One thing that drives me nuts is the “Complete a mission within a time limit”. While these aren’t mandatory, Rockstar is notorious for putting these in their games.
I hate those missions also the racing portions of games where you have to go through a "glowing checkpoint" when racing games like gran turismo dont even have that.
what i hate is when games add a stealth mission/level in a game that isn't normally about that or that can be played in another way but now you have to stealth for some reason..
And I hate how they reward you based on how well you do said timed mission. I'd like to be able to unlock all of the Spiderman suits in Spiderman 2018 but the Taskmaster timed bomb missions where you gotta be PERFECT to get enough points to cash out sucks. I hope they fix that for Spiderman PS5.
My biggest pet peeve of open world games is how they can feel bloated. Like, I don't want to do what is just the same quest or challenge 20 times. Not that it's a tougher version, just doing the same exact thing in a bunch of areas.
Dragon Age: Inquisition...I'm not sure if it counts as open world but there are like a dozen very large maps to explore with all the open world fixings. It's the only game where I've felt it's just too much....
Days Gone, last story segment. I like the story and deacon but so many dumb fetch quests for the militia and their members. Go and collect your bullshit by yourself. Furthermore i was offen forced to fight the hordes, firsti time nice, after that boring.
Worst thing ever are escort missions, especially when they are extra slow. I always thought the ones where you have to protect the target were bad, but the ones where nothing at all happens are even worse (Most recent experience being escorting Boomer to the plaza in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 which is just slowly walking an old man there for 5 minutes).
I would argue opposite. You finished that mission and it's over. Imagine dying in the end because there is too many enemies or somehow granade blew him up or something. Hated missions like that in GTA or Saints Raw. Just make him walk for five minutes and move on.
Best escort mission is in the Morrowind Mages Guild, because it's not _technically_ an escort mission; you just have to get a mcguffin from a guy. He'll give it to you if you escort him to the next town. But your employer doesn't care how you get the mcguffin.
Fetch quests can be really good when done right. Especially at the beginning of the game or after discovering a new area. It can make you get around to the important points maybe lead you to npcs
When they work they are kind of just average. I mean for example many of the best fetch quests are interesting not because of the quest itself but because what happens to you on it. Or because of what it implies you have to do. Most Of these quests are just clearing dungeons. With a different coat of paint on why you’re going in there so it applies to many different settings
If the Fetch quest fits the game and provides a benefit, for instance, Warrior Monk has lost X item and asked for your help getting it, once you get it, having Warrior Monk act as an ally in Boss fights or at the game climax. A secret Fetch quest is the Skippy quest line in Cyberpunk 2077, yes you have this really cool smart(ass) gun but at some point you need to give it up. The Skeleton Key in Skyrim, you need to return it to the Deidra and lose it but it is the best pick in the game, yes you can not complete the mission, but my solution is to get Pick Locks 100 then complete the mission.
Fetch quests by their nature agree boring. It's one of the laziest mechanics there is in gaming. Xenoblade Chronicles was probably the worst at that. Especially because items were the same icon and you didn't know what you were getting until you picked it up. I don't want to get you 5 rare mushrooms just because you like them.
@@Coretalless or Morrowind's follow the directions on a journal, then use directions and landmarks and then look out for details of that items to get it.
This. Witcher 3 comes to mind where they give you a mundane task to do, but by going to the marked location you get swept up in a more interesting "twist" in the form of a new quest.
Number 3 reminds me of grounded, when I'm sitting at my base, trying to figure out how the gardening system works, when I get an alarm and - welp, I'm being raided. Drop what you're doing, find a weapon, and man the front lines, because the termites want their revenge. While it does break focus on whatever I was doing, it certainly does play into the immersion and survival aspect of it all, and I am glad it only happens to the base you're currently standing on.
That Far Cry 5 forced mission thing wasn't just bad from a gameplay perspective, it was absolutely inane from a story perspective. You're fighting against all these people yet they have zero problem capturing you - and then let you free - not once but three times! I'm just baffled how that made it into a game.
I mean, I found it only annoying from a gameplay perspective. I think it worked fine for the story. John was the only one who was really trying to hold you, and the times he caught you, you were able to escape. Faith and Jacob let you escape on purpose. Faith was trying to convert you. Jacob was trying to brainwash you. Though I will say it works better from a story perspective if you focus on one region at a time, and don't bounce all over the map. Take out John's reginion, then move to Faith's and take her out, then move to Jacob and take him out. The story is much more coherent if you follow that pattern instead of doing a little here, a little there throughout the entire map.
@@Unknown_Genius The kidnap missions are definitely forced. You will eventually trigger them based on the resistance meter even if you don’t do the main story. Kinda dumb since one of them removes all your ammo
No mention of missable items/quests? That's one of my biggest pet peeves of open-world games. You progress the main story too far and some side quests become unavailable. Or you only have one chance to grab an item and you missed it, with no recourse to obtain it later. At least give us a warning when we're about to lock off some side quests or miss a unique item.
The worst is when said missable items/quests are only available for an extremely limited period of time. Like... You go talk to X and an item/mission becomes available, but then the next person you have to talk to in the story is only a few feet away and locks out said item/quest when you talk to them. To make it even more irritating, having to go back to earlier areas to get the item/do the mission that you would have zero reason to go back to unless you already knew the mission existed.
Invisible Walls needed to be on this list. When you have all the game assets and design at your disposal, there's no excuse for a random patch of open air you can't pass. It's a lazy decision based on long-dead tech limits and seeing it in a modern game is a slap in the face. Put up a wall or cliffside if you have to, but don't just stop me from going somewhere I can clearly go.
How often do you see this in 2023? I haven't run into an invisible wall in any open-world game newer than 5 years old. It's not really a common enough problem anymore to be included on this list, I feel.
@@Ra18To but for real how would you actually go about avoiding invisible walls in Hogwarts? Even if you put mountains around the borders you would still be able to fly over them so I think you kind of have to just put invisible walls
I definitely agree when it comes to save files - I don't care how often the auto-save is, there's a lot of times I want to save before entering a scene with dialogue, or doing something a little risky. Heck - IRL things come up where you need to get ready in a manner of minutes. You're forced to forfeit progress, when there could've just been a manual save.
Unfortunately, a lot of these companies seem to think that gamers everywhere are saying, "You know what I hate? Being able to save my game whenever I want to!"
It's the classic console rpg annoyance, being unable to save where you want but instead having to use checkpoints that are god knows how far when you're in a dungeon so if you suddenly have to leave the game for whatever reason well you've just lost an hour+ of progress. I'm kinda baffled that it's not only a thing decades later but has seeped into PC games as well.
I love Guardians Of The Galaxy (Eidos Montreal game not the telltale one) for this because you can literally save at almost any moment even during real time cutscenes and it has auto save with a timer in the save menu to tell you how much time has passed since the game last saved.
I'll say that one thing I miss from the older Far Cry games is the crafting. I actually enjoyed having to explore the map to find hunting spots so I could upgrade my stuff.
Also didn't like that you keep leveling through challenges. Kinda pushes you to use weaponry you dont like or make moves you usually dont do, like running around with a rocket launcher. I'd rather have it simple with exp like in Far Cry 3, which is in my opinion the best one.
That’s why Far Cry Primal is one of my favorite concepts for an open world game. The crafting and the items you can craft fit the game perfectly. That game could’ve been great. Ironically, it needed a few more side quests to flesh it out completely
It would be nice if more games encouraged you to naturally complete some side missions by adding or removing consequences or perks from other main missions as a result. Ex: less enemies because of the sub boss missions you completed, having more allies, being able to activate or deactivate traps or security systems, getting information to manipulate / sabotage the boss, another way through the level etc. The games that allow you to do the final mission (badly, with many difficulties and a poorer ending) right off the bat, but way better with some preparation have always been more interesting & organic to me. Acquire or develop unique skills, equipment, & information to use instead of a purely “need to make my number go up” system.
I always feel like why is there an open world and side missions if they dont add anything to the game besides maybe giving you some resources and exp. The Witcher did a good job with side quest and showing consequences even later in the game when you arent expecting it, but the writing of the witcher is not the standart for games sadly...
@@omasfreier Well, many CRPGs in the late 90s/early 2000s were always built around these types of worldwide (worldspace-ishly) consequences of your character's early actions and choices. Not sure why devs stopped doing this (except for some of them like Obsidian or Larian) if not because of laziness or shareholders' pressure to get the game done too quickly.
@@Dargonhuman Or, the main story is 25h long. 15h is running around all over the map (as in running through the map, to different points on it, not discovering it).
elevation changes are really underrated. a lot of open worlds feel like theyre on a flat area with stuff added on top. no hills or mountains. no roads that change elevation. it can add a lot to cities especially
For me the worst thing that devs do in open world games is giving you an open world and then during mission forcing you to stand at the EXACT point they want you to stand, run in an EXACT line they want you to run, drive in the EXACT car etc. and basically do everything EXACTLY like devs intended or you'll fail the mission
Oh yeah ...nothing is more frustrating than a chase sequence, where I can still see the fleeing culprit and I know I can still catch the guy by taking shortcuts or other means. But no ... "Blablabla got too far away ... you failed!". Screw you, game! Same with stealth ... so what if I got discovered? Let me solve the situation the hard way if need be. Don't just abort it and force me to do it again.
Oblivion. There's a mission where you have to secretly follow a shopkeeper and listen in on a conversation with their supplier. That conversation didn't start for me, the NPCs clearly waiting for their cue. I went back to an earlier save multiple times, thinking maybe they saw me. Turns out you mustn't hide somewhere but instead be at a spot in full view... 🙄
The needlessly large and empty worlds made me thankful that I've gotten into the Yakuza series. The environments are quite small, but intricately designed with a lot to see and do. It's also fun to see how the world evolves from one game to the next.
I wish more game developers would take examples in the Yakuza games instead of Ubisoft games. I hate everything about Ubisofts Open World Formula. Everything there just exists to waste your time with unfun activities. The Yakuza games, while the story can be a bit slow in the beginning, respect your time. They give you a ton of activities you can spend time on or you can completely ignore them. The choice is yours. There are actually multiple full games inside the arcades in Yakuza games. I would even go so far to say, that every Yakuza game has more meaningful content than any Ubisoft game. And that's on a way smaller map and without forcing you to do stuff, you don't want to do. RGG Studio and Rockstar Games are the only 2 studios, where I can buy any game without ever hearing or seeing anything about it and still being sure I get my game of the year.
As someone who likes my vehicles, there is a limit to how small you can make a game with those. Variety is the bigger issue there, you don't want every city street/stretch of highway to be the same.
@@Gokudo87 I remember the Jak and Daxter series being similar. It was big, but not overly big and it had stuff to do. Kind of like most Zelda games. I hate Ubisofts Open World Formula because it ruined gaming in general. I would argue that it made developers lazy with the content they made. Like here are the pieces to make a sandcastle, now you can make the sandcastle for us instead. Recently got into playing Yakuza 0 and it's like a throwback to the past.
Kamurocho the king of "open world hub zone" RGG reuse so much assets between games and manage to make it feel special between games is a skill no developer studios I've seen emulate it at all
@@zealous404 yes I absolutely agree. I love coming back to Kamurocho. It's always like a vacation. And even though it's the same city, there still is stuff to explore. I love to explore how the city has changed compared to the other games. First thing I do is check landmarks like the millennium tower, purgatory, new serena, theater square and so on. Also there are always new substories and new side activities, that make the game feel fresh again.
Other gripes that I sometimes experience with open-world games: -No quick retry option for missions after failing them. -Not enough fast-travel locations or no "fast-travel anywhere" option. -Parts of the game where you're restricted to an area and can't go to other parts of the map. -Parts of the game where you're restricted from accessing an area you could enter before.
Yeah I really hate when fast travel is unavailable. It doesn't have to be travel from anywhere to anywhere but I think like skyrim does it alright. Running/riding/driving along the same boring road for the 100th time is not exploration, it's a waste of time.
When I was a software developer not a single product left our facility that wasn't tested on every operating system and numerous hardware configs, and we rarely ever had bugs. I think the real issue isn't that bugs can't be avoided but that games are continually rushed to market before properly play testing them over several environments. So down the crunch and just give us good games.
Or maybe the developers nowadays just aren't as competent. Cyberpunk had about 7 years to make. Their first teaser stated the will release when it's ready. That's from the marketing. You're telling me they didn't have enough time or were pushed? If that was the case then it couldn't have taken 7 years to push out a game.
In general games are just getting pushed out these days, ontop of at times QA seemingly being ignored and mistreated by either the game devs or higher ups. Devs and QA have to work together to iron out the bugs properly, otherwise they're not going to find most of them before launch. Similar issue is what caused Cyberpunk to be in the state it was on launch since that's the most recent example of issues between the devs and QA teams. There are other games where it's happened as well, Arkham Knight if I'm remembering correctly was extremely buggy on launch to the point that Rocksteady removed it from Steam until the game was fixed. Open world games are so massive that as stated, it's not possible to get EVERYTHING patched out, as sometimes fixing one thing might break another, like with coconut jpg in TF2. Delete the coconut, game doesn't work. At the same time at least the game breaking, game crashing issues should be removed by launch.
Agreed, as my uncle used to say, "Good gamers are willing to wait. Bad gamers wait for no one and everyone suffers with an inferior product due their impatience."😒😒😒
@@LiterallyAM You are right, CDPR developers WERE pushed due to time constraints (AKA "crunch"), and Cyberpunk 2077 did NOT take "7 years to make". The reality is, it was absolutely NOT released "when ready", so that was clearly a marketing lie. The game was so unfinished and buggy on launch, particularly on PS4, that Sony even completely removed the game from the PlayStation Store for 6 months after launch! Edit: It's clear that the game was highly mismanaged, and the competency of the developers is not to blame. Although Cyberpunk 2077 was first announced in 2012, full development didn't start until late 2016 (after The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC released) and the game even went through a "reset" during 2017, where everything from story elements to core gameplay elements were changed. The demo we got in 2018 was allegedly mostly "fake" (scripted animations etc) and many underlying gameplay systems hadn't been coded, so the game was nowhere near finished in that demo despite how it looks. Plus, there were a number of gameplay features advertised in the 2018 demo that were not at all put into the final game, either due to design changes or time constraints. Also, QA for the game was outsourced to a company called Quantic Lab, which was accused last year of corruption and fraudulent mismanagement of QA projects including Cyberpunk 2077, so it sounds like this was a major contributing factor to the amount and severity of bugs in the game post-launch. If you want to know more, you can look all of this up. It has been widely reported on, but I'll give credit to journalist Jason Schreier and TH-cam channel Upper Echelon.
TBF Fallout 4 Settlements have more of an impact on Survival difficulty as opposed to any other difficulty since Surivival difficulty makes it impossible to carry what you normally carry in the other difficulties. So having various settlements up and running gives you more places to drop off crafting loot and a place to get free water and food as well as a place to sleep relatively safely so you can quickly restart if you eat a nuke to the face.
I loved survival difficulty in new Vegas and I got excited it was in 4 until I found out I can only save when I sleep. I'm glad they allowed limited mods on console so I could mod in manual saving for it. Some games I'm ok with like persona but for the most part I hate being limited on when I can and can't save.
For me, what open world games need to stop doing is giving me no incentive to not abuse fast travel. Make the map big or small, dense or sparse, but at least give me a reason to want to travel through it. One of my favorite examples is in Mad Max where you can encounter random packs of enemies as you go from point A to point B, or a traveling group of people who need water, or random weather like dust devils and sandstorms that actively make the game more hazardous with a chance at massive rewards. It's a lot of small things that give the world texture and a choice of what you feel like risking, especially as you get stronger and your bases automatically replenish your health, fuel, and ammo. And survey towers are fine, just... can we mix 'em up a little? One area has towers to climb, while another has maybe scouting parties to establish or satellite dishes to repair to fill in my map? Sonic Frontiers does that really well by giving you little puzzles for each bit of map that also gives you quick-path rails to grind over
On your first point, I think Skyrim did this pretty well. I don't use fast travel unless there is a specific mechanic for it. Like the wagons that would take you to a major town. Outside of that I just would walk/ride everywhere. Going from place to place was an adventure on its own and I noticed I always had way more money and items compared to my friends that fast traveled everywhere. Plus having skills leveled up incredibly quickly from sneaking behind someone on a road or getting into constant fights.
Don't mind gathering materials for upgrades. Hunting animals in games so you can upgrade pouches or armour is a nice break from the usual sometimes and if it's done right, it's genuinely enjoyable and adds depth.
My favourite part was hunting down 2 entire humpback whales for a single strap of leather of a pistol holster in AC4 :) But seriously speaking I personally love crafting in games.
I just hate it when I can't find the animal I need or when I do it doesn't drop the right materials. Had this happen so many times in Horizon Zero Dawn that I just gave up after hours upon hours of hunting and never got upgrades to max.
@Nice To_meet_you same with Far Cry. Needing 4 wolf skins to get a better quiver in Primal and not finding any wolves where they should spawn annoyed me
I think MGSV nailed that mechanic. Things like the infinite sprint and carrying people on your back and running fast may be unrealistic, but for a gameplay experience it makes for so much more fun.
I’ll stick to number 7 being my biggest annoyance nowadays. Every developer is always going on about how big their map is, and there’s usually fuck all to do in the majority of it and it gets ignored. This is also a big reason why I love the Yakuza series so much, every single city in those games are packed full of things to do like mini games/stores/restaurants/sub stories yet it only takes 2 mins to traverse. It’s also pretty fun to explore and find collectables
the Yakuza games are also really cool in that they all take place in Kamurocho/Kabukicho at different periods in time, so not only are they small and dense, you get to see really subtle changes in each game. Another thing to mention too, even if you go back to the OG 2 Yakuza games on PS2, Kamurocho is still as dense as it is now. I actually started on Yakuza 1 on PS2 and thanks to that one game, ive known the layout of each game after it.
This is why i both adore and hate Breath of the Wild cause the map is beautiful, there's not a single time where i've not marvelled at the map while playing it, however aside from some scattered mini bosses the map feels empty and having 120 shrines in place of having a good number large sprawling dungeons didn't help that.
@@quinnmarchese6313 I really enjoyed just walking around exploring Kamurocho in every game just to see what they changed/added, it’s usually subtle but still super interesting to me. After playing all of the games then going back to Zero and imagining where the Millennium tower would be built or seeing Don Quijote being replaced with the police station in Y7 was cool
@@reissyboi7527 the only games that give me the same feeling of density in relation to its size are the Shenmue games, especially 1 and 2. You can turn any corner in either series and be greeted with a side story, an arcade with classic SEGA games preservation, a little tiny thing you can do, or like some gambling. i only ever actually played Yakuza 1 because i heard it was the closest series of games to the old Shenmue games
This is my biggest gripe with modern AC games. Too many people boast about how they are now content filled 100+ hour games you can explore endlessly. in reality the worlds are just 80% repetitive filler full of locations that make you think “that’s cool” for a split second with no genuine reason to visit again.
Number 8 is something that genuinely irks me. Idk how many times I've restarted on games due to that and I spend enough time on character creation as it is
Damn I like customizing my character but not enough to spend a lot of time or even restart because it’s right. Maybe you like the customization more than the actual game
This happened with me on Dragon Age: Inquisition. I have Mods, so Character Creation is better but I messed up one of my characters (I made the head too big, so the back of their head cliips through their hair). I cannot change their appearance until I get to a certain area where I can use a mirror. At least in Fallout 4 it's only a short starter section before you get the option to change appearance. Although I think it's an even further trek until you can get a haricut and other things.
@@jackieandthesheetmetals for me it's a kind a OCD perfectionism kind of thing and I also just like to look at my character sometimes. If it feels out of place and ugly it kinda kills the feel of immersion for me.
I also hated the fetch questing being mandatory. The one game I like that has the fetch quest is Yakuza Like A Dragon but they put them as side missions & give you a decent amount of rewards for completing it. Plus it isn't link to a story board so I can do it on my own time in my own pace. (I'm speaking from the perspective of being on the 9th chapter, idk if there's one further on in the chapters)
Love that game! You will level your characters up quite a bit if you do the side missions which come in very handy for the final boss battle and his area
And like the Shards quest in Dragon Age Inquisition. You don't have to do it, but if you dont you miss out on a boss area and a few handy bonusses and items.
I think Falcon's point of "there are good examples of these" is spot on. I think having certain areas locked out until X point adds to intrigue and mystery. Making the end game content restricted to such degrees is a bit much though. I also don't totally mind emptier maps as long as they're beautiful and somewhat easy to navigate through (assuming you don't have to do it all the time) or if they add to the feel of the game like walking through the desolate streets of New Mombasa in ODST.
The biggest problem with the direction the Assassin's Creed series has gone is that they insisted on them being AC games. They should have divorced them from the AC series so they weren't limited by it's meta-narrative and gone full on historical fantasy RPG. They could have kept developing the AC series in parallel, and more like what it was, something that I hope they will be getting back to with Mirage.
This is the prime example of being pulled out of the "open world zone" in Falcon's #3 here. I don't care about Abstergo or the animus, that ain't my world and don't try to make it so it is. That's easily as bad as Far Cry drugging your character and dropping you in some hallucination level. Fuck off with that already.
@@lvividblurl3690 I did too. What I'm saying is that I think it could have been even better if they hadn't hadn't been hamstrung by the all the "Assassin's Creed" franchise meta stuff and just let it be a historical fantasy RPG. I think all of the last 3 mainline AC games could have been really special, individual experiences if it weren't for the "AC-ness" that'd been required of them. And I liked 'em plenty as is!
@@only1dirtymouf so many companys have solid games they refuse to expand on. Another perfect example is Star Wars: Republic Commando. I wish they would make a sequel. But it's been so long I highly doubt it honestly
Yup.. Side missions that don't hold your back, small open world but engaging, fun combat mechanic, interesting characters, good story, what a gem.. Shame we never get a sequel..
I'm totally fine with fetch quests, glitches, no manual saves, dumpy avatars, etc. The only thing that really sops my pants in an open world game is a plot of urgency. Hearing "Hurry, there's not a lot of time, you have to hurry before you die, HURRY!" really takes the fun out of side quests and keeps me from wanting to ever replay it. It's completely antithetical to open world and yet it's so prevalent.
Agreed. And it's even worse when they tell you there's a time crunch but you can do whatever else forever, and nothing will change. Bethesda's games are notorious for this (except for Daggerfall, where you can actually fail the main quest by ignoring it).
The settlement system in Fallout 4 is actually organic and does fix an issue with the previous Fallout (or even Elder Scrolls) games, namely that no matter how powerful you grew, you left no permanent change in the world - as if you never existed. With settlements, you can re-civilize the world around you, provide shelter and food for hundreds of people and you can even meet patrols and supply caravans in the wild. I felt that much more satisfying than being the head of all factions in a massive world that feels the same when I started (like in Skyim).
Absolutely love it. Probably an unpopular opinion... I would love to see if Bethesda could figure out how to make it work in ES organicly. Would be interesting to build castles / forts, defend against dragon, monsters & NPC attacks. In a few areas. Or at least back port that portion / expose the framework for us modders in ES to go crazy.
only thing I hated about it is the fact that every thing you build still looks like trash. You're building everything from scratch with materials you have on hand. It doesn't make sense to me that everything looks like it was in the presence of the nuclear bombs that dropped over 200 years ago. I just want things I build to look clean especially when I'm manually placing all the walls and floors and not something that was pre-built. It's no wonder it's hard to get settlers happy when their walls have holes and their roofs look like they're about to cave in.
And allowing you different saves for different characters/new games. Some games just put all your saves in one place, whether it's a new game start or not. The Witcher 1 is an example of this. At least Dragon Age: Inqusition splits it up into characters, thus making things a bit easier.
@@Martin57878 Every Dragon Age game separates saves by character. It’s real nice. Origins even separates it by every dlc you play. So you can import a character from Awakening or Origins into their DLC or DAII
The funny thing is, this was a completely normal and common thing in 90s. It only stopped being common when games started to get developed for consoles first, PCs later.
So on AC3... On my 2nd play I went through the tunnels... and... they are an unlockable fast travel system... once you find an exit you can then fast travel between them, so unlocking them early actually saves you a ton of time later in the game.
Either I'm misremembering or I actually did this on my very first playthrough. I was poking about before ever becoming an assassin and had the vast majority of the fast travel network unlocked extremely early in the game. I seem to remember doing this while Connor was very young like an early visit to a city.
There's a part in the game Control where you have to find all TV's with flames burning in the screen and throw them into the furnace in order to get unlimited ammo for your pistol. The thing is if you toss a TV into the abyss it doesn't spawn again so to get that achievement is lost. I wish they would have implemented a respawn mechanic if it hasn't been thrown into the furnace. I'm sure there are other games that have that flaw as well.
I'll be back with another comment in a year listing all the ones I know with similar/related bugs, joking (mostly) but it truly is a very very long list. Or ones where you get messed up in other ways because you sequence broke.
Number 7 is so true! Whenever I hear the beaten to dead marketing phrase "It's 4 times bigger than out last game" that's always a massive red alert klaxon for me. And a BIG reason why classics as "Beyond Good & Evil" or modern games like "Ghost of Tsushima" are sooo much more beloved by me, they have COMPACT open worlds that fill every stretch of land they have with something noteworthy. The industry really needs to go back to "Quality over Quantity".
It will never happen from AAA devs though it needs to come from another direction where once again the will to tell a compelling story outshines the will to make money. Big companies never invent anything they just take popular ideas, bloats them and then runs them into the ground until another concept comes for them to exploit.
What gets me in the tail missions in GTA for instance is where if the person you're tailing stops at a traffic light, you cant pull up behind them as if you're driving normally. You have to stop 3 car lengths behind or whatever which surely looks more suspicious in their rear view mirror compared to being right behind.
And when you get attacked by randomly spawning gang members. Fighting back either attracts to much attention or risks the target getting away so you just have to take it. Might be fine if it was a scripted part of the mission, but forgetting to disable certain free roam mechanics while in a mission is irritating.
That always felt so weird! Really feel like vehicle tailing missions should rely more on line of sight/suspicious behavior then pure distance. Like if have a car between you and the target it doesn't matter how close you are. And if you do need to stop some distance away, you must pull over as to not block traffic. Tailing missions could be really interesting in a game with a player switching mechanic, as if one character started getting too suspicious, you could have another join in from a parallel road and have the first pull off.
Sonic Frontiers didn't take long to Platinum, but it was annoying not knowing which Guardians you haven't defeated yet, or how many times you've activated Phantom Rush. Just give us some kind of tracker in the menu.
It wasn't too difficult to mentally keep track of which Guardians you fought, especially given they get introduced every time you encounter one. Ghost is the only one that can prove troublesome if you aren't lucky enough to interact with the statue that starts the fight. Tracking Phantom Rush activations is completely ridiculous though.
as for number 3... I'm playing through Red Dead 2 right now and one of the absolute most infuriating things is when a cutscene starts right after a battle and I can't loot any of the 30 dead guys that are just lying there begging me to take their silver pocket watches lol
I am SO glad I only discovered the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor / War games well after they removed microtransactions (the bane of our existence) and adjusted the ending criteria for Shadow of War. It's a series I still go back to frequently, and among the few that I actually enjoy enough to play on the hardest difficulty for the added challenge (I admit I'm mostly a "casual" in just about everything else).
@@uberboomer8670 i played before it got fixed, and it was so bad, It consisted of 10 stages with 20 battles in total (if you didn't lose any of them), so you go from this cool game, to suddenly became rinse and repeat. you had to conquer all the areas, and when you go to the next one your previous base would get attacked. Now imagine doing this 20 times.
I love both games but if they plan to create the third installment, i hope they add a lot new things because as much i am a fan of both games i admit the games are getting repetitive and tedious pretty damn fast, thankfully i love butchering orcs.. The orcs arena and duel for example, is still pretty much broken and sometimes unplayable..
Also one thing I didn't like is when you finish the game and they sent you back to the save before you start the finale Like horizon zero dawn or BOTW and cyberpunk 2077 They could do something about it kinda like rdr2 or GOW ragnarok where they can explain the endgame story so we don't have to go back to that one save cause it makes me feel empty inside
11:56 If you hadn't reminded me of the Assassin's Creed 3 tunnel system in this video it would have never come up in any of my discussions about that game ever! I completely forgot about it, in fact when you mentioned it I was still wondering what exactly you were talking about, I don't think anyone actually used that mechanic to go anywhere or do anything other than during the introduction to it.
My most hated type of mission type are the Escort Missions. Get random civilian to safe house. They lack coordination, get stuck on a maps geometry and die quite easily.
@@Klouhs i meant the fact that the options were given vague titles instead of showing us the actual dialogue. Other than that I sank many enjoyable hours into the game.
@@SamuraiSilverhand Yeah ... often you would pick one and what was actually said had almost the opposite meaning and effect than what the dialog description suggested.
Watching a list like this really makes me appreciate how well RGG designs Yakuza's open world. The districts are tiny, but always have things to see and do, most of the 'filler' content is fun, and for the most part completely optional. Half the issues on this list just don't exist in Yakuza games.
What's even worse than shoehorning RPG mechanics in a non-RPG open-world game? Being forced to choose between monotonous grinding or microtransactions to progress. It's a sneaky way of locking content behind a paywall without technically doing so (I'm looking at you, AC: Odyssey).
My number one reason is "Very Long UNSKIPPABLE Cutscene right before a difficult mission, so that when you fail, you have to watch the Very Long UNSKIPPABLE Cutscene to try again.
I actually have started growing more appreciative of the distance I have to run in Breakpoint. I play full tactical mode and I enjoy landing a KM or 2 away from my objective and moving realistically to my objective. It does add a large sense of immersion. However, before I really started doing that. It was helicopter from place to place 24/7. And I may go back to that at some point.
I think a good way to use the gather these items type mission is for something they will make for you that increases the enjoyment of the hunt. i.e: get the materials I need to finish my prototype tool/ weapon and ill let you test it before I make the final version and then you can give input for the final version.
Number 3 is a huge problem in Genshin Impact when I just wanna do material farming, dailies and other non story stuff but get ambushed by story cutscenes when I am really not in the mood for them.
Yakuza is the one series where if you walk for even 1m, a random pedestrian will stop you midway and force you into a side quest that you are not interested in.
Big maps are actually good for open world racing games sometimes because we dont want to just race all time but also do long drives and chill and long races are fun too! Thats the reason why the crew 2 and TDU2 are loved by many people!
Yes, and it's why TDU SC looks a bit concerning. Although there are already people who defend the new island and claim more details is better than a properly big map or even that players these days will only like a small but detailed map.
@@vsm1456 yea if they add the older games maps too like tdu 2 where we can go by flight it would make the game so special and one of the best. Doesnt matter much if they make it fresh with more details or copy paste from older ones but it should be there.
This isn't just in open world games, but i hate puzzles in non puzzle games. I'll freely admit that it's because I'm just bad at puzzles, even the simplest puzzles out there I suck at, and will always look up the conclusion for. I know game developers put them in so people don't get bored with the same kind of gameplay, but for me it simply slows the game down and kills my enjoyment of the game.
Fetch quests are fine when they cause you to travel to a new area, possibly one you wouldn't normally notice, to get the items. Borderlands series has a lot of fetch quests that are that way.
Also when going places to fetch something has a considerable chance of getting you other goodies like treasure or gear. The thing is fetch quests get real repetitive real fast.
Limited time side quests, should go lol, I never liked being put on a time limit, especially if my character wasn't ready for it yet. You miss out on good gear or a interesting part of the story.
It's part of why you can buy a lot of the components from shops rather than DIY there but yeah some of the rarer drops aren't usually sold by the merchants.
2:10 "They said there was gonna be a bunch of stuff in the game that wasn't." That's true but not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, they said early in development that start systems would have realistic orbits (like in Outer Wilds, for instance), but later in development when they went to play testing, they discovered that this confused and annoyed people, as it made traversal and keeping track of planets you've already visited much more difficult, so it was decided to scrap this feature and have every planet be essentially stagnant. They was a creative and logistic choice. Not a "broken promise," yet people will still attack them for it.
I definitely agree that bigger is not better. If the map is bigger but the only real addition is time spent traveling it's not a good idea. I also agree that I hate my games becoming a numbers game. One of the main reasons I dislike Borderlands is because their "millions of unique guns" is just the same gun with 1 point of a stat difference between the last 12 I just picked up. I also have finished Andromeda three times and I don't remember ever having a problem tracking quests. Ugh, automatic mission starts or progression is the absolute worst. Not like random quests but main quests that have the illusion of a time limit (or an actual time limit). I also remember in one of the Prototype games they had landmark collectibles and I was using a map of them to mark them off but then I got the last one and the game showed 99/100 with no way to know which ones I had got. In Valhalla you also don't really take over the country but are generally helping others within each territory. Having the true ending behind 100% is also good but I agree that a lot pad out what 100% means quite a bit.
There are still cases where size matters. Test Drive Unlimited was a hit because the map was so much bigger than anything we saw before. When travelling is an activity itself and you enjoy it, a big map can make the game better.
Autosave with no manual save in co-op games is to prevent the most basic form of duping. I drop you a weapon and reload a manual save and now we both have it. This is why you might notice you’ll typically get one or the other (manual save or co-op) if the game allows you to drop things.
One of my personal peeves with open world games is when 90% of the story gameplay happens in the open world, I know that seems a bit of an oxymoron but when you've got this open world with side missions, collectibles and whatever else they throw in, it tends to get a bit dull for me when the story rarely takes you to unique locations that you otherwise can't visit and instead makes you go around the same locations you've been seeing throughout your time playing it.
like red Dead 2 and the snow mountains. spend like 3 hours there doing the beginning toturial and basically never go there again, or blackwater where you never even get to go for pretty much any reason.
@@Skylar.H93 that's what I hate in some games, where the most of the story takes place in 60% of the map and there's a huge part that you never visit organically unless you force yourself to go to those sites
Yeah, honestly speaking my favourite part of AC3 was the Homestead building questline. Sometimes my reason to continue the main story was just to unlock more homestead quests. It hits especially hard after seeing what a thriving community was there before the whole AC Rogue story.
@ada afa yeah the homestead missions added another side to Connor that was missing from the main campaign and there are definitely multiple missions in the main story that with just a bit of rewriting I would have much rather having homestead missions in their place
I find it bizzare that developers launch a game, buggy, but patch it out a few months later. Why not launch the game a few months later instead and save your reputation, I can't imagine that launching a buggy game sooner rather than a stable game later ammounts to that much more money
Except it doesn't destroy their reputation. People complain loudly, sure, but show them a cool trailer, and they're taking a day off work so they can play the next game the hour it shows up.
It's about shareholders and money. They want their returns within a certain time and they don't care if the game is crap or the company suffers, they're just looking to make alot of money in a short amount of time. Capitalism, baby! 😎
something i always have a gripe with character creator is when a game don't let you re-edit your character. you should never be locked out of character editor you should always be able to change them later with most options if not all. saints row is what most games should do with character creator where you can always change any thing on your character
Falcon, THANK YOU - You as usual nailed it, pity game developers can't, worst culprit being Ubisoft, can we get rid of 90% of the extra crap they pad the games with and no more bloody towers to climb, now everyone has them, they were good in AC1, but now every AC has more (unity and Valhalla the worst) farcry, and every other open world game has them even spiderman to get unneeded collectible crap just to pad the game, give us more story and less filler. We need more games like Elden Ring where they are fun and not just endless pointless collectibles and go collect poo mission (yes WOW I am looking at you, we all remember opening of AQ)
Thank you Falcon! So many things addressed. I will say that the Sim Settlements 2 add-on for Fallout 4 really helps the settlement build out without wasting all your time.
Yet to finish the vid & many open world games have already moved away from it, but still encounter the occasional invisible barrier at a map’s boundary. Way too many creative ways to address this to still be seeing it.
Timed quests are annoying especially when you start at A and have to find an item in a B zone and then take it to C destination but the devs purposefully put obstacles in the way so you lose more time trying to finish that quest. Forced long distance slow walking and escort quests in a large world where you're getting roughly 10+ minutes of dialogue and forced to slow crawl with an equally slow NPC.
Despite how good it is overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man has most of this list in one form or another, none in a good way. I’m looking at all 735 of you, backpacks!
One of my biggest pet peeve of open world games is when there are too many collectibles and it only appears on the map when you get close to it. The first Assassin's Creed game has way too many collectible flags for every area (I believe its 420 flags in total) and its especially bad when it doesn't appear on the map unless you've been in the area of it. Thus, since the collectibles aren't on the map unless I go near it, I end up having to use tons and tons of guides to be able to collect all these collectibles.
I resonate with the character customization subject. I’m demotivated to go all out now but I used to really be thorough with the creation. Unfortunately the lighting and whatever space the model is being created in doesn’t typically reflect the lighting or the scenery of the game and it feels slightly off from whatever I was satisfied with to jump in. This happens to me a lot in Skyrim. Now I just send it.
Yeah, I usually just make a vanilla character. And honestly in Elden Ring it doesn't really matter what your character looks like as you're never going to see their face again...ever.
Let's not forget the infamous you have to do this thing or beat this level before you can progress in the story and you have to do it to learn a thing you're not really going to use that much.... I'm talking about you Bungie... 'Final Osiris Strand Training mission' like do you want to get to the Veil or not lol.
I actually don't necessarily mind fetch or trail quests, as they make sense. If you're a spy, then you would trail target, break into places to steal information, or infiltrate groups, etc. If you're and adventurer or odd-jobs person, or a trader, then you would try to acquire items for your patrons, quest-givers or customers. What I don't like is, like was said in the video, when they force you to stay a certain distance while not letting you get spotted. Let me get spotted. Make it interesting. If we have to tail some, let us do it our way, but let there be consequences (maybe we take a shortcut to get ahead of the target, and therefore don't see them dropping off a package, etc.). If we have to procure something, let us find it in other shops, let us get it through trades, or let us hunt it down in the world/craft it (if craft-able), but make the reward worth it. If I hunt down a dragon for it's teeth, I better get a good reward, not 100 gold (especially if good armor costs thousands of gold. I'm looking at you Skyrim) The real problem is un-interesting and un-inspired missions, not the kind of mission.
The one thing I hate more then anything else is something I personally like to call the Ubisoft effect it’s when they have a big open world and they fill it with a billion tiny unnecessary collectibles like the chests in ac4 I think I have 3 save files at 99% percent because I lose interest in collecting the 99 chests on all the small islands every time. I recently finished the story of the spider man 2 game from 2004 and when I began I wanted to 100% it until I found out it had about 300-400 small tokens spread across the map
"Launching in a bug-y state." Amen, brother! "AC: Valhalla" was having serious bugs all the way into this past summer (it launched in November 2020) and, as of last month, Ubisoft will no longer do updates. It takes them nearly two years to catch most of the problems with the game then they stop supporting it six months later? I know "AC: Mirage" is coming out sometime but I'm seriously thinking of skipping anything Ubisoft does from now on when they can't seem to actually get their games ready for release in good working order. SUPER frustrating.
18:17 I think in generel for ingame unlocks and trophies the top ones should sit at around 80-85% of the collectibles. Nobody is gonna get 100% without a guide anyways so looking out for them and trying to find them isn’t even worth it.
That save file point is very accurate. Like as someone who makes multiple save files for attempting glitches and replaying old boss fights I see a list of tens to hundreds of save files that all look like this: -11/21/19 09.56.42- And it's like alright wtf happened on that date? It's been years since I played this game and can't remember what I did last week. Is that also the real date because sometimes my old Xbox would reset its date to that day and I stopped bothering to reset it. Some save files are like 50 seconds apart, did I want to load the latest? Or was I attempting a glitch from a certain point 3 files back and that's the one I want. Cyberpunk 2077 for all its issues and criticisms I loved it and loved breaking it (goodbye my holy speed dash glitch) but it at least showed a thumbnail of whatever you were looking at when you saved. It's better than nothing until you save so much that the thumbnails begin taking a while to load. This is probably only for me and a specific set of people and speedrunners but save file folders and organization of multiple save files would be great too.
One of the biggest gripes I have is lack of UI customization in games that are meant to be immersive, which most open world games claim to be. Ubisoft is the biggest culprit. Maybe I don’t want a minimap, or a quest reminder, or health bars, or a quest compass, or a level up indicator or anything. This also includes control of game features, like how often companions make comments, whether I need to eat or sleep, friendly fire, automatically switching weapons when picking up a new one, in game puzzle hints (like your character saying “Maybe I need to find a lever. “. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to switch most things on or off, particularly UI.
Another one for me would be boring traversal. Games like Spiderman and Infamous really nailed unique and fun traversal for me, but when other games equip me with just some default horse or uninteresting vehicles then it makes getting around the map really unenjoyable and causes me to use fast travel more than I'd like.
I personally hate too much useless empty space. I'm not expecting to find enemies everywhere but I want to feel like I have something to pick up or ignore rather than nothing be there at all. A good example is Skyrim. No there may not be an enemy around that corner but there are some flowers you could pick for alchemy. I guess I just want open world games to have more evenly spaced map content.
@Ikari Indeed. In regards to my opinion on Bethesda, I don't have a negative one. I try not to think about the companies and only look at the games they did right.
I remember one early "Follow this guy without being seen" mission in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The main city was split into zones with doors that would trigger a loading screen. So I'm following this dude at a discreet distance, he gets to one of the doors and disappears into the next zone, I follow him, and when the game loads, he's standing right there staring me in the face. I groaned in frustration thinking I had just failed the mission due to bad programming, but instead, the fellow gives me a cheery, "Hello!" and continues on his way. Turns out that even though the mission parameters were to follow him without being spotted, the game didn't actually care. You could literally run circles around him as he was walking and still complete the mission.
Same. I haven't even beat the game because I've just been building stuff and making them feel lived in. Felt the same when he mentioned the ship combat in Black Flag. Never beat Black Flag because of it. I do just enough of the story to get some solid upgrades and then I just roam the open waters fighting other ships.
Its still a mess now like i played it on a 3090 and its still loaded with bugs and still feels unfinshed. like the cop ai is still soo dumb you can escape it every time by jumping in a care and driveing in any direction for 3 seconds. fact is the only thing that would have fixed that game is it being delayed a few years rather than being rushed out to hit a chritsmass / next gen console release date. if anything its made me learn to not only never pre order again but also never get hyped for something until i actuly know what it is
@@shawbag11 they are redoing the cop ai and it should come soon, other then that it doesnt feel unfinished. Its massive with lots of content, this is just beating on it and thinking it needs to somehow be more than any other game lmao
Yeah I got it on release on Ps4 and it was an awful experience i just had to give up on it even after it was patched it was still unplayable. Was a massive let down after all the hype.
5:24, there's a possible solution to this too, again on PC anyways, if your saves are directory based (meaning there's a directory called SAVE1 or your saves name) then the character model is probably a separate file from the inventory etc, it may be in a format that blender recognises, in which case you can open it up in there and start fiddling with it using similar lighting etc to what you found in game. What would be a better solution though is if game companies just allowed you to load in an external model of whatever common format they chose, on consoles you could just plug in a USB with it in there and they can just copy it into the initial save they make on a new game which in turn means you don't need to have the USB in whenever you play that save, a side effect of this method is being able to create cross-game avatars
I can tell you, as an industry insider, why everything is so buggy: people are so afraid they won't be able to fill empty seats that they won't fire anyone, no matter how incompetent they are. I had to walk away from a MAJOR title because every meeting I was asked to attend was an exercise in stupidity. I'm afraid I don't see any end in sight, which is why I'm launching my own studio rather than wait for the industry to grow up.
About #6, I never understood why RPG elements are called RPG elements, this is non-sense. Role-playing is not about loot and stats, it's about role playing. For example, your character personnality evolving based on your actions or decisions is a RPG element to me.
Its funny to me how BotW and Elden Ring avoid most of these issues in their games and they're both widely regarded as some of the best games ever yet most devs just copy the Ubisoft formula 🤦🏽♂️
Personally I loved the homestead mission on AC3 no base building has compared to that one, every character was fun and how you recruit them, not to mention how each time you upgraded it showed in the world
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 84 วันนี้!! คู่เอก "ก้องศึก vs เมืองไทย"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3kuzsAIDf1c/mqdefault.jpg)
One thing that drives me nuts is the “Complete a mission within a time limit”. While these aren’t mandatory, Rockstar is notorious for putting these in their games.
I hate those missions also the racing portions of games where you have to go through a "glowing checkpoint" when racing games like gran turismo dont even have that.
what i hate is when games add a stealth mission/level in a game that isn't normally about that or that can be played in another way but now you have to stealth for some reason..
@@arcanumelite4853 Aka Spider Person and Final Dream XV
i hate missions with hidden timer on them
And I hate how they reward you based on how well you do said timed mission. I'd like to be able to unlock all of the Spiderman suits in Spiderman 2018 but the Taskmaster timed bomb missions where you gotta be PERFECT to get enough points to cash out sucks. I hope they fix that for Spiderman PS5.
My biggest pet peeve of open world games is how they can feel bloated. Like, I don't want to do what is just the same quest or challenge 20 times. Not that it's a tougher version, just doing the same exact thing in a bunch of areas.
Fetch quests
Def mafia 3
@@watermelonsugar142 every ubisoft game
Dragon Age: Inquisition...I'm not sure if it counts as open world but there are like a dozen very large maps to explore with all the open world fixings. It's the only game where I've felt it's just too much....
Days Gone, last story segment. I like the story and deacon but so many dumb fetch quests for the militia and their members. Go and collect your bullshit by yourself. Furthermore i was offen forced to fight the hordes, firsti time nice, after that boring.
Worst thing ever are escort missions, especially when they are extra slow. I always thought the ones where you have to protect the target were bad, but the ones where nothing at all happens are even worse (Most recent experience being escorting Boomer to the plaza in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 which is just slowly walking an old man there for 5 minutes).
I would argue opposite. You finished that mission and it's over. Imagine dying in the end because there is too many enemies or somehow granade blew him up or something. Hated missions like that in GTA or Saints Raw. Just make him walk for five minutes and move on.
Best escort missions were in Saints Row: The Third. Though "escort" had a somewhat different meaning...
Honestly some quest in XC3 are weird, well, Xenoblade in general.
Best escort mission is in the Morrowind Mages Guild, because it's not _technically_ an escort mission; you just have to get a mcguffin from a guy. He'll give it to you if you escort him to the next town.
But your employer doesn't care how you get the mcguffin.
That's not a typical open world game problem
Fetch quests can be really good when done right. Especially at the beginning of the game or after discovering a new area. It can make you get around to the important points maybe lead you to npcs
When they work they are kind of just average. I mean for example many of the best fetch quests are interesting not because of the quest itself but because what happens to you on it. Or because of what it implies you have to do. Most Of these quests are just clearing dungeons. With a different coat of paint on why you’re going in there so it applies to many different settings
If the Fetch quest fits the game and provides a benefit, for instance, Warrior Monk has lost X item and asked for your help getting it, once you get it, having Warrior Monk act as an ally in Boss fights or at the game climax. A secret Fetch quest is the Skippy quest line in Cyberpunk 2077, yes you have this really cool smart(ass) gun but at some point you need to give it up. The Skeleton Key in Skyrim, you need to return it to the Deidra and lose it but it is the best pick in the game, yes you can not complete the mission, but my solution is to get Pick Locks 100 then complete the mission.
Fetch quests by their nature agree boring. It's one of the laziest mechanics there is in gaming. Xenoblade Chronicles was probably the worst at that. Especially because items were the same icon and you didn't know what you were getting until you picked it up. I don't want to get you 5 rare mushrooms just because you like them.
@@Coretalless or Morrowind's follow the directions on a journal, then use directions and landmarks and then look out for details of that items to get it.
This. Witcher 3 comes to mind where they give you a mundane task to do, but by going to the marked location you get swept up in a more interesting "twist" in the form of a new quest.
Number 3 reminds me of grounded, when I'm sitting at my base, trying to figure out how the gardening system works, when I get an alarm and - welp, I'm being raided. Drop what you're doing, find a weapon, and man the front lines, because the termites want their revenge. While it does break focus on whatever I was doing, it certainly does play into the immersion and survival aspect of it all, and I am glad it only happens to the base you're currently standing on.
That Far Cry 5 forced mission thing wasn't just bad from a gameplay perspective, it was absolutely inane from a story perspective. You're fighting against all these people yet they have zero problem capturing you - and then let you free - not once but three times! I'm just baffled how that made it into a game.
I mean, I found it only annoying from a gameplay perspective. I think it worked fine for the story.
John was the only one who was really trying to hold you, and the times he caught you, you were able to escape. Faith and Jacob let you escape on purpose. Faith was trying to convert you. Jacob was trying to brainwash you.
Though I will say it works better from a story perspective if you focus on one region at a time, and don't bounce all over the map. Take out John's reginion, then move to Faith's and take her out, then move to Jacob and take him out. The story is much more coherent if you follow that pattern instead of doing a little here, a little there throughout the entire map.
@@Unknown_Genius The kidnap missions are definitely forced. You will eventually trigger them based on the resistance meter even if you don’t do the main story. Kinda dumb since one of them removes all your ammo
No mention of missable items/quests? That's one of my biggest pet peeves of open-world games. You progress the main story too far and some side quests become unavailable. Or you only have one chance to grab an item and you missed it, with no recourse to obtain it later. At least give us a warning when we're about to lock off some side quests or miss a unique item.
the dragon priest mask at the portal to sovengarde in skyrim
Delemain missions in Cyberpunk omfg
@NuticalSky1871 bro I was so mad when I saw that and realized cause I ran out of there into that portal
Falcon: Please make manual saves a thing.
Fromsoftware stans: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE???!!! *brain explodes*
The worst is when said missable items/quests are only available for an extremely limited period of time. Like... You go talk to X and an item/mission becomes available, but then the next person you have to talk to in the story is only a few feet away and locks out said item/quest when you talk to them. To make it even more irritating, having to go back to earlier areas to get the item/do the mission that you would have zero reason to go back to unless you already knew the mission existed.
Invisible Walls needed to be on this list. When you have all the game assets and design at your disposal, there's no excuse for a random patch of open air you can't pass. It's a lazy decision based on long-dead tech limits and seeing it in a modern game is a slap in the face. Put up a wall or cliffside if you have to, but don't just stop me from going somewhere I can clearly go.
Can I upvote this more times?
Like some games that say "You are leaving the game play area, please turn back!" type of warnings? I hate those.
How often do you see this in 2023? I haven't run into an invisible wall in any open-world game newer than 5 years old. It's not really a common enough problem anymore to be included on this list, I feel.
Only positive of this is the bugs to get out of there, I used to try and get out of the boundaries of the map in games to see what there was.
@@Ra18To but for real how would you actually go about avoiding invisible walls in Hogwarts? Even if you put mountains around the borders you would still be able to fly over them so I think you kind of have to just put invisible walls
I definitely agree when it comes to save files - I don't care how often the auto-save is, there's a lot of times I want to save before entering a scene with dialogue, or doing something a little risky. Heck - IRL things come up where you need to get ready in a manner of minutes. You're forced to forfeit progress, when there could've just been a manual save.
Unfortunately, a lot of these companies seem to think that gamers everywhere are saying, "You know what I hate? Being able to save my game whenever I want to!"
Sometimes it just doesn't work in the game engine to be able to save at any point.
It's the classic console rpg annoyance, being unable to save where you want but instead having to use checkpoints that are god knows how far when you're in a dungeon so if you suddenly have to leave the game for whatever reason well you've just lost an hour+ of progress. I'm kinda baffled that it's not only a thing decades later but has seeped into PC games as well.
I love Guardians Of The Galaxy (Eidos Montreal game not the telltale one) for this because you can literally save at almost any moment even during real time cutscenes and it has auto save with a timer in the save menu to tell you how much time has passed since the game last saved.
The lack of manual saves is a concession to console gaming.
I'll say that one thing I miss from the older Far Cry games is the crafting. I actually enjoyed having to explore the map to find hunting spots so I could upgrade my stuff.
Also didn't like that you keep leveling through challenges. Kinda pushes you to use weaponry you dont like or make moves you usually dont do, like running around with a rocket launcher. I'd rather have it simple with exp like in Far Cry 3, which is in my opinion the best one.
That’s why Far Cry Primal is one of my favorite concepts for an open world game. The crafting and the items you can craft fit the game perfectly. That game could’ve been great. Ironically, it needed a few more side quests to flesh it out completely
It would be nice if more games encouraged you to naturally complete some side missions by adding or removing consequences or perks from other main missions as a result. Ex: less enemies because of the sub boss missions you completed, having more allies, being able to activate or deactivate traps or security systems, getting information to manipulate / sabotage the boss, another way through the level etc.
The games that allow you to do the final mission (badly, with many difficulties and a poorer ending) right off the bat, but way better with some preparation have always been more interesting & organic to me.
Acquire or develop unique skills, equipment, & information to use instead of a purely “need to make my number go up” system.
I always feel like why is there an open world and side missions if they dont add anything to the game besides maybe giving you some resources and exp. The Witcher did a good job with side quest and showing consequences even later in the game when you arent expecting it, but the writing of the witcher is not the standart for games sadly...
@@omasfreier Well, many CRPGs in the late 90s/early 2000s were always built around these types of worldwide (worldspace-ishly) consequences of your character's early actions and choices.
Not sure why devs stopped doing this (except for some of them like Obsidian or Larian) if not because of laziness or shareholders' pressure to get the game done too quickly.
The one game that did that was Oblivion. You had a fight a big battle and you could go out and recruits Allie’s or just fight in it
It's so they can brag about their game having hundreds of hours of content when the main storyline only takes about 3 hours.
@@Dargonhuman Or, the main story is 25h long. 15h is running around all over the map (as in running through the map, to different points on it, not discovering it).
elevation changes are really underrated. a lot of open worlds feel like theyre on a flat area with stuff added on top. no hills or mountains. no roads that change elevation. it can add a lot to cities especially
Verticality adds so much. That's what struck me most about Breath of the WIld...the sheer verticality of that game was spectacular.
Sounds more realistic to keep a city on a flat piece of land given that is how real life works though.
@@9krio it often isn't that way
@@9krio But videogame is not real life
@@rifath8152: and yet principles apply
For me the worst thing that devs do in open world games is giving you an open world and then during mission forcing you to stand at the EXACT point they want you to stand, run in an EXACT line they want you to run, drive in the EXACT car etc. and basically do everything EXACTLY like devs intended or you'll fail the mission
Nice description of god of war ragnawalking mate. Respect.
Oh yeah ...nothing is more frustrating than a chase sequence, where I can still see the fleeing culprit and I know I can still catch the guy by taking shortcuts or other means. But no ... "Blablabla got too far away ... you failed!". Screw you, game! Same with stealth ... so what if I got discovered? Let me solve the situation the hard way if need be. Don't just abort it and force me to do it again.
Oblivion. There's a mission where you have to secretly follow a shopkeeper and listen in on a conversation with their supplier. That conversation didn't start for me, the NPCs clearly waiting for their cue. I went back to an earlier save multiple times, thinking maybe they saw me. Turns out you mustn't hide somewhere but instead be at a spot in full view... 🙄
Hey rockstar this is you
Rock Star says hello.
The needlessly large and empty worlds made me thankful that I've gotten into the Yakuza series. The environments are quite small, but intricately designed with a lot to see and do. It's also fun to see how the world evolves from one game to the next.
I wish more game developers would take examples in the Yakuza games instead of Ubisoft games.
I hate everything about Ubisofts Open World Formula. Everything there just exists to waste your time with unfun activities.
The Yakuza games, while the story can be a bit slow in the beginning, respect your time. They give you a ton of activities you can spend time on or you can completely ignore them. The choice is yours. There are actually multiple full games inside the arcades in Yakuza games.
I would even go so far to say, that every Yakuza game has more meaningful content than any Ubisoft game. And that's on a way smaller map and without forcing you to do stuff, you don't want to do.
RGG Studio and Rockstar Games are the only 2 studios, where I can buy any game without ever hearing or seeing anything about it and still being sure I get my game of the year.
As someone who likes my vehicles, there is a limit to how small you can make a game with those. Variety is the bigger issue there, you don't want every city street/stretch of highway to be the same.
@@Gokudo87 I remember the Jak and Daxter series being similar. It was big, but not overly big and it had stuff to do. Kind of like most Zelda games. I hate Ubisofts Open World Formula because it ruined gaming in general. I would argue that it made developers lazy with the content they made. Like here are the pieces to make a sandcastle, now you can make the sandcastle for us instead. Recently got into playing Yakuza 0 and it's like a throwback to the past.
Kamurocho the king of "open world hub zone"
RGG reuse so much assets between games and manage to make it feel special between games is a skill no developer studios I've seen emulate it at all
@@zealous404 yes I absolutely agree. I love coming back to Kamurocho. It's always like a vacation.
And even though it's the same city, there still is stuff to explore. I love to explore how the city has changed compared to the other games. First thing I do is check landmarks like the millennium tower, purgatory, new serena, theater square and so on. Also there are always new substories and new side activities, that make the game feel fresh again.
Other gripes that I sometimes experience with open-world games:
-No quick retry option for missions after failing them.
-Not enough fast-travel locations or no "fast-travel anywhere" option.
-Parts of the game where you're restricted to an area and can't go to other parts of the map.
-Parts of the game where you're restricted from accessing an area you could enter before.
Most of those things are absent when a developer is purposely trying to make the game "seem" longer than it is. Shady move.
Yeah I really hate when fast travel is unavailable. It doesn't have to be travel from anywhere to anywhere but I think like skyrim does it alright. Running/riding/driving along the same boring road for the 100th time is not exploration, it's a waste of time.
Someone loved guarma 😂😂😂
When I was a software developer not a single product left our facility that wasn't tested on every operating system and numerous hardware configs, and we rarely ever had bugs. I think the real issue isn't that bugs can't be avoided but that games are continually rushed to market before properly play testing them over several environments. So down the crunch and just give us good games.
Or maybe the developers nowadays just aren't as competent. Cyberpunk had about 7 years to make. Their first teaser stated the will release when it's ready. That's from the marketing. You're telling me they didn't have enough time or were pushed? If that was the case then it couldn't have taken 7 years to push out a game.
In general games are just getting pushed out these days, ontop of at times QA seemingly being ignored and mistreated by either the game devs or higher ups. Devs and QA have to work together to iron out the bugs properly, otherwise they're not going to find most of them before launch. Similar issue is what caused Cyberpunk to be in the state it was on launch since that's the most recent example of issues between the devs and QA teams.
There are other games where it's happened as well, Arkham Knight if I'm remembering correctly was extremely buggy on launch to the point that Rocksteady removed it from Steam until the game was fixed. Open world games are so massive that as stated, it's not possible to get EVERYTHING patched out, as sometimes fixing one thing might break another, like with coconut jpg in TF2. Delete the coconut, game doesn't work. At the same time at least the game breaking, game crashing issues should be removed by launch.
Agreed, as my uncle used to say, "Good gamers are willing to wait. Bad gamers wait for no one and everyone suffers with an inferior product due their impatience."😒😒😒
@@LiterallyAM You are right, CDPR developers WERE pushed due to time constraints (AKA "crunch"), and Cyberpunk 2077 did NOT take "7 years to make". The reality is, it was absolutely NOT released "when ready", so that was clearly a marketing lie. The game was so unfinished and buggy on launch, particularly on PS4, that Sony even completely removed the game from the PlayStation Store for 6 months after launch! Edit: It's clear that the game was highly mismanaged, and the competency of the developers is not to blame.
Although Cyberpunk 2077 was first announced in 2012, full development didn't start until late 2016 (after The Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC released) and the game even went through a "reset" during 2017, where everything from story elements to core gameplay elements were changed.
The demo we got in 2018 was allegedly mostly "fake" (scripted animations etc) and many underlying gameplay systems hadn't been coded, so the game was nowhere near finished in that demo despite how it looks. Plus, there were a number of gameplay features advertised in the 2018 demo that were not at all put into the final game, either due to design changes or time constraints.
Also, QA for the game was outsourced to a company called Quantic Lab, which was accused last year of corruption and fraudulent mismanagement of QA projects including Cyberpunk 2077, so it sounds like this was a major contributing factor to the amount and severity of bugs in the game post-launch.
If you want to know more, you can look all of this up. It has been widely reported on, but I'll give credit to journalist Jason Schreier and TH-cam channel Upper Echelon.
You're either delusional or a liar. Every program ever made is riddled with bugs. Zero exceptions.
TBF Fallout 4 Settlements have more of an impact on Survival difficulty as opposed to any other difficulty since Surivival difficulty makes it impossible to carry what you normally carry in the other difficulties. So having various settlements up and running gives you more places to drop off crafting loot and a place to get free water and food as well as a place to sleep relatively safely so you can quickly restart if you eat a nuke to the face.
It makes me appreciate both the settlement system and survival mode that much more, one great thing about fallout 4 for sure
I loved survival difficulty in new Vegas and I got excited it was in 4 until I found out I can only save when I sleep. I'm glad they allowed limited mods on console so I could mod in manual saving for it. Some games I'm ok with like persona but for the most part I hate being limited on when I can and can't save.
How are you supposed to protect the settlements like that though when you can’t fast travel?
@@belizukia run like hell
@@belizukia sometimes they just gotta fend for themselves.
For me, what open world games need to stop doing is giving me no incentive to not abuse fast travel. Make the map big or small, dense or sparse, but at least give me a reason to want to travel through it.
One of my favorite examples is in Mad Max where you can encounter random packs of enemies as you go from point A to point B, or a traveling group of people who need water, or random weather like dust devils and sandstorms that actively make the game more hazardous with a chance at massive rewards. It's a lot of small things that give the world texture and a choice of what you feel like risking, especially as you get stronger and your bases automatically replenish your health, fuel, and ammo.
And survey towers are fine, just... can we mix 'em up a little? One area has towers to climb, while another has maybe scouting parties to establish or satellite dishes to repair to fill in my map? Sonic Frontiers does that really well by giving you little puzzles for each bit of map that also gives you quick-path rails to grind over
Sonic Frontiers is the most game of all-time.
im glad someone mentioned mad max... one of the most underrated games off all time IMO
On your first point, I think Skyrim did this pretty well. I don't use fast travel unless there is a specific mechanic for it. Like the wagons that would take you to a major town. Outside of that I just would walk/ride everywhere. Going from place to place was an adventure on its own and I noticed I always had way more money and items compared to my friends that fast traveled everywhere. Plus having skills leveled up incredibly quickly from sneaking behind someone on a road or getting into constant fights.
Don't mind gathering materials for upgrades. Hunting animals in games so you can upgrade pouches or armour is a nice break from the usual sometimes and if it's done right, it's genuinely enjoyable and adds depth.
My favourite part was hunting down 2 entire humpback whales for a single strap of leather of a pistol holster in AC4 :) But seriously speaking I personally love crafting in games.
I just hate it when I can't find the animal I need or when I do it doesn't drop the right materials. Had this happen so many times in Horizon Zero Dawn that I just gave up after hours upon hours of hunting and never got upgrades to max.
@Nice To_meet_you same with Far Cry. Needing 4 wolf skins to get a better quiver in Primal and not finding any wolves where they should spawn annoyed me
You've got me wishing that ice bolting random deer in Diablo 4 gave some materials like Elden Ring did.
RDR hits it well.
7:48 I think we hit the essence of open world games here. It needs to be realistic enough to be relatable but unrealistic enough to be fun
I think MGSV nailed that mechanic. Things like the infinite sprint and carrying people on your back and running fast may be unrealistic, but for a gameplay experience it makes for so much more fun.
I’ll stick to number 7 being my biggest annoyance nowadays. Every developer is always going on about how big their map is, and there’s usually fuck all to do in the majority of it and it gets ignored. This is also a big reason why I love the Yakuza series so much, every single city in those games are packed full of things to do like mini games/stores/restaurants/sub stories yet it only takes 2 mins to traverse. It’s also pretty fun to explore and find collectables
the Yakuza games are also really cool in that they all take place in Kamurocho/Kabukicho at different periods in time, so not only are they small and dense, you get to see really subtle changes in each game. Another thing to mention too, even if you go back to the OG 2 Yakuza games on PS2, Kamurocho is still as dense as it is now. I actually started on Yakuza 1 on PS2 and thanks to that one game, ive known the layout of each game after it.
This is why i both adore and hate Breath of the Wild cause the map is beautiful, there's not a single time where i've not marvelled at the map while playing it, however aside from some scattered mini bosses the map feels empty and having 120 shrines in place of having a good number large sprawling dungeons didn't help that.
@@quinnmarchese6313 I really enjoyed just walking around exploring Kamurocho in every game just to see what they changed/added, it’s usually subtle but still super interesting to me. After playing all of the games then going back to Zero and imagining where the Millennium tower would be built or seeing Don Quijote being replaced with the police station in Y7 was cool
@@reissyboi7527 the only games that give me the same feeling of density in relation to its size are the Shenmue games, especially 1 and 2. You can turn any corner in either series and be greeted with a side story, an arcade with classic SEGA games preservation, a little tiny thing you can do, or like some gambling. i only ever actually played Yakuza 1 because i heard it was the closest series of games to the old Shenmue games
This is my biggest gripe with modern AC games. Too many people boast about how they are now content filled 100+ hour games you can explore endlessly.
in reality the worlds are just 80% repetitive filler full of locations that make you think “that’s cool” for a split second with no genuine reason to visit again.
Number 8 is something that genuinely irks me. Idk how many times I've restarted on games due to that and I spend enough time on character creation as it is
Damn I like customizing my character but not enough to spend a lot of time or even restart because it’s right. Maybe you like the customization more than the actual game
That's why it's good to have games where u can edit ur character even after creation no restart needed lol...
This happened with me on Dragon Age: Inquisition. I have Mods, so Character Creation is better but I messed up one of my characters (I made the head too big, so the back of their head cliips through their hair). I cannot change their appearance until I get to a certain area where I can use a mirror.
At least in Fallout 4 it's only a short starter section before you get the option to change appearance. Although I think it's an even further trek until you can get a haricut and other things.
@@jackieandthesheetmetals for me it's a kind a OCD perfectionism kind of thing and I also just like to look at my character sometimes. If it feels out of place and ugly it kinda kills the feel of immersion for me.
Yo I had to restart dragon ball xenoverse 2 because I got some tp medals it was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me
I also hated the fetch questing being mandatory. The one game I like that has the fetch quest is Yakuza Like A Dragon but they put them as side missions & give you a decent amount of rewards for completing it. Plus it isn't link to a story board so I can do it on my own time in my own pace. (I'm speaking from the perspective of being on the 9th chapter, idk if there's one further on in the chapters)
Love that game! You will level your characters up quite a bit if you do the side missions which come in very handy for the final boss battle and his area
And like the Shards quest in Dragon Age Inquisition. You don't have to do it, but if you dont you miss out on a boss area and a few handy bonusses and items.
I think Falcon's point of "there are good examples of these" is spot on. I think having certain areas locked out until X point adds to intrigue and mystery. Making the end game content restricted to such degrees is a bit much though. I also don't totally mind emptier maps as long as they're beautiful and somewhat easy to navigate through (assuming you don't have to do it all the time) or if they add to the feel of the game like walking through the desolate streets of New Mombasa in ODST.
The naming save ones hits home hard. As an achievement "hunter" it would be such a massive thing for me
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
The biggest problem with the direction the Assassin's Creed series has gone is that they insisted on them being AC games. They should have divorced them from the AC series so they weren't limited by it's meta-narrative and gone full on historical fantasy RPG. They could have kept developing the AC series in parallel, and more like what it was, something that I hope they will be getting back to with Mirage.
This is the prime example of being pulled out of the "open world zone" in Falcon's #3 here. I don't care about Abstergo or the animus, that ain't my world and don't try to make it so it is.
That's easily as bad as Far Cry drugging your character and dropping you in some hallucination level. Fuck off with that already.
Yup, the games aren't even really about fascinating anymore, there's more open combat than there are actual stealth kills.
I agree with you. They also could be AC in name but don’t have to tie to some meta plot.
Idk I really liked odyssey’s story and gameplay but I am an RPG nut so that’s probably why very good game tho
@@lvividblurl3690 I did too. What I'm saying is that I think it could have been even better if they hadn't hadn't been hamstrung by the all the "Assassin's Creed" franchise meta stuff and just let it be a historical fantasy RPG. I think all of the last 3 mainline AC games could have been really special, individual experiences if it weren't for the "AC-ness" that'd been required of them. And I liked 'em plenty as is!
Number 7 definitely is the deciding factor for open world games for me. I just get tired when your exploring but there’s nothing worth exploring!
*Cough* elden ring *cough*
Sleeping dogs is another example of an interesting but small open world. Incredible game that still holds up today
Replayed that recently and it really does hold up. I wish they would do a sequel, but sadly that's not gonna happen. Can still hold out hope though
Def need more of that world. Like you said it was a small world, but it felt real, lived in,and dense. The story was amazing.
@@only1dirtymouf so many companys have solid games they refuse to expand on. Another perfect example is Star Wars: Republic Commando. I wish they would make a sequel. But it's been so long I highly doubt it honestly
@nike spurr Sleeping dogs is the sh*t 🤩🤩🤩 love that game and want s 2nd one badly
Yup..
Side missions that don't hold your back, small open world but engaging, fun combat mechanic, interesting characters, good story, what a gem..
Shame we never get a sequel..
I'm totally fine with fetch quests, glitches, no manual saves, dumpy avatars, etc. The only thing that really sops my pants in an open world game is a plot of urgency. Hearing "Hurry, there's not a lot of time, you have to hurry before you die, HURRY!" really takes the fun out of side quests and keeps me from wanting to ever replay it. It's completely antithetical to open world and yet it's so prevalent.
Agreed. And it's even worse when they tell you there's a time crunch but you can do whatever else forever, and nothing will change. Bethesda's games are notorious for this (except for Daggerfall, where you can actually fail the main quest by ignoring it).
The settlement system in Fallout 4 is actually organic and does fix an issue with the previous Fallout (or even Elder Scrolls) games, namely that no matter how powerful you grew, you left no permanent change in the world - as if you never existed. With settlements, you can re-civilize the world around you, provide shelter and food for hundreds of people and you can even meet patrols and supply caravans in the wild. I felt that much more satisfying than being the head of all factions in a massive world that feels the same when I started (like in Skyim).
Absolutely love it. Probably an unpopular opinion... I would love to see if Bethesda could figure out how to make it work in ES organicly. Would be interesting to build castles / forts, defend against dragon, monsters & NPC attacks. In a few areas.
Or at least back port that portion / expose the framework for us modders in ES to go crazy.
I agree, refine the system if anything, make it better instead of scrapping it
Oblivion didn't have settlements, but as you play, they make statues of you and talk about what you've done randomly
If the next Elder Scrolls doesn't have a settlement system I don't even want it. That's the best part of Fallout 4 in my opinion.
only thing I hated about it is the fact that every thing you build still looks like trash. You're building everything from scratch with materials you have on hand. It doesn't make sense to me that everything looks like it was in the presence of the nuclear bombs that dropped over 200 years ago. I just want things I build to look clean especially when I'm manually placing all the walls and floors and not something that was pre-built. It's no wonder it's hard to get settlers happy when their walls have holes and their roofs look like they're about to cave in.
Never thought about naming save files. That would actually be really helpful.
And allowing you different saves for different characters/new games. Some games just put all your saves in one place, whether it's a new game start or not. The Witcher 1 is an example of this.
At least Dragon Age: Inqusition splits it up into characters, thus making things a bit easier.
SERIOUSLY!!!
inquisition is the only game ive played that had the separate saves for different characters, needs to be more available for other games
@@Martin57878 Every Dragon Age game separates saves by character. It’s real nice. Origins even separates it by every dlc you play. So you can import a character from Awakening or Origins into their DLC or DAII
The funny thing is, this was a completely normal and common thing in 90s. It only stopped being common when games started to get developed for consoles first, PCs later.
So on AC3... On my 2nd play I went through the tunnels... and... they are an unlockable fast travel system... once you find an exit you can then fast travel between them, so unlocking them early actually saves you a ton of time later in the game.
oh, i've heard that there's a glitch that can cause to to get TRAPPED in the tunnels with NO way out except restarting the ENTIRE game...
Either I'm misremembering or I actually did this on my very first playthrough. I was poking about before ever becoming an assassin and had the vast majority of the fast travel network unlocked extremely early in the game. I seem to remember doing this while Connor was very young like an early visit to a city.
There's a part in the game Control where you have to find all TV's with flames burning in the screen and throw them into the furnace in order to get unlimited ammo for your pistol. The thing is if you toss a TV into the abyss it doesn't spawn again so to get that achievement is lost. I wish they would have implemented a respawn mechanic if it hasn't been thrown into the furnace. I'm sure there are other games that have that flaw as well.
I'll be back with another comment in a year listing all the ones I know with similar/related bugs, joking (mostly) but it truly is a very very long list. Or ones where you get messed up in other ways because you sequence broke.
Forget the TVs. Ever tried to get the first hidden crate in Central Executive?
Speaking of Games that don‘t track Collectibles: Far Cry 2 (Diamonds) 😅
Number 7 is so true! Whenever I hear the beaten to dead marketing phrase "It's 4 times bigger than out last game" that's always a massive red alert klaxon for me.
And a BIG reason why classics as "Beyond Good & Evil" or modern games like "Ghost of Tsushima" are sooo much more beloved by me, they have COMPACT open worlds that fill every stretch of land they have with something noteworthy.
The industry really needs to go back to "Quality over Quantity".
It will never happen from AAA devs though it needs to come from another direction where once again the will to tell a compelling story outshines the will to make money.
Big companies never invent anything they just take popular ideas, bloats them and then runs them into the ground until another concept comes for them to exploit.
What gets me in the tail missions in GTA for instance is where if the person you're tailing stops at a traffic light, you cant pull up behind them as if you're driving normally. You have to stop 3 car lengths behind or whatever which surely looks more suspicious in their rear view mirror compared to being right behind.
And when you get attacked by randomly spawning gang members. Fighting back either attracts to much attention or risks the target getting away so you just have to take it. Might be fine if it was a scripted part of the mission, but forgetting to disable certain free roam mechanics while in a mission is irritating.
Joel Haver has a great take on this.
That always felt so weird! Really feel like vehicle tailing missions should rely more on line of sight/suspicious behavior then pure distance. Like if have a car between you and the target it doesn't matter how close you are. And if you do need to stop some distance away, you must pull over as to not block traffic.
Tailing missions could be really interesting in a game with a player switching mechanic, as if one character started getting too suspicious, you could have another join in from a parallel road and have the first pull off.
Man... 9/10 of these could be applied to a game of any type
Damn Right...
Sonic Frontiers didn't take long to Platinum, but it was annoying not knowing which Guardians you haven't defeated yet, or how many times you've activated Phantom Rush. Just give us some kind of tracker in the menu.
It wasn't too difficult to mentally keep track of which Guardians you fought, especially given they get introduced every time you encounter one. Ghost is the only one that can prove troublesome if you aren't lucky enough to interact with the statue that starts the fight.
Tracking Phantom Rush activations is completely ridiculous though.
Is that game good? How is it
It sold 2.5 million games! Holy moly, sleeper hit out of nowhere
@@billblaski9523 it's ok. Flawed, but satisfying to explore.
as for number 3... I'm playing through Red Dead 2 right now and one of the absolute most infuriating things is when a cutscene starts right after a battle and I can't loot any of the 30 dead guys that are just lying there begging me to take their silver pocket watches lol
Like, let me loot first and then we can continue!
“I’m just a bird, what do I know?” Favorite falcon quote moving forward. Hahahaha
I am SO glad I only discovered the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor / War games well after they removed microtransactions (the bane of our existence) and adjusted the ending criteria for Shadow of War. It's a series I still go back to frequently, and among the few that I actually enjoy enough to play on the hardest difficulty for the added challenge (I admit I'm mostly a "casual" in just about everything else).
They were both great games!
I did the same thing and I was left wondering why it was so critically hated
@@uberboomer8670 i played before it got fixed, and it was so bad,
It consisted of 10 stages with 20 battles in total (if you didn't lose any of them), so you go from this cool game, to suddenly became rinse and repeat.
you had to conquer all the areas, and when you go to the next one your previous base would get attacked.
Now imagine doing this 20 times.
@@M.Andre67 ummmm yeah no thank you, I've never been happier to be late to the party!
I love both games but if they plan to create the third installment, i hope they add a lot new things because as much i am a fan of both games i admit the games are getting repetitive and tedious pretty damn fast, thankfully i love butchering orcs..
The orcs arena and duel for example, is still pretty much broken and sometimes unplayable..
A falcon video a day, keeps the boredom away! Keep up the good work falcon!
Also one thing I didn't like is when you finish the game and they sent you back to the save before you start the finale
Like horizon zero dawn or BOTW and cyberpunk 2077
They could do something about it kinda like rdr2 or GOW ragnarok where they can explain the endgame story so we don't have to go back to that one save cause it makes me feel empty inside
lol
Cyberpunk 2077 did the same.
@@juanpabloflores8179 oh yeah I forgot to mention that
I'll add it
I WANT MORE POST GAME FREE PLAY LIKE FO4!!!!!
Cyberpunk doesn’t do that if you do the dontfearthereaper end mission I believe.
11:56 If you hadn't reminded me of the Assassin's Creed 3 tunnel system in this video it would have never come up in any of my discussions about that game ever! I completely forgot about it, in fact when you mentioned it I was still wondering what exactly you were talking about, I don't think anyone actually used that mechanic to go anywhere or do anything other than during the introduction to it.
My most hated type of mission type are the Escort Missions. Get random civilian to safe house. They lack coordination, get stuck on a maps geometry and die quite easily.
Having your dialogue choices you pick match up with what your character ends up saying.
hello Bethesda
Fallout 4 was ridiculous for this.
@@SamuraiSilverhand I liked it cus almost no other games have that many options.
@@Klouhs i meant the fact that the options were given vague titles instead of showing us the actual dialogue.
Other than that I sank many enjoyable hours into the game.
@@SamuraiSilverhand Yeah ... often you would pick one and what was actually said had almost the opposite meaning and effect than what the dialog description suggested.
Watching a list like this really makes me appreciate how well RGG designs Yakuza's open world. The districts are tiny, but always have things to see and do, most of the 'filler' content is fun, and for the most part completely optional. Half the issues on this list just don't exist in Yakuza games.
I absolutely love yakuza
Most of the filler content is fun - except in Yakuza 3.
@@ZlothZloth Yakuza 3 isn't fun
Sure buts because Japanese games deserve an entirely different list about their problems.
well the main problem is the fact that it's yakuza
What's even worse than shoehorning RPG mechanics in a non-RPG open-world game? Being forced to choose between monotonous grinding or microtransactions to progress. It's a sneaky way of locking content behind a paywall without technically doing so (I'm looking at you, AC: Odyssey).
My number one reason is "Very Long UNSKIPPABLE Cutscene right before a difficult mission, so that when you fail, you have to watch the Very Long UNSKIPPABLE Cutscene to try again.
I actually have started growing more appreciative of the distance I have to run in Breakpoint. I play full tactical mode and I enjoy landing a KM or 2 away from my objective and moving realistically to my objective. It does add a large sense of immersion. However, before I really started doing that. It was helicopter from place to place 24/7. And I may go back to that at some point.
I think a good way to use the gather these items type mission is for something they will make for you that increases the enjoyment of the hunt. i.e: get the materials I need to finish my prototype tool/ weapon and ill let you test it before I make the final version and then you can give input for the final version.
Horizon Forbidden West!🏹
Number 3 is a huge problem in Genshin Impact when I just wanna do material farming, dailies and other non story stuff but get ambushed by story cutscenes when I am really not in the mood for them.
& #5 Not tracking resources!!! Like the Oculi(?)
Yakuza is the one series where if you walk for even 1m, a random pedestrian will stop you midway and force you into a side quest that you are not interested in.
Do a list of crazy challenges every gamer needs to try at least once
Big maps are actually good for open world racing games sometimes because we dont want to just race all time but also do long drives and chill and long races are fun too! Thats the reason why the crew 2 and TDU2 are loved by many people!
Yes, and it's why TDU SC looks a bit concerning. Although there are already people who defend the new island and claim more details is better than a properly big map or even that players these days will only like a small but detailed map.
@@vsm1456 yea if they add the older games maps too like tdu 2 where we can go by flight it would make the game so special and one of the best. Doesnt matter much if they make it fresh with more details or copy paste from older ones but it should be there.
This isn't just in open world games, but i hate puzzles in non puzzle games. I'll freely admit that it's because I'm just bad at puzzles, even the simplest puzzles out there I suck at, and will always look up the conclusion for. I know game developers put them in so people don't get bored with the same kind of gameplay, but for me it simply slows the game down and kills my enjoyment of the game.
Fetch quests are fine when they cause you to travel to a new area, possibly one you wouldn't normally notice, to get the items. Borderlands series has a lot of fetch quests that are that way.
Also when going places to fetch something has a considerable chance of getting you other goodies like treasure or gear. The thing is fetch quests get real repetitive real fast.
Limited time side quests, should go lol, I never liked being put on a time limit, especially if my character wasn't ready for it yet.
You miss out on good gear or a interesting part of the story.
Plus. I like to explore
“I don’t wanna hunt down bunnies… please get that crap outta my face” 😂😂😂 facts
It's part of why you can buy a lot of the components from shops rather than DIY there but yeah some of the rarer drops aren't usually sold by the merchants.
2:10 "They said there was gonna be a bunch of stuff in the game that wasn't." That's true but not necessarily a bad thing. For instance, they said early in development that start systems would have realistic orbits (like in Outer Wilds, for instance), but later in development when they went to play testing, they discovered that this confused and annoyed people, as it made traversal and keeping track of planets you've already visited much more difficult, so it was decided to scrap this feature and have every planet be essentially stagnant. They was a creative and logistic choice. Not a "broken promise," yet people will still attack them for it.
I definitely agree that bigger is not better. If the map is bigger but the only real addition is time spent traveling it's not a good idea.
I also agree that I hate my games becoming a numbers game. One of the main reasons I dislike Borderlands is because their "millions of unique guns" is just the same gun with 1 point of a stat difference between the last 12 I just picked up.
I also have finished Andromeda three times and I don't remember ever having a problem tracking quests.
Ugh, automatic mission starts or progression is the absolute worst. Not like random quests but main quests that have the illusion of a time limit (or an actual time limit).
I also remember in one of the Prototype games they had landmark collectibles and I was using a map of them to mark them off but then I got the last one and the game showed 99/100 with no way to know which ones I had got.
In Valhalla you also don't really take over the country but are generally helping others within each territory. Having the true ending behind 100% is also good but I agree that a lot pad out what 100% means quite a bit.
On the Bethesda games all you have to do is make a save at the end of the tutorial to be able to make different characters
Yes, it helps a lot.
IIRC that's even one of the concessions allowed to speedrunners for the games to save wasting time on runs.
It's amazing how simple yet extraordinary something like naming a damn save is
Devs, size doesn't matter! Density of activities does!
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The quality of those activities too.
Girth
There are still cases where size matters. Test Drive Unlimited was a hit because the map was so much bigger than anything we saw before. When travelling is an activity itself and you enjoy it, a big map can make the game better.
To skip the intro in Skyrim, just do a manual save while Hadvar asks ”who are you” and go back to it if you ever wanna start a new character
Autosave with no manual save in co-op games is to prevent the most basic form of duping. I drop you a weapon and reload a manual save and now we both have it. This is why you might notice you’ll typically get one or the other (manual save or co-op) if the game allows you to drop things.
One of my personal peeves with open world games is when 90% of the story gameplay happens in the open world, I know that seems a bit of an oxymoron but when you've got this open world with side missions, collectibles and whatever else they throw in, it tends to get a bit dull for me when the story rarely takes you to unique locations that you otherwise can't visit and instead makes you go around the same locations you've been seeing throughout your time playing it.
This all the way
like red Dead 2 and the snow mountains. spend like 3 hours there doing the beginning toturial and basically never go there again, or blackwater where you never even get to go for pretty much any reason.
@@Skylar.H93 that's what I hate in some games, where the most of the story takes place in 60% of the map and there's a huge part that you never visit organically unless you force yourself to go to those sites
the worst part about the terrible implementation of the homestead system in AC3 is that it had some of Connor's best written character moments in it
Yeah, honestly speaking my favourite part of AC3 was the Homestead building questline. Sometimes my reason to continue the main story was just to unlock more homestead quests. It hits especially hard after seeing what a thriving community was there before the whole AC Rogue story.
@ada afa yeah the homestead missions added another side to Connor that was missing from the main campaign and there are definitely multiple missions in the main story that with just a bit of rewriting I would have much rather having homestead missions in their place
I find it bizzare that developers launch a game, buggy, but patch it out a few months later. Why not launch the game a few months later instead and save your reputation, I can't imagine that launching a buggy game sooner rather than a stable game later ammounts to that much more money
Except it doesn't destroy their reputation. People complain loudly, sure, but show them a cool trailer, and they're taking a day off work so they can play the next game the hour it shows up.
It's about shareholders and money. They want their returns within a certain time and they don't care if the game is crap or the company suffers, they're just looking to make alot of money in a short amount of time. Capitalism, baby! 😎
something i always have a gripe with character creator is when a game don't let you re-edit your character. you should never be locked out of character editor you should always be able to change them later with most options if not all. saints row is what most games should do with character creator where you can always change any thing on your character
Falcon, THANK YOU - You as usual nailed it, pity game developers can't, worst culprit being Ubisoft, can we get rid of 90% of the extra crap they pad the games with and no more bloody towers to climb, now everyone has them, they were good in AC1, but now every AC has more (unity and Valhalla the worst) farcry, and every other open world game has them even spiderman to get unneeded collectible crap just to pad the game, give us more story and less filler. We need more games like Elden Ring where they are fun and not just endless pointless collectibles and go collect poo mission (yes WOW I am looking at you, we all remember opening of AQ)
Thank you Falcon! So many things addressed. I will say that the Sim Settlements 2 add-on for Fallout 4 really helps the settlement build out without wasting all your time.
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Yet to finish the vid & many open world games have already moved away from it, but still encounter the occasional invisible barrier at a map’s boundary. Way too many creative ways to address this to still be seeing it.
Timed quests are annoying especially when you start at A and have to find an item in a B zone and then take it to C destination but the devs purposefully put obstacles in the way so you lose more time trying to finish that quest.
Forced long distance slow walking and escort quests in a large world where you're getting roughly 10+ minutes of dialogue and forced to slow crawl with an equally slow NPC.
Despite how good it is overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man has most of this list in one form or another, none in a good way. I’m looking at all 735 of you, backpacks!
Ship combat meh; tunnels, now we talking lol. The mystery and spookiness that the OG Assassin's Creed games had.
This nails everything I have been feeling about open world games.
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@@gameranxTV Appreciate all the content, it's so consistent in quality and entertainment!
One of my biggest pet peeve of open world games is when there are too many collectibles and it only appears on the map when you get close to it. The first Assassin's Creed game has way too many collectible flags for every area (I believe its 420 flags in total) and its especially bad when it doesn't appear on the map unless you've been in the area of it. Thus, since the collectibles aren't on the map unless I go near it, I end up having to use tons and tons of guides to be able to collect all these collectibles.
I resonate with the character customization subject. I’m demotivated to go all out now but I used to really be thorough with the creation. Unfortunately the lighting and whatever space the model is being created in doesn’t typically reflect the lighting or the scenery of the game and it feels slightly off from whatever I was satisfied with to jump in. This happens to me a lot in Skyrim. Now I just send it.
Yeah, I usually just make a vanilla character. And honestly in Elden Ring it doesn't really matter what your character looks like as you're never going to see their face again...ever.
Let's not forget the infamous you have to do this thing or beat this level before you can progress in the story and you have to do it to learn a thing you're not really going to use that much.... I'm talking about you Bungie... 'Final Osiris Strand Training mission' like do you want to get to the Veil or not lol.
I actually don't necessarily mind fetch or trail quests, as they make sense. If you're a spy, then you would trail target, break into places to steal information, or infiltrate groups, etc. If you're and adventurer or odd-jobs person, or a trader, then you would try to acquire items for your patrons, quest-givers or customers.
What I don't like is, like was said in the video, when they force you to stay a certain distance while not letting you get spotted. Let me get spotted. Make it interesting.
If we have to tail some, let us do it our way, but let there be consequences (maybe we take a shortcut to get ahead of the target, and therefore don't see them dropping off a package, etc.).
If we have to procure something, let us find it in other shops, let us get it through trades, or let us hunt it down in the world/craft it (if craft-able), but make the reward worth it. If I hunt down a dragon for it's teeth, I better get a good reward, not 100 gold (especially if good armor costs thousands of gold. I'm looking at you Skyrim)
The real problem is un-interesting and un-inspired missions, not the kind of mission.
The one thing I hate more then anything else is something I personally like to call the Ubisoft effect it’s when they have a big open world and they fill it with a billion tiny unnecessary collectibles like the chests in ac4 I think I have 3 save files at 99% percent because I lose interest in collecting the 99 chests on all the small islands every time. I recently finished the story of the spider man 2 game from 2004 and when I began I wanted to 100% it until I found out it had about 300-400 small tokens spread across the map
"Launching in a bug-y state." Amen, brother! "AC: Valhalla" was having serious bugs all the way into this past summer (it launched in November 2020) and, as of last month, Ubisoft will no longer do updates. It takes them nearly two years to catch most of the problems with the game then they stop supporting it six months later? I know "AC: Mirage" is coming out sometime but I'm seriously thinking of skipping anything Ubisoft does from now on when they can't seem to actually get their games ready for release in good working order. SUPER frustrating.
18:17 I think in generel for ingame unlocks and trophies the top ones should sit at around 80-85% of the collectibles. Nobody is gonna get 100% without a guide anyways so looking out for them and trying to find them isn’t even worth it.
That save file point is very accurate. Like as someone who makes multiple save files for attempting glitches and replaying old boss fights I see a list of tens to hundreds of save files that all look like this:
-11/21/19 09.56.42-
And it's like alright wtf happened on that date? It's been years since I played this game and can't remember what I did last week. Is that also the real date because sometimes my old Xbox would reset its date to that day and I stopped bothering to reset it. Some save files are like 50 seconds apart, did I want to load the latest? Or was I attempting a glitch from a certain point 3 files back and that's the one I want. Cyberpunk 2077 for all its issues and criticisms I loved it and loved breaking it (goodbye my holy speed dash glitch) but it at least showed a thumbnail of whatever you were looking at when you saved. It's better than nothing until you save so much that the thumbnails begin taking a while to load. This is probably only for me and a specific set of people and speedrunners but save file folders and organization of multiple save files would be great too.
One of the biggest gripes I have is lack of UI customization in games that are meant to be immersive, which most open world games claim to be. Ubisoft is the biggest culprit. Maybe I don’t want a minimap, or a quest reminder, or health bars, or a quest compass, or a level up indicator or anything. This also includes control of game features, like how often companions make comments, whether I need to eat or sleep, friendly fire, automatically switching weapons when picking up a new one, in game puzzle hints (like your character saying “Maybe I need to find a lever. “. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to switch most things on or off, particularly UI.
Bloody hell! How much do you want?
Another one for me would be boring traversal. Games like Spiderman and Infamous really nailed unique and fun traversal for me, but when other games equip me with just some default horse or uninteresting vehicles then it makes getting around the map really unenjoyable and causes me to use fast travel more than I'd like.
I personally hate too much useless empty space. I'm not expecting to find enemies everywhere but I want to feel like I have something to pick up or ignore rather than nothing be there at all. A good example is Skyrim. No there may not be an enemy around that corner but there are some flowers you could pick for alchemy. I guess I just want open world games to have more evenly spaced map content.
@Ikari Indeed. In regards to my opinion on Bethesda, I don't have a negative one. I try not to think about the companies and only look at the games they did right.
Managing to go all the way through #10 without mentioning Fallout 76 is a show of how incredible your willpower is, Falcon. I applaud you.
I remember one early "Follow this guy without being seen" mission in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The main city was split into zones with doors that would trigger a loading screen. So I'm following this dude at a discreet distance, he gets to one of the doors and disappears into the next zone, I follow him, and when the game loads, he's standing right there staring me in the face. I groaned in frustration thinking I had just failed the mission due to bad programming, but instead, the fellow gives me a cheery, "Hello!" and continues on his way. Turns out that even though the mission parameters were to follow him without being spotted, the game didn't actually care. You could literally run circles around him as he was walking and still complete the mission.
Fetch quests should be used for helping you explore new areas you might have otherwise not visited, or wouldn't have visited in a long while.
Whoa... i really enjoyed the settlements in FO4. Probably my favorite part of FO4.
Same. I haven't even beat the game because I've just been building stuff and making them feel lived in.
Felt the same when he mentioned the ship combat in Black Flag. Never beat Black Flag because of it. I do just enough of the story to get some solid upgrades and then I just roam the open waters fighting other ships.
Sim settlements 2 makes them great
The lack of proper saving options is one of the main reasons I love quick resume on Series X.
Quick resume is on the Xbox Series S too.
Cyberpunk did have game breaking bugs. The reason I stopped playing it the first time was because it kept freezing up my PS5.
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it’s so good now like soooo good
Its still a mess now like i played it on a 3090 and its still loaded with bugs and still feels unfinshed. like the cop ai is still soo dumb you can escape it every time by jumping in a care and driveing in any direction for 3 seconds. fact is the only thing that would have fixed that game is it being delayed a few years rather than being rushed out to hit a chritsmass / next gen console release date. if anything its made me learn to not only never pre order again but also never get hyped for something until i actuly know what it is
@@shawbag11 they are redoing the cop ai and it should come soon, other then that it doesnt feel unfinished. Its massive with lots of content, this is just beating on it and thinking it needs to somehow be more than any other game lmao
Yeah I got it on release on Ps4 and it was an awful experience i just had to give up on it even after it was patched it was still unplayable. Was a massive let down after all the hype.
5:24, there's a possible solution to this too, again on PC anyways, if your saves are directory based (meaning there's a directory called SAVE1 or your saves name) then the character model is probably a separate file from the inventory etc, it may be in a format that blender recognises, in which case you can open it up in there and start fiddling with it using similar lighting etc to what you found in game. What would be a better solution though is if game companies just allowed you to load in an external model of whatever common format they chose, on consoles you could just plug in a USB with it in there and they can just copy it into the initial save they make on a new game which in turn means you don't need to have the USB in whenever you play that save, a side effect of this method is being able to create cross-game avatars
I can tell you, as an industry insider, why everything is so buggy: people are so afraid they won't be able to fill empty seats that they won't fire anyone, no matter how incompetent they are. I had to walk away from a MAJOR title because every meeting I was asked to attend was an exercise in stupidity.
I'm afraid I don't see any end in sight, which is why I'm launching my own studio rather than wait for the industry to grow up.
About #6, I never understood why RPG elements are called RPG elements, this is non-sense. Role-playing is not about loot and stats, it's about role playing. For example, your character personnality evolving based on your actions or decisions is a RPG element to me.
Finally someone noticed the huge problem of save systems in modern games.
I've wanted so much to have a New Game + in MGSV without losing everything... This is anoying
Its funny to me how BotW and Elden Ring avoid most of these issues in their games and they're both widely regarded as some of the best games ever yet most devs just copy the Ubisoft formula 🤦🏽♂️
Personally I loved the homestead mission on AC3 no base building has compared to that one, every character was fun and how you recruit them, not to mention how each time you upgraded it showed in the world