Things that you don't want to see anymore in modern games (but are still there)

[Emperor Megas]

I don't know if there have been a million of these topics or not, so I'm sorry if there have been, but are there things that you feel just shouldn't still be in modern games anymore but still pop up, and with annoying frequency? There are a few I really hate. Some are just annoyances, where as others are enough to make me shelf a game.

• Poorly implemented Quick Time Events - I really don't like QTEs. I'm talking about the whole press the HUGE FLASHING BUTTON/DIRECTION ARROW SHOWN ON SCREEN type of thing. I don't mind them when they're a part of a combo system in an action game, like in Dante's Inferno and the like, but I'd still rather have the option of turning the HUGE GLOWING BUTTON on the screen 'off.' When you have it memorized, there's really no need for a HUGE BLINKING ICON, taking you out of the experience and constantly reminding you that you're playing a game.
  
  I REALLY hate the kind that aren't a part of a fighting system though, like the ones that they keep putting in modern Resident Evil games. The QTE's were the ONLY thing that stopped Resident Evil 4 from being a perfect game, IMO. The QTE in that game are as bad to me as the rest of the game is good. That's how much I HATE them. I felt like most of them were just a cheap effort to add interaction to cut scenes where as I'd rather just WATCH a 10 second cut scene.
  
  
• Long, drawn out boss fights - I'll admit, I'm an old school gamer who grew up on boss fights that could be over in mere seconds if you knew what to do, but that's not really why I hate drawn out boss fights. It's just sometimes I feel that they make them unnecessarily time consuming when there's really no reason to. If you have the patterns down, and you're dominating a fight, there's no reason to make it last 10 minutes when it can be over in like 2.
  
  I don't even mean multi-stage bosses that go through several transformations/forms, that's fine. I'm talking about how slowly some bosses take damage. I'd rather a short difficult boss fight than a long, simple and/or tedious one.
  
  
• No indication of how much damage boss enemies have taken - This is another peeve of mine. I was playing Binary Domain last the summer and I was actually sort of enjoying it with its limited enemy types and sterile, uninspired gray/silver environments, then I reached this part where I had to fight this giant robot gorilla several times in the same stage. At what's presumably the last area in the fight I was told by an NPC to use a stationary gun turret in a warehouse (that you have to carry ammo to), and I tried, but I swear it was the most frustrating thing I'd done in any game I've played this generation. I never beat the damn thing and after succumbing to frustration just decided to shelf the game. I have NO IDEA if I'm even damaging it, AT ALL, or how much I am IF I am.
  
  In older shooters your shots used to make a different sound or visual effect when you'd hit a vulnerable spot letting you know you were attacking the right part. This is more subtle than a a huge glowing area on an enemy, which I don't think we need anymore in games (notice I don't like huge glowing indicators in games?) but I can't tell what's going on with this gorilla fight.
  
  
• Non-skippable cut scenes - This one is self explanatory. Unlock the cut scenes and make them available in the options menu when you get to a new one, but please, make them skippable in game. I always watch them the first time, but I don't always want to the 2nd or 5th time through. Or, maybe I have limited play time and I want to cover more ground in a game before work and I can't sit through 5+ minutes of trite dialog. Just let me go back to it later already, please.
  
  
• Stupid partner/team AI - I especially hate this in escort scenarios. How hard is it to program 'get out of the line of fire, don't walk when shit's going down...'RUN', and hide behind something when bullets are flying'?
  
  
• Stupid, 'bullet sponge' enemy AI - The same way I don't want my team or the person I'm escorting to be a wind up toy, I don't want the enemies to be either. If I unload a clip into your arm or leg, maybe you should, like, I don't know, duck behind something, or move out the way at least? I don't mind this as much with shielded/armoured, or non-sentient enemies, but when you're some guy in fatigues or jeans and a wife beater (Bulletstorm), you really should duck and cover...ESPECIALLY when you see me COMPLETELY MASSACRING your buddies in the most HORRIFIC ways possible! Move; don't just wait for your turn, brah.

[kupomogli]

Iwata stated this a little while ago. Too much story in video games. Pick up the majority of video games and they're trying to force story down your throat left and right. Sure some of the story is good, but I'm going to say the majority of it is complete garbage. If you're not going to be able to push something of reasonable quality, then just don't even bother. Save yourselves the development cost and save the players from being bored out of their mind sitting through the garbage. Limit the story like NES and SNES games did and have the game mostly gameplay.

Fetch quests. Plz stop. Assassin's Creed games are so much fetch questy that the main missions themselves feel like a fetch quest. I was interested in Dragon Age Inquisition because I loved Dragon Age Origins and this was a mix of gameplay with a much larger world. When I actually played it though, it has what I call the Assassin's Creed effect, where there were quests scattered everywhere that were nothing more than please go talk to this person or please go get this item that I've marked on the map for you. You're doing nothing from going to point to point and these quests really have no redeeming gameplay value other than turning the game into a collectathon of bullshit.

Now I'm not a fan of Mario 64 but that's mainly because you're going across the same places to pick up new stars due to the stages being so small. However, even though I'm not a fan of Mario 64, the game atleast makes acquiring the stars more enjoyable than games like Assassin's Creed or Dragon Age Inquisition. Mario 64 actually has you doing some unique objective to acquire a new star. Same with Jak and Daxter, where you have unique objectives to collect orbs and power cells, although in the case of Jak and Daxter, you're in a much larger world. I didn't like the second Jak and Daxter because you traversed back and forth through the same area over and over, quit shortly after I started, and I've never played the third because I didn't finish the second. So even though I dislike Mario 64, it's not nearly as much as these pos games.

You can have a large world in a video game that's not purely fetch quests and is able to have meaningful side quests. Infamous has done it, Grand Theft Auto does it, etc, so why can't a single Assassin's Creed do it properly? It seems that all these games receive a massive amount of praise from the media and fans, that fetch quest type games that give no real value to the game other than mindless backtracking are the games receive the most hype or are the games most gamers want to play.

[Emperor Megas]

• Not being able to re-map the buttons/controller layout - I don't know why ANY game that isn't rhythm based wouldn't allow this. It just seems like arrogance on the developer's part to me, not unlike making you sit through cut scenes that you can't skip. It's like they're going to force you to enjoy the game the way that they feel you should, not what's most comfortable to you, the consumer.
  
  
• Not stopping the game clock when you pause - You play and get a phone call, or have to take a wicked shit or run to the store or whatever, and you'd rather just pause than save since you don't want to lose your exact spot. Later when you get past the stage/level/fire fight and you save another hour is now added to your game time. Seriously? I mean, it doesn't really matter (unless there are rewards for ending the game under a certain time), but come on, really?
  
  
• Cut scenes rendered in real time that DON'T SHOW/USE YOUR CURRENT GEAR - I approached the control panel holding a pistol, wearing green amour, so why when the cut scene starts am I shouldering an assault rifle and wearing blue armor? I can't be the only one who hates this. How about when I trigger the cut scene event with a bone dry pistol, not even one left in the chamber, but during the cut scene I unload like 16 shots that I didn't have 2 seconds ago into some monster? Or I have a full clip before the cut scene but after it it's STILL full! At least in Silent Hill 2 James finds a clip to use during the closet rape scene when he starts shooting.
  
  
• Bodies disappearing - At least in modern Resident Evil games the bodies dissolve impressively. It's science fiction, and they're all B.O.W.s, so I can excuse it, but do modern consoles really lack the memory to leave the damn bodies where they dropped in other games? Zombies, sure. You can't just render and leave THOUSANDS of obstructions littering the play field (which would add an AWESOME game play element to a modern zombie survival game, BTW), but when they're just aliens, or normal human solider, why do the bodies vanish when you leave an area for a second?

[Tanooki]

Love those two lists. I'd throw in also if I head shot your ass in a FPS **YOU DIE** some thing with a double tap to the chest when you're not wearing any form of armor. MoH and a few others really piss me off when I have to let an entire clip of a Thompson or whatever into some krauts or terrorists chest before he stops moving. It's DUMB, yet the higher the difficulty I don't have that luxury.

I'm with fetch quests, always hated those too kupo.

Another thing I loathe are collect-a-thon games where you're penalized if you don't get some lame amount of X item to open up the next section to do it all over again (Rare criminally near the top of the list for that one on N64 and later.)

In modern games I'd like above all, I'd even tolerate all the shit listed in this thread to this post, if they'd put a lot more quality games on physical media and more games from more genres. I'm tired of the the blockbuster budget whining if you only sell 4M units of a game not being enough playing it safe with FPS CoD clones, Assassins Creed type/knockoffs, and the other limited selection you see of the last couple generations. We had better variety even into the GC/PS2 era than we do now.

[Daria]

QTEs just feel like someone attempting to shoehorn arbitrary gameplay into an FMV sequence. If you really feel like the player's going to be bored watching your story segment then remove it, don't turn it into a pop quiz. That's tedious, not fun.

[YoshiM]

"Staging areas"- where you know there's going to be mass combat that seems to break the perception of a game world. I noticed it in mass Effect 3 where you move along normal looking hallways and such then boom- places with cover you can duck behind as the enemies start pouring out. Rinse, repeat. Bioshock Infinite had those areas where you could see large spaces of attack points or other helpful things Elizabeth could conjure upon so you knew it was gonna get ugly.

Formulaic...to the max.

[Tupin]

-QTEs. Shenmue did this right, but also caused over a decade of these.

-Poorly thought out political commentary. There are very, very, VERY few games that can actually make a non-sophomoric and poignant point about real world issues. Most simply aren't made by talented enough people so they're just pretentious.

-Hallways vs. sandboxes. Really, this is an East vs. West thing.

-IAPs. Enough said.

-Indie games that completely rely on Nintendo nostalgia for their whole existence. Yeah, you're sure pushing new heights with your "retro-inspired" platformer/clone of a Nintendo game from two decades ago. Truly you are the industry's savior, average indie developer.

[Tanooki]

IAP I can agree with which reminded me of DLC. Rarely is it ever treated with respect, mostly it's a ploy to rip off gamers because they can hold back designs for added stages, elements, characters, costumes or multiplayer maps and then charge $5 here $15 there, suddenly it's like you bought the game twice. A few years ago EA put out Tiger Woods for $60, ultimately you got like 25% of the game, and by the time you bought all the normally given people and courses it was like a $300 or a $500 game I forget, pure garbage either way.

I miss when people just made the game, finished the game, and released the game. If the game made a crap ton of fans and money, sometimes the company would (or would get a 3rd party) make a secondary expansion pack with a full set of stages, maybe some new gear with it, bulk, and usually for like 33 to 50% of the original game but the content merited it.


And along those lines -- consoles without internal storage because I want a modern game where it works totally right out of the box end of story.

Whatever happened to finishing a game an properly damn well beta testing the hell out of it so it worked? Buying most games these days early on basically makes you a full priced beta tester guinea pig. Wait a few months, buy it for $10-20 (or more) less and the patches will be done and it will work unlike for the suckers who wanted it right away. There's really NO excuse for this crap on a console, IE: a CLOSED SYSTEM. It's not like they need to beta test millions of combintations of RAM, CPU, GPU, MOBO, etc so it doesn't screw up for someone. Patches are a way of life and acceptable with a computer system since they're not stock, but consoles NO and handhelds NO.

[kupomogli]

^I agree with this. I have four PS4 games right now, Infamous, Dragon Age, The Last of Us, and Diablo 3. Every single one of them had a day one update. Diablo had other updates later which made the games difficulties harder and added ancient legendary items which are rarer versions of legendary equipment. There's even ancient legendary sets. So with Diablo, cool, we're getting more content, with the other games, I feel ripped off because I clearly got a game that wasn't complete the day it shipped and without these patches who knows what bugs and glitches are in the games.

Day one and season pass DLC. More than likely it's already been in the works prior to the game being released. It's probably something that was stripped from the game and is gong to be sold to you later. Or preorder only bonuses that is sold as DLC if you didn't preorder, and even contact that the developers slowly release to add more game time in hopes for players not to sell their copy of the game to Gamestop, etc.

Holding back content isn't going to stop the games from being sold back as used. If someone doesn't like the game you can release as much content each week as you want, not going to stop the player from selling it. Additionally if you think people are going to sell your game within a week so you have to slowly keep releasing content, then maybe you should put more content in the game from the start so we don't complete the game in four hours 75% of it being story we didn't care about.

[Tanooki]

Good argument, detailed better than I did perhaps by experience. I almost bought hat PS4 Diablo game but I figured it was meant for PC so when I saw a stupid deep sale on it and the addon that made it $30 total I had no motivation and now i'm even more glad I did. Diablo 3 when I installed it along with the addon package hasn't locked me out while it runs regular bug patches or upgrades/updates either. I don't mind it so much on a PC, I can pop online or something else in the meantime, but on a console it's a staring contest with the TV.

It's nice to see I'm not the only one mad about how most of the DLC stuff is handled or the annoying patching gets old. I often run into a bunch of people in denial or who are apologists over it and it just is mind blowing.

[Emperor Megas]

"Staging areas"- where you know there's going to be mass combat that seems to break the perception of a game world. I noticed it in mass Effect 3 where you move along normal looking hallways and such then boom- places with cover you can duck behind as the enemies start pouring out. Rinse, repeat. Bioshock Infinite had those areas where you could see large spaces of attack points or other helpful things Elizabeth could conjure upon so you knew it was gonna get ugly.

Formulaic...to the max.

That's a really good one. I didn't really think about it, but when I'm playing a game that does this I ALWAYS think about it.

• Entrepreneurship at the expense of the end of the world - WHY haven't we gotten past the whole thing where people who understand and agree that you're the world's ONLY hope are still SELLING you shit rather than just GIVING it to you (if not outright BEGGING YOU to take and use it), or at LEAST telling you how to acquire it (for free) somewhere else at your own peril? Now, I'm not saying that you should do away with shopfronts in games where there's a hero who's on an epic world saving quest, but for god's sake, at least make the venders skeptics, or unaware of the mission your undertaking, or of your 'messiah' status, at least. This is just lazy writing, IMO.
  
  Merchant: ONLY YOU can save the world from the Dark Lord, Tyrran'ax, and it can ONLY be done with this enchanted, one of a kind glaive, blessed by the High Priestess, Antauwass Le'in IV...which I'll SELL to you for $1,000,300 monies.
  
  HERO: Praises to you, noble merchan.... Wait. "SELL me..."? Wait, what!?
  
  
• AI Team members that can't use grenades - Ever notice team members never use grenades on games like HALO, Left4Dead, and Mass Effect? I've only recently played through the first Mass Effect, so I don't know if they've changed it in the sequels (or mapped grenades to an ACTUAL BUTTON, instead of 'back'). I read somewhere that it was too difficult to program AI grenade usage in Left4Dead, and I can see how it would piss a lot of people off if they died repeatedly at the hands of an AI team member's grenade considering how dangerous Molotov cocktails are in that game, but can't they just put it in there and give you the option to toggle it off if you don't want the feature?
  
  
  
• Limited chatter dialog - Now I'm no game designer, or even a novice programmer, however you can't convince me that it would talk more disc space or studio time than is reasonable to record and include a few HUNDRED different things for your character, your teammates, and each NPC to say when you talk to them. There's no reason that NPCs in particular (who don't have anything vital to say to you) shouldn't say something different every single time you approach them. There's also no excuse for the same old tired "lock and load", or "bag 'em and tag em" lines, or whatever generic, uninspired shit your teammates say before or during a firefight. You have the opportunity to make a game truly cinematic and immersive with diverse personalities and banter, but here in 2015 characters STILL only speak the same 3 phrases over and over again, and with only one single recording of each thing!
  
  Why only one sound byte of "Hello", when you can have: "Hello", "Hi", "Hey there", "What's up?", "How ya doing?", "How's it going?, "Heya", "How's it hanging?" "'Sup?" etc.?
  
  
• UNLIMITED inventory - A lot of people may disagree with me on this one, but a game like Silent Hill: Origins (which you can argue isn't 'modern' anymore, I know) is one of the worst examples of this. It's actually a CHORE cycling through lots and lots of inventory that there's no way in hell you should be able to store even a third of in a room, much less carry around with you.
  
  I don't mind having a large inventory stock in games, but when it's shit that you're carrying around ON you, especially in a game that's more based in realism (I know Silent Hill doesn't really qualify there, but there are other offenders), it's just plain silly. I don't like the magical item boxes from older Resident Evil games either, but carrying 20 portable televisions, a 6 foot tall intravenous drip stand, and 30 planks of wood, in addition to several guns and stores of magazines and shotgun shells, is just damn ridiculous.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

DLC endings are my biggest complaint.

Content that is marketed as "optional", but without it it makes the game virtually unfinished.

I'm looking at you, BioShock Infinite Burial at Sea.

[Emperor Megas]

DLC endings are my biggest complaint.

Content that is marketed as "optional", but without it it makes the game virtually unfinished.

I'm looking at you, BioShock Infinite Burial at Sea.

I think I've only heard of one game doing this, and I think it was a Mass Effect game, but I could be wrong. Is this widespread? I can't see myself EVER purchasing an ending to a game.

[celerystalker]

I agree hugely with the DLC and patching on consoles. Make a complete game, then give me a sequel and I'll pay again. I will not pay for DLC, and I don't even want to download free patches. I want a finished product out of the box.

Biggest for me, though... DO NOT MAKE ME GET ONLINE TO PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME. I should never have to do anonline check just to play a game offline that I've already paid you for. What happens when you stop supporting servers related to those games? It's the most backward DRM anti-piracy bull and I won't buy a game that does it, even if I want it.

[Tanooki]

[list][*]Entrepreneurship at the expense of the end of the world - WHY haven't we gotten past the whole thing where people who understand and agree that you're the world's ONLY hope are still SELLING you shit rather than just GIVING it to you (if not outright BEGGING YOU to take and use it), or at LEAST telling you how to acquire it (for free) somewhere else it at your own peril? Now, I'm not saying that you should do away with shopfronts in games where there's a hero who's on an epic world saving quest, but for god's sake, at least make the venders skeptics, or unaware of the mission your undertaking, or of your 'messiah' status, at least. This is just lazy writing, IMO.

Merchant: ONLY YOU can save the world from the Dark Lord, Tyrran'ax, and it can ONLY be done with this enchanted, one of a kind glaive, blessed by the High Priestess, Antauwass Le'in IV...which I'll SELL to you for $1,000,300 monies.

I disagree with the open inventory too, sometimes it's just better to have unexplainable junk like that. I'm laughing at your other one because I agree and so did someone else at one point in time. Ever play Quest 64? That game has you set out alone to save the world, and the land knows who you are and what you're up to. Because of this the designers let the inhabitants treat you in the appropriate way. Inns, goods, gear were all FREE and they'd be thankful for your efforts.

Result: Stuck up RPG snobs and the douche types who cling onto loud mouth people all protested the game was awful and that it was god awful design, threw out everything about what RPGs stood for, and every other weak halfass argument against shop keeps, item makers, treasure hunters and the rest who would normally rip you off blind or send you to your likely death to get an item to save their sorry asses and the world. I applauded the game for being self aware your hero was saving them all and as such treated him with proper reverence. The trolls clearly won, games don't do it still.


Also GOOD call celery -- I hate people who make games that do it without a solid good reason as to why to do it. The only game I have that forces online I believe is Diablo 3, but since it's tied to the online aspects at many levels I can understand that. But so many other games like the newest Sim City, Ubisoft on various titles, and quite a few others as some evil form of DRM make you have to be online or it won't work. This also annoyingly carries to quite a few tablet games that don't have online mechanics too which sucks.

[Ackman]

mmo-ism of all games.

Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 4

Collect 7 of this, 9 of that, kill 20 more turd rangers to get a 0.1 aiming improvement. etc etc All this useless busywork to hide the fact that the game is a **** fest. 40 hour collectathon, you have to play for 20 hours for it to get good so you have all the upgrades so they game is a press button to win game. No actual gameplay, I took the Far Cry 4 disk and stomped on it, **** this game and **** Ubisoft.

[kai123]

NO MORE TUTORIALS! Sorry I really hate tutorials in games. I would love to just figure it out or dare I say it have a conversation with someone about the game. Their is no mystery if you tell me how to do everything up front. The tutorial should be a seperate option at the menu not part of the game. "Oh, the left mouse button is shoot?" It gets old. Games are not that complicated.

[Gentlegamer]

NO MORE TUTORIALS! Sorry I really hate tutorials in games. I would love to just figure it out or dare I say it have a conversation with someone about the game. Their is no mystery if you tell me how to do everything up front. The tutorial should be a seperate option at the menu not part of the game. "Oh, the left mouse button is shoot?" It gets old. Games are not that complicated.

Friend, have you heard the gospel of Dark Souls?

[Zthun]

I think I've only heard of one game doing this, and I think it was a Mass Effect game, but I could be wrong. Is this widespread? I can't see myself EVER purchasing an ending to a game.

Ubisoft's Prince of Persia did this bull shit where they left out the Epilogue. Castlevania: LOS did this somewhat by leaving major plot holes between the last boss and when Gabriel was shown as Dracula. I'm farily confident there are others.

Mass Effect didn't leave out any endings. Mass Effect 3 just had an ending that everyone disapproved upon and complained so much about that Bioware released additional endings as free DLC.

[Tanooki]

Semi related but pre-download era. Castlevania 64 -- Castlevania Legacy of Darkness.

The story that leaked out, if EGM wasn't lying about it back in the 90s was roughly this. Konami of Japan had a profit level to hit for the year or take a dishonorable loss they didn't want to admit to. They took a game that was less than 1/2 done, patched together the Belmont/Fernandez girl game into a mostly working game Castlevania 64. A game very well known to have heaps of bugs with bad jump physics, camera killing you, collisions on objects that shouldn't have them and others that should and don't (ie you get crushed when you're not, fall into a hole when you have a wall.) Very blurry textures, super inconsistent framerate, rare occasional crashes too.

Less than a year later they released Legacy of Darkness, a game that had been previewed a good year earlier plus in magazines. The missing primary game of playing Cornell the wolf man and the secondary game *if you unlock it* of playing as Henry the knight who rescues children within the area (which has changed with age) within so many days/hours whatever it was. And then finally Castlevania 64's game after that, the last 1/3 of the game with the bugs resolved and also now game wide a 640x480 high res mode too.

They sold a beta, screwed people (myself included) and then put the real game out after. I nearly didn't buy it but after looking into it and finding it was the game we were promised I fed the beast. I hate I did it, but the game is fantastic while CV64 I could never finish with all the dumb bugs.