Your video game hot take(s) thread

[BrawlMan]

while RPG-ification is about the whole direction of a game which is what the Design Delve was about.

Though once again, DD is saying this like it's some "grand revelation", when it was complained about before all the way back in the 2010s. Even people on the old Escapists complained about it, but J wasn't there yet at the time. Sterling called this out or the worst exploits that would happened just after they left the Escapists, and it was around 2014-15 when they mentioned the problems with RPG-ification. Though at the time, people were dismissive or didn't believe them, until this problem got into games they care(d) about. Now those people suddenly want to listen, complain, then say "we gotta do something about it!". I will give old Escapist credit for supporting Sterling's argument, even after when he left. Also, as I mentioned before, there are plenty of AAA games that avoid "RPG-ification" without any type of negative exploit or shitty MTXs. Not all of course, but plenty enough to avoid them.

 

[Ezekiel]

The run button is out of control. Almost any modern game you can name, button held down to go faster than the full tilt of the analog stick. Other hold function that might have been assigned therefore impossible. That button nearly always used for dodge, since full run is logical extension of dodge, but means every game is now way more about dodging and it's not enough to move around and position yourself well with the stick anymore. Attacks track you anyway, because they really want you to use that run button. Some of these games don't even let you jump, because RPG elements in everything means one of the other face buttons already dedicated to item pick up or use. Usually face button is run, meaning camera can't be as easily and comfortably manipulated. Additional features then need to be inserted to balance this full run: stamina, fog walls that keep you in the fight, stamina... But in nearly all of them player can still sprint past/around all the enemies, because run button is that OP.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The run button is out of control. Almost any modern game you can name, button held down to go faster than the full tilt of the analog stick. Other hold function that might have been assigned therefore impossible. That button nearly always used for dodge, since full run is logical extension of dodge, but means every game is now way more about dodging and it's not enough to move around and position yourself well with the stick anymore. Attacks track you anyway, because they really want you to use that run button. Some of these games don't even let you jump, because RPG elements in everything means one of the other face buttons already dedicated to item pick up or use. Usually face button is run, meaning camera can't be as easily and comfortably manipulated. Additional features then need to be inserted to balance this full run: stamina, fog walls that keep you in the fight, stamina... But in nearly all of them player can still sprint past/around all the enemies, because run button is that OP.

You're allowed to just say you don't like Dark Souls. Not like this forum of all forums is going to lynch you for it.

...Though, if you want to talk about games that implement running badly, look at Grand Theft Auto. It's got everything you're complaining about: you can't turn the camera easily while running because it's on a face button. The button used for running isn't used for anything else even though it could be. Extremely limited stamina means you can't even run everywhere. And you didn't even mention this, but if you hold down the run button, your character only moves at a casual jog; if you want to actually run, you have to mash the button at top speed, which is even more difficult to do while moving in anything but a dead straight line, and even holding a dead straight line while mashing a face button sucks.

 

[BrawlMan]

​

 

[Ezekiel]

Someone told me to name fifty.

You're allowed to just say you don't like Dark Souls. Not like this forum of all forums is going to lynch you for it.

...Though, if you want to talk about games that implement running badly, look at Grand Theft Auto. It's got everything you're complaining about: you can't turn the camera easily while running because it's on a face button. The button used for running isn't used for anything else even though it could be. Extremely limited stamina means you can't even run everywhere. And you didn't even mention this, but if you hold down the run button, your character only moves at a casual jog; if you want to actually run, you have to mash the button at top speed, which is even more difficult to do while moving in anything but a dead straight line, and even holding a dead straight line while mashing a face button sucks.

It's not just Dark Souls. If I look at my modern games and their sequels and try to list just the ones that have a run button (ignoring the other things I talked about, which vary more), it's almost all of them. Will name button inputs even for games that play better with a KB/M for consistency. Won't list first person game, as that will complicate it too much.

Metal Gear Solid V
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Batman: Arkham Asylum*
Batman: Arkham City*
Batman: Arkham Knight*
Batman: Arkham Origins*
Demon's Souls
Dark Souls
Dark Souls II
Bloodborne
Dark Souls III
Sekiro
Elden Ring
The Last of Us (button L2)
The Last of Us, Part II
Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Returnal
Grand Theft Auto series*
Red Dead Redemption series*
Days Gone (L3)
God of War 2018 (L3)
God of War: Ragnarok
Marvel's Spider-Man
A Plague Tale
Astral Chain (L3)
Death Stranding
Callisto Protocol
Control
Echo (IIRC)
The Evil Within (L1)
Hellblade (L1 or L2)
Horizon: Zero Dawn (Come to think of it, L3 to sprint is likely mandated by Sony.)
Little Nightmares (left face button)
Mad Max (R2)
Max Payne 3 (I don't know which button it is. Only play this with KB/M.)
Metal Gear Rising (R1)
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Nioh
Nioh 2 (Dodge and sprint on bottom face button.)
Quantum Break (L1)
Sable
Resident Evil 6 (But RE always had a run button.)
Sleeping Dogs
Sniper Elite (L3)
Spec Ops: The Line (Sprint button shared with cover and context sensitive actions. Can't remember what this mediocre game plays like, but this sounds gross.)
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (L3)
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
The Takeover and Fight'N Rage (Double-tap direction, like in River City Ransom and declined Streets of Rage 3.)
The Division (L3)
Watch Dogs (R2)
Vampyr (Right face button is dodge and sprint.)
Vanquish (IIRC)
The Witcher 3 (Hold bottom face button to sprint.)
Infamous: Second Son
Dragon's Dogma
Nier: Automata (the dodge button)

*Even worse because default movement is walk.

Also becoming more common because worlds are getting bigger and emptier.

 

[Ezekiel]

Someone thought my list was too long, so I looked into games I haven't played for a few more. Will not name other games from series already in the first list. Remember, these are all games with ANALOG movement.

Alan Wake 2 (L3)
Dead Space (L1)
Hitman series (L1) (Well, I did play these, a little of the new and a little of the old. Don't care for the series.)
Kena: Bridge of Spirits (L3)
Lies of Pie (right button)
It Takes Two (L3)
Forspoken (L3)
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (right button)
Ghost of Tsushima (Like I said on the last list, Sony probably mandates L3.)
Genshin Impact (R1)
Final Fantasy VII remake (L3)
Final Fantasy XV (L3 and right button)
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (L3)

It's messed up how hard it is to find out what the controls are in many of these games. Reviewers could simply screenshot the menu in most cases. Seems important. But you can usually tell if there is a run button just from the look of the game.

So many games with L3, that shitty button that's not comfortably pressed at angles.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

Someone told me to name fifty.


It's not just Dark Souls. If I look at my modern games and their sequels and try to list just the ones that have a run button (ignoring the other things I talked about, which vary more), it's almost all of them. Will name button inputs even for games that play better with a KB/M for consistency. Won't list first person game, as that will complicate it too much.

Metal Gear Solid V
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Batman: Arkham Asylum*
Batman: Arkham City*
Batman: Arkham Knight*
Batman: Arkham Origins*
Demon's Souls
Dark Souls
Dark Souls II
Bloodborne
Dark Souls III
Sekiro
Elden Ring
The Last of Us (button L2)
The Last of Us, Part II
Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Returnal
Grand Theft Auto series*
Red Dead Redemption series*
Days Gone (L3)
God of War 2018 (L3)
God of War: Ragnarok
Marvel's Spider-Man
A Plague Tale
Astral Chain (L3)
Death Stranding
Callisto Protocol
Control
Echo (IIRC)
The Evil Within (L1)
Hellblade (L1 or L2)
Horizon: Zero Dawn (Come to think of it, L3 to sprint is likely mandated by Sony.)
Little Nightmares (left face button)
Mad Max (R2)
Max Payne 3 (I don't know which button it is. Only play this with KB/M.)
Metal Gear Rising (R1)
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Nioh
Nioh 2 (Dodge and sprint on bottom face button.)
Quantum Break (L1)
Sable
Resident Evil 6 (But RE always had a run button.)
Sleeping Dogs
Sniper Elite (L3)
Spec Ops: The Line (Sprint button shared with cover and context sensitive actions. Can't remember what this mediocre game plays like, but this sounds gross.)
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (L3)
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
The Takeover and Fight'N Rage (Double-tap direction, like in River City Ransom and declined Streets of Rage 3.)
The Division (L3)
Watch Dogs (R2)
Vampyr (Right face button is dodge and sprint.)
Vanquish (IIRC)
The Witcher 3 (Hold bottom face button to sprint.)
Infamous: Second Son
Dragon's Dogma
Nier: Automata (the dodge button)

*Even worse because default movement is walk.

Also becoming more common because worlds are getting bigger and emptier.

I don’t even see what the point is here, since this is basically every action/adventure game set in a 3D environment in the last couple generations. Maybe Mario 64 would’ve been the standard by this metric. Or more recently the Infamous series as an exception.

Different game styles go for different things though, and movement mechanics are an extension of that I guess.

 

[Ezekiel]

I don’t even see what the point is here, since this is basically every action/adventure game set in a 3D environment in the last couple generations. Maybe Mario 64 would’ve been the standard by this metric. Or more recently the Infamous series as an exception.

Different game styles go for different things though, and movement mechanics are an extension of that I guess.

Wasn't a thing in most of the Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube generation games, including some of the series I listed (Metal Gear Solid, Zelda). Like one guy said, "Just your standard case of industry all converging on a single way of doing things because something super popular did it at some point." Again, it's usually OP and you have to go out of your way to balance it. AI isn't up to the task either. Bad at pursuing and working together to cut you off. Also takes up buttons that could be used for better features.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Again, it's usually OP and you have to go out of your way to balance it. AI isn't up to the task either. Bad at pursuing and working together to cut you off.

I can't speak to every single game you mentioned, but Dark Souls is balanced around the idea that you can and you will run straight past regular enemies without stopping to fight all of them every time. It's an option like every other one the game gives you. Dash to the item, the boss room, or your bloodstain, or pick fights along the way and risk dying - that's on you to handle, not for the devs to stop you. And while I can see that not necessarily being appealing to everyone, I don't think it's in-and-of-itself a bad design choice to make it one of your options.

 

[Ezekiel]

I can't speak to every single game you mentioned, but Dark Souls is balanced around the idea that you can and you will run straight past regular enemies without stopping to fight all of them every time. It's an option like every other one the game gives you. Dash to the item, the boss room, or your bloodstain, or pick fights along the way and risk dying - that's on you to handle, not for the devs to stop you. And while I can see that not necessarily being appealing to everyone, I don't think it's in-and-of-itself a bad design choice to make it one of your options.

I don't know if it's FromSoftware's choice so much as incompetence and laziness. AI and enemy movesets can't handle multiple opponents either. Thought of sprinting through Streets of Rage 2, barely engaging anyone, makes me ill.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I don't know if it's FromSoftware's choice so much as incompetence and laziness. AI and enemy movesets can't handle multiple opponents either. Thought of sprinting through Streets of Rage 2, barely engaging anyone, makes me ill.

Dark Souls is deliberately designed to give you a lot of options, and allow you to choose your own approach to a situation. Between level-up choices, gear selections, general combat strategy, or (in some cases) even the physical direction you can approach a situation from, any solution that works for you is 'correct' under the game's own logic without casting judgment on whether it's 'OP' or 'lazy'; only humans do that. Besides, that same breadth of options that allows you to choose your own approach means you can also choose not to use a certain approach. Want to kill every enemy in your path every time you go through an area? That's your prerogative, and if you enjoy the game more that way, great. Doesn't mean that the existence of other options makes the game necessarily worse.

Sure, Streets of Rage 2 would be boring if you ran past enemies, but that's because on a fundamental level it is built on completely different foundations to Dark Souls, to the point where comparing the two is pointless.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I don't know if it's FromSoftware's choice so much as incompetence and laziness. AI and enemy movesets can't handle multiple opponents either. Thought of sprinting through Streets of Rage 2, barely engaging anyone, makes me ill.

So does the thought of needing to defeat all of the same enemies on the way to the next bonfire. The world resets enemies to give choice of gaining soul currency, item/gear loot, or just even try different tactics easily. There’s also of course the option to ignore it.

This range of choice is what makes the games more flexible. Hard-lining the player and forcing them to do something the same way every time given the world design would be insanity.

 

[Kyrian007]

The run button is out of control. Almost any modern game you can name, button held down to go faster than the full tilt of the analog stick. Other hold function that might have been assigned therefore impossible. That button nearly always used for dodge, since full run is logical extension of dodge, but means every game is now way more about dodging and it's not enough to move around and position yourself well with the stick anymore. Attacks track you anyway, because they really want you to use that run button. Some of these games don't even let you jump, because RPG elements in everything means one of the other face buttons already dedicated to item pick up or use. Usually face button is run, meaning camera can't be as easily and comfortably manipulated. Additional features then need to be inserted to balance this full run: stamina, fog walls that keep you in the fight, stamina... But in nearly all of them player can still sprint past/around all the enemies, because run button is that OP.

I get that, but maybe for a different reason... sort of. Right now I'm playing through Just Cause 3 again, which made me think about it. JC 2 had a "run button"/dash feature. And 3 and 4 dropped it. And I totally get why, Rico Rodreguiz has a hookshot arm and is a human bullet. Should you need to get somewhere more quickly than just the standard control stick run... freaking hookshot yourself there at physics defying rocket speed rather than a tad faster than normal speed.

And I guess that's sort of my point. Using the grapple arm/hookshot/infinite parachute/wingsuit is a key game feature. It isn't just used for traversal. Even without being armed, Rico is insanely overpowered... because of the grappling arm function that bends physics over his knee. I've never tried, but it's probably possible to beat that game without ever picking up a single gun. I think if a run button is part of more than simple traversal, its being used right. If it is just for slightly faster traversal, then it just needs to default to automatic run.

 

[BrawlMan]

I like the underground security levels in Hi-Fi Rush. They have some of the best music and set pieces.

 

[Ezekiel]

Dark Souls is deliberately designed to give you a lot of options, and allow you to choose your own approach to a situation. Between level-up choices, gear selections, general combat strategy, or (in some cases) even the physical direction you can approach a situation from, any solution that works for you is 'correct' under the game's own logic without casting judgment on whether it's 'OP' or 'lazy'; only humans do that. Besides, that same breadth of options that allows you to choose your own approach means you can also choose not to use a certain approach. Want to kill every enemy in your path every time you go through an area? That's your prerogative, and if you enjoy the game more that way, great. Doesn't mean that the existence of other options makes the game necessarily worse.

Sure, Streets of Rage 2 would be boring if you ran past enemies, but that's because on a fundamental level it is built on completely different foundations to Dark Souls, to the point where comparing the two is pointless.

It's lame. Think if FromSoftware who pride themselves on making punishing games had a magic button that could patch the majority skippable enemies with good AI, they would press it. Oh, and don't just make this about Souls again. You're trying to trap me. This OP sprint is everywhere. Like, what would I want to sprint in Metal Gear Solid 3 for? But made for the first time in 2024, even with the same linear levels, it would be expected.

 

[Ezekiel]

NerfedFalcon, responding again to your first reply, GTA and RDR are bad in this way also because there is nothing between the walk and fast run. It's missing the standard slow run. They want you to walk almost all the time, for boring realism.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

This OP sprint is everywhere.

Okay.

You're saying that a game mechanic is universally bad without considering the context of the games it's used in, their design philosophy, and how they actually use it. I'm giving you an example - one that everyone, including you, can go and confirm - to say that you're wrong. You then immediately say 'don't talk about that game' and repeat your assertion without actually providing evidence that refutes my point. The best you can manage is to say "this game that doesn't have sprinting would be bad if it had sprinting". Which I don't disagree with, but it's a pointless argument.

Just to give one other example without obligating you into a """trap""", if that's what you want to call it: Call of Duty's design philosophy is about balance. Specifically, the balance is between your mobility and your accuracy. The faster you're moving, the less likely you are to hit anything you aim at. Conversely, moving slowly affects your aim less, but it also makes you an easier target to hit in return; aiming down sights makes it very easy to hit targets, but you only move slowly while you do, and you can't move at all during ADS when prone. If you want to hit enemies, you accept the risk of being hit by them.

The addition of sprinting in CoD4: Modern Warfare was a direct evolution of that concept: you can move even faster than normal, in exchange for not being able to fire your gun at all until you slow down. It pushes the balance of mobility and accuracy to the far extreme of mobility, in a way that makes sense and works for the game it's in, and contrasts the extreme of accuracy that is ADS. That sprint mechanic wouldn't work in Doom or Quake 3, but it's not in Doom or Quake 3. It's in Modern Warfare. And it matters that it's a separate function because hip-firing while running is still an option, but not while sprinting; because they have totally different gameplay implications, it makes sense to separate them with a button press instead of just having you automatically start sprinting when you push the stick maximum forward.

 

[Ezekiel]

I didn't say it's universally bad, but its presence everywhere has to largely be to meet expectation more than anything else. Since it doesn't automatically make every third-person action and adventure type game concept better, I can think of no other reason for it to appear in only a few and then in nearly all of the studio productions after only a few years.

 

[Ezekiel]

Batman, the acrobat, can't even jump, in part because of that stupid run button.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

You made an additional comment while your previous one could still be edited - less than a minute apart, in fact - and yet it appears that you've run out of things to say, because you're just repeating the same things over and over while entirely ignoring my actual points.

Whatever. I've said everything I need to on the topic. If you're not gonna actually respond to the things I've said, I'll just let them stand as they are and do something else.

(Edit: I probably could've said this in a better way, but I'm going to leave the original post as-is above.)