The worst of the worst - Evolution in gaming.

[0wing]

Must I assume that you get your games from the lush forest's fresh dew drops condensed?

You have GOG for such freedom, I guess.

You answered it already.

And for *just*, you mean every single one?

For the most part, if you wish. Abandonware excluded ofc.

It's not amazing, but out of both clients and distributiob methods, it's one of the best.

It's one of the most popular one, because of a cancerous first person shooter.

 

[Supreme Shah Ismail]

The current mentality of Ubisoft style open world games. I dont mean only Ubisoft does this but its bassically originated from them and a lot of companys have recently been using it (Warner Bros for example)

Its just dull tbh. Only time I really liked it was in Shadow of Mordor and that's because the game had the unique nemesis mechanic so it felt less like do repetive task no 5# a hundred times.

 

[joevonzombie]

The current mentality of Ubisoft style open world games. I dont mean only Ubisoft does this but its bassically originated from them and a lot of companys have recently been using it (Warner Bros for example)

Its just dull tbh. Only time I really liked it was in Shadow of Mordor and that's because the game had the unique nemesis mechanic so it felt less like do repetive task no 5# a hundred times.

Agreed 100%. Devs don't really ask what their title being an open world game brings to the table anymore. The Ubisoft formula doesn't exactly apply here, but LA Noire from a few years back comes to mind as one of the most unnecessary open worlds I have ever seen. You can skip the driving sections and go straight to the locations so what was the point? There isn't really much else to do in the gamespace. They wasted so much time and money on open world LA when the core game is a linear case based experience.

 

[Supreme Shah Ismail]

Agreed 100%. Devs don't really ask what their title being an open world game brings to the table anymore. The Ubisoft formula doesn't exactly apply here, but LA Noire from a few years back comes to mind as one of the most unnecessary open worlds I have ever seen. You can skip the driving sections and go straight to the locations so what was the point? There isn't really much else to do in the gamespace. They wasted so much time and money on open world LA when the core game is a linear case based experience.

Non of the activities in these games are really great either. Why infiltrate generic fortress 102# in a ubisoft game when you can do an interesting and tactical infiltration in a more linear game. Why is your game open world? What unique thing can we bring to the table to justify it?

 

[Ediros]

To me there are a few things:

A)Bland Open World games. Like Far Cry 3, 4 and Primal. I honestly found myself bored after freeing an eight outpost. And don't even get me started on the collectibles.

B)Pointless, Grindy Collectibles. I hate going around the map to find a piece of junk the developers put there. Like 120 figures to find. I prefer unique loot with a bit of story than hundreds of loot crates like shitout 4 and such.

C)Remember how there used to be free demos of games? I do. I hate that today we have to pay to get access to freaking DEMO!

D)Dialogue Wheel, it is a cancer.

E)Majority of the pointless cash grab dlcs, like shitout 4.

That is all I can think of for now.

 

[naossano]

Might have been discussed to death already.

- Wide open Sandbox. It don't think it can really work, considering the scaling issues. Make the map too small and everything get too close to each other. Make the map too big and you mostly get boring generic filler between relevant locations. 99% of the time, they manage to have both issues at the same time.

- The fact that those sandbox should suddenly be included in each and every single game. (at least AAA)

- Replacing the single 25% game content increase of the Add-on, by a billion of tiny DLCs that only add a white hat or a brown skin.

- Normalization. All games of the same genre should work the same, so we don't risk changing the habits of the playerbase. The time in which most of the games played differently seems forgotten.

- Battle.net and those who followed this example. You have to be online and their server has to be online, every times you want to play your solo game.

- Shown Skill-check, un-killable npc, fake choices, fast-travel free teleportation, voiced PC in RPG...

- Paid mods which 95% of the money don't go into the modder pockets.

- Making PC game for console, with the limited controls of the gamepad...

- I like the Steam and GoG platforms, but i don't like the fact they get that huge percentage of the whole world video-game economy, just because they made the first online game store. Steam and GoG almost have the monopoly of the retailers. At the same time, i don't see the point as a consumer to go in ten other stores.

- Games that rely on grinding and repeating the same little tasks. Gather some woods and metal, make a pick-axe, gather some ore, refine that ore, make another item, then use that item to build other items after you gathered yet another ressource. Then have a random creatures or a trolling MMO player come to destroy it, then start over. Kill 100 slimes to gather some lenses, then build a new weapon that will break after you used it 6 times. Even when the setting seems nice, it just remove most of the game interest. Most of the people here have work or studies. We don't need more busy work when we are back at home. Better be immersed in a engaging story, face new challenge or have fun. I don't see any fun, challenge or mind involvement in making another pickaxe and use it on another carry.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Since someone mentioned the los of dedidacted servers, that's definetly another point that ... sucks. A lot.

Which also leads to the disapearing of moddifications for AAA games. I couldn't even exactly pin-point why it happens, but I think a lot of great content is lost. Developers could 'technicaly' do a hell lot more of supporting the mod comunities here. But hey! Why throw money out and create a competition that gives you no revenue, right? Totally insane! The los of mods really hits me somewhat, because some of the best experiences I had with PC gaming involved modifications, Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, the countless of HL1 modifications really, and then for the Unreal Engine, like Red Orchestra and many other mods. And those mods had also some really cool comunities, with lots of skilled people, making maps and aditional content.

A lot of that has been lost over time, at least for some games.

 

[BigGuyCIA]

Non of the activities in these games are really great either. Why infiltrate generic fortress 102# in a ubisoft game when you can do an interesting and tactical infiltration in a more linear game. Why is your game open world? What unique thing can we bring to the table to justify it?

Uninstalled Far Cry 4 for this exact reason. Terrible fucking game.

 

[Black Angel]

RPG:
-D100-some-formula+involving-(STR-and-weaponskill) to calculate damage or chance to hit someone. It's a kind of classic that must go, just go away, go back to D&D tabletop and never bother computer RPGs again.

If what you mean by this is that the P&P/Tabletop system forced upon cRPGs, then maybe I can agree.

But if what you mean is THC in (turn-based RPGs) general, then I would have to disagree. Have you tried AoD? I assume you haven't tried Underrail since 'that' last time we spoke about it, you were whining about the achievements. How else would you make a good turn-based RPG if not using that formula? In a glimpse, AoD seemed to emulate the tabletop formula for THC, but that's not exactly the case. It was a simple (Attack - Defense) = THC, with Attack being one's weapon skill and Defense being Block or Dodge. The formula, based on whether or not it's a Regular attacks, or Fast, or Power, or Aimed, would have other variables like corresponding stats influencing the THC. This is the bread and butter of turn-based combat in RPGs.

Besides, what better system you would suggest if THC have to go away?

 

[0wing]

It's a bit more broad and complex question regarding RP systems, I must fix myself.

If what you mean by this is that the P&P/Tabletop system forced upon cRPGs, then maybe I can agree.

B. much this, though not only. The madnatory D100 celiling, the defense-attack, all that seems p. boring if you see it coming again and again in every cRPG, especially Non-DnD. AoD yes, spices things a bit with considering free space around characters and adding bonuses to dodge, but it's main formula is too wooden, calculating criticals through STR for every weapon, even for crossbows is outright questionable and kinda kills the question "YO WONT EVERY WEPON RELY ON SINGAL STAT benis?" Secound thing, AoD-specific, dodge. Watch rating go high and smoke a joint. I know it's a long lasting holywar about block vs dodge, but being able to dodge dmg completely at least in my book is better than eating a hammer (any serious fight has a hammer in enemy's unit, I must notice) and watch enemies opening my shiny armor like a ration can (in latest builds enemies now hit in the head if they can) is not very exciting but IMO this concept is too broken, Iron Tower outwitted themselves.

Besides, what better system you would suggest if THC have to go away?

CPunk's friday night firefight system, which ditches many legacy things, most blatantly, D100 dice ceiling, is a good start. It does not contain gamey Hit Points (at least not that blatant), it aknowledges that fights proceeded in an actual space, it aknowledges covers, it has layered armor, it has limb damage and it doesn't need BIG NUMBERS and a ceiling to be both badass and alright balanced system.

 

[Supreme Shah Ismail]

Uninstalled Far Cry 4 for this exact reason. Terrible fucking game.

MGS5 may have been open world but it gave the game a sense of space and freedom of movement. Infiltration's into enemy strong holds were so much more interesting. Because you could technically take the same stealth vs action approach but both were far more interesting and dynamic.

Also I have never experienced a more Indiana Jones moment then riding on horseback with an RPG chasing convoys. Reminded me of that one scene from raiders of the lost ark.

 

[Crni Vuk]

You mean The last Crusade. Raiders of the lost Ark was just Indiana pointing a rocket at the ark. In the last Crussade he used a horse and a rock to fight a tank. David vs. Goliath I guess.

Get your movie refences right damnit! >(

 

[Supreme Shah Ismail]

You mean The last Crusade. Raiders of the lost Ark was just Indiana pointing a rocket at the ark. In the last Crussade he used a horse and a rock to fight a tank. David vs. Goliath I guess.

Get your movie refences right damnit! >(

I was referencing the horse chase scene in raiders, the rocket part reminded me of the last crusade tho.

 

[Black Angel]

B. much this, though not only. The madnatory D100 celiling, the defense-attack, all that seems p. boring if you see it coming again and again in every cRPG, especially Non-DnD.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

BUT! One thing that's unfortunate when this system isn't seen in a cRPG is the lack or even nonexistence of critical failures. Correct me if I'm wrong, because based on my gaming experience, Arcanum is probably the last cRPG in history of RPGs that implemented critical failures. Both AoD and Underrail doesn't have that, I don't know about Wasteland 2 and PoE, I haven't really start going into Shadowrun games, and I don't have D:OS yet.

Do you know any cRPGs newer than Arcanum which had critical failures?

AoD yes, spices things a bit with considering free space around characters and adding bonuses to dodge, but it's main formula is too wooden, calculating criticals through STR for every weapon, even for crossbows is outright questionable and kinda kills the question "YO WONT EVERY WEPON RELY ON SINGAL STAT benis?"

Not anymore. STR-dependent crits are mostly two-handed weapons now, while lighter weapons would occasionally rely on PER. You can now also dump STR completely when using crossbow, since all of the crits relied on PER instead.

Secound thing, AoD-specific, dodge. Watch rating go high and smoke a joint. I know it's a long lasting holywar about block vs dodge, but being able to dodge dmg completely at least in my book is better than eating a hammer (any serious fight has a hammer in enemy's unit, I must notice) and watch enemies opening my shiny armor like a ration can (in latest builds enemies now hit in the head if they can) is not very exciting but IMO this concept is too broken, Iron Tower outwitted themselves.

This is a matter of preference.... I guess? But to be fair, ranged attacks are definitely dangerous in the World of Decadence. Some would argue that Block would get you through fights with lots of ranged enemies better than Dodge, and I can kind of attest to that.

CPunk's friday night firefight system, which ditches many legacy things, most blatantly, D100 dice ceiling, is a good start. It does not contain gamey Hit Points (at least not that blatant), it aknowledges that fights proceeded in an actual space, it aknowledges covers, it has layered armor, it has limb damage and it doesn't need BIG NUMBERS and a ceiling to be both badass and alright balanced system.

Don't really know about that, so I can't comment much. Was there any cRPGs which has implemented this system or anything similar to that? Since we don't have any gameplay videos on CPunk 2077, I'm not sure if we would see it having this system.

 

[Risewild]

RPG:
-D100-some-formula+involving-(STR-and-weaponskill) to calculate damage or chance to hit someone. It's a kind of classic that must go, just go away, go back to D&D tabletop and never bother computer RPGs again.

Amazingly I am of the opposite opinion. RPGs are supposed to use the character's skills and not player's skills, if we remove the skill and dice rolls we only get a generic "press this button at this time to hit" or a "just keep clicking/pressing the attack button and you will win" and that is an action or shooter game and not a RPG one.
The best cRPGs I ever played (this is in my opinion) are the ones that use those systems (bugs apart of course. For example Arcanum is a buggy mess but it still a great cRPG that is fun and works well in my opinion. Also they might have a bad story but the system is still robust enough that we can play modder made campaigns/modules and they are great and show how well the system works):
-Diablo saga, classic Fallout games (1/2/Tactics), Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (the first part of that game is a great cRPG and shows how great that game could have been, except the last part that destroys it, which is just kill kill kill and kill some more), Baldur's Gate saga, Icewind Dale Saga, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Planescape: Torment, Age of Decadence, Underrail, Dungeon Rats, Neverwinter Nights saga, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic saga, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Shadowrun Returns saga, Bloodnet (which is an old DOS game which is more like an adventure game but with RPG-like combat), all the old first person cRPGs from the DOS era, etc (there are so damn many games where that kind of system works awesomely).

Now stuff that annoys me in today's gaming?

• Early Access
  • It just blows my mind why people will pay the full price of a game to play a (many times) Alpha stage game. Companies used to have to pay to get their games tested before selling them, today they get paid to let players test their games for them. But the worst thing is that there is nothing in place to really protect people who buy these Early Access games. If the game company just stops working on that game then it's too bad, you paid for a piece of shit game that will never be finished , serves you right for being stupid.

• Stupid DLCs instead of Expansions
  • I am from the time where computer games would release actual expansions. Some younger people these days say DLCs are the same or just have no idea what an expansion is/was. Expansions usually added at least half of what the main game was (playing hours, story, new/improved game mechanics, items, characters, locations, etc). To have an idea if we grabbed all the Fallout 4 DLCs and combined it into just one we wouldn't have what a real expansion back in the day would have.
• "Nu" Rogue-like
  • These days rogue-like just means using RNG to not have to balance a game in any way. It means that you are not playing the game, the game is playing you. The game decides when and how you lose and there is nothing you can do about it, no matter how well you mastered the game. It is all about luck and not player/character's skill. To me that is bullshit, there is challenge and then there is "I will let you win this time because RNG said so".
• Spiritual Successors that have nothing to do with the originals or games using older games names/brands/IPs when they have little to nothing to do with those games just to rack sales
  • Torment: Tides of Numenera is a perfect example of this, another example is Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, to a lesser degree we also have Skyrim (I bet there are plenty more examples, but since I am always broke for years now, I don't really follow gaming much anymore).
• Calling anything that has level up, skill trees, etc a RPG
  • It's like it is trendy liking RPGs even when you don't, so game companies call any game with level up, upgrades, skill tree, inventory, etc a RPG and that seems to sell the games more for some reason. Then we get people saying stuff like Borderlands, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Half-Life are RPGs because the meaning of the genre is diluted so much already ...

Many type of players today (there was players like these in the past, but these trends seem to be increasing over and over with time):

• Players who let their love for a game to cloud that game shortcomings
  • I love some games, but I also know of their shortcomings. Fallout 2 is one of my favorite games ever and I can point out most if not all of it's shortcomings. Same with Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, etc. I love those games but my love for them makes me see their shortcomings and I will see why others might have a problem with those games. If someone tells me they don't like Fallout 2 and point out the reasons then I understand. But these days we seem to have a lot of players out there that love a game and they go to a lot of effort and mental gymnastic to not see the shortcomings from that game. I guess Fallout 4 is a great example of this of course. There is nothing wrong about loving a game, there is also nothing wrong about someone else not liking that game, but go to a lot of efforts to defend that game (to the point of denying themselves the game shorcomings and why others might not like it) when no one is actually criticizing them for liking the game is ridiculous.
• Player's who don't know better or that don't know what they are missing
  • A lot of younger players these days don't realize how the industry is fucking them. They don't know what they are missing from the old days and how much better some things were. I am not one of those old guys that think everything was better in the old days, I love technology and how it improved enormously in the thirty something years I have been alive and today there are quite good improvements in terms of game distribution, easy of buying and installing games, keeping an organized library of games, not have to carry cd's/dvd's/blu-ray's everywhere with you just to play a game, etc. But there are also so many things the gaming industry now uses/does that fuck the consumers hard, and they come back for more because they don't know better.
• Player's that hate what the gaming companies are releasing and keep complaining about it over and over everywhere, but still go and pre-order or buy at day one the next game from that gaming company
  • This one is self explanatory. People complain, they say it is the last time they bought the game when it was released and then go and do it again and again and again. Why do they expect things to change when the company is making as much profit doing things like it always do? Without incentive nothing will change.

 

[YeeCop]

Micro-transactions. OVERKILL Software is guilty for this, for fucking up Payday 2. ESPECIALLY after they promised they'd never do micro-transactions.
Not to mention, for example, when Payday heists like the Goat Simulator DLC got released, you had to pay for the DLC even if you already owned Goat Simulator. It's a triple-dipping tactic that ultimately alienates players when they realize they're not seen as gamers, but as cash crops. Fucking loathsome.

 

[0wing]

BUT! One thing that's unfortunate when this system isn't seen in a cRPG is the lack or even nonexistence of critical failures.

...Fallout when fucking up lockpicking and during combat? I honestly never met any so far.

Uhm, right, Wasteland 2 with safecracking and weapon jamming!

 

[joevonzombie]

Micro-transactions. OVERKILL Software is guilty for this, for fucking up Payday 2. ESPECIALLY after they promised they'd never do micro-transactions.
Not to mention, for example, when Payday heists like the Goat Simulator heist got released, you had to pay for the DLC even if you already owned Goat Simulator. It's a triple-dipping tactic that ultimately alienates players when they realize they're not seen as gamers, but as cash crops. Fucking loathsome.

The problem with Micro-transaction thing is that your average COD/FIFA fucktard doesn't mind the shit and actually likes it. I worked in customer support for a certain major gaming platform for two and a half years. Every kid I would speak too about it would give me some bullshit reason as to why it was justified. I had one guy call in to add a card to his account his wife wasn't aware of so he could secretly buy FIFA points without her knowing. It's disgusting.

 

[Supreme Shah Ismail]

The problem with Micro-transaction thing is that your average COD/FIFA fucktard doesn't mind the shit and actually likes it. I worked in customer support for a certain major gaming platform for two and a half years. Every kid I would speak too about it would give me some bullshit reason as to why it was justified. I had one guy call in to add a card to his account his wife wasn't aware of so he could secretly buy FIFA points without her knowing. It's disgusting.

Thats dudebros and over privileged 12 year olds for ya.

 

[Risewild]

Another thing I hate in gaming these days:

• Bad PC game ports
  • I hate when devs port games to PC but leave the UI, controls, etc the same way (or close) as in the console version. Not adding mouse support for stuff like menus, bad optimization, no (or minimal) graphical options, controller mandatory in games that would work as well or even better using mouse and keyboard, etc. And then on top they ask for full price for a bad port as if we were buying a quality PC game.... It annoys me so much.