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[SeraphJan]

For video game especially narrative driven ones, the non play loop section or as many would call it "walking segment", how do you think dev should handle it?

Note: this does not include action packed set pieces, as this one is a bit game dependent

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Edit: About the changing non play loop section into cutscene argument (which most people argue that "walk segment" takes control away from the player), the thing is non play loop section only takes part of the control away while cutscene takes all controls away, both method convey different player response and emotion, some moment requires the former type of mechanic for the dev's intended experience to work (such as integrating midway surprises, seamless action transition that swap back and forth etc.). However this mechanic do negatively impact second playthrough or repeatedly retries (or speedruns), this post is mainly about discussing different ways of handling them, and what skip scheme might be the best solution.

As for people who do not like this style of game at all, do understand there are in fact a lots of people who do likes them. So If you don't like that sort of game to begin with, please save yourself some money/time, skip the entire game (might as well skip this thread too), play something else and don't try to stop other players from having fun.

 

[Zannegan]

The carriage rides in Red Dead Redemption were exactly this. You could sit there through the entire thing if you wanted to bask in the atmosphere and characterization. If you didn't care though, you could just skip them. The only downside is that Rockstar has one of the few writing teams that's worth listening to.

All the film school wannabes, on the other hand, are convinced that their overwrought, overlong dialogues are absolutely essential to the experience of their games, hence cinematic slow walking.

 

[ssringo]

1. Make it a cutscene that requires no interaction to advance.

2. Add shit to do other than hold forward. "Hold X to pick nose" or "press O to roll eyes".

 

[Robb]

They shouldn’t be in the game to begin with. Cut a few voice lines and use that money to make something that’s actually enjoyable.

 

[Puscifer]

They shouldn’t be in the game to begin with. Cut a few voice lines and use that money to make something that’s actually enjoyable.

I felt like the first GoW did it right in a lot of spots, the dialogue is there, you can listen to it, but hop in a boat or start combat and you come back to it. It was the one game I can say that being so dialog heavy that stuff didn't bother me that much, but they went overboard after that in Ragnarok and most other games.

 

[GHG]

Skippable after the first time.

 

[mrmustard]

Walk (+talk) should be completely skippable, why force people to consume stuff if they are not interested in it?

 

[Bartski]

videogames should be skippable to respect player's time

 

[Fredrik]

It’s one of the things in gaming that makes me fall asleep. So I make them skippable.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

It’s one of the things in gaming that makes me fall asleep. So I make them skippable.

"gaming"

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Leave them in if they're necessary for performance or narrative set up.

People complaining about shit like this and how many minorities are in every square foot of game world are the reason the industry is spinning it's wheels creatively. Harp about stagnant enemy AI or something that would actually improve the hobby as a whole, not whine about diminishing attention span adjacent non issues.

 

[RoboFu]

forced walking segments shouldnt exist. Just take the control completely away from the player if you want a slow walk.

 

[spookyfish]

I’m beginning to think this way re: climbing in TotK—if you have enough stamina, you should be able to skip it.

 

[Thief1987]

Biggest part of 99% of openworld games is walking, should we skip it too?

 

[ssringo]

Biggest part of 99% of openworld games is walking, should we skip it too?

Fast travel is a thing...

 

[hyperbertha]

Minimum: atleast make your characters speed match whoever you are following. In some games I have walk, stop before I kiss the other guy, then walk again. Such immersive mechanics.

 

[hussar16]

I think the people thr complain about walking in games have adhd or some type of attention deficits. I don't mind sight seeing in a game alot doesn't have to have twitch cod gameplay

 

[DeepEnigma]

On a side note without naming names (y'all know who you be). I've seen some people rave about Alan Wake (finally started it the other day for the first time), whom have criticized certain exclusives that are by far less jank, still third person, story driven, even with trees!!! (and AW has a lot of same same copy/paste tree levels) and guilty of said walky talky forced scenarios.

Dude also has the stamina of a sloth, I can see why Alice 86'ed him so far. (Left off on Episode 5, Chapter 1 last night)

But all in all, I'm having a good time with it story wise and how they made it episodic like a TV series. Will definitely dive into AW2 when it releases. I don't expect a massive amount of change in the sequel either. Story driven and will have much of the same scenarios.

 

[graywolf323]

I wouldn’t mind if they were handled like visual novels with auto-forward past read text

after you’ve seen it once then you can skip past it

 

[01011001]

sequences that arbitrarily limit the player's abilities should not exist in the first place. that includes slow walking sequences.

 

[93xfan]

You mean where you skip along and frolic about instead of walking, OP?

 

[salva]

Make them skippable from the start. Let the player decide what they want to do.

 

[Fredrik]

I think the people thr complain about walking in games have adhd or some type of attention deficits. I don't mind sight seeing in a game alot doesn't have to have twitch cod gameplay

I don’t mind sight seeing but these slow walks/rides are usually too restricted and boring. Just make an awesome cutscene instead, movie quality. Tell me how long it is, let me pause so I can make some popcorn, let me put down the controller, and I would have no issues as long as the scene was well made, I love movies.

 

[poppabk]

I don't mind them if you get to choose where you are going, like Bioshock audio log stuff. But if you are just walking from A to B then it's basically a cutscene that you are forced to push forward on. Anything that removes player agency is not good design, even cutscenes where choices are made for you or game like stuff happens out of your control are frustrating in my book.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Nope. leave them as is. Or not where does this end?

Take TOTK for instance... if you have enough stamina, climbing is a mindless task. It's not even a narrative filler.

So should that be skippable too? So if you have enough stamina climbing should instead become an on-screen prompt. `do you want to go up?` yes/no.

Fast travel is a thing...

Which honestly defeats the whole point of a game being open-world.

To me, open-world games should be split into major areas, and there should be only one fast travel point in each of those areas. So you can fast travel to say the central point of that area, but if you want to explore or revisit anywhere in that area, you should physically travel to that point.

I find fast travel just turns open word games into glorified level selectors. Nothing wrong with that, but if that's what the game is going to be, then they should just be that from the get-go (eg. FF16 world navigation is one big level selector).

 

[semiconscious]

The carriage rides in Red Dead Redemption were exactly this. You could sit there through the entire thing if you wanted to bask in the atmosphere and characterization. If you didn't care though, you could just skip them. The only downside is that Rockstar has one of the few writing teams that's worth listening to.

All the film school wannabes, on the other hand, are convinced that their overwrought, overlong dialogues are absolutely essential to the experience of their games, hence cinematic slow walking.

so much of what's now considered to be 'character development' is basically the reduction of a character that, left to your imagination, you may've found interesting into nothing but a cliche-ridden cartoon...

 

[Hudo]

A walk-and-talk segment shouldn't be even in a video game, tbh. Either find a way to tell your story without taking away control and agency from the player or, holy shit, make it a cutscene and make it worth watching, at least.
poppabk mentioned the audio logs from System Shock et al. That's a far nicer way of delivering exposition to the player. Or the hologram stuff from Callisto Protocol, for all the shit it rightfully gets, was a neat idea that sadly didn't get explored deeper.

 

[killatopak]

Uhhh no. However there should be some way to move past it on second run through or something.

We are already past using it to hide loading yet despite that devs still do it. Why? Because there are other reasons to do so. Some of these being to slow down the pace of the story, convey information, give you a break from the action, or even collect resources.

Just like most movies have and ebb and flow, games do as well. Non stop action isn’t all that good. Even DMC, the most actiony game you can find has walking segments.

 

[Jboemios]

No, so PS users can have exclusives to play

 

[K' Dash]

60% of Ragnarok would be skippable, that would be Speedrunners dream come true.

 

[mdkirby]

Those are used almost exclusively in narrative heavy games. It’s like saying “should talking sections in movies have a skip button”. If you feel that way just go play cod or whatever other mindless shooty looty thing Activision or Ubisoft choose to vomit out …not exactly spoilt for choice they’re a dime a dozen

 

[yamaci17]

forest section in gow ragnarok should be skippable. its bareable 1st time but if i want to play again, that's a no go. that section alone stops me from replaying it. it's unbearably long and an unnecessary slog

 

[Havoc2049]

The walking segments in Gears of War 5 were the worst parts of the game. Get rid of them. The only game that I played where they were bearable was Hellblade, but that is more of an adventure game with some action sequences.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Slow walk and chats are by far the worst modern games trope.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

All cut scenes and walking scenes should be skippable. Speeds up the game. But they force gamers to watch so the developers can get their kudos and the company can brag about the game being an extra 2 hours longer.

If skippable scenes are that important, just let gamers rewatch them or replay the level. Think of it like level select after you beat a mission. But it'll be cinematic select. Why that's so hard to add to a game I dont know.

 

[Sethbacca]

If people have no interest in narrative, why the hell are they playing narrative focused games? Stick to multiplayer or something that lets you twiddle your adhd addled thumbs into oblivion since that's clearly more your speed? I mean, yeah you should be able to skip these segments if you want to, but if you're not interested in the story of a story based game why are you even playing them?

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Walking segments are bad game design. As are a thousand other things in modern games that bore you to death and only serve to make the total playthrough time longer.

 

[Drizzlehell]

It should disappear from video games forever.

 

[Killer8]

Walking segments are usually paired with exposition dumps so if you remove them then developers would need to find another way of telling their shitty stories.

Probably not a bad thing.

 

[Wildebeest]

How could a game with a budget as low as 200 million dollars possibly afford to implement and playtest a feature like skippable forced walking sections.

 

[X-Wing]

Those walking segments sometimes hide loadings, I don't think they should / could be skippable until now. Gamedesign will most likely change thanks to the SSD.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Video game story should always be skippable/accelerat-able . You should also always have the option to skip dialogue line by line. The vast majority of video game 'story' is better consumed at your own reading pace rather than listening to some self-important voice actor thinking they're making some kind of high art.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I'm an extremist. Either go all out with story and dialogue - though it better be something truly interesting if so - or make it minimalistic affecting as little as possible of the gameplay. My main grip is when we get the former minus the 'interesting story' part, or some middle-of-the-way shit that isn't really good one way or the other.

Personally, i think in a story heavy game, all the story bits should be skippable as a mere matter of covenience, they shouldn't be designed with the intention of letting people 'ignore' the story. Thats akin to admiting your game is uninteresting or flawed.

 

[Badlucktroll]

The massive amounts of walking and talking in cyberpunk was hard to take. i was like cant they just put that in a skipable cutscene

 

[lughnasadh123]

Walk and talk moments absolutely have their place by providing not just a quiet time during the game but extra character development. Having a cutscene would rip you out of the moment.

If we can't have more choices like difficulty settings in other games due to their "creative visions", then tighten up those laces, son, and git scootin'.

 

[simpatico]

But how else can we absorb all sweet teen lit writing? The moment of finding out our sarcastic wise cracking hero does indeed have a troubled past and deep feelings; that's just too impactful to skip.

 

[Fabieter]

Fast travel is a thing...

Not always and not right away.

 

[Lethal01]

sequences that arbitrarily limit the player's abilities should not exist in the first place. that includes slow walking sequences.

Nah, levels where you have to beat them with "only X, Y and Z" allow for a greater ability to make fun levels and interesting challenges. It's the same as games with multiple characters that require you to beat certain levels with certain character.

 

[DeepSpace5D]

I think it should be experienced as the developer intended the first time, and then skippable after that.

 

[Paltheos]

Where is the "They shouldn't be in most games to begin with" option in the poll?

Just make it a damn cutscene. I'm fine with those.