Minor things in games that you greatly appreciate

[Vhite]

I'm sure that everyone here knows what are the most important things for him/her that game must have to be amazing. This isn't the thread about them. I want to hear what little things there are that can really improve your experience with game but you aren't automatically expecting them.

For me it's high value currency. Many games have been giving you more money than you can spend or give you just enough for you to buy just what you need. That's ok but what I like is when game is greedy and you have to think before every purchase if it really is worth it, even if you are buying just a healing potion.

What are yours?

 

[SonicWaffle]

What are yours?

A decent minimap/not-so-minimap.

A surprising amount of games still manage to fuck this up and I just don't know how given that we've had maps in games for so bloody long. They'll do things like having multi-levelled maps but not show how the levels connect, or showing an item/quest/decorative vase being present in a certain part of the map but not saying which floor it's on, or simply having a map which shows the level perfectly well but doesn't show where the player character actually is.

When done right, the player shouldn't even really think about the map; they should just open it, look at it, think "I am here and I need to be over there, and that path there is the quickest route" and then move on about their business. There shouldn't need to be a period where they need to figure out where a certain road goes or whether they should be on level 5 or level 12.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I have to say emotes in LoL. Seriously, i've played DOTA 2 a somewhat decent amount and my GOD does the lack of a /laugh show through as a weakness. I mean you can't laugh bait. Game over DOTA. Game. Over.

Also the first two minutes of any game will probably consist of a 4 man rave over at Blue Buff. It just gives the game more character I suppose

 

[aguspal]

I'm sure that everyone here knows what are the most important things for him/her that game must have to be amazing. This isn't the thread about them. I want to hear what little things there are that can really improve your experience with game but you aren't automatically expecting them.

For me it's high value currency. Many games have been giving you more money than you can spend or give you just enough for you to buy just what you need. That's ok but what I like is when game is greedy and you have to think before every purchase if it really is worth it, even if you are buying just a healing potion.

What are yours?

Just out of curiosity, what is that one game you are talking about?

I have yet to play a game that does what you said.

 

[Vhite]

I'm sure that everyone here knows what are the most important things for him/her that game must have to be amazing. This isn't the thread about them. I want to hear what little things there are that can really improve your experience with game but you aren't automatically expecting them.

For me it's high value currency. Many games have been giving you more money than you can spend or give you just enough for you to buy just what you need. That's ok but what I like is when game is greedy and you have to think before every purchase if it really is worth it, even if you are buying just a healing potion.

What are yours?

Just out of curiosity, what is that one game you are talking about?

I have yet to play a game that does what you said.

Broken Hearts, Czech RPG maker game, I mention it often on escapist but not by name because chances of finding someone who knows it are minimal and I want to save people from disappointment of game not being in English. It's really just a game sticked together from sprites of other games and it's flawed in many ways yet it did many things so incredibly right it really broke my heart when I realized what it could have been if it was finished properly. There really wasn't any game that got me so emotional over it like this one.

Story had some part in it, but game had some amazing features that obviously were never finished. Like strategic combat where you fought with armies on large scale which was used just once to move main story forward. There were also many locations around the world that you never had to visit for any reason but were obviously special. Of course game wasn't all that obviously unfinished, fights weren't turn based and were rather fun, fight with almost every kind enemy felt different. Difficulty was rather high and you were required to be skilled in combat and have your character leveled properly. There were many original bosses, stealth missions, and again I should mention that story was amazing.


Sorry for the wall of text, as I mentioned I tend to get emotional over this game. Also it's almost a yearly tradition for me to capture some unfortunate soul that happens to stumble upon me mentioning this game and nail him to the wall of text.

As for the gold, there really was a very few of it. I remember one part near the end of the game that had island with lengthy dungeon full of traps, twice as much so long since you had to walk back too. At its end there was a one treasure chest that had about 6k of gold and it was totally worth it. Also there were some parts were I had to reconsider if I want consumables for next part of the game or save 1k for +1 damage enchant (damage also came in low number).

 

[AnthrSolidSnake]

In first person shooters, when you look down and see your body and feet, or when you see your shadow using the games lighting engine. If not, at least having immersive interaction and animations with objects and your enviroment.

Also, a feeling of weight to your character and their movements. For some reason, Ocarina of Time always gave this feeling to me, Link's movement just felt like I was actually playing as a person. It's hard to explain why I can feel this is some games and not others...

I'll also have to agree with TizzytheTormentor and the whole immersive background noises and sounds. New Vegas did it pretty well, but I felt Skyrim was lacking, but thanks to some great sound mods I was able to seemingly triple my immersion into the game.

 

[aguspal]

I'm sure that everyone here knows what are the most important things for him/her that game must have to be amazing. This isn't the thread about them. I want to hear what little things there are that can really improve your experience with game but you aren't automatically expecting them.

For me it's high value currency. Many games have been giving you more money than you can spend or give you just enough for you to buy just what you need. That's ok but what I like is when game is greedy and you have to think before every purchase if it really is worth it, even if you are buying just a healing potion.

What are yours?

Just out of curiosity, what is that one game you are talking about?

I have yet to play a game that does what you said.

Broken Hearts, Czech RPG maker game, I mention it often on escapist but not by name because chances of finding someone who knows it are minimal and I want to save people from disappointment of game not being in English. It's really just a game sticked together from sprites of other games and it's flawed in many ways yet it did many things so incredibly right it really broke my heart when I realized what it could have been if it was finished properly. There really wasn't any game that got me so emotional over it like this one.

Story had some part in it, but game had some amazing features that obviously were never finished. Like strategic combat where you fought with armies on large scale which was used just once to move main story forward. There were also many locations around the world that you never had to visit for any reason but were obviously special. Of course game wasn't all that obviously unfinished, fights weren't turn based and were rather fun, fight with almost every kind enemy felt different. Difficulty was rather high and you were required to be skilled in combat and have your character leveled properly. There were many original bosses, stealth missions, and again I should mention that story was amazing.


Sorry for the wall of text, as I mentioned I tend to get emotional over this game. Also it's almost a yearly tradition for me to capture some unfortunate soul that happens to stumble upon me mentioning this game and nail him to the wall of text.

As for the gold, there really was a very few of it. I remember one part near the end of the game that had island with lengthy dungeon full of traps, twice as much so long since you had to walk back too. At its end there was a one treasure chest that had about 6k of gold and it was totally worth it. Also there were some parts were I had to reconsider if I want consumables for next part of the game or save 1k for +1 damage enchant (damage also came in low number).

Well that certainly does sound interesting. I can imagine than the 6K of gold in a game where it is ACTUALLY valuable (Because really, I cant for the life of me mention a game where money was not trivalized, sooner or later) would be pretty cool and feel like an actual archivement. When I find so much money at once in a game, I usually go "eh, more useless money I guess".

I would certanly like to feel something else other than that xD. And dont worry about the wall of text, it was cool to read it and I was the one that asked for it, LOL.


All this whole talk about numbers and such, I wouldt mind of games would come without ridiculous big numbers sometimes. I mean, I would rather see "1250 damage" in my screen rather than something like "942698614464654664414747337OMGWTF damage!!!". If you have ever played Borderlands thats what I am refering to (Althougt it is not an actual example- at least it hasnt gotten as dramatical as I have just written just yet) Gets annoying in games where they display damage like that every single hit to have the screen full of that. Same goes for money and all of that...

Sure they are minor details, but thats what this thread is about right?

 

[Tom_green_day]

When you're in cover and looking to move cover and the arrows actually tell you where you're going to go instead of making you dive our randomly. ME3.

 

[XMark]

I always really like it when a game has a really rich and detailed amount of ambient background sounds, and you can hear the different ambient noises fade in and out as you get closer and farther from their sources.

 

[VincentMm]

Being able to swim in water, rather than just dying immediately.
Makes a massive difference to my enjoyment of a game.

 

[Hemlock]

Unpausing with the A button.
In Firepower 2000, you can pause with the start button, take a leak, then come back and unpause with the A button, and you can hold it for rapid fire, which gives you an extra split second. Small things like these can make these games better.

 

[Wolfeyes555]

One seemingly minor thing that sold me was something that happened in Skyrim. I was walking along a river when in the distance, I saw some bandits fighting two mountain giants. I hid behind some rocks while this was going on and watched as the bandits had their shit completely wrecked by the giants. I had nothing to do with that and I gained nothing from it besides some gold I looted from their corpses but this moment stuck with me. I guess this was the moment that told me just how big Skyrim truly was, that the world keeps going even if I have no part in it.

 

[putowtin]

In Fallout: New Vegas, the background noises, in casinos, you can hear slots rolling, people talking, groaning about losing, and outside in the desert, you can hear gunshots and other such things, really adds to the immersion.

ambiance can make a game for me, last night I was playing the new Mass Effect DLC and found myself stopping to listen to the conversations taking place around me...
There's discussions about the multiplayer characters ("Who stops to put up a supply pylon in the middle of battle?")
The Elcor version of Hamlet and a new production of Macbeth with Pyjacks in it!

brilliantly done Bioware!

 

[MintberryCrunch]

One seemingly minor thing that sold me was something that happened in Skyrim. I was walking along a river when in the distance, I saw some bandits fighting two mountain giants. I hid behind some rocks while this was going on and watched as the bandits had their shit completely wrecked by the giants. I had nothing to do with that and I gained nothing from it besides some gold I looted from their corpses but this moment stuck with me. I guess this was the moment that told me just how big Skyrim truly was, that the world keeps going even if I have no part in it.

I've had this, where I was walking through some random dungeon and it suddenly said 'Quest Failed: Stoking the Flames'. I was sneaking around randomly at the time and hadn't done anything, so this confused the hell out of me, until I walked into Riften a long time after, and found Balimund, the quest giver, dead beside a Thief. I found that amazing that a tiny little act by a thief had an impact on my game, despite me having absolutely nothing to do with it.
I know some people who would complain at the, saying 'OMG BUT DATS GAEM BREAKIN!!11!' but I don't care about something like that happening because it makes me game experience that much more unique.

 

[Daveman]

A quick walking speed. I think the main annoyance I had with Halo was I felt I wasn't moving fast enough. walking in Assassins Creed was nothing but an annoyance to me. It also meant I couldn't play heavy armour etc characters in oblivion, skyrim was better due to sprinting but still, it's a gripe.

 

[Phasmal]

A female character option, it's lovely to be pleasantly surprised by being able to be a woman in a game.

Also, lots of dialogue options and a hint to the tone of what you're going to say.
A lot of people hated the dialogue wheel in DA2, but I loved it, because I had too many times chosen something from DA:O that I wanted to say and it had the completely wrong affect because my character was saying it in a sarcastic tone but I had meant it sincerely.

And character customization. Even if it's something little like being able to change the clothes and hair, I like it.

 

[Da Orky Man]

The way that companions banter amongst themselves, usually in Bioware RPGs. It just adds a surprising amount to the characterisation, seeing how the characters talk to each other rather than just the player.

 

[BytByte]

Usually when every NPC has an actual name, especially is huge RPGs. It shows that the developers cared to fully flesh out their game, down to the last useless person talking about their bratty kids. Also, with the large amount of NPCs, people usually get pretty funny or referential names.