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When you use consoles, do you sometimes feel frustrated by the lack of control?

brawly

Member
No, the opposite for me.

I love the fact that when I load up a game on consoles I have no control over how it runs. On PC I constantly notice framedrops and fiddle with the settings. On consoles, it runs the way it runs. I have no control over it and therefore just have to accept it.

Not a fan of mods either. It usually takes an hour to get them running and then I fuck around in them for 15 minutes.
 
Nah. I actually see PC gaming as a pain in the ass. The only thing I play on PC lately is PUBG and Smite Tactics.

Generally I dislike having to worry about whether the game will perform well, having to troubleshoot bugs myself, and I dislike having to use different keys based on the developers whims of how they want the game to control. Sure I can adjust all of those things myself, manually on PC, but I don't want to have to tinker around in order to play / enjoy a game.

Not a fan of mods either. Generally haven't gotten a good time out of any of those that I've used on Skyrim and Fallout. Just reduces stability of the game and I get a brief moment of amusement, then ignore them. The only time it's been worthwhile for me is in the past where I could change my character models in games like Unreal Tournament. Besides, I have enough good games to play without having to worry about what the good mods are.
 
Or it could just be that different people are into different things. Why be a nob about it man?

Because some "things" are just stupid. You always have an option of sticking to default options. Not being into, say, mayonnaise comparison wars is a reasonable attitude, being annoyed that shop owner stocks multiple kinds of mayonnaise on the bottom shelf is not.
 

Durante

Member
Since consoles are basically just exclusive boxes and media centres for me, the only time I really "miss" anything is when I'm forced to put in a password or type text and I have to use a gamepad to type, which is always supremely awkward. If a game is available on PC, that's where I'm playing it with very few exceptions.
Don't you miss the things the OP is talking about (and many others too, like the simple power of making your own decisions of what to screenshot rather than having the publisher make those decisions for you) when playing console exclusives?

I know I do. (Which is one reason why I've mostly stopped)
 
I'm disappointed that there's usually never an option to disable Motion Blur in games that use it heavily (Uncharted 4 and Just Cause 3 have massive blur).
 

sn00zer

Member
I feel like the opposite. When I play PC it can be super distracting for me with dropped frames and such, because I know I can still tweak settings to get it perfect. Playing consoles, there is no stress of that so I can just turn on and play and not worry about if my view distance and shadow quality are set correctly.
 

Zombine

Banned
Console gamed exclusively for most of my life. 4 years ago I built my pc and a lot of the problems with controller input bugs me, especially with shooters. I hate the lack of control you have with thumbsticks and how you need to make additional, awkward movements to keep your crosshairs centered on where you want it to be. You can see how stiff it is when watching console players making Overwatch clips, and PC Overwatch play. Lots of strange circular movements and straffing which I have grown to despise. I still perform well, but it's far from my preference.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
always. i just use my PS4 for watching tv and playing exclusives. most of my gaming is done on PC where i feel in complete control of everything.
 

gelf

Member
Only occasionally does it bother me. I mostly just use my PC like a console,only tinkering if it's forced on me so what I'm playing on doesn't really matter.

Main reason I favour PC with my purchases is for long term backwards compatibility. Sony have especially shown they are not to be relied on for that.
 
Console gamed exclusively for most of my life. 4 years ago I built my pc and a lot of the problems with controller input bugs me, especially with shooters. I hate the lack of control you have with thumbsticks and how you need to make additional, awkward movements to keep your crosshairs centered on where you want it to be. You can see how stiff it is when watching console players making Overwatch clips, and PC Overwatch play. Lots of strange circular movements and straffing which I have grown to despise. I still perform well, but it's far from my preference.

Have you tried the Steam Controller?
 
honestly, the biggest annoyance I had with console games are the language options and that the shop is tied to country and you can't set your country different to something independent of the language setting on Xbox. Some games have in-game language options, others don't. It used to be super annoying for me. On PC you can usually find some hack around this, but even there the Microsoft DX12 games had language tied to Windows settings and I had to write 100,000 for houndred thousand in excel while playing Forza Horizon 3 in english, even though in my country comma is the decimal mark and dot is used for digit grouping. Don't get me started on Cortana.
 
I've gravitated more to PC because of the consoles limitations. Just adding auto loot in witches 3 and changing the hud has been a transformative experience.
 

Leonidas

Member
I don't really think about that. I do find the framerate in certain games to be jarring though, but I get used to it after playing for a while...
 

redcrayon

Member
No, I'm fine with the plug and play aspect of consoles. When I used to use a gaming laptop I found it more frustrating to be tinkering with stuff, it's what you're used to really. I can see how, if you are used to that level of control on a PC, you might find the lack of options on consoles frustrating, but it's good that there's different devices for different demands. I don't get much gaming time at home, and when I do, I don't want to tinker with anything, I just want to play. At that point, what I've found really frustrating with consoles over time is the increased amount of time from pressing the 'on' switch to actually playing a game, from boot-up to OS updates then downloading patches, installations, half a dozen developer logos. It's not so bad if you play several times a week but I might only turn a home console on once a month and pretty much resign myself to doing chores while letting it update itself first.
 

daninthemix

Member
I don't feel frustrated by the lack of control sometimes, but rather all the time.

It's a major reason for me to only see consoles as a very last resort if I really want to play an exclusive.

Yeah ditto.

Things like mods, visual settings, trainers etc are mandatory for me (as in, it's mandatory that they be available, should I want them).
 

Orca

Member
Not sure if it was mentioned, but backing up your saves is automatic on Xbox One. They all get saved to the cloud as well as locally.
 
Gamepad >>>>>>> Mouse + Keyboard

Also nothing can't beat gaming on the couch.

Completely irrelevant to the OP.

Also a horribly silly misconception. I refuse to believe there are still actually people who don't know you can both play with a controller and on a couch on PC. So I'm guessing you're probably just trolling.
 
Don't you miss the things the OP is talking about (and many others too, like the simple power of making your own decisions of what to screenshot rather than having the publisher make those decisions for you) when playing console exclusives?

I know I do. (Which is one reason why I've mostly stopped)

I prefer the PC way to do it, but those things are a very small part of my gaming time. I barely take any screenshots. In the OP's examples, backing up saves is something I'm content to allow built-in solutions to take care of. Steam cloud is more or less a console-type solution- I don't think about it, it just happens. Being able to manually back up saves it for older games is good, but for me personally a non-issue since I never take advantage of it.

As far as modding goes, the games I play on consoles (Halo, Uncharted, Zelda etc) are the type that, if they were on PC, we probably wouldn't be able to mod them anyway. At least, beyond the level that you usually work at - forcing AA, uncapping the framerate or hacking a resolution fix into it.

I think the only time I go "damn I wish this was on PC" is if a game has real rough technical spots or is clearly being held back by the technology. It's comparatively rare these days - first party titles tend to be pretty polished, the rougher games are usually the multiplats.
 

Unity2012

Member
Controller is much more comfortable for my arms and body than the stance needed to use Keyboard and Mouse.
This. After working long hours writing or editing on a desk, last thing I want is to bring my keyboard and mouse to the couch. The controller simplifies my gaming time.
 
Console only player who abandoned PC a while ago here. No, I don't "miss" that sort of stuff. I didn't take advantage of those kinds of things when I was playing on PC anyway.

I don't view it as a loss of control because it wasn't something I was controlling in the first place. I can see how someone who did could see it that way, though.

This was pretty much my opinion as well. Every time I gamed on PC I found myself obsessed with fiddling with settings. I love my consoles because I just turn it on and play. :)
 

KJRS_1993

Member
Because some "things" are just stupid.

So effectively, "stop liking things I don't like because what you like is stupid", and then it's okay to be a nob with people who don't agree. That's never been okay dude.

Not being into, say, mayonnaise comparison wars is a reasonable attitude, being annoyed that shop owner stocks multiple kinds of mayonnaise on the bottom shelf is not.

I've got no idea how that analogy ties anything together.

Some people love to pick and choose their experience to suit them perfectly. Some people like less options and to just "get on with it". I'm Option B, I can understand why people would choose A.
 
I grew up playing on PC and only recently started playing on consoles, so I'm still used to how stuff works on PC. I often like the simplicity and ease of use though, as i find it helps me just get into the game more easily, but while I do enjoy that aspect, I do sometimes miss some aspects of PC.

The biggest one was being able to take screenshots ingame but the share button on PS4 works quite well. The other one I can think of that hasn't been resolved yet is how come the PS4 doesn't auto-start a disc once it's inserted. The PS3 can, and most media devices from radios and DVD players do.

I tend to buy a console for its exclusives and am more concerned with just being able to play the game, so so far the tradeoff (and the exclusives) have far outweighed the few "I wish I could change this" issues.
 

Soar

Member
Been mostly a PC gamer the last 20 years or so because I love my sims and strategy titles, but lately I really like the simplicity of gaming on the console. Work in dev so it's nice to not give a damn and just dive in. Options like how Nioh does it is enough for me. Used to actually spend more time tweaking a game on the pc than playing because that's fun but that's changed in the last few years. All the power to PC's configure power though.
 
I play on both, and it's definitely a factor in what I play.

Big open world, modable RPG's, or games I'm going to want to have a lot of save files for and really experiment with different play styles, PC every time.

Everything else though, I actually appreciate the ease of consoles just doing everything for me, especially as I have fast enough broadband that patches and updates are usually less time than it takes to fix a brew. Controls all well and good, but usually I just want to veg out and let the hardware do all the work for me.
 
No, actually the opposite.

I often find that PC gaming has the Paradox of Choice happening. And that PC gamers sometimes enjoy gaming the game more than actually playing the game. The older I get, the more gaming has become a disposable hobby I do in the down-time between all the other things I want to do. Whereas, when I was younger, I was much more dedicated to squeezing every last ounce of the 'experience' of gaming out of each product.

PC gaming is for those dedicated to putting in the effort to maximize the experience.
Consoles are for sitting on your couch and playing a quick couple of games a few times a week between your other hobbies and interests.

I'm definitely more of a console gamer now.
 
Pretty often, yeah. Control over my experience is the main reason why the PC is my primary platform.

It's been driving me insane while playing Splatoon 2 lately. I feel like I've been fighting the gyro controls for the past 20 hours because I'm not given enough options to tweak them how I'd like. I've been spoiled by the steam controller and its configuration tool.
 

Kuosi

Member
As I only play exclusives on consoles it doesnt bother me that much, I simply accept the limitations and make do with it, sure if I had to fully convert to console gaming the deal would be different. Have to say what I miss the most is steam controller, that thing is just brilliant compared to traditional controllers
 

autoduelist

Member
PC to console gamer.... I welcome the lack of control. Because in exchange, I don't waste time on fiddling with stuff like that, and time is worth a lot to me nowadays.

I mean, heck, last night I spent 4 hours trying to get my laptop's internet up and running. F that. There were so many control panels... the main connection, network connections, device manager, intel's app, network and sharing control.

Sure, I had 'control'.... but so much so that after 4 hours of googling and trying solutions I gave up. my ps4 does not offer that level of control... but it does just work. I'm okay with that.

it would be nice to have mods, sure, but it's pretty understandable why they don't allow it.
 

terrible

Banned
Pretty much constantly. There are so many little things that you generally can't do on console and they all add up. If there weren't console exclusives and all my friends had gaming PCs I'd stop playing console games.
 

m00h

Banned
Yes, everything you mentioned. The only consoles that I accept are made by Nintendo, for obvious reasons. I can live without Sony and Microsoft exclusives. Almost everything on a console feels inferior to me, compared to the PC. I also don't feel the plug and play argument, since the PC feels a lot more plug and play to me than a console.
 

cyress8

Banned
I mean, heck, last night I spent 4 hours trying to get my laptop's internet up and running. F that. There were so many control panels... the main connection, network connections, device manager, intel's app, network and sharing control.
Consoles have this problem too. Look at all those NAT problems people constantly complain about on consoles. At least you can fix it on PC.
 

peppers

Member
I mostly feel relieved that stuff just works. In my PC I have an Nvidia card that I overclock in order to play Deus Ex Mankind Divided at a stable frame rate at the native resolution of the monitor, and I have to do stuff like turning my internet off to have the game start (for some reason). Even then, I'm always monitoring the temperature in case it goes higher than I'm comfortable with.

The ideal scenario for me would be a console that's super powerful and gives me high settings while maintaining stable performance.
 

Swarna

Member
I find it annoying enough when PC devs don't let you do some things natively so I'd probably drown on consoles. Something as simple as allowing you to configure joystick acceleration and deadzones is a rarity, for example. Or keeping your sensitivity/FoV the same across different FPS games you play so that you can develop identical muscle memory is out of the question, both because FoV sliders aren't standard or generally changeable and because sensitivity values are nowhere near granular enough in the first place (no decimals, etc). Forced v-sync and no higher refresh rate support so you always have to deal with a minimum amount of atrocious input lag at all times or terrible tearing on 60hz screens for the few games that let you turn it off. You can't do shit about performance drops, either, just gotta accept them in general rather rather than turn something down or upgrade a component. There's a lot of small stuff like this before you even talk about big differences. Yes, I absolutely prefer a customized experience as the one-size fits all approach leaves a lot to be decided.

I am also not convinced that more options correlates to a worse user experience for the layman. Take every console game right now, add in options filled to the brim, and hide it behind an extra hard-to-get-to menu and absolutely nothing will be lost in your "simplicity" while serving users who actually care about tuning their experience somewhat. I don't even need anything crazy like mods on consoles but I'd like a lot more options than is currently standard in general.
 

JimboJones

Member
Yeah it's kinda why I switched over.

I remember thinking it was dumb that you seen no performance increase in 360 titles, when lowering resolution.

Back in the day having to deal with games outputting 720p instead of 1360*768 on HD ready panels.

The usually tiny gains in performance in switching to an SSD on consoles was frustrating too, I mean there was a difference sure but not to the extent that there should be.

Tried changing the fans on 360 because the thing was so loud, made no difference, the quite fans I bought where just as loud lol.
At that point with a 360 in bits on the floor I realized I should probably just get a pc if I wanted to tinker and actually see results.
 
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