Resident evil 4 played with the idea of shooting a “weak” spot, making the game harder and I loved that because I would see myself making the mistake over and over again despite knowing it’s bad.
Another thing for our instincts is going across trying to see what's outside the map, like anytime we start an open world game and we haven't went outside the map, we usually are gonna do it.
Loved seeing the gameplay from the remake of links awakening. I'm gonna go replay that again lmao one of my favorite art styles in any gane ever. Effing adorable and colorful
I hate the painted walls/grip areas in many games it looks out of place and often makes no sense at all. Sure make it slightly different colour or texture, don't make it look like someone's poured 50 Litres of paint down a wall or a giant seagull has taken a giant dump down it!
The most common thing that's missing in this list is when the game suspiciously gives you obscene amounts of ammo, then you know there is definitely a boss fight coming
You all forgot to mention sudden changes in the music, especially in games that require stealth or have horror elements. If I become aware of a sudden change in the soundtrack as I'm trooping (or sneaking) along, especially to something ominous, I know I'm soon either going to be in a fight--or running for safety. Or in a fight, followed by running for my life.
The one about red things being explosives is brilliant. I knew that, but didn't even realize I did. I'd also add that if you're playing like any adventure game, if you enter an area that is loaded with loot.... there's either a boss or a big fight coming pretty soon and the game is trying to simultaneously load you up for it and warn you.
LMAO!! That last one, so much yes. You start getting paranoid too, like "wait, why is the game suddenly being so generous??" And it's even funnier when you just happened to find an area that is better stocked then what you've seen so far, so there wasn't a fight coming, and it's that rare 2% of the time sudden loot DOESN'T equal a boss or huge battle. Man I love games
@@shawnwolf5961 Oh yes! When you stumble across a lot of loot and there is no fight right behind it, depending on the game, you can spend a good hour paranoid as hell walking around thinking something is about to happen!
I would add saving…incessantly. Especially if you think a major decision, boss fight, or story progression moment is coming. I know gameranx has talked about this before, but you don’t just save once. You save, then you save again, just in case you THOUGHT you saved, but didn’t. And it’s not just one save file; you have like a hundred of them, just in case you want to go back and do something differently (you won’t), because there was that one time in that one game a long time ago that you overwrote a previous save 40 hours into the game and you had to start the whole thing over again.
On one hand...yes. Saving. On the other...I kinda think the repetition happens more because the game isn't clear about when a save happened. it just kinda goes "ding" but no dialogue box shows up to say "save successful" or something, or it just kicks you back into the game proper...yeah, _those_ are the times I find myself repeatedly saving the game.
"When a game tells you to go left, you go right" This is what bugged me about Ready Player One. There is no way in hell that the secret to the race would of went unsolved for so long! I think everyone who has ever played a racing game and struggled to beat the track has driven the wrong way or reversed at the start That secret would of been cracked in the first week by some noob who kept wiping out early!
Ready Player One is by someone from the early age of gaming that doesn't seem to have played modern games. It felt very boomer in terms of their depiction of gaming.
@@CrabSully Mate, those instincts were ingrained in us from the early age of gaming, lmao. Ernest Cline was born in 1972; Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Gauntlet, Ghouls n' Ghosts, Bubble Bobble, Contra, Robotron, King's Quest, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Ultima, Wizardry; those are just some of the arcade and home console games that he'd have been able to play in the 80's. Hell, most kids born in the 1980's also played those, lol.
@@KainYusanagi I was born 82 (older brother born 75) and we had an Acorn Electron from around 86 before moving on to Amiga and Megadrive/Genesis and so on. So know all the games you listed and many more from that era. My dad was in his mid 40s in the mid/late 80s and not an avid gamer but he would fully explore maps and sketch them out. Even he knew not to follow the games linear directions!
I feel like an indie developer needs to make a game that goes against all of these ingrained tropes. I feel like one could make quite an intense psychological horror that basically bites you anytime you lean into common methods of game design. *Light queues leading to nothing but detriment and hardship.* Bosses having an "enrage" spot that replaces weak points, that when accidentally hit will just make the boss harder. *Explosive stuff never being red, and red things holding instead health or helpful materials* Backtracking always making it harder for the player, so anytime you miss something and have to go back you are punished for it. *Stealth is so sensitive and hard to perform that it is no longer a viable cheese in any capacity* Breaking random stuff in the world never gives anything interesting and will only lead to NPCs asking what's wrong with you or alerting enemies for a large radius. *Places that look like escape points or could be hidden rooms never leading to anything interesting and if they are hidden rooms it's only ever something to make your experience harder* Tools or items required for the game will never be found in or near the location you need it, so if you miss it you have to as above be punished for back tracking. *Clues and hints can either be a helpful hint or a detrimental trap and it randomly switches between either for every NPC or context clues each replay of the game.* Bosses have 100% random attack patterns and movesets that change each replay game *Any weapon you find, you are useless at wielding it and any enemy can have a chance to disarm you of said weapon*
The thing that stuck out for me was the "cheesing the game via stealth" bit. I love stealth games but once you know the game well enough we all abuse mechanics. I'd love to see something that shows a huge middle finger to us all when we inevitably abuse the mwchanics.
Didn’t even realize how “ingrained” this stuff is I til I played It Takes Two with my fiancé who is absolutely NOT a gamer and she would ask me “how’d you know to do that!?” and it all just seemed so instinctual
Yeah, similar to me, but I've played it with my brother, who's also a gamer, but plays much less than me, and he just couldn't figure out some things that I thought were totally obvious
there's a youtube channel named "Razbuten" that records his non-gamer fiancee playing various game genres. He meant to document how games are enjoyed by a non-gamer, but in the process he ended up discovering these hidden design conventions that're known only to existing gamers. It's also quite interesting to see how his fiancee starts to develop 'gamer instincts' over several videos
Yes! I've been having the same experience with my wife playing A Way Out, she thought that I had played before because I was figuring things out faster, we are going to play It Takes Two next!
Play games long enough and you'll recognize instantly a boss arena before even entering it. That's how I avoided fighting Father Gascoine in Bloodborne when I was not ready. Just a quick look from the stairs to the rounded yard and I could tell for sure: yeah, there's a boss right there waiting for me.
When a games gives you a crap ton of ammo and health/armor pickups, you know you're about to fight a boss. When you enter a big open room that's vastly bigger than any room you have been into, you know you're either about to fight a boss, or fight waves of enemies
@@aircraftcarrierwo-class Same with Enter the Gungeon. It's not that satisfying anymore after 10+ hours, they've never given you anything in that time, but you break everything almost compulsively JUST IN CASE.
I started Elden Ring yesterday and spent lots of time breaking pots and shit... Lamenting about no items... Knowing the lack of items in breakable shit from DS3 and BB Lmaooo. You just don't wanna miss anything that could POTENTIALLY be there
I always imagined that "relocating red barrels" was the most dangerous video game job. At any minute the protagonist could be sneaking around just ready to blow you to hell while you're just trying to feed your family.
It would be great if a game added a little Easter egg reference lime that. It's like the universal joke about the dude who lights the torches and candles in the cave or ruin that the player is supposed to be the first to traverse it in years.
About the route to the objective and alternative or optional routes: I hate it when a game offers you different direction to go without telling you which one progresses the story. So often I decided for one direction and was instantly cut off from all optional exploring.
Gotta thanks the guy in every Far Cry game who decides to put a blue tarp where you can climb they sure are brave exploring the maps across multiple dangerous locations just to make sure people who adventure after them know where to climb
Not exactly recurring or a universal phenomenon, but I think the three "stairs" made of crates or overturned carts in assassins creed at least deserve a mention (those that are on the ground to indicate where the fun begins)
It’s weird realizing these are programmed instincts after playing games for so long. To think someone new to games wouldn’t know all of these things is strange, although it makes sense. Love the vids🙏
the "you're gonna need this" room. lots of health items, magic items, ammo refills and whatnot. how about a save point? some kind of shortcut to the merchants? guess what that's right in front of a boss fight the devs expect to be difficult. nearly any game under the sun has them, one coming to mind is one of the shantae games, perhaps I'm more thinking about half genie hero where you get rooms that have nothing but a big ol' health refill in them I would also say the stealth one is a bit of a missed opportunity to expand on more. quite a lot of what we expect from stealth mechanics now comes from metal gear solid where you're encouraged to break line of sight pretty much everywhere apart from boss fights. hiding behind couches, in lockers and peering around corners doesn't keep you that well hidden in reality but in games as long as it's not an obvious line of sight enemies just continue their average patrol
oh, in at least one of the "resident Evil" games, every time you find a new weapon, you MUST save it for the next boss a few rooms later, or you will be screwed.
reminds me of some "developer commentary" in the first Portal: lots of players got confused about how the portals worked, thinking they went into another dimension, or a different room far away, so they intentionally set up the very first room so you will see your character from the side when looking at the first portal.
Videos like these never get old, always coming up with stuff, that I imagine you guys actually doing! No hate to other guys, you guys and gals are a cut above the rest!
Folk who grew up on the original doom will be the ones that shoots ANY barrel just to make sure, they'll also try and loot anything whether its nailed down or not and make sure to save potions just in case they need them later even when later ends up being after the final boss has expired. And jump off a cliff at least once to check for fall damage. Metroidvanias usually hint about the next item by the obstacles you're encoutering
10:41 "Elden game" Wut? XD Also, one you forgot: Saving constantly, and in multiple separate save slots. Either to explore different dialogue or quest results, especially for bosses or major decisions or progression moments (especially ones that lock you out of backtracking), or just to avoid save corruption issues/bugs causing uncompletable situations (though Sphinx's bug is infamous for you saving after opening that one door and then dying, screwing you out of being able to continue, permanently).
oh, if you're playing a game where you can only save at visible checkpoints, and you see one right in front of a big door... yeah, definitely a boss there!
@@dirpyturtle69 I beg to disagree. instincts are what is hard wired into our brains and requires no training. Such as the mammalian instinct to hold your breath if submerged in water, or the instinct to return to the spawning grounds in salmon.
One of the most fascinating things I've experienced was watching someone who'd never played video games before, tried playing not only a space game, but a flight simulation type game. Elite Dangerous. And for me, using a hotas (flight stick and throttle) is second nature. Not just from the game experience, but from life experience at flying. But I thought it was a general knowledge thing. But, this poor girl struggled quite a bit coming to grips with pulling the flight stick back to look up, doing spins and managing throttle speed while flying. It was fascinating because it took a great effort to go back to my very basics to teach her rather than just play it for her. I wasn't expecting an ace pilot or anything, just... It caught me off guard the little details I'd taken for granted. The "How much do I actually know?" kind of feeling.
You should watch "Gaming for a Non-Gamer" series on RU-vid by one of the popular game design channels (I forget which one). It's a fascinating look at how game design really isn't set up for absolute beginners these days.
Ok, the hiding in tall grass TOTALLY works in real life, I've successfully done it myself hiding from someone trying to find me at night with a flash light and I was NOT found....just saying. SOME gamer instincts even kick in during real life stuff and totally work....Lol.
this reminds me of an "iron fist" comic book: he tried to avoid some enemies by going through tall grass, BUT it backfired because HE COULD NOT SEE THEM EITHER!
@@ericb3157 Well, it wasn't wrong, cause although the people I was hiding from couldn't see me, I couldn't see them either. If it hadn't been for their flash lights I wouldn't have had a clue where they were.
Dark Souls gave me PTSD for loot hunting in chests for a while till I found out about the chain thing. I actually inadvertently carried over the PTSD to other games 😅 That was not fun time
Before RPGs had in-game maps and my friends and I would come to a fork in a dungeon, we would always choose left first. We rationalized that most people being right handed, designed so that right was the correct way to go. So, to find the hidden stuff go left first. We called it Dungeon Logic.
@@skillaxxx People inherently favor the right side if they are right handed. This is something that has been documented, left handed people favor things on the left.
@@dirpyturtle69 I don't think that's the dominant motivator when we talk about order, i.e. when you can go both ways, most will pick a structured approach, only when it's a mutually exclusive choice it's about the favourite/dominant side.
in most rpgs, when you see a dead end in your mini map in the dungeon where you’re in, you go there knowing there’s probably a treasure chest waiting for you or a secret boss/strong enemy thats guarding a chest
People should remember that if you're a very experienced gamer and you feel the devs make things way too obvious... just remember not every person playing that game is as experienced... some might be their first game like that. But I do think they should have a way to disable things to make it more of a challenge for very high skilled gamers with a lot of experience
I liked how they implemented it in shadow of the tomb raider. You can choose difficulty separately for combat, exploration and puzzles. Puzzle difficulty defines whether interactable stuff glows and whether Lara gives hints. Exploration difficulty defines whether climbable walls are colored and stuff like that.
@@unavezms8167 yeah if more games would do that I think games will fit way more players so much better. Cause I feel like everybody should be gamers lol
@@oddissy yeah that definitely works. But like the boss fight glowing weak points usually are always glowing. I was mainly talking about that but yeah I usually play through twice. Normal difficulty the first time to enjoy the story and harder/hardest difficulty to enjoy the gameplay and challenge myself
It may be their first game like that, but to that I say: "There are other games if you can't handle the difficulty", or, "Learn the hard way like we all did"; everybody can game, but not everyone wants to be or is suited to be a gamer, most often lacking patience and an inability to deal with failure of any sort (that doesn't mean we don't get angry when we keep failing, but we'll come back to it over and over again anyways, even if we need a break between attempts; non-gamers just go "nah" and stop, from my experience). There's hundreds of thousands of games out there, and the vast majority cater to the lowest common denominators. It's a breath of fresh air when a game doesn't. Selectable difficulties that are more granular are nice and all, but it also means that they need to come up with a structure that supports those changes, and then those changes; sometimes, like with Silent Hill, it can be as simple as cutting parts out of a puzzle to make it simpler, so has no effect on the gameplay at large, while others it might mean losing entire portions of gameplay entirely because of having to force it into that narrower focus to allow for those changes. The above-mentioned Shadow of the Tomb Raider setup is a good example of it done right. So would be the accessibility options from Last of Us II, as much as I harp on the narrative decisions of that game those were absolutely amazingly well-done, allowing people to play that couldn't without just going "here, you're invincible, the world is a sandbox for you to be a god in" like other games have; Super Mario 3D World immediately comes to mind with that golden tanuki leaf at the start of the level.
Really? Maybe, that's why for some people, like myself, gaming is a part of one's therapy, like, certain parts can, over time, can help you work through things, or at least start to understand them better!
On topic of the red barrels. Does anyone else reactively shoot them even if there's nothing nearby to damage with it? I just shoot "because it's there"
The discoloured bricks even get me outside of games. I wonder what it activates... It's especially bad when that shortcut really would be perfect right here. From this direction I could not only bypass the multiplayer, but even stealth in through the backyard!
I am surprised you didn't mention the red circle. Such as when a boss is about to launch an AOE attack and you got that red circle which appears and your standing dead center of it usually (or multiple red circles appearing in your general area). You get out of them as quickly as possible / avoid them.
one i thought you might have done was in the Fighter genre. After playing Street Fighter 2 From then on, EVERY Fighting game EVER I play I will try with any character - RYU/KEN special moves. After MK1/2 came out, now I have to use - RYU/KEN, SUBZERO/SCORPIAN and LIU KANG/RAIDEN. works in EVERY fighter game since and youll figure out most moves before needing the tutorial lessons things.
2:10 The breakable in Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 do not drop things. There are a couple item drops that are hidden under a breakable, but they are always there, it's not a random loot like in Zelda games.
I love how you use the Zelda example of finding an item in a dungeon where you need the item but show Link opening a chest with a dungeon map instead of the dungeon item.
The double jump. Instinctively, whenever I first start a game where jumping is a thing I gotta know if I can double jump. If I can, or if it's more like a jump and glide feature, this tells me a lot about what to expect and what to look for throughout the game. I'll bet every gamer does it.
quite a few games have deadly pits AND smaller pits to need to drop into to find hidden areas... so i have a habit of walking up to the edge of every pit and looking down to see if there's anything down there. if it's too deep to SEE a bottom, then it's probably a deadly fall.
imagine my surprise and confusion when I started up Obduction and discovered that space wasn't jump, it was "take a photo". I tried to see what jump was bound to and there's no jump. You can't even single jump in that game.
On the breakable junk... It is almost irresistible to roll through an entire room of tables or old wooden barrels in Dark Souls. The nice sound effects don't help the temptation
Razbuten had an interesting video about non-gamer logic when playing video games. It was pretty similar, except the other way around: reality vs video game logic. Always such a fun topic.
I have pointed out to many people that I take it for granted that when I see a game I know what to do. I’ve been gaming my whole life so when I see a game I practically instinctively know what it wants me to do and where. But people who are new to gaming, like /really/ new, they don’t have that ingrained into them and gaming is sort of… confusing to them. Sometimes intimidating with all they have to do, getting used to the control scheme, figuring out what they can/can’t do. And so on.
Playing the original Deus Ex got me started on looking absolutely everywhere ! I unknowingly took that behavior to all games since. Sometimes you find bupkis, other times, sometimes a nice reward. Either way, it makes games more interesting for me. Anybody else ??
Going off path through breakable objects, finding a red barrel near a wall with slight crack and white X painted on it, to discover a secret boss behind it with multiple glowing body parts that drops a secret weapon... Satisfaction achieved.
I never once shot a barrel until I got turok 2 for the n64 and spent days and days stuck on the first level. Now i shoot every barrel out of pure hate.
My gamer instinct is #9 and #2 when mixed. I grew up playing a ton of RPG games especially Pokemon and I open every single door that could be opened, check every cabinet and shelves, interact every item, and talk to every single NPC cuz they might give you loot, quests or even worse, key items that are important or necessary for you to go to the next area.
The original Doom is a masterclass in signposting secrets with different wall textures or different lighting, they did a lot of that in Doom and Doom 2 to the degree that it's really offputting when modern mapmakers *don't* signpost their secrets.
Not a minute in and I've already thought of a couple dozen things I do now like muscle memory in video games from playing them for decades. Like, there are almost zero truly empty hallways in Hames especially any that are peer linear or pure linear. When I watch like TheRadBrad play games I'm always like "BRAD! CHECK THAT CORNE....OMG BRAD! WHAT ARE YA DOIN FAM?!" LMAO
A goodie in the middle of big empty room is probably a trap. A hard platforming section probably has good loot at the end of it. Getting larger than normal amounts or clustered items, potions, ammo, upgrade mats etc. probably means a boss is near and getting an unusual item like anti sleep or whatever probably means the boss uses sleep attacks. Elemental opposites, like a water based enemy is probably weak to electrical/lightning or darkness is weak to light/holy etc.
I replayed Dead Space a couple months ago, and you get so much ammo if you stomp every enemy. I didn't run from anything, and had tons of spare ammo and even sold a lot of it so I could buy more nodes.
The universal button lay out for fps games. L2 aim down sights and R2 to fire a weapon. Square to reload, X to jump or action and circle to change stance but then a new game comes out or a sequel to your favourite game and the new devs change the lay out that you've been using for 3 years to something different.
the pure Universal FPS Layout (not just PlayStation specific) is: Right Trigger=Shoot Left Trigger=Aim there is nothing else i haven’t seen differences between games and/or consoles (like jump, where it’s the bottom symbol(X) for PlayStation but sometimes right symbol(A) for Switch) i’ve even seen games where it’s the right bumper(R1) to reload btw, i can’t name specific games where these differences exist.
FYI: shadow of the tomb raider disables the highlighted jump marker completely You can tweak your survival instinct as well so nothing can be illuminated and you have to search all by yourself The game isn’t that great Better than rise imo but the feature alone worth highlighting bc its sooooo different than everything else on the market and I had to comment that for mr falcon
I'd love to see a dev put a bunch of health and armor and upgrades just outside of giant double doors. Then when you open the giant double doors, its a huge arena but with one treasure chest in the middle. And thats it. Just treasure, no bosses, no fights, just making the player paranoid for a couple minutes :D
reminds me of an obscure old SNES game, "Armorines". at the end of the first level, i was REALLY expecting a big group of big enemies to pop out of the final elevator... i got ONE SMALL enemy! a nice joke! oh, and in one of the early Doom games, i saw an item in a small alcove with no enemies around it. it was suspicious, and expected a hidden door to open behind it and some monster to pop out and attack, so i grabbed it and sprinted away... no monsters appeared, BUT the CEILING of the alcove tried to crush me! so it WAS a trap , btu a different KIND of trap from what i expected!
For number 2, It felt like a vacation playing AC after playing Dark Souls for awhile. Sometimes I like a challenge, sometimes a walk in the park when it comes to guidance.
Sometimes a boss battle is too strong that alongwith boss beating you up, the environmental traps are also in favor of him. Like in Hard mode of Shank 2, when you fight Magnus, he suddenly becomes overpowered with taking little damage than normal mode, and charging you with attacks more brutally, and gives more damage to you. Also the machine gun traps also predict when to hit you, so when you die multiple times, game actually hints you to destroy those machine guns while aiming them whenever you get some time, that way fight becomes a lot easier. You have to worry about only Magnus's moves, and not also about when machine guns are gonna shoot the hell out of you.
Honestly I thought about making a small game project called subversion as a demonstration to how crippling it can be to performance if you undermine pre-established cliches and instinct in gaming It's mostly just a thought experiment though
