What descriptors instantly kill your desire to play a game?
For me, if I ever hear "card-based" or "soulslike" I have absolutely no desire to play a game, no matter how many people reccomend it.
I'm also not a huge fan of modern "roguelikes" but I've sunk days into nethack and games like that.
Over here playing nothing but deck-builders, rogue-likes, and souls-likes
“Surely this one will match Slay The Spire” he says as he spends $15 on yet another ugly, easy, knockoff
(Cobalt Core is super rad though)
if I'm playing a city builder I don't want my city building options to be "whatever's in your deck of cards"
if I'm playing an RPG I don't want my skills and equipment or whatever to be "a bunch of cards"
if I wanted to play a card game... I'd play a card game
I dislike how nowadays slay the spire and its ilk is what people assume for the term deck builder instead of multiplayer (usually offline) games like ascension or puzzle strike or dominion
For me it's too much RNG I don't feel like I'm in control of what I'm doing. I do not trust in the heart of the cards.
Turn-based RPGs
I prefer turn-cringe RPGs
Open world, suvival, crafting
Games with these qualities that are actually good are marketed as RPGs or adventure games
My favorite games are FTL, Papers Please, We Love Katamari, Castlevania NES, Wild Guns and Fallout New Vegas and FZero X. I don't even know what I like.
"gacha" games. We used to call that shit loot boxes just a few years ago
Yeah, gatcha games can fuck off. Even worse than games with content you have to pay for, this doesn’t even let you choose what you’re buying and it’s literally a gamble that you’ll even get anything good never mind what you want.
MMO
Don't get me wrong, there are a few MMOs I like, but the vast majority are awful.
Anything that compares itself to stardew valley, mid game that spawned a bazillion worse knock offs where you play in a souless happy charming Cozy(TM) village where everybody knows everybody and there's never any interpersonal disputes
Also horror games and open world, sandbox, survival crafting games
MMO - I like multiplayer games just fine, but whenever they call it “massively” multiplayer, I know it’s going to be a grindy time-sink with anemic gameplay and the requirement to join some sort of group of other players in order to progress. It’s one of the few things I have filtered on Steam because it’s a guaranteed hard pass every time.
Turn-based - This one is hard for me to admit because I’ve played lots of great turn-based games and will inevitably play more of them, but for some reason when turn-based is a key feature, my brain interprets it as being a low-budget and/or low-effort game, or that the gameplay won’t match how the game is presented. It’s not that I dislike the concept of turn-based play, but when I see “turn-based” in a description I just glaze over.
Early Access - I don’t dislike early access, but the fact that it has no specific definition bothers me a lot. There’s no way for me to tell whether the game is a complete enough experience to be worth starting, so I usually end up passing until the game gets a full release (which isn’t a bad thing, but it does mean that early access is an automatic red flag.)
There are certain genres that I’m not that interested in, like puzzle games, visual novels, hardcore simulation games, etc., but the above are things that make me think twice about a game even if it looks interesting otherwise.
I agree with early access, I got burned a fair few times getting in on hype and the pitch when I was younger. If I'm hearing good stuff I might pirate early access stuff to see if it's really for me, but I have a hard rule of passing on early access. Shit like Towns and Godus made sure I'll never really trust early access despite the success stories. (Hell even Stonehearth was a disappointment despite it actually getting a 1.0)
@Cromalin@hexbear.net rival beatrice approaches
Turn-based - This one is hard for me to admit because I’ve played lots of great turn-based games and will inevitably play more of them, but for some reason when turn-based is a key feature, my brain interprets it as being a low-budget and/or low-effort game, or that the gameplay won’t match how the game is presented. It’s not that I dislike the concept of turn-based play, but when I see “turn-based” in a description I just glaze over.
I'm working on a turn based game, you could say it's low budget, perhaps more accurately, no-budget. Does your glaze over system offer leniency for games that are clearly indie+cheap, or maybe you intended this for games with huge marketing budgets and have microtransactions? Either way, I'd love any specific interests/thoughts you have on the turn based games genre in general.
First off, this is a "me" problem. I'm not sure that it would translate to others, but I'll try to articulate what it is. Second, "low-budget" is a meaningless term that's probably reflective of my advanced age. I still remember when there were hardly any indie devs, and there was a lot of shovelware out there. Really what it's about is lack of effort, care, or polish in a game, which at this point is largely decoupled from budget, per se.
I think there was a time when turn-based gameplay was popular because it wasn't as hardware-intensive and it was easy to clone turn-based gameplay, at least on a surface level. Between mediocre JRPGs and mediocre turn-based strategy games, turn-based started to look like something that developers were using as a way of saving time or effort, or dealing with hardware limitations. That's not really the case today, as the limitations that existed 20 or 30 years ago aren't there, so it's somewhat irrational. That said, I'm also not nostalgic for that era, even though I know that a lot of people are.
I think my hesitance around turn-based games is similar to how some people in this thread are talking about card-based games. I like card-based games when they're implemented well, but if I'm playing a card-based video game, I don't want it to merely be a digital implementation of an analog card game. There has to be something, like the card game being set in a larger context, or the interactions being complex enough that you couldn't feasibly do it in an analog game. Similar with turn-based games, I don't want to play what is essentially a digital implementation of a board game, nor do I want the game to be banging spreadsheets together a la old JRPGs.
CRPGs with a lot of depth, like Larian's games, are great because every turn-based combat is like a little puzzle with multiple solutions. Something more tactical like Battletech can be really engaging because there are multiple layers to play at, from the mech choices and outfitting to the actual combat. Big strategy/4x games work well as turn-based games because there's an economy and lots of interesting win conditions to explore that require planning and taking your time.
That's more for bigger games, though. Smaller, more focused games can be great with the right execution. I really enjoyed Buckshot Roulette because of how well the developer set the tone. The game itself is relatively straightforward, but the amount of texture and flavor in the presentation really makes it sing. Same with Balatro, a pure turn-based card game, which has so much visual and gameplay polish that you can't help but enjoy the relatively simple mechanics and presentation.
The best turn-based games don't really need to announce themselves as turn-based games, because that's incidental. They're games about something, with turn-based gameplay being simply the design choice that the developer felt was the best fit for the game. I find that when games announce themselves as being turn-based, it obscures why I would be interested in the game, which is why I mentioned it specifically in my original comment. Hope that helps!
probably roguelikes with meta progression since i know the first 10 hours is gonna suck until i unlock some good abilities/items to make it tolerable
I like meta progression because I'm doodoo at video games and they help me win anyway
yes, someone should make a list of modern roguelikes without meta progression
Damn, I like some examples of everything listed here except shady money extraction schemes.
Pay to play is my biggest dealbreaker. I'm either paying once, or paying for dlc. But I'm not paying to continue to play a game that isnt FF14
RTS games, namely because I can't micromanage fast compared to some esports gamer hyped up on gamefuel.
RTS games that let you issue orders while the game is paused are the only ones I'll play
What are some examples of those? I like the CRPGs that are real-time with pause lol
the new Wargame RTS (WARNO) lets you pause and command FINALLY i felt left out of the only cold war pure combat RTS
only problem is EA and single player is still lacking
also not sure if fully paused but everything is so slow it's effectively paused
The only RTS I ever liked was lego rock raiders, and that's probably because I was a child with nothing else to do.
Loose rock!
A landslide has occured!
I also dug Lego Rock Raiders as a kid. Come to think of it, I don't think I've played an RTS in about 20 years:
I never got too heavily into the "strategy" part--I just loved being able to have these battles play out with catapults and horsemen and the occasional Dodge Viper with machine guns (howdoiturnthison is forever burned into my memory). I particularly enjoyed how your units could get upgrades and rank up, and they'd carry across missions in BFME so you could make them absurdly powerful. I also remember the graphics being pretty impressive to me--I spent a lot of time just zooming in on units and watching their idle animations and stuff.
I'm pretty terrible at RTS multiplayer but I love when they're in single player. Single player also lets the devs give you cool abilities and units that would be horribly broken in multiplayer.
macro beats michael every time
yeah but marco beats polo, too
that's where the strategic depth lies
I picked up Rise of Nations again, recently. I'll just pause the game, give orders, un-pause.
soulslike
fuck off, boring ass dodgeroll grimdark cringe
Any sort of deck-building because it feels like homework
This is why I skipped every game of Gwent
"Do you want to play a hand of Caravan?"
Fuck no I don't. Let me scavenge my caps 6 at a time in peace.
I unironically loved doing Dice Poker in the first Witcher.
Because you didn't have to run around collecting dice and then use a spreadsheet to organize the dice into an optimized dice stack meta and then lose anyway when you don't draw the right dice from your pile of random dice
I played Gwent at every opportunity in the Witcher game and thought I'd love the stand-alone Gwent. Boy was I wrong. The mini game was simple enough to learn and not that hard to master. Gwent stand-alone is just too complex to have some simple fun with it.
Should have done like me and literally refused to play a game of Gwent to save a dude's life
Like sorry bro that sucks and all but I'm just going to kill all of these people
MOBA. honestly i don't know why everyone's playing these. even if all the matches were not radioactive cesspools of toxicity i still don't find its gameplay loop enjoyable or fun.
It largely draws from people that in an earlier era would have played RTS, with macro management and build orders removed. It also has a lower barrier to entry. Trying to get into competitive AoE2 nowadays requires you to remember not just unit matchups but 20 years of civilizations, their bonuses and unique units. Which is a bit more effort than firing up DotA and learning the relatively fewer units.
i don't like competitive games in general and MOBAs seem to be consumed by it because the gameplay is often not engaging without the competitive aspect of it like ranking and experimenting with different metas. at least there's a place for casual RTS but i don't know anybody that plays MOBAs casually, even goofy side mods quickly become this whole ranked thing. casual RTS though is a blast i've had more fun rushing people with assassins in stronghold crusader than anything else.
There was a pecking order where people who sucked too hard at Brood War played WC3 and people who sucked too hard at WC3 played Dota.
I use to play LoL, and had a great time, but you know, you can only do the exact same thing on repeat on the same map 100 billion times, so after a while it was time to move on with my life. I did play some of the others, but they were basically exactly the same, but weirdly enough every dude, freind and rando alike, who still plays them a decade later gets all
if I don't want to play dota. It's so fucking annoying.“Free to Play with in game purchases”
Or the suddenly becoming popular
“Pay for a full game but still has in game purchases”
My 3 C's for the past 6 or 7 years: crafting / card-based / competitive
I can be won over with near perfect execution though (eg Subnautica is the dreaded survival/crafting but I love it).
"Procedural generation"
Gaze upon my vast array of extremely similar structures/landscapes, this totally won't turn exploring the world into a boring chore.
The flipside to this is emergent storytelling. Put that as a descriptor together with proc gen and I am sold.
Have you played Shadows of Doubt? It generates a random city full of NPCs that have jobs, acquaintances, and a home (if they aren't homeless). Then the game picks one and forces them to murder someone else. You're tasked with finding who did it and how, and along the way emergent storytelling happens with what you discover and what you had to do to get the evidence and the culprit.
Played it when it first launched and it was really, really good, if a bit buggy and unoptimised. Content releases leave something to be desired imo, from what I have seen. Haven't played it again since release.
Procgen was fine for the most part until people started using "chunks" to basically just recreate very similar maps with just repeating sections from other maps.
I managed to miss that in my comment. I hate procedural generation in the vast majority of cases.
Card based
Soulslike (if it's 2d tho, that somehow makes it better for me though?)
Crafting
Survival
Survival/Crafting is a big kiss of death for me too, there are millions of the exact same shitty game in every conceivable setting.
Zombies
Crafting
Metroidvania
Retro/Arena (Boomer) Shooter - I am the exact demographic for these but I played enough of them in 1996 make something else i beg you
Definitely going to second zombies
Metroidvania. I could barely get through one Castlevania, I really don't appreciate tons of backtracking.
5v5. All the most toxic games are 5v5, whether its CSGO or League etc. I can't stand them. Though the real problem is automated matchmaking and lack of server browsers, most other pvp games have ways of mitigating the toxicity but 5v5's really just encourage it full tilt.
I really wish larger team based esport games were the ones that took off, but alas.
"I want to bully someone but any community that would have me would kick me out for this behaviour. Fortunately, there is another way where a computer finds me an opponent. Surely I will not be bullied in turn." - someone I used to watch get mad at video games a lot
Horror. What is the appeal of being scared you all are weird
4X
The first X is fun and then it's miserable
'RPG' when all that means is 'levelling and loot mechanics'. Those just break verisimilitude for me for no actual benefit. I can't really buy into fantasy of somebody (especially with a somewhat established backstory of excellence) to start out as an incompetent buffoon and then in a span of a week become the greatest at everything ever. Such games also often have really poor mechanics elsewhere, often by making the game combat-heavy and not giving you a particular diversity of options when in combat (for example, BG1 and 2 martials largely just get 'hit enemy' and, maybe, 'use equipment').
This criticism applies to looter-shooters and to souls-likes. The former are at least almost always bad shooters which are made addictive via their RPG mechanics, and the latter usually have a rather one-note gameplay of dodging things by rolling, which not only feels dull but also looks very silly and breaks verisimilitude for me.
This criticism does NOT apply to Disco Elysium. I also had fun with New Vegas, which made me realise that I do like narrative parts of games, as Fallout games in general have very subpar gameplay.
'Live service'.
'Multiplayer' - I don't really care for multiplayer. Not a very competitive person. And I can entertain myself in challenging ways by picking up a math textbook and solving problems presented there, or finding problems from math olympiads and solving those. (I know, I have not yet posted the solutions in the other relevant thread - I have been too busy; I have 3 problems' solutions ready and written on paper, the geometry problem I have solved in my mind but have not written the solution yet, and the remaining problem I am yet to produce a detailed solution for.)
'Open world' - usually just means that a lot of the time one has to waste on traversing boring environments.
RPG elements feels like a meaningless way to sell your game. Like, the most popular games in the world have these things, aren't they shooter elements now? Who are you selling to that doesn't understand persistent equipment progression?
Levelling and equipment progression, especially vial loot are not really specifically shooter mechanics, or, at least, I wouldn't say that. Plenty of shooters - at the very least the 'boomer' ones - do not have those, thankfully.
RPG elements seem to be an addictive hook for many people. I think that in most cases they are a very shallow addition to a game - you basically just 'progress' for the gameplay to largely stay the same, or, worse, for the gameplay to become even more and more one-note.
The case of 'basically no progression' happens in games where you will mostly, if not always, be in places where your level and your equipment are guaranteed or near-guaranteed to be appropriate. You will deal with encounters in roughly the same ways, all the time, and the complexity of your choices will largely stay the same since some point where you get your crucial tools for dealing with them. The name of some of your tools might change, but that's kind of it.
The case of 'regressive progression' happens when either some of the tools that you have become strong enough to dominate encounters, and, perhaps, with the other tools becoming too weak. This makes it so that your choice of tools becomes simpler and simpler as the game progresses.
Oh, yeah, one of the things that also breaks verisimilitude for me rather often is health, and this also affects tabletop RPGs for me. Characters gaining health with levels very often means that they can somehow deal with situations that I don't think experience can help you this much. The classic case would be D&D characters with their roughly linear health growth, and how two characters of different levels falling from the same height would very likely get different results. Or consider how burning and bleeding are basically non-factors in BG3 (and, in at least the case of burning ground, - in DOS2) at higher levels. Massive health growth with levels very often just hurts my enjoyment of things.
I do like these RPG elements in at least some cases, though. At the very least in XCOM and similar games, where that progression is actually meaningful, because you can, and will likely lose experienced soldiers, making it so that you do not always 'progress' in the sense of RPG mechanics, but also go back to your weaker state.
I played diablo 3 or 4 recently (whatever is on the switch). The core gameplay is ok, but the fact that every 30 minutes you need to spend tinkering/minmaxing with your infinite loot pile of random shit is kind of annoying, plus the controls for that menu are shit.
I don't really understand the draw of those games, beyond just basic addictive RPG elements. The gameplay seems to just devolve into a spam of one or two AoE abilities.
The only game with seasons I've ever played is rocket league and I just completely ignore that stuff.
Roguelikes, pixel graphics, horror, card-based
2D is usually a pass, although there was such a game that I passed on for a long time (Rimworld) that ended up becoming my all time most played game.
Post-apocalyptic and zombies especially have been done to death (pardon the pun) and I just find them boring as hell.
However I adore open world survival craft and as long as a game doesn't look like total shit I'll give it a try (usually a
try first just to be safe)Story driven, cinematic
I want to play a videogame that makes me feel like I'm getting better at the mechanics not one where the mechanics are there only to progress the story
first person shooter
"hack and slash"
Open World means the game is probably going to be way too long for me to actually play it.
fighting games tbh
the one type of game i cannot get
Multiplayer. I think multiplayer has evolved lately for the worst. There are multiplayer games that I enjoyed and I enjoy, things like Project Zomboid (If it's RP oriented), Lethal Company, Project Reality and some racing sims or strategy games with friends. Big ass multiplayer games are not what I truly desire, apart from maybe World of Warships because I like that game overall. Many years ago multiplayer was all about playing with your friends, now you have to put up with a lot of random cringe ass gamers every time you want to play some shooter or whatever. This is why I absolutely enjoyed Lethal Company, because it reminded me when we used to play games for fun with friends. Maybe coop is my thing..
And that's my main issue with multiplayer games: people stress the fuck out of me. I mentioned World of Warships earlier, well I got a bit tired of it's community and the constant negativity and toxicity. I just want to enjoy big ships for fucks sake, stop trying to tell me this game sucks because the new french heavy cruiser is insanely overpowered and destroyed the meta or whatever. I do not care. That shit makes me feel completely alienated from the community.
On the other hand, multiplayer games (not all, of course) became horrible cashgrabs. Lots of monetization thrown around, from developers selling skins, buying overpowered shit or grindy games where you have to pay to speed up the process, games pretending you will take their product as a second job (or third, even) and T H E M E T A. Nah, I'm no longer up for grinding these days, not for a while at least.. cuz after all I have to do real life grinding to eat you know?
Multiplayer ruined some games as well, like Pro Evolution Soccer. Multiplayer back in the day was just plug another controller and play against (or with) your friend, and that was it, the games were heavily singleplayer oriented and had cool features. Then KONAMI (alongside EA for FIFA) added online play and since then, the game became shittier and shittier. The singleplayer features are worse and worse each release, the game is too oriented towards online play and the monetization is absurd. Instead of using today's tech to produce quality sim football games, with lots of licenses to play with full kits, stadiums, chants and so on, no, we get this lootbox infested shitfest that only serves to feed KONAMI with more money. EA doesn't do it any better.
My instant reaction to "multiplayer" these days is
, for example, STALKER 2 having multiplayer is a bit sus, battle pass? Are you kidding me? On a STALKER game? I hope multiplayer doesn't "dumb down" the game and suck development time out of other more important things, like it did to GTA V.I miss local multiplayer games, they're easily the most fun way to play with friends. Barely any games come with local multiplayer anymore. I remember doing the smash bros brawl campaign and playing goldeneye with my friends as a kid and it was just way better. Nowadays I barely play any multiplayer games.
Phasmophobia is really good, in the same vein as lethal company.
despite never being interested in marvel or games, I always get that ad where this dude says "WHAT WOULD IT BE LIKE IF YOU COULDN’T PAY TO WIN REALLY FAST, LIKE YOU HAD TO SLOWLY PAY TO WIN" and I'm just like, I don't want to pay or win???
Older STALKER had multiplayer too, it was just based on GameSpy and died off
I was going to say none, but then I saw survival amd crafting and was instantly reminded of how disappointing most of the game I've played with those descriptors were.
PvP, doubly so if the PvP descriptor is preceded by any of the following: full loot, world, or lane pushing.
Hardcore, I like to enjoy playing video games, not getting mad at them. Soulslike pretty much necessarily fits into this.
"RPGMaker"
which is a shame because some of the best games I've ever played are RPGMaker games, like Lisa
edit: oh and any kind of voxel-based graphics is a bit red flag.
anything to do with cards or having a deck of cards
I make an exception for KH: Chain of Memories
Soulslike is an instant turnoff for me too. I'm kinda picky when it comes to games, plus it's hard to get recommendations because I have pathological demand avoidance and my tism brain interprets a suggestion as a demand 😩
I don't really like PvP games too much because I can get really competitive and I have really low frustration tolerance. Co-op is okay but I'd only play with people I know of friends that ask me to play.
I mainly play JRPGs and single player games but anything that has to rely on unfair mechanics or RNG to raise difficulty I completely avoid 🤷🏿♂️
(Multiplayer) horror open-world survival craft. If zombie horde attacks are your way to challenge the player, I won't play your game.
Souls-like is a show stopper for me, too. Doesn't sound fun.
I tried SO HARD to like Armored Core 6, the mech customization is exactly my shit, but the souls-like "play the game THIS way or die" of it fucking sucks.
eSports
GAAS
Horror, PvP only, MMO.
Gacha games
I sunk like 500 hours into Genshin and regret it. The exploration and combat are fun, but most of that time was spent on meaningless grinding.
I think I got PTSD or something from it cuz even seeing gameplay of it now gives me stress
Deck-builders, MMOs, survival-crafting, early access, GaaS. I typically avoid soulslikes but I've enjoyed Elden Ring specifically. Tried Lies of P but kind of fell off from it. Did enjoy Zomboid until I reached a stable "not gonna die from winter or lack of food, infinite ammo" state. I just don't really like games that don't have somewhere to end.
Any game that isn't the game I'm currently obsessed with playing.
Loot-based...
If I have to spend more than 2 seconds to figure out which weapon/armor/accessory/etc to use by flipping back and forth between what I have on and 10 things I just picked up that are slightly different, I'm just going to close the game and play something better
survival, crafting, roguelike, deck builder
Me taking notes (turn based apparently, a lot of my ideas are tabletop converts)
competitive
casual
puzzle
MMO
early access
crafting mechanics
open world
Story-rich, narrative, role-playing etc. Except if it's comedy. I can do comedy. Sometimes.
Also Obra Dinn I like and that has "story-rich" (I just checked), so whatever, I'm a hypocrite.
I love this response because I couldn't be more opposite. All really care about is story.
these combos:
having any of these:
survival crafting bores the HELL out of me. the only one i can tolerate is no man's sky, because i get to fly around between planets or whatever easily. theres some vampire survival crafting game (V something? idk it came out recently-ish) that looked so cool since it had ARPG-style combat mechanics AND you get to play as a vampire! who wouldnt wanna do that...but then i had to build a base and grind out getting like wood and bones and shit and i checked out so fast
also the only soulslikes i do enjoy are the ones BY fromsoft. every other one feels badly balanced or too clunky or whatever
Survival crafting for sure. I like Minecraft well enough, but even there I prefer to just explore. I can't stand farming resources incessantly.
Turn based, card based, strategy,...
"Metroidvania"
The more metroidvanias I've played the more I think I really only like Metroid. I don't even like Samus Returns or Dread, just Super Metroid, Zero Mission, Fusion, and AM2R.
Also, I usually do kind of power through it, but
'Meta-progression' - I very much do not like roguelite meta-progression, at least in most cases. Sometimes, the same game might feature multiple systems of meta-progression, some of which I tolerate, and other ones I just consider awful.
The clearest example of such a game would be Roboquest. The primary meta-progression is bad. It locks almost all decision-making behind upgrades that you need to grind to deal with. On the other hand, it also features some items that permanently unlock some utilities, like the grappling hook.
I will probably play it anyway, but a game based on dnd's rules is a big sigh from me. It's not a good rules system. It's even worse without a real DM. Bg3 was great, but like in spite of the base rules not because of them.
Not a fan of simulators.
Won't play anything with a subscription fee.
Don't care about mobas or battle royales. Most competitive games, really, don't care for.
Survival crafting. That's not gameplay, that's busywork.
What?! You don't like making spears? You don't like building log palisades? You don't like doing it for the 900th game in a row?!
Counterpoint: games where you speed through the early part of the progression and get around to automating or otherwise trivializing many of the initially tedious elements are pretty cool. I'm talking about games like Scrap Mechanic or Astroneer. The core gameplay loop is going out exploring, collecting materials, bring them back to base and repeat. But by allowing you to get the basic resources automated you can focus on building setups to defend your base and produce more resources passively. It's a very satisfying form of progression.
Would legit rather play a simulator game based on my job than touch that shit