Most annoying non-obvious things in modern gaming

[man-erg]

A lot of sci-fi settings are alternate universes so your complaints about not being a realistic future are unfounded. If anything, we meed more retro-futurism in sci-fi. Show me what could have been not what will most likely be.

They only used Straus because Aphex Twin hadn't even been born when 2001 was filmed. Watch that clip, turn the sound down and play Ageopolis by Aphex Twin over the top. 1000% improvement

 

[Iucounu]

Large tree trunks swaying in the wind all the way down to the ground, as if they're made of rubber. Last seen in the leaked Stalker 2 videos.

 

[Iucounu]

-The trend of having to hold a button down to interact with something while a circle fills up

To me that seems like a cheap substitute for physical action (such as opening a door, searching a container or turning a lever).

The Long Dark uses those circles extensively, with varying delay times depending on situation. It's a tedium that takes getting used to (especially when searching ten empty cabinets in a row), but wasting the player's time actually serve a purpose as a strategic challenge in this game: "do I have the time to search these cupboards, or should I do something else?"

I think that the way the player character controls should be abstract because the way we interface with the game is abstract. We're not actually moving or opening doors, we're moving a mouse and pressing keys on a keyboard, so the player movement should coincide 1:1 with those keyboard presses and mouse movements; just as pressing a key instantly prints that key's letter onto the screen while typing, clicking on a door in a game should instantly open that door. This way, you eventually completely forget about the way you're controlling your character because you're so used to it and it feels so natural, and you can interact with the game's world with no barriers between it and you.

I generally agree, but Frictional Games has another solution that also works very well: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-weighty-doors-and-switches-of-soma/

 

[Iucounu]

have you ever played Stalker Call of Pripyat? That game had interesting achievements that had a real effect on the world around you (merchants giving better prices, more monsters spawning at night, being able to survive emissions etc.). It's also the only game I know that implemented achievements in an interesting way.

Having an effect on the world is a Good Thing, but in my understanding achievements are about adressing the player directly, which feels like a dishonest pat on the shoulder from lazy developers. It also takes the player out of the game world immersion (I don't mind normal game stats, and don't consider them achievements since they are shown without bias in the game menu).

A better type of achievement might the various "false ending" cutscenes in Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl, since these too reflect (subtly) on how you played the game, but in SoC these cutscenes are integrated in the game world itself. The "true ending" of course has an even larger, real effect on the game world.

 

[Iucounu]

Numbers being shat all over the screen every time you damage an enemy.

And health bars. I see them as a cheap substitute for adding visible changes on the enemy's appearance (bleeding) or behavior (limping) as he takes damage. Or maybe the bars are meant for prolonged fights, so you can tell that all your hits have at least have some effect? The Mass Effect games come to mind, where each enemy may have 2-3 bars you need to grind down in turn.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I generally agree, but Frictional Games has another solution that also works very well

If this becomes ubiquitous I'm adding it to this thread.

 

[FreshCorpse]

Having to make the decision on one screen, but all of the information you'll need to make that decision is on another screen.

Wasteland 3's crafting system originally only showed the ingredients on the weapon upgrade/crafting screen. If you wanted to know what the upgrade would do you had to back out and find another screen a couple of clicks away - a pain if you're doing say multiple different upgrades at once. And of course, because most non-MMO games don't have a proper windowing system, you can' view both at the same time. They did fix this in a patch around the time of the first expansion IIRC.

 

[beardalaxy]

The things I hate, other than propaganda shit, are often graphics-related. Dithered transparency, FXAA and TAA, and Screen Space Reflections are all things I absolutely cannot stand. The only time SSR works is when it is in a game with a fixed camera perspective, or a game where you can't move the camera much (such as a racing game), otherwise the reflections start moving around in a really jarring way. They can kind of be covered up with some heavy refraction or something, but when you see it clearly it just ruins the immersion for me. It's one of the first things I look for to turn off in a game.

FXAA and TAA both look like garbage, and I actually prefer FXAA to TAA because the latter causes some bad shimmering on edges and can even modify geometry worst case scenario. I wish we could just keep using MSAA, performance impact be damned. Dithered transparency always looks absolutely horrible... I can understand it being a performance save, again, but give me the option to turn it off PLEASE. I don't like seeing smoke, clouds, water, and even foliage with dot patterns all over them. It's so unsightly.

 

[processdaemon]

My apologies if this falls under obvious but the ubiquity of fully voiced protagonists has resulted in much blander player characters since VA is expensive and dialogue can change up until the last minute.

 

[Iucounu]

I generally agree, but Frictional Games has another solution that also works very well

If this becomes ubiquitous I'm adding it to this thread.

You should try it before dismissing it, it works great in Soma (a superb game BTW), and also in the Amnesia games I think.

I do suspect other developers would just make a mess of it though, and in a faster-paced shooter game it's likely too slow and tedious --now I recall that Metro Exodus had those annoying circle animation for every cheap loot box (that said the Metro circle delays did add suspense when you wanted to loot a box while sneaking past enemies, but only then).

 

[ds]

My apologies if this falls under obvious but the ubiquity of fully voiced protagonists has resulted in much blander player characters since VA is expensive and dialogue can change up until the last minute.

Bland Protagonists are much better than opinionated protagonists that act differently from how you wan (them) to act. No Alyx, I don't want to rush after Eli because he got himself captured - he'll be fine since this is a prequel; now let me chill with the first Vort that I have ever seen up close. Completely silent protagonists have their limitations but the opposite is so much worse.

You should try it before dismissing it, it works great in Soma (a superb game BTW), and also in the Amnesia games I think.

I do suspect other developers would just make a mess of it though, and in a faster-paced shooter game it's likely too slow and tedious --now I recall that Metro Exodus had those annoying circle animation for every cheap loot box (that said the Metro circle delays did add suspense when you wanted to loot a box while sneaking past enemies, but only then).

It worked great for Frictional since Penumbra, but those are all a) horror games which rely on immersion more than any other genre b) relatively short and c) don't throw endless containers at you. Frictional's mouse-movement-based interactions are well done but still slower/less precise than real world hand movement. I can totally see them getting annoying in a full length RPG with containers around every corner. They also only work in first-person games whereas annoying delays on interaction are also found in many other games including "isometric" RPGs like Wasteland 2.

 

[Machocruz]

The Long Dark uses those circles extensively, with varying delay times depending on situation. It's a tedium that takes getting used to (especially when searching ten empty cabinets in a row), but wasting the player's time actually serve a purpose as a strategic challenge in this game: "do I have the time to search these cupboards, or should I do something else?"

I should have specified it's annoying in games where there is no consequences to the passage of time, like being detected or attacked during the interaction. Survival games usually make it meaningful.

 

[Iucounu]

Restricted keybinds and no keybinds. Seriously, the fuck is this, 1985?

In games from around 2000-2010 it always seemed to work, but in recent years I've seen more and more neglect.

A related issue is console ports(?) where there are so many important functions to bind that you run out of easily accessible keys. Since handheld console controllers only contain a small number of keys, how can the number somehow grow on PC? Is it because handheld controllers rely on multiple key combinations that are too hard to translate to a PC keyboard unless you resort to separate keys for each combination?

 

[Pocgels]

-Music/soundtracks have become extremely subdued to not scare away those with narrow tastes. again not a very subtle decline but I seem to be the only one that ever complains about this, which is shocking.

I've gone into the audio options on more than one occasion to put the settings at something like:
100% Music
70% SFX
70% Voices

But never really given it more thought than "Why's the music so quiet?" before quickly forgetting. At least until reading your post

 

[Ezekiel]

Hints and secrets on loading screens.

I have been playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the last three months. Have finished the four shrines and the castle, but have still never accessed the great fairies by bringing the musician/musical troupe to them, because I haven't found them. A loading screen told me that I could increase my attack power with upgrades from the great fairies. Why tell me this? You think I'm so stupid that I can't see the fairies will help me if I get them what they want? You think I never played video games before? Imagine if you had told me in a loading screen that the rocks falling from the sky could be used to get up to the sky by reversing time on them, instead of hinting at it with character dialogue as you did. Putting it in a loading screen is so... I don't know, artificial. Almost every game does it now. Suppose it was only a matter of time before it infected its way into Nintendo's as well. When did it start with them? I didn't play any Zelda games between Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild. Did not own a Wii and Wii U and did not want to emulate motion controls.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Nonskippable logos or safety advisories before reaching the main menu. I noticed this with Nightdive's Quake re-releases, before their "remaster" launching either of these two games would take you straight to the menu or even the demo reel if playing through a sourceport. Now I have to sit through a seizure warning and few company logos! At least in this case all of the logos are stored as video files which can easily be deleted.

 

[antimeridian]

-Music/soundtracks have become extremely subdued to not scare away those with narrow tastes. again not a very subtle decline but I seem to be the only one that ever complains about this, which is shocking.

Retards whining about the System Shock 2 soundtrack was the beginning of this.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Hints and secrets on loading screens.

These can be nice to have but yeah it really depends on the type of game/hints.

 

[Modron]

Japanese game developers feel like they have to include a main menu trailer but most of the times these are montages of cinematics from various points in the story since they don't want to spend extra money making them and can be extremely spoilerific like badly made modern movie trailers that spoil the entire plot of a film. Always have to skip them in Yakuzas and I think Nier Replicant had one as well but I always skipped so can't say for certain it was full of spoilers.

 

[Ash]

-Music/soundtracks have become extremely subdued to not scare away those with narrow tastes. again not a very subtle decline but I seem to be the only one that ever complains about this, which is shocking.

Retards whining about the System Shock 2 soundtrack was the beginning of this.

I like you. "Retards" would be my desired word choice in this context too, regardless of the high degree of subjectivity involved with music taste. Even if you dislike the 4 astounding and diverse yet entirely fitting Drum n Bass tracks because you got beat with the sissy stick and obviously chugged too much soy, the majority of the remaining music (8 tracks?) is indivisive, subtle, horror, tension-building masterpieces, and the game's soundtrack is, like many greats of the 90s, absolutely as important to the experience as the gameplay, visuals, story and whatever else. Fucking retards is right!

Game devs of games with masterful composition should stop providing the option to disable music for these soy boys. Have some balls, be like movie directors -- the soundtrack is part of the experience no ifs or buts. Imagine The Terminator without The Terminator theme song...

 

[Tacgnol]

-Music/soundtracks have become extremely subdued to not scare away those with narrow tastes. again not a very subtle decline but I seem to be the only one that ever complains about this, which is shocking.

Retards whining about the System Shock 2 soundtrack was the beginning of this.

I like you. "Retards" would be my desired word choice in this context too, regardless of the high degree of subjectivity involved with music taste. Even if you dislike the 4 astounding and diverse yet entirely fitting Drum n Bass tracks because you got beat with the sissy stick and obviously chugged too much soy, the majority of the remaining music (8 tracks?) is indivisive, subtle, horror, tension-building masterpieces, and the game's soundtrack is, like many greats of the 90s, absolutely as important to the experience as the gameplay, visuals, story and whatever else. Fucking retards is right!

I love the SS2 soundtrack. I really don't understand the people who mute it.

Always felt the pounding tracks lent urgency rather than taking away from the atmosphere.

 

[Ash]

They're people that do not understand art. That true video games, including Looking Glass' "Immersive Sims", are works of entertainment, art and fiction first, simulations second (if at all).
Furthermore they do not understand that good music is actually more conducive to immersion as long as you have the ability to not be a retard and actually turn off the part of the brain that goes "wtf, real life wouldn't have music accompanying this situation, that's silly!", A.K.A suspension of disbelief. All horror movie classics would be less intense, edge-of-seat, immersive horrific experiences without the music, and the same applies to horror video game greats. Music manipulates emotion, sets the tone, adds another layer of atmosphere and engagement.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

They added a navigator (like in Dead Space) in the Quake 2 remaster.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Music manipulates emotion, sets the tone, adds another layer of atmosphere and engagement.

Have you seen those "music removed" bits of iconic movies, it's hilarious how much it changes the entire thing for the absolute worst.

 

[gurugeorge]

They're people that do not understand art. That true video games, including Looking Glass' "Immersive Sims", are works of entertainment, art and fiction first, simulations second (if at all).
Furthermore they do not understand that good music is actually more conducive to immersion as long as you have the ability to not be a retard and actually turn off the part of the brain that goes "wtf, real life wouldn't have music accompanying this situation, that's silly!", A.K.A suspension of disbelief. All horror movie classics would be less intense, edge-of-seat, immersive horrific experiences without the music, and the same applies to horror video game greats. Music manipulates emotion, sets the tone, adds another layer of atmosphere and engagement.

I agree, but I think the feeling against music comes from the MMO period. Any music will grate after you've heard it enough times, and in MMOs you'd be hearing it a lot, so eventually you would turn it off. I think that gradually transformed into the meme "Oh I automatically switch off the music in games," so developers probably put less emphasis on it. A lot of the single player RPGs we like here do have good music though - everything from the Shadowrun games to the Owlcat games, the Larian games, etc.