Topic: Gaming's pet peeves

@Th3solution Ha ha good point - I'd probably put the Banuk as Nintendo owners, a strange but proud tribe, small in number but ferocious in trolling.

@DerMeister Yep - as said, who cares if someone disagrees with you. I think TLOU is a masterpiece, you don't. Guess what, I don't care, you gave it a try and you can't say fairer than that.

@mookysam I know - I personally blame Nintendo for not creating all the games I like. They know full well that I buy Nintendo for Metroid games and they did not, I repeat NOT, release Metroid Prime 4 on my birthday as requested.

I see that kind of corporate tribalism everywhere nowadays. People worry about Adidas vs. Nike, whether Drake or Minaj has the top spot in the charts and et cetera or if DC movies or Marvel are selling better.

People get so worked up over charts and awards, that you'd be forgiven for thinking these people have stock in these corporations, but they don't.

It's strange to me when people feel more connected to a brand than actual persons.

It is something that's been on my mind recently, moreso even than during the big console wars of yesteryear. Also, I find it personally hard to escape from myself as well. When someone starts to talk dirt about the PlayStation brand, I really shouldn't care, because whatever, but I understand how these things work: I use the device every day, so it's hard not to identify myself with it, even if it is a lifeless object.

@Kidfried I must admit, I too feel quite 'connected' with Miss Minaj...

I hate it when the music changes when you go into a menu. You’re getting into and then it just takes you with different music. Also hate when the music changes when cops start chasing you in a racing game.
I think it’s dumb that you have to cut parts off of a monster when you’re fighting it to get certain parts of it. The tail is sill there when I kill it, just easier in theory to cut off. It’s a pointless grind mechanic and collecting what you want from the tail without killing it because it’s tough to kill or because it’s helpful in fighting should be incentive enough, anything else is pointless filler and bad game design no matter how good the rest of the game is.

Dang any game without a decent save/load system to death. Latest offender: 2064.

I'm fine with manual saving, but please don't make stupid systems. 2064's saving system is beyond stupid, it's like it has been specifically designed so that at one point the player will mess up.

Come on, it's not the 90's anymore. Really inexcusable.

My biggest peeve on any game is controls. If the controls are bad, it's hard for me. Even this last Tomb Raider has had some really poor controls in it where I die because the controls are poor on a jump or a wall climb. I've been mind-warped by soulsborne, so dying doesn't really impact me like it used to but dying because the controls in the game are poor, so really annoying.

@Kidfried Yep I played I Am Setsuna on the Switch the other day. You can only save at any time in the world map or at designated save points. I fought the first boss and died, only saved in the world map before a bunch narrative stuff and about 5 battles which you have to complete before the boss fight. I know have to do that again, which immediately puts me off from playing it again.

@Kidfried I hate auto saves and prefer manual alot more, reason being I know for a fact I saved. Alot of times I don't notice the auto save icon pop up and for whatever I have to stop I always have that dreaded feeling that the next time I load my game it's going to be further back from when I quit or even I will have to start over. I especially hate it when I quit the game and the message "Quitting now will not save any progress you made since you last save. Are you sure you want to quit?" And then it doesn't even give me the option to save. I feel like well do I have a choice.

@Tasuki I agree that how most games have included auto save isn't good either. Personally I have no preference for either auto save or manual save, but as long as it's been applied in a reasonable manner. In 2064 it is not.

But I also remember Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, a game with auto save. I once played a session of about 90 minutes. I made quite some progress and finished a few chapters. I got tired, but couldn't save. I closed the game, thinking I was okay with doing about 5 minutes again. Whatever, I wanted to go to bed.

Next time I boot the game: it didn't save at all apparently. Never touched the game since. That kind of stuff, just like the save system in 2064 is unforgivable in my opinion.

@Tasuki @Kidfried I think manual and auto save combinations are the best. That way if you forget your not in deep trouble but your not at the mercy of the game either. Then you have the Souls games. Try moving your pinky finger without it causing it to save in those.

@Kidfried Oh yes, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture has a weird autosave that only occurs after a motion control story event. And even then, it takes several seconds after the event to trigger the saving icon, so you have to wait a few seconds before quitting. As beautiful as the game is, the save function is incredibly poorly implemented.
@Jaz007 I agree a combination is the best save system. Autosave right before a big boss fight or major jump or traversal sequence when you might die, and then have manual saves for every other time. I had to use that Bloodborne save copying trick to the cloud in order to be able to do all the endings without playing through the whole game again. The game was so brutal in its relentless insistence that you live with every mistake that you make. Use some blood echoes? —they are gone forever because we save afterward. Choose this story option?— you’re stuck with the consequences because we save immediately afterward. 😂

Here's a big pet peeve. The lack of depreciation for DLC. It makes buying it well after launch very undesirable. Bought the game new for $10? How about $15-20 for some DLC.... DLC needs to go down in price and is one of its biggest problems. It acts like the game is $60 forever. I hate it so much. Even worse is when a GOTY edition costs $30 or $40 and the DLC season pass still costs $40 or $50.

@Th3solution Bethesda, for all its faults, has a great save system. You can make multiple manual saves. And they're actually sorted per character. There is an autosave, which saves everytime you enter or leave a building, or progress within a quest. Also, there are multiple autosaves, in case you want to go back a little further. And there is the quicksave system, which allows for fast manual saves.

Basically... every game should have this!

@Jaz007 Holy smokes, this is exactly what I was thinking yesterday. I can buy Fallout 4 GOTY (all DLC) physical for less than the last DLC I still want.

I spent 60+25 on Fallout 4 already. And I still need to spend 20. While new gamers can buy the GOTY for 19 euro. Feels like being punished for actually supporting the game.

And it's stuff like this that makes me hesitant to buy Spider-Man or the new Tomb Raider before a GOTY is out.

@Kidfried I find most eastern games I've played have a poor save system, where as the majority of western titles are much better. I've just lost about 30 mins of talking to characters, following them really slowly and tutorials in Monster Hunter World, even though it says when you load the game it auto saves. When exactly does the game auto save then? Grrrrr.

@Jaz007 I agree, but DLC and season passes also have a discount in the ps store sales too.

@KratosMD Difficulty levels in JRPG is so stupid. I found Yakuza 0 quite easy (I know it's not a very typical JRPG, but I tend to see it as one anyway), so I played Kiwami on max difficulty level. It doesn't make the game more difficult; they just give enemies more HP and make their attacks stronger.

Basically, it makes the game way worse, as battles can take two to four times as long, without them actually being more difficult. The only thing it's testing is my patience and my ability to button mash for way too long. Instead of not using items at all, I just made sure to have a few healing items on me. Felt like an insult, really.

@RogerRoger Question on difficulty: do you think all games should be able to be completed by anyone, regardless of skill?

@RogerRoger Your comparison with books or paintings is not completely true in my opinion. Books require you to know the language it was written in, and also expect you to have a background on its subject matter.

Also, paintings often don't tell you what they are about. You need a certain context to understand those.

(It will be difficult for people that are color blind to enjoy many expressionistic art works.)

That being said, personally I oppose any reasoning in which art and video games are compared and someone states "Other art forms (not) require you to x." It's that kind of reasoning that for instance Roger Ebert used to discredit games as art form: "Games aren't art because you can not win at art." Personally I think there's a reason we call games "games" and not "literature" or "movies", exactly the reason why it is different.

Also, games as art, I can understand artists not wanting to make compromises on their vision. On the other hand I can totally see the point that everyone should be able to enjoy games. It's a difficult subject is what it is. I am blessed to be rather good at games for sure (not noteworthy good or anything).

Difficulty levels in an RPG are a good idea to me. I'm currently playing Dragon Quest XI and it is by far the easiest Dragon Quest game I've played. I would like to employ more strategy in battles, but there is no need. I've not excessively grinded, either. There are battle modifiers, but I missed this at the beginning as they can only be activated when you start a new game and it was not made it obvious they were there. I think in this case it would have been nice if the game had a higher difficulty. Persona 5 was about right I think, although easier than 3 and 4. The QoL adjustments and additional of new skills may have contributed to that.

Turn-based RPGs are one of the few genres I'm actually good at, so difficulty levels have actually helped me a lot in other genres. I struggled with Nier Automata on normal, because owing to my arthritic fingers I couldn't repeatedly dodge without hurting myself. I therefore turned it down to easy (which can be done at any time) and equipped auto dodge. I was then able to enjoy the game. I played God of War on easy too. Difficulty levels make a game more accessible or more difficult depending on what the player wants.

@KratosMD It's true that a lot of Japanese RPGs are misleading with their difficulty. Normal is often harder than a lot of people would assume. Shin Megami Tensei in general is a series traditionally known for its punishing difficulty - they're definitely more difficult than many other games in the genre. However, if there weren't difficulty levels in wouldn't you just be stuck if "normal" was what the game's difficulty is based on? Would you say that having the option to play on a lower difficulty level is a good thing for players who want to focus more on the story? There's a problem in that an awful lot of games do not allow you to change the difficulty mid way through, so I can certainly understand your frustration at losing progress.

Rain/dust/dirt on the 'camera' in 3rd-person games. No, I'm supposed to 'be' the character, not following them around with a camera... I shouldn't be seeing this stuff build up on glass that shouldn't be there.