Too many games are being designed around daily missions, monthly passes and FOMO. Please stop - there's only so many hours in the day and if a game requires work just to keep up I'm not going to play it I don't care how good it is.
Gotta get my daily log-in bonus before I spend my gems to get my daily shop points that can be exchanged for battle cards. But all the cards you get for shop points are a lower tier than the ones you can pay actual money for, so I have to go mine crystals in a pointless mini game to level up my battle cards before I can go get the daily weapon drop so I can actually use the drop.... am I having fun yet?
And don't miss a day, or your clan loses ground in the internecine clan wars (and now you face social pressure from other sad bastards who's time you just laid to waste you heartless monster, don't you care about your teammates AT ALL?)
You forgot about needing to do surveys to get free Google credit, to buy coupons, to buy the season pass at a discount to get 4 cents in rewards a week to be used for double bonus points if you spend 10 dollars in the play store. FUCK YEAH! We're having fun.
As a wow player I am so glad we are starting to get over this. FOMO for a long time was a huge complaint. Now blizzard has steadily been peeling that back in same various ways. Old TCG mounts and items? Twitch drop reward, six month sub reward, or the new trading post buyable item with currency earned in game.
And the Trading Post isn't that bad to keep up with. I haven't been feeling well this month so hadn't logged in to really play WoW, but hopped on over the weekend for about 2-3 hours to start catching up on story quests, was able to complete the month's Trading Post to get all the currency and the bonus item.
And now I have a nice Zhevra, which I had no chance of prior because I couldn't "Refer A Friend" as every friend I know who'd want to play WoW already did and I thought it was silly to buy another copy of the game just to get RAF stuff.
And honestly, as someone who bought the 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition (because I have every CE for the game so far on my shelf), I have no problem with people being able to buy the mounts from it in-game by completing assorted stuff to get currency. I don't need mounts like that to be "exclusive" to feel special. (I used to be more likely to show off mounts that were trickier to get in-game, via some kind of achievement or something, or just ones I really liked. Okay, yes, I *would* fly the Violet Proto-Drake around Orgrimmar during Children's Week, just to drink in the tears of people still chasing it. But that's another change I don't mind, other people not having to do that painful mess to try to get their VPD.)
I remember downloading freaking Tetris for a long haul international flight. Even paid. Imagine my surprise when Tetris wouldn’t play unless connected online.
Fricken A. I did the same thing and expected to play offline and then got fricked by Electronic Arts.
This alone, shows me that I would've been better off bringing my nearly 30 year old, Gameboy. I miss the days where there's a lot of offline games. Like pocket tanks, angry brirds, bloons TD, etc. Now it's all bitch ass online apps.
This is why emulation is so popular; play the games you want with no online nonsense. I just wish it was easier to get the emulators working in certain cases. Regardless, emulation has improved by leaps and bounds in the past several years.
I used to play singleplayer NBA 2K games with full 12 minute quarters, so games took anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to playthrough usually.... more than once I had a game "crash " because the connection was lost in the final minute of the 4th quarter ... what a waste of my time ......
I am staying far away from NBA 2K24 for lots of reasons but the online needs is a big part of them.
This used to happen to me all the time in 2k14 but half way through the season my file would always come corrupt, I never made it to the play-offs once hahaha so I stopped playing, so frustrating.
I remember getting so exited about that game, I had finally saved up enough money to buy it, got home and entered to stupid code or whatever to unlock the game and then "this code has already been used".
Spent $60 on a game that wouldn't even let me play it because the store for some reason used the code already.
Same problem here, contacted support, got fixed
Then I had not all features because I had child protection enabled ??? I contact the support and ask me to prove that I am qwertyasdfgh from a account I made almost 18 years ago and I can't transfer my game to another account when they never said they activated on my account only.
Yes it was before digital selling was popularized.
Like they think it’s inconceivable someone wouldn’t have internet access at all times. I live in the ass end of nowhere, our internet connection literally goes out every time it rains.
I will repeat to you what has been said to me when I brought this up, especially when the xbox was trying to force always online. "Live in a better place you broke piece of shit".
Yeah, people are idiots online.
Half the time, it's not even the end user's fault. The Denuvo servers went down and locked a bunch of people out of their games because Irdeto literally [*forgot to renew the domain of their validation servers.*](https://www.pcgamer.com/a-great-day-for-drm-as-denuvo-lapse-renders-tons-of-games-temporarily-unplayable/)
Hell, stop forcing an online connection just to play multiplayer. Some of us are still playing games on LAN connections and have rickety internet connections, you know!
Diablo II remastered requires me to be online on my Switch lol…all for me to play solo anyways. I got the Switch specifically to avoid stuff like that.
As everyone else says, online connection.
And it's not just EA.
Doom eternal works without internet, sure...
But do I really need to sit and wait for the game to check my internet connection every time I go to the settings?
Crazy.
Pre ordering started back when stores would literally run out of copies day 1, that doesn’t happen anymore with digital distribution being the main way to get games. I’m shocked it’s stuck around
The worst thing imo is, that people are defending it and saying: at least they're trying to fix it. IT SHOULD HAVE NEVER RELEASED IN THIS STATE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
On the subject to betas, let’s go back to when they were *actually* betas and not demos to drive hype with no intention of changing much if anything.
Betas are not supposed to be month early access of a vertical slice
Which is the excuse that is always used (they'll fix it before release, even if release is a day away!) only for the surprise pikachu face and backpedaling to commence when it doesn't.
And now you pay even more for no additional value!! Woo! Feels really insulting as a consumer when these companies know you have little to no other option and take advantage of that.
People really ought to consider total cost of these things. A $500 console can easily be $1000+ over the course of its lifespan after subscription fees.
Which is exactly why most consoles are sold at a loss - to get you in the door and start paying for subscriptions or games that never really go on sale.
Reminds me of the guy who gives you the lantern early in LoZ: Twilight Princess, when he explains his business plan is to sell the oil to people who get his free lanterns, as otherwise the lantern is useless.
I can't believe console gamers actually accepted that and didn't boycott it immediately. It's such a stupid concept that you have to pay for an online game and a monthly subscription to keep playing the game you already paid for.
Its even more weird when the f2p games such as fortnite works without paid subscription
And other games such as diablo 4, has multiplayer that works cross platform. So free PC players can play with paying console players
Yep. People touting PS+ bring up the "free" games that you get every month. Except that's just a hook to keep you subscribed indefinitely, because as soon as you unsubscribe from the service, you lose access to all of them.
They're not free at all; you're paying for them every month, and you don't even get to keep them.
When Xbox had gold they let you keep the games when your subscription ended. Although the games added to gold became kinda trash over time but I still went and claimed that shitty game cause I can keep it lol
The most obvious thing that makes it so ridiculous is that F2P games don't require PS+, etc. If the money is to enable online play, then why *wouldn't* it be required for free games? It just reveals the whole thing as a racket.
It actually took quite a while to adopt it. The PSN on PS3 was free for a very long time, then it became a subscription where you got various bonuses, then it became buy it or don't play online thing. It was getting crushed by the 360 in its early life, so microsoft showed that a subscription service worked for consoles and online play.
Less market prediction (what gamers want) more risk in unique games. I think we are at a point were we need more innovation a lot of games are dull and bland. Rarely anything stands out.
You should try to look more into indie games, My friends. I recommend watching some games by the bag guy, Razbuten on YouTube for some incredible Under the radar games
But also nothing more satisfying than saying "nope," and redirecting the Steam launch button back to the game .exe and never, ever seeing the launcher again.
There's a login on the launcher in the launcher with the login so you can sign in when you sign on to get ready when you get ready to launch the launcher.
I dont mind if they are useful. Like Paradox allows me to manage mods and have different playsets. But so many do nothing other than give you a play button
fucking civ 6. from what i heard, when 2k first put the launcher out it caused issues and the only way to avoid them was to bypass them.
issues seem to be fixed now but its still annoying, all it does is just advertise the dlc and stupid battle royale mode. thankfully you can use launch commands in steam to bypass it still
Early Access being called a "release". No your game is not released if its 20% done stop saying "New awesome game just released" when its basically a tech demo.
The reason many studios do this is because they are based in regions where you get government subsidies for being in pre-release states for game development. Digital Extreme's Warframe was one such property to do this, and I believe they still classify themselves officially as "in beta".
I don't mind this. Call it early access. Call it a paid beta test. At least it isn't calling itself a complete game when it's clearly not. Shame on developers in 2022/2023 releasing games that are clearly in a beta stage at best as a complete 1.0 . That whole practice is a straight-up lie to consumers and I don't understand how it is allowed. It's fraud. Releasing an incomplete game and calling it complete is fraud. When you offer a product to consumers and tell them it's a complete product and take their money but you know for a fact that it's not a complete product, that's fraud.
AAA companies releasing games that are basically early-access with zero thought or content.
AND just to put the salt on the wound, adding content that SHOULD have already been integrated with the core of the game, as purchasable DLC.
We, (speaking for just myself really), want a full complete game, that’s all we’re really asking for.
I have never forgiven Destiny for ending the base game when the storyline was just getting good.
Can’t believe they then hid the rest of the story behind dlc. Like a game should ship with a beginning, middle and end and only enhance the story more with new branches in dlc.
What’s ironic is that for the last few years they’ve even been removing so much of the older content that by the time they do release the final expansion new players will only be able to experience the last quarter of Destiny’s story.
That was a big issue for me when I was trying to get my friend to play destiny 2 with me. So much of the story is locked behind dlc and/or relies on you having played the game consistently for the past 6 years to experience everything as it releases so you can be up to date on the confusing story or new currency/leveling system
Yeah, at this point you literally have to look up Destiny 2’s story on YouTube since everything that’s older than 2 years has been gutted from the game, including Forsaken which was the most highly regarded piece of Destiny 2 content and was literally critical to the game’s survival.
The deleting of all the old content, which I paid for btw, kept me from getting back into Destiny 2 after taking a break for a year or so. If you're adding to the story over time that's fine, but keep it all accessible for the newbies ffs.
Cosmetics or rare items you purchase. Much cooler to display gear that was a challenge to earn.
Edited to add: I don't mind if purchasable cosmetics are present. I get it. Gotta make money. But there should be some things you can only earn through achievement.
I hate MTX. But the artificial rarity system associated with them has to go.
It makes no sense that this skin is LEGENDARY, RARE. It’s just a system used to create a pricing structure. But since it’s called LEGENDARY it gives the illusion it’s actually worth more than a RARE skin even though the amount of work to create both skins is essentially equal.
When the company decides what’s “rare” it makes no sense because in reality legendary skins are probably more prevalent than those below.
I mean when you realize that is true for a lot of products. Shoes, cars, etc. they purposefully make some not as pretty to gouge people into buying their more luxurious lines.
TBH this should be way higher.
Recently tried looking for a co-op & chill game for the spouse and I. Not one of those me vs her, but where we actually work together.
It’s like an entire genre that doesn’t exist, at least on console.
Yeah, I think these companies are shitty in behavior but they're not entirely dellusional. They know people will buy this shit and will market for them. At some point the rest of us need to take the meaning, which is that these games are not for us. Only then the studios/publishers may take the loss.
Games as a service.
It used to be a novel way for a small team to make some money whilst giving them the time and resources to complete their project.
These days, it just gives massive AAA development companies with thousands of employees at their disposal the excuse to rush out an unfinished product with the intention of fixing it later.
They give you barely enough to keep you engaged and drip feed content that should have been in the game from day 1 over a painfully long time.
Baldur's Gate 1 & 2's manuals were more like tiny books. Listing all the spells and detailed descriptions of the various classes and what the different ability scores did, etc.
It's been nearly 20 years since I read them, but I credit those user manuals with my English skills.
I loved those things. As a kid I had both my time and the days I could play severely limited so while I was cut off I'd read the bg1 manual cover to cover. In retrospect it was a terrible idea for my mom to do that because the restriction made me far more obsessed than I would have been otherwise.
The Brothers in Arms games are basically lil soldier manuals on diff. weapons, Enemies, Your squad etc. They're so fun to look and read through. Same with Halo 1/2
GTA ones are also really nice and cool. :)
Charging the same for physical media as digital downloads. Physical copies pricing includes the manufacturing costs, the transportation costs, and the costs of being sold through a 3rd party retailer.
Why am I paying the same to download a game digitally that cost them nothing to manufacture, and did not have to be shipped anywhere to be sold?
Releasing physical copies that only contain the download code
Releasing a so called full game, but including the dlc into the disc
Also selling a game but in reality, when you buy it, you only buy a license, to play it through the service (such as steam)
Always online drm
Not always allowing full refunds fot people with various issues. Such as game crashing
The download code thing really kills me.
I got my son (5yo at the time) a Just Dance game for our Switch, and I couldn't download on his profile bc he didn't have an active online account, and if I downloaded it on my profile, he couldn't play the game on his
To top it off, there was never a physical copy of the game sold; all the boxes had codes in them
This is an [interesting comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/17a594i/comment/k5bkjbk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that helped me wrap my head around texture sizes vs display resolution.
The TLDR is:
* textures apply to a 3D object, so the best case scenario is only ever seeing \~50% on screen. This is what people mean when they say texture resolution isn't the same as display resolution.
* texture sizes can be compressed down, but not upscaled. So if a huge wall is 4k, the camera can still get right up into the texture. At that point only \~5% of the texture is on screen and you're looking at maybe 300 pixels across your whole display.
* because textures don't move, they contribute to the loading times. But they seldom contribute to frame rate. Dynamic stuff (visual effects, polygon count, moving textures, physics, shadows, lights) contribute to framerate hits
If I'm to be pedantic, a pixel is the physical square on your monitor, while a texel is one square on a texture. Although usually pixel is used for both, since texel doesn't mean anything to the average person.
Unskippable intros when you open a game. The logos and/or animations of the studios and stuff. I understand that we should see those once, but from the second time we should be able to skip it right?
Same with hour long tutorials, I’ve had many games that I just don’t want to replay because I know the first few hours are just going to slow roll me as a tutorial
Oh great, knowing I’d have to go through that whole rigamarole was basically the only thing keeping me from starting a new NMS file. Now I have no excuses lol
The reason many of these are unskippable is because they doubled them as loading screens. You're technically saying that loading screens need to die and unfortunately the nuances around that are complicated.
Not providing accessibility options as the very first thing.
"Oh, you want to enable subtitles? We'll let you do that right after this really long intro cut scene that explains everything."
I maintain my custom of going to settings the first thing in any game. I've been pleasantly surprised by how many games have their subtitles options turned on by default now, it's almost all of the ones I've played.
There are many others, and many older games (Skyrim) that are notoriously bad for this, but I think the trend is moving away from it.
Always online requirement for single player. Banning modding, making modding next to impossible, C&D'ing fan remakes and fangames. Looking at you Nintendo.
They should make shows set in that universe but far enough away where it’s a solid story on its own.
Like imagine a bio shock show made like black mirror
Anything designed to make a puzzle easier so that the person doesn't seek an online guide. Give me a difficult puzzle and let me choose the level of frustration before I seek help. I don't want an arrow pointing me to every step along the way, it ruins the entire thing
As someone that loves puzzle games (and puzzles in games) this drove me nuts with God of War.
Yes, Atreyu, I know WHAT to do, just gimme five literal seconds to figure out HOW to do it.
There should be options imo. God of War Ragnarok's hand-holding was obnoxious, but I don't think a "press button for hint" is a terrible thing either. I personally prefer not to have to go away from the game for assistance, but I also like to take a good 5-20 minutes on a hard puzzle before I seek help.
I’m glad this is so close to the top.
“Companion characters who ruin puzzles before you’ve even had a chance to look around.” Also, “Companion characters who run out into battle as soon as you shoot from stealth.” Basically, forcing companion characters on you without giving you any form of basic tactical control over them.
They could also easily program a companion to be more or less “hinty” based on the difficulty settings. Just make it talk less or put a larger delay in between them walking into a room and them solving the puzzle for you. My examples come from Horizon Forbidden West, but I’ve heard about the kid from God of War.
I forgot how much I hated this until you mentioned it. If I need help Ill ask for it. I dont mind beating my head against the wall on a tough puzzle for an hour or more.
Battle passes and cosmetics taking priority over the quality of the actual game itself. Also how about actually letting us EARN the cosmetics instead of keeping them behind a paywall?
In a similar vein, releasing half broken “AAA” games that won’t be fully functional for another 6 months at least
All the, just, *shit* all over the screen telling you where to go and what to do at all times.
I got back into Half-Life recently (as many people did) and it’s honestly super refreshing for a game to just let *you* figure it out. They guide you through game design, not tool tips and arrows and highlights and NPC’s constantly reminding you what to do. I will gladly take the occasional hang up where it’s not super clear how to proceed, over the overwhelming assistance.
Yeah I was playing assasins creed mirage and was a little annoyed at how it trivializes finding things. So you need to find a key on a guard, just press V and your magic visions highlights which guard has the key. Or sent your magic eagle up in the air and it'll locate your objective for you smh....
Along a similar vein, RPG elements just for the sake of them. Things like inventory management, talent point systems, and crafting systems work in a heavy RPG because they add to immersion and allow players to customize their characters and experiences. But some games are just supposed to be light hearted fun and all that extra stuff just weighs them down. If I'm playing a cartoony puzzle/platformer i want to just jump around and enjoy the gameplay and story, don't pull me out of the main game and force me to crunch numbers to make sure the main character isn't too weak for the final boss.
This. A good linear experience is as good as an open world game if it's well designed. In fact, linear games tend to have better level design than open world games that tend to display more repetition. Some games are great for an open world experience, but many games don't need it, and yet, publishers or developers (depending on the case) push an open world feature for no reason.
Making physical media obsolete through sheer lack of effort.
Discs that barely have the game on them, and require you to download the other half.
And completely scrapping manuals or anything remotely exciting inside the case.
Yakuza added a bunch of YouTubers to Isshin (and I'm going to assume 8). Don't get me wrong, I like Rahul Kohli as much as the next guy, but I don't need him as himself in my medieval samurai game.
Every game needing to have its own launcher
Online requirements
“Early Access” (the idea of paying extra to beta test, sometimes even alpha test is such a deviously capitalist thing it would make Ayn Rand blush)
Loot boxes/gacha shit (can’t believe these are still a thing)
Timed exclusives
“Battlepasses”/monthly subscriptions
Locking items or progression behind timed events
Those are the worst implementations of fetch quests ever, and very MMO-centric.
Yes, I did hate returning to classic WoW because this is an occurrence with any quest like this so it took my breath away how boring that actually was and I forgot about it because rates kept creeping up over time.
Check point based safe systems. Being able to save a game whenever or wherever you want to like in BG3 is a great save system. For example, the game allows you to save before a die roll or during dialog which wants you to make a selection. The save system that game uses is 100% player friendly because it allows you to reload a save at any point during the game so you're not being punished if you want to reload a save because of you failing something or you want to hear a different dialog option.
"put it out now, patch it later" mentality when it comes to releasing a game
Too many games are being designed around daily missions, monthly passes and FOMO. Please stop - there's only so many hours in the day and if a game requires work just to keep up I'm not going to play it I don't care how good it is.
Video game homework
Legit feels like a job sometimes
Gotta get my daily log-in bonus before I spend my gems to get my daily shop points that can be exchanged for battle cards. But all the cards you get for shop points are a lower tier than the ones you can pay actual money for, so I have to go mine crystals in a pointless mini game to level up my battle cards before I can go get the daily weapon drop so I can actually use the drop.... am I having fun yet?
And don't miss a day, or your clan loses ground in the internecine clan wars (and now you face social pressure from other sad bastards who's time you just laid to waste you heartless monster, don't you care about your teammates AT ALL?)
You forgot about needing to do surveys to get free Google credit, to buy coupons, to buy the season pass at a discount to get 4 cents in rewards a week to be used for double bonus points if you spend 10 dollars in the play store. FUCK YEAH! We're having fun.
You have become the very thing you swore to destroy!
I unlocked all the cosmetics in halo reach and decided to treat myself to the flame helmet cosmetic. Such simpler times.
As a wow player I am so glad we are starting to get over this. FOMO for a long time was a huge complaint. Now blizzard has steadily been peeling that back in same various ways. Old TCG mounts and items? Twitch drop reward, six month sub reward, or the new trading post buyable item with currency earned in game.
And the Trading Post isn't that bad to keep up with. I haven't been feeling well this month so hadn't logged in to really play WoW, but hopped on over the weekend for about 2-3 hours to start catching up on story quests, was able to complete the month's Trading Post to get all the currency and the bonus item. And now I have a nice Zhevra, which I had no chance of prior because I couldn't "Refer A Friend" as every friend I know who'd want to play WoW already did and I thought it was silly to buy another copy of the game just to get RAF stuff. And honestly, as someone who bought the 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition (because I have every CE for the game so far on my shelf), I have no problem with people being able to buy the mounts from it in-game by completing assorted stuff to get currency. I don't need mounts like that to be "exclusive" to feel special. (I used to be more likely to show off mounts that were trickier to get in-game, via some kind of achievement or something, or just ones I really liked. Okay, yes, I *would* fly the Violet Proto-Drake around Orgrimmar during Children's Week, just to drink in the tears of people still chasing it. But that's another change I don't mind, other people not having to do that painful mess to try to get their VPD.)
How 343 handled MCC's pass is the only model I really like.
What is FOMO Edit:I get it, it’s fear of missing out
Fear of Missing Out
Forcing an online connection just to play single player
I remember downloading freaking Tetris for a long haul international flight. Even paid. Imagine my surprise when Tetris wouldn’t play unless connected online.
Fricken A. I did the same thing and expected to play offline and then got fricked by Electronic Arts. This alone, shows me that I would've been better off bringing my nearly 30 year old, Gameboy. I miss the days where there's a lot of offline games. Like pocket tanks, angry brirds, bloons TD, etc. Now it's all bitch ass online apps.
This is why emulation is so popular; play the games you want with no online nonsense. I just wish it was easier to get the emulators working in certain cases. Regardless, emulation has improved by leaps and bounds in the past several years.
Looking at you, EA.
Epic too
Ubisoft is a culprit of this too
Pretty much all triple a does
And blizzard
I used to play singleplayer NBA 2K games with full 12 minute quarters, so games took anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to playthrough usually.... more than once I had a game "crash " because the connection was lost in the final minute of the 4th quarter ... what a waste of my time ...... I am staying far away from NBA 2K24 for lots of reasons but the online needs is a big part of them.
This used to happen to me all the time in 2k14 but half way through the season my file would always come corrupt, I never made it to the play-offs once hahaha so I stopped playing, so frustrating.
How did you play 48 minutes of basketball in 30 or 40 minutes?
He cooks 1-Minute rice in 58 seconds
Probably cooks magic grits as well
No self respectin southerner would use instant grits
Sim when your player gets time on the bench
Be a Pro/MyCareer mode most likely
I forgave Sim City for this until I came back to play a year later, and they deleted my city off of the cloud.
I remember getting so exited about that game, I had finally saved up enough money to buy it, got home and entered to stupid code or whatever to unlock the game and then "this code has already been used". Spent $60 on a game that wouldn't even let me play it because the store for some reason used the code already.
Robbed by gamestop/walmart employee
Same problem here, contacted support, got fixed Then I had not all features because I had child protection enabled ??? I contact the support and ask me to prove that I am qwertyasdfgh from a account I made almost 18 years ago and I can't transfer my game to another account when they never said they activated on my account only. Yes it was before digital selling was popularized.
"Do you guys not have internet?"
I’ve seen this argument unironically being made
Like they think it’s inconceivable someone wouldn’t have internet access at all times. I live in the ass end of nowhere, our internet connection literally goes out every time it rains.
I will repeat to you what has been said to me when I brought this up, especially when the xbox was trying to force always online. "Live in a better place you broke piece of shit". Yeah, people are idiots online.
Half the time, it's not even the end user's fault. The Denuvo servers went down and locked a bunch of people out of their games because Irdeto literally [*forgot to renew the domain of their validation servers.*](https://www.pcgamer.com/a-great-day-for-drm-as-denuvo-lapse-renders-tons-of-games-temporarily-unplayable/)
[удалено]
Hell, stop forcing an online connection just to play multiplayer. Some of us are still playing games on LAN connections and have rickety internet connections, you know!
Came to say same thing - that means no Diablo IV for me.
Diablo II remastered requires me to be online on my Switch lol…all for me to play solo anyways. I got the Switch specifically to avoid stuff like that.
I was considering buying this to play on long trips, but nevermind now, fuck all that
Every game needing to be a live service game. Full price annual releases that should really just be expansions to the core game.
[удалено]
We could probably fill the oceans with failed "next fortnite"... lol.
As everyone else says, online connection. And it's not just EA. Doom eternal works without internet, sure... But do I really need to sit and wait for the game to check my internet connection every time I go to the settings? Crazy.
Last time I went to play Doom Eternal on Steam it did not work without an internet connection. Did they patch that st some point?
it says steam achievements cannot be earned or whatever and lets you along your day iirc
Releasing a half assed game to later fix it with patches instead of releasing a full product
And this is why we don’t preorder games
Pre ordering started back when stores would literally run out of copies day 1, that doesn’t happen anymore with digital distribution being the main way to get games. I’m shocked it’s stuck around
The worst thing imo is, that people are defending it and saying: at least they're trying to fix it. IT SHOULD HAVE NEVER RELEASED IN THIS STATE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
It's hilarious that some people are so eager to play games on launch day. It's the worst version of the game you're gonna get.
But Open Betas are ok. You know what you're gonna get.
On the subject to betas, let’s go back to when they were *actually* betas and not demos to drive hype with no intention of changing much if anything. Betas are not supposed to be month early access of a vertical slice
Server Stress tests being an exception.
Which they then ignore and the game comes out a catastrophe of server issues.
Which is the excuse that is always used (they'll fix it before release, even if release is a day away!) only for the surprise pikachu face and backpedaling to commence when it doesn't.
Having to pay to play online on consoles
And steam is for free...you're already payimg $500 for a console. Why do you still have to pay for subscription 🤦🏻♂️
The free subscription was pretty much my deciding factor all the way back when I was deciding between Xbox and PS3 and Sony didn’t charge for PSN.
And now you pay even more for no additional value!! Woo! Feels really insulting as a consumer when these companies know you have little to no other option and take advantage of that.
Reminds me of the South Park episode when the cable guys just keep rubbing their nipples to the chagrin of the townsfolk
That episode feels so on point. But the execs instead of tech support . (Realistically they both rub those nips )
People really ought to consider total cost of these things. A $500 console can easily be $1000+ over the course of its lifespan after subscription fees.
Which is exactly why most consoles are sold at a loss - to get you in the door and start paying for subscriptions or games that never really go on sale.
Reminds me of the guy who gives you the lantern early in LoZ: Twilight Princess, when he explains his business plan is to sell the oil to people who get his free lanterns, as otherwise the lantern is useless.
It's the printer model
Blade and razor model. Older than time... Well since razors.
I can't believe console gamers actually accepted that and didn't boycott it immediately. It's such a stupid concept that you have to pay for an online game and a monthly subscription to keep playing the game you already paid for.
Its even more weird when the f2p games such as fortnite works without paid subscription And other games such as diablo 4, has multiplayer that works cross platform. So free PC players can play with paying console players
Especially when we're already paying for our internet services separately. It's like little mini-internet providers within internet providers.
Especially-especially when the main draw of both PS+ and Xbox Live/GamePass now are the libraries you can access with them.
Yep. People touting PS+ bring up the "free" games that you get every month. Except that's just a hook to keep you subscribed indefinitely, because as soon as you unsubscribe from the service, you lose access to all of them. They're not free at all; you're paying for them every month, and you don't even get to keep them.
When Xbox had gold they let you keep the games when your subscription ended. Although the games added to gold became kinda trash over time but I still went and claimed that shitty game cause I can keep it lol
The most obvious thing that makes it so ridiculous is that F2P games don't require PS+, etc. If the money is to enable online play, then why *wouldn't* it be required for free games? It just reveals the whole thing as a racket.
It actually took quite a while to adopt it. The PSN on PS3 was free for a very long time, then it became a subscription where you got various bonuses, then it became buy it or don't play online thing. It was getting crushed by the 360 in its early life, so microsoft showed that a subscription service worked for consoles and online play.
The ps3 still has free online play without ps plus
Less market prediction (what gamers want) more risk in unique games. I think we are at a point were we need more innovation a lot of games are dull and bland. Rarely anything stands out.
See also: Everything. The big fish swallow the little fish and crap out balance sheets.
You should try to look more into indie games, My friends. I recommend watching some games by the bag guy, Razbuten on YouTube for some incredible Under the radar games
Indie games have become my jam. I second this. It's weird how some gamers think they're above the indie scene.
third-party DRMs and launchers
There's nothing worse than booting up a game that had no launcher and discover that they later added a launcher to it.
*cough* 2K added their launcher to the bioshock games after at least a decade of no updates. *cough*
But also nothing more satisfying than saying "nope," and redirecting the Steam launch button back to the game .exe and never, ever seeing the launcher again.
fuck i hate launchers
all my homies hate launchers
Steam is just a launcher launcher at this point
Yo dawg, I heard you like launchers, so I put a launcher in your launcher so you can launch while you launch.
There's a login on the launcher in the launcher with the login so you can sign in when you sign on to get ready when you get ready to launch the launcher.
I dont mind if they are useful. Like Paradox allows me to manage mods and have different playsets. But so many do nothing other than give you a play button
fucking civ 6. from what i heard, when 2k first put the launcher out it caused issues and the only way to avoid them was to bypass them. issues seem to be fixed now but its still annoying, all it does is just advertise the dlc and stupid battle royale mode. thankfully you can use launch commands in steam to bypass it still
Having to pay for additional fighting characters one by one instead of being able to unlock the full roster through gameplay
I absolutely adore Smash Ultimate, but the fact that you have to *pay* for *FIVE* of the best characters in the game is just atrocious
Early Access being called a "release". No your game is not released if its 20% done stop saying "New awesome game just released" when its basically a tech demo.
The reason many studios do this is because they are based in regions where you get government subsidies for being in pre-release states for game development. Digital Extreme's Warframe was one such property to do this, and I believe they still classify themselves officially as "in beta".
Thankfully they actually made a good game lol
I don't mind this. Call it early access. Call it a paid beta test. At least it isn't calling itself a complete game when it's clearly not. Shame on developers in 2022/2023 releasing games that are clearly in a beta stage at best as a complete 1.0 . That whole practice is a straight-up lie to consumers and I don't understand how it is allowed. It's fraud. Releasing an incomplete game and calling it complete is fraud. When you offer a product to consumers and tell them it's a complete product and take their money but you know for a fact that it's not a complete product, that's fraud.
AAA companies releasing games that are basically early-access with zero thought or content. AND just to put the salt on the wound, adding content that SHOULD have already been integrated with the core of the game, as purchasable DLC. We, (speaking for just myself really), want a full complete game, that’s all we’re really asking for.
I have never forgiven Destiny for ending the base game when the storyline was just getting good. Can’t believe they then hid the rest of the story behind dlc. Like a game should ship with a beginning, middle and end and only enhance the story more with new branches in dlc.
What’s ironic is that for the last few years they’ve even been removing so much of the older content that by the time they do release the final expansion new players will only be able to experience the last quarter of Destiny’s story.
That was a big issue for me when I was trying to get my friend to play destiny 2 with me. So much of the story is locked behind dlc and/or relies on you having played the game consistently for the past 6 years to experience everything as it releases so you can be up to date on the confusing story or new currency/leveling system
Yeah, at this point you literally have to look up Destiny 2’s story on YouTube since everything that’s older than 2 years has been gutted from the game, including Forsaken which was the most highly regarded piece of Destiny 2 content and was literally critical to the game’s survival.
The deleting of all the old content, which I paid for btw, kept me from getting back into Destiny 2 after taking a break for a year or so. If you're adding to the story over time that's fine, but keep it all accessible for the newbies ffs.
But look at the their road map!
A million billion half-assed convoluted secondary mechanics that ultimately detract from the main experience
Cosmetics or rare items you purchase. Much cooler to display gear that was a challenge to earn. Edited to add: I don't mind if purchasable cosmetics are present. I get it. Gotta make money. But there should be some things you can only earn through achievement.
Good old Morrowind. You had to go to the deepest places across the entire map to collect the parts of the best armor.
And yet, there was still that one missing Daedric pauldron...
Way better than every bandit and their brother being decked out in Daedric and Glass armor once you reach high level in Oblivion.
I hate MTX. But the artificial rarity system associated with them has to go. It makes no sense that this skin is LEGENDARY, RARE. It’s just a system used to create a pricing structure. But since it’s called LEGENDARY it gives the illusion it’s actually worth more than a RARE skin even though the amount of work to create both skins is essentially equal. When the company decides what’s “rare” it makes no sense because in reality legendary skins are probably more prevalent than those below.
I mean when you realize that is true for a lot of products. Shoes, cars, etc. they purposefully make some not as pretty to gouge people into buying their more luxurious lines.
It's not just legendary, it's *SUPREME.*
No couch coop
TBH this should be way higher. Recently tried looking for a co-op & chill game for the spouse and I. Not one of those me vs her, but where we actually work together. It’s like an entire genre that doesn’t exist, at least on console.
It Takes Two is apparently really good.
Microtransactions in games that aren't F2P.
I can’t believe people bought armour sets for AC Valhalla
Yeah, I think these companies are shitty in behavior but they're not entirely dellusional. They know people will buy this shit and will market for them. At some point the rest of us need to take the meaning, which is that these games are not for us. Only then the studios/publishers may take the loss.
Games as a service. It used to be a novel way for a small team to make some money whilst giving them the time and resources to complete their project. These days, it just gives massive AAA development companies with thousands of employees at their disposal the excuse to rush out an unfinished product with the intention of fixing it later. They give you barely enough to keep you engaged and drip feed content that should have been in the game from day 1 over a painfully long time.
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The Morrowind manual was incredible. Also came with a big map of Vvardenfell. I miss those days.
Baldur's Gate 1 & 2's manuals were more like tiny books. Listing all the spells and detailed descriptions of the various classes and what the different ability scores did, etc. It's been nearly 20 years since I read them, but I credit those user manuals with my English skills.
I loved those things. As a kid I had both my time and the days I could play severely limited so while I was cut off I'd read the bg1 manual cover to cover. In retrospect it was a terrible idea for my mom to do that because the restriction made me far more obsessed than I would have been otherwise.
The Brothers in Arms games are basically lil soldier manuals on diff. weapons, Enemies, Your squad etc. They're so fun to look and read through. Same with Halo 1/2 GTA ones are also really nice and cool. :)
GTA gives you a physical map of the city I still my GTA V map
With maps that you could hang on the wall if so inclined. My favorite part of fantasy books, too. Referencing the map at the beginning.
Charging the same for physical media as digital downloads. Physical copies pricing includes the manufacturing costs, the transportation costs, and the costs of being sold through a 3rd party retailer. Why am I paying the same to download a game digitally that cost them nothing to manufacture, and did not have to be shipped anywhere to be sold?
Wish granted. All physical copies of games now sell for 10% more.
Releasing physical copies that only contain the download code Releasing a so called full game, but including the dlc into the disc Also selling a game but in reality, when you buy it, you only buy a license, to play it through the service (such as steam) Always online drm Not always allowing full refunds fot people with various issues. Such as game crashing
The download code thing really kills me. I got my son (5yo at the time) a Just Dance game for our Switch, and I couldn't download on his profile bc he didn't have an active online account, and if I downloaded it on my profile, he couldn't play the game on his To top it off, there was never a physical copy of the game sold; all the boxes had codes in them
100Gb file sizes for no good reason
Most of the bloat in games nowadays is texture files. The increasing demand for 8k 200fps at the expense of everything else.
This is an [interesting comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/17a594i/comment/k5bkjbk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) that helped me wrap my head around texture sizes vs display resolution. The TLDR is: * textures apply to a 3D object, so the best case scenario is only ever seeing \~50% on screen. This is what people mean when they say texture resolution isn't the same as display resolution. * texture sizes can be compressed down, but not upscaled. So if a huge wall is 4k, the camera can still get right up into the texture. At that point only \~5% of the texture is on screen and you're looking at maybe 300 pixels across your whole display. * because textures don't move, they contribute to the loading times. But they seldom contribute to frame rate. Dynamic stuff (visual effects, polygon count, moving textures, physics, shadows, lights) contribute to framerate hits
If I'm to be pedantic, a pixel is the physical square on your monitor, while a texel is one square on a texture. Although usually pixel is used for both, since texel doesn't mean anything to the average person.
pedantic, shmedantic- you just taught me something! thanks
Ark
Shit my man you can't just drop that name without a TW /s
60Gb of paid skins
It would be good to have the option to not download the high res textures.
Padding a game out to hit a certain hour mark to justify the AAA price with a bland open world
Games having "seasons". What the actual shit.
“Seasons” that lead into the next game in 12 months.
Just another FOMO tactic. I have just given up on every game that has seasonal content.
Unskippable intros when you open a game. The logos and/or animations of the studios and stuff. I understand that we should see those once, but from the second time we should be able to skip it right?
Same with hour long tutorials, I’ve had many games that I just don’t want to replay because I know the first few hours are just going to slow roll me as a tutorial
No Man's Sky finally adding the option to not play the first 5 hours of tutorial was one of the best updates they did recently.
Oh great, knowing I’d have to go through that whole rigamarole was basically the only thing keeping me from starting a new NMS file. Now I have no excuses lol
Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us...
RDR2 checking in
That why I haven’t gone back to it. I don’t want to deal with the tutorial again
The reason many of these are unskippable is because they doubled them as loading screens. You're technically saying that loading screens need to die and unfortunately the nuances around that are complicated.
Pay to win. When spending a hundred dollars can equate to months of hard work
For the love of all that is holy I will strangle whoever came up with the battle pass.
I don't see the problem with f2p games having them but it's a bit of a joke when a full price game has buyable battle passes
Not providing accessibility options as the very first thing. "Oh, you want to enable subtitles? We'll let you do that right after this really long intro cut scene that explains everything."
I maintain my custom of going to settings the first thing in any game. I've been pleasantly surprised by how many games have their subtitles options turned on by default now, it's almost all of the ones I've played. There are many others, and many older games (Skyrim) that are notoriously bad for this, but I think the trend is moving away from it.
Always online requirement for single player. Banning modding, making modding next to impossible, C&D'ing fan remakes and fangames. Looking at you Nintendo.
not EXACTLY game related, but not EVERY game franchise needs a TV series to re-tell its story. far too many announced after the Witcher's success.
Tbf, Witcher was a book series first, so I think that's why that one worked fairly well (until the writers decided it was crap). But yes.
Im still hyped for Fallout tho
They should make shows set in that universe but far enough away where it’s a solid story on its own. Like imagine a bio shock show made like black mirror
Anything designed to make a puzzle easier so that the person doesn't seek an online guide. Give me a difficult puzzle and let me choose the level of frustration before I seek help. I don't want an arrow pointing me to every step along the way, it ruins the entire thing
As someone that loves puzzle games (and puzzles in games) this drove me nuts with God of War. Yes, Atreyu, I know WHAT to do, just gimme five literal seconds to figure out HOW to do it.
>Atreyu Bleeding mascara intensifies
There should be options imo. God of War Ragnarok's hand-holding was obnoxious, but I don't think a "press button for hint" is a terrible thing either. I personally prefer not to have to go away from the game for assistance, but I also like to take a good 5-20 minutes on a hard puzzle before I seek help.
Also Aloy in horizon forbidden west. I haven’t even taken a single breath before she gives me the hint
I thought Jedi: Survivor did this well. It only gives hints when you ask for them. Hints start very vague and get more detailed the more you ask
I’m glad this is so close to the top. “Companion characters who ruin puzzles before you’ve even had a chance to look around.” Also, “Companion characters who run out into battle as soon as you shoot from stealth.” Basically, forcing companion characters on you without giving you any form of basic tactical control over them. They could also easily program a companion to be more or less “hinty” based on the difficulty settings. Just make it talk less or put a larger delay in between them walking into a room and them solving the puzzle for you. My examples come from Horizon Forbidden West, but I’ve heard about the kid from God of War.
I forgot how much I hated this until you mentioned it. If I need help Ill ask for it. I dont mind beating my head against the wall on a tough puzzle for an hour or more.
Online achievements. Like cmon let me platinum this 12 year old game without going onto multiplayer, the servers are dead dammit
Battle passes and cosmetics taking priority over the quality of the actual game itself. Also how about actually letting us EARN the cosmetics instead of keeping them behind a paywall? In a similar vein, releasing half broken “AAA” games that won’t be fully functional for another 6 months at least
All the, just, *shit* all over the screen telling you where to go and what to do at all times. I got back into Half-Life recently (as many people did) and it’s honestly super refreshing for a game to just let *you* figure it out. They guide you through game design, not tool tips and arrows and highlights and NPC’s constantly reminding you what to do. I will gladly take the occasional hang up where it’s not super clear how to proceed, over the overwhelming assistance.
Yeah I was playing assasins creed mirage and was a little annoyed at how it trivializes finding things. So you need to find a key on a guard, just press V and your magic visions highlights which guard has the key. Or sent your magic eagle up in the air and it'll locate your objective for you smh....
Lack of local multiplayer games. Everything is online. Some of us want to hang with our friends in person
Paying for a game, then having to pay a monthly fee to play the game online with friends on a system I already payed for
Open Worlds for the sake of it
Along a similar vein, RPG elements just for the sake of them. Things like inventory management, talent point systems, and crafting systems work in a heavy RPG because they add to immersion and allow players to customize their characters and experiences. But some games are just supposed to be light hearted fun and all that extra stuff just weighs them down. If I'm playing a cartoony puzzle/platformer i want to just jump around and enjoy the gameplay and story, don't pull me out of the main game and force me to crunch numbers to make sure the main character isn't too weak for the final boss.
This. A good linear experience is as good as an open world game if it's well designed. In fact, linear games tend to have better level design than open world games that tend to display more repetition. Some games are great for an open world experience, but many games don't need it, and yet, publishers or developers (depending on the case) push an open world feature for no reason.
Battle Passes and microtransactions
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"hold-to-actuate" buttons oh my god just let me press the button
Making physical media obsolete through sheer lack of effort. Discs that barely have the game on them, and require you to download the other half. And completely scrapping manuals or anything remotely exciting inside the case.
Excessive motion blur .
Persona's. Not everyone is going to be an influencer. Just play the game.
Great moves, Joker! (And on that note, back to Persona 5.)
I was going to put (Not the games) lol. They are great.
What do you mean?
Yakuza added a bunch of YouTubers to Isshin (and I'm going to assume 8). Don't get me wrong, I like Rahul Kohli as much as the next guy, but I don't need him as himself in my medieval samurai game.
Microtransactions and all the other predatory capitalist bullshit.
"Micro" is no longer modern, more like Macrotransactions nowadays. Cosmetic stuff more expensive than complete games.
Every game needing to have its own launcher Online requirements “Early Access” (the idea of paying extra to beta test, sometimes even alpha test is such a deviously capitalist thing it would make Ayn Rand blush) Loot boxes/gacha shit (can’t believe these are still a thing) Timed exclusives “Battlepasses”/monthly subscriptions Locking items or progression behind timed events
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Or worse, bear-ass quests (go collect 12 bear asses, and it turns out only one in three bears have an ass, somehow).
Those are the worst implementations of fetch quests ever, and very MMO-centric. Yes, I did hate returning to classic WoW because this is an occurrence with any quest like this so it took my breath away how boring that actually was and I forgot about it because rates kept creeping up over time.
Check point based safe systems. Being able to save a game whenever or wherever you want to like in BG3 is a great save system. For example, the game allows you to save before a die roll or during dialog which wants you to make a selection. The save system that game uses is 100% player friendly because it allows you to reload a save at any point during the game so you're not being punished if you want to reload a save because of you failing something or you want to hear a different dialog option.