What are your gaming "turn-offs"?

[Jaymann]

3. Post-Apocalyptic settings. The drama already happened apparently, why couldn't I have a game about the events leading up to the disaster? I mean it's too late now. All that's left to do is to survive, for a while, and loot the scraps from better days. It's just too depressing for me.

The thing is, post-apocalyptic settings are all about the struggle for survival or restoration or exploitation now that the old order is gone. The game consists of doing hard things and making hard choices with a lot of freedom of action. That freedom is the game.

A pre-apocalyptic game would be one where the old order persists, and thus its rules and protections are still in place. Where's the game in that?

Of course there's room for grey areas (e.g. the zombie apocalypse has begun, but it hasn't yet reached your town), but I'd argue that there is really only a game to the degree that the player can act outside of the old/normal rules of society. I mean, the game could be about fortifying a town, but even that scenario has left the pre-apocalyptic order and its norms behind.

I don't mean to dump on the opinion you're presenting. Watching the apocalypse slowly approach and begin to unfold is *great* stuff for novels and movies and TV. (My favorite parts of The Stand are all in the long slow burn of the first third of the book.) But I'm not sure there's much potential gameplay there.

Au contraire my good man. I think a creepy setup where there are rumors and scattered reliable stories that something is dreadfully wrong would make a great game. Most are in denial, but your neighbors are becoming increasingly restless and lawless. The authorities won't admit it, but they are becoming increasingly ineffective. Then some radical event forces you out of your safe space out into the world at large.

There you discover pockets of normalcy and chaos as you gradually piece together details of the apocalypse, and begin preparing for the worst. I would play such a game.

[Holman]

3. Post-Apocalyptic settings. The drama already happened apparently, why couldn't I have a game about the events leading up to the disaster? I mean it's too late now. All that's left to do is to survive, for a while, and loot the scraps from better days. It's just too depressing for me.

The thing is, post-apocalyptic settings are all about the struggle for survival or restoration or exploitation now that the old order is gone. The game consists of doing hard things and making hard choices with a lot of freedom of action. That freedom is the game.

A pre-apocalyptic game would be one where the old order persists, and thus its rules and protections are still in place. Where's the game in that?

Of course there's room for grey areas (e.g. the zombie apocalypse has begun, but it hasn't yet reached your town), but I'd argue that there is really only a game to the degree that the player can act outside of the old/normal rules of society. I mean, the game could be about fortifying a town, but even that scenario has left the pre-apocalyptic order and its norms behind.

I don't mean to dump on the opinion you're presenting. Watching the apocalypse slowly approach and begin to unfold is *great* stuff for novels and movies and TV. (My favorite parts of The Stand are all in the long slow burn of the first third of the book.) But I'm not sure there's much potential gameplay there.

Au contraire my good man. I think a creepy setup where there are rumors and scattered reliable stories that something is dreadfully wrong would make a great game. Most are in denial, but your neighbors are becoming increasingly restless and lawless. The authorities won't admit it, but they are becoming increasingly ineffective. Then some radical event forces you out of your safe space out into the world at large.

There you discover pockets of normalcy and chaos as you gradually piece together details of the apocalypse, and begin preparing for the worst. I would play such a game.

I want to read that novel, but I'm not sure how the gameplay happens until the old order breaks down (at which point you're in an apocalypse).

[Jaymann]

Well you've given me an idea for my next book.

[Lagom Lite]

3. Post-Apocalyptic settings. The drama already happened apparently, why couldn't I have a game about the events leading up to the disaster? I mean it's too late now. All that's left to do is to survive, for a while, and loot the scraps from better days. It's just too depressing for me.

The thing is, post-apocalyptic settings are all about the struggle for survival or restoration or exploitation now that the old order is gone. The game consists of doing hard things and making hard choices with a lot of freedom of action. That freedom is the game.

A pre-apocalyptic game would be one where the old order persists, and thus its rules and protections are still in place. Where's the game in that?

Of course there's room for grey areas (e.g. the zombie apocalypse has begun, but it hasn't yet reached your town), but I'd argue that there is really only a game to the degree that the player can act outside of the old/normal rules of society. I mean, the game could be about fortifying a town, but even that scenario has left the pre-apocalyptic order and its norms behind.

I don't mean to dump on the opinion you're presenting. Watching the apocalypse slowly approach and begin to unfold is *great* stuff for novels and movies and TV. (My favorite parts of The Stand are all in the long slow burn of the first third of the book.) But I'm not sure there's much potential gameplay there.

I suppose the sentiment you're describing is also part of the turn-off for me. The kind of romaticising of the downfall of humanity that certain Christian cults, in America and elsewehere, cherish and long for. The rapture has come, now we don't need any filthy government anymore, we're "free" to build, well, another government I guess.

Post-apocalyptic settings do not make me feel "free", at all. Let's pick up this rusty pipe, and tie an axe-handle to it. Is there any canned food? I'm starving. Those people over there; can I ally with them or are they bandits? Nope, they're cannibals. Run! I feel no less confined by the boundaries of a game set in a post-apocalyptic setting than otherwise. It's just the trappings that are different.

I'm being somewhat flippant about the genre of post-apocalyptic, of course. There are elements of post-apoc games that I've enjoyed, but they almost always come down to good writing or inserting other genres, and not really from the post-apoc genre itself. The first few Telltale Walking Dead games had great characters, choices and interactions, but the story would be just as strong if about, say, a few people on the run for whatever reason. The zombie apocalypse genre doesn't really add anything except the horror elements.

Similarly, the Fallout games often insert themes and concepts used in other science fiction as well, which I find more interesting. For example, there's always some advanced technological faction that's trying to restart society or build something new using some fantastic device or invention. Although, when said faction turns out to be evil/misguided/doomed to fail, we're back in post-apoc depressing, UNFREE, country. No use trying to build something. Just survive for a while.

[Jolor]

I get very disoriented when my first-person view is in space (Prey), ocean (Subnautica) or sky. Without a horizon and strong visual cues, I get completely lost making gameplay frustrating. I can judge distance but can't tell if I'm up, down, left, or right.

Conversely, when the camera is fixed directly behind me and I'm in flight (Halo 4 Midnight mission, as I'm just discovering), I can't judge distance of objects in front of me but have no issues with orientation.

[Kasey Chang]

The problem with post-apoc setting is that there is no "complete" freedom. Pretty soon you're back dealing with the limitations of the game's narrative or the engine. FNV's faction reputation system is a decent compromise, IMHO, in that you can piss off EVERY faction equally if you want to, and the two major factions had random assassin teams that come after you if you pissed them off enough. But then FNV even gives you options on which side you want to join and even offered a "neither" (Mr. House) option.

[Blackhawk]

If you want that kind of freedom, play open world survival games (say, Ark.)

The apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic genre (in general) is more often an examination of human nature. We live in a world where everything is planned and controlled. Why don't our neighbors take our stuff? Why don't the neighbors on the other side murder us? What if a disaster strikes our town and our homes are destroyed? It's because we have a collection of laws and support systems. Post apocalyptic settings, from Fallout (game), to The Last Man (classic Shelley novel), to Metro (games and books), to The Walking Dead (comic and show),to The 300 (novel and show), to Escape from New York (film) are usually about asking what humanity would be like once that collection of social structures that is at the heart of what we call 'society' is gone.

Not all post-apocalyptic fiction, of course, especially that set much later, like The Shannara series, the Wheel of Time, or Thundar the Barbarian (featuring Smoove the Mok), but most of it is stories about how humanity copes, looking at ethical and moral questions in a way that don't make sense while society is still intact.

[Grifman]

1). Anime art style
2). Pixel art
3). Rogue-likes - I don’t want to keep playing the same maps and enemies over and over again
4). No manual save
5). Boss fights (for the most part) - most aren’t interesting and are nothing more than boring extended battles of HP attrition
6). Cartoony big head little body characters
7). Tactical maps or boss fights that can only be solved one way that have to be played several times until you figure out the trick
8). MMO’s and MMO style fetch quests in non-MMO games
9). Pre-game videos and stuff before getting to the game menu that cannot be skipped without a hack
10). RPG’s where it is easy to exceed the level cap and you can no longer level up - I get bored without there being a sense of progression as that is a big attraction of that genre
11). Twin stick shooters - controlling movement with WASD is terribly awkward and imprecise. I much prefer using a mouse as in a standard ARPG like Diablo, Grim Dawn, etc.

[Grifman]

The problem with post-apoc setting is that there is no "complete" freedom. Pretty soon you're back dealing with the limitations of the game's narrative or the engine. FNV's faction reputation system is a decent compromise, IMHO, in that you can piss off EVERY faction equally if you want to, and the two major factions had random assassin teams that come after you if you pissed them off enough. But then FNV even gives you options on which side you want to join and even offered a "neither" (Mr. House) option.

That’s not an issue with PA games, that’s an issue with almost every RPG out there. Every RPG has narrative and engine limits. You can’t just blame this on the PA setting.

[Jaymann]

Well it could still be a turn off.

[Grifman]

Well it could still be a turn off.

Sure, and I never said it coukdn’t . I was merely stating that thusn’t just a PA genre issue.

[coopasonic]

11). Twin stick shooters - controlling movement with WASD is terribly awkward and imprecise. I much prefer using a mouse as in a standard ARPG like Diablo, Grim Dawn, etc.

I'm not really picking on you, but this amuses me as the name clearly implies the intent is to use a controller and you are complaining about WASD. There are a few games where I had the same annoyance and tried out the controller and wow. Vampire Survivors is a recent one. Yeah, I know, pixel graphics. I don't like them either but some experiences transcend that issue.

[hitbyambulance]

11). Twin stick shooters - controlling movement with WASD is terribly awkward and imprecise.

as mentioned above... you're doing it wrong

[Grifman]

11). Twin stick shooters - controlling movement with WASD is terribly awkward and imprecise. I much prefer using a mouse as in a standard ARPG like Diablo, Grim Dawn, etc.

I'm not really picking on you, but this amuses me as the name clearly implies the intent is to use a controller and you are complaining about WASD. There are a few games where I had the same annoyance and tried out the controller and wow. Vampire Survivors is a recent one. Yeah, I know, pixel graphics. I don't like them either but some experiences transcend that issue.

I play on a PC, don’t have a controller, and don’t really care to learn how to use one

Yeah, and while you are at it, get off my lawn!

[Grifman]

11). Twin stick shooters - controlling movement with WASD is terribly awkward and imprecise.

as mentioned above... you're doing it wrong

You can get off my lawn too!

[Blackhawk]

Learn... how to use them?

[Grifman]

Learn... how to use them?

Quoted from above:

don’t really care to learn how to use one

[Blackhawk]

Learn... how to use them?

Quoted from above:

don’t really care to learn how to use one

The friendly sarcasm was more that there isn't really any learning involved. They're such a simple device that you just plug them in and wiggle the sticks.

Personally, there are some games (and yes, on the PC) that simply work better with a thumbstick than they do with a keyboard and mouse (such as anything with driving - if I'm play GTA, for instance, I run around and shoot with the keyboard/mouse, but grab the controller when I jump in the car - it's simply a much more effective input for that purpose.) The days of controllers being a console only thing are long past, and they're pretty standard for some game types.

Not that your position of not wanting to use them isn't entirely valid - it's a perfectly fine decision to make. But some games will never play well without them - like twin stick shooters. Which I find incredibly tedious, regardless of the input option.

[Madmarcus]

The friendly sarcasm was more that there isn't really any learning involved. They're such a simple device that you just plug them in and wiggle the sticks.

Sort of like how touch typing is just putting your fingers down and wiggling the keys. In both cases there is a lot of muscle memory and coordination that you only get through practice.

[Blackhawk]

The friendly sarcasm was more that there isn't really any learning involved. They're such a simple device that you just plug them in and wiggle the sticks.

Sort of like how touch typing is just putting your fingers down and wiggling the keys. In both cases there is a lot of muscle memory and coordination that you only get through practice.

Practice =/= learning. You can literally learn everything about a controller in about 30 seconds. Triggers. Four buttons. Two sticks. Yeah, it takes a little while before 'up' vs 'up and to the side' feels natural, but it isn't anything comparable to a keyboard. After a level or two you'd be most of the way there.

It honestly isn't that big of a deal to be arguing over - it was just an offhand comment that while there are a lot of valid reasons to choose not to use a controller, the learning curve isn't really one of them.

[coopasonic]

If you were talking about using a controller for FPSes, getting good there is another story, though massively silly levels of aim assist trivialize it in a lot of games. In a twin stick shooter you are just picking a direction, not a specific pixel on the screen to shoot.

[Jaymann]

What exactly is a twin stick shooter? It conjures up an image of someone blasting away with a joystick in each hand.

[Smoove_B]

What exactly is a twin stick shooter? It conjures up an image of someone blasting away with a joystick in each hand.

You're of an age where you probably played Berzerk in an arcade? That's the OG "twin stick" shooter. One hand controls movement, one hand controls 360 degree shooting.

EDIT: Though the internet is telling me Robotron 2084 is a better example.

I was 6 (or 8) when these games came out, so...forgive me.

[Jaymann]

Oddly enough when Quake 3 first came out I was addicted to using my beloved force feedback joystick so I could pull an actual trigger instead of flicking a mouse. Had to give it up after constantly having my ass handed to me.

[TheMix]

What exactly is a twin stick shooter? It conjures up an image of someone blasting away with a joystick in each hand.

You're of an age where you probably played Berzerk in an arcade? That's the OG "twin stick" shooter. One hand controls movement, one hand controls 360 degree shooting.

EDIT: Though the internet is telling me Robotron 2084 is a better example.

I was 6 (or 8) when these games came out, so...forgive me.

Not familiar with Berzerk (without Googling), but I played a LOT of Robotron. Definitely the one I think of.

[Blackhawk]

What exactly is a twin stick shooter? It conjures up an image of someone blasting away with a joystick in each hand.

Twin stick = one stick moves, the other stick turns.

[Isgrimnur]

Smash TV


and Total Carnage


for the 90s arcade rats

[NickAragua]

JUMPING PUZZLES

I was playing the "Rise of the Triad" remake some years ago and was just running around, splattering bad guys with my missile launchers. Then, suddenly, jumping puzzles. Standard FPS sliding movement combined with the usual FPS lack of depth perception means I'd miss the stupid platforms every time, especially if they moved.

I basically quit on the spot.

A few others:

Unskippable cutscenes - Ok, I get it, it's a crucial story element explaining why I'm fighting this anthropomorphic house that's shooting purple flames at me while playing disco music. Or maybe it just looks like that because of the acid. But I figure if I've seen it two or three times, the game should probably just let me skip that cutscene. Especially if it's a difficult boss fight and the autosave is right before the cutscene.

And while they're at it, they can let me skip the intro videos. I'm just going to download a "skip intro" mod anyway, so might as well save me that step.


Excessive loot - Games like Borderlands and Fallout 4 where every bad guy you kill and every location you enter has this rainbow spray of loot (I know, Fallout 4 doesn't have the rainbow part). It *might* be better than my current gun or sword or whatever - so I stop and compare it, and that takes me out of the game.


"Set Your Own Objective" Gameplay - This basically prevents me from playing any of the open-world sandbox survival games where you build houses from trees you chop down yourself. It doesn't really bother me that other people enjoy that sort of thing, but I just can't deal with it - I need a little external motivation.

[Blackhawk]

And while they're at it, they can let me skip the intro videos. I'm just going to download a "skip intro" mod anyway, so might as well save me that step.

No, no, no! That's advertising! Don't you want to see the branding? Don't you want to see the copyright warnings? And if it's a Ubisoft game, don't you want a 25-second long, unskippable epilepsy warning?

Excessive loot - Games like Borderlands and Fallout 4 where every bad guy you kill and every location you enter has this rainbow spray of loot (I know, Fallout 4 doesn't have the rainbow part). It *might* be better than my current gun or sword or whatever - so I stop and compare it, and that takes me out of the game.

To be fair, that's a genre, not a mechanic (excluding FO4 - I'd honestly say it has far less gear swapping than in most RPGs.) Borderlands has that for the same reason that Diablo does (and Gunfire Reborn, and Torchlight, and Titan Quest, and...) - they're in the looter genre. It's a genre about massive loot drops as a character building mechanic, and it's intended to be part of the entertainment. The 'lootsplosion' is an endorphin trigger as you hope for that great new item, your eyes sorting through the rainbow hoping to see a little sparkle of gold, indicating a top-tier weapon.

It helps if you learn certain shortcuts to skip ever looking at the loot that you can guarantee won't be worthwhile. Those games have never expected you to compare most of the loot. In Borderlands, for instance, white items aren't ever worth picking up after the first few levels (you've already got better gear, and they don't sell for much), and each Borderlands has a price hierarchy, such as (not accurate, just an example) shields and long weapons always being expensive, while grenades and pistols are never worth much. It means that once you see the rainbow, you can glance at the highest quality items on the ground of the types you use (in the late game and second playthrough, that's usually only the purple/gold, and often only the gold), then grab any shields or long guns without looking and flee. You see 30 items hit the ground in a rainbow of weaponry, and only really look at three or four, and you can usually tell in a couple of seconds if they're better, especially later in the game. You spend three or four seconds picking out the items you know are expensive, and off you go.

That's not to say that it's a genre you enjoy, of course.

Although that does remind me of a turn-off: Excessive inventory management with no guidance. If I need money, don't give me ten times what I can carry back to the shop and make me sit there and decide on every piece based on price and weight. And, by all that's holy, don't include quest items/crafting items/reputation items, etc without some means of instantly identifying them as such. There is nothing that kills an RPG more than sitting there with an inventory full of items and having to alt-tab out and research every one of them every time I go to town to find out what's safe to sell. Do what good games do: Mark the vendor items as 'Valuable', mark flavor trash as 'Junk', mark quest items as 'Quest', mark rep items as 'Reputation' or 'A friend might like this..', and take all of those crafting ingredients out of my damned inventory and just put them into a tab as numbers, like "Magicberries: 8"!

And then give me a damned "Sell all Valuables" button!

[Rumpy]

Speaking of inventory, I have to add inventory weight. In certain contexts, yes it does make sense, but I feel games have gone way overboard with it. I've mentioned this before, but if your game has building in it, don't count the building supplies towards the weight limit! Fallout 4 is especially guilty of this, and it's part of why I've found base building so annoying in that game, as it encourages you to pick up pretty much anything that you'd normally consider garbage. And Please please please don't make quest items weigh anything. And in a related fashion, if your game has a lot of loot, don't give the player a tiny inventory. I don't know if Horizon Forbidden West changed anything, but it was way too easy to max out the inventory even with the largest inventory upgrade.

[Jaymann]

That reminds me of another one: Gear and weapons degrading. Yeah, I understand it's more "realistic" (unlike carrying 650 lb of items, some of them the size of a cow, in a small backpack), but if you must include it have a relatively simple way to repair stuff on the fly.

[hepcat]

Games in which the upgrades are almost meaningless. A good example of this is Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. Now, the game does have some great upgrades....but you have to plow your way through dozens of "+.05 to attack chance" crap to get to them. It's also something that will turn me off a board game. When I level up, I don't want to be handed a soup ladle. I want to be given a goddamn sword.

[GreenGoo]

I too kind of hate generic, +number to numerical stat upgrades. Sometimes it's awful, and sometimes it is gratifying. Mostly the former though. No real sense of improvement is the main issue in my opinion.

[Blackhawk]

Often those are only really meaningful later, as if they only designed them around the finished builds with no thought to the leveling process (but of course many devs only really pay attention to the endgame where the money makers live.) They might be one of several small bonuses that synergize in an amazing way later, but yeah - as you're gaining them it feels like you're getting absolutely nothing.

[Skinypupy]

So this one’s quite petty, but not being able to skip developer titles at the beginning of games.

Currently playing the new Jedi Survivor game and I have to spend 30 seconds watching the EA, Respawn, Lucasfilm, and other logos fly through instead of being able to press X and skip right to the main menu.

I’m fine with them being non-skippable once, but knock it off after that,

[Blackhawk]

And while they're at it, they can let me skip the intro videos. I'm just going to download a "skip intro" mod anyway, so might as well save me that step.

No, no, no! That's advertising! Don't you want to see the branding? Don't you want to see the copyright warnings? And if it's a Ubisoft game, don't you want a 25-second long, unskippable epilepsy warning?

[LordMortis]

So this one’s quite petty, but not being able to skip developer titles at the beginning of games.

Currently playing the new Jedi Survivor game and I have to spend 30 seconds watching the EA, Respawn, Lucasfilm, and other logos fly through instead of being able to press X and skip right to the main menu.

I’m fine with them being non-skippable once, but knock it off after that,

If that's petty then I've been petty for a long time.

[Sudy]

Another player standing "inside" of me in an MMOG without player collision. I understand and endorse the reasoning behind not having play collision, but having a single spawn has always destroyed my immersion. I'm careful not to clip into other players when standing in front of the bank/mailbox/etc. Stay out of my personal space!

[Jolor]

SP games that don't pause when you hit ESC. You may be on the menu but the monsters can still kill you. Why?

[Jolor]

SP games that don't pause when you hit ESC. You may be on the menu but the monsters can still kill you. Why?