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[Krevsin]

This actually brings up another gaming pet peeve of mine....filling in space for the sake of filling in space.  Bethesda has become especially bad about this since Oblivion, but they're not the only culprits.  Pretty much every open world game, even the ones billing themselves as survival games, feel this incessant need to cover every inch of the game world with something to do/discover/loot, and after awhile it becomes immersion breaking.  Saddly survival in survival games is only a real task within the first hour.  There doesn't need to be a cave, radiant quest, dungeon, or 4th wall breaking reference every 15 feet.

Cue everyone and their grandma whining for years about how desolate, empty, and boring NV was.

grumble grumble use of negative space grumble grumble quiet time grumble grumble.

[Virtz]

A semi-related peeve:

Complaining that a game isn't complex enough

Nobody complained that SMB3 didn't have a crafting system and six classes with five skill trees each. Nobody complained that Ocarina of Time didn't have food/water/rest meters and a dynamic food chain. Nobody complains that Doom didn't have subsystem damage with unique effects as your legs, arms, eyes, etc. get damaged.

I don't understand why people want every single game mechanic ever invented to be in their game. Balanced and finely-tuned mechanics working in harmony create a good game, not just putting it all together for the sake of having more.

Can you elaborate with real examples?

Cause certain cases, where there's more complex and enjoyable representatives of a genre, I'd complain about myself (or usually I'd just ignore the game and move on to something else). I'd also complain when something's overly abstract and arbitrary instead of being based on reality and intuitiveness.

Like I get that a lot of fast-paced unpausable games aren't exactly suited to Dwarf Fortress levels of complexity, but I also feel some games these days are getting unnecessarily simple despite computers being more powerful than yesteryear and being able to handle more.

[itisnotlogical]

I would argue that more complexity does not necessarily mean more fun, unless your game is explicitly a simulation like ARMA or Dwarf Fortress or Kerbal Space Program.

For example, I would never use Skyrim's crafting system because it's a diversion from why I'm playing the game. I would be stopping my epic fantasy adventure, putting away the magic swords and lusty wenches to simulate manual labor. It's silly that a knight would spend time learning how to create their own armor, digging metal out of the ground with their own two hands to build their own chestpiece, when they could pay an armorer to do it for them. Fallout games have crafting, and it makes sense there, because resources are scarce in a world where civilization's been wiped out. Crafting is a natural extension of the premise, because you have to find inventive solutions when you can't just go to a store and buy what you need.

That's the best-thought-out example I have, but here's a few more examples where complexity did not make the game more fun for me:

- Micromanaging individual ammo clips and grenades in old X-Com, as opposed to newcom treating ammunition as a monthly expenditure with no actual physical substance
- The "Polite", "Blunt" and "Casual" tone options in Daggerfall, which did almost nothing
- The monster language skills from Daggerfall, as well
- Limited lives in Wolfenstein 3D
- NPC companions in Half-Life 2, which mostly got in my way and made cramped environments a pain
- Weapon mods in Mass Effect 1 meant more time spent in the inventory screen than I care to recall
- Having to micromanage your car's components and repair state in Sega GT (can't remember which one)
- Grinding for combat enchants in Minecraft

[Egan_BW]

I'm not one of those people who complain that NewCOM dumbed everything down and ruined it, but individual magazines is one of my favorite features of Old-Com. <_<
^{Of course, the best is when you track individual cartridges, inside and outside of magazines, and in the chamber.}

[Delta Foxtrot]

Lasers didn't have magazines and I never ran out of plasma or ballistic magazines. They were a non-issue that resulted in busywork. But I do miss specialized ammo. New-com's inability to provide my heavies and snipers with high-explosive alternative is unfortunate.

[miauw62]

Eh, on low-strength characters you sometimes had to choose between adding a flare/grenade/whatever and an extra mag.

That said, it's not like oldcom actually mentions the possibility of encumbering your dudes anyway...

[Zangi]

Dual wielding autocannons with explosive ammo is always best.

[Darkmere]

Lasers didn't have magazines and I never ran out of plasma or ballistic magazines. They were a non-issue that resulted in busywork.

This sums it up. If you have ANYthing like reasonable skill and success rate, you'll never run out of alien gear. Strapping an extra mag to a paper doll wasn't the pinnacle of gameplay for me.

[Virtz]

For example, I would never use Skyrim's crafting system because it's a diversion from why I'm playing the game. I would be stopping my epic fantasy adventure, putting away the magic swords and lusty wenches to simulate manual labor. It's silly that a knight would spend time learning how to create their own armor, digging metal out of the ground with their own two hands to build their own chestpiece, when they could pay an armorer to do it for them. Fallout games have crafting, and it makes sense there, because resources are scarce in a world where civilization's been wiped out. Crafting is a natural extension of the premise, because you have to find inventive solutions when you can't just go to a store and buy what you need.

It's actually a pretty common fantasy trope for great heroes to create their own weapons with the bestest materials they procured themselves. Tho I suppose it works better when they can craft something legendary and you don't have to watch them make all the rejects.

I guess it depends on your idea of fun. Personally I find myself pretty bored with games that focus on a limited scope and abstract away everything else that'd realistically be a concern and maybe even allow for tactics and ingenuity from the player (such as the ol' missle carrier role in X-Com). Give me strategy-simulation games over plain strategy any day.

[Shadowlord]

I always make my own equipment in Skyrim, or at least improve it - the merchants only sell crap-quality equipment.

[Insanegame27]

In skyrim I prefer looting actually half-decent armor and upgrading it opposed to making it.

[Quartz_Mace]

I'm not one of those people who complain that NewCOM dumbed everything down and ruined it, but individual magazines is one of my favorite features of Old-Com. <_<
^{Of course, the best is when you track individual cartridges, inside and outside of magazines, and in the chamber.}

In my opinion, other than the somewhat arbitrary class system, I think NewCOM added a lot of tactical options relative to UFO Defense. In the 1994 game, once you got heavy plasma, there was rarely a reason to use anything else*(except psionics and blaster launchers) but you got control of everything you put on your soldiers with no pre-defined classes enforcing limitations. Grenades were just frag, heavy, and alien, each stronger than the last, and armour had no distinguishing features other than increased armor, with the exception of the flying suit.

*though you might use laser pistols as side arms or use auto cannons to sweep/light the map(if night)


In NewCOM, you had specialized weapons(alongside a somewhat annoying class-system. Why the hell can't my sniper just use an assault rifle if I tell him to? He used one as a rookie.), though unfortunately they were just straight upgrades of the different types. You had a much wider variety of tactically different grenades (gas, ghost, needle, plasma, etc.) and armour (ghost, skeleton suit, power armour, arch-angel).

Personally, I think the FinalModPack for OpenXcom is the a great balance of the concepts, a ton of tactical options with no classes, micromanaging every soldier if you wish(but you can also make and apply templates), and a much larger variety in general.

But infinite ammo definitely was an interesting design choice. Realizing that you just did a burst with one in the chamber could be very fun, as could forgetting to bring enough ammo and scavanging the field whilst under fire. And who could forget pack-mule rookies!

Not arguing with you about whether or not they dumbed it down, just sharing my opinion about it in-depth.

[Rolan7]

I actually kept using laser weaponry a lot of times, just to click the freakin inventory screen a little less.
Though XCOMutils helped with that a LOT.  Kinda like Bman's UFO: ET mods, a lot of it was things that should have been present at launch.  In some form (like the informative soldier "names", which information should have been more easily accessible).

[Lossmar]

I liked micro in the old XCOM inventory/base/personell managment... I like taking more than 1 rocket, flares, different magazines with different ammo etc.

Old Xcom is clearly inferior in only one aspect - really unclear graphics and really inconsistent rules for when can the soldier see aliens and vice versa.
There were too many situations when my soldiers didn't saw anyone just to take one or two steps forward and spotting 2-3 xenos just standing there, not even hiding or anything. ( see Angry Joe's XCOM 2012 review for a good example of that) .

[Rolan7]

Old Xcom is clearly inferior in only one aspect - really unclear graphics and really inconsistent rules for when can the soldier see aliens and vice versa.
There were too many situations when my soldiers didn't saw anyone just to take one or two steps forward and spotting 2-3 xenos just standing there, not even hiding or anything. ( see Angry Joe's XCOM 2012 review for a good example of that) .

Yes!  And the situations where an alien shoots at them, and you literally can't return fire because something (no indication of what!) is in the way.  Often a window, but even stupid things like fences or hay bales.  The greatest single feature in UFO:ET was indicating which enemies a soldier would be able to shoot when planning a move.

I do miss part of the micro of OldCOM though, yeah.  Loading a soldier with rockets felt kinda good.  There was just a lot of trivial micro...  But XCOMUtils really helped with that!

I think I remember OpenXCOM being good about it too, but I never played much.  Seemed really good though, I plan to finally beat TFTD through it someday.