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[pelle]

Since I read the article in (I think it was) Game AI Wisdom 2 about how to construct a filter for your rng so that it appears more fair to the human player (ie remove patterns that look non-random, even if they are random, because humans do not understand probability theory and think the rng is broken if they see even short patterns)

That probably has more to do with the fact that if you don't filter it, you run the risk into it giving you a bad streak that could completely screw you over without you getting any sort of control over it. This is why now tetris games resort to shuffling a "bag" of pieces instead of generating them randomly, otherwise there's a very genuine risk of being stuck with awful pieces (as anybody who played old tetris games can attest =P)

No. That kind of "filtering" like in Tetris, or using a deck of cards instead of dice in general (metaphorically speaking or not ) I think is perfectly fine, but that was explicitly not what that article described:

"according to psychology studies, true randomness over the short term often looks decidedly unrandom to humans. This article shows how to make random AI decisions and game logic look more random to players"

http://www.aiwisdom.com/bookshelf_aiwisdom2.html

The implementation if I remember it correctly was quite simple. You just need to put a layer on top of the RNG that has a buffer and when it detects a pattern that looks non-random (eg 1 1 1 or 1 2 3 or 1 2 1 2 or 1 1 2 2) it changes (or re-rolls?) some number(s) to make it look more random. But I really would prefer to know that if a game pretends that randomness is independent ("you have a 30 % chance of winning this battle") then it really is, and is not filtered just because some people believe the RNG is broken if they have a streak of too many won battles.

[Sik]

One of my favorite games of all time is Chrono Trigger, and while I think it's a masterpiece, it's a game that does absolutely nothing new, it's just a great RPG that combines everything that was good about the genre at the time.

Huh, it was the first game to introduce the active battle system that Square would keep using later on. It also didn't include random encounters which for some reason seemed to be a "requirement" for RPGs at the time (although some mook encounters were still enforced by map design), actually that may be an even bigger deal since it completely broke a common assumption of the genre.

But again, that brings up my point again, they took an existing genre and then did a tweak that had a big impact in the end. That's the kind of innovation that tends to work, not the "must be completely new!" kind.

My pet-peeve is water levels in platformers where suddenly the controls are purposely (?) super frustrating and intuitive. Especially in series where the responsive controls are key, like in Sonic.

Typo aside: being extremely hard is the real problem with those. Sonic makes it possible to drown, and once you go underwater it tends to be frustatingly hard to get out (so you're chasing large bubbles all the time). Mario doesn't let you drown but removes your ability to attack (if you aren't powered up) and also tends to throw in some notoriously hard to dodge enemies. Other games tend to have their own issues regarding water as well.

It seems like having the biggest difficulty spike in the game is a requirement for a water level.

[Tuba]

One of my favorite games of all time is Chrono Trigger, and while I think it's a masterpiece, it's a game that does absolutely nothing new, it's just a great RPG that combines everything that was good about the genre at the time.

Huh, it was the first game to introduce the active battle system that Square would keep using later on. It also didn't include random encounters which for some reason seemed to be a "requirement" for RPGs at the time (although some mook encounters were still enforced by map design), actually that may be an even bigger deal since it completely broke a common assumption of the genre.

But again, that brings up my point again, they took an existing genre and then did a tweak that had a big impact in the end. That's the kind of innovation that tends to work, not the "must be completely new!" kind.

ATB was introduced in FFIV actually, Chrono Trigger did improve on the formula though. Not sure about the random encounters, I think some other RPG did it before, but indeed CT was the game that made it popular to show the enemies on the screen.

But yeah, CT is full of "little innovations", nothing completely new but improvements on common systems that made them better. A lot of times that's enough.

[arzi42]

Actually, I think forcing innovation where it's not necessarily needed is a problem. Having to learn new rules and/or controls for every new game is kind of a chore, when you could just take something that's proven to work and go with it. German adventure games do this, the controls have been pretty standard since the late 90s, and that frees the player to enjoy the story and the puzzles without having to learn the basics in every game. I'd gladly take another Baldur's Gate (yeah, the new one is actually coming) with just a new story, instead of an RPG with a completely new system I have to learn for hours. Working with a familiar engine and ruleset also frees the designer to experiment within that frame.

[Zencha]

I think the problem with lazy innovation like what you guys have discussed is that people lean towards "ingredients" and not "recipes." It's about a cohesive whole/recipe -- all the ingredients coming together in an interesting way. It's not about slapping in some single new thing and calling it innovative. CT has a great recipe, for example.

[Tuba]

That's a nice way of putting it

[valrus]

Gaming is a town of burger joints where innovation means putting deviled quail eggs and Burmese tea leaf salad on top. 

When someone says "I'm tired of burgers, let's make something else", the restaurants hear this as a request for more burger toppings.

[ProgramGamer]

I like this analogy!

[s0]

PET PEEVE: minigames that are much harder and require a completely different skill set than the main game. example: stardew valley is a relaxing farming sim/rpg EXCEPT it also has a fishing minigame that plays like flappy bird from hell and can be almost impossibly hard sometimes. ok it's an optional minigame, but it's still needed to unlock some things. biggest offender tho: the "tutorial" level in driver that makes you to perform insane hairpin turns that you never need to use in the actual game ever.

i guess this is similar to the "gimmick" and "water level" complaints from earlier where side content acts as an unwanted show stopper.

[valrus]

Likewise some boss fights.

RELATED PEEVE: Side content (or a bottleneck point, or even just a menu) that requires a different input method than the rest of the game.  Like you can play a game 99% with a controller, except for two buttons that require a mouse, or 99% with mouse but one thing requires a keyboard (and the game doesn't allow access to the on-screen keyboard), etc.  I think I've run into this about five times just in the last year or so, and only in indie games.

[s0]

i will never understand why so many indie devs skimp on control customization (something that takes literally less than 30 minutes to implement).

[Alec S.]

Games where side-quests don't have a narrative and/or mechanical reason to do them.  The Elder Scrolls game are a perfect example.  The plot is constantly "Go here, do this, you are the world's only hope", which makes taking some time off to help out a villager really drive home how fake the stakes are.  The end of the world will wait for you.  And on top of that, because of how the world levels with you, doing side quests won't actually help you get stronger.  There'll be no point where you'll go "Okay, before I head into that dungeon, I should do some side quests so I'll be prepared."  Like, preferably a game should provide you with an obstacle and doing side quests should be a tool at your disposal to get around that obstacle.

[s0]

see, i don't really mind that. sure it's nice to have everything tie into a narrative, but in a lot of games side quests are meant to give you a "break" from the narrative if you want it.

i think you're misunderstanding the role of quests in elder scrolls as well. almost all of the content is open to you regardless of whether you do quests or not. so the quests are more just a guided tour through the content rather than an actual progression. ive played hours upon hours of morrowind (hugely influential game for me) and barely did any quests at all. in fact 14 years after i first played it, i still don't really know, or care, what the main plot is. it's something about dead dwarves or sth.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

i will never understand why so many indie devs skimp on control customization (something that takes literally less than 30 minutes to implement).

Don't you think it's because lot of indie devs aren't that talented programming side but are talent focused on the artistic side?

[s0]

ya but that's not something you need to be a good programmer for at all. i consider myself to be a really shitty programmer and i have no interest in programming outside of gamedev and even i can do it easily.

[Zencha]

I'm very light on programming, but when I was messing with Phaser the logic is basically "When key

• is down, do [y]" and you can have multiple pieces of logic where X is different but Y is the same like allowing WASD & Arrow keys. I never did it, but I imagine its not much more difficult to ask the player to input a key as a variable for a specific action and store it.

[Sik]

Honestly I have the feeling a lot of those devs just think it's a minor detail that they can do away without. Except most of the time it turns out to be an annoyance. (also, the biggest issue with implementing remapping is making the name list of every possible key to show on screen >_<)

On a related: mapping primary action to Z and secondary action to X (especially when the primary action is jumping). The index finger has better reaction than the rest (except the thumb), so why would you give the main action to the lesser skilled finger?! (and while remapping would help here, I'd be annoyed even if it was just a default)

Not like I can talk. Sol uses neither Z or X, it uses the spacebar, and so far it seemed to be way more intuitive to people than the letters (as in they guess it in the first try without any indications whatsoever). But it's certainly harder to come up with a good secondary key if your primary is spacebar.

[Zencha]

Left Hand: WSAD, QEF
Right Hand: Thumb on spacebar, JKL

That's how I've played every emulator ever in my ever life foreverever.

Actually, since this is about pet peeves I'll *show some fury* - I can't stand movement on arrow keys. Why? Because *every single controller in the history of gaming (possible exaggeration)* uses the LEFT HAND to MOVE the character. That's where the D-PAD or Joystick lives. I literally cross my arms when playing games that only allow arrow-key movement because I'm so conditioned for left-hand movement.

That said, pretty sure I'm just a weirdo. Doesn't mean I can't hate it though   

[Torchkas]

On a related: mapping primary action to Z and secondary action to X (especially when the primary action is jumping). The index finger has better reaction than the rest (except the thumb), so why would you give the main action to the lesser skilled finger?! (and while remapping would help here, I'd be annoyed even if it was just a default)

I like the mapping where they use A and Z, which also still gives you X. To be honest though, I kind of dislike playing games on a keyboard when they don't use the mouse as well. I prefer using a controller in that case.

[Alec S.]

i think you're misunderstanding the role of quests in elder scrolls as well. almost all of the content is open to you regardless of whether you do quests or not. so the quests are more just a guided tour through the content rather than an actual progression. ive played hours upon hours of morrowind (hugely influential game for me) and barely did any quests at all. in fact 14 years after i first played it, i still don't really know, or care, what the main plot is. it's something about dead dwarves or sth.

Yeah, but, basically, in order to enjoy 80% of the game (and I'm talking mainly about Oblivion here, since that's the one I have the most experience with, and I feel like Morrowind wasn't as bad in this regard), I have to first disconnect from the core conceit of the game, since every part of the main story is "It's urgent that you go here and do this."  Like, especially when I'm playing a role-playing game, I want to think in terms of why my character is doing what they're doing, either in a systemic way (I need more money and practice to get the thing I need to fight the guy) or in a narrative way (I need to help out the villagers so they'll like me more).