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Game design sins?

Fredrik

Member
Seriously, start bloodborne on your ps5. It runs so fucking smooth, you would be surprised it's not 60fps
You know what, I did that the last time you were talking about that many months ago, and no it stutters, the whole time. Do you have some motion interpolation effect active on your TV? I know some do with OLED TVs. For me it looks absolutely terrible in motion compared to Demon’s Souls remake in 60fps. I played a few hours and you can get used to it, definitely, but it never ever looked ”so fucking smooth”.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
I have a few.

-Changing so much in your remakes that the genre essentially changes. Depends a lot on what's under the hood. Primarily gameplay systems, FFVIIR and RE2R nailed their loops despite being different from their original releases, but sometimes it's just rough. Shattered Memories for instance. Alright game, but in what universe does this have anything more to do with the original Silent Hill than say, the movie Taken?

-incidental in gameplay dialogue. I don't mind it, but I hate it interrupting chill time in games. I hate it giving hints. I hate it being pointless drivel. I hate it being the opposite and having meaningful plot information because it will either got drowned in gunfire or swordplay or it will cut off, and in most cases, fail to resume afterward. Just give me a data log a la Mass Effect. Or fuck, very least, a conversation log.

AI partners in traversal segments. Cool, give me an AI partner or group in battles, whatever. In moment to moment gameplay, though? Nothing more immersive than walking slowly down a creepy dark hallway while your AI partner stops. Runs forward three steps until they're up your ass. Stop. Repeat. Clip into a wall. Get stuck on a corner.

-Open world icon clutter. Enough said, I should think, but as a precaution: This shit is ugly as sin and overwhelming as fuck.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
You know what, I did that the last time you were talking about that many months ago, and no it stutters, the whole time. Do you have some motion interpolation effect active on your TV? I know some do with OLED TVs. For me it looks absolutely terrible in motion compared to Demon’s Souls remake in 60fps. I played a few hours and you can get used to it, definitely, but it never ever looked ”so fucking smooth”.
it stutters a bit but not that much. Only on occasion. it's not constant framepacing like ff xv.
No, I don't use any motion interpolation. BB framepacing never bothered me. No matter if I played on monitor or tv.

But it's not about stutter. It's about speed of controls and how fast it feels.

of course demons souls looks better in 60fps... but I am still not 100% sure it's as responsive as BB at 30 huh. Bluepoint fucked something up
 

ShadowNate

Member
- Invisible walls at the "edges" of a map. Be more creative.
- Waist-height objects and fences presenting as insurmountable obstacles.
- Action type games that don't allow you to jump or swim.
- Unexpected "exit" trigger points from a level that means you cannot go back to explore more, unless you replay the level.
- Unskippable cutscenes or dialogue.
- First person 3d "precision" platforming requiring to timed jumps on moving ledges while descending in a death pit of lava.
- Important lore/plot points that can be easily missed and cannot be recovered (unless you restart the game)
- A trivial / random action that cannot be rectified and will put you in the path for the game's worst ending without any clue or warning.
- Puzzle solutions that require very elaborate combination of random tools and objects, when the practical solution would and should be straightforward with stuff you're already equipped with (eg. kick the door, shoot the lock, climb the fence,
- Escort missions with a terrible companion AI.
- Enforcing arbitrary and close-call time limits to complete a mission successfully.
- Bullet sponge enemies even when you have the most powerful weapons and/or hit multiple headshots.
 

Juza

Member
In game design there are not only 7 sins, they're countless!! What come to my mind now in addition to what was mentioned:

- 30fps cutscenes while the game is 60+fps
- Animations tied to FPS
- Forced post-processing
- Forced vignette
- Forced head bobbing/camera shake
 
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Escape from Tarkov forces players to extract from multiple areas in a map but provides no immediate in game way to understand where the extractions actually are. So in order to actually play the game without failing the player must google search an image of the map they are on. The player must also click each individual greyed out item in the inventory in order to examine it. Horrible game design.
 

pqueue

Member
3 round boss fights. so fucking tired of this.

such a tired, lazy and boring trope found in so many games.

Why not actually just make the overall fight better without having to resort to stupid, repetitive gimmicky rounds.
 
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Stamps1646

Member
QTE with quick timers. I can only read so fast damnit!
No remapping options for controls. I like my options please.
Games that support Vibration Features need 3 modes. Kill my controller why don't you.
Subtitles with no Color or border/background options. If I can't read it, I'm fked!
LOUD! MENU SCREENS. I'm deaf alright.
Silent Protagonist, in a game where everyone is fully voiced. What gives? Watching my character nod and stare is so awkward.
 
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Fbh

Member
Some that come to mind:

-Since it's apparently totally a design choice and has nothing to do with cross gen: Constantly having to squeeze through tight places and/or forced walking sections.
- In RPG's and open world adventure games when doing the sidequests leaves you overpowered for the main story but saving them for later and progressin with the story first makes you overpowered for the sidequests (though I think that related to a larger issues of too many games relying purely on numbers rather than good skill based combat)
- Games that begin by going straight into a cutscene without letting you enable subtitles (or any other options)
- Designing your game for the lowest common denominator in the focus group
- Games that give you hints to puzzles automatically instead of having an optional button prompt for it

Also maybe more divisive but I've always found the concept of "farming" to be crap. The whole concept of having to kill an enemy tens or even hundreds of times to farm some item or material that they have a small chance of dropping is literally just time wasting busy work. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's not rewarding and it adds nothing to the experience.
 

bitbydeath

Member
I forgot one, using famous actors, the story\acting doesn't get any better with those, callisto and cringe stranding are some examples.
It is nice to not have the same five voice actors in every game though.

Ragnarok pulled it off superbly.

images

images
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
When they try to disguise their shitty fetch quests by having the quest-giver speak paragraphs of text giving you the background.

Bitch I know this conversation is building up to you asking me to go find a bunch of onions so you can make a pot roast or something. Your yapping isn’t increasing my immersion it’s just making me dislike you even more.

It’s like when your lazy coworker is telling you some long winded story about why he didn’t get his shit done and he needs you to do it.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
I’ll just focus on JRPGs since that’s what I’m most familiar with:

1. When you can permanently gimp yourself or lock yourself out of stuff just by exploring and fighting battles (e.g. enemies that out-scale you, randomized stat boosts that might be bad, event timer/battle rank shit)

2. Enemies you can see on screen but are difficult to avoid. A) it looks stupid seeing all these bad guys pacing around the environment for no reason and B) it’s so annoying doing the retarded little dance to see who goes first. I’d rather just have random battles

3. Unpopular opinion maybe but I hate character swapping. I think RPGs are at their best when you have to commit to a party/build and make it work instead of “just swap in whatever character has the ability you need right now”

4. Trying to “spruce up” boring battles by making you solve the same puzzle over and over - see Xenosaga 2 for the worst example

5. Prioritizing cool animations over speed. I’m going to fight like 5 million battles, make the animations damn fast with little pause between them. Same with exploration, I don’t need to see my character bend over to pick something up then give me a dialog window telling me what it was. Just let me touch an item and have it instantly added to my infinitely large inventory without stopping
you forgot the disgusting #6.

Random encounters. ALL of them. If I wanted to grind, I'd go throw hands myself. I don't need the game to interrupt my exploration with a stupid battle every 10 steps I take. It drives me fuckin mad every time I'm so close to a treasure chest or loading zone only for the game to fucking interrupt my journey with a piss easy battle I'm forced to fight. It's explicitly with turn based JRPGs too because every other subgenre of RPG I've played doesn't have this dumb issue, enemies are on the overworld, and you can fight them as you please. I'm so glad modern turn based RPGs like Persona 5 and Deltarune don't have this terrible issue, but revisiting classics makes it a pain
 
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treemk

Banned
Too many games hardly even have gameplay, just go through motions with little to no challenge to experience a story that's not good or even interesting.
 

GymWolf

Member
It is nice to not have the same five voice actors in every game though.

Ragnarok pulled it off superbly.

images

images
Sure, but when i heard both speak i was kinda thinking about the 2 actors more than i was thinking about odin and thor because i'm a fan of both and they have both a very distinctive voice\way to talk, same for death stranding with the protagonist and villain, it is kinda distracting.

Like with yakuza, when i hear the VA, i just think about kiryu's voice, because i don't know the voice actor.
 
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T4keD0wN

Member
1. Silent protagonists. DOOM is the only exception, maybe Metroid Dread as well. And in any narrative heavy game they just don't work. They never work and never will work.
Do you mean silent as in not voiced like in disco elysium, baldurs gate 2 and every crpg/strategy game ever or silent as in completely mute like in metro series or high on life? One of those is a perfectly acceptable opinion, but the former one wouldnt be.
2. Forced 30fps. Especially in the year of our lord 2022. 30fps should be extinct by now.
Let me extend that to any artificial fps lock
6. Constant genre shift gimmick sections. I'm looking at you platinum games.
Funnily this and the music are the only 2 reasons why i liked nier automata.

My list of sins:
Rapid button mashing with no menu option to hold/press the button instead
"real-time" shader compilation
No cutscene pausing
Chromatic aberration, motion blur, depth of field, vignette, film grain enabled by default
Characters moaning and screaming forcing you to use headphones - looking at you japanese games
 

Shakka43

Member
No checkpoints or save rooms before boss fights. Playing Hollow Knight and having to rerun a minute or two to get back to a boss each time gets ridiculously frustrating.
 
Do you mean silent as in not voiced like in disco elysium, baldurs gate 2 and every crpg/strategy game ever or silent as in completely mute like in metro series or high on life? One of those is a perfectly acceptable opinion, but the former one wouldnt be.

Let me extend that to any artificial fps lock

Funnily this and the music are the only 2 reasons why i liked nier automata.

My list of sins:
Rapid button mashing with no menu option to hold/press the button instead
"real-time" shader compilation
No cutscene pausing
Chromatic aberration, motion blur, depth of field, vignette, film grain enabled by default
Characters moaning and screaming forcing you to use headphones - looking at you japanese games
Do you mean silent as in not voiced like in disco elysium, baldurs gate 2 and every crpg/strategy game ever or silent as in completely mute like in metro series or high on life? One of those is a perfectly acceptable opinion, but the former one wouldnt be.

Mute. There is literally no benefit to taking away dialogue from the main character. ESPECIALLY the main character. It isn't "quirky" or "deep". It isn't "nostalgic" either. All it does is restrict characterisation. Not one of the games i've played with a silent protagonist wouldn't be better off with one that speaks like the rest of the characters besides DOOM and that's only because the story is treated like an afterthought in those games.

>Let me extend that to any artificial fps lock

I don 't see why there has to be a lock although it doesn't bother me much as my TV only supports up to 60fps.

>Funnily this and the music are the only 2 reasons why i liked nier automata.

I got bored of it pretty quickly although I wouldn't say that's one of the biggest reasons why. I didn't even notice it that much tbh.
 
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No checkpoints or save rooms before boss fights. Playing Hollow Knight and having to rerun a minute or two to get back to a boss each time gets ridiculously frustrating.
I like that in SMTV you get literally alerted by your companion before each boss. Would be better than accidently running into it and then dying and started all over from god knows where.
 
Great music in an 8bit pixel art game. What a waste. The composer deserves better. If you going to look like 8bit you should sound like it as well.
 

rolandss

Member
Costume design that ignores the settings/environments. I'm playing through Horizon Forbidden West. One of the clans/tribes is up in the snow covered mountains, and in some parts of the side missions you're wading through knee deep snow. The tribe are all in sleeveless armour/costumes and codpieces with exposed legs and skin everywhere. Same with Kratos in GOW Ragnarok. It's Thimblewinter in that games, and the cunt gets around like he's going to burning man. I realise he's a God but give him something more attuned to the setting. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the only game I recall this being done right, where there's a health penalty for wearing inappropriate clothing in cold climates, or being too layered up in warm climates.
 

sigmaZ

Member
There are just a few:
1. Taking movement/control away from the player for too long (especially in multiplayer)
2. Overdoing it on tutorials and explanations
3. Needless exposition
4. Odd jump mechanics
5. No run button
6. No weight to controls
7. Not having a standard difficult or challenges, leaving difficulty selection lazily to the player (some simpler genres get a pass on this)
8. One hit kill enemies in 3D games (like those lickers in The Last of Us)
9. Repetitive combat dialog
10. Videogame orchestral musak (where it's just a whole bunch of orchestral noise)
 
Abilities that lock controls, interrupt game flow and take you out of the action. Glory kills in Doom and takedowns in Deus Ex are good examples.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
In terms of fundamental flaws that could genuinely be called a game design sin?

- insufficient control options, like the inability to invert Y, come on guys…

- cheating enemy AI that ignore the rules the player must adhere to

- and I’ve got to agree with unskippable cut scenes, especially with modern SSD’s
 

RaduN

Member
3

..and: exposition dumps while exploring/fighting alongside an npc. Give me a fucking text to read instead.
 

AGRacing

Member
The first hour my son played Sonic Frontiers was full of them. Terrible FMV intros. Way too many "steal the camera" tutorials. A boss battle almost immediately where it is possible to die. Basically a complete lack of freedom or fun in the opening minutes of the game. They let you play a "green hills" remix for 3 minutes to let you have a fleeting glimpse of fun and then take it away.

I had to basically force a 10 year old to push through a Sonic The Hedgehog game to "get to a fun part". Sonic games used to be fun immediately and they stayed fun.

MANY games are guilty of this in 2022 though. It's not just Sonic. But if you ever wondered why kids prefer to play Fortnite... This is why.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
No option for autofire in shooters when the weapon trigger is on shoulder buttons.
Shoulder buttons are not made for abuse, and they’re much more annoying to rapidly press compared to face buttons. I don’t care if it’s realistic that my pea shooter should not have autofire, the option should be there or even your baby’s first FPS could break RB on my Xbox controller in this day and age. Hell, the fucking button broke playing Elden Ring.
 
Long intro sections or chapters that can't be skipped if you are replaying or at least quickly gotten through.
 
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