During the PS360 era, a lot of games had smart tutorial prompts, whereby the prompt would appear for your first couple of attempts and then disappear, but then return if you kept failing to do a certain action. For example, outside of their prologues, the Arkham games would only tell you to "Press Triangle to Counter" if you let Batman get smacked about the head three or more times in a row.
It's definitely one of those things where nowadays, I see a game with permanent prompts (or no prompts at all) and think to myself, "C'mon folks, we nailed this a decade ago!!"
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
I can’t remember if this is something I posted about before but playing Cyberpunk and seeing a post about Death’s Door reminded me of this;
Trophies linked to “collectibles” that have no counter attached to them.
In the case of Cyberpunk, there’s one that involved finding all fast travel checkpoints but with no menu screen etc to show you how many you have or where the missing one is.
Similarly, in Death’s Door you need to collect all the seeds but without any indication of how many you’ve missed or where they might be.
Both of these (and others I can’t think of off the top of my head) just make it unnecessarily complicated and time consuming to complete.
Yeah, I agree. It both bugs me when the term is used incorrectly and even correctly. Same with 'Soulsborne', which makes less sense these days.
It also annoys when I see when people use a bunch of abbreviations. Sometimes I'm reading something and it almost like I'm reading hieroglyphics! I've just trained myself to glaze over those and move on to the next one.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@JohnnyShoulder TBH, loads of abbreviations give me FOMO when IDK what they mean. At least they're less of a problem IRL, but I still SMH and get a bit "FML" when I see too many of 'em. FYI, as you helpfully suggested to me the other day, Google can be invaluable.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Kairu I agree. I even took issue with the recent preview footage of an upcoming game being called a ‘Soulslike’ (I’m forgetting which game it is) and after watching the gameplay all I saw was an action RPG (oops.. I mean “Role Playing Game” for @JohnnyShoulder 😉) that looked challenging, but not some of the hallmark features of From’s games like loss of XP (oops again… I mean “Experience Points”) upon death with respawning enemies and the need to return to the location of death to recapture lost progress. Also the bonfire mechanic which plays into that progress gating is an essential feature of these games.
Although I do agree that we now have a legitimate “Soulslike” subgenre that has evolved. I’ve been guilty of using the term “Soulsborne” before but I agree now it makes less sense due to the presence of Sekiro and Elden Ring and so the previous portmanteau of “Dark Souls”/ “Demon’s Souls” and “Bloodborne” is really less relevant. The subgenre really was started with Demon’s Souls and so “Soulslike” is a better term and I do think the label “Soulsborne” is falling out of favor.
But yeah - definitely the Soulslike genre should mean more than just “a difficult game.” I’ve scratched my head at the possibility of 2D Soulslikes (like Salt & Sanctuary) but can’t speak to how well it might fit into the class since I’ve never played one of these style of 2D “Soulslike” games, but a shift from 3D to 2D seems like it would negate some of the overall feeling of what a Souls game would be.
To me the core idea that was novel to the Souls games is the loss of progress. There are many other aspects too like the big boss battles, high difficulty, reliance of strategic combat, dark setting, Metroidvania type of map layout, etc. But the most unique aspect is the loss of progress upon death. And to be honest, tons of retro games had that mechanic too, back before save states were the standard.
So I’m not entirely positive what constitutes a Soulslike, but it’s certainly more than just “a difficult game.”
@JohnnyShoulder I’ve also been guilty of laziness when it comes to typing a long phrase which has a recognizable abbreviation, but I hope that the context is enough to clue the reader in on what it means. My fingers are sometimes too tired to type “Horizon Zero Dawn”, “The Last of Us”, “Gran Turismo 7”, or “Final Fantasy VII Remake” 😅. Next time I do so, I’ll try to remember to leave a tw, er… I mean a trigger warning. 😜
@Kairu I think part of the issue resides in the fact that there are fewer and fewer truly new game mechanics out there. So creative minds are developing new experiences by mixing and matching elements of traditionally separate classes and styles. And so honestly, Soulslike games are doing nothing unique on a granular level, but have put together a recipe of different elements that has become its own thing.
Just like fusion restaurants, country hip-hop music, etc. - sometimes it really works well, but it’s hard to define or label. And like said, sometimes it becomes a marketing term that doesn’t even mean much at all,
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution I know you are only pulling my leg, but it's not that I don't know what the abbreviations mean, just that when there are overused it does my head in.
And I'm not here saying anyone should stop doing it. If that is your thing, more power to you.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@JohnnyShoulder 😄 You’re correct, my friend. I am pulling your leg. I actually agree with your sentiment. I’m usually fairly conservative with my acronym usage as evidenced by my verbose walls of text I drop on here regularly. I’ve been told before that I need to scale it back and say it with less.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
If you're a developer planning on using them for anything other than a sprint toggle (as a last resort) then you're wrong, and should start re-mapping your control scheme from scratch.
[goes AFK to scream into a pillow]
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger There have been too many times when I've accidentally clicked them and crouched or aimed through sights at at vital moment. Thankfully I've not played too many games recently that I remember that utilise them as buttons.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@RogerRoger I hate that as well. Granted I only played it for a bit, but I had to remap the controls for Halo Infinite because I'd constantly be doing whatever R3 is supposed to do instead of just running around.
One of mine that comes to mind is the design of the DS4 and the DualSense, having the Square button so close to the touchpad. I know this is rare as I didn't see other people complaining about it anywhere, and it's only really an issue when playing one game, but it actually hurt my enjoyment of Ghost of Tsushima because I'd accidentally do something completely unintentional quite often because the touchpad was used for several commands in the game. I did eventually mildly change my grip of the controller, and it's probably partially a product of playing on Xbox some as well (not having to worry about where I rest my right thumb), but I really wish no game used the touchpad for anything but another Start button or map button like in most games. I know it had to still be there for the PS5, but I really wish they never came up with the gimmick idea last gen.
PSN ID/Xbox Live Gamertag: KilloWertz
Switch Friend Code: SW-6448-2688-7386
L3 and R3 aren't buttons.
If you're a developer planning on using them for anything other than a sprint toggle (as a last resort) then you're wrong, and should start re-mapping your control scheme from scratch.
Yes, this 👆🏼. So much this.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@RogerRoger
Very much agree with you. Currently playing a twin-stick so the right stick is used to aim weapons, however clicking the right stick turns on the flashlight. This is less than ideal when trying to sneak through a dark zombie filled basement... Got me munched on on more than a couple of occasions!
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
@JohnnyShoulder@KilloWertz@Th3solution Yeah, it's been a while since I've encountered the problem, hence the minor rage yesterday. Back in the PS2 and PS3 eras, I'd frequently play shooters which'd put ADS, crouch, reload or a melee attack on L3 and it was just a nightmare. Seemed to become less of a thing with the DualShock4 and the invention of the touchpad, but as @KilloWertz notes, that introduced its own issues, although I personally find them far less frustrating than the L3 / R3 thing. My biggest problem with the touchpad is when developers overload it (just because it can be six basic inputs doesn't necessarily mean it should be). Not sure I've ever accidentally hit it before, but then I don't often use anything other than a DualSomething, so perhaps it was designed with dedicated lifers in mind?
@sorteddan Ouch, that sounds even worse! It's one thing when L3 and R3 make controls cumbersome, but to have them potentially wreck your progress...?! What's the game?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
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