Common Video Game Flaws and How To Fix Them

A forum game with some seriousness in mind. Nevermind that this is partially a snowclone.

the previous poster will present a Genre/ game type and it's flaw. the next poster will provide a solution to the previous post and provide a genre and flaw of his own. I'll start:

Fighting Games. That Damn Guile can sonic boom while walking towards me!!

edited 26th Sep '10 9:33:21 PM by Schitzo

RPGs: Karma Meters tend to result in characters that are either Pure Good or Absolute Evil.

Solution: Add Order Versus Chaos along with Good Versus Evil; Order follows the law, while Chaos acts against it. This way, you could have four possible extremes: Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, and Chaotic Evil.

edited 26th Sep '10 9:30:33 PM by Videogamer_07

you forgot to provide a solution to my genre and problem

"Karma Meters tend to result in characters that are either Pure Good or Absolute Evil."

Mine is forget the karma meter. Have meters that work on individual people or events. Dating Sims do something like that already.

Oh shoot. Let me try this again...

That Damn Guile can sonic boom while walking towards me!!

Solution: Make it so that he can't do both at once.

Problem: FPSes: Walk It Off. It kinda makes sense when it's the future, where it could be hand waved by some sort of medicine; but when it comes to games that take place in older times (like the Wild West), it doesn't make sense how someone can take a few shots, wait a few seconds, and be magically healed.

edited 26th Sep '10 9:52:14 PM by Videogamer_07

I figured in non-futuristic settings the shots that don't insta-kill you are either grazing or went clear out the other side.

...'course, that still doesn't explain how one can shrug off non-killing Barrett .50 rounds.

edited 26th Sep '10 9:54:57 PM by Charlatan

Solution: Either make the player manually heal himself (therefore STILL making him vulnerable in the process) or do away with it.

Beat em ups: Beating up mooks is fun and all, but it really starts to bug you when your avatar has the same canned punching animations and the same autocombos. If this were a real street fight, you'd get your ass handed to you for being so predictable.

^Solution: Make a Wrestling Game where doing the same crap over and over has consequences like lowering the show's ratings, etc.

^^Solution: Add three or four different types of attacks, and have different enemies respond differently to them, or change their responses depending on the situation.

Western RPGs: Dialogue choices either fall into 'Kill and rape someone in front of their spouse evil', 'CANDY FOR EVERYONE good', or 'CANDY FOR EVERYONE BUT MORE SUBTLE' neutral.

edited 26th Sep '10 10:13:13 PM by Miijhal

Solution: have over 3 responses, and have each response have different values (Good+2, Neutral +1)

Shoot Em Ups: I'm only facing one direction why?

edited 26th Sep '10 10:16:08 PM by Schitzo

Add an option to ignore the quest, or to do it half-assed.

Problem with bosses getting stronger when they lose health. How can they get stronger by getting weaker?

Solution: Make hitstun last longer the more fatigued the boss is.

Action-Adventure: Goddamn it! ANOTHER chest full of rupies?!

edited 26th Sep '10 10:23:09 PM by Schitzo

Make it so that currency can be spent immediately and without stores to upgrade your weapons.

JRPG: The game gives no indication of where or how much you have to level grind, causing you to be overpowered and then suddenly underpowered.

Solution: Make your strength more related to the weapons and items you have than your level. That way the encounters can be designed for a player at a range of levels and still keep the right level of difficulty.

Problem: The RPG tends to be an uneasy marriage of battle, story, and fetch-quest sloppily patched together.

Solution: Design an RPG where the plot dictates where they travel and what they do. Certain quests send you to other areas and you stay there. Extraneous stuff be damned! Alternatively, the plot is very little, all there is is Fetch Quests and stuff like that.

Problem: In traditional (non-semi-realistic ones like Call Of Duty and Modern Warfare) FPS, the fact that most weapons have little to no range or accuracy whatsoever with the exception of the poorly designed (as in completely unrealistic magazine sizes such as 4 rounds for a gun bigger than a man is tall) Sniper Rifle and occasionally the pistol.

Solution: Don't cram the game with ineffective weapons to make an illusion of a wide arsenal, instead stick to making weapons that each have their own varied, practical use, even if it's half the amount of the original.

RPG - Too many Guide Dangit situations, One Stat to Rule Them All and Can't Drop the Hero

Solution: Every NPC should have something useful to say, should provide gameplay tips and suggestions, and describes what the game mechanics do. Also, Have the game split into two storylines, one with the separated party, and the other with the solo player.

Problem: This is probably the 20th time this Roguelike has killed you. Its nice to see you improve as a gamer and all, but it still feels like you have nothing to show for it, and you'd like to get past all this preliminary first level bullshit. every time you have to restart.

edited 27th Sep '10 10:07:49 AM by Schitzo

Solution: Make it possible to skip the first level (gaining an appropriate amount of XP and items), and also give players a ranking depending on how well they're doing. Or give them a bragging rights reward. I don't know!

Flight Sims: Certain things either being overmodelled or undermodelled/"Stop Having Fun" Guys. To wit: "That [[IL-2Sturmovik La-5FN]] totally can't keep up with my BF-109G6 Late, no way, no how!"

Made up the example, but the amount of times I've seen people complain about this sort of thing...

Solution: Fictional air planes. It worked for F Zero and it worked for Goldeneye.

Problem: This Survival Horror game is giving you 7 shells to kill 14 zombies. And they're all in your way.

JRPG: The game gives no indication of where or how much you have to level grind, causing you to be overpowered and then suddenly underpowered.

That's because you don't have to level grind in pretty much any half decent JRPG made since the mid SNES era.

That's because you don't have to level grind in pretty much any half decent JRPG made since the mid SNES era.

-coughs- Final Fantasy XIII -cou-

Oh wait, you said half-decent. Nevermind. -glares at Square-Enix-

edited 11th Nov '10 12:20:23 AM by Legionnaire

Solution: More Stealth Em Up elements in Survival Horror. Especially ways to draw aggro away from the player.

Problem: RPG that have great replay value due to a lot of character customization, but force you to go through hours of the same introductory missions on every playthrough. I'm looking at you, Bio Ware. The origins in Dragon Age were nice, yes, now why did I have to do the next two areas right after my origin quest in the same manner over and over again?

Solution: Make it so that he can't do both at once.

He can't if he's human-controlled. The real solution is to make the AI play more like a human was controlling it, with the limitations that come with it.

@ 22
Solution: Create story checkpoints similar to Halo or Bayonetta. \\ Once you reach a checkpoint, you get the option to start a new game at that point with all of your stats(class, attributes, skills) reset and ready to be assigned. Branching storylines act like a tree/flowchart of checkpoints.

Problem: RPG - Railroad plots with no reasonable explanation.
"You must go here now!" is just as silly as "I know that giant tidal wave is heading straight for us, but I see something shiny over here! And over here! and over there!"

edited 11th Nov '10 3:27:41 AM by ArcanGenth

^Solution: Make it like in Pathways Into Darkness where you get a Game Over for not completing your objective within the massive time limit.

Problem: FPS games with crappy and uncreative shotguns (assuming this hasn't been done before).

edited 11th Nov '10 11:04:27 AM by RocketDude