Dumb things that PC games should not do by 2013

[StrangerGuy]

To list a few:

1. Volume sliders that is too soft even on max. Easily solved with checkbox to boost volume +10/20 dB. But programming that is hard, bro, so I have to cater to this special snowflake game with my worn out speaker volume knob when everything else doesn't screw with me. Thanks.

2. No option to disable depth of field and motion blur, or bundling either one with things like Post-FX *cough* Saints Row 3 *cough*. The eye pain, make it stop.

3. Non-instantaneous alt-tabbing. Or making alt-tab changing the game from fullscreen to windowed mode, because that absolutely make perfect sense TO ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

Anyway, Devs won't give a shit because we gamers are just entitled idiots and they are lazy assholes.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Shhh..you're talking craziness and making assumptions games are made for PC's in mind.

 

[Schfifty Five]

To list a few:

1. Volume sliders that is too soft even on max. Easily solved with checkbox to boost volume +10/20 dB. But programming that is hard, bro, so I have to cater to this special snowflake game with my worn out speaker volume knob when everything else doesn't screw with me. Thanks.

2. No option to disable depth of field and motion blur, or bundling either one with things like Post-FX *cough* Saints Row 3 *cough*. The eye pain, make it stop.

3. Non-instantaneous alt-tabbing. Or making alt-tab changing the game from fullscreen to windowed mode, because that absolutely make perfect sense TO ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

Anyway, Devs won't give a shit because we gamers are just entitled idiots and they are lazy assholes.

Agree with 1 and 3. Don't really have an issue with 2.

 

[sandorski]

Call of Duty(x++)
Checkpoint Saves, some exceptions
Register some new service/User/etc
No custom Keymapping
Loading Remote Content/News
"Lol, Fail, your dead...please wait until I load the Hit <button> to reload from last save...lol"

 

[Mutilator]

Locking the FOV to 60.

For the Battlefield series specifically - not being able to bind thumb mouse buttons until after the 1st patch, or 1 week. Whichever takes longer. Has been a problem in every single Battlefield game I've played on day 1 going back to 1942. Didn't play BF3 - maybe they fixed it, but I doubt it. Stop using the same base source code or at least slipstream in the 1st patch lol.

Excessive view bob.

In game voice (team or all talk) always on with no option to disable.

I could go on and on but in reality we're not #1 anymore - consoles are. And now that everything connects to the Internet it seems the developers have no need or real interest in releasing a nearly perfect, polished game anymore. They throw out some 50-85% complete slightly polished turd and then patch the hell out of it over the next year until they release the next version of the same basic thing. I kinda miss the old days where the games were actually finished when they hit the shelves and in the case of PC games the community created the mods & maps - not the developers who call them DLC (and charge for them).

 

[DaveSimmons]

Checkpoint saves.

"Buying" vehicles that disappear as soon as you close the program and can't be saved to a garage (Just Cause 2 - makes them pretty much worthless).

 

[you2]

No save option (though this works fine in some games; others not so well) and I absolutely hate games that say press B button or RL button when I'm using k/b mouse.

 

[Maximilian]

3. Non-instantaneous alt-tabbing. Or making alt-tab changing the game from fullscreen to windowed mode, because that absolutely make perfect sense TO ANNOY THE CRAP OUT OF ME.

The worst part of this is games never used to have this issue... just like print screen used to work the way you think it would in games...

Something technical changed behind the scenes and i dont know what it was

 

[Elcs]

Copying other "successful" games in almost every way to try to engineer the same success as the one it copies.

It never works, you get palmed off as a 'XYZ-clone' and you stifle innovation which annoys gamers.

 

[JamesV]

1. Quick Time Events - nothing like having to do a QTE over and over and over til you know the exact sequence; cept maybe pulling teeth.

2. Have hardcoded keybinds you can't change in options like the Enter key (used by many arrow key users as default 'use' key).

3. Run on one core, when it's obvious the game could benefit by using multiple cores.

4. Be released with DLC already available; aka cutting parts of the final game to be released as DLC.

5. Run better on either ATI or NVidia because an exclusive deal does not give the other manufacturer advance chance to optimize.

 

[penske2298977]

absolutely agree -----> QTE's are horrible --- the other thing is pathetic scripting (mostly seen with COD and a few other FPS's) wherein passing an invisible barrier causes enemies to either stop spawning or continue to spawn until the next line is crossed.

 

[Daverino]

Unskippable intro movies. . .

 

[Midwayman]

4. Be released with DLC already available; aka cutting parts of the final game to be released as DLC.

FWIW this is mostly a misunderstanding with consumers. Games can be released feature complete and have day 1 DLC. The thing is the art teams generating content usually finish up before programming is done. They normally might roll onto another project that's earlier in production, but the normal schedule can result in a hire/fire cycle with some art teams as you don't need nearly as many people early on. With day 1 DLC you can keep the extra team on and generate content that was never in the original budget and not have to fire people. Works great. Its kinda like getting pissed because you paid for the normal edition of a game and didn't get the legendary collector edition content for free. Just 'cause something is available doesn't mean you've paid for it.

 

[Schfifty Five]

1. Quick Time Events - nothing like having to do a QTE over and over and over til you know the exact sequence; cept maybe pulling teeth.

2. Have hardcoded keybinds you can't change in options like the Enter key (used by many arrow key users as default 'use' key).

3. Run on one core, when it's obvious the game could benefit by using multiple cores.

4. Be released with DLC already available; aka cutting parts of the final game to be released as DLC.

5. Run better on either ATI or NVidia because an exclusive deal does not give the other manufacturer advance chance to optimize.

QTE are the worst. GOW comes to mind. The problem with that is it takes your attention away from the actual graphics/scene b/c all you are looking at is the button to press on the screen. I mean Kratos may do this super awesome amazing kill move but I won't see it b/c I am constantly only looking for the "AAAAAA, BBBBBBB, Square Square Square, "

 

[ImpulsE69]

Remember the OP is speaking aboutPC gaming...almost every complaint above for current trends in PC games is due to consolitus porting.

About the alt-tab issues. This is more of a Windows 7 focus issue. It didn't used to exist in XP, but has become a problem in Win7 due to Aero mostly. It's something a group of us have been fighting with for some time trying to resolve..and no disabling Aero doesn't always solve the problem.

 

[Soundmanred]

QTEs have ruined a lot of otherwise great games for me.
CastleVania Lords Of Shadow, Tomb Raider, the list goes on...

 

[thespyder]

Unskippable movies of any kind.

Limited saves of any description

Limited controls (made to fit inside a console)

Dumbing down the game so that the console crowd will understand it

Inability to invert the view axis

Reliance on GFWL

Always online

 

[pathos]

2. Have hardcoded keybinds you can't change in options like the Enter key (used by many arrow key users as default 'use' key).

Unskippable intro movies. . .

These 2 things would be my biggest gripes that immediately come to mind.

I remember installing alpha protocal, booting it up, and trying to remap my keys. C key was hard coded to something or other, and I always use it as my "back" key. Promptly closed the game, and never tried to play it again.

 

[Aikouka]

I think it's pretty bad when you see a graphics options section and the best they give you is resolution, fullscreen/windowed, and some other random setting. I think they just don't care that PCs are meant to be more customizable. It's understandable if it's just some 2D game that doesn't need a lot of options, but for a AAA 3D game? That's just pathetic.

 

[teecee33]

1 and 3 for sure. I wish I could customize the window modes more as well.

 

[ThinClient]

FWIW this is mostly a misunderstanding with consumers. Games can be released feature complete and have day 1 DLC. The thing is the art teams generating content usually finish up before programming is done. They normally might roll onto another project that's earlier in production, but the normal schedule can result in a hire/fire cycle with some art teams as you don't need nearly as many people early on. With day 1 DLC you can keep the extra team on and generate content that was never in the original budget and not have to fire people. Works great. Its kinda like getting pissed because you paid for the normal edition of a game and didn't get the legendary collector edition content for free. Just 'cause something is available doesn't mean you've paid for it.

Day 1 DLC is a guaranteed no-purchase from me. If a game comes out for a fucking ridiculous price ($20 is not ridiculous, $60 is ridiculous) AND it has MORE of the story for MORE money, I will turn my nose up at EVER buying the game.

Anymore, game designers are unimaginative and greedy.

 

[ThinClient]

1. Quick Time Events - nothing like having to do a QTE over and over and over til you know the exact sequence; cept maybe pulling teeth.

2. Have hardcoded keybinds you can't change in options like the Enter key (used by many arrow key users as default 'use' key).

3. Run on one core, when it's obvious the game could benefit by using multiple cores.

4. Be released with DLC already available; aka cutting parts of the final game to be released as DLC.

5. Run better on either ATI or NVidia because an exclusive deal does not give the other manufacturer advance chance to optimize.

2) use wads, nerds. The days of using arrow keys in gaming died 20 years ago

3) absolutely

4) even developed as additional story, it should be included in the day-one release for free (or released later for free if it's not done at day 1) if development began before the game was released.

5) Game designers cannot control which company has a better suite of drivers. ATI and NVidia are not mirror images. They do not have identical products. Someone's WILL run better than the other. Just buy NVidia to avoid this issue in the future.

 

[Bateluer]

3. Run on one core, when it's obvious the game could benefit by using multiple cores.

I was just having a discussion on this over at /r/pcmasterrace. There's an article a poster linked showing the differences in multicore performance in applications vs games. In the case of the applications, they were seeing up to 150% gains going from single to dual to quad to hex to octo. In games, negligible. We're blaming console oriented development for this, since the 360 and PS3 are basically single core devices with some extras tacked on.

It'll be interesting to see the development of games over the next few years now that the new consoles are true, albeit slow, multicore systems.

 

[Scooby Doo]

WADS is pretty bad, I'm using the arrows, although I have the Merc keyboard for gaming so thats a completely different matter LOL.

Limited saves should back to the 80's where they belong. Yes, please, an option to disable DOF, it looks nice in pictures, in motion.. not so good.

 

[motsm]

FWIW this is mostly a misunderstanding with consumers. *snip*

Yes, I've heard this excuse, and quite frankly, I say tough sh*t. Somehow game studios existed for decades before launch day DLC, and impossibly some studios exist without it now. *Oh, but the climates changed for game developers, whaAAH* There's plenty of ways to occupy peoples time without taking advantage of the thousands of stupids just chomping at the bit to waste their money. Of course part of me understands these dolts can waste their cash how they want, but it just perpetuates the practice, and studios seem to get brazenly worse every year.

I'd also like to add that it's often a crock of sh*t that they do all of the work post completion. I don't know how many times I've seen DLC content art released pre launch, or in collectors editions art books before the DLC even apparently exists, or hear about it in year old interviews before they change it to DLC content. Maybe they don't start putting all of the pieces together until after the game is done, but it seems to me a large amount of production gets done before hand.