Future improvement you're looking forward to?

[meiam]

Over the last few years we've seen a couple of new feature/tech emerge and be applied to video game, motion control, VR and so on. Most of them didn't quite work (say compared to controller rumble or analogue stick) but they certainly left there mark on the medium. What's the improvement you're looking forward to in the next few decades?

Personally I'm really hoping the vast improvement in AI means we can have good video game AI. I play a lot of strategy game and increasing the difficulty in those usually mean the AI get bonus you don't have access to, which distort the way AI can play and make high difficulty not very enjoyable. I'm hoping we can get to a point where a difficulty slider just change the AI behavior, from one with maybe a bigger focus toward role playing to one with a bigger focus toward playing the game as best it can (maybe with the highest setting even using exploit and stuff).

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

The main one is netcode for fighting games so that you can have 0-lag matches. In most games input latency is not that big of a deal but fighting games is the one genre where it literally makes the game unplayable and it is what limits the community from expanding by having a whole lot of people who are basically isolated due to lag.


So yeah if you want me to bring up one purely technological advancement that I think is both impactful and more realistic than something like a vr game where the game recreates your senses and it's as though you're in it, that'd be my top suggestion.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Vast improvement in game design really. So many games just copy mechanics and other systems from other games without really asking why they worked in said game or even if the mechanics worked in said game. Much like God of War adopting RPG mechanics for no reason. Or just games improving ever-so-slightly systems that were crap to begin with like JRPGs and random battles. JRPGs got stuck on that alone for like 20 years. Games should be made from the ground up with every added mechanic and system put into the game because it enhances the core game vs just being in another popular game or just the way it has always been done reasoning. Just look to other game mediums like board games to see how much potential games have when you actually take time to design new and different mechanics. And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

Personally I'm really hoping the vast improvement in AI means we can have good video game AI. I play a lot of strategy game and increasing the difficulty in those usually mean the AI get bonus you don't have access to, which distort the way AI can play and make high difficulty not very enjoyable. I'm hoping we can get to a point where a difficulty slider just change the AI behavior, from one with maybe a bigger focus toward role playing to one with a bigger focus toward playing the game as best it can (maybe with the highest setting even using exploit and stuff).

Totally this, AI needs to be really improved to make just about every genre so much better. If you're talking about RTS AI, then we'll probably be stuck for awhile with current AI coding because pretty much all the AI is coded to a single core and single core speed isn't really getting any faster and multi-cores are how CPUs are getting better. Whereas game programmers don't know how to utilize multiple cores for AI programming yet.

 

[Dalisclock]

As awesome as it would be for every game to be made from the ground up, it's really, really idealistic to expect that. Things tend to slide into one genre or another as development gets underway and what type of game the devs want it to be starts solidifying and expecting every game to be a genre buster is just unrealistic.

Hell, I'd settle for games being able to live up to their ambitions a majority of the time, not "Well, we had a bunch of cool features and divergent storylines where every choice truley does matter planned out, but then we got the release date moved up 6 months or we realized it was taking far longer then we thought and now my face is tired and the animations are making everyone laugh for all the wrong reasons".

Example, MGSV: The Phantom Pain created an awesome gameplay engine and was supposed to be the epic conclusion the to series where the prequel games would finally tie back to the original Metal Gear, showing how Snake/Big Boss went from geeky,idealistic world saving soldier to bitter,cynical villian who employs child soldiers and engages in nuclear blackmail. Instead, we got a great start which slowely devovled into an poorly paced, filler filled, unfocused mess where almost nothing got resolved and we kept getting fed stuff about magical bullshit parasites something something vocal cords because reasons she breathes through her skin.

Seriously, you had 5 years and a ton of cash with backing from a major company to make this all come together and then it all went wrong somewhere along the way, leaving everyone with this major disappointment.

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

Ummmm....Puzzle games? Adventure games? Certain RPGs allow non-violent solutions for a majority of encouters? Stealth games? Racing games? Vehicle sims? Management games?

Christ, I know FPSs and RTSs and Combat oriented RPG's are popular but other genres do exist you know.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

Ummmm....Puzzle games? Adventure games? Certain RPGs allow non-violent solutions for a majority of encouters? Stealth games? Racing games? Vehicle sims? Management games?

Christ, I know FPSs and RTSs and Combat oriented RPG's are popular but other genres do exist you know.

I'm just saying that combat is the main gameplay of like 90% of games that come out when there's so many other things that games can be doing.

 

[Dalisclock]

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

Ummmm....Puzzle games? Adventure games? Certain RPGs allow non-violent solutions for a majority of encouters? Stealth games? Racing games? Vehicle sims? Management games?

Christ, I know FPSs and RTSs and Combat oriented RPG's are popular but other genres do exist you know.

I'm just saying that combat is the main gameplay of like 90% of games that come out when there's so many other things that games can be doing.

90% of games or 90% of AAA games? Because if all you care about is major publishers, sure. But there's a much larger market out there once you look past the heavily hyped shiney titles that doesn't conform to "Shoot everything that moves".

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

90% of games or 90% of AAA games? Because if all you care about is major publishers, sure. But there's a much larger market out there once you look past the heavily hyped shiney titles that doesn't conform to "Shoot everything that moves".

I just started playing Hob this weekend and my first thought about the game is why does it even have combat at all? Everything else about it is far more interesting. I play quite a bit of games outside of the AAA market as you can read through the games I played this year in my post [https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.1056364-2018-Gaming-Year-End-Review#24278254] from the 2018 Gaming Year-End Review thread. I played Vampyr hoping for an RPG about role-playing vs combat yet it was just a poor-man's Bloodborne basically. You gotta go really indie to find games that are doing anything new and different usually. AAA falls on what's popular and easy but there's no excuse for such horrid game design that most releases feature either. Whereas I can go to like a Top 10 most popular list for say board games and find very unique and different games with great production values. Hell, Scythe, a steam-punk WWII game with fancy mech miniatures features very little combat and was like the most hyped board game in 2016. On the video game front, Sony funds basically AAA indie games (like Team ICO, Journey, David Cage game, etc.) and they seem to be at least profitable. You don't need blood and guts to sell stuff basically, it's just that it's the easy route.

 

[Casual Shinji]

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

And do what exactly?


Videogames are typically about conflict and overcoming obstacles, and those obstacles are more interesting to overcome if they move around and fight back. Even in Undertale if you choose to be a pacifist you're still fighting enemies and beating them. You mention Team Ico as an example of games that don't adhire to this, but both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have you fighting and killing plenty of enemies.

 

[Squilookle]

I'm just waiting to graphics to hit the ceiling, so that there's no more improvements to put into it. Then devs will have nowhere else to improve games except... all the areas that actually matter.

 

[Kyrian007]

I'm good with the levels of tech we have right now. Any further improvements on that front are fine... I guess. But I'd be just as happy if the technological advance would slow to a crawl. The improvements I want to see are generally in the consumer protection category. I'd like to see publishers forced to rethink gating off what used to be main game content behind a DLC paywall. Forced to going free to play if they want to continue the "games as a service" concept. Forced to remove the gambling mechanics designed to exploit addiction. Basically forced to think about the benefits to the consumers rather than the shareholders. That's the improvement I'd like to see going forward. Mostly because we are seeing diminishing returns on graphics technology focused on making games better, but all the corporate shenanigans are having exponential effects on making games worse.

 

[Yoshi178]

I'm just waiting to graphics to hit the ceiling, so that there's no more improvements to put into it.

It's called real life.

 

[meiam]

For games to take physically based rendering beyond graphics and into actual physics. I want game objects to interact dynamically according to material properties. IE swinging a sword into flesh will yield appropriately different results than hitting wood or stone. Using an axe would eventually cut through a random wooden door, or a large club could eventually damage it enough to break it down. Doors would have to be made of an appropriate material if they were designed to keep people out without a key.

It would add so much more depth and strategy if damage models were more dynamic and physically based on weapon type and what it comes into contact with. There could still be life bars, but enemies would no longer just fall over dead when they?re depleted, because we?d have actual visual cues as to what kind of damage was being done over the course of a battle. This system would also affect the player character.

 

[meiam]

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

Ummmm....Puzzle games? Adventure games? Certain RPGs allow non-violent solutions for a majority of encouters? Stealth games? Racing games? Vehicle sims? Management games?

Christ, I know FPSs and RTSs and Combat oriented RPG's are popular but other genres do exist you know.

I'm just saying that combat is the main gameplay of like 90% of games that come out when there's so many other things that games can be doing.

What?s ironic is these are the same types of games (Bayonetta, Vanquish, GR:FS, MGSO2, etc.) you?ve considered the best of the last decade. Unless you?re really getting tired of them.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I hope one day dialogue writers actually have human conversations IRL. Still haven't seen one game where the dialogue sounded at all like how actual people talk. I get that as a game you need to get exposition to the player, and dialogue is as good a medium as any, but you shouldn't get to call yourself immersive.
Like Red Dead Redemption 2 has some of the most believable interactions, and that's just when Arthur says 'hey' and someone else says 'hey' back.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Like Red Dead Redemption 2 has some of the most believable interactions, and that's just when Arthur says 'hey' and someone else says 'hey' back.

Or even truer to life, 'get lost'.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Like Red Dead Redemption 2 has some of the most believable interactions, and that's just when Arthur says 'hey' and someone else says 'hey' back.

Or even truer to life, 'get lost'.

Eh? I know loads of people are rude, but outside of Branson I've never met anyone who when told 'Have a good one' just say 'Get lost'
Like we're not socially trained to do that. Like when I say 'thank you' someone has to actively go out of their way and stop themselves from saying 'you're welcome'

 

[CaitSeith]

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

And do what exactly?


Videogames are typically about conflict and overcoming obstacles, and those obstacles are more interesting to overcome if they move around and fight back. Even in Undertale if you choose to be a pacifist you're still fighting enemies and beating them. You mention Team Ico as an example of games that don't adhire to this, but both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have you fighting and killing plenty of enemies.

They have tried to (like Harvest Moon or Little Dragon's Cafe), but for AAA power fantasies, they have yet to replace it with something as satisfying as defeating seemenly powerful adversaries in combat.

OT: I don't know. Seamless remote play PC games in a Nintendo Switch or 3DS? (not with a hack like with PS Vita)

 

[Squilookle]

I'm just waiting to graphics to hit the ceiling, so that there's no more improvements to put into it.

It's called real life.

Hilarous. You should take to the stage with material like that.

And, can video games get away from being obsessed with killing shit as the primary gameplay for like everything?

And do what exactly?


Videogames are typically about conflict and overcoming obstacles, and those obstacles are more interesting to overcome if they move around and fight back. Even in Undertale if you choose to be a pacifist you're still fighting enemies and beating them. You mention Team Ico as an example of games that don't adhire to this, but both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus have you fighting and killing plenty of enemies.

They have tried to (like Harvest Moon or Little Dragon's Cafe), but for AAA power fantasies, they have yet to replace it with something as satisfying as defeating seemenly powerful adversaries in combat.

OT: I don't know. Seamless remote play PC games in a Nintendo Switch or 3DS? (not with a hack like with PS Vita)

Aren't you forgetting all those racing and sport games? Puzzle solvers? City builders? Truck-driving sims? Flight Simulator and Ultrawings? Business management games? There are heaps of AAA games that don't use physical combat.

 

[Bad Jim]

Personally I'm really hoping the vast improvement in AI means we can have good video game AI. I play a lot of strategy game and increasing the difficulty in those usually mean the AI get bonus you don't have access to, which distort the way AI can play and make high difficulty not very enjoyable. I'm hoping we can get to a point where a difficulty slider just change the AI behavior, from one with maybe a bigger focus toward role playing to one with a bigger focus toward playing the game as best it can (maybe with the highest setting even using exploit and stuff).

Actually I think that is possible with a technique called the Monte Carlo Tree Search. A standard Min Max AI like Stockfish can beat you at chess but Civ just has too many possible moves. But a Monte Carlo tree search is basically doing thousands of random playthroughs, so it can see obvious things that are many moves away, like the need to build prerequisites, that the army massing outside it's border might cause trouble, that the player is trying to rip it off etc.

Google made a chess AI called AlphaZero using Monte Carlo Tree Search and neural networks and while back and played against Stockfish. While criticized for not really giving Stockfish a fair chance (AlphaZero got far more powerful hardware, Stockfish had it's opening book disabled etc) it was still pretty impressive for the way AlphaZero handled closed positions, working towards long term advantages while Stockfish shuffled pieces around aimlessly.

Only problem is, I don't know how good such an AI can realistically be. It's possible that it will be no match for a seasoned player even with the full power of your PC. This paper talks about a Civ 2 AI that can win 78% of the time

http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/D.Silver/web/Applications_files/civ2-nonlinear-mc.pdf

But skimming it I can't find a mention of what difficulty setting it is on.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Like Red Dead Redemption 2 has some of the most believable interactions, and that's just when Arthur says 'hey' and someone else says 'hey' back.

Or even truer to life, 'get lost'.

Eh? I know loads of people are rude, but outside of Branson I've never met anyone who when told 'Have a good one' just say 'Get lost'
Like we're not socially trained to do that. Like when I say 'thank you' someone has to actively go out of their way and stop themselves from saying 'you're welcome'

Well, I was thinking more in terms of internet interactions.