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What are some example of excellent QoL features in video games.

haxan7

Volunteered as Tribute
Ironic, since I remember it at its original launch when it was the exact opposite.
That's one of the reasons the game succeeded as much as it has. They went into full fan butt-kissing mode and basically developed every feature players could ever have wanted and kept doing that up until now.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Any game that adds options to customize difficulty so you can focus more on the story/narrative elements.

I don't want my 50~80hrs RPGs to get stuck because I'm in an unwinable situation for not speccing an exact way.
 
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Jaybe

Member
An accurate benchmark test that reports on CPU and GPU usage.
Setting change predictive impact to said GPU usage, CPU, and VRAM.
 

01011001

Banned
Too much QoL is a good indication of a poorly designed game, the struggle is a key part of the experience.

like certain HD re-releases of certain PS1 "classics"



















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01011001

Banned
every shooter's controller settings should look like this:
maxresdefault.jpg


also any first person shooter that doesn't have FOV settings should be instantly called out on it!
 

01011001

Banned
Not sure what exactly you are talking about but I bought the PC version of FFVII on Steam last year and it was so trash I uninstalled it and used an emulator instead.

the HD re-releases added options that basically let you more or less skip everything gameplay related. you can turn off random encounters, turn on that you always have a full Limit bar, you can fast forward walking...

I wonder why they felt the need to add all of that 🤔 🤔 🤔 I wouldn't add that if I felt that the game I am selling is a well designed game and fun to play
 
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the HD re-releases added options that basically let you more or less skip everything gameplay related. you can turn off random encounters, turn on that you always have a full Limit bar, you can fast forward walking...

I wonder why they felt the need to add all of that 🤔 🤔 🤔 I wouldn't add that if I felt that the game I am selling is a well designed game and fun to play
The gameplay aged like milk on that one. :messenger_persevering:

I was surprise that the graphics ugly as it is still held up much better than the gameplay.

Still a great game despite all that somehow.
 
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01011001

Banned
The gameplay aged like milk on that one. :messenger_persevering:

I was surprise that the graphics ugly as it is still held up much better than the gameplay.

I don't wanna go on too much of a tangent, but my philosophy on that is that games do not age badly or age well...
my philosophy is what people are actually saying is that it was always bad, but at the time we were simply not used to better games and or were blinded by graphics or other things and simply didn't mind that the gameplay itself was pretty shit.

this is my stance on it because of the games that """aged well""", why did they "age well" because they were always miles above the rest that didn't.
we just didn't know any better due to a lack of comparison for reasons like having a limited budget as a kid, having a limited scope due to the absence of the internet in most people's lives or a limited selection of actually good games that were around to compare them to.

Chrono Trigger for example wouldn't need many, if any, QoL additions at all, because it always was just a way better game. I never played any of the modern re-releases of that game, did they add anything comparable to that? I would bet not.

IMO games have no excuse for that, because during that time-frame there were games on the market that will remain timeless because they were well designed from the very start and didn't need the hindsight of 20 years of development in the industry to change things in order to stay fun to play.
good game design is good game design, and it will never just become bad...

so yeah, that's how I see this, I simply don't wanna give games an easy excuse for being bad I think, because I know that they didn't need to be in the first place, otherwise the "well aged" games wouldn't exist
 

Vargavinter

Member
• Autorun
• Auto drive to waypoints
• Being able to change from having to hold down a button to activate/loot etc to a single click.
• Removing having to hammer buttons during a QTE with just a single click
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
every shooter's controller settings should look like this:
maxresdefault.jpg


also any first person shooter that doesn't have FOV settings should be instantly called out on it!
For flying games, I want ultra novice control options like old Ace Combat games. I want no yaw. AC7's novice controls had it.

I just want to use LS to turn and pitch, and my LT/RT to gas and brake like a car. Literally like playing Afterburner.
 

A.Romero

Member
I think some of the stuff that has been listed has more to do with game design than QoL.

To me QoL would be stuff like deleting stuff from the inventory with the least amount of clicks possible or the possibility to hide the HUD.

Limiting saving is usually something to do with game design and it's an integral part of gameplay meaning that if you took that away the mechanics wouldn't fit as well.

That said, fav QoL stuff from my perspective:

- Flexibility to sort stuff in the inventory
- Action over several items in the inventory at the same time (trash, drop, etc)
- Being able to change HUD brightness separately from overall brightness or even generally customizing HUD
- Being able to chose audio device (headphones, speakers, TV, etc) and where the speakers are located
 
I liked how in Nioh 2, the skill trees for each weapon was pretty big, but you could flag skills you wanted so you wouldn't forget about them as you were accumulating skill points to be able to unlock them
 

Belthazar

Member
Fast travel to different parts of a town how it was implemented in Persona 5. Just press a button and you have access to anywhere you can go. Simple but saves so much time, especially in a long-ass game like that.

I would love if it was implemented in more games like... You're in town a and can just press a button to open a menu with all points of interest like shops and whatnot.
 

GymWolf

Member
Having all the difficulty mode available for the first run instead of being blocked by crappy requisites.

The irony is that majority of people don't even finish games, let alone doing a second run with higher difficulty level...absolutely retarded way of doing things.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Having all the difficulty mode available for the first run instead of being blocked by crappy requisites.

The irony is that majority of people don't even finish games, let alone doing a second run with higher difficulty level...absolutely retarded way of doing things.
I'm not someone who plays on hard difficulties anymore, but I can totally understand your post. Why they lock harder difficulties behind finishing the game first on Normal or some shit like that is weird.

There's got to be some kind of revenue or usage reason. Like gamers who gun for expert difficulty makes them more money through mtx since those gamers spend double or triple the time playing the game over and over again.

Or they can brag to wall street that gamers spend lots of time playing their games (some kind of minutes or hours usage stat). So if they can force dedicated gamers to play the story twice, that's double the play time making the game look good on paper.
 

GymWolf

Member
I'm not someone who plays on hard difficulties anymore, but I can totally understand your post. Why they lock harder difficulties behind finishing the game first on Normal or some shit like that is weird.

There's got to be some kind of revenue or usage reason. Like gamers who gun for expert difficulty makes them more money through mtx since those gamers spend double or triple the time playing the game over and over again.

Or they can brag to wall street that gamers spend lots of time playing their games (some kind of minutes or hours usage stat). So if they can force dedicated gamers to play the story twice, that's double the play time making the game look good on paper.
I still think they are retarded but it may be as you say.
 

Esca

Member
Which games do this?
I have memory problems so I can't recall but the was a few. It is rare and I wish more games did it. It's extremely helpful for me.

I have to look at controls and read journal or whatever I can to have an idea what is going on when I start a game up because I literally can't remember most most the day from yesterday
 

EruditeHobo

Member
Skipping cutscenes, and more recently Replay cutscenes. I think I've only seen the latter in TLOU2, maybe I'm forgetting something.

Should be in all "cinematic" narrative-focused games.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
Yep. I'm all for actual "quality of life" improvements in UI and controls that allow you to "do the same thing more efficiently", but what a lot of people seem to want, often, is convenient cheats.
Except not everything that's convenient makes a game better. Sometimes the opposite is true.
A gun with infinite ammo and one-shot-kill capabilities would be super convenient too, but it would wreck the game's balance and challenge on the long run.
No. Infinite ammo and OHKO is a cheat. Nobody would call it a QoL feature.
QoL features remove grind and clunkiness. Auto-pickup of materials in Elden Ring, especially while on horseback, would have been a nice QoL feature. But nope, apparently everything in those games has to be, at the very least, a nuisance.


Too much QoL is a good indication of a poorly designed game, the struggle is a key part of the experience.

The ultimate QoL feature is to skip the game entirely, it's peak convenience.
I like to think you were banned for this comment.
Sometimes, the struggle is just bad design. The godawful encounter rate in some old RPGs, for example, is just a pain in the ass, and prevented me from enjoying classics such as FF6.
Emulating the PS versions of games like FF7 when you can simply, you know, not activate the QoL features in the newest versions is some quality 🤡 world stuff. Even so, not having to grind hundreds of trivial enemies just to master one single move/power is a godsend in an age where you have literal dozens of games you could play a month. The loading times of a PS Final Fantasy alone amounted to a full playthrough of several games. Ain’t nobody got time for that in 2022.
 

Sentenza

Member
No. Infinite ammo and OHKO is a cheat. Nobody would call it a QoL feature.
QoL features remove grind and clunkiness. Auto-pickup of materials in Elden Ring, especially while on horseback, would have been a nice QoL feature. But nope, apparently everything in those games has to be, at the very least, a nuisance.
Instant fast travel from anywhere to everywhere is convenient.
The removal of tiredness/exhaustion making superfluous to "rest" in a RPG is convenient.
Unlimited inventories are convenient.
Omniscient minimaps ang GPS trackers that spoil everything in your surrounding are convenient as well.

I'd still argue that none of the above makes for a better game.
If you think otherwise it's your prerogative. To suck.
 

The_hunter

Member
Having all the difficulty mode available for the first run instead of being blocked by crappy requisites.

The irony is that majority of people don't even finish games, let alone doing a second run with higher difficulty level...absolutely retarded way of doing things.
There was a recent rpg ff7R that had this. But, the hard mode was meant to be played at max level, which is quite enjoyable.
 

GymWolf

Member
There was a recent rpg ff7R that had this. But, the hard mode was meant to be played at max level, which is quite enjoyable.
Everytime i hear that, i remember about ultra hard in horizon and how it was supposed to be a game plus+ experience but me an many players enjoyed doing a first run on ultra hard and i was pissed off when horizon 2 didn't had ultra hard from the start.

And with that i'm not saying that i'm some super skilled player or anything like that, i died hundreds of times in horizon ultra hard, but some people only do a single run with a game and they want to experience tha max difficulty and subsequential sense of progression in their first, unique, most importan run.

But yeah i guess that some games have a better excuse than others.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
There was a recent rpg ff7R that had this. But, the hard mode was meant to be played at max level, which is quite enjoyable.
I never played FF7R but since it's an RPG, I can see why extra hard modes are locked. Your characters in RPGs are so gimped there's no point. A gamer would be grinding away forever to get to a reasonable level to progress.

But in action games, a gamer with good skills can immediately jump in to hard mode and do fine.

It's like the 16 bit days. Play the game on default normal and it's a breeze and a waste of money as you'd cheese through the game. Go to settings/options, set it on Hard or Hardest and it's more challenging and gets your moneys worth. The option is there for gamers of all skills.
 

GymWolf

Member
I never played FF7R but since it's an RPG, I can see why extra hard modes are locked. Your characters in RPGs are so gimped there's no point. A gamer would be grinding away forever to get to a reasonable level to progress.

But in action games, a gamer with good skills can immediately jump in to hard mode and do fine.

It's like the 16 bit days. Play the game on default normal and it's a breeze and a waste of money as you'd cheese through the game. Go to settings/options, set it on Hard or Hardest and it's more challenging and gets your moneys worth. The option is there for gamers of all skills.
You can still balance the numbers and make like an almost impossible mode from the start, it's not like you are forcing anyone to play that mode.
 
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