HAPPY FRIDAY!
Can I ask you guys a favor? I’m working on a new project, and for this project I need some ideas. I’m gonna keep it kind of vague for now, but I pinky-swear promise I’ll tell everyone more down the line.
Ho-kay, so, what are some typical scenarios in-game that just make you go WTF?!
For example:
- Suits of bikini armor that somehow deflect arrows, lessen the impact of slashing, etc.
- It’s perfectly normal to waltz into someone’s house and check out what’s going on
- If there’s a 2 ft. fence in front of your character you can’t bypass it. Like, it’s only TWO FEET TALL COME ON
- The ability to store everything in seemingly non-existent pockets
- In zombie video games, if you’re bitten you don’t turn into a zombie, but everyone else does
In a nutshell, think of scenarios that simply don’t make logical sense.
Thank you soooo much. I’m excited to tell you more! :D
Game AI in stealth games where I can shoot someone in the back without killing them, set them to full-alert mode, hide in the shadows and they’ll go back to patrolling muttering “must have been the wind” even if there’s an arrow sticking out of them.
I agree 100%. Or how about taking a dozen bullets and being on the brink of death, but you just catch your breath and somehow regenerate and stay alive.
Wow, I could go on all day with this one. For example, what does a hedgehog need with rings and since when do plants randomly come out of sewer pipes just to shoot fire? And why are sewer pipes big enough to fit a person just sticking out of the ground anyway? And why do so many people leave unlocked treasure chests just laying around in random caves and places?
People in power do insane things that noone questions. Strange arresting Bruce Wayne and doesnt say why, Police chief in RE2 created crank, gem, and medallion puzzles to get around a police station and sewer system.
Two words? Invisible walls.
I remember the old RPGs like Baldur’s Gate where you had to periodically rest or your character would suffer. In fact your companions would complain if you didn’t rest when they were tired and it would affect everybody’s performance. Travel was also an issue, the time spent traveling would count against the countdown until you had to rest again.
In Everquest you had to carry food and water around, not to regen mana or health like in WoW, but because your character had to eat. Another from EQ is that you could buy a mount, but they only lasted so long before they died of old age.
I watched a stream of Day Z last night where they spent over an hour looking for things like clothing and crowbars without accomplishing anything at all.
The truth is that much of the realism is simply annoying and gets in the way of enjoying the gameplay. Also the industry has moved away from many such things in an attempt to accommodate the aging gamers with have kids and a lawn to mow who simply want to login and play in what time they have available.
Finding anything in Day Z is an accomplishment. No matter what you’re doing it’s always fun!
Seriously though, could go on for days on this topic. I think the important thing to note is that a lot of these change over time. Things that were like this in the 90s aren’t that way now for instance.
The one that got me a TON until recently was in CoD, Gear, etc when you could mantle a wall/fence/etc. It would only let you do it on the specific spots they chose, but like you could be 2 feet away on something that looks identical and it wouldn’t work. The new CoD goes a long way toward fixing this, the entire environment is interactable it seems, which helps most of the time, but now its more glaring when you can’t do that, even if its less likely.
Second, the massive amount of damage worlds seem to take with no impact. Calling down laser strikes from space, or casting a massive spell to drop a comet on an enemy, but the world around is completely unharmed.
Third, invisible walls of all kind, but especially in MMO’s and other RPG’s. Its one thing to have these in a “close map” scenario like an FPS level, but in something immersive and story based why not just shape the terrain such that you can’t get places. Skyrim did a good job using the angle of a slope to pen you in with non invisible walls MOST of the time.
The enforced stricture of classes. Its like “you can’t wear X armor, you’re the healer”. Who the hell says I can’t wear that. Sure maybe there should be bigger penalties or something, but open up the combinations to something reasonable. In the real world you likely wouldn’t wear heavy plate armor unless you were strong and didn’t mind the movement penalty, but if someone else wanted to deal with that let them.
5th quick scoping/aim penalties. I understand how this evolved and is more of a game mechanic thing. If I’m 6 inches away from someone and point a gun at them and fire, there should be no way I ever miss. I realize this is rife for abuse, but how is it any worse than adding a wholly unreal mechanic where beginning the process or scoping makes you 100% accurate? Its just silly, but probably better than returning to the railgun battles of yor.
6th game economics, how many crappy old guns can I sell to 1 guy before he’s sitting on a pile of guns and no cash? or vice versa. Some games have started dealing with this, but in general the economies you seem to pass in most games make no sense whatsoever.
Ok thats enough for this novel of a post.
Which brings me to another point. Budgets and deadlines, game makers cannot be expected to create an entire actual world in every game they release. There must be limitations.
Oh I totally understand all the technical reasons for these things, and as technology evolves some get solved (voxels) and new ones emerge. It still creates wtf moments while playing.
I’d much rather have an invisible wall in an MMO than let someone jump through an unintended opening to exploit an encounter. At the same time it breaks the immersion.
The few things stopping you from getting to the other side are a wooden fence and a bush. THE FENCE CAN BE BROKEN AND YOU COULD JUST WALK THROUGH THE BUSHES….
You guys fucking rock. Thank you so much.
Seemingly impervious grass to all but CUT.
I love it when I get shot repeatedly with aimbot precision by an AI unit so far away I can barely make them out.on the screen.
How about war games in general? so few count moral, or that soldiers are human too. here’s a situation: “We just saw 10,000 men die to one insanely overpowered character. Throw more at him! Really? How many of the soldiers would eventually just say “f**k that, I’m going home”? Nobody just runs to their death without a second thought, or happily runs into your sword in real life. How about stealth mechanics? Skyrim is a great example. “I just got shot in the chest Most likely punctured my heart. Must be my imagination.” keeps walking in preset path. Speaking of that, how about realistic wounds? CoD, knife to the foot? dead. bullet to the face? might just live.
RPGs where the opposite sex (sometimes the same sex) just fawns over
you, the main character. Like in mass effect, how easy is it to end up in an “oh crap, three people are fighting over you and you have to pick one!”
scenario? Here’s another one for sci-fy; sex with aliens. just wouldn’t
work, wouldn’t happen. Don’t even get me started on how many aliens in
sci-fy look JUST like humans except a different skin color or something. What are the chances of that?
I love turn based games, but when is the pacing ever make sense compared to a real life scenario? Never. How about walking through a forest where there is a pre-set path to follow. It’s so easy to tell exactly where you’re supposed to go, partly because you probably have a ton of invisible walls blocking you whenever you start going way off track.
Here’s a great one. Self mapping. How many games do you know of where there’s a map that just happens to fill itself in wherever you go, keeping perfect track of your exact location? I could go on for hours.
the fence thing totally bugs the shit outta me! “oh no! rubble! better go around…”
one that i really hate is encounters/environments catered to the characters abilities, but i suppose that cant be helped.
another is vendors that only sell weapons your characters can use. its like they’re the only weapons in the world.
My biggest level design pet peeve is blocking off an area by putting some cardboard boxes (which cannot be moved or destroyed) or slightly elevated dropoff that I cannot step up onto (do I not have knees or something???).
I also think it’s shitty when there’s an option to kill your companion for no reason. I thought there might be an interesting set of repercussions if I slayed my Mabari as an evil character, but I just felt gross and nobody cared. What.
in games where the beginner gear is vastly superior to the top tier gear
when the game has zero explanation and throws you into the meat grinder expecting you to learn
Weather not affecting gameplay, imagine skyrim if you had to have appropriate clothing to go into the tundra environments, it would be pretty awesome I think.
I hate… HATE… encumberance. I WANT THOSE SECRET, ENDLESS POCKETS FOR MY WEAPONS. You got that, Bethesda?
But on a serious level… video game sports are mostly stupid and completely unrealistic for a large number of reasons.
I’ve always hated it when NPC’s walk DIRECTLY through you! And the worst part is that you STAY there until he finally passes right through you!
You’re wearing a Seahawks jacket…… that doesn’t make sense.