren't in your party don't get EXP. This can get especially infuriating when you go through a long dungeon in which you can't change characters and gain many levels.

Or even if you leave a character out of battle once or twice they're no longer strong enough to fight enemies and that's the only way to get EXP. Fire Emblem can be bad about that.

I also don't like when you have more characters than you can ever possibly use. This applies to all mon games as well as some other games with exceptionally large casts.

FFIV did it perfect for me.

[warty goblin]

I find the whole mechanic of character swapping in RPGs to be obnoxious and delitrious to the overall experience. I mean really, think of how it read in a book if epic fantasy worked that way.

Aragorn: OK, so we're boating down Anduin from Lorien to Rauros.

Gimli: Yep.

Aragorn: But by 'we're,' I mean 'some of us, not you.'

Gimli: Huh?

Aragorn: Yeah, if I spent a week in a boat next to you, my nose would try to kill itself just to end the pain, so you're not coming.

Gimli: So I'm just staying here?

Haldir: Like hell he is. See, just his standing there is wilting the grass!

Aragorn: Relax, he'll show up at some point when we need him again, probably at the inevitable ambush.

Legolas: What about me?

Aragorn: Yeah, you'll come. We might need somebody to shoot at stuff while we're on the river. And Boromir can come, he'll do the heavy lifting.

Boromir: Sweet, no more elf chicks playing tricks with my head. So that leaves room for one more, who else is coming?

Aragorn: Well, Gandalf would be my first choice, but due to that damn cutscene he's 'dead.' Anyway the party selection screen is telling me that Frodo has to accompany us on this one, as it's a story mission.

Legolas: Damn it! A week long escort mission in a boat! Who wants to bet there's a 'keep Frodo from drowning" mission?


New Mission: Keep the Ringbearer from drowning in the perilous river.

Boromir: We're going to be reloading this next bit, like, 60 times, aren't we?

Aragorn: Why couldn't I have been eaten by the damn Balrog?

Gimli: Have fun in your boat.

I'd much prefer to have just two or three set companions with really well developed personalities. You know, sort of like Republic Commando, with good ambient banter, the occasional scripted dialog, that sort of thing*. Also, less with being required to reach certain parts in the story to find out things about their past that have nothing to do with the story. KoTOR was horrible like this, and it drove nuts. I mean why should Carth only trust me enough to talk to me after I kill a bunch of random mooks? OK, so there might be some justification, but talking to Carth was the only fun thing to do in the beginning of that game, killing mooks was simply tedious. Plus it had a Bioware interface. Bioware should earn some sort of distinction for being the only company that routinely devises worse interfaces than Bethesda.

*Which reminds me: Devs, stop crapping out Call of Duty games/clones, and gimme a Republic Commando sequel!

[shadow_archmagi]

Kotor also committed the cardinal sin of putting everyone at like, a two-minute walk away from your base.

"Whoop, done killing banthas *jog jog jog jog* oh I see sir you want me to kill tigers now *jog jog jog jog* ok time to go back *jog jog jog*"

[warty goblin]

Kotor also committed the cardinal sin of putting everyone at like, a two-minute walk away from your base.

"Whoop, done killing banthas *jog jog jog jog* oh I see sir you want me to kill tigers now *jog jog jog jog* ok time to go back *jog jog jog*"

I'm still waiting for games, particularly modern or futuristic ones, to figure out that we have these things called 'radios' now, which allow us to communicate over long distances. I'm not just talking about Voiceover Mission Woman in FPS games, she's only one person. Why can't I reach anybody I want on my radio, at any time? Wouldn't that be awesome?

Imagine instead of jogging around like a futuristic errandboy, your helpful NPC secretary could monitor the news feeds for likely sounding quest prospects. Upon finding one, he could alert you to the opportunity via radio message, which you could read at your liesure without disrupting whatever you are doing at that moment. If interested, you could contact the appropriate NPC via radio, recieve the neccessary intelligence, then jog over and complete the quest. Once done simply radio back, and the NPC will deposite the money in your account remotely. Granted you'd still have to report back for actual fetch quests, but it still simplifies matters significantly. There'd still be a bit of running around, but far less than one would normally have to deal with.

Why can't I play that RPG?

[Thanatos 51-50]

I'm still waiting for games, particularly modern or futuristic ones, to figure out that we have these things called 'radios' now, which allow us to communicate over long distances. I'm not just talking about Voiceover Mission Woman in FPS games, she's only one person. Why can't I reach anybody I want on my radio, at any time? Wouldn't that be awesome?

Imagine instead of jogging around like a futuristic errandboy, your helpful NPC secretary could monitor the news feeds for likely sounding quest prospects. Upon finding one, he could alert you to the opportunity via radio message, which you could read at your liesure without disrupting whatever you are doing at that moment. If interested, you could contact the appropriate NPC via radio, recieve the neccessary intelligence, then jog over and complete the quest. Once done simply radio back, and the NPC will deposite the money in your account remotely. Granted you'd still have to report back for actual fetch quests, but it still simplifies matters significantly. There'd still be a bit of running around, but far less than one would normally have to deal with.

Why can't I play that RPG?

Sounds like an idea:
Hey, while you're at it - can you get me Joe Schmuck's cell phone number? He's been complaining to anyone who can listen about space-wolves killing his space-sheep, and it's attracted the local news's attention.

[Zeful]

I really dislike it when I form a party and then have to game the system so my party remains the same level. For instance, in FFX, I had to rapidly switch in party members, have them do an action, then swap them out, so the party would share all of the experience.

That means when I'm forced to use a character I don't normally use for a mission or I decide to experiment and try out a new party make-up, I have to drag a dead-weight behind me. Absolutely no fun.

I don't want to be rude or anything, but I've found that that's the hard way to get everyone leveled up. There's a easier way then shifting between everyone in battle. For those that don't care, move on.
Take your current party and get them to sphere level 3. Go to the sphere grid and advance them. (3 is a really good number to move people on, because when you move that way, the node you were at, and the node you end up on share no nodes.) The only time you'd level them up past three is if there's a branch that you want to go after (like Kimari's entire grid) then level them up to (y>3)+(x-1)+1/3x* (y being the number of nodes to the branch on the grid and is less then three, and X being the number of nodes to the end of the branch)
*Be sure to round up for that last part, as it takes 1 sphere level for every three moves backwards you make.
After you finish advancing them on the sphere grid, use the formation menu to cycle them out for the next member.
This allows you to spend most of your time in battle actually battling, while still keeping everyone roughly the same level.


Imagine instead of jogging around like a futuristic errandboy, your helpful NPC secretary could monitor the news feeds for likely sounding quest prospects. Upon finding one, he could alert you to the opportunity via radio message, which you could read at your liesure without disrupting whatever you are doing at that moment. If interested, you could contact the appropriate NPC via radio, recieve the neccessary intelligence, then jog over and complete the quest. Once done simply radio back, and the NPC will deposite the money in your account remotely. Granted you'd still have to report back for actual fetch quests, but it still simplifies matters significantly. There'd still be a bit of running around, but far less than one would normally have to deal with.

Quoted for awesome. I agree.

[Jibar]

Imagine instead of jogging around like a futuristic errandboy, your helpful NPC secretary could monitor the news feeds for likely sounding quest prospects. Upon finding one, he could alert you to the opportunity via radio message, which you could read at your liesure without disrupting whatever you are doing at that moment. If interested, you could contact the appropriate NPC via radio, recieve the neccessary intelligence, then jog over and complete the quest. Once done simply radio back, and the NPC will deposite the money in your account remotely. Granted you'd still have to report back for actual fetch quests, but it still simplifies matters significantly. There'd still be a bit of running around, but far less than one would normally have to deal with.

Why can't I play that RPG?

Go play City of Heroes.
To start the initial quest you have to be in the sort of hub area, but for every other part of the quest line you can just phone them up. Even get your rewards this way. I think once you've done a quest from someone as well you can then call them whenever they have a new mission available as well.
Frankly, it's a God send for an MMORPG, as it removes so much pointless, pointless travel.

[factotum]

KoTOR was horrible like this, and it drove nuts. I mean why should Carth only trust me enough to talk to me after I kill a bunch of random mooks?

I can offer only one argument against that, but it's a big one: Planescape: Torment. You had to earn the trust of your companions in that, too, and since the game is all kinds of awesome, it sadly disproves your theory! :smallbiggrin:

Agreed about forcing you to only take a certain selection of the characters you have available. At least KotOR and Mass Effect justified the others being available when you needed them by having them on a spaceship that everyone travelled on--it made absolutely no sense in Final Fantasy 7 when that happened. I mean, where were you hiding Red XIII when he wasn't in your party? It's not like he could exactly blend in with the crowd!

[Joran]

I don't want to be rude or anything, but I've found that that's the hard way to get everyone leveled up. There's a easier way then shifting between everyone in battle. For those that don't care, move on.
Take your current party and get them to sphere level 3. Go to the sphere grid and advance them. (3 is a really good number to move people on, because when you move that way, the node you were at, and the node you end up on share no nodes.) The only time you'd level them up past three is if there's a branch that you want to go after (like Kimari's entire grid) then level them up to (y>3)+(x-1)+1/3x* (y being the number of nodes to the branch on the grid and is less then three, and X being the number of nodes to the end of the branch)
*Be sure to round up for that last part, as it takes 1 sphere level for every three moves backwards you make.
After you finish advancing them on the sphere grid, use the formation menu to cycle them out for the next member.
This allows you to spend most of your time in battle actually battling, while still keeping everyone roughly the same level.

Quoted for awesome. I agree.

Not rude at all. Unfortunately, I have no idea what you said; it's been probably around 6 years since I played FFX. Just because there's a way to workaround the idiotic system doesn't mean the system is fine. This is coming from someone who loved FFX enough to play through FFX-2.

Would it really be so hard to make it like KotOR where your party levels with you? I had to dust off some of the characters I never used because of plot related consequences and they were fine!

[warty goblin]

I can offer only one argument against that, but it's a big one: Planescape: Torment. You had to earn the trust of your companions in that, too, and since the game is all kinds of awesome, it sadly disproves your theory! :smallbiggrin:

My question I feel still stands. Would you feel more likely to divulge your innermost secrets to a person whose only real distinguishing characteristics were inappropriate amounts of curiosity, kleptomania and killing half the people he/she meets just because they went and killed a bunch of people?



Agreed about forcing you to only take a certain selection of the characters you have available. At least KotOR and Mass Effect justified the others being available when you needed them by having them on a spaceship that everyone travelled on--it made absolutely no sense in Final Fantasy 7 when that happened. I mean, where were you hiding Red XIII when he wasn't in your party? It's not like he could exactly blend in with the crowd!

The restriction still feels arbitrary though. Sure I know where the others are, but why can't I take them along? It could even be done as a sort of on-the-fly player chosen difficulty. Want an easier time? Bring 'em all, but get less XP or items. Bring fewer, have a harder fight, but get more shiny stuff.

[Oregano]

Agreed about forcing you to only take a certain selection of the characters you have available. At least KotOR and Mass Effect justified the others being available when you needed them by having them on a spaceship that everyone travelled on--it made absolutely no sense in Final Fantasy 7 when that happened. I mean, where were you hiding Red XIII when he wasn't in your party? It's not like he could exactly blend in with the crowd!

It was actually explained in FFVII as travelling in separate groups to avoid getting caught by Shinra corp. So Red XIII wouldn't be with you at all and when you wanted him to come to your party you phoned them up and switched him with someone else.

It's all there in the game as soon as you leave Midgar.

[tyckspoon]

It was actually explained in FFVII as travelling in separate groups to avoid getting caught by Shinra corp. So Red XIII wouldn't be with you at all and when you wanted him to come to your party you phoned them up and switched him with someone else.

It's all there in the game as soon as you leave Midgar.

Said excuse falls apart completely less than half-way through the game, as soon as you're all forced to travel on the same vehicles (the desert buggy and Tiny Bronco, for example..in fact, the whole Golden Saucer sequence makes that idea utterly pointless.) If you were traveling in separate groups at that time you would lose contact with your non-party members completely. It's purely a gameplay limitation, and they don't give any thought to justifying it past that one moment even after the circumstances change drastically.


My question I feel still stands. Would you feel more likely to divulge your innermost secrets to a person whose only real distinguishing characteristics were inappropriate amounts of curiosity, kleptomania and killing half the people he/she meets just because they went and killed a bunch of people?

Most games with significant influence systems don't actually give it to you just for fighting stuff with the party member nearby. The closest it gets (in Bioware's games, at least) is that sometimes they'll ask you why you killed somebody, and if they agree with the reason you give them then you gain influence. Most influence is managed through conversations like that.

[Drascin]

No-win battles and/or cutscenes that take the boss you're fighting away from you, when you know you're capable of taking him out. This has happened in a lot of games I've played, but I remember one particularly infuriating moment in KotOR, where Darth Malak attacks you, and I was cleaning his clock, when the game took control away from me and he ran away due to the great Force Power known as Plot-Required BS. It's just crappy game/story design--if you don't want a character killed at that point in the game, DON'T PUT HIM THERE. And DON'T force me to play through a fight and waste my resources if I don't have a chance of winning. If you must, make the whole freaking thing a cutscene so I don't feel like the game just ripped my ability to play the game and my enjoyment of playing right out of my hands.

THIS. Anyone played Rogue Galaxy? You have to fight a masked guy three times. The three times you are more than strong enough to paste him (mostly because if you've done your homework, you're carrying enough healing supplies to keep a batallion on their feet for a month). But as soon as you're winning, the game takes the control from you and BAM, "this guy's too strong!". No he wasn't damn it, I was turning him to bicolored mincemeat!.

[warty goblin]

Most games with significant influence systems don't actually give it to you just for fighting stuff with the party member nearby. The closest it gets (in Bioware's games, at least) is that sometimes they'll ask you why you killed somebody, and if they agree with the reason you give them then you gain influence. Most influence is managed through conversations like that.

Right, but in KoTOR I was repeatedly told by Carth that he didn't feel like talking anymore. That's fine, I don't expect him to regurgitate his entire life's history in one sitting. Then I'd go out and do the whackamole combat thing for a while, maybe do some quests or something, and a while later he'd decide he was ready to talk more. It felt very artificial to me. And as I said, the fun part of KoTOR was the conversations, the combat could go jump in a lake- it was in fact bad enough that I never really got very far in the game.

[Geno9999]

Loading screens period.
I don't want to find out that I HAVE TAKEN MORE THAN HALF OF MY TIME PLAYING THIS GAME... watching the *beep*ing loading screens.

As for other features...
Engrish, I've played some games that have this, and sometimes, it looks like the translation team consisted of one guy who barely knows the original language (or our language.) Confusion is not fun. Though, this is getting better in recent years.

Related to confusion, the hint system.
It's not that I hate the system period, but if you're going to add one, make sure that it sends out the message clearly without making someone confused or just doesn't plain help.

[Oslecamo]

Said excuse falls apart completely less than half-way through the game, as soon as you're all forced to travel on the same vehicles (the desert buggy and Tiny Bronco, for example..in fact, the whole Golden Saucer sequence makes that idea utterly pointless.) If you were traveling in separate groups at that time you would lose contact with your non-party members completely. It's purely a gameplay limitation, and they don't give any thought to justifying it past that one moment even after the circumstances change drastically.

In FFVI, you couldn't carry all your party around because someone had to stay behind and protect the sacred cave from the imperium troops trying to sneack in.

For once, it actually made plenty of sense

[Optimystik]

Right, but in KoTOR I was repeatedly told by Carth that he didn't feel like talking anymore. That's fine, I don't expect him to regurgitate his entire life's history in one sitting. Then I'd go out and do the whackamole combat thing for a while, maybe do some quests or something, and a while later he'd decide he was ready to talk more. It felt very artificial to me. And as I said, the fun part of KoTOR was the conversations, the combat could go jump in a lake- it was in fact bad enough that I never really got very far in the game.

Jade Empire was the same way; I found it hilarious. At least Mass Effect made it a bit more natural by confining the chatter to between landings.

I didn't really mind it though, and Jade Empire did make an effort of at least tying the character exposition to what I did in the game. Dawn Star, after breaking up a pirate den: "Freeing those slaves made me think..."; and after getting 3 new party members: "you gather such interesting people around you! How..."

[Zeful]

Not rude at all. Unfortunately, I have no idea what you said; it's been probably around 6 years since I played FFX. Just because there's a way to workaround the idiotic system doesn't mean the system is fine. This is coming from someone who loved FFX enough to play through FFX-2.

Would it really be so hard to make it like KotOR where your party levels with you? I had to dust off some of the characters I never used because of plot related consequences and they were fine!

It's not an idiotic system. It's the same system used in every almost every RPG since FF1 (and likely before). The assumption in those systems is that if the character isn't fighting, they're not doing anything to advance their skills.

[warty goblin]

Jade Empire was the same way; I found it hilarious. At least Mass Effect made it a bit more natural by confining the chatter to between landings.

I didn't really mind it though, and Jade Empire did make an effort of at least tying the character exposition to what I did in the game. Dawn Star, after breaking up a pirate den: "Freeing those slaves made me think..."; and after getting 3 new party members: "you gather such interesting people around you! How..."

It's this sort of stuff that makes me advocate for my original position- an RPG where there's only two or three companions and you stick with them throughout. Honestly I think some decent writing could make characters that persist like that quite interesting, and limiting their number would allow for more varied party dialog based on your actions and the surroundings.

[Thanatos 51-50]

As for other features...
Engrish, I've played some games that have this, and sometimes, it looks like the translation team consisted of one guy who barely knows the original language (or our language.) Confusion is not fun. Though, this is getting better in recent years.

Engrish is awesome and you are a horrible person for hating it. (I live in Japan. I hunt down engrish. It's everywhere and hilarious!)

[YPU]

If you think engrish is bad, try playing the version of spellforce that was released here. Somewhere halwfway trough the game the text actually witched to german as entire plot lines and side quests were missed in the translation. Go figure. Now it wasn’t such a good game to begin with, but my girlfriend cant put it down.

Also, loot that doesn’t make sense, if somebody has an item he should use it. No wonder he died so quick, he didn’t drink his the 3 healing potions he had! And why dident he use that sword of pawnage?

Which brings me to another common point of irritation, completely unlogical equipment every freaking item seems to be magic, and you will literally pick up hundreds of them during your adventure. Now I can see the point about finding and keeping the best stuff you find, its common sense. But with that amount of magic items available you start to wonder if there is some sort of country that employs child wizards in their factories or something.

[Trazoi]

It's not an idiotic system. It's the same system used in every almost every RPG since FF1 (and likely before). The assumption in those systems is that if the character isn't fighting, they're not doing anything to advance their skills.
It is however counter-productive if the game wants to encourage the use of a large range of characters as it encourages sticking with a core team. If I play with a limit of four characters who reach level 10, and everyone else back in the base/cave/airship/whatever is level 6, I'll both take an ability hit if I swap out a character and have one of my top characters lose ground by not having them in the team. There's a strong incentive to just stick with the original team, which only gets stronger the further that level gets wider.

I'm also not a huge fan of RPGs with loads and loads of characters. Any more than about seven (the number in Chrono Trigger) and I'll stop caring about some of them. I prefer it if the game either sticks to having a few well developed characters or goes with having hundreds of interchangeable goons; it's picking the middle point of a few dozen poorly fleshed out characters that falls flat for me.

As for the number of characters in a party, I tend to find the real-time systems with six characters to be a bit overwhelming. I have to pause a lot to manage six people at once and things generally get too chaotic. I find four to be a nice number - just enough to make things interesting, not so many that a couple of guys just sit around doing nothing.

[Lord Seth]

Or even if you leave a character out of battle once or twice they're no longer strong enough to fight enemies and that's the only way to get EXP. Fire Emblem can be bad about that.Not really. If they're lower levels they get experience much faster, so they catch up pretty quick. It's not too hard to weaken an enemy with a stronger unit, then finish it off with the weaker unit to give it experience.

[Zeful]

It is however counter-productive if the game wants to encourage the use of a large range of characters as it encourages sticking with a core team. If I play with a limit of four characters who reach level 10, and everyone else back in the base/cave/airship/whatever is level 6, I'll both take an ability hit if I swap out a character and have one of my top characters lose ground by not having them in the team. There's a strong incentive to just stick with the original team, which only gets stronger the further that level gets wider.

Not necessarily and not automatically. Pokemon uses the same level up system I'm talking about and you can suffer those problems if you only fight with one pokemon, but the game encourages you to capture and raise other pokemon so that you're not ending up getting a Game Over screen every time. If you take the 8% increase in time managing the character's level you have access to you'll be overall better off.

[Oregano]

Not really. If they're lower levels they get experience much faster, so they catch up pretty quick. It's not too hard to weaken an enemy with a stronger unit, then finish it off with the weaker unit to give it experience.

The problem is, and I know Fire Emblem is supposed to be hard, is that it makes keeping a good selection at a decent level and also you need specific units on certain chapters for stuff and if they've been out of commission they're simply a liability. As said earlier as well it encourages the player to only train one core team.

Also training one Pokémon instead of six can be a lot better for much of the game as you're much higher level than everyone else's mons. It might become a problem near the end though.

[warty goblin]

If you think engrish is bad, try playing the version of spellforce that was released here. Somewhere halwfway trough the game the text actually witched to german as entire plot lines and side quests were missed in the translation. Go figure. Now it wasn’t such a good game to begin with, but my girlfriend cant put it down.

Also the voice work was horrible, to the point where occassionally one simply had to sit back and laugh for a few minutes.



Also, loot that doesn’t make sense, if somebody has an item he should use it. No wonder he died so quick, he didn’t drink his the 3 healing potions he had! And why dident he use that sword of pawnage?

STALKER fixes this. Wounded guys will use medkits and bandages if they have time. It's a real pain for protracted firefights, because you end up not getting any health items. At least until you start getting scoped guns and master the headshot.



Which brings me to another common point of irritation, completely unlogical equipment every freaking item seems to be magic, and you will literally pick up hundreds of them during your adventure. Now I can see the point about finding and keeping the best stuff you find, its common sense. But with that amount of magic items available you start to wonder if there is some sort of country that employs child wizards in their factories or something.
Remember back when magic was magical and rare?

Actually another thing I want to see more games where the best stuff is found in shops, not out on moron bandits in the wilderness. Would actually make shopping interesting again, as opposed to 'sell all my crap, buy all the health potions, mozy on out.'

[Trazoi]

Not necessarily and not automatically. Pokemon uses the same level up system I'm talking about and you can suffer those problems if you only fight with one pokemon, but the game encourages you to capture and raise other pokemon so that you're not ending up getting a Game Over screen every time. If you take the 8% increase in time managing the character's level you have access to you'll be overall better off.
Even in Pokemon, I only ever had a core team of five, with the sixth spot for a utility Pokemon (like a Farfetch'd with Cut and Fly). Once a critter was relegated to storage in the Pokemon Center, it was pretty much stored for good.

It's a bit different in games like Fire Emblem, when you can field a dozen at a time and there are scenarios that really call for a particular type of unit. That way it's not so hard to bring along a couple of underpowered units to bring them up to a usable level. However even in Fire Emblem there are limits to this, as an under-defended weak unit will be killed very quickly. You've pretty much got to design your whole tactics around keeping those weak units safe.

[Thrawn183]

I thought pokemon did a decent job in that, no pokemon was strong against all other types, so you kind of needed to have a full team. OtoH, once you got your full team, you could just burn through the game, always being a bit higher level then you were probably supposed to be.

Though that game did have the unfortunate part of needing to trade some pokemon to get their most advanced forms, I'm looking at you Graveller! Granted, I still used graveller in my best 6 line up, but that's because I am a bit lazy.

Oh, I also can't stand when you have a mandatory boss fight, that you have to lose, where you can expend really valuable items. I don't like crippling myself by actually trying in a fight I didn't know I couldn't win.

[Jahkaivah]

Remember back when magic was magical and rare?

Oh god this

Not only do over-the-top magic effects put me off at times, but it's hard to take power of gods and demons seriously when I can do more than they can.

[Phexar]

Well, yes, but when I'm being attacked by a random encounter, which I can defeat easily, it gets wearying to have to swap in 6 different characters, have them do a useless maneuver (like debuffing the enemy), then swap them out for someone else, just so they can split the experience.

That's exactly what I did, actually. I'm not sure why I never got bored with it, like in so many other games, but I didn't. :smallconfused: Maybe I enjoyed using everyone (almost) at once, perhaps.


Right, but in KoTOR I was repeatedly told by Carth that he didn't feel like talking anymore. That's fine, I don't expect him to regurgitate his entire life's history in one sitting. Then I'd go out and do the whackamole combat thing for a while, maybe do some quests or something, and a while later he'd decide he was ready to talk more. It felt very artificial to me.

One part that sticks out my mind is Carth saying at one point "Why, why do you even care?" And I said that to myself, why DO I care? It felt almost like it was written into a contract that I had to annoy the poor guy to move along his plot rather than talk with him more carefully like I would have preferred. The "Out of the Loop" conversation also grated on me, since Carth was about as satisfied with the responses I could give him as I was. But indeed, the conversations being tied to character leveling did feel rather artificial.

Some other things that have annoyed me:

Rubber-Band AI- Mario Kart specifically.

Character Redundancy- Pokemon mainly, where it can be hard to use your favourites in competitive battle since they're outright inferior to others, or rather ineffective in battle anyway. Butterfree for me, personally.

Lower Level Joiners- The first Shining Force had this problem forcing you to level grind in a spot to get newcomers up to the rest of the party if you wanted to use them, and never come already promoted at that. Case in point: Adam.

Enforced Grinding- Gets boring after awhile and makes me wish I could move the plot along without getting stuck from lack of stats and/or money.

[Geno9999]

Engrish is awesome and you are a horrible person for hating it. (I live in Japan. I hunt down engrish. It's everywhere and hilarious!)

Okay, maybe I should be specific: If the engrish is unintentional (like in a hint system) then it's a problem. If it's Fawful ("I HAVE FURY!!!") kind of engrish, then it's comic genius.

[shadow_archmagi]

Oh god this

Not only do over-the-top magic effects put me off at times, but it's hard to take power of gods and demons seriously when I can do more than they can.


"Over the top"?

I think the complaint was about how many millions of lesser magic items there are and how uninteresting most of them are. Completely... unmagical.

"Oh look, boots of walking slightly faster next to a sword of doing an extra two DPS"

In video games, this is mostly all they'll bother coding, because interesting magical things like boots of teleport and decanters of endless water are extremely hard to code the full ramifications of (flooding dungeons, irrigating deserts, etc.)

[Arutema]

1: Where do you live/work? I want to see about getting a terabyte HDD in my PS3.


San Francisco bay area/Sony. I can definitely help you pick/ swap out PS3 hard drives given that I work with the things 40 hours/week.

[Lord Seth]

The problem is, and I know Fire Emblem is supposed to be hard, is that it makes keeping a good selection at a decent level and also you need specific units on certain chapters for stuff and if they've been out of commission they're simply a liability. As said earlier as well it encourages the player to only train one core team.I don't see any problem with that whatsoever.

[Jahkaivah]

"Over the top"?

I think the complaint was about how many millions of lesser magic items there are and how uninteresting most of them are. Completely... unmagical.

"Oh look, boots of walking slightly faster next to a sword of doing an extra two DPS"

In video games, this is mostly all they'll bother coding, because interesting magical things like boots of teleport and decanters of endless water are extremely hard to code the full ramifications of (flooding dungeons, irrigating deserts, etc.)

"Over the top magic effects"

Which compliments the boots of walking slightly faster by glowing and casting a arcane rune circle around the wearers feet. Notice that the cool thing about that fight between Saruman and Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films was how little special effects it got.

Magic just isn't what it used to be, characters used to be in grand awe when in the presence of something out of the ordinary, a wizard was a incredibly rare profession which only those having spent a lifetime studying could hope to obtain.

Nowadays, magic is practically commercialised. People used to burn witches in fantasy, wont happen anymore because not only are they far too powerful nowadays, but they are understood and are so common that one would run out of wood before you got even half of them.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Okay, maybe I should be specific: If the engrish is unintentional (like in a hint system) then it's a problem. If it's Fawful ("I HAVE FURY!!!") kind of engrish, then it's comic genius.

Alot more of it is unintentional than you might think.
My girlfriend teaches English in a Japanese school, as does my DM. Both of them complain that, not only are they not teaching the language and are teaching the kids to pass the test, but the test itself is god-awful and in dire need of having the school system actualyl listen to ANY native-speaker's critiques of how horrible the thing is.

[Oregano]

I don't see any problem with that whatsoever.

Well it defeats the purpose of giving you a load of characters and if you somehow need a particular unit later and they're way underpowered it could become near impossible. Especially in games like Fire Emblem where you can't go off and grind.

[Mewtarthio]

Nowadays, magic is practically commercialised. People used to burn witches in fantasy, wont happen anymore because not only are they far too powerful nowadays, but they are understood and are so common that one would run out of wood before you got even half of them.

That kind of depends on the setting, doesn't it? Take Jade Empire, for instance: There are a number of people with magic powers, but it takes either a lot of study or a blessing from the gods (or theft of their powers, in some cases). You've also got the F.E.A.R. franchise, in which the magic is disturbing, surreal, scary, and the province of a single individual--Granted, it's technically psi powers, but "psychic" is really just a narrower definition of "magic." That's just off the top of my head.

[factotum]

My question I feel still stands. Would you feel more likely to divulge your innermost secrets to a person whose only real distinguishing characteristics were inappropriate amounts of curiosity, kleptomania and killing half the people he/she meets just because they went and killed a bunch of people?


I think the point there is that Carth is a warrior, and respects you more when he sees you fight. OK, the game logic might be a bit screwy with respect to the REASONS why you're fighting, but I've never played the game as a darksider so I don't know if Carth will still open up if you just start randomly killing people.

[Zevox]

I think the point there is that Carth is a warrior, and respects you more when he sees you fight. OK, the game logic might be a bit screwy with respect to the REASONS why you're fighting, but I've never played the game as a darksider so I don't know if Carth will still open up if you just start randomly killing people.
Of course he will. The whole point was simply that you had to wait until you had completed a certain amount of the game's story quests before each segment of the conversations with your teammates - it's the fact that they've been around you and working with you more now that makes them start opening up to you. If you just start randomly killing people you don't need to, like those who ask for your help, Carth will protest during those scenes, but since the first KotOR didn't have the influence system, it will have no ill effects outside that one scene (until you go all-out Dark Side at the end, but that's a different matter altogether).

In the second game, his equivalent, Atton Rand, will do the same, but you'll lose influence with him for doing random killings like that, which will make it harder to unlock his conversations (past a few easy ones you need a certain amount of influence to unlock them, especially the last ones), influence his alignment, or make him learn to be a Jedi himself (he's one of a handful of companions you could do that with in game 2).

Zevox

[Cristo Meyers]

In the second game, his equivalent, Atton Rand, will do the same, but you'll lose influence with him for doing random killings like that, which will make it harder to unlock his conversations (past a few easy ones you need a certain amount of influence to unlock them, especially the last ones), influence his alignment, or make him learn to be a Jedi himself (he's one of a handful of companions you could do that with in game 2).

Zevox

Actually...you gain influence with him for random killings...Atton's a borderline sociopath.

[Zevox]

Actually...you gain influence with him for random killings...Atton's a borderline sociopath.
Really? I could have sworn it was the other way around. He had some messed up stuff in his past, sure, but he was trying to get away from that. And I could swear I remember having a harder time gaining influence with him as a dark sider than as a light sider. Hm, maybe he just starts approving of such actions after you have enough influence with him to tilt him strongly enough towards the dark side himself...

Zevox

[Cristo Meyers]

Really? I could have sworn it was the other way around. He had some messed up stuff in his past, sure, but he was trying to get away from that. And I could swear I remember having a harder time gaining influence with him as a dark sider than as a light sider. Hm, maybe he just starts approving of such actions after you have enough influence with him to tilt him strongly enough towards the dark side himself...

Zevox

It's all about the spin. There's no less than three random murders you can commit on Citadel Station and gain influence with him. The guy's messed up. Check the Influence FAQ on GameFAQS for details (can't provide link, blocked right now).

--

Here's more of a plot-related one: if you're going to let us play a bad guy, let us play a bad guy, not a baby-eating psychopath. For all it's positive criticisms, the alignment systems in these games still essentially boil down to pet puppy/murder puppy. This is especially true when you can look at the "good" action and think "There's a lot of reasons an evil person would do this."

[warty goblin]

Of course he will. The whole point was simply that you had to wait until you had completed a certain amount of the game's story quests before each segment of the conversations with your teammates - it's the fact that they've been around you and working with you more now that makes them start opening up to you. If you just start randomly killing people you don't need to, like those who ask for your help, Carth will protest during those scenes, but since the first KotOR didn't have the influence system, it will have no ill effects outside that one scene (until you go all-out Dark Side at the end, but that's a different matter altogether).

Zevox

I'll buy that to some degree, but it still feels awefully artificial to me. I honestly thought the Witcher got this perfect, what with the entire quest line focused on just throwing a party with your friends. You know, like friends do. But then I think not having to cart them around as companions all the times opens up a lot of possibilities.

[Optimystik]

It's this sort of stuff that makes me advocate for my original position- an RPG where there's only two or three companions and you stick with them throughout. Honestly I think some decent writing could make characters that persist like that quite interesting, and limiting their number would allow for more varied party dialog based on your actions and the surroundings.

The Old Republic (that new Star Wars MMO in development) looks like it's going to incorporate that kind of system. Check out the shared dialog trees (http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/816935/bioware-mmo-project/videos/gcom09_oldrepublic_spc3_082109.html) Bioware has planned for this Sith and Bounty Hunter darkside team.

[Zevox]

Here's more of a plot-related one: if you're going to let us play a bad guy, let us play a bad guy, not a baby-eating psychopath. For all it's positive criticisms, the alignment systems in these games still essentially boil down to pet puppy/murder puppy. This is especially true when you can look at the "good" action and think "There's a lot of reasons an evil person would do this."
Oh yes, this I definitely agree with.

To give a concrete example: Jade Empire. There, they actually tried to use an alignment system that wasn't simply extreme goody-two-shoes-nice-guy/extreme killing-is-fun-evil-guy, articulating it in several conversations and quests throughout the game - and ultimately failed miserably at it, because they still gave you points towards each alignment as though those were the alignments. I've tried on several occasions to actually play through the game making choices as a follower of the "Way of the Closed Fist" actually would going by the explanations they give of it, and it always ends up with me getting nearly as many "Way of the Open Palm" (good) points as Closed Fist points, meaning I wind up at absolute most only halfway down the scale in the Closed Fist direction, often less. And at the ending, there are even reasons that a Closed Fist character might choose the "Open Palm"/good ending if you think about it, given the potentially dire consequences of the "Closed Fist"/evil ending.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Jade Empire. Great game. But damn, did they screw up on that alignment system.

Zevox

[Cristo Meyers]

I found Baldur's Gate 2 to be worse, and it was ultimately one of the reasons I gave up on the game. There were so many reasons an evil character would, say, kill the slavers in the poor district, save the druid grove, etc, etc.

What's even worse is that they seem to have gotten the idea that good doesn't mean Goody Two Shoes MartyrMan, but yet they can't get it through their heads that evil doesn't mean RAWR I EAT BABIES AND WEAR THEIR SKIN!

[shadow_archmagi]

That always bugged me about Kotor 2.

*looks at handmaiden*
"Ah. This *good* character sure would be cool after a conversion to evil. Now, I'll just eat a baby in front of her and then encourage her to do the same."

*INFLUENCE LOST*

Handmaiden: You are hanging around with that sith too much I hate you now and I'm not talking to you any more.

[Cristo Meyers]

That always bugged me about Kotor 2.

*looks at handmaiden*
"Ah. This *good* character sure would be cool after a conversion to evil. Now, I'll just eat a baby in front of her and then encourage her to do the same."

*INFLUENCE LOST*

Handmaiden: You are hanging around with that sith too much I hate you now and I'm not talking to you any more.

What's worse is you'll lose influence with her if you use deceit to avoid fighting that big group of mercs on Dantooine outside the kinrath cave.

That's right, she complains because you avoided one of the harder fights in the game by using your head...

[Optimystik]

Don't get me wrong, I loved Jade Empire. Great game. But damn, did they screw up on that alignment system.

Zevox

Agreed. Even worse, there is absolutely NO difference between "bloodthirsty thug" Closed Fist and "toughen up the world" Closed Fist. NONE! You even get a better reward for not fighting the ghost of Bladed Thesis, even though that's exactly what a true CF follower would do! And there are others - killing both Forest Shadow and Mother, making that slave girl fight for her freedom, even refusing the wine merchant's reward for dooming Tien's landing. None of it played out any differently reward-wise than just being an aimless *******.

I was highly, highly disappointed in Bioware with how they handled that.

[Zevox]

Agreed. Even worse, there is absolutely NO difference between "bloodthirsty thug" Closed Fist and "toughen up the world" Closed Fist. NONE! You even get a better reward for not fighting the ghost of Bladed Thesis, even though that's exactly what a true CF follower would do! And there are others - killing both Forest Shadow and Mother, making that slave girl fight for her freedom, even refusing the wine merchant's reward for dooming Tien's landing. None of it played out any differently reward-wise than just being an aimless *******.

I was highly, highly disappointed in Bioware with how they handled that.
At least with those though, you could actually do things the way a "toughen up the world" Closed Fist character would without being penalized. (Heck, you could work with Bladed Thesis, then turn on him and fight him once he had dealt with that scholar, and he'll even praise you for it if you tell him you're doing it to test yourself against his might.)

Compare that, on the other hand, to the arena. There, you get Closed Fist points for working with The Guild, and Open Palm points for opposing them - when an actual Closed Fist character would not want to poison their opponents and work with a group that specializes in rigging fights, but actually fight their way through the best the arena had to offer when they're at their best! Worst of all was Crimson Khana, the poisoning incident in question, where you got a lot of Open Palm points if you warned her about The Guild's intent to poison her, something a Closed Fist character would want to do to make sure she doesn't get poisoned even though you turned the Guild's offer down. Plus if you warn her she gives you a better version of her two-sword weapon style than if you don't after you defeat her, so it's awfully annoying to have that tied to a large influx of Open Palm points too.

Zevox

[Optimystik]

At least with those though, you could actually do things the way a "toughen up the world" Closed Fist character would without being penalized. (Heck, you could work with Bladed Thesis, then turn on him and fight him once he had dealt with that scholar, and he'll even praise you for it if you tell him you're doing it to test yourself against his might.)

Oh he'll praise you, but to get his gem you can't fight him. It's ridiculous.


Compare that, on the other hand, to the arena.

I'd forgotten that one. What a joke. :smallsigh:

[warty goblin]

OK, here's one: RPGs where 90% of the population and 100% of the wildlife exists solely to try to kill you.

Now this is true of a lot of FPS games. Those at least have the excuse of taking place in an honest to gods warzone, which tends to contain a lot of people trying to kill you. In an RPG however this syndrome sets in about three meters outside Happy Hamlet, which is of course full of peaceful and innocent farmers.

Usually it's bandits. Gobs and gobs of them. Weirdly enough, they never actually try to rob you, or seriously propose 'your money or your life.' Nope, instead they cut straight to the 'your life' option.

It gets very, very hard on the suspense of disbelief when you are out in the wilderness and kill 200 people, then return to the 'bustling city' with it's 25 inhabitants. And where the hell are the farms?

That actually annoyed me no end about Fallout 3. There's all these people, all these creatures, but nothing that resembles the basis of a food chain. I'm not asking for a massive amount of thought about this, or detailed habitats, predator-prey systems, herd dynamics, or anything like that. But how about some herbivores? Or plants? It's particularly galling because Oblivion had all of these things. Granted not nearly enough to support the insane number of predators and people, but there was still grass, deer, and farms.

[Dark Faun]

To be fair, in Fallout 3, there are some peaceful encounters; uncle Leo, ghouls, wastelanders etc...

I wanted to try Jade Empire, but now that I know about how it manages alignments, I'm kinda turned off.

[Zevox]

Oh he'll praise you, but to get his gem you can't fight him. It's ridiculous.
He... gives you a gem? I wasn't aware of that... I think I've played it at least once where I didn't fight him, but I don't remember that...

Looking at GameFAQs, it says he gives you a technique that gives you health +5 and chi +5, not a gem. Kind of a minor boost, if fairly good for an early game technique, but I do agree that it's really dumb that you can't get it if you fight him, especially if you wait until after he's dealt with the scholar to do it.

Zevox

[Erloas]

That actually annoyed me no end about Fallout 3. There's all these people, all these creatures, but nothing that resembles the basis of a food chain. I'm not asking for a massive amount of thought about this, or detailed habitats, predator-prey systems, herd dynamics, or anything like that. But how about some herbivores? Or plants? It's particularly galling because Oblivion had all of these things. Granted not nearly enough to support the insane number of predators and people, but there was still grass, deer, and farms.

That also bothered me about Fallout 3. That and the fact that you can kill some raider, pick up their armor and put it on so you look just like a raider and they still attack you the instant they see you. Sure there are lots of groups of raiders and they aren't friendly to each other, but it still didn't seem right. Also the fact that you could walk into a town with raider armor on and no one would act any differently then if you were in a nighty, vault suit, or power armor. (at least they haven't as far as I've gone, it might be different in some places).

[Lord Seth]

Well it defeats the purpose of giving you a load of characters and if you somehow need a particular unit later and they're way underpowered it could become near impossible. Especially in games like Fire Emblem where you can't go off and grind.No, the purpose of giving you lots of units in Fire Emblem is that it doesn't force you to restart a level just because a unit died. (not that that doesn't stop people anyway) If I lose a magic user but have another magic user in my party I wasn't actively losing, then I'm not completely screwed over the loss of the magic user. And like I said, it's not that particularly hard to level up weak units. You have to "baby-sit" them a little, but because the enemies are much higher levels than them, they gain levels really fast. Heck, that's the entire purpose of the Est archetype.

It should also be noted that you get higher level characters as you go along, so you'll be getting replacement units that you don't have to spend as much time leveling up.

[Oregano]

Well you may be right because I'm one of those people who doesn't like losing anyone. I still prefer leaked experience though because it means someone can be useful even if you neglected them(For whatever reason).

Ahh, probably a better example for me to use would be something like FFVII where you have to fight Dyne with just Barret. If you weren't properly prepared that could be nightmarish.

[Optimystik]

He... gives you a gem? I wasn't aware of that... I think I've played it at least once where I didn't fight him, but I don't remember that...

Looking at GameFAQs, it says he gives you a technique that gives you health +5 and chi +5, not a gem. Kind of a minor boost, if fairly good for an early game technique, but I do agree that it's really dumb that you can't get it if you fight him, especially if you wait until after he's dealt with the scholar to do it.

Zevox

Yeah, technique is what I meant. My bad. But like I said, he should teach that to you if you defeat him. It irks me more as a completionist than anything else, that to get the best possible rewards as Closed Fist you have to act counter to how a true CF would act. :smallsigh:

[Bouregard]

Plastic World:

What I relaly hate about Mass Effect and Kotor was that the world never really changed or something else as the player/party moves or changes things. What happened to daily routines for NPC's?
Or fights? I hate running throught empty rooms I cleaned out 5 minutes ago without the slightest trace of a fight! Ragdolls, bulletholes, thrown around furniture... the technology is there.


Strange reward:

"Thank you PC for rescuing my village, here are my old trousers keep them as a token of our thanks. We will now keep to sell you healingpotions for 500 bucks a flask."
Game designers: There are three ways to reward a gamer: A cool item (or, gosh! a whole set of Items!) , new services/ and or cheaper services, Plot token or money/tokens.
And no, I didn't want a poor village rewarding you with 100000000 goldpieces. But they can say alllow you to take as much farmgoods as you want, that can be selled to the next shop.


Mixing RP with metagaming. It's not funny if the major says. Press "m" to look at your map and find the lost citizens that you want to rescue.


Smart quests. Always ask yourself, why is it the player who have to do it?

Hire good voiceactors. AND IF YOU DON'T HIRE GOOD VOICEACTORS FOR TRANSLATIONS THEN USE THE ORIGINAL VOICES WITH SUBTITLES. YOU SAFE MONEY AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO MUTE THE GAME!

[Dark Faun]

Oh, speaking of voice actors.

Stop with the Scottish dwarves. Please. :smallannoyed:

[Oregano]

Hire good voiceactors. AND IF YOU DON'T HIRE GOOD VOICEACTORS FOR TRANSLATIONS THEN USE THE ORIGINAL VOICES WITH SUBTITLES. YOU SAFE MONEY AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO MUTE THE GAME!

That's really subjective though. Some people love some voice actoer's performances whilst others hate them. There are some really, really, really bad voice actors though.

[Cristo Meyers]

There are some really, really, really bad voice actors though.

*glares at Baten Kaitos*

It's lucky it's a good game...

[shadow_archmagi]

Oh, speaking of voice actors.

Stop with the Scottish dwarves. Please. :smallannoyed:

Personally, I enjoy Scottish accents.

I'd enjoy Scottish Elves, too.

[Zevox]

*glares at Baten Kaitos*

It's lucky it's a good game...
Except for the ending. Particularly that WTF?! final boss. Made no sense whatsoever.

On a similar note: boss battles, especially final boss battles, that you cannot lose. Whether because you're just give power that uber (see Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood), because the boss is that much of a wuss (above-mentioned Baten Kaitos WTF boss), or because some other failsafe is in place to prevent it (Xenosaga Episode 2, which I just beat and brought this to mind). If you're not even going to try to make the fight a challenge, just have it play out in a cutscene - there's no point in playing through a match where can only lose if you actively try to (or worse, can't even then!).

Zevox

[stabbybelkar]

In RTS's, I absolutely hate the "Survive for X minutes" missions. Especially when the devs think it would be so cool if you're attacked by an overpowered and huge enemy horde of doom and epic proportions of epicness when you've got 2-3 minutes left.

In RPGs, level scaling with rats that magically transform into wolves that transform into bears that transform into trolls and so on.

In shooters, enemies that keep respawning until you cross an invisible line. I'm looking at you, Call Of Duty. :smallmad:

Really? I acually like that in a game. It's why the one mission in Starcraft where they do that is my favorete level in the game.

[warty goblin]

Plastic World:

What I relaly hate about Mass Effect and Kotor was that the world never really changed or something else as the player/party moves or changes things. What happened to daily routines for NPC's?
Or fights? I hate running throught empty rooms I cleaned out 5 minutes ago without the slightest trace of a fight! Ragdolls, bulletholes, thrown around furniture... the technology is there.

It's particularly depressing when you realize that the original Wolfenstein 3D had permenant bodies. I certainly understand no permenant bodies for MP games, since all they do is clutter things up and drain system resources for no good reason, particularly since there can be a reasonably intederminant number of player deaths over the course of a match. But in singleplayer* all those enemies presumably already exist in the level somewhere, it's not like they'll take up appreciably more space dead than alive, particularly if one turns off ragdolls for bodies far distant from the player. So lemme see my mounds of slain already!

*I realize this would create a problem with the Call of Duty 'spawn enemies until the player makes it to the script trigger' school of level design. Good. That sort of thing is singleplayer in its most degenerate, debased form and needs to be disposed of post-haste.


Strange reward:

"Thank you PC for rescuing my village, here are my old trousers keep them as a token of our thanks. We will now keep to sell you healingpotions for 500 bucks a flask."
Game designers: There are three ways to reward a gamer: A cool item (or, gosh! a whole set of Items!) , new services/ and or cheaper services, Plot token or money/tokens.
And no, I didn't want a poor village rewarding you with 100000000 goldpieces. But they can say alllow you to take as much farmgoods as you want, that can be selled to the next shop.

Or here's one- don't clutter up my inventory with useless stuff. Gimme a house or something where I can cache stuff. That'll be useful.



Mixing RP with metagaming. It's not funny if the major says. Press "m" to look at your map and find the lost citizens that you want to rescue.
I've not really seen that. Most games have the guy on screen say 'pull out the map' or 'I've marked this on your map' and the text prompt says 'press m.'

Actually isn't it a little creepy how the NPCs are always grabbing your map and scribbling stuff on it? It's almost like how I'm always breaking into their homes, smashing their furniture and stealing their stuff.


Smart quests. Always ask yourself, why is it the player who have to do it?

Also, we're tired of rescuing children from wolves. Actually we're tired of fighting wolves in general. There are only two things that games could do with wolves that interest me at this point:

1) Let me play a very detailed wolf simulation, wherein if you screw up you collapse from exposure and exhaustion before having your eyes eaten out by crows.

2) Let me play as a sorcerer who commands a wolfpack to rip my foes limb from limb. The key here is that the wolfpack isn't a summoned spell effect, but is persistant, and I have to weigh the desire to see dudes get eaten by my guided furry tooth missiles of doom with my desire to not have Sparky get shishkebabed on a pike. Plus, wolf puppies.



Hire good voiceactors. AND IF YOU DON'T HIRE GOOD VOICEACTORS FOR TRANSLATIONS THEN USE THE ORIGINAL VOICES WITH SUBTITLES. YOU SAFE MONEY AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO MUTE THE GAME![/QUOTE]

[Oslecamo]

2) Let me play as a sorcerer who commands a wolfpack to rip my foes limb from limb. The key here is that the wolfpack isn't a summoned spell effect, but is persistant, and I have to weigh the desire to see dudes get eaten by my guided furry tooth missiles of doom with my desire to not have Sparky get shishkebabed on a pike. Plus, wolf puppies.


Zelda twilight princess has the main character cursed in wolf form and forced to worck with a sorceror who likes to put him in tough situations but also needs the main character's help to kill stuff that gets in the way with his sharp teeths.

[Emperor Ing]

Hire good voiceactors. AND IF YOU DON'T HIRE GOOD VOICEACTORS FOR TRANSLATIONS THEN USE THE ORIGINAL VOICES WITH SUBTITLES. YOU SAFE MONEY AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO MUTE THE GAME!

They don't have to be good, they just have to be competent. if they can act with their voice and doesn't have an incredibly annoying voice (I'm looking at YOU, Oblivion Elves. :smallannoyed:) then it's fine. Not everyone in real life has a mountain-moving voice.

[Jibar]

2) Let me play as a sorcerer who commands a wolfpack to rip my foes limb from limb. The key here is that the wolfpack isn't a summoned spell effect, but is persistant, and I have to weigh the desire to see dudes get eaten by my guided furry tooth missiles of doom with my desire to not have Sparky get shishkebabed on a pike. Plus, wolf puppies.

This sound awfully like Overlord actually, just with Goblins instead of Wolves. I know I got quite attached to my Minions, but not in the awful nightmare Pikmin way.

[Emperor Ing]

Hire good voiceactors. AND IF YOU DON'T HIRE GOOD VOICEACTORS FOR TRANSLATIONS THEN USE THE ORIGINAL VOICES WITH SUBTITLES. YOU SAFE MONEY AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO MUTE THE GAME!

They don't have to be good, they just have to be competent. if they can act with their voice and doesn't have an incredibly annoying voice (I'm looking at YOU, Oblivion Elves. :smallannoyed:) then it's fine. Not everyone in real life has a mountain-moving voice.

Repost because I hate posting at the bottom of pages. :smallsigh:

[factotum]

Don't get me wrong, I loved Jade Empire. Great game. But damn, did they screw up on that alignment system.


Most games seem to do this in a very ham-fisted way. Fallout 3, for example--I have a friend who basically kills anyone he can in the game (he'll even trade with a wandering trader, then kill him to get his caps back), but somehow he's still on the Good side of the alignment scale simply because he's finished a lot of the help quests the game offers. Frankly, you'd think a notorious mass murderer would be a little less welcome even in a post-apocalyptic setting!

[shadow_archmagi]

Most games seem to do this in a very ham-fisted way. Fallout 3, for example--I have a friend who basically kills anyone he can in the game (he'll even trade with a wandering trader, then kill him to get his caps back), but somehow he's still on the Good side of the alignment scale simply because he's finished a lot of the help quests the game offers. Frankly, you'd think a notorious mass murderer would be a little less welcome even in a post-apocalyptic setting!

Ah yes. I believe the numbers are quite silly. Let me check the fallout 3 database for it.

EDIT: If I shoot a wastelander, and loot 300 caps and a fancy gun, and then donate the caps, and then murder two more people for giggles, it comes out as utterly neutral.

If I murder ten megaton residents, and then sacrifice myself to bring pure water to the ENTIRE wasteland, I come out neutral.

[ZeroNumerous]

This sound awfully like Overlord actually, just with Goblins instead of Wolves. I know I got quite attached to my Minions, but not in the awful nightmare Pikmin way.

You got attached to them? I couldn't have cared less. Just kill some dudes/break some jars/smash some plants and you got more goblins.

[Oslecamo]

Frankly, you'd think a notorious mass murderer would be a little less welcome even in a post-apocalyptic setting!

Option 1-you and your family wiped out by supermutants+monsters+lack of resources.

Option 2-half of of your family wiped out, but the guy who did the genocide also wiped out the supermutants+monsters and spread food and medicine all around.

I dunno about you, but I'll definetely take option 2 any time of the day.

Heck, a lot of "good" people in history had their fair share of skeletons in the closet.

[d12]

They don't have to be good, they just have to be competent. if they can act with their voice and doesn't have an incredibly annoying voice (I'm looking at YOU, Oblivion Elves. :smallannoyed:) then it's fine. Not everyone in real life has a mountain-moving voice.

Aren't elves supposed to be irritating though? :smalltongue: I was just happy that absolutely everybody wasn't putting on an unbearably stupid sounding pseudo-English accent (beggars excepted of course..sometimes). I was pretty close to muting just about all of Fable 2.

I can't stand timed missions. If slapping an artificial time constraint on your scenario is the only way to introduce a challenge then you need to go back to design school. Especially if the time limit is so ridiculously short that only the super-leet and those looking at a walkthrough could possibly pass it.

Then there's also the escort missions, which obviously don't get enough gut-punching from people since they keep coming up. I think the only game that I've seen do escort missions well (or as close to well as you can get) is Neverwinter Nights 2. "Oh my gods, he's dead!" "No stress man, soon as we knock down this last zombie he'll start feeling better." If that's too much for developers, you can always handle tag-alongs like that one NPC in Mass Effect who decides to come with you on Feros. She disappears after the cutscene, you go back to the rover, and she's there with you. So you obviously put her in your pocket in the meantime. It isn't so much a proper escort mission though, from what I remember, since there isn't a lot of fighting between her and the rover, but it is an acceptable alternative. One of those two methods, developers. You should appreciate my generosity. :smalltongue:

Which brings me to another gripe: cutscenes. It's not so much that cutscenes themselves are bad as when the game uses cutscenes to screw you over. For some reason I noticed it a LOT in Mass Effect. For example, that cutscene outside the mine entrance on Therum where a bunch of geth drop in. There's a point where it seems the party clearly sees the hopper walking around on a nearby wall. Or maybe they're going to superhuman lengths to pretend they don't see it, I dunno. I kept thinking "shoot it shoot it shoot it..oh my god, I could have killed that thing by now!"

I'm sure I could think of a lot more, but those are a short highlight reel. :smalltongue:

[ZeroNumerous]

I dunno about you, but I'll definetely take option 2 any time of the day.

In a post apocalyptic wasteland, you're gonna be joining them soon enough anyway.

[Oslecamo]

In a post apocalyptic wasteland, you're gonna be joining them soon enough anyway.

Not when I have the wasteland psycopath to save the day!

[Zevox]

Personally, I don't mind escort missions that much, but I do have to agree with a previous poster on one thing: make the guy you're escorting competent, or at least able to survive if you screw up a few times. It is no fun retrying an escort mission ten times before you beat it because the guy you're trying to keep safe can't take more than one or two punches before he drops dead. I'd actually prefer situations where they make him too competant, and your escort is barely, if at all, needed, to that.

Zevox