If you could improve any game by changing one thing, what would it be?

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Dishonored: This one may go over the 'too broad' line, but make low chaos runs more fun. Now, I get the idea that it's called 'the high road' because it's generally harder to be noble and altruistic than it is to be petty and vengeful, and I respect trying to incorporate that into the gameplay experience, but Dishonored takes it to the point of making low chaos runs downright tedious,

I have a much more specific suggestion that would've vastly improved Dishonored, specifically for stealth runs. Forcing the sword/dagger into Corvo's right hand was bloody stupid design choice. It's a lethal weapon with NO place in a stealth playthru. As such, playing a low chaos run you only have the left hand for crossbow, spells, etc. It should've been like BioShock/Skyrim in the sense that anything could've gone in either hand.

Also, the pistol...it's pointless. There's no need for a second ranged weapon when corvo has a pistol crossbow. My improvements to the game would be to remove the pistol outright, have either hand able to hold any item (eg. crossbow with sleep/lethal bolt in one hand, blink in the other) and perhaps another spell or two geared toward stealth. Perhaps Throw Voice as you suggest, would be a brilliant addition to a stealthy repertoire, or a similar "distraction" mechanic to enable breaking guard patrol patterns temporarily.

One other thing which I think is a missed trick, is making Blink a little offensive, Nightcrawler style. Why couldn't we Blink/BAMF a *conscious* guard and drop him from a height/into water/etc? Would've been fantastic!

TBH, Dishonored was a stealth game that allowed it to be played "loud" in order to please more people. Thief/Hitman (the actual, good games, not the reboot/Absolution crap) could only be played stealth. Dishonored stealth is harder than "loud" and takes significantly longer as Corvo hides patiently but IMO is the way the game is intended to be played. It can be done loud and over in a handful of hours and the tragedy is that the majority of the magic abilities cater to this playstyle in what should have been primarily a stealth game. Perhaps it's the result of trying to please the masses/broaden mass-market appeal.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Mass Effect Series - Ability to select all your decisions from previous games to influence a new game.

Gibbed's save editor and ME Saves.com (They played Mass Effect so you don't have to!) in a single link [http://www.masseffectsaves.com/tools.php]. BOOM!

I had a lot of fun with that. I downloaded "Donutsftw Shepard" for one playthru and edited an ME2 save for an ME3 playthru wherein all sqaudmates who could die on Suicide Mission, did (so ME3 had only Liara, Vega, EDI and whoever survived Virmire from ME. Funnily enough, the game played practically no differently...the tragedy that was ME3).

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Jak 2 - Keep the gritty far future setting, if need be, but lose the GTA stuff and tone down the guns, so Jak relies on his hand to hand and platforming skills more often.

Metroid Fusion and Other M - skippable cut scenes and removing Other M's stupid pixel hunts (second change would be to make them somewhat non-linear, not even gonna talk about Other M's plot)

Metroid Prime 2 and 3 - lose the formulaic patterns of progress. Prime 1's progress felt random and realistic. The other two were hitting Zelda levels of predictability. [small]Speaking of Zelda...[/small]

Skyward Sword, Wii version of Twilight Princess, and both DS Zelda - add in an option to use just buttons. The gesture controls in all of those were spotty for me.

Sonic 2 and Sonic 3/S&K: Separate super transformation button [small]Sonic 3 Complete FTW[/small]

Final Fantasy IX - fix the Trance system (maybe add the build-up criteria modes from FFX, too). You could lose a full trance gauge just from getting hit right before a battle ended, or similarly lose a trance move because a character hit trance when they already had a command queued.

Any FF post IX - Bring back the damned fully explorable world map. I don't care if it doesn't look natural to have a photo-realistic character tower over some mega-city. (Also, I second the opinions to bring back turn based battles.)

Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X 4 - don't make Mega Man (especially X) sound like a 5 year old girl. (Keep Elmer Fudd as Dr. Light. That's hi-larious.)

 

[retsupurae yahtsee]

Mario: Remove the Toads and make it perfect. I hate those fucking Toads almost as much as birds, and for the same reasons: Being screechy, brainless and useless.
Sonic: Remove Tails--preferably also all of Sonic's other annoying animal friends, but definitely Tails, the most obnoxious character outside of Toads.
Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Resident Evil 4, 5 and Revelations, Bayonetta 1, the later Prince of Persia games: Remove the QTEs and button mashing--only one in Bionic Commando's case, but still way too much. They are the worst part of games, they are parlor tricks rather than displays of skill, and they remove all the satisfaction from beating a sequence.
Assassin's Creed, Batman: Arkham X, Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor: Remove the Assassin's Creed combat system, where combat is either completely random or just spamming one move over and over until you win. Replace it with the combat from a better hack and slash game, like Zelda, Devil May Cry, The Witcher 3 or Final Fantasy Type 0.
Beyond Good and Evil: Finish the fucking sequel!
David Cage games: Burn David Cage, resurrect him, repeat until I get bored. This also applies to M. Night Shyamalan, but he does not make videogames.
Two Brothers: Playtest the game--it would be perfect, but crippling bugs occur literally every few minutes.
Shiny games: Improve the pacing and controls.
Call of Duty: Change, Goddamn it: Set it in an alien world, make the characters into more than generic tough guys, make the grappling hooks as useful as they are in the Bionic Commando series, make it a platform game, something besides the same game with cosmetic changes, which it really has been since Call of Duty 2.

 

[Mutant1988]

I'll interpret the question posed by the topic title as one feature added to a game, rather than strictly just tweaking an already existing one.

James Bond 007 Nightfire - Added LAN support to multiplayer. I would seriously be playing this over Xlink Kai to this day, had it been supported.

Half Life 2 - Reduce the length of the Route Canal chapter to a third. Great game, but terrible chapter that overstays it's welcome.

Black Ops 3 - A singleplayer/co-op campaign on PS3/Xbox 360, because what the hell Activision.

Halo 5 - Splitscreen co-op/multiplayer, because what the hell 343 Studios (Good job ruining the series by the way - Halo 4 was freaking garbage).

Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl/Clear Sky/Call of Pripyat - Co-op multiplayer. Literally, the best thing ever.

Timesplitters 2 - Fixed crosshair aiming (+ sensitivity adjustment).

Metal Gear Solid 5 Phantom Pain - The rest of the game. Okay, that answer is a bit immature (Got a very appropriate captcha - Trolololol). How about Episode 51 and the Camp Omega ("something that can only be done in video games") feature? That's technically two things though.

 

[Dalisclock]

In Bioshock Infinite: remove almost all of the combat, so that the gameplay actually might align with story of a despairing war veteran who hates racially charged violence.

Making it more a puzzle game ala Portal or Talos Principle would have been an interesting idea, frankly. I didn't hate the combat, I tolerated it because I liked the universe, the story and the characters enough.

 

[maninahat]

In Bioshock Infinite: remove almost all of the combat, so that the gameplay actually might align with story of a despairing war veteran who hates racially charged violence.

Making it more a puzzle game ala Portal or Talos Principle would have been an interesting idea, frankly. I didn't hate the combat, I tolerated it because I liked the universe, the story and the characters enough.

I would have liked some kind of First person detective game, you know, with the protagonist being a PI and all.

 

[Hades]

Classic: Mass Effect 3, change the fucking ending. I don't mean what they did with the extended cut, I mean remove Starkid completely, and write a proper epilogue with input from the entire staff, not just Hudson and Walters.

That's the one that sticks out the most to me; a game that could be significantly improved by a very small thing.

I think the biggest problem wasn't so much the ending but rather that by making the reapers so powerful, alien and essentially avatars of universal death that had never been beaten in a billion years(like Lovecraftian mecha-cthulhu), the writers pretty much wrote themselves into a corner. With the threat they established, the only true ending should have been the one where everyone dies and the hologram of T'soni is telling the future people about the catalyst and the crucible, or figured out some kind of alternative that wasn't "We win because space magic/plot device".

But people would have been angry at that too, because then "All my choices were for nothing!".

Not necessarily. The Reapers are all depicted as incredible powerful but the first game always went through great lengths to establish that none of the previous harvests ever had a chance to fight back. The Reapers just destroyed the galactic capitol, cut off communication throughout the galaxy and picked off every planet one by one without them ever knowing what hit them. In this cycle the Reapers actually had to fight for the first time so its not impossible a united galaxy could defeat them.

In any case yeah, removing the ending would be my improvement for Mass Effect 3 as well.

For Shogun total war I would remove realm divide. Its just fake difficulty robbing the player of the freedom to play the endgame your way.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

For Shogun total war I would remove realm divide. Its just fake difficulty robbing the player of the freedom to play the endgame your way.

Oh My recommendation for that one would be to remove the turn limit. It makes the game too gamey. 4x games are really more of a sanbox/play toy then actual game. I don't even think they should have win lose conditions let alone timed ones.

 

[sanquin]

ME3's ending. I would remove the starchild entirely. Instead, the crucible doesn't work and they have to find another way to counter the reapers. However scientists found out that the crucible can still help them by overloading it. The choices will instead be 1: the red ending. 2: depending on your paragon and readiness score you can get the option to instead hack the reapers from there telling them to attack and destroy each other. 3: depending on your renegade and readiness score, you can instead take control of them, using them to form a new government system with Shepard as the leader. Maybe 2 more options for less readiness but still a high paragon or renegade score. Though I can't think of any right now.

It's far from perfect, but I at least would like it better than what we have now.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

TES: Oblivion + Skyrim - remove location markers from the compass.

One of the things which helped create immersion for Morrowind was having to navigate your way around via a map. Streamlining the system so you just point in a direction and walk without having to take anything in kills a lot of that.

I know there are mods to change this, but as a default including it in the first place is a stupid idea which goes against the entire grain of exploring.

 

[Dalisclock]

Not necessarily. The Reapers are all depicted as incredible powerful but the first game always went through great lengths to establish that none of the previous harvests ever had a chance to fight back. The Reapers just destroyed the galactic capitol, cut off communication throughout the galaxy and picked off every planet one by one without them ever knowing what hit them. In this cycle the Reapers actually had to fight for the first time so its not impossible a united galaxy could defeat them.

In any case yeah, removing the ending would be my improvement for Mass Effect 3 as well.

I mostly agree with you. Lengthy commentary on the ME3 ending below.
[Spoiler:]

Their anti-reaper tech and tactics definitely improves over the course of the series, but by the end it really doesn't matter. The reapers outnumber everyone and aren't dependent on logistics(but their more then happy to blow up every fuel depot they see to deny you supplies), they can easily just hit the homeworlds and bypass front lines like they weren't there. The fact they can resurrect the dead to use as shock troops only makes this worse. This is without the fifth column that is Cerberus(AKA evil Martin Sheen), though having indoctrinated rebels helping them seems to be SOP for every invasion, if you believe Javik.

Even in the best ending of ME3, where you got max war assets and got everyone to work together, the reapers are still winning. They're taking more losses the they previously did but that's really just slowing them down. Everything you do in ME1 and ME2(stopping Sovereign from using the citadel to let the other reapers in, blowing up the Alpha relay, stopping the collectors) was basically a delaying action and bought the galaxy about two and a half years to prepare.

if you remember vigil in ME1, he talked about how the Prothans tried to wait out the invasion on Illos, only to release the reapers take decades, if not centuries to complete the job. Because the reapers don't care, they've got all of eternity to work with and the galactic resistance will only degrade over time(Notice how the map in ME3 gets more and more hostile as the game goes on?). The battle for earth was the last stand against the reapers, because if they failed there, there weren't going to be enough forces to try again. They'd already cobbled together as much as they could just to launch that battle.

The fact that the writers had to come up with a dues ex machina superweapon(which they could never actually explain what the hell it actually does) to address this problem is to me a tacit admission they knew what trouble they'd gotten themselves into. The star brat was a poorly executed attempt to explain why the reapers do what they do(and it's still full of holes, like why they give a shit about what Shepherd wants). Because having a "Hit the weak point/push the self destruct button/kill the big bad and you win" resolution is what writers do when they've established a threat that can't reasonably be defeated by the heroes and yet somehow the heroes have to prevail. It's why the death star has an obvious weak point that results in instant victory(though to be fair, the rebels actually had to steal the design plans to find it and had to use force guided torpedoes to actually hit it).

Really, the crucible should have never been a thing to begin with. The writers either needed to admit they'd created an unstoppable monster in the reapers and have the story be about a heroic last stand against them(which, frankly, is what the game really is right until the point Shepherd wakes up and enters the star brat's room. It actually makes more sense if they game ends right there, even if it is a lot more depressing) or completely rewrite the lore and foreshadowed much earlier(at least as far back as ME2) that there was some kind of effective way to beat them. I suspect this was going to be the Dark Energy plot they had originally intended. [/Spoiler]

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Every Single Final Fantasy Turn-Based RPG can be improved with a Bravely Default style menu setting that allows you to increase/decrease the encounter rate whenever you want. In Pokemon this could vastly speed up shiny hunting for example...then there's the other Bravely Default thing of speeding up combat speed on-the-fly while in combat. This is another brilliant idea since it skips summon animations too. As great as Final Fantasy VII was, the ability to skip cutscenes like Knights of the Round or Sephiroth's Supernova would have expedited the combat process...yes, those attacks look freaking awesome the first time but after a while the spectacle becomes absolutely tedious. Final Fantasy VI is one of the most loved Final Fantasy games because of how quickly combat began and ended after all (among its many other good qualities).

 

[1981]

All point and click games should have a button that highlights clickable areas. The latest being The Journey Down: Chapter One.

She is British, just not a good voice performer. Mainly that lisp and those effort noises/grunts ruin it.

It seems to be a trend. And it seems to coincide with exploitative portrayal. Elizabeth in Bioshock: Infinite also overdid it with the noises.

 

[sageoftruth]

Get rid of poise mechanic in Dark Souls

Get rid of directional input for parrying in MGR:R

Get rid of dog run levels in Korra

On the subject of Korra, also give that game more enemy variety. It got old very fast.

 

[sageoftruth]

Blazblue
Do something to bridge the gap between the gameplay and the story. There are so many fights that you have to win, in order to progress that you end up to losing in the story. Perhaps have an added animation at the end of the fight, showing Terumi getting up and unleashing an attack on his foe, to make the next cutscene more believable. It's so jarring to see him lying on the ground unconscious at the end of the fight and then gloating about how unstoppable he is in the following cutscene.

 

[joest01]

Get rid of poise mechanic in Dark Souls

Get rid of directional input for parrying in MGR:R

Get rid of dog run levels in Korra

On the subject of Korra, also give that game more enemy variety. It got old very fast.

I don't disagree. However, it is a budget title that nailed the elemental combat. A lot of the Platinum combat goodness is right there.

The dog running levels however were a waste of their time and mine.

Heck maybe they could have used the budget to introduce a couple more enemy types.

 

[sageoftruth]

Get rid of poise mechanic in Dark Souls

Get rid of directional input for parrying in MGR:R

Get rid of dog run levels in Korra

On the subject of Korra, also give that game more enemy variety. It got old very fast.

I don't disagree. However, it is a budget title that nailed the elemental combat. A lot of the Platinum combat goodness is right there.

The dog running levels however were a waste of their time and mine.

Heck maybe they could have used the budget to introduce a couple more enemy types.

True. It's a shame really.

 

[votemarvel]

Mass Effect 3 (I'll drop the ending because everyone including me is just tired of it): Stop being on Origin and let me have my Steam version. Specifically so I can take screen shots of that game like I did with the first two games. In fact while I was fiddling around and waiting to buy ME3 I replayed the other two games so I could have different Shepards to import and have different experiences. To add some fun to that experience I screenshotted the crap out of those games (the second one way more than the first since ME2 is way more interesting visually) and sort of made some photo albums of them that I could look back to with many memories. I had about 500 screenshots of those two games until I was satisfied. And since Origin doesn't support a screenshot feature, I'll never have a lasting picture of my Shepard taking down a Reaper, having fun with Garrus on the Citadel, see Grunt risking his life for his battlemaster, Mordin gaining redemption, Wrex gaining back what he fought so hard for, seeing Jack move on from her life of violence, watch Thane's brutal yet oddly touching and fitting conclusion, having an awkward reunion with Liara and Tali (I romanced both of them), give EDI relationship advice with Joker, have a boxing match with Vega (probably the best use of the Paragon/Renegade interruption mechanic in the whole series) and have an awesome party with the crew. And that kinda bugs me.

It's actually quite simple to do.

Add Origin to Steam through Games/Add a Non Steam Game to My Library.

Launch Origin though Steam and then Mass Effect 3 through Origin.

Then you can take screenshots using the F12 key just like you would any other Steam game. You also get the Steam overlay.

Yes it is an annoying extra step to have to take but there is no reason not to feed your screenshot addiction.

I mostly agree with you. Lengthy commentary on the ME3 ending below.
[Spoiler:]

Their anti-reaper tech and tactics definitely improves over the course of the series, but by the end it really doesn't matter. The reapers outnumber everyone and aren't dependent on logistics(but their more then happy to blow up every fuel depot they see to deny you supplies), they can easily just hit the homeworlds and bypass front lines like they weren't there. The fact they can resurrect the dead to use as shock troops only makes this worse. This is without the fifth column that is Cerberus(AKA evil Martin Sheen), though having indoctrinated rebels helping them seems to be SOP for every invasion, if you believe Javik.

Even in the best ending of ME3, where you got max war assets and got everyone to work together, the reapers are still winning. They're taking more losses the they previously did but that's really just slowing them down. Everything you do in ME1 and ME2(stopping Sovereign from using the citadel to let the other reapers in, blowing up the Alpha relay, stopping the collectors) was basically a delaying action and bought the galaxy about two and a half years to prepare.

if you remember vigil in ME1, he talked about how the Prothans tried to wait out the invasion on Illos, only to release the reapers take decades, if not centuries to complete the job. Because the reapers don't care, they've got all of eternity to work with and the galactic resistance will only degrade over time(Notice how the map in ME3 gets more and more hostile as the game goes on?). The battle for earth was the last stand against the reapers, because if they failed there, there weren't going to be enough forces to try again. They'd already cobbled together as much as they could just to launch that battle.

The fact that the writers had to come up with a dues ex machina superweapon(which they could never actually explain what the hell it actually does) to address this problem is to me a tacit admission they knew what trouble they'd gotten themselves into. The star brat was a poorly executed attempt to explain why the reapers do what they do(and it's still full of holes, like why they give a shit about what Shepherd wants). Because having a "Hit the weak point/push the self destruct button/kill the big bad and you win" resolution is what writers do when they've established a threat that can't reasonably be defeated by the heroes and yet somehow the heroes have to prevail. It's why the death star has an obvious weak point that results in instant victory(though to be fair, the rebels actually had to steal the design plans to find it and had to use force guided torpedoes to actually hit it).

Really, the crucible should have never been a thing to begin with. The writers either needed to admit they'd created an unstoppable monster in the reapers and have the story be about a heroic last stand against them(which, frankly, is what the game really is right until the point Shepherd wakes up and enters the star brat's room. It actually makes more sense if they game ends right there, even if it is a lot more depressing) or completely rewrite the lore and foreshadowed much earlier(at least as far back as ME2) that there was some kind of effective way to beat them. I suspect this was going to be the Dark Energy plot they had originally intended. [/Spoiler]

The Crucible bugged me because it even states in the game that the Citadel was added to its design later on. So how was it meant to function before that?

To me it would have made more sense for it to have been a device meant to take down the shields of the Reapers. The Citadel added later on in order for it to take their shields down Galaxy wide instead of just in the local area of space.

So then your war assets come into play and determines if you win and if so, at what cost. That way they could even have kept a small handful of Reapers active to be a menace for future games.

 

[Karunamon]

-Final Fantasy X. The voice acting in this game ranges from decent to "God, Tidus, just shut up!" and as far as I know, there's no way to turn off the voice acting. Give me a "Voices off" button and let me read the subtitles for the rest of the game.

I would have settled for an option to just shank Tidus an hour into the game and never have to deal with him again.

AHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAH!

Still gives me cringe to this day.

Speaking of godawful vehicle handling. GTA4 and onwards. I was used to the more arcadey controls of the previous games, and driving around in 4 is just plain not fun. I've yet to find a good mod to fix it