Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Matt Damon]

That's an unfortunate reality with the gaming industry. Very few people actually keep the source code for their games.

Japanese devs were particular bad about this.

It seems like a Japanese developer shipping a game until the late 2000s was like the last day of school - you take every single thing you were working on for the last year and just toss it all into a dumpster.

 

[The handsome tard]

It's very difficult for me to get engaged in a game that dumps me into a character creator with 500 options, most of dubious worth, before I even get to move around the game world. The whole spreadsheet creation of my character feels like they're purposefully trapping me before I even get to begin. It'd be so much better if a game like Fallout didn't expect me to just guess which skills would be good or bad. Gothic, for example, hooked me much better because I got to feel what the game was like and decide where to spend my LP. Knowing the sheer amount of locked chests I could get into with lockpicking made me realize how it would be worth it.

In a game like Fallout, though, I wind up not knowing until after I've made my first character whether my skills are completely and totally worthless, or barely applicable, or game changingly important. Gothic has useless skills too, but you can figure out which are the noob traps if you think about it, where you might have a gimped character before even playing the actual game in other, more traditional DND styled campaign games.

It's a super fine line between keeping people engaged but giving them player choice that actually matters. I want mechanical depth, but I don't want it to be so frontloaded that I'll probably restart my character a few times before finishing the game.

I think thats owned to the manuals having a more detailed explanations of these skills and their usages IN game. It was a different time where it was cheaper to put all that info in the manual.

 

[I'd abeeb bear]

I think thats owned to the manuals having a more detailed explanations of these skills and their usages IN game. It was a different time where it was cheaper to put all that info in the manual.

I read the manuals religiously as a kid, but they still didn't tell you the frequency that a skill would be useful. In theory, lockpicking is a great and useful skill, because you'll be able to earn money or loot, but some games simply don't let you lockpick very much. Yes, it has uses, but the amount of times you can use something comes down to knowledge that you'll only have after finishing the game. Gothic has an issue with this in that you're pushed towards getting the skills to harvest animal trophies early on, but by doing so, the money and uses that you have for most trophies are limited and wind up setting you back in terms of character progression.

Skills in these kinds of games are far too often imbalanced simply because they can't make a route that takes into account every single skill you could use.

A recent example is Death Trash, which is universally praised across every platform, yet, things like Animalism are very clearly halfbaked. There are far less skills in Death Trash so it's not like you're at a massive disadvantage being asked to pick them before hand, but it still leads to character resets.

Adhering to the DND principles that logically state that every skill will have a fair amount of use has lead tons of games down a rabbit hole of fake depth.

DND had the benefit of being modular as you play, so the DM can and will add in special things to allow people to use their skills. Video games don't have that option.

I've yet to play it mainly because I've heard that Underrail suffers heavily from this. Supposedly, you can pick from a ton of skill types, but by late game, you're railroaded into a specific couple of builds.

Many games that seem to have depth on the surface boil down to knowledge that you can only have after getting to a certain point, and that defeats the purpose of a great many skills in these games, yet they still cram them in to say that they have the options, whether they're useful or not.

 

[Stasi]

Oblivion is a great game and anyone who disagrees is a literal shit eating mongoloid.

 

[Dom Cruise]

eSports is ruining competitive gaming. Gaming in general. The current philosophy for fighting games or shooters is to cater to that demographic while ignoring those who don't care about rank.

Halo 3 perfected that system 14 years ago with Trueskill. Now it's an arbitrary system often abused by tryhards and DDOSERS.

It really, really is.

Basically video games are transitioning from a storytelling medium to something more resembling a virtual sport, even old school games like Mario had "save the princess" and Castlevania had "kill Dracula" as an ultimate goal to achieve, for me I love a good story, but I at least want the satisfaction of an ultimate win goal and watching the credits roll, I love that sense of satisfaction of having beaten a game.

Today's online multiplayer games offer nothing like that, you can play them forever, there's always another match, another round, I get people get satisfaction from winning the match but then it's on to next one and on and on for however long you play, for me the novelty wears off fast and I get bored, people who play that shit just endlessly is something alien to me, it's just something to kill time, for me it feels like wasting time, whereas being able to say you beat a game offers you some sense of achievement.

But that seems to be the future of it and single player, story driven stuff will slowly die off as Wokeness pushes away whatever audience it could have and the big money is increasingly in your Fortnites and shit, multiplayer was a lot more tolerable when it was something people just did recreationally, but now this era of competitiveness of not just eSports but also streaming, where people think they can make a living playing video games? Fuck all that, I have zero interest in that, it's strangling the life out of this hobby.

 

[Marissa Moira]

It really, really is.

Basically video games are transitioning from a storytelling medium to something more resembling a virtual sport, even old school games like Mario had "save the princess" and Castlevania had "kill Dracula" as an ultimate goal to achieve, for me I love a good story, but I at least want the satisfaction of an ultimate win goal and watching the credits roll, I love that sense of satisfaction of having beaten a game.

Story telling in games was something that came decades later after genres were already established. You're confusing story with objectives.

If you look at games like Ultima or any of the early RPGs you're not going to find a story structure that would adhere to literature or film techniques like The Hero's Journey. The Elder Scrolls series allows you the player to become the best at everything with no consequences or even character personality growth. Mostly because the premises and setting is just a framework for the gameplay systems, story is not a core aspect like a book or movie would have.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Story telling in games was something that came decades later after genres were already established. You're confusing story with objectives.

I very clearly state that there's story and there's objectives, I love a good story in a games but I want at least a clear objective.

Multiplayer has it's place but if that becomes the only focus then I guess I'm done.

My favorite online multiplayer was the co-op in Left 4 Dead because each level had an end goal to achieve, it felt like a cross between single player and multiplayer because the end goal wasn't just getting the top kill count but working for something like getting on a helicopter or whatever and there was an actual story reason for why what's happening is happening.

I like there to be some reason for why I'm doing what I'm doing, most multiplayer is just random characters killing each other for no discernable reason, that can be fun in short doses but if there's no answer to "why am I doing this?" then it's get old, I want something at least as basic as "to save Princess Peach"

 

[Marissa Moira]

I very clearly state that there's story and there's objectives, I love a good story in a games but I want at least a clear objective.

Multiplayer has it's place but if that becomes the only focus then I guess I'm done.

My favorite online multiplayer was the co-op in Left 4 Dead because each level had an end goal to achieve, it felt like a cross between single player and multiplayer because the end goal wasn't just getting the top kill count but working for something like getting on a helicopter or whatever and there was an actual story reason for why what's happening is happening.

I like there to be some reason for why I'm doing what I'm doing, most multiplayer is just random characters killing each other for no discernable reason, that can be fun in short doses but if there's no answer to "why am I doing this?" then it's get old, I want something at least as basic as "to save Princess Peach"

Left 4 Dead is a multiplayer game, it's in no way a single player game. It's squad based PVE.

You're talking about PVP Deathmatches, which have been the most common since Doom came out. Hell Unreal went from a single player game to Unreal Tournament which was nothing but deathmatches since it proved the most popular mode.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Oblivion is a great game and anyone who disagrees is a literal shit eating mongoloid.

Oblivion's RPG elements are awful. Absolutely awful. WTF were they thinking with that leveling system?

I still love it though, because at least when your sword hits something it actually hits it.

 

[The Ugly One]

It really, really is.

Basically video games are transitioning from a storytelling medium to something more resembling a virtual sport

The first successful video game was virtual ping-pong. It was quite some time before "beating" a game became a common thing.

Today's online multiplayer games offer nothing like that, you can play them forever, there's always another match, another round, I get people get satisfaction from winning the match but then it's on to next one and on and on for however long you play, for me the novelty wears off fast and I get bored, people who play that shit just endlessly is something alien to me, it's just something to kill time, for me it feels like wasting time, whereas being able to say you beat a game offers you some sense of achievement.

The sense of achievement I get from online gaming is the same as it was in arcades decades years ago: I defeated other people. Or at least I did, before I got old and slow and stupid. I feel the opposite way about SP games. Seventy hours trudging through a story feels like I drained precious life energy away. Now, of course, modern online gaming has really taken a nosedive since they got rid of persistent lobbies and the ability to call my opponent a butt-fucking niggerfaggot, but I'm just saying that's why people like it.

But that seems to be the future of it and single player, story driven stuff will slowly die off as Wokeness pushes away whatever audience it could have and the big money is increasingly in your Fortnites and shit, multiplayer was a lot more tolerable when it was something people just did recreationally, but now this era of competitiveness of not just eSports but also streaming, where people think they can make a living playing video games? Fuck all that, I have zero interest in that, it's strangling the life out of this hobby.

What is killing off single player is the price of delivering experiences players consider "high quality" is going up and up and up, but the ability to monetize them has peaked out. It cost $500m to develop GTAV, which was a PS3 game. There was this wealth of quality single-player games on the PS2, but you just couldn't do that today, not on those budgets. It's really too bad.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The first successful video game was virtual ping-pong. It was quite some time before "beating" a game became a common thing.

That's the irony is gaming is in some ways going full circle.

But I cut my teeth on the NES/SNES/Genesis/PS1/PS2 era of gaming in which games either had stories or at least could be "beaten"

It's not like most of the stuff I played as a kid like Crash Bandicoot had very deep stories, but then I played MGS2 which completely blew my mind with how compelling it's story was and how cinematic it's presentation was.

But younger gamers who have grown up with Minecraft and Fortnite are probably not going to have that MGS2 experience as story driven games fall out of favor, the idea of a game having story and characters you actually care about as opposed to a virtual toybox you dick around in is going to be alien to them, we're heading in the direction of Ass, where you don't even know who's ass it is and why it is farting.

The sense of achievement I get from online gaming is the same as it was in arcades decades years ago: I defeated other people. Or at least I did, before I got old and slow and stupid. I feel the opposite way about SP games. Seventy hours trudging through a story feels like I drained precious life energy away. Now, of course, modern online gaming has really taken a nosedive since they got rid of persistent lobbies and the ability to call my opponent a butt-fucking niggerfaggot, but I'm just saying that's why people like it.

Whether you prefer single player or multiplayer is at the end of the day a matter of personal taste, but I still think it's in everyone's interest for gaming not to turn it's back completely on the potential of it as a storytelling medium.

What is killing off single player is the price of delivering experiences players consider "high quality" is going up and up and up, but the ability to monetize them has peaked out. It cost $500m to develop GTAV, which was a PS3 game. There was this wealth of quality single-player games on the PS2, but you just couldn't do that today, not on those budgets. It's really too bad.

Grand Theft Auto is a perfect example of this evolution, GTAIII was sold as "it's like an interactive gangster movie!" even though what really blew everyone's minds was the sandbox aspect, as time when on the stories dried up and now it's only an online sandbox with only the bare minimum of "story"

It's also a perfect example of how good old fashioned greed has spoiled things as GTAO has made so much money Rockstar can't be bother to make a sixth game for almost a decade now, innovation is truly drying up.

 

[Marissa Moira]

We had a game release last month where you beat up a bunch of crippled children and their mom for a boss fight and you people are lamenting change.

 

[HeyYou]

as someone who's played and loved Morrowind for many years, I can personally attest to the fact that mods really aren't necessary besides the Code Patch or Expansion Delay to fix the Dark Brotherhood coming after you at Level 1, and some other QoL changes. The game is almost perfect, it just needs an extra push to smooth out some of the jank, unlike say Oblivion or Skyrim, which need complete overhauling to make playable

For those disagreeing with this post, please explain which mods besides patches are required to play the game

Because patches are mods, major ones at that. If you're saying "please explain what mods besides patches" you're saying you have to play with mods for the game to not be broken. And it is, because mechanics like pickpocket are a mess without some sort of patch.

The dicksucking of Morrowind about it being perfect or near perfect has always amused me. Even outside of arguable design faults, actual intended mechanics in the game often don't work as they should. That is not an almost perfect game. Meanwhile, despite their faults, Skyrim and Oblivion are also perfectly playable games with patches and nothing else.

 

[7th Dweller of Da'at]

It's the exact same reason why older Elder Scrolls combat having hit rates is frowned upon by everyone except it's most hardcore fans.

this complaint is so overblown. use the weapons you have skills in and hit rate won't be a problem. Why and how would your character know how to use a weapon they had no skill in?

Meanwhile, despite their faults, Skyrim and Oblivion are also perfectly playable games with patches and nothing else.

I'd rather have Morrowind's lame Pickpocket than Oblivion's atrocious leveling system or Skyrim's awful, amateurish questlines

 

[Wormy]

use the weapons you have skills in and hit rate won't be a problem. Why and how would your character know how to use a weapon they had no skill in?

Then have the character unable to equip them!

Sorry, but it was a big turn off in an otherwise quite wonderful game to keep swinging at something RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE and not hitting a blessed thing.

We had a game release last month where you beat up a bunch of crippled children and their mom for a boss fight and you people are lamenting change.

People are giving Cuckold Simulator "Overwhelming Positive" ratings. We've earned a lot of this shit treatment since it's obvious a lot of gamers love to eat shit.

 

[7th Dweller of Da'at]

Then have the character unable to equip them!

the point of Morrowind was to have ultimate freedom, something that Oblivion and Skyrim sadly forgot in their very restrictive design choices. it wouldn't make sense in the context of the world for a character to just be unable to equip something because their skill was low enough, and that's not even mentioning the fact that such an arbitrary restriction would make raising low weapon skills impossible without the use of trainers. Morrowind's combat is nowhere near perfect, however it's honestly a hell of a lot better than Oblivion, where no matter how high your weapon skill is, it always feels like you're just swinging a cheap piece of plastic around a hundred times until the enemy finally dies. In Morrowind, if you're skilled in your respective weapon class, combat is relatively short and satisfying in comparison.

 

[No0neKnows]

I lost all interest by vidya and I don't know if this is due me growing out of it or because it became just one more method of propaganda. I only play old and eastern stuff now.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Playing Saints Rows 2 reminded me why I dislike the franchise.

I like the over the top actions and missions, and the engine is objectively better than GTAIII/VC, but I just can't be arsed to do the open world busy work. Imagine if GTA asked you to do races/rampages/etc to proceed the game, instead of them being optional minigames.

I liked Saints Row 4 as well, but I just couldn't fucking care about the open world busy work. Same for Mad Max Fury Road. This genre has aged so bad. Open worlds really have no charm if all there is to them is repeat missions with no difference whatsoever.

 

[ScurvyRat]

Playing Saints Rows 2 reminded me why I dislike the franchise.

Saints Row 2 is literally unplayable on PC, running at 15 FPS. What a shame because SR2 is the only good game in the franchise

I like the over the top actions and missions, and the engine is objectively better than GTAIII/VC, but I just can't be arsed to do the open world busy work. Imagine if GTA asked you to do races/rampages/etc to proceed the game, instead of them being optional minigames.

At least the SR side missions are actually fun like covering the neighborhoods in raw sewage or going on a rampage with a rocket launcher

I liked Saints Row 4 as well, but I just couldn't fucking care about the open world busy work. Same for Mad Max Fury Road. This genre has aged so bad. Open worlds really have no charm if all there is to them is repeat missions with no difference whatsoever.

Saints row 3 and beyond are only enjoyable if you're 15

 

[Wormy]

the point of Morrowind was to have ultimate freedom, something that Oblivion and Skyrim sadly forgot in their very restrictive design choices. it wouldn't make sense in the context of the world for a character to just be unable to equip something because their skill was low enough, and that's not even mentioning the fact that such an arbitrary restriction would make raising low weapon skills impossible without the use of trainers. Morrowind's combat is nowhere near perfect, however it's honestly a hell of a lot better than Oblivion, where no matter how high your weapon skill is, it always feels like you're just swinging a cheap piece of plastic around a hundred times until the enemy finally dies. In Morrowind, if you're skilled in your respective weapon class, combat is relatively short and satisfying in comparison.

Sorry, I'd still take that over swinging a weapon (and incidentally, you swing it the same at zero skill that you do at max) at an enemy less than an inch in front of your face and missing.

Though none of the games really give weapons and melee combat the weight it deserves.

I like the over the top actions and missions, and the engine is objectively better than GTAIII/VC, but I just can't be arsed to do the open world busy work. Imagine if GTA asked you to do races/rampages/etc to proceed the game, instead of them being optional minigames.

I never had an issue having enough Respect to keep going.

Also, the minigames gave you useful perks along with it.

Saints Row 2 is literally unplayable on PC, running at 15 FPS. What a shame because SR2 is the only good game in the franchise

Something's wrong with your rig then. Always runs 60+ no problem on mine.