Topic: Gaming's pet peeves

When RPGs have super in depth combat numbers and systems without having quality enough combat to justify it.
I’ve been playing the Outer Worlds and it’s pretty good, but I can’t justify the way the game has you pick up everything or has weapons that have their own level systems, mods, plus your own abilities and modifiers. It’s far too complex and the game doesn’t focus enough on combat for it. Greatly simplifying the weapon selection by removing or mostly removing the weapons having levels and focusing on having less weapons you customize more would be so much better.
Having weapon mods for a weapon you’ll soon stop using and then you also lose the mod is a just a bad design philosophy.

Also, I get it’s a neat idea that you can pick up almost everything, but I find it distracting and immersion breaking. Realistically you wouldn’t pick up everything you can I feel like, but the game benefits you for doing so.

@Jaz007 This was a major turn off for me in Outer Worlds as well. It's Fallout, keeping all of its systems, but without any use for those systems. It weirded me out.
Many games have that, though, nowadays. Tchia had it as well. I think many games nowadays start with a game engine and systems, instead of gameplay itself. You'll find that problem way less in Japanese games, which seem to be focused more around fun than systems.

@Kidfried Somebody's two months late there.

Anyways, my problem with The Outer Worlds wasn't that. It's a valid point, but my biggest problem was the insane amount of loading screens. I still enjoyed the game and wouldn't mind playing the PS5 version someday if they ever fix it properly, but one has to wonder if their game engine is horrible or if it's something else. There's no excuse why you have to have a loading screen after opening a door, only to walk a few feet and have to open a door and have another loading screen. Games with far bigger open worlds didn't have this kind of design/engine issue or whatever it is, as most do a far better job of hiding them.

I say I would like to play a properly fixed PS5 version as that would likely severely minimize my biggest problem with The Outer Worlds. At least the excessive loading screens would go by a lot quicker, so it would be far less of a distraction.

People having mics on while there’s loads of background noise and probably no chatting.

The inbuilt mic on the DualSense almost certainly makes this worse but the couple of times I’ve tried online multiplayer for Sackboy I get overwhelmed by what seems like family arguments going on in different languages from at least two players at all times.

@Jaz007 A pet peeve of mine is similar. When games give you abilities for the sake of variety. Games like Spider-Man and the older God of Wars come to mind with a bajillion different combos. I want my abilities to be meaningful, serving a specific situation or purpose. Less is more for me here. More focus is something that I would like to see from many games nowadays in general. This is probably the reason I enjoyed The Callisto Protocol more than the majority. It was an "honest" game in many ways for me.

@Thrillho GTA Online is absolutely woeful for that. Really irritated me back when I played it, so much so I’d just start up a party by myself so I could ignore them.

I can't stand over-the-shoulder/two-thirds view where the character is off to one side of the camera. I might be unusual in this respect but I just hate it.

Games that have a checkpoint only save system, or only allow you to have one active save at a time.

Trophy notifications.... never liked them. Probably never will. I just don't see the point.

I also don't like player characters that randomly talk to themselves like they're thinking out loud at you, the player.

What else... single player games that require you to be online to play.

Forced PVP in games. I've played Dark Souls & Bloodborne, and I understand that it's supposed to be part of the awfulness of it... but I like playing games for entertainment and being forced to deal with griefers AND be able to cooperate with people, or no-one at all makes me just a little sad. I've never been one to min-max like those players that have figured out the best way to make my gaming as unpleasant as possible, not because the game is hard, but because they're good at milking a system I'm not interested in - a fabulous solution to this would be to have the option of changing PVP/PVE settings. As an aside to this, I play some shooters as well that are 100% PVP but that's what I'm going in for in those sessions so it's a different feel.

So yes... rant over.

Pre-ordering a game to play it 'X amount of days early' is a crock of nonsense and is a really shoddy practise that is becoming more and more prominent in gaming today.

@KAIRU It'd be fine if it wasn't for the fact that some people then post videos about it on YouTube and such then before release. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have a problem with it if it's attached to a Deluxe Edition or something like that.

@KilloWertz Yeah, I guess I could see that being a bit of a fair compromise. It's really lame when you get excited for a release and then there are spoilers of it being leaked by media outlets and content creators before the game has even released. I still think it's not the most ideal practise, however.

@KAIRU In today's world, it definitely is not. There's no way to avoid people posting stuff early on top of almost every game somehow leaking even though it keeps happening. Like I said though, the complaint is extremely valid given the positivity of doing it always gets ruined.

9/10 times I usually avoid major spoilers. I intentionally spoiled myself when The Last of Us Part II was coming out, but that was to make sure I wanted to still play it after hearing how controversial it was even before reviews were out. I had the big moment from early on in Final Fantasy XVI spoiled for me, but it was in the demo and in the grand scheme of things you see it coming, so that didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of that game so far. It would suck to have a major thing spoiled in a major game for me (like the next Horizon game) like the infamous death from The Force Awakens, after avoiding it for weeks.

One thing that annoys me with games these days is that developers are so afraid of permanently killing off characters. Every time a character dies in a game, my first thought isn't "Well that's really sad" but instead "They're probably not dead" because characters are constantly brought back. But when a character actually stays dead, then the shock factor never gets in full effect because it'll be too late at that point. I'm constantly waiting for them to come back and when they don't, I don't feel anything for them anymore since so much time has passed. I just wish developers would have more balls and actually kill off characters for good.

@LtSarge I’ve noticed this too, although especially in TV and movies. Game of Thrones notwithstanding.

The other tactic games and TV/movies use is they kill off a main character, but then they revert to doing a prequel for the next entry where the person is alive again and can be a focal point without causing a narrative disruption. Sometimes it works out, but it tends to cheapen the effect of the original death, making it feel less permanent.

@Th3solution Yeah I don't like that either. The whole point of an important character dying is to leave a lasting impression on you and make a story more memorable. You grow fond of the character throughout the story and all of a sudden, they're gone. You expect then to never see that person again.

I've just become so desensitised to character deaths now due to this trend. A moment that's supposed to give strong shock value is suddenly rendered pointless to me. I don't know if game developers or even TV show/movie makers are aware that they are ruining other creators' stories by contributing to this trend.

Not really “pet peeves”, per se, but I’ve been reminded of a few immersion breaking issues whilst playing FF16.

1) When a game has cosmetic outfit or weapon changes that appear during gameplay but not during a cutscene. This has been an issue for a lot of games in generations past, and we just dealt with it, but nowadays the games have seamless cutscenes which usually use in-game models and visuals. So if you upgrade your armor or weapons, then you see your currently equipped items and clothing during play and during story bits …except for sometimes. And when there’s a sudden temporary change back to default equipment during the cutscene it can be jarring. Another common occurrence is when your player has an upgraded fully automatic machine gun with an attached grenade launcher and then during the cutscene where he confronts the big villain the cutscene has him pulling out the little default single shot pistol you start the game with. 😅

2) When your character is handed something or hands something over to someone in the game and the item is invisible and/or clearly too large to be lugging around. Again, a pretty common issue over the years, but in the current age of realistic graphics, it’s just so weird when an NPC gives you 3 bags of oats to take as part of a side quest and you reach out to get them with one hand and place them into your back pocket. 🤔

3) When an NPC companion is following you around in your party and they magically teleport to where you are. This happens a lot on ladders and bridges. They’re three steps behind you and then suddenly… they are already at the top of the ladder or in the other end of the bridge…?! Also happens a lot when you beat your companion into an elevator or to a door that shuts before they get there and then you turn around and magically they are beside you. 😅

4) When you have a story-driven urgent and crucial quest going on that you’re told to rush to, and yet are still bombarded with non-urgent side activities. Games are chock-full of this narrative dissonance — The mainline story has catastrophic implications and characters are wringing their hands pleading we act quickly to save the world… and then a bunch of trivial side quests pop up like delivering some milk three towns over to the widow who has sprained her ankle. Don’t worry, the cataclysmic countdown to global destruction will be suspended while you go and help the baker find his apprentice who got lost while going out for supplies. 😂

These little quirks don’t ruin games for me, but sometimes they do make me roll my eyes and laugh to myself.

I relate to this so much lol.

Death scenes of important characters never affect me in games/movies. ESPECIALLY movies. Because 90% of the time it's a total fakeout. But even the times it actually happens, I sit through the scene totally unmoved, waiting for them to do that gasping for air at the last second thing, and eventually it doesn't happen, but by that point I'm so disconnected from the emotional logic of the scene that it's like: "Oh, they actually did kill off that character. Huh."

It's the boy who cried wolf, but for an entire important chunk of scenes in the entertainment medium.

Do whatever you want. Kill whoever you want in your story. But have the courage to commit to the decision.

When this young generations playing the Retro 90's or 2000's era Arcade machines and they have no idea how to play them properly...

Another follow-up thought about a game nitpick of mine —
I’m not a fan of these extensive combat simulators that games often have. Just reading the review and comments of FF7 Rebirth it reminded me. What I’m referring to is these totally disconnected battle arena modes that you jump into like a VR battle, where you can either revisit prior boss battles or combat sections, or in some cases fight optional unique bosses. FF16 has the Arete Stone and these other Chronolith trials, where it’s just arbitrary isolated battles or training filler that feels like it belongs as a menu option rather than a part of the actual game.

At least in most games these kind of combat simulators are completely optional and skippable, but sometimes there’s key rewards to doing them so they can feel obligatory. I’d much rather such battles be integrated into a side quest type of activity, like the Hunt Board for example. Searching out optional bosses in the world can be a fun and rewarding way to get some added mileage from your game’s combat, but just making a simulator with a list of battles to choose from feels lazy from a design standpoint.

I actually prefer the silly optional side quests as a form of padding over an optional battle simulator. At least there’s an attempt, feeble as it may often be, to make a side quest fit within the world and narrative. So often the battle simulator has little to no logic for existing within the story.

@Th3solution your point 4, that gets me too. One of the most annoying one in recent years for me was cyberpunk. You are meant to be barely functioning towards the end, yet you can just stop and do side quests. It was just like so ‘eh’ I’m
Not that bad.

@Th3solution Point 4 is something Spider-Man 2 handled really well. If you had started a mission, you have to abandon it to do open-world stuff but otherwise the game has moments where you have to wait to get access to the next mission allowing you time to interact with the world organically (Yakuza and Judgement do this too).