• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Ok GAF, let's save the game industry

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Got inspired by this post:


Hugare Hugare rightfully mentioned how lazy and uninspired color-coded enemies are. In the world of uninspired game design and the same mechanics since 2005 just coated in different pain we post our ideas here for meaningful change in game design. I will start:

1. End with corridor design and walk-action-walk BS: once again we are helped by the newest Dragon Age trailer where we have the illusion of a busting city, however every nook and cranny, every alley not relevant to our heroes is blocked off and inaccessible. The only solution is to continue to advance forward and listen to some stupid banter.

What to do? More verticality, lower horizontal map coverage - SCALE THE FUCK DOWN

Who does it well? ACII (fuck, can't believe I'm saying this), Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077

2. Give the characters some spine: enough with PG-rated dialogue that makes everyone sound the same. Give them some emotions - am I playing a merry band of undercover stoics? Remember that time when Dak'kon realized the Nameless One invented his whole religion? Good stuff.

Who does it well? I wanted to say Witcher 3, but the best example is Cyberpunk 2077 - V. banter with Johnny Silverhand is exactly what I am looking for.

3. Less systems, better developed ones: Listen, I don't need ten different advancement trees in my games, I want 3 that will radically change how I play the game and effect I have on the world. Does that +1 to a random attribute have any impact on how I play? Are the skills lazy +X% to damage or give you new abilities?

Who does it well? Cyberpunk 2077, but they needed 2.0 patch and complete overhaul to get this right.

What are yours?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Easy...

gas-cans-10445-64_600.jpg
 

ungalo

Member
So you think what's missing in Dragon Age is the verticality ?

I love Cyberpunk but i fail to see the connection with Dragon Age, not the same gameplay, absolutely not the same use of level-design.
 

Killer8

Member
Length limits, budget limits, development time limits. The first will naturally lead to the others.

Barely anyone finishes games so chasing after 50+ hour open world titles is just a complete waste of time for both the gamer and the developer.

Let's get some creative limitations back in the industry.
 

DonkeyPunchJr

World’s Biggest Weeb
Get rid of fucking Marvel dialog. That shit might work for a 2 hour popcorn movie where I just want to turn my brain off and be entertained. It doesn’t work when it’s a 30 hour game that reallllly wants me to be invested in the story/characters. It makes it feel like the characters (and writers) are too embarrassed to take their nerdy video game seriously.
 
Games with good stories deserve a good pacing, so need to be done in corridors and have forced direction. Get rid of distracting open world crap in those games. Open world should be for games where the stories are not worth remembering at all or vague shit is happening and fan theories will make up for some convoluted story that was not even in the minds of the creators.
Make any traveling in open world game optional. I like driving games, probably more than most people, but I hate spending 50% of my time walking, driving, swimming, riding, gliding to the actual quest in so many games. That's not even proper filler, ie bad quest, just a waste of time.

AC II is no different to AC Valbloata. Scale that already down to what it actually is, a somewhat limited somwhat changed PoP SoT mod coated under open world garbage.

Skill trees are like collectathons, engaging but pointless, maybe even more since enemies bascially have to scale with the new skills to keep the challenge somewhat alive. Most games fail at that, with the end being easier than the beginning.

First and foremost devs should make games they themselves want to play and if they are really hardcore good, have some sense to also include less skilled masses and have proper easy and normal modes and don't expect people to just guess your twisted mind for solutions.

As someone above said, hire passionate nerds. White, brown, black, yellow, orange, blue, rainbow, I don't care, they should love making games and have a desire to entertain us and not teach us a lesson or try to correct past wrongs or some stuff that might have a place in some areas but not if your talent to properly tackle sensitive complicate subjects lacks in required skill and finesse.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
ok i start
rip torn throw GIF
Better collision detection?
Sounds like you should just play Cyberpunk again I guess
I am trying to, but surprisingly enough I find Witcher 3 to be more engaging, don't know why.
So you think what's missing in Dragon Age is the verticality ?
I think it's very annoying right from the start you can clearly see in the demo everything around you is for show, you cannot interact with any of it.
is there a discount on heavy drugs atm? the weird threads are non stop
Sub Dont Do Drugs GIF


I'm a winner, I don't do drugs.
Why do you want to save companies that are listed on the stock exchange and you know shit about them?
I'm feeling generous.
 

Sanepar

Member
I'm really worried next Witcher will be a Fortnite medieval theme. NPCs with Purple hair, oh boy!

I just want 2000-2010 games with actual graphics. Wargames like wargames, medieval games like medieval games. I can't stand more everything with Fortnite theme
 
Cyberpunk is in my top 3, but the one area where I felt they dropped the ball was verticality.

There's vertical spaces, yes, but in 2077 and the way Night City is described, it is supposed to be incredibly dense and deep.

The city should've been multiple levels stacked on one another, and hat seem to almost be separate environments.

Nevertheless Cyberpunk is probably still the best example of handling verticality, yet.
 

Toots

Gold Member
I already tried to save the industry with my Hogswart legacy x castlevania total conversion.
I did all the research, posted proofs of concept, but could not raise enough millions of $ to hire a dev team and pay sweet baby inc at the same time so i had to let go of the project.

Now you tell me, how much do you want to save the game industry, and more importantly how much do you have in bank ?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Well made AAA ones? I cant even think of any recently?
Examples?
There's a reason the AAA industry stopped making short games. No one wants to make longer games as it takes more time and money.

They make long games because short games underperformed on the market.
 
Last edited:

Hugare

Member
Oh wow, I feel honored, OP

I think what summarizes pretty much every problem that we face in games today, such as color-coded enemies, is: no way the developers think that is fun.

They put it in there 'cause they cant think of a more elegant solution for the problem.

When I play some meaningless sidequest in an open world game that feels like it was AI generated, I just know that the developer put it in there to bloat their game in order to generate "value", not to give the player a good time.

So when I find stuff in games that I know the developer wasnt worried about it being fun, I get mad. Freaking respect my time and intelligence, man.

There's no fucking way that Nintendo thought people would have fun looking for 900 Korok seeds (there's always some crazy dude out there, but c'mon)

I get it that engagement is important nowadays with GAAS and shit, but put in the work to make something enjoyable.
 
Last edited:

StueyDuck

Member
Hire more white nerd dudes.
id counter that with, hire passionate people and remove the "just there for a paycheck" people.

games are art, the industry is bloated and much like all industries there are many who just went to uni to study game design and then got a job to pay the bills.

Give me the person who grew up programming games on their calculator for their friends while learning basic because that was their passion.

Excellence comes from limitations and the desire to push through them.
 
Last edited:

Reckheim

Member
If you're going to force me to play a character, make them not perfect. I'm so tired of perfect main characters that are always in the right, with perfect hero type personalities; people looking up to them, leader types.

I'm probably going to get heat for this, but I'd rather play as the main character in Forspoken over the main character in FF16.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
id counter that with, hire passionate people and remove the "just there for a paycheck" people.

games are art, the industry is bloated and much like all industries there are many who just went to uni to study game design and then got a job to pay the bills.

Give me the person who grew up programming games on his calculator for his friends while learning basic because that was their passion.

Excellence comes from limitations and the desire to push through them.
Yeah this is better worded than my post. Went for "white nerd dude" for the cliche, but obviously the skin color doesn't matter.

Think I said this in another thread, but I have the feel that many of the people in charge of western game studios haven't played and beated a single game in their whole lives.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
You just want more Cyberpunk?



Ill bite.
Make Just Cause 2.....but 2er (not Just Cause 3 or Just Cause 4) Just Cause 2er.

tn6CNA7.gif





VEoeEL7.gif



fRd5VXB.gif[



Then make Burnout 3 but 3er.



Make Skies of Arcadia 2:
skies-of-arcadia-optimistic-rpg-adventure-e1681347340151.jpg



Make a sequel to Quantum Break......Industry saved.
EZASQ5H.gif
 

CGNoire

Member
There's a reason the AAA industry stopped making short games. No one wants to make longer games as it takes more time and money.

They make long games because short games underperformed on the market.
They "thought" games where under-peforming because they where shorter. They think alot of stupid shit and double down on there ignorance all the time. Still no examples?
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
They "thought" games where under-peforming because they where shorter. They think alot of stupid shit and double down on there ignorance all the time. Still no examples?

There's too much incentive to stick with shorter games for this to be true.

All the incentives are there to develop shorter games. It's much cheaper. It's much faster. It's much easier. The entire industry grew from the NES to PS3 generation when AAA titles were traditionally much shorter.

Change is hard. The change to longer games happened because the markets preferences shifted.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
What tends to sell poorly are the heavily story-driven games that give little attention to mechanics.

I'd say short games in general sell poorly.

When you start deemphasizing story and give more attention to game mechanics, you naturally get longer games.
 
Last edited:

MujkicHaris

Member
You are part of the problem, approaching such complex problem with bad examples of games.

Witcher 3 and C2077 are not that good. They are especially terrible in the RPG department.

Want to give game developers something worthy to play and study? Gothic 2, Oblivion, Dragon Quest VIII, Fallout 3, Fable, Those are real RPGs where game developers didn't have GBs of visual RAM so they had to invent engaging gameplay systems to get people to buy their games. Do you remember how amazing it was to see Radiant AI in action for the first time in Oblivion? There was nothing like it. It was pure magic at the time.

Witcher 3 and C2077 are more of the same, reinterpretation of modern trends. They brought nothing new to the table.
 
Top Bottom