Gaming trends that irk you

[Yuki Akuma]

So I was playing Candy Crush the other day (don't judge me), and I realised there was a gaming trend that irked me...

Games nowadays seem to need to have some fancy animation play between every level, taking five or ten seconds to get to the next level, even in games with no story content at ALL. Why do they do this? i just want to play the next level darnit. I've already gotten tired of your nifty particle effects just let me play

[Traab]

So I was playing Candy Crush the other day (don't judge me), and I realised there was a gaming trend that irked me...

Games nowadays seem to need to have some fancy animation play between every level, taking five or ten seconds to get to the next level, even in games with no story content at ALL. Why do they do this? i just want to play the next level darnit. I've already gotten tired of your nifty particle effects just let me play

I have soda crush on my phone but rarely play it. Its astonishingly annoying every time I DO go to play it its like I have to go through a dozen windows for as many events before I can play. Ok, here is the title screen, now for my daily reward, now to tell me about the event thats over, now for the results of said event, now here is the new event, oh wait, here are the power ups you get due to your winning streak, dont forget to send your friends something! Oh, and the obligatory offer to give you stuff for 2 bucks of real cash. Ok, NOW you can play. Now after that start up it goes faster from level to level as its just keeping track of my win streak and whatever random event is going on, but yeesh. And the thing is, I understand it. These events are what keep people interested because it gives them short term goals and competition against other players to help mitigate the endless slog, it just gets out of hand if you dont play every day.

[Zombimode]

Oh, something the really irks me: DLC content that lables itself ingame as DLC content.

I don't care if the content was added at release or 4 years later!
No, that's not right: I actively don't want to know! I want a seamless experience, and the DLC neon signs makes that kinda hard.
It is especially bad if the rest of the game does not break the 4th wall.

[Anteros]

So I was playing Candy Crush the other day (don't judge me), and I realised there was a gaming trend that irked me...

Games nowadays seem to need to have some fancy animation play between every level, taking five or ten seconds to get to the next level, even in games with no story content at ALL. Why do they do this? i just want to play the next level darnit. I've already gotten tired of your nifty particle effects just let me play

This is something I hate about modern RPGs. It's great that you have a pretty animation for doing something, but when I'm going to take that action 50,000 times over the course of the game it's going to get old quick. Just let me turn it off or skip it or at least make it short.

[Traab]

This is something I hate about modern RPGs. It's great that you have a pretty animation for doing something, but when I'm going to take that action 50,000 times over the course of the game it's going to get old quick. Just let me turn it off or skip it or at least make it short.

Lets also not forget the lovely 5 minute cut scene you cant skip before a boss fight where every time you die you have to rewatch the entire thing all over again. I am in favor of making it unskippable the FIRST time you see something. But once its on your game file you can skip seeing it over and over again. After all, the game devs tend to put effort into their stories, so its at least polite to listen to it the first time through.

[veti]

This is something I hate about modern RPGs. It's great that you have a pretty animation for doing something, but when I'm going to take that action 50,000 times over the course of the game it's going to get old quick. Just let me turn it off or skip it or at least make it short.

This is how I feel about kill cams. Is it too much to ask for an option to turn them off entirely?

And talking of RPGs: I know this ship has long since sailed, but voice acting. Voice acting in games peaked in Zelda: Twilight Princess. I don't need to hear every line read to me, I can read them myself thankyousomuch. From my point of view, voice acting adds five things, none of them good:
1. Bloats your game files with several gigabytes of unnecessary audio
2. Inserts actors, of varying levels of competence and engagement, between me and the characters in game. The average voice actor just isn't that good, and even if you spring for high quality actors, it doesn't help much if you partner them with amateurish director and production. (Heck, Oblivion made Sean Bean sound bored, and boring.) While I'll grant there is such a thing as good voice acting, it's the exception not the rule.
3. Ensures that you'll hear the same lines over and over.
4. Raises production costs, localisation/translation costs, and most of all, the costs of making any script changes late in the game's development.
5. Raises the barriers to modders, so that you need significantly more time and resources to make a good content mod. And it's much harder to reuse vanilla NPCs if you do.

And don't even get me started on first person VA. That really needs to die screaming.

[Anteros]

This is how I feel about kill cams. Is it too much to ask for an option to turn them off entirely?

And talking of RPGs: I know this ship has long since sailed, but voice acting. Voice acting in games peaked in Zelda: Twilight Princess. I don't need to hear every line read to me, I can read them myself thankyousomuch. From my point of view, voice acting adds five things, none of them good:
1. Bloats your game files with several gigabytes of unnecessary audio
2. Inserts actors, of varying levels of competence and engagement, between me and the characters in game. The average voice actor just isn't that good, and even if you spring for high quality actors, it doesn't help much if you partner them with amateurish director and production. (Heck, Oblivion made Sean Bean sound bored, and boring.) While I'll grant there is such a thing as good voice acting, it's the exception not the rule.
3. Ensures that you'll hear the same lines over and over.
4. Raises production costs, localisation/translation costs, and most of all, the costs of making any script changes late in the game's development.
5. Raises the barriers to modders, so that you need significantly more time and resources to make a good content mod. And it's much harder to reuse vanilla NPCs if you do.

And don't even get me started on first person VA. That really needs to die screaming.

I think I only half agree with this. I agree that voicelines can be overkill, especially in open world games where you're going to hear the same line a bunch of times. At the same time, they do help with adding immersion and increasing the personality of characters. Something like Mass Effect wouldn't be nearly as good if Shepard was silent.

Speaking of silent protagonists, that's a trend that really needs to die in a fire. It's fine for something like pokemon where it's designed for kids and there's no story anyway, but it doesn't work at all for things like Dragon Quest. You cannot tell a meaningful story about a protagonist with no personality. I know it's supposed to be there so the player can insert their own personality onto the blank slate, but there are just so many examples of better ways to do it.

[veti]

Speaking of silent protagonists, that's a trend that really needs to die in a fire. It's fine for something like pokemon where it's designed for kids and there's no story anyway, but it doesn't work at all for things like Dragon Quest. You cannot tell a meaningful story about a protagonist with no personality. I know it's supposed to be there so the player can insert their own personality onto the blank slate, but there are just so many examples of better ways to do it.

I could not possibly disagree more. Hearing my lines in someone else's voice is one of the quickest and most thorough immersion killers I have ever experienced.

[Anteros]

I could not possibly disagree more. Hearing my lines in someone else's voice is one of the quickest and most thorough immersion killers I have ever experienced.

I was talking about completely silent protagonists like from Pokemon or Dragon Quest where there are no lines.

Although, I do disagree about the other thing as well. Some stories are about a character, not about me, so I don't need to insert myself into the character. Both systems have their place.

[Spore]

I could not possibly disagree more. Hearing my lines in someone else's voice is one of the quickest and most thorough immersion killers I have ever experienced.

It really just works with a game with a guided story where you can about gauge the emotional state of the protagonist. Fallout 4 displayed this really well. The intro is really well done. Nate (male prot.) sounds suave but a bit scared about his upcoming speech at the Veteran's Hall, Nora (female prot.) sounds so incredibly proud of him. They have a bit of awesome banter. Then after their kid gets kidnapped, you can hear the fear, the anger from their voice actors. And if you follow the main quest it is very immersive.

But once you decide to step outside that train, the voice actors don't add that emotional baggage to the acting (because they shouldn't) and the lines come over as incredibly generic. And it doesn't help that the game just has the options of Yes, Yes (but why?), Sarcastic Yes and No (maybe later) as important dialogue choices.

[Rodin]

The one that drives me crazy with voice-acting is the PARTIALLY silent protagonist. A couple of recent examples being Metro: Exodu and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Exodus in particular has the classic Half-Life style "silent protagonist who other people talk at" thing going, which already doesn't work all that well because there's a lot more dialogue and scenes where you would expect Artyom to be talking back. It isn't just locking the player in the room while they get their next mission objectives - there's a lot of conversation that isn't even plot relevant, it's just character building.

My first thought was that this is because Artyom had been silent in previous games (I wouldn't know, I haven't played them), but then whenever you enter a loading screen Artyom DOES talk. He narrates the story up to that point and your current mission objectives in order to remind you of them.

So what the heck, game? You have a defined voice for your character, so I'm not inserting my own voice into his mouth or imagining what he sounds like. There aren't major branching paths or dialogue choices that you need to keep the voice budget for Artyom down. Choices you DO make (like sneaking through an area instead of fighting) are referenced by other characters, so they obviously had the tools to handle that.

Why ruin your protagonist by just having him be voiced in loading screens?

[DomaDoma]

FF6 isn't bad gameplay. It has probably the least grindy progression of the first ten games, and it's pretty much a refined version of all the previous FF games. And when you dumb things down to "press x every few seconds", you're neglecting the tactical aspect of weaknesses/magic/special commands that aren't just "press X to attacK".

There's a difference between "not the best gameplay it could offer" and "bad gameplay". First doesn't need you to tolerate in order to carry on with the story, it can keep you engaged on a smaller scale, it's just not something you can make a whole game out of without support from story or presentation.

Look, my username comes from FF6 I love it so much, but if you give Magicite to your whole party as recommended, the battle system is just not a challenge. (Except those tentacle beasts under Figaro Castle. Those are always and forever a royal pain.)

[Zevox]

Speaking of silent protagonists, that's a trend that really needs to die in a fire. It's fine for something like pokemon where it's designed for kids and there's no story anyway, but it doesn't work at all for things like Dragon Quest. You cannot tell a meaningful story about a protagonist with no personality. I know it's supposed to be there so the player can insert their own personality onto the blank slate, but there are just so many examples of better ways to do it.

100% agreed. Seriously, I love games like Dragon Quest, Persona, or Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but it is just so silly to have the lead character of those games be silent. Worse when they're forced to remain a blank slate like the Luminary, but still not good with leads who have a personality but whose lines are kept minimal and left unvoiced like Joker or Byleth. One of the few things JRPGs do differently that I wish they'd drop.

[Aotrs Commander]

I was talking about completely silent protagonists like from Pokemon or Dragon Quest where there are no lines.

Although, I do disagree about the other thing as well. Some stories are about a character, not about me, so I don't need to insert myself into the character. Both systems have their place.

Concur, though, I'll go one stage further and say that given that my characters are (virtually) never ME¹, so I have no problems with VA and vastly prefer it. In a perfect universe with infinite time and money, I'd love to have all my dialogue voiced in RPGs by the sort of sound-set you pick for stuff like BG/PoE/etc, given the chance or at least tons more voice options generally.

...

Actually, I'll compromise if we can get Jennifer Hale to do a full voice set for every game, though admittedly, I'd properly never play another male character again in that case... (Okay, maybe if they got BRIAN BLESSED...)



¹Only exceptions that spring to mind to X-Com when I did the Bleakbane Plays and my first BG2 run where I did a sort-of-me and went to the pains of recording my own sound set; and the former is not an RPG and the latter I didn't really play me Bleakbanuing very hard, mre playing to "whatever gets me most XP." (Okay, that sort of IS Bleakbane-ing, but I wasn't actually playing Evil, so...)

[zlefin]

small Idle games that keep adding new content. I like to actually "win" games, to finish them. But some idle games keep adding new more and content whenever people get close, so you can never actually finish. These are small indie games like you find on Kongregate and other places that hosted flash games and other simple games. When you finish one game, there's plenty of others to move onto.

[Triaxx]

I would like to point out there is a difference between silent, and unvoiced protagonists. The Pokemon trainer is silent. No dialogue comes from their side, except YES/NO answers.

Contrast the Dragonborn, Courier, and Lone Wanderer. They are unvoiced, and all of their dialogue is in text form.

Both have their place, but you can't put one into the other's story without losing something.

[Anteros]

I would like to point out there is a difference between silent, and unvoiced protagonists. The Pokemon trainer is silent. No dialogue comes from their side, except YES/NO answers.

Contrast the Dragonborn, Courier, and Lone Wanderer. They are unvoiced, and all of their dialogue is in text form.

Both have their place, but you can't put one into the other's story without losing something.

Yes, that's what I meant. I'm fine with unvoiced protagonists although I don't agree that it's always superior to voiced. Some games like New Vegas obviously are too complicated with too many possible lines, and voicing the protagonist is going to harshly limit the player's freedom. Other games like Mass Effect would lose a lot of their dramatic impact if Shepard's rousing speeches weren't voiced.

Completely Silent protagonists with no personality in a game with a plot are just lazy though.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, that's what I meant. I'm fine with unvoiced protagonists although I don't agree that it's always superior to voiced. Silent protagonists in a game with a plot are just lazy though.

An interesting (maybe) example is the Warrior of Light in FFXIV. Most of the time, they react only physically, using the emote system. They speak (rarely), but you never hear the voice and only select general responses ("explain that...") rather than exact wording. And your options are usually "agree" or "agree more!." And those cutscenes where they talk usually quickly fade to black so you don't know how long they talked.

Instead, you get lots of companions who do the explanations for you. They also (especially in recent quests) lampshade the whole "silent hero" thing pretty heavily, with your companions making snarky remarks about you not saying much.

[Resileaf]

An interesting (maybe) example is the Warrior of Light in FFXIV. Most of the time, they react only physically, using the emote system. They speak (rarely), but you never hear the voice and only select general responses ("explain that...") rather than exact wording. And your options are usually "agree" or "agree more!." And those cutscenes where they talk usually quickly fade to black so you don't know how long they talked.

Instead, you get lots of companions who do the explanations for you. They also (especially in recent quests) lampshade the whole "silent hero" thing pretty heavily, with your companions making snarky remarks about you not saying much.

Interestingly enough, there is one huge inversion to that system in the Dark Knight questline, but until the end of the questline, you can't really tell that anything has changed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Interestingly enough, there is one huge inversion to that system in the Dark Knight questline, but until the end of the questline, you can't really tell that anything has changed.

I did that questline, but don't remember the change. Unless it's in the level 80 quest (which I haven't done yet). But I was doing lots of class quests at that time, so....

I've got this problem where I have to level all the classes together once I push one class to max. Means I do the same content over and over again (I'm getting sick of Holminster Switch using the Trust system, but they're almost all level 73 so I can get sick of Il Mehg).

[Hunter Noventa]

I did that questline, but don't remember the change. Unless it's in the level 80 quest (which I haven't done yet). But I was doing lots of class quests at that time, so....

I've got this problem where I have to level all the classes together once I push one class to max. Means I do the same content over and over again (I'm getting sick of Holminster Switch using the Trust system, but they're almost all level 73 so I can get sick of Il Mehg).

Go back and read the quest journal entries.

Fitting the immediate topic, I just did a sidequest where the dialog options were for the WoL were all very lampshady. As in one of the options was "This is one of those times where it doesn't actually matter what I say, isn't it?".

Of course, I think It was also hinting at the upcoming Nier raid so...YokoTaroIntensifies.gif

[Resileaf]

I did that questline, but don't remember the change. Unless it's in the level 80 quest (which I haven't done yet). But I was doing lots of class quests at that time, so....

Spoiler: Explanation

Show

The Dark Knight you interact with during the Dark Knight questline is not actually a NPC, it's yourself, or more acurately your dark side controling you. When that NPC starts berating other characters, it's not someone else doing it with you watching, it's you making those angry statements without realizing it.

[The_Jackal]

Speaking of silent protagonists, that's a trend that really needs to die in a fire. It's fine for something like pokemon where it's designed for kids and there's no story anyway, but it doesn't work at all for things like Dragon Quest. You cannot tell a meaningful story about a protagonist with no personality. I know it's supposed to be there so the player can insert their own personality onto the blank slate, but there are just so many examples of better ways to do it.

I guess this is one (more) place where I'll agree to disagree. Not only do I not mind silent protagonists, I want more silent games. This should come as a surprise to no one, given my history of railing against story as little more than window-dressing for gameplay, of course.

But before you scroll down, read this: Any film student will tell you that good visual storytelling will work even with the volume turned off. The ability to use the medium to its potential is important for any medium, and I really feel that the essence of the game as a medium is in its gameplay. A good story is nice, and I don't mind it when it's good, but in many, many titles, I feel like stories actually obstruct or conceal fundamentally bad gameplay. One example I would trot out, for example, is the low-level content in Cataclysm for Gilneas and Kezan is dripping with story and exposition. There is no question that the developers invested tons of man-hours of work to create a very high production-value, curated opening for these two new races.

And they sucked. They were terrible, dreary, led by the nose carnival rides that afforded the player zero freedom, zero exploration, and zero empowerment. You're just playing out the part of a bit player in a drama about bigger and more important events than your character, while constantly being lied to about your importance in this farcical dumbshow. I wanted to like this content, and I generally like the World of Warcraft setting, but being funneled through 15 levels of unskippable, linear content systematically eradicated any interest I had in the story being told.

I've definitely seen great stories in video games. For me, the SW:TOR PC arcs are standouts, as is Bioshock Infinite. But these work in tandem with, and arguably because of, good gameplay. And I've definitely seen games in which the silent protagonist falls flat. But I'll take a silent protagonist in a strong game over the most nuanced and beautiful perforamance of someone else walking my character through cut-scenes every single day, because I play games to play them, not to watch machinima.

[Triaxx]

I'd also argue that a silent protagonist is not necessarily a featureless one. Looking at Link, once we got to the 3D Zelda games, where body language was a thing we could start to simulate, Link's body language became very much a part of his character. At times he'd step back, or set himself for a fight. Him not speaking wasn't an issue because his body language was telling his story.

[Traab]

I think the only time a voice actor protagonist would bug me is while playing a skyrim style game because then the character is supposed to be me. In ff7 it doesnt bother me if cloud talks in text or with a voice because that isnt me, its CLOUD. But when the character is a first person representative of "yourself" it kinda breaks immersion to hear a voice that isnt yours.

[The_Jackal]

I think the only time a voice actor protagonist would bug me is while playing a skyrim style game because then the character is supposed to be me. In ff7 it doesnt bother me if cloud talks in text or with a voice because that isnt me, its CLOUD. But when the character is a first person representative of "yourself" it kinda breaks immersion to hear a voice that isnt yours.

This is actually a very good point, though I'd also point out that there's ways around this. Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate (iirc) boasted multiple voice actors to choose from, so you could pick a voice for your Hero. And I always really liked the voice work for SW:TOR, such that I never felt like the chosen voice offended in any way, rather the reverse. And that's the way I feel about a lot of story elements in a game: If you're going to put it in, make it good. If you're not going to make it good, don't put it in.

[Keltest]

This is actually a very good point, though I'd also point out that there's ways around this. Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate (iirc) boasted multiple voice actors to choose from, so you could pick a voice for your Hero. And I always really liked the voice work for SW:TOR, such that I never felt like the chosen voice offended in any way, rather the reverse. And that's the way I feel about a lot of story elements in a game: If you're going to put it in, make it good. If you're not going to make it good, don't put it in.

One thing I liked about Dragon Age Inquisition was that you could choose your inquisitor's voice. The American and British accents lend themselves to very different characters. My only annoyance was that there were only two voices for each gender, across all the races, so you could have an elf with a very deep voice, or a Qunari who sounded like they sat around drinking tea all day.

[random11]

"Live services" and everything that comes from that model.
It was already mentioned here, so I don't find a reason to elaborate, but I did have to mention it as my #1 trend.

As for another problem, I would say inventory space.
In games like Terraria, I find that I have part of a the game involving going around doing stuff, another part of building my home, and the third part of inventory management that feels more like a chore than an actual part of a game.

Yes, I understand that limited inventory space is required as part of the game, but there are still ways to make it easier for the player in the "chores" phase.
For example, "Forager" did an excellent job with the inventory space and the extra storage chests you buy.
Obviously, every game will require its own solution based on the mechanics, but at least developers should be aware of it.

[spectralphoenix]

I think the biggest thing about a silent protagonist is how the other characters act around them. I thought Breath of the Wild did an okay job with Link - even in the cutscenes with lots of talking, he came off as kind of a quiet guy hanging out with a person who likes to talk. A lot of other games have points where your character really ought to be chiming in, but just stands around while everyone else talks over them. Crysis 2 was especially bad about that - your character nearly got shot because he was apparently incapable of just telling a guy what was going on. And I got thoroughly tired of the lampshading in Portal 2. Which is kind of weird, because the game is empty enough that they could probably get away with it. GLADOS and Wheatly talk a lot,but there was never much to be gained by talking back to them. DOOM(2016) also did a good job. There wasn't much to say, but it always seemed like the Doomguy was too angry to talk, not incapable.

[huttj509]

I think the biggest thing about a silent protagonist is how the other characters act around them. I thought Breath of the Wild did an okay job with Link - even in the cutscenes with lots of talking, he came off as kind of a quiet guy hanging out with a person who likes to talk. A lot of other games have points where your character really ought to be chiming in, but just stands around while everyone else talks over them. Crysis 2 was especially bad about that - your character nearly got shot because he was apparently incapable of just telling a guy what was going on. And I got thoroughly tired of the lampshading in Portal 2. Which is kind of weird, because the game is empty enough that they could probably get away with it. GLADOS and Wheatly talk a lot,but there was never much to be gained by talking back to them. DOOM(2016) also did a good job. There wasn't much to say, but it always seemed like the Doomguy was too angry to talk, not incapable.

With BotW there was a lampshade that I actually think added a nice dynamic with Zelda and her trying to be the person she was expected to be. Can't recall where, but in a diary entry or something it's written about how, when Link was chosen for his role, he decided he needed to be the serious stoic bodyguard type and talked even less than he had been inclined to before. Fitting into his image of what the chosen guardian was supposed to be.

Yes, it's an easy to miss throwaway lampshade, but it works wonderfully with Zelda's character, her struggling with expectations, and wondering if she's actually capable of what her destiny is supposed to be.