Good and Bad Video Game Conventions

This topic is all about video game conventions you like and video game conventions you don't like. For me:

Likes
- Checkpoints. It’s nice when you only need to backtrack a minute as opposed to half an hour. In my last mission of Grand Theft Auto IV, for example
I had to drive a long distance, follow a car for a long distance, have a cover-shootout outside, cover-shoot my way through all the floors of a building, cover-shoot on the roof, chase a man in a motorcycle, successfully drive up a ramp and get enough air to reach a helicopter, shoot a boat from the helicopter while dodging missiles, and then have another shootout. And if I dare screwed up a single one of those mistakes, I would have to do the whole thing over again.
- Thoroughly differentiated classes. Not every combatant should be able to heal/cast spells/summon/fight/use stealth.
- Multiple available fighting styles and ways of winning any particular fight.
- The ability to choose between original vs. dubbed audio and the ability to toggle subtitles.
- A long, densely packed main story line. Side missions are fun too, but they are rarely as interesting as the missions that unravel the main story.
- Your main character having his/her own personal story.
- Fast travel systems.

Dislikes
- Starting off the game as powerful as you could ever hope to be, losing it all after the first mission, then spending the whole game just getting back to the same level or less than that.
- Cut scenes you can’t skip.
- No upgrades.
- Overusing the same setting. Europe in World War II and England in the medieval era have been explored more than enough times.
- Having the story told through long, silent, ignorable, scrollable text.
- Stereotypical characters.
- Only one available save slot. I see no advantage to this whatsoever.
- Fixed cameras.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Good idea for a thread. Let's see...

Likes

Skill-based character development
The ability to choose between original vs. dubbed audio and the ability to toggle subtitles (as opposed to just a dub)

Hates

Random Battles
World War 2
All the idiots who plague online games
 

Okin

The Ultimate Battle Creature
Likes:
-The ability to choose between original vs. dubbed audio and the ability to toggle subtitles (as opposed to just a dub)
-A long, densely packed main story line. Side missions are fun too, but they are rarely as interesting as the missions that unravel the main story.
-Your main character having his/her own personal story
-Fast travel systems
-Rewards for fighting off 200 waves of enemies only using a wrench without getting hit
-Intricate skills and ability trees
-Recurring characters
-Optional weapon upgrades
-Alternate mission objectives
-Being able to keep enemies airborne for extended periods of time
-Being able to web sling across New York, and hang a beaten up thug on every streetlight in Manhattan

Dislikes:
-Weapon Durability
-New main character who looks exactly like the original and play the same way, but is annoying as hell and lame
-Weight Restrictions (If it fits in my bag, I can run with it!)
-360 mics
-360 online players
-Energy shields
-Crouch healing instead of health bars
-Too low strength to wear a belt with more potion slots
-Non-playable combat phases
-Infinitely spawning enemies
-Weapon and Map packs for 'tards with too much money and no other games, that make you better than players who have been winning for months on skill alone
-Guild Drama
-Achievements that don't unlock anything
-Moral Choice systems with identical storyline and ending
-Killing off named characters as part of game play mechanics when you could win without doing it easily or instead just make it part of the cut scene
-RPGs that don't let you get a shiny sword because you took to long in the campaign because you were dicking around looking for all the other shiny swords beforehand
-4 players can't play online using the same 360
 
Likes
2D Graphics / Side Scrolling - Just because we can effortlessly make it 3D doesn't mean we should abandon everything 2D, so it's refreshing when I still see an honest attempt made at that.

Item Creation/Customization/Growth - FFVII Materia, Morrowind Enchanting and Alchemy, Diablo II runes and gems, Star Ocean. Love stuff like that.


Dislikes
Random Loot - If I want something, I should be able to go and get it. I hate putting forth effort for nothing in a video game. And then doing it twice, three times, four times, fuck! DROP ALREADY! Such is life, but I'm playing a video game! Put in proper context, what I AM getting isn't even real, so not getting it is even worse, if that makes sense.

Competitive Rigging - If I stomp, I stomp. I don't want the AI to start cheating when it falls so desperately behind, in a developer's lazy attempt to keep the game challenging. Just how I don't like playing real people who are obviously using cheats to gain an edge. That's what difficulty settings are for.
 
Hm... sometimes it depends on the particular Game in question (for example, i didn't miss mid-level-checkpoints in demon's souls, where I'd like to have more in other Games), but here are some points that go in general:

good (and too often not implemented):
- ability to watch the cutscenes after playthrough (would have liked this in MGS4)
- ability to fight Bosses again after playthrough (would have liked this in... pretty much every game, Zelda in particular)
- customizable buttonlayout (in a PC-game, this is a given, how come most console-games don't have that feature?)
- Split-screen coop
- unlimited inventory space (even in a hardcore-rpg like Balder's gate, having a restriction on how much stuff you can carry is just annoying. It's unrealistic anyway, as long as you can run around with a complete second armorset. constraints regarding the weight of what you actually wear are a different story)
- being able to save anywhere i want and continue from that exact location (again, a given in most PC-games. Why do i have to stick to checkpoints in a console game? It's certainly not a matter of limited storage capacity)

bad (and too often found):
- only access to 2 Weapons at a time in shooters (what has happend to the good old days, where near the end of a game, you ran around with a complete arsenal of destruction, from a pistol to a gatling, from a knife to a plasma rifle? I want Turok1/2-style arsenals back!)
- only one savegame that gets overwritten when you start a new game (sucks bad if you're halfway through a game and want to show the beginning to a friend)
- DLC that unlocks content already on the disc (OK, this is not found that often yet)
- upgrades to stuff via using said stuff (be it stats, be it weapons... i just don't like this, give me exp to spend on abilities)
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Gaahl said:
good (and too often not implemented):
- unlimited inventory space (even in a hardcore-rpg like Balder's gate, having a restriction on how much stuff you can carry is just annoying. It's unrealistic anyway, as long as you can run around with a complete second armorset. constraints regarding the weight of what you actually wear are a different story)
Annoying, sure. But having a limit is there for a reason. It makes you prioritize what you have in your bag, and make tough decisions on what items to pick up. A good example of this phenomena is Mass Effect 1. While it had a limited inventory, it was filled with garbage that you automatically picked up in the game. If you had an unlimited inventory, you'd end up with a cluttered inventory like in ME1, only there'd be no end to the trash bin. That's not fun. THAT's annoying.

- being able to save anywhere i want and continue from that exact location (again, a given in most PC-games. Why do i have to stick to checkpoints in a console game? It's certainly not a matter of limited storage capacity)
My feeling on this differs. On the one hand, I think every game should adopt what the Nintendo DS has managed to do with "sleep mode" when you close the device. That's a crucial feature to my playing of most DS games.

However, if you mean being able to develop an archive of dozens of different saves at any given moment, I think that's a matter of balancing the challenge in a game. It's a design decision on the game maker's part.

If you could save every single second it would ruin the pacing, suspense and challenge of most games. The worst case scenario for this is Half Life. It allows you to save every second of the game, if you want, and it's such a poison pill. You want to play through the game vanilla to get the intended experience, but since you have the option to quicksave at any moment, you end up tapping that key like a crack fiend every time you're about to turn a corner -- just in case you run into an enemy and think you could have done that scene .5% more efficiently. RELOAD.

The better design in that case would be to structure the battles so the player doesn't feel too overwhelmed, and not feel the NEED to save every five seconds, just because you have that option.

bad (and too often found):
- only access to 2 Weapons at a time in shooters (what has happend to the good old days, where near the end of a game, you ran around with a complete arsenal of destruction, from a pistol to a gatling, from a knife to a plasma rifle? I want Turok1/2-style arsenals back!)
Sorry, I'm not too familiar with console games recently. What games limit you to two weapons? Anyway, again this kind of limitation is there to focus the suspense and force you to make tough decisions. In a game like Dead Space or Resident Evil 5, having instant access to a virtually unlimited arsenal would completely ruin the atmosphere and sense of dread those games attempt to convey.

- only one savegame that gets overwritten when you start a new game (sucks bad if you're halfway through a game and want to show the beginning to a friend)
Again, in what games does this happen? It sounds like a rare occurrence.

- upgrades to stuff via using said stuff (be it stats, be it weapons... i just don't like this, give me exp to spend on abilities)
I wholeheartedly disagree. This is the BEST way to level things up, imo. It's worked well in every game I've ever played, the best example coming to mind is Secret of Mana. Like the sword? Keep using it. It will level up with each kill. That's a tangible leveling system, and it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is some arbitrary "at level 6 you get a new sword ability!" unlock, ala Final Fantasy or "you got 500XP but 2AP. Use your accumulated 200AP to advance your sword skill?"
 
Walter said:
Annoying, sure. But having a limit is there for a reason. It makes you prioritize what you have in your bag, and make tough decisions on what items to pick up. A good example of this phenomena is Mass Effect 1. While it had a limited inventory, it was filled with garbage that you automatically picked up in the game. If you had an unlimited inventory, you'd end up with a cluttered inventory like in ME1, only there'd be no end to the trash bin. That's not fun. THAT's annoying.
The problem with the tough decisions is just, that you are rarely ever really forced to leave important stuff behind. The situation is mostly either "OK, i take the detour to my bank/stash/vendor to make room" or "OK, i dump those 10 short swords i found to make room".
Neither of this is fun. It's a different case with games like Dead space or Resident Evil, where you really need to chose if you bring a lot of firepower or a lot of healing items. In most rpgs however, limited inventory is more of an annoyance to me than it adds atmosphere.
My favorite rpg to this date is Gothic, and i don't think it would be a better game with a limited inventory.

My feeling on this differs. On the one hand, I think every game should adopt what the Nintendo DS has managed to do with "sleep mode" when you close the device. That's a crucial feature to my playing of most DS games.

However, if you mean being able to develop an archive of dozens of different saves at any given moment, I think that's a matter of balancing the challenge in a game. It's a design decision on the game maker's part.

If you could save every single second it would ruin the pacing, suspense and challenge of most games. The worst case scenario for this is Half Life. It allows you to save every second of the game, if you want, and it's such a poison pill. You want to play through the game vanilla to get the intended experience, but since you have the option to quicksave at any moment, you end up tapping that key like a crack fiend every time you're about to turn a corner -- just in case you run into an enemy and think you could have done that scene .5% more efficiently. RELOAD.

The better design in that case would be to structure the battles so the player doesn't feel too overwhelmed, and not feel the NEED to save every five seconds, just because you have that option.
OK, i could have been more clear on this one. What i mean is this "sleep mode" solution, i.e. if you choose to "save and exit", you can resume exactly where you stopped. Rapid saving at every corner can indeed kill the experience.

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with console games recently. What games limit you to two weapons? Anyway, again this kind of limitation is there to focus the suspense and force you to make tough decisions. In a game like Dead Space or Resident Evil 5, having instant access to a virtually unlimited arsenal would completely ruin the atmosphere and sense of dread those games attempt to convey.
Again, in what games does this happen? It sounds like a rare occurrence.
From the top of my head: Crysis, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, Gears of War, The Conduit... i suspect Modern Warfare doing this as well, though I'm not sure, as i don't have it. Technically you are not limited to two weapons, you get to carry one or two "big" weapons, and then you have a pistol/knife/grenades besides that. When you walk over a dropped weapon, it does not say "pick up Weapon", but "switch weapon X with weapon Y. Again, you are right when it comes to the likes of Resident Evil/Dead Space, but in action oriented "you against the world" shooters, the classic approach is just more fun.

I wholeheartedly disagree. This is the BEST way to level things up, imo. It's worked well in every game I've ever played, the best example coming to mind is Secret of Mana. Like the sword? Keep using it. It will level up with each kill. That's a tangible leveling system, and it makes sense. What doesn't make sense is some arbitrary "at level 6 you get a new sword ability!" unlock, ala Final Fantasy or "you got 500XP but 2AP. Use your accumulated 200AP to advance your sword skill?"
It makes sense that you get better at doing something if you do it, no question.
However, from a practical point of view, it can easily become an annoyance.
I get better at jumping if i jump a lot, so i run around jumping like a frog in Oblivion.
The first Weapon i get in Darksiders is a sword, and by the time i get the scythe, my sword is already leveled up, thus more effective in combat.
To level my scythe i either backtrack to earlier locations, where enemies are weaker, or i progress with less power than i could until my new weapon is on par with my old. Both is not fun.
Sure, it's not entirely logical to spend 500 mysterious points in a status-screen and *boom* you are a master at blind one-armed cooking,
but you have ultimately more control over the development of your character.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Gaahl said:
Neither of this is fun. It's a different case with games like Dead space or Resident Evil, where you really need to chose if you bring a lot of firepower or a lot of healing items. In most rpgs however, limited inventory is more of an annoyance to me than it adds atmosphere.
It adds challenge, which I think is something you've been shying away from discussing in all of these critiques. Unlimited inventory, unlimited saves and unlimited weapons at your disposal would make for a pretty easy game, and one difficult for designers to make challenging and/or fun.

OK, i could have been more clear on this one. What i mean is this "sleep mode" solution, i.e. if you choose to "save and exit", you can resume exactly where you stopped. Rapid saving at every corner can indeed kill the experience.
Yep. We're in agreement here on both points.

From the top of my head: Crysis, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, Gears of War, The Conduit... i suspect Modern Warfare doing this as well, though I'm not sure, as i don't have it. Technically you are not limited to two weapons, you get to carry one or two "big" weapons, and then you have a pistol/knife/grenades besides that. When you walk over a dropped weapon, it does not say "pick up Weapon", but "switch weapon X with weapon Y.
Ah, now I see what you mean. But, that's been a standard convention for several years, and for good reason. A game like Serious Sam exemplifies why that "access to all weapons immediately" convention was abandoned. It's just ridiculous. Shooters since the turn of the century have been striving for realism in all aspects, and carting around everything from a silenced 9mm, to 3 different melee weapons, to a portable nuke launcher isn't very realistic. It's also not been a problem with me, personally. In Crysis, for example, there's nearly always optional weapons lying on the ground for you to swap out if you're feeling like you're more in a shotgun mood. But for the most part, the assault rifle will get you through the game in good standing.

With most shooter franchises the limitation of weapons also helps balance multiplayer games. You generally can't have a one-man walking tank anymore. Even the most skilled player on a server has to choose their weapon loadout carefully, and every weapon has a weakness or a blindspot. A rudimentary example that's very evident in the CoD franchise: The best sniper in the game is vulnerable at close range; and the best close-combat specialist has little chance of hitting a target at a distance.

It makes sense that you get better at doing something if you do it, no question.
However, from a practical point of view, it can easily become an annoyance.
I get better at jumping if i jump a lot, so i run around jumping like a frog in Oblivion.
Gah, I knew you'd bring up Oblivion. That was just a badly implemented system. It's retarded that there's even a "jump" stat, and I think we can both agree on that. It's the low-hanging fruit of that game's level-up system. But in other instances, it works very well.

The first Weapon i get in Darksiders is a sword, and by the time i get the scythe, my sword is already leveled up, thus more effective in combat. To level my scythe i either backtrack to earlier locations, where enemies are weaker, or i progress with less power than i could until my new weapon is on par with my old. Both is not fun.
Again that sounds like a bad implementation of the use-it-level-it system, and bad design in general to not incentivize you to switch weapons.

but you have ultimately more control over the development of your character.
But less control and incentive in the moment-to-moment gameplay. SoM for example again, you know that with each enemy you kill, you're getting a fraction better at that skill. So you have an instant gratification in attacking enemies.
 
Walter said:
It adds challenge, which I think is something you've been shying away from discussing in all of these critiques. Unlimited inventory, unlimited saves and unlimited weapons at your disposal would make for a pretty easy game, and one difficult for designers to make challenging and/or fun.
Oh, don't get me wrong, i do like challenging games. The question is, wherein lies the challenge?
Demon's souls is challenging, but not because you can only carry so many lbs worth of items.
Shooters can be difficult, regardless of how many weapons you can carry.

Shooters since the turn of the century have been striving for realism in all aspects
Sad but true. For the same reason, enemies in modern shooters are armed with a) shotguns, b)assaultrifles or, in rare cases, rpgs.
some might throw the occasional grenade. Which gets us to the next point...

In Crysis, for example, there's nearly always optional weapons lying on the ground for you to swap out if you're feeling like you're more in a shotgun mood. But for the most part, the assault rifle will get you through the game in good standing.
Yep, they do mostly lie around, so i might just as well have them with me.
What it comes down to is just the amount of effort i have to do in order to switch to the weapon i want to use.
3 times mousewheel up vs. run back to that camp where i left that sniper rifle.
While the latter is more realistic and tactical and all, the first would allow the Dev's to send more diverse enemies at me at once, hence more interesting combat and more fun.
If I'm not supposed to use a certain weapon in a certain location, just don't have ammo for it lying around in that location.
Did i mention that i dislike the necessity to reload weapons? :guts:

It might be my personal preference, but i had more fun playing Turok or Serious Sam or Painkiller or Doom3 or Half Life 2, than any of these realistic military shooters. The former just have more variety in every aspect: weapons, enemies, settings... I'd like to see an old school fps
with the same production value as MW2, but i guess i shouldn't hope... Maybe Rage will deliver in this regard, or Doom 4 should it really come...

With most shooter franchises the limitation of weapons also helps balance multiplayer games.
The most fun and best balanced multiplayer is imo found in Quake 3 Arena or Unreal Tournament. These games certainly don't suffer from the fact that one player can collect 8 different weapons.


Basically, a game should be fun. It can be fun because it is challenging, it can be fun because it is completely over the top, it can even be realistic and still fun. At the end of the day, it's the overall experience that counts.
Would a highly realistic WW2 shooter be better game without reloading weapons and the player sporting an arsenal of doom? No, certainly not.
Would Painkiller be a better game, if i could only carry 2 guns? No, certainly not.

But let's take Demon's Souls: If you try to pick up more Items than you can carry, you can't do it. If you equip more than you can wear, you are slowed down to crawling speed. I'm bold and say, yes this game would be better if this was reversed.
Would Diablo2 be better with unlimited storage? Yes, due to mule-characters you basically have unlimited space allready, it's just tedious to use it.

Oh, by the way, one more thing i absolutely don't like in games, especially in rpgs:
Monsters that level up as you do.
This is something like a rubberband-ai in a racing game. Again, Oblivion is a prime example of how not to do it (where the heck did these bandits get that armor and why is this rat tougher than the first bear i met?).
If i get stronger in a rpg, i want to see this, i want to feel this. I want to beat that Wolf i couldn't beat before and want to be able to explore that cave that was too dangerous before. Did i mention just how much i liked Gothic? :griffnotevil:
That doesn't mean that the world should be static, and I'm the only one getting stronger, but if you do power up my foes, please do it in a believable way.
 
Likes:
- Subtitles on every single speech of the game. It's almost disrespectful not to implement this simple "feature". http://www.deafgamers.com/

Dislikes:
- Bad, clichéd character designs in general, and by extention...
- ...Tetsuya Nomura
- Sequels that don't involve the creator(s) of the original game.

Walter said:
SoM for example again, you know that with each enemy you kill, you're getting a fraction better at that skill. So you have an instant gratification in attacking enemies.

I don't think there's too much of a difference. In the end, if you want to be super powerful, you'll just find yourself slashing through enemies just to get the weapon to a higher level, or as was Grandia's case, getting hit on purpose and healing yourself for a thousand hours just to get the higher level of the healing spell, for example. What's the difference? I was just bored, pressing "MAGIC->HEAL" for hours instead of going to the menu and choosing to level it up.

They're both superficial ways to give the character new techniques or strength, it's not like the player's getting better with the skills he's using or, to be more literal, by just pressing one button. The opposite would happen if you insisted on playing a fighting game, you would eventually learn new tricks, new combinations and learn to be more powerful with time. On SoM you're just pretending you're learning, just like on Final Fantasy.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Gaahl said:
Did i mention that i dislike the necessity to reload weapons? :guts:
It might be my personal preference, but i had more fun playing Turok or Serious Sam or Painkiller or Doom3 or Half Life 2, than any of these realistic military shooters. The former just have more variety in every aspect: weapons, enemies, settings... I'd like to see an old school fps
The most fun and best balanced multiplayer is imo found in Quake 3 Arena or Unreal Tournament. These games certainly don't suffer from the fact that one player can collect 8 different weapons.
It sounds to me like when you say shooters you're really referring to the subgenre of arcade shooters. But these games haven't been the dominant genre for several years. Tactical shooters have taken over in force, and I'm afraid it's not going to change anytime soon. I'm impartial, really. I think both types of games are fun. But CoD and Counter-Strike's popularity solidified the course of the shooting industry long ago.

Buuuut, as you say, id Software is supposedly working on Doom4, so that could have some genre revival! Here's hoping for something cool at least. Doom is one of my favorite games of all time.

Basically, a game should be fun. It can be fun because it is challenging, it can be fun because it is completely over the top, it can even be realistic and still fun. At the end of the day, it's the overall experience that counts.
Would a highly realistic WW2 shooter be better game without reloading weapons and the player sporting an arsenal of doom? No, certainly not.
Would Painkiller be a better game, if i could only carry 2 guns? No, certainly not.
Yep, that's something I wanted to note earlier in the discussion: not all these rules apply to all games. It's why I tried to add specific games to the mix to ground what we were actually talking about.

But let's take Demon's Souls: If you try to pick up more Items than you can carry, you can't do it. If you equip more than you can wear, you are slowed down to crawling speed. I'm bold and say, yes this game would be better if this was reversed.
Would Diablo2 be better with unlimited storage? Yes, due to mule-characters you basically have unlimited space allready, it's just tedious to use it.
Again, the designers could have easily added "unlimited space" if they wanted to, but it was a distinct design decision not to. Likely to make the experience better. I know I personally wouldn't want to cart around a bunch of garbage my whole game. When Im forced to manage my inventory from time to time, clutter is reduced.

Oh, by the way, one more thing i absolutely don't like in games, especially in rpgs:
Monsters that level up as you do.
This is something like a rubberband-ai in a racing game. Again, Oblivion is a prime example of how not to do it (where the heck did these bandits get that armor and why is this rat tougher than the first bear i met?).
Agreed. It's a horrible, horrible system unless you enjoy lots of pain.
 
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