Things in modern gaming that you dislike

[Spectre01]

On 6/4/2020 at 3:33 AM, seed said:

 

Actually this, something I'm disappointed with nowadays is that gibbing enemies has pretty much been left only for more retro games.

 

I like gibbing mine enemies :D .

It's something new Doom did a pretty good job with, especially with the body destruction system. Enemies still ragdoll when killed with weaker weapons but explosives violently gib them.

 

I remember how impressive Soldier of Fortune was back in the day with it's dismemberment system and the way enemies reacted to being shot.

[seed]

51 minutes ago, Spectre01 said:

It's something new Doom did a pretty good job with, especially with the body destruction system. Enemies still ragdoll when killed with weaker weapons but explosives violently gib them.

 

I remember how impressive Soldier of Fortune was back in the day with it's dismemberment system and the way enemies reacted to being shot.

 

Agreed, but there's just something about the games of olde that had such a brutally satisfying gibbing system, I don't know how or why but gibbing enemies for me is not much fun in the few modern games that still incorporate it. Nothing beats gibbing enemies in HL1, Quake, Quake 2, Daikatana, Unreal, AVP200, and so on. It just lost its charm nowadays, but I just can't put my finger on what exactly is missing.

 

Dismembering enemies is nice too, my favorite system here would be that of L4D, it was very detailed. Severing limbs, heads, cracking enemies' skulls wide-open, which sometimes could reveal their yellow-colored brains, zombies peeing/vomiting occasionally, intestines falling out from their body on the ground when shot in the abdominal area, etc. It was pretty awesome indeed.

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Gez]

I don't have too much of a problem with the concept of vanity skins for sales, as long as it's purely cosmetic it's not pay-to-win so it's just out there for people with more money than sense or big fans of the game who want to support the devs more than by just buying the game. That's okay. But like all things, there are nuances. If the game is kind of actively pushing you to get "unique" skins and stuff, it starts being a little bit scummy. If the game ends up being Hat Fortress 2: Buy A Hat For Your Hat, it also sucks.

[snapshot]

14 hours ago, seed said:

Truly they're never going away, absolutely not with this mindset in place. Meh, whatever, they can keep them to themselves, and they have their... "audience" anyway.

Games are becoming more costly to make so publishers are finding more ways to recover from that, DLCs alone are not gauranteed to generate enough income, it's just business, it's proven highly successful, and it's here to stay, sorry to burst your bubble but the world does not revolve around you and your tastes.

[Pirx]

23 hours ago, Gokuma said:

New games take up took damn much HD space. 

[...]

 

sure modern games take a lot more space than old ones because of the sheer amount of map data

(i remember carrying my doom2 on 5 diskettes to a friend, because he had a 486dx2 with a humongous 540 mb hdd, he even asked, how should he ever fill it up. heh)

but one also gets the impression that developers tend to optimize less because they can afford it, the user has plenty of cores and terabytes, and if he hasn't, then he'll probably upgrade quickly to play this game.

which is released hastily with plenty of bugs, never mind, it can be fixed later, because the player will download basically a whole new game through steam or whatever service he uses.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Pirx

[A Nobody]

4 hours ago, Edward850 said:

The original Xbox also had paid DLC, and there's also DLC now that's still free.

Yeah, but it wasn't as much as on the 360.

[seed]

1 hour ago, sluggard said:

Games are becoming more costly to make so publishers are finding more ways to recover from that, DLCs alone are not gauranteed to generate enough income, it's just business, it's proven highly successful, and it's here to stay, sorry to burst your bubble but the world does not revolve around you and your tastes.

 

You're right, they don't, and I never tried to make an argument of that anyway, so I don't see why you're bringing "my tastes" to the table. Besides, people love being exploited I guess, but whatever, let's call this subject closed, we've heard the arguments on both sides, no point in putting more fuel to the fire, no-one-s going to change minds here, I'll stick to mine and you stick to yours, I'll enjoy my time in garbage-free titles in peace.

 

Also no, that's the dumbest argument possible, and I've heard that multiple times. Games are more costly to make nowadays but there's also A LOT (and I mean it) gamers around than there ever were. Good games sell like fucking crazy. Everyone talks about how they're so much more costly to make (which is also a self-created issue BTW), but absolutely no-one mentions the sales. In the pre-2000s having a PC/console/whatever was a luxury, now everyone has a PC, and likely playing some games.

 

1 hour ago, Pirx said:

but one also gets the impression that developers tend to optimize less because they can afford it, the user has plenty of cores and terabytes, and if he hasn't, then he'll probably upgrade quickly to play this game.

 

True. There is less incentive for developers to optimize their games like crazy anymore since hardware is now more powerful than ever, and people are far more eager to upgrade, more quickly too.

 

But I do hate the fact that space has become so inexpensive as well. Not interested in wasting some 70GB+ for a game, hell no, even if I do have plenty of space otherwise.

[Biodegradable]

4 hours ago, sluggard said:

Games are becoming more costly to make so publishers are finding more ways to recover from that

 

I mean, only in the sense that every new AAA game release HAS to make more money than there is in the world and they'll do whatever it takes to make their unrealistic goals, even if it means firing their own employees as a way to cut corners and reach them as we've seen both Activision/Blizzard and EA do just that over the past two years. The claim that AAA games are getting more and more expensive to make is just a smokescreen for the constant reaching of ridiculous, unrealistic profit margins that publishers are clambering for with their extensive use of measures to squeeze as much money out of consumers as possible. It's unsustainable. The whole thing is a flimsy house of cards held together with duct tape and clown jizz.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Biodegradable

[snapshot]

28 minutes ago, seed said:

Everyone talks about how they're so much more costly to make (which is also a self-created issue BTW), but absolutely no-one mentions the sales. In the pre-2000s having a PC/console/whatever was a luxury, now everyone has a PC, and likely playing some games.

10 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

I mean, only in the sense that every new AAA game release HAS to make more money than there is in the world and they'll do whatever it takes to make their unrealistic goals

Long term support would not exist if those titles didn't adopt the MTX model, not every title has to have them but when they do the publishers have reasons for incorporating it, yeah they'll get their share of the profit but that's just how it works, that's what I was getting at.

[seed]

14 minutes ago, sluggard said:

Long term support would not exist if those titles didn't adopt the MTX model, not every title has to have them but when they do the publishers have reasons for incorporating it, yeah they'll get their share of the profit but that's just how it works, that's what I was getting at.

 

They would, long-standing MP games of the past did just fine without MTX, or even DLCs/repackages etc. in many cases, and the fact that they keep updating the titles will inevitably gather more players around as there will be more stuff to do and the experience sees refinements and more polish constantly.

 

The fact that MTX are inevitable even in premium games is nothing but a smokescreen. These games make a lot of money, most notably the blockbusters, and the need to monetize the experience even further is done solely for maximizing profits at any cost. You've made the argument that DLC isn't that viable since not everyone is buying it, but most people who buy the game at a later time will inevitably do since by that time it probably already has a GOTY/Deluxe edition that's bundled with everything and the standard edition is long gone - and if it isn't, no-one will seriously still consider getting that instead of the Deluxe edition that has everything and is likely much cheaper than buying the base game and then the DLC separately -, and not everyone invests into MTX either, which is even truer than with DLC since those never get collected into another edition like DLC does all too often. It goes both ways, therefore saying that MTX are added as another extra measure because DLC doesn't always do it when the same applies to them as well, if not even more so, is simply disingenuous.

[snapshot]

11 minutes ago, seed said:

They would, long-standing MP games of the past did just fine without MTX, or even DLCs in many cases, and the fact that they keep updating it will inevitably gather more players around as there will be more stuff to do and the experience sees refinements constantly.

Do you have examples? I haven't seen any MP games last long without them, their playerbase numbers keep dwindling because of lack of more content until they are inevitably abandoned.

Edited June 5, 2020 by sluggard

[Szuran]

Major games are bloated in every possible way.

 

- Too bloated visually, to a point when they are too costly to produce and have to rely on microtransactions and sell 120M copies.

 

- Too bloated visually in the way of being undecipherable and requiring tons of objective markers etcc.

 

- Too bloated size-wise, when it takes just too much time to travel through the (mostly empty) map. I don't need a world the size of my country!

 

- Too bloated mechanically, with 1000s of mechanics and tutorials appearing 20 hours into the game. At the same time, these games aren't particularly good at anything they do.

 

- Too bloated in general, which forces them to be appealing to everyone to return on the investment. So, these games are huge, mechanically rich, and at the same time easy and BORING.

[Biodegradable]

6 minutes ago, seed said:

You've made the argument that DLC isn't that viable since not everyone is buying it, but most people who buy the game at a later time will inevitably do since by that time it probably already has a GOTY/Deluxe edition that's bundled with everything and the standard edition is long gone

 

I did that twice myself when I got the GOTY editions of both Fallout 3 and New Vegas back in the day. 

[hybridial]

7 minutes ago, Szuran said:

Major games are bloated in every possible way.

 

- Too bloated visually, to a point when they are too costly to produce and have to rely on microtransactions and sell 120M copies.

 

- Too bloated visually in the way of being undecipherable and requiring tons of objective markers etcc.

 

- Too bloated size-wise, when it takes just too much time to travel through the (mostly empty) map. I don't need a world the size of my country!

 

- Too bloated mechanically, with 1000s of mechanics and tutorials appearing 20 hours into the game. At the same time, these games aren't particularly good at anything they do.

 

- Too bloated in general, which forces them to be appealing to everyone to return on the investment. So, these games are huge, mechanically rich, and at the same time easy and BORING.

 

 

An Invincible like is not enough like for this. Just bang on, all the reasons I've abandoned mainstream AAA games entirely. 

[seed]

19 minutes ago, sluggard said:

Do you have examples? I haven't seen many MP games last long without them, their playerbase numbers keep dwindling because of lack of more content until they are inevitably abandoned.

 

Sure, the old CS games did quite well without it, didn't they, thanks to the enormous modding possibilities they offered. They never received further content updates, no, but they didn't needed to either to be successful, and they were better for it. L4D also got away with it with the (few) expansions it received.

 

And then CS:GO stepped in and added MTX, which solved nothing but made things worse. If they kept adding content either in the form of DLC, or free content updates, it would've been just as successful if not even more so than its predecessors as they simply become more attractive - and you sure as hell would've NEVER seen them overflowing with spoiled toxics and kids if there were no MTX involved, so the fanbase would've been better for it too. Black Mesa is another example of a SP-focused title. Never had, never will have DLCs or MTX, and judging by the numbers, oh boy, they just kept growing once more and more features got added and the game became more complete. And as long as more content gets made, either officially or otherwise thanks to the modding possibilities, they'll just keep coming, that's for sure. GMod is also alive and well after all those years.

 

Ultimately, death is also inevitable, and when they reach that point no amounts of updates, DLC, or MTX will save them as the players will look elsewhere for newer or even older games that have something else to offer, which they will never do as they were meant to do something else. Or they will, after all CS:GO also got a Battle Royale mod as a desperate measure for its ever-dwindling numbers, a mod, mind you, that literally nobody asked for since the goals and vision behind the game was different and didn't ask for it. So more content/updates do not automatically mean the games also do get better, they just get turned into a well, and when it eventually dries up, it's over. No game is immortal, and no-one sticks to the same games forever, they'll start looking for something else at some point and move away from them.

[snapshot]

6 minutes ago, seed said:

....after all CS:GO also got a Battle Royale mod as a desperate measure for its ever-dwindling numbers, a mod, mind you, that literally nobody asked for since the goals and vision behind the game was different and didn't ask for it. So more content/updates do not automatically mean the games also do get better.

CSGO has been the top played game on steam for years, How is it desperate? The game is thriving like never before. How does a Battle Royale mode in any way affect the core game, bomb defusal? It's just a little extra that has zero negative impact on the game. In fact, a lot of people are really enjoying it.

[seed]

12 minutes ago, sluggard said:

CSGO has been the top played game on steam for years, How is it desperate? The game is thriving like never before. How does a Battle Royale mode in any way affect the core game, bomb defusal? It's just a little extra that has zero negative impact on the game. In fact, a lot of people are really enjoying it.

 

Because at the time it was added the numbers were getting lower, as Battle Royale stepped in and rapidly gained popularity and took over the scene, then they alienated its player base by feeding them with it as well, attracting a new audience in the process, yes, but one that never even cared for the game until that point. The vision basically took a turn, and that only to save it from imminent death, prolonging the inevitable.

 

Just wait for the next big trend to appear and see what happens then. Will it get yet another copied mod? That would be just the best example of how desperate the developers really are for money and keeping their money cow alive because they know no better. After all it's easier to copy rather than come up with your ideas.

[snapshot]

1 minute ago, seed said:

Just wait for the next big trend to appear and see what happens then. Will it get yet another copied mod? That would be just the best example of how desperate the developers really are for money and keeping their money cow alive.

Again this goes back to long tetm support, no harm in bringing more people in.

[seed]

3 minutes ago, sluggard said:

Again this goes back to long tetm support, no harm in bringing more people in.

 

Alright then, with that sentence I think am done talking about this with you.

 

It is obvious you only care about numbers and how long something survives, with little regard if not complete disregard for its quality and the original vision powering it, which is the point I was trying to make there. "No harm done as long as it keeps the numbers rolling in", after all, in your own words, which will never, ever be representative of the quality of a product - a lot of trash music and fast food is popular for instance, that doesn't mean it's actually any good. And it isn't really a discussion this way.

[snapshot]

7 minutes ago, seed said:

It is obvious you only care about numbers and how long something survives, with little regard if not complete disregard for its quality and the original vision powering it, which is the point I was trying to make there. 

The original vision is still very much alive and both the core game and all maps and modes still receive updates regularly, I'm sorry but it just looks like people are hating for the sake of hating, if it's not for you then that's understandable.

[seed]

2 minutes ago, sluggard said:

The original vision is still very much alive and both the core game and all maps and modes still receive updates regularly, I'm sorry but it just looks like people are hating for the sake of hating, if it's not for you then that's understandable.

 

Never make the mistake of mistaking me with one of those.

 

And it isn't, the fact that it got such a mod is proof as clear as the sky. It's just a money cow, nothing more nothing less, if they did, it would've never gotten one.

[Doom-X-Machina]

- Digital only releases. I like a tangible copy that I can hold in my hands.
- Massive day-one patches to fix broken games that were rushed through development.
- Paid DLC / loot-boxes and micro-transactions.
- Internet requirement to play offline.
- Account requirement to play offline.
- Additional monetary charges to play online.

- Lack of modding support.
- Developer based servers that after time get shutdown and along with it, the gaming experience you paid money for.

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

 

I mean, only in the sense that every new AAA game release HAS to make more money than there is in the world and they'll do whatever it takes to make their unrealistic goals, even if it means firing their own employees as a way to cut corners and reach them as we've seen both Activision/Blizzard and EA do just that over the past two years. The claim that AAA games are getting more and more expensive to make is just a smokescreen for the constant reaching of ridiculous, unrealistic profit margins that publishers are clambering for. The whole thing is a flimsy house of cards held together with duct tape and clown jizz.

 

Couldn't agree more. I think the deeper reason behind many of the complaints in this thread have to do with this simple conundrum. Each game is trying to one-up its peers, but not in quality. It's mainly graphics they are still racing for. And since every room has to have trillions of polygons now, bam you get linear map design. It's not that mappers aren't capable of creating non-linear maps, it's that the industry pressure to pack as much detail and fluff into every scene as possible has overridden the desire to create fun environments to explore. Plus, if it's non-linear, players might miss that room you spent a week building. You can't see non-linearity the way you can see ridiculous amounts of detail in a scene. It's an instantly gratifying stat point, that any CEO would go for. They say they can make even more graphix? Sold! Similarly, the rpg/grind/infinite gameplay thing is another aspect that the industry drools over. They saw how much money was pouring into World of Warcraft and they were like... okay, so all we have to do is put in arbitrary grind to force our players to keep playing for even longer. Just tell them to kill the same monster over and over for a 1/10000 chance drop. Unfortunately for many of those developers though, they forgot that WOW actually has other elements that make it a good game, elements that keep people playing even though certain parts of the game totally and completely suck ass. They also forget that the WOW team has been stuck with a constant need to generate new content in order to keep those subscriptions. 

When Minecraft came along, people were like "Oh my shit, you can play forever?" The graphics were not the focus, and there is some grindiness, but since people can dig and build whatever they want, it's an infinite playground. Similarly, communities such as this one, built around modding, continue to churn out content by themselves. And go figure, the industry noticed and now they have Roblox and Fortnite. Which to me are good developments.

The industry has dug its trench and it won't move out of there until the strategy stops working. Their goals are unrealistic, yes, but they often make enough money to justify their strategy. It seems the same thing has happened with film - we have giant productions that are literally just "how many one-liners and cool effects can we pack into 90 minutes?" And they sell. So yeah, expect this type of game development to be around for a long time...

[[Vitz!]]

Gambling mechanics (with real money) in games. Games with this kind of shit deserve the AO rating. I don't care how kiddy it looks.

That and the stated (many times) games as a service. This practice honestly needs to die.

Also having to pay to play online on consoles.

I could go on, but it wouldn't be very productive. It's not like me complaining on a Doom forum will make any of those shitty practices die anyway. Consumers need to be educated (a.k.a. stop being dumb) and this is not going to happen any time soon (as if LMAO).

[taufan99]

8 minutes ago, [Vitz!] said:

Gambling mechanics (with real money) in games. Games with this kind of shit deserve the AO rating. I don't care how kiddy it looks.

Fun fact; Peak Entertainment, an online gambling service provider, submitted their 2003 game Peak Entertainment Casinos to ESRB in order to receive an AO rating to discourage underage gambling. To date, it is the only game to have the rating for reasons unrelated to sexual or violent content.

[Deimos]

21 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I buy the occasional MTX because 

 

A: I like customizing characters and supporting developers

 

B: You People get irrationally angry

"Irrationally angry" yes true i totally puch someone in the face each time i mention MTX rofl
Also i'd rather buy big expansions with actual gameplay rather than seeing the content getting bloated by cosmetics to catter to young peeps and get them to cash in each time a new eye candy drops, because it's what it is.

[NoahRules]

Death of cheat codes

[dr_st]

20 hours ago, seed said:

Because the game was purposefully made worse than it could be, that's my issue. MTX or whatever you want should be extras, to invest more into the product if you are satisfied with it, not to invest them to make the game suck less. In that case, you have a bad game. The experience should be mostly the same for everyone, overall. Mostly. Not for some grindy as hell, and for others a breeze just because they've decided to take out the heavy artillery: the credit card.

I think this can only be determine on a game-by-game basis. Some games implement the balance well enough, others do so poorly. My examples are both from casual games (Angry Birds 2 and Plants vs Zombies 2); both implemented micro-transactions, in different ways, which I didn't mind (and didn't use).

2 hours ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

- Digital only releases. I like a tangible copy that I can hold in my hands.

Agree. Usually, if it's digital-only, I don't buy it. I only did it on GOG a few times to support them.

 

2 hours ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

- Massive day-one patches to fix broken games that were rushed through development.

Well, technically, what bothers you is the fact the games were rushed and had to be shipped with bugs. You should be thankful that there actually are day-1 patches to fix these. :)

 

2 hours ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

- Internet requirement to play offline.
- Account requirement to play offline.

This is typically solved in pirated releases. But you usually have to wait a few weeks/months for the game to be cracked.

 

2 hours ago, Doom-X-Machina said:

- Additional monetary charges to play online.

- Developer based servers that after time get shutdown and along with it, the gaming experience you paid money for.

That's some of the reasons I'm happy that I don't do multiplayer and don't invest in multiplayer.

 

2 hours ago, [Vitz!] said:

Gambling mechanics (with real money) in games. Games with this kind of shit deserve the AO rating. I don't care how kiddy it looks.

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

1 hour ago, NoahRules said:

Death of cheat codes

Yeah, what's with that?

[seed]

10 minutes ago, dr_st said:

Well, technically, what bothers you is the fact the games were rushed and had to be shipped with bugs. You should be thankful that there actually are day-1 patches to fix these. :)

 

Debatable tbh. In the past games received patches as well, didn't they? But they were never this massive, to the point they correct HUGE issues that could only be blamed on a rushed development and lack of proper testing. I don't mind seeing bugs in games at launch myself, what does indeed bother me is the simple fact that they were rushed and unpolished. Though to be fair, in the current landscape, we should indeed be thankful for the patches, others would just get them out the window and leave them die.

 

15 minutes ago, dr_st said:

This is typically solved in pirated releases. But you usually have to wait a few weeks/months for the game to be cracked.

 

Not if you want to support the developers however, in which case pirating their games doesn't help :p .

[Deimos]

1 hour ago, seed said:

In the past games received patches as well, didn't they? But they were never this massive, to the point they correct HUGE issues that could only be blamed on a rushed development and lack of proper testing. I don't mind seeing bugs in games at launch myself, what does indeed bother me is the simple fact that they were rushed and unpolished. Though to be fair, in the current landscape, we should indeed be thankful for the patches, others would just get them out the window and leave them die.

This is such a big issue, the games ship unpolished suggesting the game is not supposed to work perfectly from the start yet the prorder bonus and live events force us to go through an unpolished experience that for some can be quite hair-pulling when said games crash constantly or run super choppy on some configs.
Rushing a game to release also shortens developers lifespan i suppose. Imagine weeks of overworking, junk food and sleep deprivation where you can't even enjoy family time... Crunch time sounds scary.