Biggest bullshit in a video game

[Jeff_the_Thriller]

I'm replaying fallout 4 and have a lot of fun with it but holy shit the companions. In every other fallout game you could give combat behaviors to companions, even the 2d ones. 4 has exactly two companion positions. Either right up your ass to prevent any quick getaways or directly fucking in front of you. They really like to do this in fire fights and when you are lining up sniper shots. Just invest points in the loner wanderer perk and ditch these speds at the closest short bus stop.

 

[trent]

I spent the last 4 hours or so playing the new Sam Barlow game Immortality. Was enjoying it and was getting to the bottom of the mystery when it had a bit of a glitch where I got stuck in the interface for looking through the various film clips.

”No problem" I thought and I proceeded to restart the game to get it to unfuck itself. The game reloads with no issue right where I left off, I pick the clip I'd stopped on last time and then the game proceeds to play the very first clip you get as a tutorial and erases all of my progress as if I'd started a new game.

I am fucking furious.

 

[Kulee Baba]

I'm replaying fallout 4 and have a lot of fun with it but holy shit the companions. In every other fallout game you could give combat behaviors to companions, even the 2d ones. 4 has exactly two companion positions. Either right up your ass to prevent any quick getaways or directly fucking in front of you. They really like to do this in fire fights and when you are lining up sniper shots. Just invest points in the loner wanderer perk and ditch these speds at the closest short bus stop.

It's a good thing I've always hated companions in such games. There's nothing I hate more than the feeling of nearly killing an enemy and the companion gets it. Once I complete their side quest they're gone.

 

[AnOminous]

It's a good thing I've always hated companions in such games. There's nothing I hate more than the feeling of nearly killing an enemy and the companion gets it. Once I complete their side quest they're gone.

I'd mostly agree except for Alyx Vance. In a time when most "companions" in games were not just completely useless, but actively tried to commit suicide and it would wreck the game if they died, she was actually useful. Also I generally don't care whether I kill an enemy, I'm more satisfied by them just being dead, and in HL2 there were often so many of them that someone else taking out a couple really didn't deprive me of anything.

My criteria for a good companion in a game is a) doesn't fuck shit up, b) can actually take care of themselves and not require continual rescuing, c) is just generally not completely annoying.

 

[Kulee Baba]

I'd mostly agree except for Alyx Vance. In a time when most "companions" in games were not just completely useless, but actively tried to commit suicide and it would wreck the game if they died, she was actually useful. Also I generally don't care whether I kill an enemy, I'm more satisfied by them just being dead, and in HL2 there were often so many of them that someone else taking out a couple really didn't deprive me of anything.

My criteria for a good companion in a game is a) doesn't fuck shit up, b) can actually take care of themselves and not require continual rescuing, c) is just generally not completely annoying.

Alyx and if we really want to get retro the AI crew of Star Fox SNES are to me the gold standard AI companions. They inject personality and make the world feel more alive than it could ever be without them. Alyx can't die and all the Slippy needs you to do is priotize shooting the enemy down which is what you're doing in the game.

Also have to give credit where credit is due Capcom nailed it with Ashley in RE4, she listens to the damn player and you'd really have to suck at the game to have her die or be kidnapped more than once. I'm going to laugh if the Remake of 4 fucks up Ashley. If they're real lazy they'll not have Ashley duck when Leon aims at her ala the lazy hack at Naughty Dog. Or make her invincible to friendly fire which is as lazy as games get.

 

[std::string]

In every other fallout game you could give combat behaviors to companions, even the 2d ones.

You could, but God help you if you stood between them and the enemies because they had zero problems just burst firing into your back at point blank range.

 

[ADN_VIII]

Lazy hitbox design. If you have a 3D model, that you've presumably spent time and effort on making, why take the easy way out and make the hitbox bigger than the mesh?

 

[AnOminous]

Alyx and if we really want to get retro the AI crew of Star Fox SNES are to me the gold standard AI companions. They inject personality and make the world feel more alive than it could ever be without them. Alyx can't die and all the Slippy needs you to do is priotize shooting the enemy down which is what you're doing in the game.

Alyx actually could die, you just didn't see it often because it would require you to be insanely idiotic for it to happen, or deliberately kill her.

If it did happen you'd get a game over with a "you fucking retard" message.

 

[ADN_VIII]

The oblivion gates drama was really funny though. It started with someone uploading Open Cities without the oblivion gates, it got taken down for copyright blah blah. In the end someone wrote a tiny script to remove/disable the gates and it contained absolutely nothing that he had created but I think he got the Nexus cucks to remove it for "copyright" reasons.

This is more or less on the money. He's done the same to other creators of unofficial patches for Skyrim as well. Honestly, the man's a colossal lolcow. Incredibly petty decision making and no sense of shame.

 

[Kheapathic]

I'd mostly agree except for Alyx Vance. In a time when most "companions" in games were not just completely useless, but actively tried to commit suicide and it would wreck the game if they died, she was actually useful. Also I generally don't care whether I kill an enemy, I'm more satisfied by them just being dead, and in HL2 there were often so many of them that someone else taking out a couple really didn't deprive me of anything.

My criteria for a good companion in a game is a) doesn't fuck shit up, b) can actually take care of themselves and not require continual rescuing, c) is just generally not completely annoying.

This is what pisses me off with Metal Gear Solid 2. Near the end, you team up with Solid Snake... ... ... who will get himself killed if you're on a difficulty of normal or higher. The most common strategy is to tranquilize his ass, so the enemies ignore him, handle business, then wake him up. Solid Snake, the man of legends... goes full fucking retard and gets himself killed. I understand the devs not wanting the player to be carried, but for fuck's sake.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

I'd mostly agree except for Alyx Vance. In a time when most "companions" in games were not just completely useless, but actively tried to commit suicide and it would wreck the game if they died, she was actually useful. Also I generally don't care whether I kill an enemy, I'm more satisfied by them just being dead, and in HL2 there were often so many of them that someone else taking out a couple really didn't deprive me of anything.

My criteria for a good companion in a game is a) doesn't fuck shit up, b) can actually take care of themselves and not require continual rescuing, c) is just generally not completely annoying.

A companion I really liked was the princess in PoP:Sands of Time. She hung back and shot enemies with a bow, wasn't spatially retarded when traversing the environment and could kill you by mistake in battle which wasn't a problem, it only happened to me once because she's very good with picking her shots. What really impressed me was that they recorded voice lines for that rare scenario. That's a companion I remember fondly.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

A companion I really liked was the princess in PoP:Sands of Time. She hung back and shot enemies with a bow, wasn't spatially retarded when traversing the environment and could kill you by mistake in battle which wasn't a problem, it only happened to me once because she's very good with picking her shots. What really impressed me was that they recorded voice lines for that rare scenario. That's a companion I remember fondly.

I don't know what game you were playing because I was always having to get that dumb cunt out of trouble. She's either standing right next to the Prince, making her vulnerable to his sword strikes, or getting surrounded by 5 guys because she doesn't realize that when you have a ranged weapon vs guys with melée weapons the correct response is to run away.

 

[byuu]

Lazy hitbox design. If you have a 3D model, that you've presumably spent time and effort on making, why take the easy way out and make the hitbox bigger than the mesh?

Collision detection is very expensive, so the hitbox needs to be simple.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

I don't know what game you were playing because I was always having to get that dumb cunt out of trouble. She's either standing right next to the Prince, making her vulnerable to his sword strikes, or getting surrounded by 5 guys because she doesn't realize that when you have a ranged weapon vs guys with melée weapons the correct response is to run away.

Maybe your copy was haunted? Never had a problem with her, unless the room was tiny she hung back and fired arrows. She's going to be in danger from time to time, that's part of it but if she got herself killed it felt more like I fucked up. Perhaps you played it differently, a lot of people seemed to DSP their way through the combat encounters in the game(a common complaint was that they took to long). But it's proto-Arkham combat and each flash-forward between levels show how to perform the quick kill on the new enemy that is introduced in that level, somehow a lot of people missed that.

The princess and Ashley from RE4 might be the only two escort quest companions that added fun to the game.

Collision detection is very expensive, so the hitbox needs to be simple.

There are ways to drastically reduce that cost(that they already use, of course) but perfect hitboxes might not be preferable, Doom 3 had it and the seven people that played its multiplayer complained A LOT about that.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

I'm doing a low honor play of Red Dead Redemption and the game keeps changing my fucking horse. I can't help but think if you're going to punish a player for playing a game "wrong," maybe don't put in a shitty karma system in the first place?

 

[Raging Capybara]

There are ways to drastically reduce that cost(that they already use, of course) but perfect hitboxes might not be preferable, Doom 3 had it and the seven people that played its multiplayer complained A LOT about that.

I'm curious, why is it so bad exactly?

 

[std::string]

I'm curious, why is it so bad exactly?

You have no proprioception in a video game. Spatial awareness is easier when you just have to deal with a rectangular hitbox centered on your dude. As opposed to an arm or something you're holding (neither of which you can sense where they are in space) colliding with level geometry.

Some games (Surgeon Simulator comes to mind) make use of this fact for their entire gameplay. It's not exactly fun when it pops up in other games.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

I'm curious, why is it so bad exactly?

The complaint people had was that it was too exact and they felt like it was really hard to hit opponents. Shots that felt like they should have hit didn't even though the cross hair was right on target. Maybe the bullet went riiiight between the legs as the opponent ran past them, the player won't know they will only feel that they should have hit the guy.

It probably didn't help that for a lot of people Doom 3 was a 1024x768 game or 800x600 to get very high frame rates meaning that what they were shooting at on the screen didn't have the fidelity of the process that checked if they hit or not.
I stole this from Anandtech just now:

These were the cards that a lot of people were using at the time and the top dog, the 9800 XT, doesn't even reach 60 at 1024x768.
The 9800 XT wasn't even a year old when Doom 3 came out and it was the fastest graphics card that existed. Ignore the FX 5950 Ultra, that was a meme card made for reviewers so Nvidia could be at the top of the charts. Seriously. It's so rare that a 5950 Ultra sold on eBay for €300 not even a week ago, scarcity made them a collectors item.

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[wtfNeedSignUp]

We all know the "it starts getting good after X hours" meme, but a variant of it is "it starts getting interesting after X hours". There are games I stop playing after few hours because the gameplay and story are not interesting only to learn later that a few more hours in the apocalypse starts and the generic characters start dying and getting PTSD.

If you go through all the effort of making a good chunk of your game interesting, then make the part leading to it also engaging. And saying "oh everything is generic because we subvert usual genre tropes" then fuck off. This trick was done a billion times already and no longer has a point.

 

[Borax Bozo]

Alyx actually could die, you just didn't see it often because it would require you to be insanely idiotic for it to happen, or deliberately kill her.

If it did happen you'd get a game over with a "you fucking retard" message.

It's possible to have her die without being dumb, I remember at one point she got blasted by heavy fire through a window and I got the game over message from that. IIRC it was one of the striders or a heli, so it was a few supershots that got her. More unlucky than anything else.
She wasn't going to die to normal small arms fire, though.