Gaming trends that irk you

[Traab]

I think my favorite game for balance issues was daoc. Its like they went out of their way to make it as impossible to truly balance as possible. First of all, three factions instead of two. Then literally every single class was faction specific. Yeah each faction had a tank, healer, or wizard, but they each had totally different playstyles, abilities, pros and cons. Same for every other class. And there were a LOT of classes. like, 45 classes. Every month was another patch nerfing this class or that class while buffing this class or that class. One class could go from god of pvp to utter trash overnight and then have to wait months for them to accept they over compensated and roll back the nerfs a bit. Meanwhile some other class found its dps tripled and became the new god. It was insane.

[Dienekes]

Nitpick, but the whole "better to gank than try to engage in an honorable duel" is a balance issue as well.

Like if there's multiple objectives that require the players to split up to complete, so if you seek to gank then you're sacrificing objective completion and by the time your 4x1 is finished the other 3 players from their team may've won by objective points.

Or there could be a significant buff for each enemy player beyond the first near you that is cancelled if there's player allies near you, so that if you try to gank somebody they go super sayan (recall Wow doing that in some PvP instances, if your team was outnumbered you got a buff to stats to even the odds).

Or even yet something like in dominions where if more than two players meet at the same place then they take turns fighting each other so ganking effectiveness is reduced (if you go second you'll be possibly fighting a worn down opponent, but not as brutal as facing 2+enemies simultaneously).

That is actually how one of the game modes was set up. And after a few balance patches I believe the meta did shift to one person squatting on the "home" point. 2 fighting in the middle. 1 roaming ganker. As far as I'm aware this worked fairly well. Especially when later maps added things like ballista to fight around.

[Anteros]

That all sounds very artificial and bad feeling to me. I don't want to lose fights against another player because they have arbitrarily stat boosts that they didn't even work for, and I don't want to win fights that way either. The whole point of PvP is pitting the character I've created against another human with my own skill.

At least if you lost to someone in arena gear it was because they actually worked to earn their stuff. It's not like you just got high tier PvP gear for free. You had to actually be decent at PvP to get it

[The_Jackal]

That all sounds very artificial and bad feeling to me. I don't want to lose fights against another player because they have arbitrarily stat boosts that they didn't even work for, and I don't want to win fights that way either. The whole point of PvP is pitting the character I've created against another human with my own skill.

At least if you lost to someone in arena gear it was because they actually worked to earn their stuff. It's not like you just got high tier PvP gear for free. You had to actually be decent at PvP to get it

Correction, you had to queue with a viable composition, and not be a muppet, and you could brute-force your way up the ranks. So, if you were a rogue, mage, or priest, who had access to the other two parts of that composition, your job was relatively easy. If you played one of the more niche/speedbump classes, without access to a strong comp, or lacking good teammates to help you through the slog, you were more or less unable to gear up, because the best items of PVP gear were capstones which you needed a good rating to acquire.

But this is all beside the point. The objective of any PVP reward system is to encourage people to play, not necessarily to win, and having to climb uphill through a slog of better-geared players is simply not fun. That was what made Arena terrible. Tiny maps, extremely simplistic and repetitive gameplay, and very little scope for player skill to express itself.

[Erloas]

I think my favorite game for balance issues was daoc. Its like they went out of their way to make it as impossible to truly balance as possible. First of all, three factions instead of two. Then literally every single class was faction specific. Yeah each faction had a tank, healer, or wizard, but they each had totally different playstyles, abilities, pros and cons. Same for every other class. And there were a LOT of classes. like, 45 classes. Every month was another patch nerfing this class or that class while buffing this class or that class. One class could go from god of pvp to utter trash overnight and then have to wait months for them to accept they over compensated and roll back the nerfs a bit. Meanwhile some other class found its dps tripled and became the new god. It was insane.

I thought that was one of the things that made DAOC great. Not the constant balancing, but the whole design, the fact that every side was unique. I also didn't find it that out of line balance wise. There were certain players/groups that were exceptionally good and well coordinated and they could wreck much larger forces, but that was more synergy than any given class, because there were always a dozen other people of the same classes that weren't a problem. There were clearly some issues, but I think it was usually widely overblown, which online communities have always been good at doing.
I also think the 3-way fighting made things a lot more interesting than just two sides, it always keep the battles more interesting and kept one side from dominating all the time. The biggest issue was server balance, as there were some servers that were very heavily skewed to one side and they would dominate that server, but it wasn't side specific because there were other servers that had a different side on top. I've seen plenty of times where the two weaker sides essentially called a truce and only attacked the stronger side, but I've also seen cases where the strong side was simply too strong to the point where the other sides essentially just gave up.

In a more general way, I think many PvP games would benefit from more than 2 sides to a conflict. I think that is also why battle royale games took off the way they did, because the power and map dynamic fluctuates significantly more.

[Anteros]

Correction, you had to queue with a viable composition, and not be a muppet, and you could brute-force your way up the ranks. So, if you were a rogue, mage, or priest, who had access to the other two parts of that composition, your job was relatively easy. If you played one of the more niche/speedbump classes, without access to a strong comp, or lacking good teammates to help you through the slog, you were more or less unable to gear up, because the best items of PVP gear were capstones which you needed a good rating to acquire.

But this is all beside the point. The objective of any PVP reward system is to encourage people to play, not necessarily to win, and having to climb uphill through a slog of better-geared players is simply not fun. That was what made Arena terrible. Tiny maps, extremely simplistic and repetitive gameplay, and very little scope for player skill to express itself.

From what I remember, getting the lower tier pvp armor was fairly easy and it was only the higher tier stuff that was difficult to get. There wasn't a huge difference between the two from what I recall except for the highest tier of weapons, and you were almost always better off using a weapon from PVE anyway because they were just objectively stronger, and burst damage is king in PVP. You weren't automatically doomed just because someone else had the higher tier of gear than you. It was an advantage, but one that could be overcome by skill, circumstance, or teamwork.

Regardless, the idea that having to actually be good and beat other players in order to earn rewards "not being fun" is subjective. As a competitive person, that's exactly what I want from a pvp game. Why should someone who has more free time than me but less skill always come out on top?

I never had a hard time finding a group or teammates either. Even when I played sub-par classes or specs, there was always someone in the guild or the friends list who would be willing to group up. It's a social game. I get that some people don't like dealing with that aspect of it, but I always accepted that premise going in.

[The_Jackal]

From what I remember, getting the lower tier pvp armor was fairly easy and it was only the higher tier stuff that was difficult to get. There wasn't a huge difference between the two from what I recall except for the highest tier of weapons, and you were almost always better off using a weapon from PVE anyway because they were just objectively stronger, and burst damage is king in PVP. You weren't automatically doomed just because someone else had the higher tier of gear than you. It was an advantage, but one that could be overcome by skill, circumstance, or teamwork.

Regardless, the idea that having to actually be good and beat other players in order to earn rewards "not being fun" is subjective. As a competitive person, that's exactly what I want from a pvp game. Why should someone who has more free time than me but less skill always come out on top?

I never had a hard time finding a group or teammates either. Even when I played sub-par classes or specs, there was always someone in the guild or the friends list who would be willing to group up. It's a social game. I get that some people don't like dealing with that aspect of it, but I always accepted that premise going in.

Well, having a full time job, and limited play time, and being a part of a largely casual an PVE oriented guild made finding people to team with very, very difficult. I suppose I could have switched servers, guilds, etc., but I (rationally) chose my friends and the content I actually enjoyed over the repetitive pillarhumping cheesefest that was Arena. Ultimately, I didn't want or need an entirely parallel grind sitting between me and the ability to defend myself in open-world PVP.

[Traab]

I thought that was one of the things that made DAOC great. Not the constant balancing, but the whole design, the fact that every side was unique. I also didn't find it that out of line balance wise. There were certain players/groups that were exceptionally good and well coordinated and they could wreck much larger forces, but that was more synergy than any given class, because there were always a dozen other people of the same classes that weren't a problem. There were clearly some issues, but I think it was usually widely overblown, which online communities have always been good at doing.
I also think the 3-way fighting made things a lot more interesting than just two sides, it always keep the battles more interesting and kept one side from dominating all the time. The biggest issue was server balance, as there were some servers that were very heavily skewed to one side and they would dominate that server, but it wasn't side specific because there were other servers that had a different side on top. I've seen plenty of times where the two weaker sides essentially called a truce and only attacked the stronger side, but I've also seen cases where the strong side was simply too strong to the point where the other sides essentially just gave up.

In a more general way, I think many PvP games would benefit from more than 2 sides to a conflict. I think that is also why battle royale games took off the way they did, because the power and map dynamic fluctuates significantly more.

I enjoyed the game a lot, dont get me wrong, its just that the endless attempts to balance were insane because how can you reasonably balance 45 unique classes against each other so there isnt one openly superior class or an objectively terrible one? You cant, so they were constantly tweaked. No not all patches were scorched earth class destroying or uber buffing ones, but everything was constantly being altered. Personally I loved my cabalist as ive always enjoyed playing pet classes and I found it hilarious at times to aoe dot everyone and everything in range and see who dies first in the huge melee of combat. And of course my pet fluctuating based on balance patches from speed bump to "HOLY GOD MY PET JUST SOLOED THAT GUY!"

[The_Jackal]

I enjoyed the game a lot, dont get me wrong, its just that the endless attempts to balance were insane because how can you reasonably balance 45 unique classes against each other so there isnt one openly superior class or an objectively terrible one? You cant, so they were constantly tweaked. No not all patches were scorched earth class destroying or uber buffing ones, but everything was constantly being altered. Personally I loved my cabalist as ive always enjoyed playing pet classes and I found it hilarious at times to aoe dot everyone and everything in range and see who dies first in the huge melee of combat. And of course my pet fluctuating based on balance patches from speed bump to "HOLY GOD MY PET JUST SOLOED THAT GUY!"

Well, yah can't, and this is just one reason among many I don't like the admixture of PVP and PVE. PVP is just so ruthlessly reductive, and long-term investment is part-and-parcel of the PVE progression experience, so you're more or less completely doomed to have balance problems plaguing your game forever. Someone is always going to be at the bottom of the pile, and will be too attached to their character to just re-roll the flavor of the month.

[Avilan the Grey]

Well for me what irks me is what irks a lot of people:

These trends; one is enough for me not to buy a game and if more than one line up, which they usually do...

1. Online Only
2. Forced Multiplayer
3. Loot Boxes
4. Micro Transactions

In short, this has killed my interest in a lot of things. Anthem, of course. I would never even consider buying that. But I have considered Bioware a dead man walking even before that; at this point EA is just trying to find an excuse to close down the studio I am sure.

Sadder, for me, is Bethesda. For me Bethesda, together with Paradox, were the last two AAA publishers that were somewhat decent. And then 76 happened. So, from where I am standing Elder Scrolls is a dead franchise. And FO5 will probably never happen, since they will dig deeper and deeper into a game I will never care about, have never cared about and just get frustrated thinking of. Forced Multiplayer: Check. Always Online, Check. NO STORY, Check. Destroying the lore? Check. Micro Transactions, Check. Basically Bethesda did a full 180 degrees, and became Activision. But incompetent.

So that are two of my favorite game studios... dead. At least to me.

[The_Jackal]

Well for me what irks me is what irks a lot of people:

These trends; one is enough for me not to buy a game and if more than one line up, which they usually do...

1. Online Only
2. Forced Multiplayer
3. Loot Boxes
4. Micro Transactions

In short, this has killed my interest in a lot of things. Anthem, of course. I would never even consider buying that. But I have considered Bioware a dead man walking even before that; at this point EA is just trying to find an excuse to close down the studio I am sure.

Sadder, for me, is Bethesda. For me Bethesda, together with Paradox, were the last two AAA publishers that were somewhat decent. And then 76 happened. So, from where I am standing Elder Scrolls is a dead franchise. And FO5 will probably never happen, since they will dig deeper and deeper into a game I will never care about, have never cared about and just get frustrated thinking of. Forced Multiplayer: Check. Always Online, Check. NO STORY, Check. Destroying the lore? Check. Micro Transactions, Check. Basically Bethesda did a full 180 degrees, and became Activision. But incompetent.

So that are two of my favorite game studios... dead. At least to me.

True, but I'm confident that there will be new publishers who will exploit the niche created by greedy publishers loading down games with casino-methodology vacating the single player game space. I've also made my peace with the whole lootbox system as essentially a method to subsidize games from the pockets of idiots. What lootboxes do is push money that used to go to third-party outfits like LegionFarm into the pockets of the publishers, and while it's by no means positive for regular games, that is less bad than the status quo it endeavors to replace. I still don't like them either, but I would definitely rather Epic, Activision, and EA collect that money than a bunch of Russian dirtbags:

Spoiler

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[Spore]

Yea, I think Yahtzee pointed out in one of his ZP episodes is that we are in an "innovation drought" where publisher milk existing concepts. Only problem is that these concepts are largely unattractive. Indies are popular more than ever before but their quality assurance is spotty at best.

*looks woefully at his We Happy Few preorder* Sigh, maybe Totalbiscuit's ghost haunt me for ever buying into preorder...

Thing is, with the gaming crash in the early 80s had similar signs before it. Shovelware and overpriced ****ty stuff, along with exploitative and plain bad advertisements. There are articles claiming, there will be a crash. But after a crash there will be new beginnings. And hopefully a few of the big bad companies will topple with it.

[Traab]

Speaking of online only. I hate having to constantly change my blizzard password when I get the urge to play a game I havent played in awhile like wow diablo 3 or starcraft 2 because its been so long it doesnt trust that im the account owner for whatever reason. I dont even play multiplayer for diablo or starcraft! JUST LET ME RUN THE GAME I PAID FOR!

[The_Jackal]

Yea, I think Yahtzee pointed out in one of his ZP episodes is that we are in an "innovation drought" where publisher milk existing concepts. Only problem is that these concepts are largely unattractive. Indies are popular more than ever before but their quality assurance is spotty at best.

*looks woefully at his We Happy Few preorder* Sigh, maybe Totalbiscuit's ghost haunt me for ever buying into preorder...

Thing is, with the gaming crash in the early 80s had similar signs before it. Shovelware and overpriced ****ty stuff, along with exploitative and plain bad advertisements. There are articles claiming, there will be a crash. But after a crash there will be new beginnings. And hopefully a few of the big bad companies will topple with it.

I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with popular games in concepts, they're just bogged down with tons of drudgery in the service of monetization. Destiny 2 isn't a bad game, and may even be a great game, if only the designers were given enough time to maintain quality, and if the reward system was not warped around driving stupid dollars to the Eververse. If you played the Forsaken expansion, you can see how outstanding the game design, art, and execution really is. It's just that the amount of content on offer isn't actually sufficient to drive the 'infinite replay/game as a service' business model the publishers want. If Destiny 2 were a single player game, or small group coop, with all the rewards gotten in game and for reasonable effort, like Skyrim, it would be lauded as a great title.

The Division 2 launched to huge acclaim, yet a few months later, the community is up in arms over broken itemization and pointless endgame. Again, in essence it's a fine game, it just falls apart in the face of being told you need to eat the same cake over and over again to get cool stuff. Your break out your wallet, of course.

GTAV, RDR2, Overwatch, Apex, they're all doing the same thing, desperately trying to come up with new ways to induce us to replay the same stuff over and over again, so that the carrot they're waving in front of us actually looks attractive enough to buy.

The irony is that I've played older games much more, and had more fun, simply because the progression felt better, because there wasn't nearly as much grind. I played Modern Warfare 2 and went through TEN prestige levels, because the progression is fun and rewarding, and the core gameplay was fun. And I would still be playing it, only the launch of the next title in the series cleared all the lobbies of everyone except the aimbotters.

What's my point? Progression systems feel fun, and can work to drive repeat engagement, but when you poison them with drudgery all to shunt people to your cash shop, you ruin your game, and you don't need to put in drudgery when the core gameplay is fun and engaging.

[The_Jackal]

Speaking of online only. I hate having to constantly change my blizzard password when I get the urge to play a game I havent played in awhile like wow diablo 3 or starcraft 2 because its been so long it doesnt trust that im the account owner for whatever reason. I dont even play multiplayer for diablo or starcraft! JUST LET ME RUN THE GAME I PAID FOR!

I earnestly exhort you to get an authenticator, and save the seed code somewhere safe, along with your Blizzard credentials.

[warty goblin]

Bucking trend here, but I'm actually quite fond of the current state of the games industry, at least release-wise.

Sure the really big publishers put out a lot of boring stuff, but this has been the case for most of ever. Sure occasionally a major studio drops something I really like, but mostly they're just sort of an acceptable, average kind of experience. Rather like most Marvel movies; lots of flash, ok while it lasts, but ultimately deeply unsatisfying at some primal level. I don't particularly do indie games either, since those tend to be a bit too minimalistic, or focused on genres and designs I don't find appealing.

No, the good thing is that we've got a reasonably healthy mid-tier back. It's not perhaps as robust as things were in, say, 2007 or so, but it's the best it's been all decade. To me this is where most of the good stuff is; enough budget and management structure to execute the sorts of complex designs that are generally of the reach of garage developers, but unburdened by being flagships for huge publishers and so free to do weird stuff, and often at the sort of price point that allows for enough jank to be enjoyable. I mean Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a game I've been fantasizing about since the first game in the series. Spellforce 3 is a rollicking good time. Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw is just a joy, and so on. I'm literally drowning in mid-size/lower-size goodness right now, and it's brilliant.

But that's just me. As is always the case with this sort of thing, stuff I find unspeakably boring is somebody else's game of the year, and my predilection for shuffling little dudes around hex maps probably strikes most people as about the most boring form of computer game imaginable. The presence of a lot of stuff that bores me but apparently sells well is in a lot of ways a sign of a healthy industry, since it means a wide variety of tastes are being catered to.

[Velaryon]

Discussion has largely moved on, so I'll keep replies short.

I've never played For Honor, but I'd point out that fighting games' control schemes would really struggle to handle PVP multiplayer combat well.

Yeah, For Honor was trying to be a fighting game with Dynasty Warriors tacked on, and as a result didn't manage to be wonderful at either.

And I am talking about duel mode. Which basically died because of the 1v1 balance issues I outlined.

Good to know, but you didn't make that clear previously. However, that was one mode out of what, half a dozen? And all the others suffer from team ganking being the only viable strategy.

With regard to the faction war rewards, it's been awhile since I uninstalled so I'll not argue this point even though that's not how I remember it.

If you leave overpowered moves at high level of play then you are rewarding players for not getting better at the game. And that’s bad design.

On the other hand, if you balance exclusively around the people who play games for a living, you make the game unfun if not unplayable for everyone else. Video games are entertainment and should be treated as such. Becoming the best player ever isn't and shouldn't be necessary for 99.9% of people to be able to have an enjoyable gameplay experience.

Nitpick, but the whole "better to gank than try to engage in an honorable duel" is a balance issue as well.

Like if there's multiple objectives that require the players to split up to complete, so if you seek to gank then you're sacrificing objective completion and by the time your 4x1 is finished the other 3 players from their team may've won by objective points.

Perhaps For Honor would benefit from introducing objectives to its multiplayer modes, but as of last time I played it, there weren't any except perhaps in one mode, and even there team ganking was still more than viable.

[Zevox]

Bucking trend here, but I'm actually quite fond of the current state of the games industry, at least release-wise.

The same, actually, coming from someone who mostly plays games coming out of big Japanese companies, with a handful of big western releases mixed in. I've had an unusually high rate of new releases that I've been highly recommending to friends the past year or two - the new God of War, Spider-Man, Dragon Quest 11, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Super Mario Odyssey, Devil May Cry 5, Nier: Automata, Tales of Berseria, and if you go back a few years of course Persona 5. It's to the point where one of my friends recently half-jokingly complained that I've been giving too many recommendations for great games and he doesn't have time for them all. And while they're not out yet, Platinum Games' track record means that them having both a new IP (Astral Chain) about to come out and Bayonetta 3 in the works is a couple more I can be pretty strongly confident I'll be giving such recommendations to.

And the state of fighting games in particular, a genre I've grown more and more attached to in the past decade since first getting into them, has been fantastic recently. Last year alone released three of my favorites ever in Dragon Ball FighterZ, BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. My favorite developer of the genre, ArcSystem Works, has generally been on the rise, getting more opportunities to make licensed games (such as the aforementioned Dragon Ball FighterZ) thrown their way, in addition to continuing to make their own series (Guilty Gear and BlazBlue), and they've all been turning out great. And other developers for the genre have been pretty successful and pumping out other styles of fighting games for those that prefer them, from the big success of big names like Tekken 7 and Mortal Kombat 11 to the revival of a long-dead, much more obscure series like Samurai Shodown. And while not all of those are to my liking personally it's good to see the genre healthy enough to have such variety around, despite it being a rather niche genre outside of specifically Mortal Kombat and Smash Brothers. Aside from Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite flopping two years ago, the genre's probably in the best shape it's ever been in.

My only big regrets at the moment are Bioware and The Legend of Zelda moving in the open-world direction, really. That basically killed those for me, sadly. But oh well, plenty of great stuff to enjoy lately anyway.

[deuterio12]

My only big regrets at the moment are Bioware and The Legend of Zelda moving in the open-world direction, really. That basically killed those for me, sadly. But oh well, plenty of great stuff to enjoy lately anyway.

Mandatory "Zelda started as an open-world game before it was cool" post. Seriously they just dropped you in the middle of the map, you could complete the dungeons in whatever order and even the classic sword was only essential for the final boss.

Still +1 that the current gaming industry being pretty good if you care to search a bit through the bad eggs, just like in the old days. There was plenty of crap back then, it's just that the good stuff is what gets remembered (and with rose-tinted glasses to boot). Same nowadays, there may be plenty of micro-transaction-riddled unimaginative, but the innovative good gems are still more than enough to fill my gaming time (if not overflow it).

[Rodin]

Mandatory "Zelda started as an open-world game before it was cool" post. Seriously they just dropped you in the middle of the map, you could complete the dungeons in whatever order and even the classic sword was only essential for the final boss.

Still +1 that the current gaming industry being pretty good if you care to search a bit through the bad eggs, just like in the old days. There was plenty of crap back then, it's just that the good stuff is what gets remembered (and with rose-tinted glasses to boot). Same nowadays, there may be plenty of micro-transaction-riddled unimaginative, but the innovative good gems are still more than enough to fill my gaming time (if not overflow it).

I watch a lot of Kusogrande (bad video game tournament), and they often go into the history of the companies behind these terrible games. Today's environment strikes me as pretty similar - you can have small companies churning out a lot of dreck and staying afloat because the team is so small, and digital distribution has made that easier than ever. There's an ocean of crap, and you just have to sift through to find the good stuff. And with the Internet, you don't even have to be the one doing the searching.

I don't foresee a crash, because gaming is a lot more entrenched in the public consciousness than it was back then. The pool of players is so big and diverse that it's impossible for even the failure of multiple large companies to cause a crash - their competitors will just move into the space they left behind.

[Zombimode]

Bucking trend here, but I'm actually quite fond of the current state of the games industry, at least release-wise.

Same here.

The last 6 years or so have been absolutely stellar for gaming (well, PC-gaming at least).

For me, the years between 2006 and about 2012 that are the most deserted and desperate years of gaming. I had pretty much lost faith in the gaming industry and held the firm believe that "they don't make games for me anymore". Ironically this is the timeframe where both Witcher and Mass Effect arose, two of my most beloved game series. But I discovered these games only much later, and other than that only a very small number of games came out in that time period that I actually enjoyed (Dragon Age Origins, and the first two Risen games).

Then, a number of developments arround 2013 and onwards made it possible for "mid-tier" and "above-garage-level" indie game to arise: Kickstarter/alternative finacing models, changes in publishing and distribution (the rise of GoG and policy changes for Steam), and also changes in customer expectations (games dont have to be "cuting edge" to be worthwhile).

This is what made games like Shadowrun Dragon Fall, Tyranny, Soma, Divinity Original Sin and Life is Strange possible. And there is no end in sight

So, where I stand there has never be a better time to be a gamer then now

[Zevox]

Mandatory "Zelda started as an open-world game before it was cool" post. Seriously they just dropped you in the middle of the map, you could complete the dungeons in whatever order and even the classic sword was only essential for the final boss.

To which my response is that that doesn't matter in any way to my criticism. Even if we pretended that the original Zelda and Breath of the Wild were somehow completely equivalent in that regard (which I find incredibly dubious), the entire rest of the series has not been like that, and I liked the series as it was in between those games. (Or, more specifically, from about Ocarina of Time onward. I enjoyed the 2D ones I played too, but never as much as the 3D ones.) So you cannot argue that it was not a big change for the franchise, and that change is my criticism and my reason for not wanting to play Breath of the Wild or any future games in that vein.

[joeybkimura]

One thing I really hate about modern games in general is the flat out linearity.
When it comes to FPS games, I see the FOV. 90 used to be the standard in almost all FPS games, now it's usually 60-80. I understand that they might be trying to increase the framerate a little bit, and maybe make things look less distorted on widescreen (which is starting to/already has taken over 4:3), but seriously, it looks awful, on 4:3 anyway.

I had to change my Rage config to use 90, but that introduced a few oddities. Namely, the weapons look too far away now, despite only being 10 more degrees of view, and I can see where the arms cut off at the shoulder. That, and whenever I load a game while I was already ingame, it changes back to the default 80!

[deuterio12]

To which my response is that that doesn't matter in any way to my criticism. Even if we pretended that the original Zelda and Breath of the Wild were somehow completely equivalent in that regard (which I find incredibly dubious), the entire rest of the series has not been like that, and I liked the series as it was in between those games. (Or, more specifically, from about Ocarina of Time onward. I enjoyed the 2D ones I played too, but never as much as the 3D ones.) So you cannot argue that it was not a big change for the franchise, and that change is my criticism and my reason for not wanting to play Breath of the Wild or any future games in that vein.

Great, because I was arguing about your previous post where you were complaining about Zelda in general when the new Link's Awakening in 3D is coming right around the corner, not about Breath of the Wild in specific. You've got the choice of both open world and linear 3D Zelda, what else do you want? Battle royale Zelda shooter with microtransactions?

[Zevox]

Great, because I was arguing about your previous post where you were complaining about Zelda in general when the new Link's Awakening in 3D is coming right around the corner, not about Breath of the Wild in specific. You've got the choice of both open world and linear 3D Zelda, what else do you want? Battle royale Zelda shooter with microtransactions?

Okay, first of all, Link's Awakening is not a 3D Zelda game, it's a 2D one - updated visuals in the remake don't change that. Second, that's just a remake of a game I already have, not anything new, and it's honestly not one of the series' better games in my opinion, so it does nothing for me. I'm unlikely to want to replay that one, but if I did I could just dust off my GBASP and my copy of Link's Awakening DX.

Now, if they were making a new game in that vein, it might mean something to me. If they were making a new game in the vein of the OoT-SS games, it definitely would. But a mere remake of Link's Awakening? Nah.

[Erloas]

One thing I really hate about modern games in general is the flat out linearity.
When it comes to FPS games, I see the FOV. 90 used to be the standard in almost all FPS games, now it's usually 60-80. I understand that they might be trying to increase the framerate a little bit, and maybe make things look less distorted on widescreen (which is starting to/already has taken over 4:3), but seriously, it looks awful, on 4:3 anyway.

I had to change my Rage config to use 90, but that introduced a few oddities. Namely, the weapons look too far away now, despite only being 10 more degrees of view, and I can see where the arms cut off at the shoulder. That, and whenever I load a game while I was already ingame, it changes back to the default 80!

I'm not sure what you actually mean by linearity, given the rest of the post.

As for field of view, I haven't noticed any issue with that. Of course I really have to wonder who uses a 4:3 display any more. 1080p has been around for just short of 20 years and started hitting wide spread, regular consumer levels, for like 15 years. (Blue-Ray, PS3, Xbox 360 all came out around 2005-2006).
As such, designing a game to look good on a 4:3 display rather than a 16:9 display hasn't made sense for a developer in a decade.

[Rynjin]

One thing I really hate about modern games in general is the flat out linearity.
When it comes to FPS games, I see the FOV. 90 used to be the standard in almost all FPS games, now it's usually 60-80. I understand that they might be trying to increase the framerate a little bit, and maybe make things look less distorted on widescreen (which is starting to/already has taken over 4:3), but seriously, it looks awful, on 4:3 anyway.

I had to change my Rage config to use 90, but that introduced a few oddities. Namely, the weapons look too far away now, despite only being 10 more degrees of view, and I can see where the arms cut off at the shoulder. That, and whenever I load a game while I was already ingame, it changes back to the default 80!

Yeah, widescreen hasn't "started to" replace 4:3, it has. A long time since. You have to go bargain hunting at an old and used appliance store to buy a 4:3 tv screen these days.

It's also not JUST the screen size though. Modern FPS games tend to deal with longer sightlines than classic arena-style games. A narrower FOV increases vision over distance, where a wider FOV makes it easier to see enemies to your side trying to flank you. Optimal FOV width depends on the game.

[Yora]

My only big regrets at the moment are Bioware and The Legend of Zelda moving in the open-world direction, really. That basically killed those for me, sadly. But oh well, plenty of great stuff to enjoy lately anyway.

Open world games are the blight of our current age. There are some open world games that I quite like, but I always think how much better they probably would have been with much smaller worlds and all the crafting padding removed. Just the great main quest stuff. But you can't have a 30 hour game these days, so those 30 hours of quality gameplay get dilluted by 70 hours of collecting crafting material and fighting generic bandit/monster lairs.

Witcher 3 could have been amazing at the scale of Witcher 2. I am just coming around to giving Metro Exodus a try, since I've been hearing that it's not really open world, and that the crafting is very simple and actually gets you different equipment, instead of upgrading your +27 stick to a +28 stick. But still very weary that the open world elements might ruin the things that are great about the series.

[The_Jackal]

It's also not JUST the screen size though. Modern FPS games tend to deal with longer sightlines than classic arena-style games. A narrower FOV increases vision over distance, where a wider FOV makes it easier to see enemies to your side trying to flank you. Optimal FOV width depends on the game.

And the size & resolution of your display. You're going to benefit much more from a wide FoV setting on a 30" screen than a 22".

[Zevox]

Open world games are the blight of our current age. There are some open world games that I quite like, but I always think how much better they probably would have been with much smaller worlds and all the crafting padding removed. Just the great main quest stuff. But you can't have a 30 hour game these days, so those 30 hours of quality gameplay get dilluted by 70 hours of collecting crafting material and fighting generic bandit/monster lairs.

Witcher 3 could have been amazing at the scale of Witcher 2. I am just coming around to giving Metro Exodus a try, since I've been hearing that it's not really open world, and that the crafting is very simple and actually gets you different equipment, instead of upgrading your +27 stick to a +28 stick. But still very weary that the open world elements might ruin the things that are great about the series.

I mean, I personally feel similarly, but I think calling them the "blight of our age" is overblowing it. I'm fine with them existing for those that like them, I can avoid them just as easily as I do sports games or FPS games - it just disappoints and saddens me when a series that I previously liked decides to switch to that style of game design.