Gaming Tropes That Need to GO

[Thursday Next]

iirc there was an item you could equip in FFXIII-2 that let you kill enemies without going into the battle. I liked that feature.

[Waldorf and Statler]

It was nice but over-shadowed by the clusterfuck of a story.

[TheMightyEthan]

Part 5 of RPS's series on the subject.

[Mister Jack]

Games, especially racing games, that use ghost time trials as a substitute for actual multiplayer.

 

You know what no gamer in history has ever said?

 

"Oh boy. You can race against ghosts. I can't wait."

[Mister Jack]

Radio/walkie talkie moments that force you to put away all your weapons and walk at a snail's pace while you talk to whomever. It's annoying and breaks the game's momentum.

[Strangelove]

X-men Origins: Wolverine and Metal Gear Rising are probably the worst offenders when it comes to that radio shit. I have no idea who thought that was an awesome idea.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

That's like half the game time of MGR.

[Hot Heart]

I don't remember much in the Wolverine game but I know there was a fair amount in the first Gears, since it was meant to mask that it was loading the next section.

 

I guess it's like the old Mass Effect 'elevators vs. loading screens' (I preferred elevators when they had the dialogue).

[TheMightyEthan]

I preferred elevators as well, it made the spaces seem more connected and less like a series of disjointed rooms.

[TheFlyingGerbil]

I love it in AC games when you're slowed down to a crawl and then get snagged in some scenery while the person you're talking to carries on muttering off into the distance...

[deanb]

To expand the Walkie Talkie stuff, moments where you pick up an audio-log of sorts, play it, and then whatever NPC you're tagging along with also starts talking. Even worse when the game can't decide if the NPC should override the audio log volume (which at least you can replay after NPC has shut up) or have the audio-log play over the NPC thus likely missing some crucial story info.

 

The Walking Talkie issue should be able to be easily solved by going as fast as possible between the two points in-game, timing it, and then going "okay then, that's how long we can make the conversation so the player can go at full pelt, and also so the conversation isn't prematurely cut off".

[Strangelove]

Im not sure if this is a trope or not, but im tired of "skins." Theyre not actually different costumes/outfits, but they also dont let you color each part of your character separately. The developers decide it all. I hate that. Borderlands 2 lets you change your skin and your head/hair, Im fine with the head because I was never good at making faces in Mass Effect or Fallout, I think its unnecessary and obsessive as fuck.  But in Borderlands 2 your hair changes with your costume. Thats just dumb. Give me control over everything or give me different real costumes.

[Mister Jack]

Trying to copy Demon's Souls by being "teh ultra hardcores." I don't mind a challenge once in a while but calm the hell down with all these games that have a super high barrier to entry. I didn't even like Demon's Souls.

[UnstableArk]

Not sure if this has been said, but I'll say it anyway!

 

RPG's with hundreds/thousands of equipment loot drops. New equipment's great to find, but not when the next piece is only a ridiculously tiny bit better than your current get-up.

 

"Awesome, these new pair of gloves increase my mana recovery by .02%! Makes these .01% gloves worthless!"

[toxicitizen]

Trying to copy Demon's Souls by being "teh ultra hardcores." I don't mind a challenge once in a while but calm the hell down with all these games that have a super high barrier to entry. I didn't even like Demon's Souls.

So don't play those games? Just because you don't like difficult games doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.

[Mister Jack]

That would be fine if they just kept it to themselves, but it's starting to bleed over into other games that weren't doing it before.  I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. 

 

Payday 2.  One of the developers has said, verbatim, that they have made "the Dark Souls of heist games."  Well that's great and all, but maybe I wanted a heist game I could play without bashing my face into my keyboard.  There are other games out there that I would love to give a chance, but their prohibitively high difficulty keeps me from wanting to get into them, even though everything else sounds really interesting.  Couldn't you at least have a slider for this shit?  I don't always have the time or patience to spend hours and hours learning how to master your hard as balls game.  Sometimes I just want to play for fun, not to test my limits as a gamer. 

 

The new Fire Emblem is a good example of how it should be.  If you want a crazy challenge, you can have it, but it isn't forced on you if all you want is to experience the story and enjoy the gameplay.  If Demon's Souls had a switch that allowed you to not lose all your souls when you die, I would have enjoyed it.  Sure, call me a pussy, a filthy casual, blah blah whatever.  I at least would have bothered to finish the fucking thing under those circumstances.

[toxicitizen]

You're not a pussy or casual or whatever for not wanting to play difficult games. To each his own. What you are is someone who should just go play something else, plain and simple. If the dev chooses to make his game be difficult as a design decision then you're simply not in the game's intended audience, even if the game would otherwise interest you. Difficulty by design isn't an objective flaw and you're not entitled to having it be easier just because you don't like difficult games.

 

The way that Dark Souls is being used as kind of a buzz word is a bit stupid, though. But that's only happening because it's the game that showed there's actually a market for really challenging games.

[Faiblesse Des Sens]

I'm not sure how a slider would work for the Souls games besides giving you ridiculous amounts of health and making the bosses die in five hits. By design I don't think it would work any other way.

[TheMightyEthan]

You're not a pussy or casual or whatever for not wanting to play difficult games. To each his own. What you are is someone who should just go play something else, plain and simple. If the dev chooses to make his game be difficult as a design decision then you're simply not in the game's intended audience, even if the game would otherwise interest you. Difficulty by design isn't an objective flaw and you're not entitled to having it be easier just because you don't like difficult games.

 

He never said it's an objective flaw or that he's entitled to anything, he just said he doesn't like the trend.  He is entitled to not like the trend.  By your reasoning no one could ever criticize any design decision.  

[toxicitizen]

It was heavily implied, though. The thread is titled "Gaming tropes that need to go". Besides, saying that they should "keep it to themselves" isn't an implication at all, it's literally saying "I don't like difficulty so it shouldn't be in games that interest me". That does sound kind of entitled.

 

I don't have an issue with him not liking difficulty, I made that clear. I take issue with him saying that there shouldn't be difficulty.

[TheMightyEthan]

How is it any more entitled than anything else in this thread?  The entire thread is about saying "I don't like X aspect, and think they should stop it".  If game devs want to make their games certain ways that's certainly their prerogative, but it's also his (or yours, or my) prerogative to say when we don't like it and would have preferred if they'd done it differently.  What's wrong with lamenting that a game that we otherwise find appealing has a design aspect that makes it unplayable for us?  Especially if that design decision gets added into a sequel to a game that we liked.

[toxicitizen]

Because in this case it's very much a core aspect of the design.

 

For example, I recently played through Dust: An Elysian Tail. Great game. But if I have one complaint about it it would be this: there's a knockback effect when you take damage. In combat, it's not that big of a deal. But in some platforming sections, it can be fucking infuriating if the level design doesn't take it into account. Sometimes I'd misjudge a jump, hit some spikes and get knocked way the fuck back, causing me to fall down and out of the fucking screen entirely (and Dust has some fairly large "screens", i.e. the camera doesn't just move, there's a transition). That shit drove me nuts. Some older games are also guilty of this, the Castlevania series in particular comes to mind. You could have full health but if you got hit at the wrong moment or place, you would fall into a pit and die instantly.

 

Now that's one fairly small aspect of a game I otherwise really loved. It was a design decision but not a core one. The game wouldn't be fundamentally changed if that knockback effect was removed. In fact, I'd argue that having that kind of knockback in a platforming-heavy game can be a pretty damn stupid design decision.

 

But when a dev chooses to make their game very difficult, it's not just one small aspect of an otherwise likable game. It's very much tied into the spirit of the game and, if they do their job right, the entire game will be designed around that difficulty. Dark Souls without the crushing difficulty just wouldn't be Dark Souls anymore. Remove that difficulty and it would no longer be anywhere near as rewarding to finally beat that boss or to make it through that section without taking any damage. That wouldn't necessarily make it a bad game, but it would no longer be the game the dev set out to make. And hell, if every aspect of it was designed with that difficulty in mind, it would likely become a boring game if the difficulty was toned down.

 

I feel like this is more akin to saying "I don't like turn-based stuff, so no games should be turn-based". It's too broad and core of an aspect to complain about without dismissing an entire "genre" of games.

Edited July 25, 2013 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Okay, and I actually agree with you about Dark Souls, but what if say the next main series entry in Star Craft was turn based all of a sudden?  You think it would be unreasonable for fans of the series to complain?  Because that's more like the situation Jack's talking about: games that previously did not have this as an element all of a sudden adding it.

[toxicitizen]

Jack initially made more of a general statement, though. He only used the Payday example once I replied to that first post. Also, Payday 2 isn't out yet, and difficulty can be a pretty subjective thing (and come in many different forms), so until it's actually out it's impossible to judge whether the change is anywhere near as drastic as that turn-based StarCraft comparison.

 

I searched for that quote Jack talked about and it sounds like the guy was mostly referring to having RPG elements and not giving the player all the information. He also mentions Diablo II as being an influence and clearly talks about "pulling off that perfect heist without killing anybody", which really sounds like something that should be a challenge and not something you'd pull off on a first run. So I think it's possible Jack read a bit too much into that one quote. Like I said, comparing a game to Dark Souls has become this kind of ridiculous marketing thing so I can't really blame him for that.

 

Also, I personally haven't played the original Payday but based on what I do know of it, it doesn't exactly seem like baby's first heist game, either. Have you even seen that secret vault thing? That shit was insane! Yes, it was optional. But it shows that the idea of challenge was in the dev's mind to begin with.

 

And for the record, I'm sure people would complain like crazy (I wouldn't wish Blizzard's fanbase on my worst enemy), but a turn-based StarCraft sounds fucking awesome to me.

Edited July 25, 2013 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

And for the record, I'm sure people would complain like crazy (I wouldn't wish Blizzard's fanbase on my worst enemy), but a turn-based StarCraft sounds fucking awesome to me.

Yeah, that's why I specified main series entry. I'd be all over a turn-based spinoff.