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marurun
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Re: Why modern games suck

by marurun Wed Feb 09, 2022 9:00 am

Prince of Persia had a parry before Weaponlord.
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Re: Why modern games suck

by Ack Wed Feb 09, 2022 9:04 am

Good point, I forget about Prince of Persia's combat.
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marurun
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Re: Why modern games suck

by marurun Wed Feb 09, 2022 10:00 am

Here's the thing, though. I don't think all this is REALLY about parrying. I think parrying represents something, and RJ mentioned that already.

Raging Justice wrote:It's the same stupid, parry based gameplay that requires the same perfect timing. And just like Sekiro you and every enemy have stance meters that will break over time...unless of course you master the insane parry timing

Even before parries were a thing Platinum Games was essentially doing the same thing with perfect dodges in their games.


Now I actually agree with the underlying issue, which is that an awful lot of games right now rely on very exacting reaction timing for their difficulty curve, and that curve is pretty steep. I don't know that it's bad for games writ large, but it is bad for me, because as much as I love games I'm pretty bad at them, and I bounce hard off games that do that. I'm in the fortunate position that most of the games that do that don't otherwise look super interesting to me, so the specific implementation of this problem, parrying/dodging, isn't that big a deal (except in Zelda: BotW, but thankfully the timing is a little looser and you can tank in most cases). But there are other representations of that as well, and that is the FuckYouHard platformer. I love the aesthetic of Hollow Knight, but the game is too difficult. I made it a good bit in and hit a wall, and now there's a story I can't complete and a world I can no longer enjoy. It sucks, but thankfully there are enough other games out there I have not nearly enough time to play them.
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Re: Why modern games suck

by Limewater Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:06 pm

In my opinion, the real problem with modern games is that so few of them will be playable in fifteen years.

"Hey, let's dig the old XBox One out of the attic!"

"Yeah!"

"Let's play Blarblo 7!"

"Yeah!"

"Oh, wait. The game disk only has the tutorial level and the servers aren't up anymore so we can't download the eighteen GB update that has the actual game on it."
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Re: Why modern games suck

by Note Fri Feb 11, 2022 12:33 pm

Limewater wrote:In my opinion, the real problem with modern games is that so few of them will be playable in fifteen years.


Totally agree with you on this. I got annoyed by having issues with updates to the console and for certain games on my Xbox 360. That's one of the reasons I started to focus my attention on my older consoles again. It's nice to just throw in a cart or disc and fire up the game, no download needed.
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Re: Why modern games suck

by benderx Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:22 pm

I prefer a complete game or director’s cut game. No unwanted dlc, ads, nfts, incomplete, glitch, drm free, no spyware, non always online, data tracking junk, and no bloatware.
You took too long, now your candy's gone. That's What happens. Bkowwwww. (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻)
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Re: Why modern games suck

by Raging Justice Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:40 pm

marurun wrote:Here's the thing, though. I don't think all this is REALLY about parrying. I think parrying represents something, and RJ mentioned that already.

Raging Justice wrote:It's the same stupid, parry based gameplay that requires the same perfect timing. And just like Sekiro you and every enemy have stance meters that will break over time...unless of course you master the insane parry timing

Even before parries were a thing Platinum Games was essentially doing the same thing with perfect dodges in their games.


Now I actually agree with the underlying issue, which is that an awful lot of games right now rely on very exacting reaction timing for their difficulty curve, and that curve is pretty steep. I don't know that it's bad for games writ large, but it is bad for me, because as much as I love games I'm pretty bad at them, and I bounce hard off games that do that. I'm in the fortunate position that most of the games that do that don't otherwise look super interesting to me, so the specific implementation of this problem, parrying/dodging, isn't that big a deal (except in Zelda: BotW, but thankfully the timing is a little looser and you can tank in most cases). But there are other representations of that as well, and that is the FuckYouHard platformer. I love the aesthetic of Hollow Knight, but the game is too difficult. I made it a good bit in and hit a wall, and now there's a story I can't complete and a world I can no longer enjoy. It sucks, but thankfully there are enough other games out there I have not nearly enough time to play them.


I think it's unfortunate that too difficult is a taboo thing to say these days. The gaming culture has shifted in a way that no longer allows criticism of a game's difficulty. I guess maybe that's due to the success of Souls games. You'll be told to "git gud" or "stop whining". I firmly believe that video games should be challenging, but I also think it's possible to go too far in that direction. Unfortunately, nowadays a game can be as frustratingly hard as possible and will largely just get praised for it.

Like you said though, there are other games to play if one is too hard. I'm thankful for that, but as someone who has always enjoyed melee oriented games I don't like the direction most of them have gone in recent years with every single one having some variation of "perfect dodge" or "perfect parry". Now just to be clear, I don't so much mind the existence of these systems, just the fact that they are not an optional approach to combat. They are the focal point. You HAVE to master them or you will not make progress. THAT is what annoys me. Rather than have interesting games that allow for different approaches to combat for different types of players, now it's perfect parries/dodges or nothing. Sekiro is a perfect example of this. Either you can do it or you can't, and developers really don't care if you can't.
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Re: Why modern games suck

by prfsnl_gmr Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:31 pm

Raging Justice wrote:I think it's unfortunate that too difficult is a taboo thing to say these days. The gaming culture has shifted in a way that no longer allows criticism of a game's difficulty. I guess maybe that's due to the success of Souls games. You'll be told to "git gud" or "stop whining". I firmly believe that video games should be challenging, but I also think it's possible to go too far in that direction. Unfortunately, nowadays a game can be as frustratingly hard as possible and will largely just get praised for it.


I think it’s still OK to say a game is too hard. If a game’s steep challenge makes it not that fun to play, you can say that, and if anyone replies, “git gud,” you can remind them that: (1) games are supposed to be fun; (2) life is too short to be spent playing games that aren’t fun; and (3) no one really cares all that much if you can beat a really hard video game. Like many of the regular posters here, I’ve beaten some really, really tough games. The challenge always made the game more fun and personally rewarding, however, and I don’t put the fact that I’ve beaten R-Type Delta on my resume. I’ve also given up completely on games that were just too hard for their own good, and I don’t regret that decision at all. I don’t, for example, want to spend 9-10 hours getting good at Cosmophony. The first few levels were pretty fun, but this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq1e-5e0zjo

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Re: Why modern games suck

by MrPopo Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:41 am

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I don’t put the fact that I’ve beaten R-Type Delta on my resume.

And that's why the recruiters don't call you back.
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Re: Why modern games suck

by Reprise Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:33 am

marurun wrote:
Reprise wrote:That said, there are a few aspects that I find frustrating.

1. Extended tutorial sections

2. Increasingly complex games

3. Unnecessary and annoying talking, story exposition, characters explaining stuff in an obnoxious way.


I have some thoughts on these as well.
1. This arose as a response to the problem of players leaping into games and being confused because they don’t bother to read manuals. There is a very high chance of losing a player if they are confused or frustrated in a game world, so this is an attempt to acclimate players in a way they can’t route around easily. Better developers do this in less disruptive ways. Poor developers do not.
2. Complexity in games is not a new thing at all. Some early PC games were often needlessly complex (sometimes for all the wrong reasons). If you are talking about shoe-horning systems into games that don’t “need” then, that’s not an issue of complexity but rather a mismatch of game styles and expectations.
3. Game developers have wanted to do that forever, but only could when storage got cheaper. You see early signs of it in some SNES and it takes off in PS1-era and GBA games. Basically, it was inevitable.


You make some good comments, but I don't think I articulated my as well as I could.

1. And I do understand this. It makes perfect sense and it's a natural progression that games have made. Not every person is the kind of person who can learn and pick things up by reading a dry instruction manual, plenty of people are visual learners who learn best through doing and by being shown things. In a way it has made games more accessible.

What I am talking about though, is probably more bad design, but I have also played plenty of amazing games with phenomenal gameplay that still have drawn out or boring tutorial sections. I don't know how to explain it, but I don't really like tutorial sections that don't feel organically interwoven into the game. I dislike it when they have tried to make it feel like it is woven into the game, but it's really obvious you are playing an extended tutorial section. I feel like good games gradually introduce you to the mechanics and it all connects seamlessly, whilst the annoying "tutorial sections" I mean are very much part of the game, but it's obvious you are playing a tutorial and the cut between it and the wider game is more jarring.

I also hate really obnoxious tutorial sections, for example: you move your character for three seconds, game pauses *press X to jump", move your character for two seconds, game abruptly pauses again "use the right stick to move the camera" etc. I dislike ones where it cynically puts you into a battle scenario and you take no damage and it holds your hand through each move with abrupt pauses and button commands.

2. I know this. I grew up with PC gaming. That's not entirely what I am talking about. I am talking about how more complex nearly every game and genre is nowadays. Perhaps my complaint again is more about bad design. That said, I am coming from this angle from someone whose brother has autism and special educational needs and disabilities is the area I have worked in most of my adult life. I feel like the barrier to entry for some is now higher than it was. I can think of a couple of examples.

The first example is cumbersome or multiple menus. Back "in the day" most games had one menu. You pressed "start" and it brought up everything you needed. Now a lot of games have 2 and sometimes even 3 different menus and it can get really confusing. Look at the new Pokemon game. If you want to access your inventory, the save function, look at your Pokemon and a few other things, you need to press the 'UP' button on the d-pad. Now if you want to access your pokedex to properly view your Pokemon and the research tasks you need to complete in order to complete your pokedex, then you need to press the 'DOWN' button your d-pad. Now if you want to view your map, main quests and side quests though, you need to press the "-" button. That's three menus to remember to use when it could have all been amalgamated into one menu. And whilst that example may be "bad design", it really is incredibly common to have multiple different menus for different functions and I just think it's a bit confusing and annoying at times.

The other example is how many different buttons and gameplay functions games have. Look at Sonic games. I understand that the transition to 3D means more design inevitably gets more complex and Sonic is perhaps an extreme example, since the games are often derided for their "poor" 3D games (hey, I actually like most of them, but different strokes for different folks I guess), but anyways, I digress. In the original Sonic games, all you needed to know to play is the direction buttons and one button that was used to jump and to form a spin dash. Since then, you have a homing a attack to use, you can use a 'light speed dash' to zip along multiple rings in a row (a functionality that is needed to progress in some games), there's a function to do a bounce jump thing in some games I think, there's a boost button in some games, there's the wisp powers to use, in one of the games there's a homing kick attack and a normal homing attack and you use different versions to defeat different enemies. It can all be a little overwhelming.

Even Mario Odyssey, an absolutely fantastic game, has an insane number of 'moves' to remember. I returned to that game late last year and found it completely overwhelming coming back to it and trying to learn all the moves you use to navigate the levels.

3. Sure, I guess. But it's still annoying. As someone else said, having forced walking sections where you talk to characters or having characters telling you the entire plot, because the think the audience can't keep up is just bad writing. If the story captivates me and it's the kind of game where the story is a central part of the game, then great, but if it's a 2D platformer or, I don't know, a run n gunner or something (I don't know), maybe don't make me go through pages and pages of text or talking. I'm not playing a visual novel.
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