What is something (feature, modes, settings...) you would like to see become a standard in video games?

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDIT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

littlecolt,

The first time I run a game, before anything else, before a developer logo, a splash screen, ANYTHING: I want a screen with volume sliders. This setting needs to be saved upon completion and then ask if you want to see this screen on every launch, or just this one.

I know I am not alone. I am tired of having my eardrums blasted to hell every time I launch a newly installed game. Some games even go back to eardrum-destruction every launch until it loads the user settings.

This shit needs to be standardized. A lot of us wear headphones and are on voice chat or listening to music or whatever when we launch a game, and the deafening EA logo or whatever it may be is NOT welcome.

Omega_Haxors, (edited )

I want there to be systems that have absolutely no game design in them. Stuff that literally is just there to add random possibilities to the experience. Extremely basic and consistent rules which are extremely easy to grasp but result in all sorts of crazy shit. Stuff like redstone from minecraft or fairy dust in Stardew Valley. I want to completely forget about the game for a bit and just get completely lost in the intricacies.

A perfect example of this: Adding a joker (wildcard) to poker. It’s just one basic card, you know what it does, but the amount that one card can completely break the game leads to far more interest than the base game could ever provide.

sandriver,

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

JakenVeina,

Borderless Windowed mode. Seriously, there is 0 excuse for PC games to not support it, it’s 2023.

Plume,

I’m gonna be honest, I never really understood what it did. The difference between fullscreen and windowed mode is kind of obvious, but borderless? I get what it does, it’s like windowed mode but borderless and it can take the whole screen. But then why not just make it fullscreen? I don’t understand it.

And especially when apparently some games run better with it? Which… I don’t know, I just don’t understand it.

JakenVeina,

It means you can take focus away from the game without it throwing a hissy fit. I.E. you can click out of it.

Poopfeast420,

I’ve been playing a bunch of CRPGs the last couple of months (BG3, BG1 Enhanced, Pillars 1, Divinity 2, Pathfinder Kingmaker currently) and games like this need keywords highlighted in texts and tooltips. Some of the newer ones do this a bit already, but it’s pretty inconsistent and not enough in my experience.

BG3 could use some lore popups, so you can learn more about the world, the gods, races, etc. Also, even some really basic mechanics could use it, if you just have very little experience. What does Save or Saving Throw mean exactly, which stat matters for specific spells, etc.

Pathfinder does the lore popups already and some stats get an explanation, but not nearly enough for me as a complete newcomer to the system.

shrugal,

I like the way Age of Wonders 4 does it: Keywords in tooltips are highlighted, and you can hover over them to get another tooltip with an explanation and more highlighted keywords to hover over. This means you can easily explore the basic mechanics right there in the tooltips.

DebatableRaccoon,

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

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

TheCrimsonSpark,

default game master volume starting at 50%

mojo,

Then people would report it as a bug that the game is too quiet

littlecolt,

Pasting my comment from elsewhere in these comments here: The first time I run a game, before anything else, before a developer logo, a splash screen, ANYTHING: I want a screen with volume sliders. This setting needs to be saved upon completion and then ask if you want to see this screen on every launch, or just this one.

I know I am not alone. I am tired of having my eardrums blasted to hell every time I launch a newly installed game. Some games even go back to eardrum-destruction every launch until it loads the user settings.

This shit needs to be standardized. A lot of us wear headphones and are on voice chat or listening to music or whatever when we launch a game, and the deafening EA logo or whatever it may be is NOT welcome.

Plume,

So this is my own post, but I’m still gonna comment on it because I have something else.

AI Bots support for multiplayer games.

It’s become quite a rarity but it used to be… I wouldn’t say standard, but common in older games and I really miss it.

Sometimes I really enjoy the gameplay loop of a multiplayer game but I just don’t want to play it in multiplayer. There is too much pressure. Counter-Strike is a good example of that. I like the gameplay loop. I like the game but I spent a ton of my time playing it offline against bots on custom maps.

It’s not exactly the same as playing with real players. I know they don’t behave the same. But speaking of not behaving the same, at least I don’t have to be worried of being insulted or anything if I make a mistake. There is much less pressure to succeed in games like this which I find fun. It’s often hard to play online because it’s all pressure and no fun for me.

Programming decent AI bots is complicated I know that which is why it’s probably as rare as it is nowadays but I still miss it there has been too many games that I loved that simply died and I can’t play anymore because there is no bot supports on it. I would love to be able to play my favorite game like for example, a Battlefield 1 game with 63 other bots that can pilot vehicles and do all of the things that real players would do.

That’s why I love Ravenfield. But yeah, how many games have died and how many gameplay loop do we miss and can never play again because it would require actual players and there was never any proper bot support implemented?

I can think of a few and actually one of them is Star Wars Battlefront 2015 which had some sort of AI bot implemented but it used a very different kind of AI. They don’t move like actual players. They have completely different animations and behaviors and what’s worse is that they have a really nasty tendency to focus on the player. Which means that on some maps and some difficulty you come out of a hallway, out on the outside part of the map, and all of a sudden every bottom of the map, every starship is firing at you. Because you’re the priority target.

Battlefront 2 2017 eventually implemented instant action and did it much better. Sadly I prefer the gameplay loop of the 2015 game by a lot. Oh well.

If you like me, buy Ravenfield on Steam. It’s not a game that happens to have bot support. It’s actually a game that is completely built around this. It’s not just a feature, it’s the point of the game, and I love it for it.

Sivick314,
@Sivick314@universeodon.com avatar

@Plume the nemesis system from shadow of mordor. Too bad they copyrighted it. The pricks...

Checho, (edited )

Transmog

Also being able to adjust subtitles size is nice

Brasidas,

This really should be the default in all RPGs. It’s so annoying Starfield doesn’t offer that.

JokeDeity,

I love a game with a good large settings menu that lets me change as much as possible. If you don’t lock me out of changing all the keybindings then you’re already ahead of the game. I hate when a game has a really badly implemented feature and no way to change it or disable it.

Kazumara,

Lefty mode would be nice. I’m tired of rebinding movement keys in every game.

Bartsbigbugbag,

I’m a lefty, but there was no way in hell I was moving the mouse to the other side every time I used the family computer, so I just learned how to use my right hand.

Kazumara,

As a kid I had my own PC early and my dad set it up left handed for me. Now I’ve played games left handed in general for 23 years, and shooters in particular for 15 years already, it’s too late to relearn :-)

masquenox,

A way to rapidly exit a game a la The Binding Of Isaac: Afterbirth. It has saved that game from being rage-deleted off my machine plenty of times.

littlecolt,

Does Alt+F4 not work well enough?

iagomago,
@iagomago@feddit.it avatar

Give me Disco Elysium-tier choices in story development and dialogue.

prole,

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

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

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

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

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

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