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. :)

exscape,
@exscape@kbin.social avatar

FOV slider and option to disable head bob if present. Games with a too narrow FOV and/or head bob are unplayable for tons of people who suffer from motion sickness, and it's such a shame to have so many good games ruined by it.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

A couple of points on FOV:

  • High FOV gives you more peripheral vision, which – if you can get used to extremely-high FOVs – is a major advantage in competitive multiplayer FPSes. I know that users used to play with very high FOVs on Quake and the like; I don’t know if that’s a thing today. That’s an argument for constraining FOV in competitive multiplayer environments. Marathon used to incorporate this into the game, have a fisheye powerup that temporarily provided better peripheral vision. So if you want a level playing field for competitive multiplayer games, you cannot let it be changed by players. If you want a level playing field, the only thing you can do is adjust where their head is relative to the display, help them calibrate their head placement.
  • Even for single-player FPSes, it has some degree of impact on difficulty. Having a high FOV will generally make a game easier, since having more peripheral vision is advantageous.
  • Games virtually always use a higher FOV than would be accurate for the real world, based on the distance from the eye to display and the size of the display. In the real world, your monitor or TV screen – if at a sane distance from you – provides a very limited field of vision. Trying to play an FPS through a tiny window into the world like that would be a huge disadvantage. They just try to jack it up to a level where it won’t actually make people sick.
  • The “optimal” FOV will differ on a per-player basis (some people can handle higher FOV without being sick). What would be a physically-accurate FOV also depends on the size of the display and how far away from the display the player is sitting, which the developer does not know and varies on a per-player basis (unless the player is wearing a VR headset).
  • For consoles, I’d argue that this should probably be implemented at a console-wide level, maybe on a per-user basis, since what a user can handle and where their head is relative to the display should be constant across games. Doesn’t make sense to require a player to set it manually on a per-game basis, since they’re just going to have to be setting the same number.
exscape,
@exscape@kbin.social avatar

This is less of an issue in multiplayer games, as they rarely have very narrow FOVs by default. The worst offenders are often console ports and slower first-person games.
FWIW while it's a competitive advantage with high FOV, if there is a slider, it's still fair since everybody can use a higher FOV if they want to.
It's not all advantage though, aiming gets harder (aside from the distortions).

I don't see why it matters at all in single-player. So what if it makes the game easier? Who cares?
The fact that I don't have to stop due to almost vomiting also makes it easier in a way, but I really don't mind.

The fact that the optimal FOV differs on a per-player basis is of course exactly why I want a FOV slider everywhere. I usually prefer about 105 degrees horizontal (in 16:9), while some modern games default in the range 75-85.

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.

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 :-)

jjjalljs,

Probably difficult for technical reasons, but it would be cool if I could rewind the game arbitrarily in games where you can quicksave/load. Like I can save and try the thing and reload if I don’t like the results, but it’d be neat if I could just rewind.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

Rewinding is technically possible, and there are games that incorporate rewinding into the game, like Braid or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Probably some newer ones. However, that only works if the game developer conforms to a lot of constraints. I don’t think that it will ever be a standard feature on all video games.

  • Not all functions are “reversible”; you can’t just run everything “backwards” easily on a general-purpose computer. One specific operation that is famously not-easily-reversible – and that we are so confident that this is not easily reversible that we make a lot of computer security rely on it – is multiplying two prime numbers together. So you’d have to impose dramatic constraints on how games can be written to provide the ability to just say “start running the game in reverse”. (Related trivia: the question of whether the real world can theoretically be run in reverse if you could look perfectly at everything in the universe for just one moment, the arrow of time, is, as I understand it, something of an open question in physics.)
  • One tactic for “rewinding” is to basically store checkpoints periodically and then retain enough information, like the player’s inputs, such that one can basically “fast forward” from a checkpoint. If you can “fast forward” cheaply enough in terms of CPU time, then rewinding to a checkpoint, and then fast-forwarding to a given point, once for each frame, looks like you’re running in reverse. This is basically how modern movie codecs work today: you have keyframes that are basically a “checkpoint” of a frame that are stored, maybe every few seconds or so. Then you have information necessary to compute the next frame from the existing one. So when you seek backwards in a movie, internally what a movie player is likely doing is seeking backwards to the keyframe prior to the time where you’re trying to seek to, then playing forward. That “seek back to a checkpoint, then play forward” is a lot more technically-easy to do than to require a game to truly be reversible, since in many games, it’s possible to store a fairly-small amount of information to record the game world at that point in time – and “play forward”. But many games also can’t store their entire world in a small amount of space, and for some, it’s hard to perform saves cheaply-enough in terms of CPU time – constantly and frequently-enough, maybe every couple seconds. If you can’t reduce the game state to a very small amount of information, then you are only going to be able to rewind so far. Implementing this is, today a requirement of a number of multiplayer games – nearly all multiplayer game engines basically rely on each computer involved being able to deterministically generate the same world state on each participating computer. One technique to reduce apparent latency to other players is to do client-side prediction, predict what the other user is going to do, like continuing to walk in the same direction that they’re walking, and then render each frame as if they had done that. Sometimes, that prediction is incorrect, and in those cases, they’re going to need to be able to re-generate the world state; what they do is constantly internally checkpoint and then roll world state forward by replaying inputs when they actually learn what that other player was doing. So some games and game engines already basically implement the internal functionality required for this sort of approach, at least over a limited period of time. But it requires the developers to constrain what they do throughout the game to some degree.
frog,

I just want proper Nvidia Surround/AMD Eyefinity/ultrawide screen resolution options. About 50% of games have them, 50% don’t, and it’s really frustrating to play a game where my playing experience would be so much better if I could use Surround, but the game just has no support for any resolution that isn’t 16:9.

Trainguyrom,

I’ve had a couple of games I’ve encountered that are literally unplayable at 21:9. You’re either stuck with textures stretched to oblivion or it cuts off a significant chunk of the screen. Admittedly this is mostly with older games that predate 21:9 displays but holy crap is it annoying when I can’t play a game because it can’t handle my display and stretches instead of displaying at the configured resolution

frog,

I’m more forgiving of that kind of thing with older games that predate ultrawide resolutions, and consider it a pleasant surprise when I find an older game that works fine with it. But since I’m running a Surround setup, I have the ability to just turn off a couple of monitors and run in 16:9 if I have to - which I do for most older games. It really sucks there isn’t a good workaround for you, and others with 21:9 screens.

But it’s bloody annoying when it’s a new game that doesn’t support anything but 16:9, or only supports it badly. The only argument I can see against supporting wider resolutions is that in competitive games, apparently the wider field of view offered by screen resolutions wider than 16:9 offers an unfair competitive advantage to the players that have them. (Like one person having a better CPU or GPU, or more RAM than someone else doesn’t?!) With single player or cooperative games, where there is no competitive element that gives an advantage to whoever has the best hardware, I really can’t see any justification for not supporting non-16:9 resolutions.

Butterbee,
@Butterbee@beehaw.org avatar

For coop games with dialog I really loved how Baldur’s Gate 3 let everyone see the dialog choices and click on them to vote for what they would want. The player in the dialog didn’t have to choose it, but they could see and it let every player feel like they were a part of every conversation instead of just watching.

switches,
@switches@kbin.social avatar

being able to ping anything to my teammates in any multiplayer game ala apex legends. its just so damn useful i wish more games had it.

Skua,

"We're rich!"

Plume,

Apex nailed the communication aspect. It’s the gold standard as far as I am concerned.

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.

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.

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.

callouscomic,

Games that don’t need patches.

arquebus_x,

Welcome back to the 1980s!

GrindingGears,

For real, or at least without forced updates.

My biggest, biggest pet peeve of the PS4/PS5 era, is this. I’m in my 40s, I’m a senior management level professional, I’m on some boards, I’ve got very young kids. The amount of times I get to sit down and just go ahhhhh and fire up the PlayStation, number in the very low single digits each quarter. This means my PlayStation has to update what feels like two hundred thousand things, and I just want to play a god damn game. Nope, I have to update the new system software, have to update the games update, something for the sound, it literally feels like it never ends. So my three free hours turns into me throwing the controller and just moving on to something else more often than not, only for the cycle to repeat. It’s infuriating.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

I think that one issue is that – at least with Steam, and I think on consoles, though I haven’t checked the current gen – if there’s an outstanding update for a game, one is required to wait until an update is applied before playing the game.

That often really doesn’t need to happen. One could have a console just let one play what’s already download, and when an update can be done, do it.

This doesn’t solve things for multiplayer games – or, more-generally, games with some level of online functionality. There, updates may require everyone to be running the latest version, or Twitter support may be broken on an older version (come to think of it, I bet that all that Twitter removal of third-party API access probably broke a bunch of games with social media integration).

And sometimes, like with actively-exploited security holes, a developer may really, really not want people to use existing versions.

Maybe let the developer flag an update as “mandatory” and only force updates if the “mandatory” flag is set.

One other thing that might solve your problem – I haven’t looked at current-gen consoles, but at least the last time I looked at an XBox, I believe that there was an option for it to turn itself on nightly, check for updates, and for installed games, download and install any updates. That might address your “I turn on my console about once a year and then it has a huge backlog” issue, if your console has that and you toggle on that nightly update setting.

GrindingGears,

They’ve had that standby mode for a few years for sure (I mostly use PS, but Xbox will have the same). I don’t know why though, for whatever reason after a while it just stops working. Might be the routers cycling or whatever, but it’ll stay on standby forever, but when you login there’s still a sea of updates and most stuff is unable to be played. I hear you on the multiplayer requirements and whatever too, personally I’m never a multiplayer. I’d accept the risks of a game being out of date if it just allowed me to skip updating.

TwilightVulpine,

Collectible tracker after getting to a certain threshold. I get that people don't like maps cluttered with stuff, but if someone gets to a point they got over 60% of a thing, it's likely they want to go for all of them, so the option to give them at least a general searching area should be provided.

whitepawn,

By simply having all PC games mod able and with accessible console commands, most issues will eventually have workarounds.

savvywolf,
@savvywolf@pawb.social avatar

I agree with everything in the OP and most of the other comments. But something for me that I don’t think I’ve seen options for in any games.

Eyes and teeth. I’m a bit squimish around things happening to them. If your game shows them being injured in some way, just let me turn that off and skip it or something.

I know it sounds like a small thing, but I know at least four games which have this issue…

Plume,

Sounds quite specific but I can see it. A “turn off gore” feature could help?

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