Features in a minority of games that should be in the majority

[DiscoRhombus]

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Why would it ruin it? There's nothing stopping you from enjoying the game as it is right now. Someone who isn't a gaming god however can get the same amount of oppression/fear and challenge out of an easier mode that you get out of a hard mode

Because it's not crippling difficulty for the sake of crippling difficulty. The game isn't even that hard. It just requires patience and repetition. If you could just blast through most of the areas in the game, one hitting the enemies (which you can in NG+/++/+++... I got up to about NG+7 I think) then all the atmosphere and ethos of the game is destroyed. You're meant to be cautious, you're meant to pick your fights, isolate enemies, develop strategies. If it weren't for those mechanics it would be an incredibly boring, underwhelming hack and slash game.

But, as I said in my previous post, someone with less skill will still have to do those things on a lower difficulty. Let's say I'm just terrible at the combat, I would still have to pick my fights carefully and isolate enemies and all that. The oppressive atmosphere would hit me (me being in this case the one with less skill than you) equally as hard as it hits you, right? I'm not saying that we should make a press X to win mode (that's just stupid after all), but perhaps a mode where you are just a tiny bit buffed.

To be perfectly honest, it doesn't take a lot of skill to succeed in Dark Souls. Strap on a shield, block an enemy attack, counter-attack. That's a safe way to take down most enemies near the start of the game. Get a few levels under your belt, learn to parry and you can complete the entire game.

I don't believe you want an auto-win mode at all. The problem would lie here - it's also a multiplayer game. So people would either start on the lower difficulty so they could steamroll high end bosses and have ridiculous gear at low levels for invasions or the gear would have to be different between the easy mode and the hard mode but that would further disadvantage the easy mode players if the lobbies weren't seperated... it becomes a multi-faceted problem.

I honestly don't believe that Dark Souls should be too hard for anyone. The difficulty was just talked up by a lot of people online so they could feel pro when they beat the game. It's very formulaic. You may walk into an encounter and die instantly but give it three or four more tries and you can beat it with minimal effort. Unless you're getting invaded by other players there's very little split-second decision making. Maintain a steady pace and don't try anything fancy. You win.

 

[Augustine]

Difficulty sliders (probably not a minority thing). It's not difficult to implement, buff me or the enemy it just requires a few number changes. Assasin's creed definitely needs this (too easy for me) as does Dark Souls (too hard for me)

I am sorry, but I am very much against it. Part of what makes that game great is that it does not give you anything on a silver platter - you have to work for it. It demands a level of skill, and that skill comes with practice, not some inborn talent.
I've done everything that there is to be done in Dark Souls, and I can assure you that its difficulty is a "smart" difficulty - every challenge can be done with some creative thinking and/or practice and preparation.
If you make that challenge bar movable - all that genius of design is lost.

Dark Souls is a niche game and it should remain that way. Mass appeal is a bad thing because masses have terrible taste.

How does the ability to play easy mode make your experience any less unforgiving? If you can just play it the same way. There is nothing lost by adding an easy mode (except maybe for the people that choose to play said easy mode). Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry both have several difficulty levels (at least as far as the versions I've played go...), but are still renowned for their ridiculous challenge on harder difficulties. You can still brag about beating Dark Souls, you only have to add "on Hard/Classic difficulty"

My point is that you won't be playing the same game. You will not experience what makes Dark Souls Dark Souls. May as well just watch playthrough for free on youtube and be done with it(which I do for some things I would not play personally).
I wouldn't even know how to begin changing the difficulty in DS - even if you would take NO damage from anything you would still probably quit when you get through something like Sen's Fortress or try fighting the Bed of Chaos or... many other things.

 

[SnakeTrousers]

The ability to back out of a conversation at any time was a feature I very much enjoyed in Skyrim and I'd definitely like to see a few more games use that. Any time I found myself being railroaded into saying something stupid, there was always the option of simply backing out of the conversation.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Since I hate watching cutscenes at the very beginning of a game... (though as long as I wasn't forced to watch it, it would be fine)

I would have to say New Game +. After I finish a game, let me RESTART with all of my equipment/stats. Yes it will probably break the game, but SO WHAT I already played thru it once as the developer intended, now give me reason(s) to replay the damn thing!!!

This^ but maybe not always a full game+ but something should be different for my second playthrough. Older games were great about this. Resident Evil 4 didn't (unless my memory is fuzzy) have a full game+ but you could unlock new, overpowered weapons in it and costumes for shits and giggles. I played Uncharted 2 for at least a month because it fun to play the campaign again at different difficulties to unlock different skins, modes, and weapons. The Last of Us also does something similar and has unlockable skins for Joel and Ellie. I don't care if the only difference is Joel's flannel is purple, it just keeps an already fun game fresh for me

Also since everyone said skipping cutscenes, I'd say pausing cutscenes. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to pause a cutscene when something comes up or I need to talk to someone. At least the playstation menu button usually does that

 

[COMaestro]

Also since everyone said skipping cutscenes, I'd say pausing cutscenes. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to pause a cutscene when something comes up or I need to talk to someone. At least the playstation menu button usually does that

You beat me to it. As a father of two, my gaming time is limited, and even then sometimes I get interrupted and need to take care of one of them. The ability to pause a cutscene is invaluable to me. Under the same category, with skippable cutscenes, don't just have the Start button skip the scene, require another button press so I don't accidentally skip the scene. Even better, have a menu of unlocked cutscenes so I can go back and watch them at any time.

 

[Dragonbums]

I wish all games-especially story driven ones have save files checkpoints present at the beginning of the screen. And of those games that do, I wish they also gave the ability to make separate save folders. Especially for games like Skyrim and Mass Effect, where the player might want to make different characters, but don't want to sift through 100 save points, to get to the 30 save points that feature your new characters.

 

[duwenbasden]

The ability for NPCs to GTFO if either:
1. I am 50 levels above yours.
2. I hit like a runaway train strapped with rocket launchers.
3. I have 6 gunneymen, 3 snipers, 2 hulks carrying nukes, and the walking apocalypse as companions.
4. My inventory would shame armories of some third world countries.

See: Pokemon, GTA, Saints Row, New Vegas Fiends, and so on... It gets really annoying when some dumb kid from route 1 challenge my level 50 Pidgeot with his level 3 Caterpie.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The ability for NPCs to GTFO if either:
1. I am 50 levels above yours.
2. I hit like a runaway train strapped with rocket launchers.
3. I have 6 gunneymen, 3 snipers, 2 hulks carrying nukes, and the walking apocalypse as companions.
4. My inventory would shame armories of some third world countries.

See: Pokemon, GTA, Saints Row, New Vegas Fiends, and so on... It gets really annoying when some dumb kid from route 1 challenge my level 50 Pidgeot with his level 3 Caterpie.

For turn based combat I could see your point, but for games where people would want to grind it could be annoying to chase down trash mobs and I rather liked going into Freeside decked out in Enclave Power Armour and letting ED-E murder every moron that tried to mug me.

I will say one thing and one thing only, MODS.

I'm talking about creating a Creation Kit like Bethesda does, but as long as it isn't something like a wall hack for multiplayer then it should be allowed.

 

[NihilSinLulz]

Rocket boots. Rocket boots on everything. Every game feels to damn slow after playing Vanquish.

 

[BrotherRool]

Also since everyone said skipping cutscenes, I'd say pausing cutscenes. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to pause a cutscene when something comes up or I need to talk to someone. At least the playstation menu button usually does that

You beat me to it. As a father of two, my gaming time is limited, and even then sometimes I get interrupted and need to take care of one of them. The ability to pause a cutscene is invaluable to me. Under the same category, with skippable cutscenes, don't just have the Start button skip the scene, require another button press so I don't accidentally skip the scene. Even better, have a menu of unlocked cutscenes so I can go back and watch them at any time.

This totally, it's so irritating the times I've gone to pause a cutscene and it's just skipped the whole thing instead.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Primarily for RPGs, but games with inventory management should always have:
1) A way to auto-sort items. Preferably in multiple ways, such as by value, rarity, class/type, level requirement, etc.
2) Auto-selling for items lower than a user-specified setting. Especially if the game purposely has useless items designed for little more than selling.
3) Extensive feedback. By which I mean let the player compare every little piece of information on an item to its comparative spot on the character, possibly allowing the user to define stats or effects to prioritize in comparing.

Also mostly for RPGs or isometric ARPGs, though probably even more personal opinion than the above:
Floating combat text. More feedback. Always more. I can never have enough. When I'm playing something like Torchlight II or Baldur's Gate, I want to see exactly how much damage my characters are doing in excruciating detail. There are some cases where it's not as big a deal for me (say shooter-RPGs), but it's a little thing that goes a long way for me.

ah these are wonderful, I too LOVE getting floating text/feedback during games, especially rpg's. (shooters are nice too, especially if it's letting me know i'm racking up points for headshots or other combos)

OT:

mods.mods everywhere please. Make your games user friendly in this regard, it will make the longevitiy of your games increase exponentially and will also bring in a much bigger user base (probably, I mean a ton of the most popular games today are all based on mods..just look at DayZ)

 

[Platypus540]

Pausing cutscenes. I seriously cannot understand why so few games have this. It's not even remotely complicated!

 

[Shoggoth2588]

When it comes to shooters (first person and otherwise)

*Mazes. What ever happened to shooters having mazes?! You can get more out of each level, more content per disc, per game etc.
*Jetpacks. You know why a lot of games have to tell you that you're in the future before giving you the laser gun? Because those games don't have mother-fucking JETPACKS!
*Non-human enemies. Ya know what would make me buy the next Call of the Battlefield's Honor? If it was leaked that 2 missions in, Dwarves appear from every mountain in the US, Russia, China, etc riding giant fucking Golems. I know Legendary was kind of a flop but you don't just throw up your hands after the first fail and say "never again!"

When it comes to RPG's (J and Otherwise)

Spoiler: *Chakram. Don't know what a chakram is?

*Dragon's Dogma/ Shadow of the Colossus style combat against extremely large enemies.

Games in General
*CHEAT MENUS
*CHEAT MENUS THAT DON'T PUNISH YOU FOR USING THEM!

...that's all I got really

 

[SKBPinkie]

I would have to say New Game +. After I finish a game, let me RESTART with all of my equipment/stats. Yes it will probably break the game, but SO WHAT I already played thru it once as the developer intended, now give me reason(s) to replay the damn thing!!!

Fucking this. So hard.

I have no idea why this is not a feature in more games. Almost every game that has a new game+ has gotten at least one replay from me. It literally doubles the length of your game. Well, maybe not double - since it'll be easier this time.

 

[Batou667]

I second the "Last time on..." idea. Gears of War and The Walking Dead also featured that, and it's very effective.

I'm also a fan of NG+, or at least having the option to replay previous levels at will with my current XP and equipment, like in Assassin's Creed. In games with a million friggin' collectibles and sidequests, making anything permanently missable is a crime.

In fighting games: a gosh darn demonstration function while in the training mode. I don't want to have to fire up YouTube every time I get stuck on the timing of a combo. Ideally the demonstration should also display the button inputs. IIRC the first Soul Calibur did this very well, and Street Fighter has always had very obtuse training modes that require a lot of previous knowledge (buffering tricks, dash cancels, etc, that never get explained in-game).

Spectator options. In any kind of multiplayer game where you spend much of your time in a lobby waiting to join a round, or when death means you sit the rest of the round out, it's only polite to let non-involved players still contribute in some way, or at the very least amuse themselves by ghost-camming around the level. A game that did this really well was Gears of War 3's Horde mode - a player who had died that round could still ghost-cam, or use a selection of preset battle cameras, and could still mark enemies and weapons to assist the living players. Another good example is Dead or Alive 4 - players in a lobby who are waiting to fight can spectate the match, either on an in-lobby monitor, or in the ring with full camera control.

Cutscenes. I don't appreciate having to watch a cutscene everytime I fail a boss. Perhaps even more annoyingly, I hate accidentally skipping a cutscene and then progressing the game, so the only way to possibly see the cutscene is to start a new playthrough. The solution: during a cutscene, pressing a button brings up an unintrusive prompt to either skip or pause.

 

[Blitsie]

You know, Two Worlds did some cool things that I'm genuinely surprised didn't catch on. The weapon\armor upgrading system for instance is pretty clever, where instead of selling whatever useless loot you have like you usually do, you break the stuff down right where you stand instead and use it to upgrade your current gear, both giving a use for too low level stuff and allowing you to immediately make inventory space without actually throwing away anything

The cauldron concept was also cool, where you just throw whatever random ingredient you pick up in the wild together and concoct the weirdest potions sometimes (had one that took nearly 95% of my health, but allowed me to walk on water for a few minutes. Another one permanently boosted my stats and so on). Being able to create your own potion recipes as well was a nice small touch.

I also loved the way Nier handled its New Game+ now that I think of it, actually giving you the second half of the story. More games should try this instead of just making it the usual same game with old character thing.

 

[Silly Hats]

I adore the dialog based argument/persuasion sections in Deus Ex:HR. You need to think about what you're saying, you can't just pick the asshole dialogs and expect to come out winning.

I really want more of this, it's not difficult to 'win' but it just makes the game shine brighter.