this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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I've been thinking about making this thread for a few days. Sometimes, I play a game and it has some very basic features that are just not in every other game and I think to myself: Why is this not standard?! and I wanted to know what were yours.

I'm talking purely about in-game features. I'm not talking about wanting games to have no microtransactions or to be launch in an actually playable state because, while I agree this problem is so large it's basically a selling when it's not here... I think it's a different subject and it's not what I want this to be about, even if we could talk about that for hours too.

Anyway. For me, it would simply be this. Options. Options. Options. Just... give me more of those. I love me some more settings and ways to tweak my experience.

Here are a few things that immediatly jump to my mind:

  • Let me move the HUD however I want it.
  • Take the Sony route and give me a ton of accessibility features, because not only is making sure everyone can enjoy your game cool, but hey, these are not just accessibility features, at the end of the day, they're just more options and I often make use of them.
  • This one was actually the thing that made me want to make this post: For the love of everything, let me choose my languages! Let me pick which language I want for the voices and which language I want for the interface seperatly, don't make me change my whole Steam language or console language just to get those, please!
  • For multiplayer games: Let people host their own servers. Just like it used to be. I'm so done with buying games that will inevitably die with no way of playing them ever again in five years because the company behind it shut down the servers. for it (Oh and on that note, bring back server browsers as an option too.)

What about you? What feature, setting, mode or whatever did you encounter in a game that instantly made you wish it would in every other games?


EDIT:

I had a feeling a post like this would interest you. :3

I am glad you liked this post. It's gotten quite a lot of engagement, much more than I expected and I expected it to do well, as it's an interesting topic. I want you to know that I appreciate all of you who took the time to interact with it You've all had great suggestion for the most part, and it's been quite interesting to read what is important to you in video games.

I now have newly formed appreciation from some aspects of games that I completely ignored and there are now quite a lot of things that I want to see become standard to. Especially some of you have troubles with accessibility, like text being read aloud which is not common enough.

Something that keeps on popping up is indeed more accessibility features. It makes me think we really need a database online for games which would detail and allow filtering of games by the type of accessibility features they have. As some features are quite rare to see but also kind of vital for some people to enjoy their games. That way, people wouldn't have to buy a game or do extensive research to see if a game covers their needs. I'm leaving this here, so hopefully someone smarter than me and with the knowledge on how to do this could work on it. Or maybe it already exists and in this case I invite you to post it. :)

While I did not answer most of you, I did try and read the vast majority of the things that landed in my notifications.

There you go. I'm just really happy that you liked this post. :)

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[–] svamp@lemmy.ml 54 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Parent mode, haven't played in a while? Here is a recap of the story so far and here is what you did last time you played.

[–] GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago

This is my #1 request. I only have time for 1 game, so if I return to something, I sometimes have to start over bc I've no clue where I left off.

[–] theangriestbird@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

oh man. It's wild how prestige games are always trying so hard to be like prestige movies and TV, but somehow they have not yet adopted the practice of the recap.

[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago

Ohh, Pokémon games used to have this!

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[–] flameguy21@lemm.ee 37 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's mental to me that most console games still don't let you change the controller bindings like you can on PC.

[–] TychoRC@lemmy.one 9 points 1 year ago

Yes! I almost always change a few of the buttons when I get the chance. Extra points if the game is nice enough to let you know when your changes conflict with other presets.

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[–] Crankpork@beehaw.org 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Final Fantasy XVI's Active Time Lore. Being able to pause the game and have a list of relevant characters, places, and concepts for the scene you're in is so helpful for my ADHD, for when I take a break from a game and come back not knowing what's going on. I want to see this in every story heavy game.

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[–] MummifiedClient5000@feddit.dk 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cut-scenes that can be paused, skipped and replayed later.

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Keep a rotating history of 20 or so autosaves/checkpoints, not 1, in case the last autosave was at a bad spot. Storage space is cheap. Yeah, I can do that myself with manual saves, but why make me do that? Maintaining that isn't a fun part of the game for me, and it's easy for the developer to do.

[–] ono@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Baldur's Gate 3 does this, and the number of saves is configurable. It's nice.

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[–] root@aussie.zone 28 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I would be nice if the game detects that it's been quite some time since I last played, and give a quick refresher of the keybinds as well as brief rundown of recent missions completed / story-so-far.

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[–] liminalDeluge@beehaw.org 21 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Phobia-friendly settings/modes. There are so many games that I can't play or have to find a mod for because the fantasy genre is obsessed with giant spiders. The only way I could ever play Skyrim was with the Arachnophobia mod that replaced all spiders with bears. I haven't played Grounded, but I know it has an arachnophobia setting that can simplify/cartoonify the spiders or replaces them with floating orbs. I'd love to see these types of settings in more games, and ideally similar settings available for other common phobias/triggers besides spiders and blood.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only way I could ever play Skyrim was with the Arachnophobia mod that replaced all spiders with bears

I can only imagine this.

Villager: "Chosen One, you must slay the Queen..."

Poorly-recorded masculine voice cutting in: "Bear"

Villager: "...before her egg sacs hatch and all of her..."

Poorly-recorded masculine voice cutting in: "bear cubs"

Villager: "...start swarming over the area!"

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[–] trustnoone@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I wish I could choose size of font, so many games have a font that only works on certain TVs or played in handheld mode.

Also I wish we could all align in settings menu at some point, so I'm not hunting down these weird unexpected settings.

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[–] Arkham@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Gyroscope controls. Especially for first-person shooters and other first-person games. I used to be a diehard mouse and keyboard player when it came to FPSes until I played Quake 1 on the Switch with gyro controls turned on. Now I'm trying to find ways to be able to play every FPS in my collection on a TV with gyro aim because it just feels so much better.

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[–] Clav64@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Story mode / Infinite lives / invincibility modes.

Difficulty should not be a barrier for entry. I like how Insomniac games like Ratchet and Clank, and to a lesser extent Spiderman, offer a really easy mode for those who just want to blast away or swing around New York.

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[–] kratoz29@lemm.ee 18 points 1 year ago (4 children)

More split screen games, there are gamers that have a SO gamer you know? Or brothers, cousins, neighbors etc.

Only Nintendo keeps this thing alive in a wider scheme.

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[–] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)

With games taking more and more drive space i would like to be able to choose if i want to download those 4k textures or this new map that i don't want to play

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[–] StillNotAHero@artemis.camp 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I like how in Breath of the Wild, when it tells you to a button like ‘A’ or ‘Y’ for example, it shows you where that button is relative to the others. This way, if you aren’t super familiar with the controller, you don’t need to take your eyes off the screen.

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[–] HalJor@beehaw.org 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • Make the story automatically skippable. Every time. Many games explain the mission/objective in a short sentence or in the minimap anyway. Don't make me watch a long cutscene or press/hold a button to skip the dialog. I'm never going to care.
  • Always have a tutorial or practice area to remind me how to play the game after I put it down for a month or so. Bad enough that the controller map is hidden in the menus (if there even is one). It don't help much to just say what all 16 +/- buttons do, depending on what mode I'm in. I have to actually use them to get back into the swing of things, and I'd rather not jump right into the action (and potentially lose progress) right away.
[–] TheresNodiee@lemmy.today 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As someone who is a little bit more interested in the story, I would love it if games had better story recaps for when you put the game down for extended periods of time too. If it's a game with player choice track the major choices the player makes as well. I restart games so much because I like to jump around between games and then when I get back to some I can't remember enough about what was happening to have any investment in the story anymore.

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[–] PelicanPersuader@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In the complete opposite direction, "I just want to enjoy the story" mode, which simplifies or removes more mechnically difficult sections of the game. A few games have this and it's great. I appreciated it in Danganrompa.

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[–] TheCrimsonSpark@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

default game master volume starting at 50%

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[–] Phanatik@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No Denuvo
DRM-free versions (fuck every AAA client, give me the setup files and piss off)
Linux-friendly anti-cheat
If your game has an online component, release the server files so the community can self-host!

Basically, anything that preserves a game well beyond its prime.

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[–] relevants@feddit.de 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Here's a really small and easy to fix pet peeve of mine: graphics options that cycle through the levels of fidelity with inconsistent scales. I like to set my graphics to max, try it out, and then adjust down where needed. It's very annoying if a game doesn't stop where the max option is, so if it's currently at "High" I have no idea if the next option to the right is going to be "Very High" or "Low" again. So I often end up overshooting the highest setting and having to go back one, or purposefully going to the lowest setting and then one further.

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[–] Argongas@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Unless it's an online multiplayer game, let me pause whenever! Playing Starfield now and it's so annoying that you can't pause during dialogue or ship fight by hitting ESC.

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[–] Skyline969@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Make 4K textures a separate download, via a free DLC. That way if people only ever play in 1080p, they don't need to waste disk space on files that will never get used.

[–] blazera@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Texture resolution isnt the same as screen space resolution, textures have to be wrapped around what might be complex, high surface area models. And dont forget how close you can get to things, where just a fraction of a whole model is filling your whole screen.

The option would still be nice but 4k textures do have an effect even on lower resolution screens.

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[–] sub_@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  • Dual subtitles, aka polyglot mode. Doubt that it'd ever happen, probably I'm the only one who wants it. Sometimes I'd just merge 2 subtitles with python script and upload it to my Plex.

  • Fast forward and save states especially for classic remaster. Some have this, some don't

  • Bigger subtitle fonts

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[–] Flickerby@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Fully (or at least more) customisable controller settings. It's not difficult. Let me bind what controls I want to what button I want. And adjust the stick dead zone, god damn. Why are you giving me pre set control schemes when we've had fully customizable controls figured out for decades? Fuck you game

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[–] gaydarless@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago

Conversation logs (for the games where they make sense). I loved having this available in Dragon Age: Origins and it helped me remember my rationale for doing specific things. Also was just fun to read back through.

[–] Essence_of_Meh@kayb.ee 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Some things were already mentioned so here my other pet peeves:

  • customizable difficulty - no default preset will be as good as one that can be modified to your liking. Sometimes the issue lies with difficulty making things more of a chore than a challenge, sometimes they tune things too much where you get stuck in a weird middle ground where one difficulty is way too easy and the other bashes your teeth in.
  • character speed control on PC - we had this stuff figured out in 2002, when Splinter Cell came out! Why the hell are we still stuck with terribly slow walk and slightly too fast jogging? This isn't hard to implement either - there are already multiple speed states when playing with a gamepad, all that's required is an option to control it with a keybind.
  • visible body in first person games - I always try to immerse myself as much as possible and having a physical body helps sell the idea that I'm a character in this world rather than just a floating camera.
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[–] tal@lemmy.today 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

Don't do unskippable cutscenes. Even if you're using them to cover up for a loading screen or something, at least give me the option to not watch them. Let me tap a button to skip the scene.

[–] saigot@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And always have a way to pause cutscenes.

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[–] sandriver@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

I have cognitive impairments and it does my head in that it's still hit or miss whether games have rewindable text and voiceovers. Definitely my favourite thing in a game is eing ale to open a dialogue log and even replay voiced lines. Should be in every game, it's such a small accessibility thing.

[–] OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 1 year ago

For any RPG (especially one with multiple characters):

Highly flexible keyboard controls to manage inventory.

I want text-editor levels of search, move, drop, swap, open, and close. Give me regexes, custom filters, and macros. Give me unlimited tags for items, and simple interfaces to manage them (eg: sell all that have a tag, move all items tagged with a characters's name to their equipment slots).

It doesn't need emacs keybindings, but that would be a big plus.

[–] Rayspekt@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Proper benchmarking tools in the main menu. Even better if there's a demo for this.

[–] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Call me a madman but I'd love to see the feature of games that work on launch day without a patch.

Resizable UI/text everywhere. Not every gamer plays at a desk.

[–] fell@ma.fellr.net 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@Plume Oh yeah and this: Start the game in a neutral area or room where you can test the controls and sound are working properly and ensure the performance is right BEFORE the intro cutscene plays.

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[–] prole@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe not everywhere, because then it wouldn't be nearly as special, but I absolutely adored the "asynchronous multiplayer" aspects of Death Stranding.

Viewing the "strand contracts" tab and looking at how many other actual humans used and "liked" the infrastructure you created, or helped to create. Creating contracts with players who seem to appreciate your work, so that you see more of their structures, and they see more of yours. Only a couple examples. Trying to find the most optimal place for a bridge, or watchtower so that other players will appreciate it and give you "likes." That nice feeling of warmth you get when you finish building a road that others had started...

Just the whole freaking thing fits so well into the "we're all in this together, even if we're (forcibly) isolated" message the game is conveying. Working together with real people that you will never directly see or speak to, in order to make an incredibly arduous journey a bit easier for all. Amazing.

At least I think that was one of the messages, Kojima can be cryptic at times lol.

Again, I wouldn't want it to become the next "climb the tower to reveal part of the map" mechanic, and get ruined. You can't just shoe-horn it in, it has to make sense in context.

[–] raptir 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

For survival/crafting/whatever games - let me adjust drop rates and toggle things on and off individually, rather than just choosing a difficulty.

What I mean by this is looking at something like Ark versus Subnautica. Ark gives a super fine grained level of customization around spawn rates and other settings. You don't even need to strictly enable or disable hunger but can set the decay rate, for example.

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[–] gk99@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • LET ME TURN OFF THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC VIGNETTE, PLEEEAAASSEEEE. Even games like Cyberpunk 2077 that have gained countless features over the years and have individual HUD on/off switches still ignore this.
  • UGC as a whole. I grew up on Half-Life mods, custom Counter-Strike: Source maps, and LittleBigPlanet. The fact that we've pretty much abandoned that outside of Halo, Counter-Strike (just barely, mind you), and more recently Fortnite with proper Unreal Engine support is a terrible thing. It makes more sense than ever in an era of live service where you want players to never stop playing.
[–] ConstableJelly@beehaw.org 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

What's a claustrophobic vignette?

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[–] shiveyarbles@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd like to see leaning around corners for strategic shooters. I think rainbow six used to have this, I know the original system shock had it.

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