Game design choices that should be outlawed

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Shameless

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Finishing a boss fight with a qte just for the sake of being flashy, this should be optional not mandatory.
 

Smooth Operator

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Johnnyallstar said:
Guns are extremely noisy people. Silencers aren't magical noise dampening barrel extensions, and if you don't use ear protection, they can deafen you.
Now guess 3 times why they don't put realistic noises into games :p
 

meowchef

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Johnnyallstar said:
I have a bone to pick with FPS that use "silencers." They're not "silencers" they're "suppressors" and they do not turn an incredible "bang bang" into an insubstantial "pew pew." They disperse the sound to make it harder to note where it's coming from, but not necessarily reduce the total decibels to a fraction of the original. If you shoot one, people are still going to know a shot was made, just not exactly where from. Also, it's for muzzle flash suppression.

The whole silent thing just bothers me to no end. Maybe because I've used them, but it just destroys all realism when a fully automatic rifle shooting large powder loads is quieter than a fruit fly fart.

Also, in shooters, Battlefield is the only one I've ever seen do this right. How loud are guns? Really? I mean, in CoD you can shoot all day long and still hear your buddy talking normal. In Battlefield, they make guns a pure cacophony of relentless noise that leaves your hearing temporarily subdued. It's also nearly impossible to hear somebody, even if yelling, while you are shooting, which is very realistic.

Guns are extremely noisy people. Silencers aren't magical noise dampening barrel extensions, and if you don't use ear protection, they can deafen you.
I'm with this dude.

Insurgency and Red Orchestra/Darkest Hour 1944 do this very well.
 

meowchef

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Mr.K. said:
Johnnyallstar said:
Guns are extremely noisy people. Silencers aren't magical noise dampening barrel extensions, and if you don't use ear protection, they can deafen you.
Now guess 3 times why they don't put realistic noises into games :p
They can put realistic sounds in games... just not as loud.

Take Forza Motorsport 3 for example. The Pagani Zonda race car is deafeningly loud... and they recorded it for the game. They just don't have it being played back at full volume.
 

Smooth Operator

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meowchef said:
Mr.K. said:
Johnnyallstar said:
Guns are extremely noisy people. Silencers aren't magical noise dampening barrel extensions, and if you don't use ear protection, they can deafen you.
Now guess 3 times why they don't put realistic noises into games :p
They can put realistic sounds in games... just not as loud.

Take Forza Motorsport 3 for example. The Pagani Zonda race car is deafeningly loud... and they recorded it for the game. They just don't have it being played back at full volume.
Thus making it unrealistic, the overwhelming pressure waves of an engine/gun/explosion make a world of difference in the experiences.
So games do things the way they are acceptable.
 

Johnnyallstar

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Mr.K. said:
Johnnyallstar said:
Guns are extremely noisy people. Silencers aren't magical noise dampening barrel extensions, and if you don't use ear protection, they can deafen you.
Now guess 3 times why they don't put realistic noises into games :p
It would drown out all the wonderful voice acting and inspiring, culturally cutting edge new music they paid so much for?

I mean, it's not impossible. Games are more and more doing the "temporarily deafened" thing with large scale explosions that are nearby, which is fine, and I approve. But guns will do that too. It just takes a little work and effort that most companies don't want to put the effort into it.

BF: Bad Company 2 wasn't too bad with it. Hearing is muted briefly after shooting, and the gunfire is the loudest sounds in the game I think. Not saying it was perfect, but its definitely a good example of how it can be done. I remember going from MW2 to BC2 one day, and just being blown away by the difference in sound.

I'll admit, I'm a bit of an audiophile, so I tend to be very picky about sounds and music in games.
 

Wondermint13

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Designs that remind us that terrorism, war and dead Iraquies are going on in the world...

Really.. call yourself an -Escapists- if thats the kinda shit you're eating up. That's not really a game is it...?
 

King Kupofried

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The inability to pause at will.
This seems quite basic, it really should not even be a problem that exists these days. If you are offline, you should have the ability to pause at will. Both during cut scenes and especially during gameplay.
Why, yes, I have been playing Demon's Souls.
 

gphjr14

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-Leaving an online game early counts as a loss or even worse a penalty.
-Races inserted into non racing games (GTA suffers from this)
-Forcing people to sit through end credits just to see the final ending (we're not paying attention just let us skip it.

#1 Is DLC if its an expansion that comes months after the games release thats one thing but to intentionally withhold content that was made during development to make extra profits is an annoying practice that I don't support.

Main reason I don't buy new games anymore, If I'm gonna have to spend extra money to get the full game I'm not paying 100% for 80% of a game.
 

DustyDrB

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Jan 19, 2010
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Putting the Blue X button of the 360 controller in a different spot than the Blue X button of the PS3 controller. That always screws me up when I switch between consoles.

Menus with more than 3 tiers (you should be able to handle it in 2 tiers for the most part, but more than 3 is just ridiculous).
For instance, to select a potion: Press Start > Select Inventory > Select Items (as opposed to selecting weapons or armor) > Select Potions (as opposed to selecting Books, Notes, or Food) > Select the Minor Healing Potion > Select "Use Potion" (as opposed to reading a description of the potion).
 

Ranylyn

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Judgement101 said:
Games that half-ass the gameplay for story. No, I do not have an example YET but I've got a feeling one of those is comming up soon.
Oh? I'll flip that. Games that half ass the story for the gameplay. Which is about 90% of games. And it's a far bigger problem than you'd think. Look at how long a JRPG can be, for example. The medium has the potential to tell a far greater story than any TV show, movie, hell, it can even rival books. And yet people want to ban games and argue that they're worthless as mass media because of... well, I don't even need to finish this sentance. There's just way too many flaws and I think we all know what most of them are.


Other examples.


- No death consequence.

Newer games baby players to hell and back. Back in my day, the save point before the last boss was in an RPG was potentially 15 minutes away, sometimes even 30. And you didn't get a "retry" option if you died, it was back to the last save. Why? The goal was to win. With no reason to fear defeat, you just throw yourself at the boss until you win. The shift has gone from "rethinking your strategy" to "Just try again from right here."

It's everywhere. RPGs? Yeah. Shooters? Who here remembers when Doom and Duke Nukem had complete level restarts upon death. Imagine a Halo level without any checkpoints for example. Yeah. New age gamers are babies brats who can't take a taste of old school without baaawing about autosave and the like.


- Quick Time Events

There's just so many reasons to reject this notion. GoW2 was one of the First PS2 games I played, for example. I never did get Circle vs Square down for QTEs since both are similar colors and shapes (as opposed to the vastly different triangle and X) and I wasn't used to the controller. That and even once I did learn it, the window was way too small, and in many games with QTEs, the button is randomized or appears in another corner of the screen!

QTEs alienate the casual to an extent where they can't continue the game, and even hardcore gamers get sick of them. There's no redeeming value, except, as before stated "zomg flashy cutscene WHICH THE PLAYER CAN'T FRIGGING FOCUS ON WHILE THEY'RE WATCHING OUT FOR QTE INPUT PROMPTS!"


- 3 man party (JRPG Exclusive)

Seriously. I grew up wth Final Fantasy 4 (FF2 SNES) where you had a team of 5. You had the tank (Cecil) the melee damage dealer (Kain) the healer (Rosa) the mage nuker (Rydia) and the generally useless tool who could occasionally shine if you spent way too much money on items (Edge) Nice balanced team. Edge's use is debatable so you'd argue you can knock it down to 4. 4 works well in other RPGs. So why the hell is it that when FF7 decided "lol 3 man party" that it suddenly became almost like a genre norm? Not only has it been the FF standard (exception: FF9)and even arguably the standard of most) games bearing Square's name before the SE merger (Such as The Bouncer, which wasn't even an RPG, or Kingdom Hearts) but other series have tried to follow their lead with dismal results.

A few examples include the .hack// games (which I admit I love to death) or White Knight Chronicles. Digital Devil Saga suffers this as well as well (Part of the Shin Megami Tensei series. Aka related to Persona) Hell, even Demon's Souls only allows you to summon 2 phantoms, so max of 3 "good players."

Quite frankly, why? 3 doesn't capture a well balanced party diversity because there's too many roles to fill. In its "streamlining," the norm of a 3 man party simply turns the party into "mash attack to win" clones where everyone has the same attacks, spells, stats, you name it.

Hell, party size in general bugs me. For example, Valhalla Knights 2 had a 6 man party. I can get behind that. I mean, the warrior has a shield and can use Guard, so he can rush in first while the thief comes in from behind and... well... The game was generally regarded as poor and they came out with a remake: VK2 Battle Stance. BATTLE STANCE ADVERTISES THE DROP FROM 6 PARTY MEMBERS TO 4 AS A GOOD THING. WHAT IS THE INDSUTRY COMING TO!?

If too many people is overpowered, add more enemies. Large scale battles are always more fun and epic than small skirmishes. More believable too, considering....
 

Sticky Squid

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Tipsy Giant said:
Get rid of sequels, your characters aren't that interesting, your gameplay improvements are drastic enough, fuck your sequel, just give me a new game.

I'd take a thousand bad new IPs for a red dead redemption than 1000 GTA sequels.

oh and stop saying your game is XX hours long when all the quests are copied and pasted, repetition a good game does not make
You do realise that Red dead revolver is a sequel right?
 

Sticky Squid

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Sacrificing most of the budget to make some pretty graphics when the other, much more important aspects of the game are suffering.
 

Tipsy Giant

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jck4332 said:
Tipsy Giant said:
Get rid of sequels, your characters aren't that interesting, your gameplay improvements are drastic enough, fuck your sequel, just give me a new game.

I'd take a thousand bad new IPs for a red dead redemption than 1000 GTA sequels.

oh and stop saying your game is XX hours long when all the quests are copied and pasted, repetition a good game does not make
You do realise that Red dead revolver is a sequel right?
Yeah true, thats a bad example a better example would be Bioshock, the first one was great, but I didn't need to see rapture in another game*, what they are doing with infinite is much more interesting than another retread

* fuck bioshock 2
 

Venereus

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Thrust said:
Finishing a boss fight with a qte just for the sake of being flashy, this should be optional not mandatory.
Yeah! This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me when I tried playing Force Unleashed (the first one, and I'm not getting near the second one).
 

shaderkul

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Venereus said:
Thrust said:
Finishing a boss fight with a qte just for the sake of being flashy, this should be optional not mandatory.
Yeah! This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me when I tried playing Force Unleashed (the first one, and I'm not getting near the second one).
Force Unleashed 2 pretty much made QTEs my most hated game designers fad. It was ridiculous on unreal levels.
 

Phlakes

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Levels that are completely trial and error.

Yeah, I've been playing DK Country.