Some design choice you question

[Souplex]

I will never understand why dodging can give invincibility frames in the souls series. Dodging should be a simple matter of "Did you get out of the way of the attack". People who roll can live without it if they just git gud.

The invincibility frames represent dodging the enemy attack by moving your body (ducking under an enemy blade, etc). The problem is that in order to have these dodges look realistic they'd have to animate a different dodge for pretty much every attack for every enemy type in the game. That's a shitload of extra animation, literally hundreds of extra hours of work that they'd have to pay for, so instead you get i-frames which take no animation.

If you only had the roll with no i-frames they'd have to make their bosses and enemies much slower since you'd have to roll backward away from an attack, and then spend time running back in to get a hit in. This means that enemies would have to attack less frequently to allow you an opportunity to hit them, or if they left the enemies exactly the same then pretty much everyone would have to play with a shield build.

I-frames aren't really an elegant compromise, but I can totally understand why they're there.

The solution is simple: git gud and block the attack.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I will never understand why dodging can give invincibility frames in the souls series. Dodging should be a simple matter of "Did you get out of the way of the attack". People who roll can live without it if they just git gud.

The invincibility frames represent dodging the enemy attack by moving your body (ducking under an enemy blade, etc). The problem is that in order to have these dodges look realistic they'd have to animate a different dodge for pretty much every attack for every enemy type in the game. That's a shitload of extra animation, literally hundreds of extra hours of work that they'd have to pay for, so instead you get i-frames which take no animation.

If you only had the roll with no i-frames they'd have to make their bosses and enemies much slower since you'd have to roll backward away from an attack, and then spend time running back in to get a hit in. This means that enemies would have to attack less frequently to allow you an opportunity to hit them, or if they left the enemies exactly the same then pretty much everyone would have to play with a shield build.

I-frames aren't really an elegant compromise, but I can totally understand why they're there.

The solution is simple: git gud and block the attack.

Not everyone wants to play with a shield, and blocking basically turns the game into easy mode.

If there's ever a souls boss I'm having trouble with I throw on a tower shield and beat them in one try.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

Not being able to aim your gun in Bloodborne. Just why?!

IIRC you can aim Ludwig's Rifle (and others?) with the monocular. It's not a shooter though. Gun use is mainly a defensive strategy, and it's telling of the game's design when even the main defensive strategy is still an offensive one at heart.

 

[Recusant]

My baffling design choice:
In the TES series, why haven't they added co-op yet? They give us excuses, but all of them can easily be circumvented fairly easily. And I don't doubt that a game like Skyrim would have been a LOT more popular than it already was if it had co-op. Heck, I bet it would have been lauded as the game of the decade if you could play it with even just one friend.

They did. Remember Battlespire?

 

[Casual Shinji]

In Dark Souls it's incredibly easy to break encounters by just using the bow, pulling enemies one by one, and fighting them one at a time.

In Bloodborne they gave you rocks to throw to do the same thing, but the rocks have extremely limited range. If they gave you free aim of the gun people would use that to pull enemies from much farther way, making it easier to break encounters and cheese from range.

The damage the gun does has nothing to do with it.

There's an easy solution to that; Make the gun lose its ability to hit/damage/pull past a certain distance -- like for example the distance it takes to lock on -- which could be indicated by a greyed-out reticle.

And the game's environments in general are so claustrophobic that there's very few places where you could kite enemies from far away even if you did have inlimited range. And as it stands you can still draw enemies away one by one with rocks to dispose of them in a secluded area. The Soulsborne games are typically all about you finding ways to exploit the mechanics to make it easier on yourself.

It's not a shooter though. Gun use is mainly a defensive strategy, and it's telling of the game's design when even the main defensive strategy is still an offensive one at heart.

I know, but if you put a gun in an action game I expect it to have some level of efficiency, which the Bloodborne guns just do not have.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

In Dark Souls it's incredibly easy to break encounters by just using the bow, pulling enemies one by one, and fighting them one at a time.

In Bloodborne they gave you rocks to throw to do the same thing, but the rocks have extremely limited range. If they gave you free aim of the gun people would use that to pull enemies from much farther way, making it easier to break encounters and cheese from range.

The damage the gun does has nothing to do with it.

There's an easy solution to that; Make the gun lose its ability to hit/damage/pull past a certain distance -- like for example the distance it takes to lock on -- which could be indicated by a greyed-out reticle.

And the game's environments in general are so claustrophobic that there's very few places where you could kite enemies from far away even if you did have inlimited range. And as it stands you can still draw enemies away one by one with rocks to dispose of them in a secluded area. The Soulsborne games are typically all about you finding ways to exploit the mechanics to make it easier on yourself.

What would be the point of free aiming the gun if you couldn't shoot it past lock on distance? Why would you even want that ability? What purpose could it possibly serve?

 

[sXeth]

Speaking of movement speed, the forced 'slow walk" segment. Often used to try and instill some kind of drama, or stop the player from outrunning an NPC spouting exposition. I actually don't know how this one even came about. It's more elegant to just have a cutscene if you want to have this sort of thing then arbitrarily shove player input into it that has no purpose.

Those tend to be transitions between areas and are used to hide loading screens. If they used a cutscene instead then they'd have to load the cutscene and you'd get a loading screen anyway.

The last two cases I've encountered of it definitely weren't loading screens. The Monster Hunter World one comes distinctly after a loading screen already, and Destiny's 2 also appears after a loading screen into the mission (while it could hypothetically be loading the background elements, they're not any more dense then show up without loading screens in other areas)

 

[laggyteabag]

SNIP

SNIP

Not a fan of silent protagonists either. I think he was talking more about the purity of the gameplay, how it tells a story with so few interruptions. The game wants you to play. Gordon could have talked and it would have been the same.

You got it, pal.

I dont think that I have ever actually completed Half Life 2, to be frank.

As for silent protagonists, though, I really cannot stand them.

I get that the whole point is for the player to imprint their personality into the character (which I find hard to do when the character already has a name, a face, and a job), but it really irks me when you just run around the game, being spoken at.

I always just feel like some mook who is just running around, shooting bad guys, whilst all of the story happens around you.

 

[Casual Shinji]

What would be the point of free aiming the gun if you couldn't shoot it past lock on distance? Why would you even want that ability? What purpose could it possibly serve?

Not having to rely on the atrocious lock-on for one. This is an issue these games refuse to fix, and with Bloodborne your second most important weapon completely depends on it. You also wouldn't need to account for the sluggish control input.

I want the gun to be an actual gun, not something I fire blindly with the hope it'll hit something.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

In Dark Souls it's incredibly easy to break encounters by just using the bow, pulling enemies one by one, and fighting them one at a time.

In Bloodborne they gave you rocks to throw to do the same thing, but the rocks have extremely limited range. If they gave you free aim of the gun people would use that to pull enemies from much farther way, making it easier to break encounters and cheese from range.

The damage the gun does has nothing to do with it.

There's an easy solution to that; Make the gun lose its ability to hit/damage/pull past a certain distance -- like for example the distance it takes to lock on -- which could be indicated by a greyed-out reticle.

And the game's environments in general are so claustrophobic that there's very few places where you could kite enemies from far away even if you did have inlimited range. And as it stands you can still draw enemies away one by one with rocks to dispose of them in a secluded area. The Soulsborne games are typically all about you finding ways to exploit the mechanics to make it easier on yourself.

It's not a shooter though. Gun use is mainly a defensive strategy, and it's telling of the game's design when even the main defensive strategy is still an offensive one at heart.

I know, but if you put a gun in an action game I expect it to have some level of efficiency, which the Bloodborne guns just do not have.

It?s more like Dante?s guns in DMC or Bayonetta?s in...her games. I?m sure there are other modern examples of guns you can?t free aim, but like you said, they are action games not shooters. Bloodborne was even more deliberate in its design by telling the player guns are a supplementary sideshow at best, seeing as how NPC bullets move slowly enough for the player to dodge.

Another thing is the perspective and level design wouldn?t mesh well with free aim, especially on console. If the main use of a gun in the game?s design is to parry, then lock on seems to be the most efficient and effective way to implement aiming. As for lock on issues, I really don?t know how it could best be remedied. For example if you sort-hold a shoulder button for it you would have to move a major offensive function to a stick click, which would be even more awkward.

 

[Casual Shinji]

It?s more like Dante?s guns in DMC or Bayonetta?s in...her games. I?m sure there are other modern examples of guns you can?t free aim, but like you said, they are action games not shooters. Bloodborne was even more deliberate in its design by telling the player guns are a supplementary sideshow at best, seeing as how NPC bullets move slowly enough for the player to dodge.

The difference there being that those games have a solid lock-on and infinite ammo. I'd have little issue with no free aim in Bloodborne if the lock-on wasn't garbage and there wasn't an input delay to firing your gun.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

I will never understand why dodging can give invincibility frames in the souls series. Dodging should be a simple matter of "Did you get out of the way of the attack". People who roll can live without it if they just git gud.

The invincibility frames represent dodging the enemy attack by moving your body (ducking under an enemy blade, etc). The problem is that in order to have these dodges look realistic they'd have to animate a different dodge for pretty much every attack for every enemy type in the game. That's a shitload of extra animation, literally hundreds of extra hours of work that they'd have to pay for, so instead you get i-frames which take no animation.

If you only had the roll with no i-frames they'd have to make their bosses and enemies much slower since you'd have to roll backward away from an attack, and then spend time running back in to get a hit in. This means that enemies would have to attack less frequently to allow you an opportunity to hit them, or if they left the enemies exactly the same then pretty much everyone would have to play with a shield build.

I-frames aren't really an elegant compromise, but I can totally understand why they're there.

Aha! Yes I think we?ve got a bird in hand here. Shields would actually have a tactical purpose vs something that just looks cool. Think of all the time and effort that?s gone into designing dozens of game assets and mechanics that most people ultimately think is a waste of time...probably far more than they?d need to rework animations sans i-frames. All they?d really have to do is register the whole hit instead of essentially clipping it for a few frames if you?re in range.

Shield useage isn?t the problem; it?s that Souls generally doesn?t do that dynamic nearly enough justice to be considered compelling. But again, I?m more prone to get bored just bouncing around wrecking everyone?s shit, which has been done to death in nearly every action game. There needs to be enough of a counterpoint in the design or I feel like something?s missing.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

It?s more like Dante?s guns in DMC or Bayonetta?s in...her games. I?m sure there are other modern examples of guns you can?t free aim, but like you said, they are action games not shooters. Bloodborne was even more deliberate in its design by telling the player guns are a supplementary sideshow at best, seeing as how NPC bullets move slowly enough for the player to dodge.

The difference there being that those games have a solid lock-on and infinite ammo. I'd have little issue with no free aim in Bloodborne if the lock-on wasn't garbage and there wasn't an input delay to firing your gun.

I?ve never played a game with lock on that didn?t at some point cause issues with targeting correctly. It?s unavoidable when there?s multiple targets close together, or the environment is in the way somehow. Given how much more complex SoulsBorne environments are next to the arenas in DMC and Bayonetta, that?s where most of my issues with it lie, ie around corners or behind pillars, etc.

 

[CaitSeith]

I will never understand why dodging can give invincibility frames in the souls series. Dodging should be a simple matter of "Did you get out of the way of the attack". People who roll can live without it if they just git gud.

I tend to view the invincibility frames as a workaround necessitated by the buggy dogshit that was/is the Souls engine. This is the engine that has trouble telling if you're behind an unaware enemy, how is it supposed to know if you're out of the way of a big fuckoff demon ax?

After a while, players got used to the "feature" and it stuck.

I disagree. Invisibility frames isn't something new nor exclusive to the Souls series.

 

[CaitSeith]

Final Fantasy XV Chapter 10, not being able to separate yourself from the Ignis too far, or you'll get stopped in your tracks and scolded. Even if the decision of making Ignis to act accordingly with his disability was bold; it ended up dragging the dungeon exploring for way too long.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I?ve never played a game with lock on that didn?t at some point cause issues with targeting correctly. It?s unavoidable when there?s multiple targets close together, or the environment is in the way somehow. Given how much more complex SoulsBorne environments are next to the arenas in DMC and Bayonetta, that?s where most of my issues with it lie, ie around corners or behind pillars, etc.

Sure, lock-on will always be a tad finnicky, but then I can't really think of another game where a secondary projectile weapon with consumeable ammo is tied to it. The lock-on in 3D Zelda games isn't that great either, but projectile weapons you can actually aim.

Dark Souls had a similar issue when using projectile based magic spells, where for some baffling reason you couldn't manually aim your soul arrows. But at the very least these would recharge at bonfires. Maybe if Bloodborne had a feature like that in place the gun mechanic wouldn't piss me off as much.

 

[Siyano_v1legacy]

I?ve never played a game with lock on that didn?t at some point cause issues with targeting correctly. It?s unavoidable when there?s multiple targets close together, or the environment is in the way somehow. Given how much more complex SoulsBorne environments are next to the arenas in DMC and Bayonetta, that?s where most of my issues with it lie, ie around corners or behind pillars, etc.

Sure, lock-on will always be a tad finnicky, but then I can't really think of another game where a secondary projectile weapon with consumeable ammo is tied to it. The lock-on in 3D Zelda games isn't that great either, but projectile weapons you can actually aim.

Dark Souls had a similar issue when using projectile based magic spells, where for some baffling reason you couldn't manually aim your soul arrows. But at the very least these would recharge at bonfires. Maybe if Bloodborne had a feature like that in place the gun mechanic wouldn't piss me off as much.

True, but in Bloodborne you have to literally be popping off shots like Yosemite Sam to run out, since nearly every other enemy drops them. I don?t think I?ve ever dropped below 150 in storage and I?ve only gotten decent at parrying towards the end of my first play through, including all main chalice dungeons.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The Burnout franchise was wildly popular on the Original Xbox, so when Revenge hit the scene as the first iteration of a next generation of hardware, it was glorious. The explosions looked so much better and violent, the speed felt faster, the engine revs sounded more threatening; it was glorious. So when they announced Burnout Paradise, the bar was severely high, but attainable seeing as they?d been getting consistently better. But what they do? REMOVED explosions and Crash Junctions, arguably the franchise?s calling card feature and game type respectively. I will never understand who thought that was a good idea, removing the things that?d literally made the franchise what it had become to that point. What?s worse was their addition of the open world! A point-to-point racing game played at speeds of +100mph with explosions without set tracks made the race feature (y?know, all that was basically left of the game) a largely frustrating and stressful affair. Yahtzee?s review nailed it; you spent the entire time racing looking at the minimap, and that?s not conducive to, well, RACING. We have laws about cell phone use while driving at legal speeds, and GPS isn?t exempt.

 

[sXeth]

What?s worse was their addition of the open world! A point-to-point racing game played at speeds of +100mph with explosions without set tracks made the race feature (y?know, all that was basically left of the game) a largely frustrating and stressful affair. Yahtzee?s review nailed it; you spent the entire time racing looking at the minimap, and that?s not conducive to, well, RACING. We have laws about cell phone use while driving at legal speeds, and GPS isn?t exempt.

Ah yes, the open world racing game is one I really don't get. Its either pointless timesinking for travelling from race to race. Or the utter mess of not having actual polished and tested courses as you mention when you start just having people race through it.

 

[BrawlMan]

The Burnout franchise was wildly popular on the Original Xbox, so when Revenge hit the scene as the first iteration of a next generation of hardware, it was glorious. The explosions looked so much better and violent, the speed felt faster, the engine revs sounded more threatening; it was glorious. So when they announced Burnout Paradise, the bar was severely high, but attainable seeing as they?d been getting consistently better. But what they do? REMOVED explosions and Crash Junctions, arguably the franchise?s calling card feature and game type respectively. I will never understand who thought that was a good idea, removing the things that?d literally made the franchise what it had become to that point. What?s worse was their addition of the open world! A point-to-point racing game played at speeds of +100mph with explosions without set tracks made the race feature (y?know, all that was basically left of the game) a largely frustrating and stressful affair. Yahtzee?s review nailed it; you spent the entire time racing looking at the minimap, and that?s not conducive to, well, RACING. We have laws about cell phone use while driving at legal speeds, and GPS isn?t exempt.

I'm with you there man. After completing Burnout Paradise and doing everything, I never wanted to play it again. I refuse to buy it for next-gen or the older generation consoles. To me the series reached its peak with Revenge.

Sengoku 3. A lot of people say this is a great beat em up and while I do agree, there are several design choices that don't sit well with me. Unlike a lot of 2D Brawlers from that era, despite the combo system you can't cancel out of your own move. Not to mention that enemies are really overpowered and the fact that sometimes every enemy type can block your attack is frustrating when you're trying to land a great combo. It's better than its other two games, but there are still a
Brawlers better than the third game in the series. And I hate that one freaking Samurai that always does is overpower charge attack. It has way too much range and can pretty much knock you out of your jump attacks. I will give it this, it was one of the first Brawler's to have a light and heavy attack before games like Dynasty Warriors, the Ninja Gaiden reboot, a God of War brought them to the table. So kudos to SNK on that one.


I always hated the final levels in motion Obi games. Whose idea was it to have a bunch of freaking mazes. Revenge of Shinobi, GG Shinobi, and even Shinobi 3 (though nowhere near as bad) all suffered from this. It does nothing but pad the game. The game itself is already challenging, there's no need to add in a confusing maze nobody asked for. What the fuck was Sega thinking. Oh and sword draining Health mechanic from the PS2 Shinobi can go fuck itself.

The motion controls in Donkey Kong Returns. This was definitely a mechanic nobody was asking for, and that platforming itself is really frustrating and not that fun. And before you say buy the 3DS version, I shouldn't have to buy another version of the game that fixes the problem. Nintendo just had to force motion controls on the original version. Which doesn't make sense as most of their other games had classic control or GameCube controller support why not a platforming game. I am so glad they're out of that phase of forcing most controls on almost every single game. Tropical Freeze fixed every single problem I had with Returns and I am more than happy to we buy it on the switch.

Any game that forces loot boxes, day one DLC or season passes, or high price DLC characters in fighting games. They all suck and should be banned from gaming. Looking at you Capcom and Arc System works. It ain't about player choice.

Koei Tecmo use of asset flipping. Jim Sterling pointed this out and it's ridiculous how often KT got away with this. You guys ain't hurting for cash, it's just straight up laziness; especially with all of your DLC practices.