Gaming Expectations

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

What's your gaming expectations? For instance what do you want to experience when you turn your console or PC on?

 

What I think is happening is 2-fold.

 

1) Gamers expectations are changing and are critical of negative things quicker than in the past

 

2) The way that most games are made have a different model to how they were made in the past

 

Partly, the reason I'm asking is because I'm pretty tired of how games form a toxic and negative behaviour very quickly these days. As an outsider to the CoD days, I think people had more acceptance of how games were made until over 10 years of the franchise found it difficult for people to support it any longer.

 

I could go on but I want to hear your thoughts. I have to appreciate I'm more of a half-full kind of guy when I view things, but I and many others I would think agree that the negativity of many communities breed more negativtity and disinterest in games which is unfair to push new people away from pretty solid games.

[techno 3,466]

First I want the game to be easy to pick up, like cod and tbh destiny in not into puzzles or spending half a day wondering why I can't get to the next section that's not enjoyable to me but get why some enjoy it which will lead into my next expectation.

 

Challenges, I like to feel in investing my time towards an end goal, if the game doesn't supply it I like to find my own, so many kills with this gun etc mastery of as many guns as possible in battlefield and gold in cod as example's. That's what gets me coming back. I remember staying up to get mastery of a particular gun in BF4 I got that obsessed by it. In d1 the void kills part of some quests etc kept me playing. .

Also on a side note way dlc works in some games if you don't buy dlc your locked from content ... why?

 

Thsts just quickly done first thoughts but main things.

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

Totally agree with the dlc content shouldn't lock down everyone. That is a pretty dumb move - you might as well say its a subscription game so expectations are set.

 

I think our own problem is we (humans, not special people/aliens ) compare too quickly and too often.

 

Expectations grow more and more when we've played amazing games and we're very quick to put down a game. Maybe is because when there was fewer games coming out we were satisfied when we had a bad/boring day on the game, we knew we'd be okay the next day?

[The3rdWalker 1,263]

57 minutes ago, GazzaGarratt said:

Expectations grow more and more when we've played amazing games and we're very quick to put down a game. Maybe is because when there was fewer games coming out we were satisfied when we had a bad/boring day on the game, we knew we'd be okay the next day?

 

If I drive a car with 4 wheels, I don't expect the 2018 model to come with three wheels "hoping" they give me the 4th one in 11 months.

[J4MES OX4D 9,776]

A lot has changed in gaming in recent years particuarly in the current generation. The PS3/360 era was so simple and much more enjoyable. 

 

Nowadays, you have to worry about thinks like performance, patches, DLC, microtransactions, gambling, loot boxes, pay to win and other negative elements gravely impacting even single player experiences as well as MP components. It's such a headache and the amount of distrust in the industry from a consumer standpoint is very significant now especially as the above practices are appearing in many varied titles now. Activision have taken it further with their matchmaking manipulating algorithms and now the likes of WB, Ubisoft, 2K are making their story-based campaigns so grindy; players are more enticed to pay for progress rather than play the game. 

 

I think people's expectations are very high still and there has not been many games released in this gen that would rank as some of the best of all time. The Witcher 3 is the only game that has probably showcased the standard people wanted. Games like Watch Dogs, The Division and Destiny promised so much but really missed the mark. 

 

I just want to play games without the bullshit that plague certain brands today. Divinity Original Sin 2 is probably the only title in 2017 that is 100% transparent and honest. 

[GazzaGarratt 10,867]

4 minutes ago, The3rdWalker said:

 

If I drive a car with 4 wheels, I don't expect the 2018 model to come with three wheels "hoping" they give me the 4th one in 11 months.

 

No but its the agile mentality. Lets give you something like a bike first whilst we work on making it into a car along the way.

 

Thats opposed to getting no game at all. The way Change is done nowawadays is piece by piece rather than have no game for years and bam, a game (a great game) that you're done in a month.

 

@J4MES OX4D, good point about the industry feeding the idea of progression, which in turn makes us as customers wanting more and more quicker. Games are made to have a winning point and part of this could be progression and/or have completion/tickbox exercises. Most sandbox games focus on the latter. Progression (skill points, light levels, upgrade points) are all there to slow the player down.

 

You make me think about what could be done quicker. Content (tickbox)  or Progression barriers?

[J4MES OX4D 9,776]

2 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

@J4MES OX4D, good point about the industry feeding the idea of progression, which in turn makes us as customers wanting more and more quicker. Games are made to have a winning point and part of this could be progression and/or have completion/tickbox exercises. Most sandbox games focus on the latter. Progression (skill points, light levels, upgrade points) are all there to slow the player down.

 

You make me think about what could be done quicker. Content (tickbox)  or Progression barriers?

The worrying trend that has arisen in 2017 games is a bit different to your typcial grind games we've seen previous as these titles that now have loot boxes to 'assist'/speed up progression seem to have deliberately stifled progression systems in place that literally force you to buy your way forward rather than actually grinding. I recently started Shadow of War and within the first few hours I could tell that the developers deliberately desiged the game in such a way that the only option was to at least spend money on speeding up the game rather than get bored to tears doing the most mundane filler tasks which are in the game to string it out in painful fashion. Any game where you can buy progress should be held with the utmost suspicion IMO. 

 

The Witcher 3 for instance offers the most stunning and absorbing campaign imaginable with a huge selection of varied side missions. These can be done at your leisure and can happily be ignored and are all of substantial quality regardless. Assassin's Creed Origins also has a strong campaign where you can only really participate in missions if you meet the level requirement. This is fair enough and a common system where users are forced to play side missions to level up but to get the XP required for play a main mission; you have to either participate in the most mind-numbingly repetitive side missions doing them over and over to gain the required XP or simply buy the XP through the online store and save the headache. If the side missions complimented the main story that you could interwine between, it could be a grand experience but many users are reporting that the level system is rigged heavily towards having to do samey side missions without fail or by buying your way out of them to continue the main story. This hasn't been an issue in sister games like Far Cry, Watch Dogs 2, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Batman Arkham Knight, and Shadow of Mordor so for this to happen just this year; it makes me very weary indeed.