Lazy things in game development that you hate is accepted

Hey forum. I've been playing games for the better part of two decades, and in that time I've developed a couple of pet peeves. More specifically, things I view as lazy cop outs that developers get away with.

Now, before I say anything else, I know some of you will jump straight to "that's not lazy, it's hard to develop games, you don't understand how game development works, fuck you". Well, maybe not that last part, but then again, maybe that last part. All I can say is; it's okay to criticize stuff.

1. My ultimate pet peeve is doors opening without a animation. It is THE WORST thing ever. I hate it more than I hate raw onions, and I really hate raw onions. I mean come on, all I need to see is a hand giving that door a little push. I don't need a full on door opening animation like RE4, but I need something. It looks especially dumb in 3rd person games, but 1st person games are far from excused.

2. Weapons not holstering when put away. I get that not all weapons can be shown at the same time, that just wouldn't be practical. But it's pretty annoying to see weapons just disappear when put away. Looking at you Fallout 4. That case in particular was pretty awful, considering that Bethesda went backwards from previous installments.

Yeah, those are the first two that popped to my mind. Probably more, but those are real irksome. Do you guys have any special things that you view as lazy and that annoy you?

Edit:

3. This one is much harder to actually get working right, so I'll give developers some slack for this. It's kind of a duo thing though. When NPCs sleep on top of the sheets, and in their normal clothes. Also, when the camera cuts away from certain actions, like removing a rug or giving an NPC a object. I get that both would require work with cloth physics and stuff, but I still want that.

Pre rendered cut scenes that run at 30hz on pc games

Taking issue with calling developers lazy isn't saying you can't apply criticism. Lazy has a meaning, and assigns meaning to their work by making some very strong assumptions. Using the term 'lazy' is either a crutch in place of more meaningful and accurate criticism, or a fundamental misunderstanding of how games are made. To say someone is lazy is to criticise their character when the reality is much more likely to be management, budget, tools or even skill.

Choosing the word lazy robs you of the chance to make a more detailed criticism as well as likely being inaccurate.

I don't want to say that anything is "lazy" but I dislike it in games when you fire a gun and the shell casings don't hit the floor.

Yeah I think there is a better way to say it than "lazy"... ultimately you know what he's saying though: areas you appreciate effort being put forth. I think just saying "lazy" though is inaccurate to the realities devs face. It can be do something you say is "lazy" or not have something way larger in the game be there for any number of reasons. Someone might have already done every bit of the work but taken it out because of a revelation we don't know.

For me I think unskippable cutscenes? Not that it is accepted by fans or reviewers but I just think whenever that's in a game you need to take a step back.

Also related: not letting you pause during a cutscene.

Speaking of which, as far as holstering, it isn't easy, especially in games with a lot of guns. One that is the least bit lazy is Max Payne 3, where they go to the effort of correctly displaying your gun choices in all the cutscenes and even have your long gun in your off hand if you use a side arm when you have one. That part of the game is nuts and I love it.

Caps on the frame rate and resolution on the PC that eventually get patched, I think I would just prefer the PC port to be delayed at that point.

No bots in full priced multiplayer only games.

I always found animation a lot more important than other people seem to, so I agree with both your points. I actually also hate the lack on animations on picking up objects or loot. In Destiny, it's fine. It fits the game. In other games though, walking over something to pick it up is super stupid when that game is going for something realistic. I'm not saying there should be an elaborate animation for it, but something like FarCry is perfect.

As I love animations, I also hate games where animation is not sharp. I guess this was one of my biggest complaints about The Witcher 3. I like the idea of the game, but actually playing it just feels terrible to me.

@zevvion: The Witcher 3's control issues are probably more to do with wanting to have him move in a realistic way (resulting in animation priority) - which I think was a bad idea for a game with Souls-like combat. That said, Uncharted 4 had far more responsive movement while looking really fluid.

What about something like Dragon Age Inquisition? One of the reasons I stopped playing that game was because I had to watch an animation every time I wanted to pick up some loose resources just hanging around. And there are lots and lots of loose resources hanging around. I wouldn't have had a problem just mashing a button to pick them up, but you have to stop for half a second to watch some bending over animation and it eventually gets so annoying (I can ignore the fact that you're building and leading an army and should have people do this resource gathering for you - that's a different topic for a different day). I also had this problem with Far Cry, I saw the animal skin gathering animation enough times to never care to see it again - just put a message on screen telling me that I picked it up and be done with it.

The simple middle ground here is to just give players an option to turn pick up animations on and off.

Anyway... hm... I don't have anything in particular in mind. I'll agree with others that calling some decisions "lazy" might not even be something the developers had any control over, so that might be the wrong word.

EDIT: Thought of something - can we stop having different buttons for different menus on controller layouts? Decide what the most used menu will be and have the Start button (or whatever they're calling it these days) lead to that menu, then have shortcuts to other menus from there. Also, make menus that are quick and snappy - nobody wants to wait for a menu to load in. Bethesda does this thing in all of their games where Select is the Wait button, Start brings up the normal menu, and B/O brings up the inventory/map/everything else. Why can't I just push Start and get to the inventory and then have D-Pad buttons leading to other things like Wait, Save, Options, Quit Game, or something like that?

I definitely agree with the animation stuff already said, at least in games focused more on cinematics than gameplay. That was one of the few things in Shenmue that stood out positively to me: not only did it have animations for opening doors, but also for closing doors, at least some of them.

This also, though I'd extend that to every (AAA) game with mp.

That is neat conceptually, it's less cool when something like this happens. Needless to say that kinda killed the mood for me in this scene.

Hahah that's hilarious. It was all flawless for me when I've played it several times now and I find it super impressive but that's a funny glitch.

Replacing good level design with a mini-map/compass that does all the navigation for you.

This is why Skyrim, while being fun, didn't leave me with as many memories as Morrowind did.

It doesn't really always show in-game, but I think crunch or forcing a game out to meet a deadline is "lazy" project scheduling.

Making games out of math and by committee is hard. The open-world land grab and corresponding hour count can do one, though.

The lack of gore in M-rated games. An explosive or axe should do something.

I knew this inaccurate argument would come around. Say what you will, but having a hand just pop out from the bottom of the screen shouldn't be too much to ask for. I get that holstering weapons would take more effort, but I still expect it. That part actually ruined Fallout 4 for me. Just broke every piece of immersion. Anyway, here's an example of opening a door, as it was modded into Fallout: new Vegas.

Edit: And that's even more than I expect. I just need to see a hand manipulating that door in a way to keep me immersed.

Especially low res cutscenes that were rendered with the game's engine. Examples are Remember Me and Max Payne 3.

Multiplayer games with little to no choice of custom games. Choosing map rotation, selecting game modes. Damage scaling, headshots only, pistols only, no reload, and other random shit. Games don't do that anymore and it really pisses me off. I know nothing about programming but I can't imagine it would be particularly difficult or egregiously time consuming to just give the player the option to check some boxes and adjust some sliders so they can dick around with their mates. Most games nowadays seem to be content with giving you and your friends the option to choose a game mode and then proceed to play maps from that game mode in a random order.

Player empowerment / immersion vs "fun", or how realism actually sucks. To borrow a common trope: see that mountain over there? You can go there... if you build up the required stats, craft and / or hire the cart to carry your supplies, and complete the sidequest for the best guide that can guide you to the top of the mountain.

While the increase in computing power will of course increase the complexity and realism in games, the sheer amount of superfluous stupid most developers can cram into their game for the sake of realism (or padding out the BS) is just depressing.

Not being to read a log of what just said in a cutscene. I don't like to play with subtitles on as I read a lot faster than the characters speak, but I do have some hearing damage so I'll miss a word or two here and there.

bad Minimap design, I'd rather wayfind looking athe environment as opposed to the minimap

neither is lazy though, just things I wish all games did or didn't do

I think that actually sounds fun. Makes it feel more meaningful. As much hate as Dragon Age 2 gets, I think the whole bit with the expedition to the Deep Roads in the early part of that game was real fun and meaningful. Having to build up enough money to actually support the expedition was fun. I'd like to see more of that in open world games like the ones Bethesda makes.

You can criticise games all you want but I still think 'lazy' is the wrong choice of word.

A game not having a particular feature you want doesn't automatically mean it's not there because the developer was 'lazy'.

day 1 patches. Probably not much to do with laziness and more to do with publisher pressure, but man i miss finished games at launch.

Lots of fetch quests or other inane sub quests used to pad out the length of game with rewards that you want so that you pretty much have to do it even though you don't necessarily want to.

Ubisoft has been the worst for this over the last 10 years, but WB games do it too lately (although with WB games there is no incentive generally so I don't why I do it). I think it's the worst thing in video games for me. I would rather a game be 8 hours long and consistently fun rather than 62 hours full of boring filler missions no would do if not for the reward being something awesome. If that makes sense.

@gaff: Some people like those things? Maybe you shouldn't be playing games that advertise to have those systems?

To answer the thread, I tend to dislike the most common difficulty systems where they just increase health and damage values. Games have been doing this since near the beginning and so far only games like Bayonetta/DMC have veered away from that.

Lazy is harsh but the waypoint in Need for Speed (2015) is totally busted constantly changing lanes for no reason taking you through immovable objects with unnecessary 90 degree turns, and also bad trophies either being impossible to achieve or require a stupid amount of grinding.

Restoring power to elevators. AND EVERYGAME DOES IT

Quests that auto-accept and auto-complete. A.K.A. Every BioWare game since Mass Effect 3. If you can't be arsed to write more than a couple of lines of dialogue surrounding a quest, it probably wasn't that good an idea anyway.

Shoehorning in a rote and terrible multi-player mode into a game just because you want all the sweet, sweet micro-transaction money from gullible idiots who can't help themselves. A.K.A. Also every BioWare game since Mass Effect 3.

Open world maps with tons of icons but nothing interesting to do in between. A.K.A. Mafia III, any UbiSoft game. See also; fast travel, lack of.

Invisible walls rather than plot driven/level appropriate barriers. A.K.A. all of Prague from DXMD.

"Our game totally has all these features, even though it totally doesn't. But it might! In the future. Someday. We promise! And it'll be free! Unless it isn't." A.K.A. Sean Murray Syndrome

But there's a difference though. I'm not saying the lack of every feature I like is lazy, but certain features certainly are just down to being lazy/doing the least possible work on that part.

For instance, I won't call a developer lazy for not having a multiplayer component in the game, or for not having crafting systems. But I will a developer lazy when not bothering to add super small features like a small animation for opening a door. We're in 2016 damn it. That shouldn't be too much to ask for.

I played ME3 multiplayer for months with several friends, got loads of free DLC, and never once paid extra money for anything. Also, I think the thread creator is asking people specifically for "lazy" developer omissions, and adding a multiplayer mode hardly fits that definition.

As for the question, I'm going to go with invisible walls or the "you'll die in five seconds if you don't get back to the 'combat zone' portion of the map" type of level design game developers often use. I was sad to see that in the Titanfall 2 beta.

Please don't do that to your games. Build a wall or a cliff-side, but don't tell me that I've "left the combat zone" or otherwise break my immersion with an arbitrary invisible barrier. The same goes for putting a turned over chair or other small obstacle in a hallway, and not allowing players to simply step or climb over it. Out of place furniture isn't an impenetrable wall, game designers.

"Intetactive" cutscenes where all you can do is walk around or slightly move the camera. I hate it, if I have the option I will 100% of the time just wiggle the sticks around like crazy just because I can - it adds nothing.

Oh interesting. You'd rather just watch a cutscene? Not that that'd be bad or anything.

When the loot you pick up doesn't change how your character looks. Also dislike it when crafted loot has no resemblance to the crafting materials you used.

@theht: Yeah, unless there is a reason for it (like in MGS3 where you can find hidden stuff), I don't want to be able to spin around in circles while the camera is locked on an NPC or to move the camera 15 degrees to see the side of someone's head slightly more.

@bojackhorseman: again dude, animations and programming need to be budgeted and scheduled for, and the people doing those things are already scheduled and (under)paid to work their asses off for unreasonable hours getting done the important things that needs to be done in order to (hopefully) meet some deadline or other. Tally up all the little bits of "polish" you want to see and the developer's workload might increase by 50% or so overall, for all you know. Some projects might have the resources to get that done, others not so much. But calling anyone who works frequent life-destroying crunch to bring these games to you "lazy" is just tone-deaf and disrespectful, especially given how spoilt we are to have games at this level of production for the modest amounts of money we pay for them.

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Anyway, my vote is for the various x-ray vision/witcher senses/survival instinct/wraith vision/whatever views that developers use to compensate for how difficult it is to see the important stuff in their games because of graphical asset detail overkill, level/enemy design considerations, etc. You inevitably end up activating it once every three seconds as you explore, it can be jarring and nausea-inducing especially when you're doing constant camera sweeps and vision switching, and it fundamentally changes what things like exploration and situational awareness are mechanically, effectively removing those aspects from the gameplay pie.

All my pet peeves are around having a family, which means I can get interrupted at any time with some kind of minor child or dog related emergency.

1. Scary warnings about losing progress when you pick "quit" in a game's main menu. The dog just kicked over the trash can or whatever, I don't have time to find a save point!!! -- just give me a reliable "save & quit" option with no pointless warnings. If as a developer you're worried about save scumming just make that save disappears when you load it again.

2. Easy difficulty which isn't actually easy. I play games to relax after a day of work, work is challenging enough so I just want to immerse myself in a different world and enjoy its story. I don't have time to play the same section over and over again, if I'm stuck in some section give me some help. It seems only Nintendo has learned this by giving players the golden tanooki suit after a number of failed tries.

3. Cut scenes you cannot pause or rewind. I might get a phone call or be distracted by something else while playing, and miss part of a cutscene.

Well Deadly Premonition did it. So they really have no excuse. Might mean games look about a generation older than they should be but that is a small price to pay for working sheets.

Any time a cutscene portrays actions or equipment that don't reflect your actual play style, e.g., if your character is a mage, don't have them threatening people with a sword in cutscenes. The time this bothered me most was in Mass Effect, where throughout the series, characters would be fighting using the most basic assault rifles, even when they aren't even allowed to use that type of weapon.

One thing I think would indeed count as "lazy" is when physics-driven rigidbody objects in games don't have any "bounciness" (or restitution). This was so frustrating in the original Crackdown, where a big ball you could move around didn't bounce at all, ever. It's driven by a physics engine where it only takes changing the restitution parameter to something greater than 0.0.

'Hello, Fabled Hero of Legend™, listen, I know you're busy but can you deliver this package for me? I totally forgot to do it. Thanks!"
(walks for 20 seconds)

"OH! My package! Was wondering where this was, bless you!"

I know they try to add quests and give you xp and stuff but come on, really? Send me to deal with a bandit camp or clear out a den of monsters, not trivial Fed-ex work

Not properly respecting enemy reactions, and misses in audio. If I swing a thing or shoot a thing, I want said thing to make a good noise and the thing that got hit to react appropriately. This is, rarely the case.

I think I have one that fits into lazy category

When your character doesn't have an animation for going up or down stairs. When they're just striding normally and it's like they go up an invisible ramp. I feel so much joy that it's usually things I check out first.

Also when 3rd person shooters don't allow you to switch shoulder views.

I also wish games on console or pc allowed me to change font size. I remember witcher was awfully small before they patched it. But it's hard for me to play some games on my couch without leaning because some text is too small to read or letters are too close. I do this with recent games like doom without realizing I'm not sitting comfortably

@fnrslvr: I really hate this sentiment that you propose here. You're basically saying that no developer ever does anything out of laziness. And I totally disagree. I think my initial example of opening a door is pretty accurate. It's just a thing that was accepted in games of generations yore, and developers just don't bother doing anything about it. Again, these are small things that could easily be fixed. Adding a single door opening animation does not increase the workload of a developer by 50%, that's just absurd. Of course it comes down to being lazy, because while you seem to put them on a pedestal, developers are just humans. I can't think of one person who hasn't just phoned it in at one point in their career, no matter what job they have.

And stuff like that is especially important in big games that the developers want you to keep playing for hundreds of hours, because after a while, those small things are the stuff that will start to break your immersion. Luckily, we see less and less of that stuff, but it's still in the games from my favorite developer, so that's a bummer.

The first thing I'm doing when Skyrim Special Edition launches is to download a mod that gives me a door opening animation. And that'll be ready on day one. Why? Cause people want it, and it's easy to make.

I think it is really rude to call game developrs lazy for taking shortcuts. Most devs work a lot more than most other professions and have to do a lot of overtime. Making a game takes a lot of time and shortcuts need to be taken for them to ever come out.

The problem is that "lazy, stupid, inept, etc" are all bad-faith arguments that suggest to know things about a company or their employees that you could never know. Because of that, accusations like "lazy" just rub people the wrong way.

In the case of opening doors in Skyrim, it's never bothered me. I don't even think I've considered it before this thread, so it's likely that it just wasn't a priority for the developers.

Let's look at your thread title. "Lazy things in game development that you hate is accepted"

The thing is, "things" is a plural, so you should have have said "that you hate are accepted" not "that you hate is accepted." I could say that you were "lazy" in not proofreading. I could say that you were "stupid" to not know that. I could say that you are "inept" as a writer, but all of those are bad-faith arguments and needlessly belligerent ways of saying that you made a mistake. The same sort of mistake that this post of mine might be filled with, as I'm sure I make plenty of grammatical errors all the time.

But no matter how you try to sell it, if you come out of the gate with an accusation like that, people are going to care more about that than the topic at hand.

"Alright, we've finally reached the generator, elevator, bridge controls, door controls, etc. While I work on getting this thing started, you watch out for any enemies." *Cue several waves of bad guys who just happen to show up right then.*

Accusation or not, doing that more than once or twice in your game feels like a lazy way of writing enemy encounters.

Gonna go out on a limb and say "all shooting games".

@mandude said:

Replacing good level design with a mini-map/compass that does all the navigation for you.

This is why Skyrim, while being fun, didn't leave me with as many memories as Morrowind did.

I could not disagree with this more. Being able to go off on a tangent and "explore" and being able to quickly get back on track with a minimap is one of the best things about any open world game. The lack of a feature like this is one thing that will always dissuade me from playing a game. All you would be doing is aimlessly wandering around until you happen to stumble upon where you're supposed to be. Not knowing where to go, and not having an idea of where to go, aside from something like "go north when you're on the most southern point of the map, is blatant time wasting and simply padding out the length of what would already be a decent length game. Minimaps are a godsend and drastically reduce needless downtime that could be spent actually doing something meaningful.

@mandude said:

Replacing good level design with a mini-map/compass that does all the navigation for you.

This is why Skyrim, while being fun, didn't leave me with as many memories as Morrowind did.

I think you've finally done it, you've finally nailed the reason I hated Skyrim, thank you <3 That navigation system was god awful and made me quit the game 10 hours in as I found myself not looking at the world but the marker and would get angry if a mountain got in my way because I had no idea where I was actually going other than North.

Seriously. So jarring going from nice looking game to console level cutscenes. Also a lack of FOV options in first person games, cause that shit messes my brain up something real.