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[TheGamingBox]

As a busy father of one feisty little monkey, I've always been able to quit out very quickly to deal with any problems. I find it funny that so many players take issue with the lack of a dedicated, in-game pause when they can quit out and return to precisely where they were very quickly. If that isn't good enough, perhaps there isn't time to be playing such a game.

Having to quit out of the game entirely takes literally no time at all and serves pretty much the same function as an in-game pause. The main difference I see is that, once you are in the game, you are in the game and there is no in-game safety net to fall back on. Once in, you have to be 'on' at all times in DS's world and it kind of makes the experience that little bit more threatening, I think. It almost expects you to give it your full attention or to leave, and I don't see anything wrong with some games demanding that from players.

so if i have to leave my room for a couple minutes i should quit the game

that is objectively bad game design and no bullshit excuses made by fans will change that

 

[Ritzboof]

The worst example of this in my mind is Pikmin 2. There's one treasure which demands you have a full party of Purple Pikmin. Which involves going into dungeons to use the flowers that convert other Pikmin into purples, because you don't get them from defeated enemies like red/blue/yellow. And I think the flowers were limited use too. Fuck that game.

when i got to this point, i had about 40 some purple pikmin. the easiest place i can think to get more in a timely manner would be one of those first caves you go through that have no boss, which has 2 purple flowers at the end to transform your pikmin. thats only 10 you can get out of a single run, though

this is the only case in pikmin 2 that i can associate with shitty grinding. ive spent a day every now and then just cultivating more pikmin and sprays, but thats an effort that involves killing shit and getting pellets and junk, and you can split and coordinate your pikmin and multitask, and you can really work on whatever you need. thats real gameplay, but in the case of the big dumbbell treasure, run through some caves youve already finished multiple times so that you can get as many purple pikmin as you wouldve gotten doing the last 3 areas 100%. its not that bad of an ordeal, i guess, but its so shitty and arbitrary in comparison to the rest of the game, which is just clever management of your pikmin

/rant because that bothered me, too


i can think of far more grueling things games have made me do, though. the worst for me is when you have to complete some arbitrary task, like a tutorial or something, to access a significant mode of gameplay or something. that kinda thing can be a great reward for doing well, but its annoying to have to do a campaign in order to have multiplayer, for instance. i hate it when my friends and/or i have to go through an entire tutorial or something in order to play, when we just wanna sit down and play together

i think MMOs are usually the worst with this, they more often than not take like an hour+ of junk before you can go out and about freely

i also didnt really like that i have to beat the main campaign of custom robo in order to use CPUs in the versus mode

 

[Bold One]

The entire souls series

 

[jqdunn]

Mafia 3

 

[rackham]

World of Warcraft used to be heavily based on wasting time and grinding.

 

[Jarnet87]

Nothing like the good old days of EQ where you would log on to get some exp for a few hours and end the night with a quarter of your level lost and a big corpse run mission for the next day.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The entire MMO genre pretty much covers the thread.

 

[Vaudeville Villain]

Any game where you can't pause.

Imagine you are in a tough boss battle for example in Dark Souls 3. Now you have to go to the bathroom otherwise you will literally shit your pants. But you can't pause!

Lmao, go to the bathroom before the fight!

 

[oatmeal]

Animal crossing new leaf has so many loading screens it's absurd.

 

[entremet]

"takes a long time" = / = "doesn't respect my time"

If you feel it doesn't respect your time, why even play?

I'll grant y'all offline should have a pause feature, but not having that is a looooong way away from saying that it doesn't respect your time, especially since saving and quitting works so easily everywhere except bossfights.

But otherwise, they are literally the worst example you could possibly name. It means you either don't understand what is meant by the concept of disrespecting the player's time, or you just want them to be easier.

Well I'm not alone reading this thread.

I love the games, but a lot of it based on trial and error mechanics that punish quicker feedback loops.

For example, why do I need to make a mad dash to the boss encounter when learning a new a boss?

Why can't I just have an option to restart at the boss like many excellent, yet tough action games do--Bayonetta, DMC, Ninja Gaiden?

Luckily the boss rooms aren't too far from most bonfires, but in a game with trial and error gameplay, it adds up over a play session into hours of basically wasted time.

That's not respecting a player's time IMO. I still adore the games and many of the ardent fans find that "old school" style welcoming since losing hurts and it creates a tension. Not me.

Ninja Gaiden Black is one hella hard game but you rarely have to traverse long areas to replay a boss.

Again, I don't mind losing and getting good. I love it but running across the same areas gets extremely boring and tedious.

 

[Garou]

Dark Souls

The fact that you can very easily lose all of your souls (=part of your game progress) is directly disrespecting the players time invested in the game.

 

[Coriolanus]

Never quite got the complaint over not being able to pause in the souls games. Would make more sense if a lotta mobs roamed, but nearly all of them will stay perfectly put forever. Plus, after you've triggered them, pretty much all regular mobs die considerably fast.

With bosses the complaint makes more sense, but, well... they bosses. No rest or respite until someone's dead.

 

[kjacobson]

Destiny

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Dark Souls

The fact that you can very easily lose all of your souls (=part of your game progress) is directly disrespecting the players time invested in the game.

Souls aren't generally that important. And in the end, you can very comfortably beat the game only leveling up using the souls you get from bosses anyway (which are almost never very easy to lose).

Well I'm not alone reading this thread.

I love the games, but a lot of it based on trial and error mechanics that punish quicker feedback loops.

For example, why do I need to make a mad dash to the boss encounter when learning a new a boss?

Why can't I just have an option to restart at the boss like many excellent, yet tough action games do--Bayonetta, DMC, Ninja Gaiden?

Luckily the boss rooms aren't too far from most bonfires, but in a game with trial and error gameplay, it adds up over a play session into hours of basically wasted time.

That's not respecting a player's time IMO. I still adore the games and many of the ardent fans find that "old school" style welcoming since losing hurts and it creates a tension. Not me.

Ninja Gaiden Black is one hella hard game but you rarely have to traverse long areas to replay a boss.

Again, I don't mind losing and getting good. I love it but running across the same areas gets extremely boring and tedious.

Well, the Souls games are different games. They don't really need to share the same retry structure.

But it fits. Souls bosses (generally, unless you're doing intense challenge runs) are far easier than Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden bosses. Not being able to retry them immediately upon death also impacts the mentality you approach them with - allowing immediate retries would then promote less thoughtful play, enabling players of lesser skill to more easily win fights through trial and error (throwing themselves at the fight again and again until they get lucky and slip through, instead of having to take every attempt seriously).

 

[cpp_is_king]

Dark Souls

The fact that you can very easily lose all of your souls (=part of your game progress) is directly disrespecting the players time invested in the game.

Wrong.

a) by forcing you to be careful and use your brain when going into encounters, it respects your time even more by making sure you don't Leroy Jenkins into every encounter and die right away.

b) souls aren't that important, as evidenced by the fact that people regularly beat the game at SL 1.

c) the game is designed with lost souls in mind, the amount of souls it distributes is tuned such that losing souls from time to time when you die shouldn't severely hamper your progress in the game.

 

[entremet]

Souls aren't generally that important. And in the end, you can very comfortably beat the game only leveling up using the souls you get from bosses anyway (which are almost never very easy to lose).

Yep.

I learned that lesson in Demon's lol. You become desensitized to it after it happens so often lol.

When I was started Dark Souls and I had my first 50k plus loss, I just did a mental shoulder shrug.

It actually made me wistful, thinking how far I'm come in my reactions haha.

 

[Garraboa]

Any game that has missable items, especially within RPGs.

 

[Ogawa-san]

Games with a crafting timer and that aren't F2P on mobile (those too are wasting my time, but whatever).

Freedom Wars had you wait up to 15min. I'm pretty sure they were planing on selling shortcuts to that, but the game never took off so I guess they didn't bother.

Warframe, I played up to the point my second recipe showed up with something like an one day timer. Nope, screw that, I'm out.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Unlearned Lessons Of Generation 7: The Thread

 

[DSix]

It is now the main problem I have with many games, wasting my fucking time for no good reason.

Recently the worst have been:
- MGSV (I finished it but ended up hating it)
- Bravely Default (never finished)
- Persona 3 (never finished)
- Tokyo Mirage #FE (never finished)

It seems most big "hardcore"-targeted Japanese games have a set specification for 40+hours while not having the actual budget/concept for it.
Meaning a LOT of shitty padding that makes their games a complete unfun slog.

It wasn't always like this:
Chrono Trigger is a completionist run at 20 hours (for my first time).
MGS1/2/3 are more like 15 max and those games are amazing.

What the fuck happened? Why do some publishers think they must make huge games full of stupid filler?

 

[Chronospherics]

no they dont, infact there is no reason to not have a way to pause while online when not invaded either, watch dogs allows it, and it has a similar invading feature,

Pausing, whether it's during an invasion or not, affects online play. It stops matchmaking, and would likely affect the message system and whatnot. Also, for the sake of consistency and good UX, it's very unlikely that any game dev is going to dip into inconsistent pause functionality dependent on matchmaking status. What if another guy has been waiting for a while and just as he is found an invader, you pause the game, before it appears on your screen? What if people start tapping pause every now and then to avoid invasions by stopping and starting the matchmaking? It affects the netcode more than you think.

Your example with Watch Dogs is poorly chosen, people frequently disconnect when they are about to be invaded, or lose an invasion. Ubisoft's system for the competitive aspects of their always online experience is awful. However, their experience also has less impact and meaning when compared to Dark Souls, so for the most part it doesn't matter if the system is janky and exploitable.

Which is why I've skipped the last few Souls games and will never play one unless they let me pause. Even though they're otherwise fantastic games. I prefer games that respects the fact that I have a life outside of video games and that I can't simply set aside two hours to play a game uninterrupted.

I have never once felt that not being able to pause the game makes it more "threatening" or whatever. It's just an additional layer of shit there to waste my time.

Being able to pause would mean you would need to be offline, which means the game is directly and objectively, less threatening. You literally get zero invasions, what you 'feel' doesn't change that.

Pause can't exist online, and there's no sense in making a the game a better experience offline (with pause functionality) if you want to encourage people to go online and experience the dynamic player interactions.

You don't have to set aside two hours to play Dark Souls, pause or no. Whenever you're not in combat you can quit to the main menu, you log back in right where you were. It takes about 20 seconds or so, and serves the game better because it is a universal system, across offline and online.

I'm not telling you how to live your life though, if you can't spare time to play the game then that's your business, the game isn't for you, but that doesn't mean shifting its design to suit you, is a good idea, if it's better for the game as a whole without said feature.

As I said, pause incentives offline play, incentivise offline play is bad for the online community and doesn't push people towards the experience the developers wanted players to have. Maybe from will eventually cave and compromise their vision for the sake of accessibility in the future, but I respect their decision either way.

 

[TheGamingBox]

Being able to pause would mean you would need to be offline, which means the game is directly and objectively, less threatening. You literally get zero invasions, what you 'feel' doesn't change that.

Pause can't exist online, and there's no sense in making a the game a better experience offline (with pause functionality) if you want to encourage people to go online and experience the dynamic player interactions.

You don't have to set aside two hours to play Dark Souls, pause or no. Whenever you're not in combat you can quit to the main menu, you log back in right where you were. It takes about 20 seconds or so, and serves the game better because it is a universal system, across offline and online.

I'm not telling you how to live your life though, if you can't spare time to play the game then that's your business, the game isn't for you, but that doesn't mean shifting its design to suit you, is a good idea, if it's better for the game as a whole without said feature.

As I said, pause incentives offline play, incentivise offline play is bad for the online community and doesn't push people towards the experience the developers wanted players to have. Maybe from will eventually cave and compromise their vision for the sake of accessibility in the future, but I respect their decision either way.

that is untrue, you can have the game be able to be paused online, watch dogs proves that it is possible

 

[Valkerionseven]

Metal Gear Solid 5.

- Mission intros and exits unskippable 1-3+ minute sequences of just sitting in a damn chopper. Waiting for a chopper just to exit the damn hub... common with this nonsense.

- R&D times being real world clock counters that do not count down outside of game time.

- Insane times for R&D, hours instead of a few minutes.

- No saves mid mission, very few check points.

- Objectives fairly far from your starting point.

All the things that make me not play games. Would have loved to finish this last title in the franchise but damn I only made it to the second chapter before dropping this. Maybe when I can get it on PC and cheat with a trainer I will go for this again.

Also honorable mention to all the games that want to boast a long play time but have 0 effort in actually making content for it. All the padding that has gone on post PS2 era is baffling. If you got a 20 hour game then fine, but don't have 20 hours of content and bill it as a 60+ hour experience.

 

[KahooTs]

DQ8
Everquest

 

[Orochinagis]

Everyone gone to rapture, Let.Me.Run pls for the love of god

 

[-Mutsukki-]

that is untrue, you can have the game be able to be paused online, watch dogs proves that it is possible

What...? I'm sorry, but that literally impossible. Either it's not really online and it just downloads the data asynchronously or it stops every data from getting into the player's game and I'm pretty sure that would cause all sorts of problems.

 

[Corpekata]

What...? I'm sorry, but that literally impossible. Either it's not really online and it just downloads the data asynchronously or it stops every data from getting into the player's game and I'm pretty sure that would cause all sorts of problems.

With WD it just didn't allow you to pause when involved with MP, before that it did. It was actually used as a way to tell you were being invaded when you couldn't pause.

 

[-Mutsukki-]

With WD it just didn't allow you to pause when involved with MP, before that it did. It was actually used as a way to tell you were being invaded when you couldn't pause.

Oooh I see. But there isn't anything like the phantoms or messages that are in Dark Souls right? I think that's the main thing that prevents it from having a pause button online, so it can be seamless

 

[AntiFacebook]

Any game where you can't save right before a boss.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

"respect the player's time" is a term that needs to go. A game is either fun or it's not.

 

[StarSketch]

League of Legends, though that's multiplayer, and hour long games are usually the fault of yourself and/or the people you got matched with.

Still, most matches go for upwards of 20 minutes, and you can't bail on too many matches else you'll take a matchmaking penalty or a suspension. Also, if you're with bad enough players, no one will give you the 3 votes needed to surrender. So if you thought you could play a quick match before you need to go to class, think again.

 

[privitsan02]

The only real answer is Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. From unskippable helicopter credits to the lack of an actual fast travel option which doesn't involve another minute or two of helicopter waiting, to the R&D real-time waiting and many more things, it's an insult to a gamers time.

The design choices of that game will forever elude me. At least with Souls it makes sense.

Best wishes.

 

[JP_]

I expected people to mention games with awful grinds but it feels like a lot of people here just think progressing in a game should be dependent on time invested rather than skill achieved. No wonder single player games no longer offer challenges.

 

[Frank Underwood]

Most MMOs.
Dragon Age Inquisition.
Xenoblade Chronicles X.

And even The Witcher 3 to an extent (but not as egregious as the others listed but enough to make me not finish it).

 

[Tiduz]

mafia 3 - no quicktravel.

 

[Wavebossa]

Not sure if mentioned but the ending of Grandia 2 is about half the playtime of the entire game.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

Grand Theft Auto, especially GTA Online. So much time spent just driving from point A to point B. Also, the insane and constant loading.

 

[Yagharek]

MGSV is a repeat offender here.

Timers lick balls.

Timers for developing weapons. Timers for deployment of combat teams. Timers for resource processing. Timers for base construction. Timers on top of timers on top of timers on top of timers.

Then there are the side ops.

Travel halfway across the map to clear five mines or knock out some drugged zombie soldier or the same set of tanks and soldiers. Repeat fifteen times each. And don't get me started on replaying all the worst missions with the ghost cunts. Fucking hell.

They could have finished the game if they cut a quarter of that nonsense out.

Played like a damn fiddle.

 

[SilverArrow20XX]

Final Fantasy has become notorious for that.

I was playing FFX HD and was intending to Platinum it. After all, I never fought the Dark Aeons before and that was new content, let alone the new superboss.

... After finish the main campaign - highly overleveled for it as well - I set about getting all the ultimate weapons and maxing out the sphere grids and... hours upon hours upon hours upon hours upon hours of grinding Sphere Points and doing utterly monotonous tasks... and I'm STILL NOWHERE NEAR READY for the Dark Aeons or the optional bosses.

It drove me insane because this wasn't fun content. This wasn't an enjoyable side-quest or a fun mini-game to do on the side. This was DOZENS of hours of grinding the same repetitive things over and over and over again and, after all of it, I realized I was still about a dozen hours away from being strong enough to take them on.

That's insane, and it sunk my opinion of the game as a whole tremendously. A great story with great pacing and it all goes out the window. There's nothing between "strong enough to beat the game" and "strong enough to fight the uber-bosses" but a dozen hours of snooze-inducing button mashing and ridiculous grinding coupled with insufferable mini-games (dodge the lightning 200 times in a row!).

Absolutely no respect for my time. I gave up on it, despite sinking so many hours into my characters post-story.

Where did you grind? There are efficient grinding methods to get specific spheres by fighting early monsters in the arena. I went from last boss level strength to maxed stats in an afternoon. It's still a grind but it's not that bad. Redundantly filling out the rest of the grid after you're maxed is bad. None of it even comes close to the slog of catching 10 of every monster to unlock all the arena fights.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

To me every game that needs lots of grinding, instead of working on balance between enemies,bosses,player,equipment and loot its developers just put monsters and make the players do their work.

This is what I came to say. I really hate grinding.

 

[sora87]

WoW when it comes to alts

 

[KDR_11k]

No Man's Sky. The amount of small, unnecessary waits everywhere adds up quickly.

 

[Screaming Meat]

so if i have to leave my room for a couple minutes i should quit the game

that is objectively bad game design and no bullshit excuses made by fans will change that

Yes. It's a fairly painless procedure. It saves exactly where you were and takes less than a few seconds to perform. Like a pause button, except it has that extra element of taking away a common safety net (as I mentioned in my previous post).

That's not how 'objectively' works, by the way.

 

[Macapala]

Souls aren't generally that important. And in the end, you can very comfortably beat the game only leveling up using the souls you get from bosses anyway (which are almost never very easy to lose).



Well, the Souls games are different games. They don't really need to share the same retry structure.

But it fits. Souls bosses (generally, unless you're doing intense challenge runs) are far easier than Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden bosses. Not being able to retry them immediately upon death also impacts the mentality you approach them with - allowing immediate retries would then promote less thoughtful play, enabling players of lesser skill to more easily win fights through trial and error (throwing themselves at the fight again and again until they get lucky and slip through, instead of having to take every attempt seriously).

No it wouldn't. If I kept losing against a boss it would only make me try harder my next attempt. Every attempt I make would improve my chances of winning because I am learning the boss's attacks and how to avoid/counter them. The only difference between spawning outside the boss's room or at the nearest bonfire is you have to make a mad dash from the bonfire, avoiding all the enemies along the way, back to the boss's room. Even if it only takes 2 mins it's still a waste of time.

 

[Greddleok]

Resident Evil 4.

 

[Jangowuzhere]

As posted earlier, I don't agree that MGSV doesn't respect player's time. A long game isn't the same thing as one that intentionally wastes time and/or isn't fun. The missions themselves are relatively short; it can be picked up and played in short bursts. I *really* don't understand why so many people feel that MGSV wastes their time. If the gameplay wasn't fun, I'd get it.

Most of the criticisms surrounding MGSV make little sense. The whole "doesn't respect player's time" thing is definitely one of the worst.

The only argument for the time wasting thing that sort of makes sense in the timers. Yeah, that stuff is pretty dumb. However, none of that stuff actually "wastes" your time. You can still play and progress through the game just fine as you wait for an upgrade to complete. And honestly, by the time you start seeing timers for equipment progression, you should have all the tools you need to fully complete the game. Everything you get beyond that point makes the game way easier than it probably should.

 

[mcz117chief]

Probably the worst is Dissidia Duodecim. I have over 50 hours in that game and some of my characters are over lvl 70 and yet I am still struggling to amass the necessary materials and money for lvl 1 and 30 equipment!!!!

No, scratch that, it is actually, by far Ace Combat: Infinity. Who played the game knows that the grind there is beyond insanity. Imagine, upgrading high-end planes can cost more than 80 000 000 credits, per normal game, without any payed boosters or anything just by playing free to play, you earn between 8 000 - 10 000 credits.... and it is possible to only play 3 free games per 12 hours (every 4 hours you get one free ticket and you can only have 3 free tickets)

 

[Cepheus]

Mobas. I've lost many a friend to League of Legends, and the entire game is designed to make you play it 24/7 in the hope that you'll spend more money on skins. I swore that I would never let myself get sucked into it, and so far I've kept that promise.

 

[Bravoexo]

Steel Battalion - If you fail to eject...bye bye game progress.

 

[mcz117chief]

the entire game is designed to make you play it 24/7 in the hope that you'll spend more money on skins.

People play it to have fun, not to collect skins (most of them anyway). If there is a nice skin that I like then I will buy it, the prices in the game are very fair unlike Heroes of the Storm where I never bought even a single skin.