We Refuse to Play Any More Games Without These 5 Essential Quality of Life Features 

One simple design rule should be this: - Pressing any button does basically nothing but display the "skip" button prompt for a few seconds. - Only _while that prompt is visible_ can you press that button to skip the cutscene. Because skipping a cutscene is something you can't risk doing by accident.

That's why I always press the home button instead. If the cutscene won't pause, I'll make the entire game pause instead.

Yes! Being able to pause a cutscene and skip dialog should be mandatory. I especially love it when there is even an option in the settings menu to skip all of the dialog or a line of dialog at a time.

And also being able to save while a cut scene is paused! I can't tell you how many times I've needed to leave to go somewhere, so I try and get the game to a good stopping point, only for there to be a cut scene, which I don't want to skip because there will probably be important info in it, but now I REALLY need to get going!

My take is that pressing Start/Esc/Hamburger should pause the cutscene, from there you can press and hold a specific button to skip. As a PC gamer this should also let you go into options, yes it's your big grand opening but if it looks like arse or is running at 4.5FPS it's going to leave a bad impression.

And to add to that, have the game tell you when something is now useless.

So like dragon age games.

@@davidmcgill1000 Yes! I don't have the time or mental capacity to compare each of the 20 new guns that just exploded out of a dude to the ones I've already got equipped.

You're never gonna guess which game also does that exact thing. That's right, it's Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning!!

@@davidmcgill1000 That's one of the worst things about all games wanting to implement some form of crafting system: you never know, whether something is actually useless or if you need it to craft something down the line. Just get rid of crafting resources (bar things like blueprints to unlock crafting that thing) and have us 'craft' things with money, instead (especially in games where you're not crafting things, yourself, but the shop keeper crafts them for you, this also makes more sense - or have you ever had to provide materials for the things you want to get from a store, in real life).

How about nameable saves? Everything you said is fine, but doesn't help at all when you are trying to find a specific spot and have 700 saves to look through. Console/gamepad users really could benefit from dedicated quicksaves as well (Skyrim on PC for example doesn't have quicksaves if you are using a gamepad, don't ask me why someone would do this, but this is the way it works. Having a quicksave function in the save menu would work great rather than always either overwriting or creating new saves, I also remember talking to an xbox player who told me there was no quicksave feature at all in that version) caveat: I am actually 170 hours into a playthrough of Skyrim using a gamepad, but that is another story >_>

@@whyjnot420 And thumbnails showing a snapshot of where you're at.

​@@whyjnot420 The only thing I don't prefer a Game Pad for is Flight Simulators and RTS type games. Otherwise, give me a controller every time.

Skyrim is great with that, it even has quick saves. I think it's even possible to have the quick saves be turned into the auto save type

@@whyjnot420 I find when I get to name the saves all the saves get named Meow Meow.. and then later when sorting out what game to load I realize I have problem... and should probably stop naming them all meow meow.

"Just let her finish..." I CACKLED

Loved her approach, too "She can't help it, just let her get it out of her system and we can keep going on" haha

Jane immediately recognised what was happening and went defensively limp to let it pass 😂

I have no clue how she manages to constantly force in a bit about one of the most mediocre games of all time. It's like finding a way to work in a word about your vicious hemorrhoids during every conversation you have with coworkers.

I literally came to post this exact comment lmao.

​@@ledumpsterfire6474 it's really not that bad, the music's good and the combat is varied enough where every build is viable. I don't want to play it again but I've def played far worse.

It does the basics well and clearly did the reading in terms of quality of life requirements. The remake was apparently disappointing though.

@@josephrigley8974 No, it's not horrible, hence why I said mediocre. Worth talking about in every other video though? Definitely not lol

I do not agree. (I'm not saying your preference is invalid, but merely that other people can also have valid preferences.) I prefer my video listicles to be focused, punchy, and tightly edited. All the back-and-forth with the people offscreen feels like the whole thing is being excessively and pointlessly extended. If I wasn't already watch the video at 2x, I'd be slamming the speed button. It's ironic to hear the hosts talking about not wanting to waste time with unnecessary things, and then doing just that, instead of presenting things in their normal clean and concise format.

I do too, I loved chatty faces on what culture before covid. They did the same thing and I could hear them comment on each other's picks and it was great. During covid and they did chatty faces by themselves and I felt it lost some personal connection 😕

These unscripted videos with everyone are my favorite.

Sounds more like a short podcast

It does make every video that has it just instantly better!

I'm exactly the same, I hate choosing the wrong direction and locking myself out of the optional path accidentally. So I really like when games have paths to objectives so I can explore everything else first. I dont like to miss out on loot and other stuff from side paths.

This, all of this. I never considered the helmet one, but that would be incredible, definitely. I totally agree with the press a button to figure out where to go though. I'm the sort of person that always wants to go in the wrong direction first when playing an RPG, because I want to explore every area of the instance-like place I am in, and only go the right way last because I want to explore/collect everything.

Yeah or an additional option to hide it in casual cutscenes vs action ones

Probably my favorite thing about Watch Dogs Legion is the fact that your character’s face is fully visible until you enter a restricted area where they could be killed or have their identity revealed, at which point they automatically put on a mask/helm!

I actually seem to recall some games specifically have a "hide helmets during conversations" option, so you can just pretend your character is taking it off before talking to someone. I can't recall any specific examples unfortunately, so I might be making that up. Regardless, I agree wholeheartedly with all the points in your post!

Maybe instead of magically hiding the thing, make the character... You know... Take it off and hold it. It's genuinely just not a whole lot of animation work.

It doesn't make sense that they'd take off their helmets for Conversations unless Indoors and that would be purely because it was Indoors. Being able to speak in your helmet is a pretty key feature for commands on the Battlefield. Thats why so many helmets have a little trapdoor type thing you can open to speak and eat... What's the point of even wearing the helmet if you are just going to be taking it off constantly? It's one of my gripes about 40k.

Thinking about how KOTOR and Dragon Age Origins have the fun "shields/effects you used in combat that haven't worn off are visible in cutscenes" mechanics. It's bad enough to kind of loop around to being really funny.

@@justinlast2lastharder749 Yeah, it does. You can't hear shit in a full helmet. It's one thing to be yelling directions and hearing yelled directions in a fight. It's something totally different when you're trying to just talk to somebody in a normal conversational tone.

@@justinlast2lastharder749 Stop confusing real life with games. This is about aesthetics, not real life functionality.

Agreed! I like that FromSoftware did that for Sekiro. It doesn't much matter in the other games, but I still struggle with Sekiro and I like the little tips it gives and that it lets me continue when I want. I also like that I can actually pause the game.

One of the loading screens for _City of Heroes_ says: "By the time you've finished reading this, the mission has already lo-"

Lightning Returns does exactly that. I don’t recall if the other Final Fantasy 13 games do as well though.

Yes! I was about to suggest basically the same thing. The added benefit if the loading _does_ last a long time, especially in action games, is that if you decide to go do something else while it is loading, it won't automatically put you right in the middle of the action and you won't miss anything important (like getting killed or a cutscene) while you're away.

But make the "press button to continue" thing actually quite obvious. None of this small text in the bottom corner so I think it's just taking years to load

Yessssss

Sometimes they cycle through too fast in general, I've actually caught myself taking screenshots of loading screen tips to be able to read them...

@@patrickj lol fr

The interactive load screens were awesome. Like in Fallout 4 and Skyrim

A simple "Press X for next tip" and "press O to continue" would be so satisfying

I was just thinking this video had a different vibe, and this is totally right! This is such a fun set up

And then you get FFXIV with one MONSTER cutscene ... it's great, but if you didn't set an hour aside for it, you're in trouble

​@@chrisschack9716 when's that? Like what point in the game should people be ready for it?

@@DipUniversal game literally warns you there's a long cutscene, take it seriously when it does

Or for when someone knocks on the door.

Red dead did that two years earlier just an fyi so it’s not something they introduced

But doesn't everyone love escort quests??? They're peek game design, climatic levels of enjoyment.

The Skyrim mod Convenient Horses did that, too.

I always forget thats a feauture in Ghost of Tsushimi and wonder why were riding our horses so slowly til I remember they match your speed if you gallop xD

@@steohara6353 I can only assume you mean 2 and that game has an annoying habit of slowing you to a crawl for cinematic purposes. Also generally in my experience they don’t even let you go faster than whoever you’re following. Besides, pretty sure Witcher 3 did it earlier, at least in some cases.

I used to really enjoy that but at this point I just manually open all of them so that he world stops turning and I don't get blasted by enemies while looting.

YES

@@NottherealLucifer Kill the enemies first

​@@NottherealLucifer I like that the world doesn't freeze. Adds tension like in RE5.

They made up for the saved time with the broken-ass VATS lol. Select target, hit fire, wait wait wait wait wait, shoot once, wait wait wait wait wait wait, reload, wait wait wait wait wait, shoot again, wait wait wait wait wait wait shoot again lol. I spent more time in VATS in that game just watching the character... Stand there, thinking I guess? Than actually shooting things lol.

Fire Emblem: 3 Houses will inform you if characters can't increase their supports until more time has passed, and will let you know if certain battles will expire and become inaccessible. It's not quite at that level, but it is nice to have, especially in such a long and dense game.

Greedfall has that

Ooh I'd love that!

Now if only the game wasn't 80% empty space with no gameplay, and shallow, linearly-optimized combat when there is gameplay.

@@alondite215 Not sure if you're talking about the first game in the series or 2 there. I pretty much agree as far as 2 is concerned, but this doesn't describe 1 or even X at all.

FF14 at least lets you change the locations so you can see different lighting (and allows some later character re-creation opportunities). I REALLY like what City of Heroes does with their character creator (technically the only part of the game I've actually used so far), which lets you play various animations and fine-tune effects. Which is great when you realize the effect-generation zone-color scheme you used makes it look like your character is peeing enemies to death :| It's a bit low on polygons given its age, but it's a legitimately great character creator anyways.

Oh man im the exact opposite of this. I hate character creation with a burning passion. Just give me a randomizer button so i dont have to waste my time on that shit.

​@@Soroboruo Oh nice! Both sound like they have good solutions for addressing coloring and lighting. Haha. I'm glad that you had that realization early in City of Heroes. It's exactly those kind of moments that would make it impossible for me to unsee and continue the game's storyline in serious manner. I'd have to turn my hero into a joke/silly play through if I couldn't edit them at that point.

@@tippyc2 😮Omg! haha. I can get a bit obsessive with character creation, so, it's a bit strange to learn that others hate it. Tbh, there's a small part of me that wishes I didn't spend so much time on character customization. Do you at least go through a couple of randomizer options? Or is the first roll of the dice enough? Have you ever picked a random player design that you later regretted?

@@d00dle31 If they give me the option, i'll hit the randomizer a few times until i get something that looks decent. I've never regretted a random character I created. There was even a couple times playing ARK:SE i deliberately rolled to get the ugliest character i could because i though it it was funny. I guess what it boils down to for me, is that I'd rather just jump straight into the game. Especially so if its single-player since there's nobody around to see my char. I kinda get why people like an in-depth character creation system, but I'm just not one of those people.

Yeah, I've been loving Yakuza Zero, but having to jump out to the main menu *and watch the unskippable bit where it tells me to use a controller* every time is a bit much. Just "quit to OS" please!

@@charliethemagpie523 I was just gonna mention yakuza. I am new to seriesm I started and loved like a dragon and trying yakuza 0 now(i dont like the combat nearly as much as like a dragons turn based) and having to quit to menue then watch the cut scene then be able to quit is anoying.

it drives me absolutely crazy when a game isnt clear about its save/quit features. i should never have to ask myself "am i going to have to redo the last 20 minutes of work if i go make food right now?"

It sounds like you're on a PC, almost universally Alt-F4 still works in games.

@@Yesterzine I mean yeah, but that feels rude

Elden Ring... I love the game but good Lord is the character creator flipping horrible.

You just need the option! That way you're covered if you've got an ugly but high-stats helmet and a beautiful face, and also if your character's face looks suddenly horrible the second you leave character creator

The amount of times I've made a character that I thought looked good in creation that looked like the Elephant Man once they hit a cutscene...Dragon Age Inquisition is a prime example of that happening. That green light neutral character creator is awful.

@@Calekoflight This is a bit of a tangent, but you got me thinking of another thing with character creation I wish more games did: multiple backgrounds and lighting presets you can switch between to see how your character looks in different situations *before* you start the playthrough and it's too late to change anything. Only game I can remember off the top of my head that does something like that is Final Fantasy XIV, but there might be others I can't remember or haven't played

@@kambor1578 Off the top of my head...Lost Ark does the multiple backgrounds in character creation. Another MMO.

Stardew kinda

Terraria did this well

Choose your fighter

Mission select/replay

Heroism, I was (and am always wondering) if Jane is in an episode of OX.

I love when someone takes the time to do a time table of videos like this, makes it easier to return or show a friend, ty.

Underrated comment that allows me to skip to Jane and watch her twice, or thrice.

Yup, the off screen commentary makes them a lot of fun.

They used to do this more often before COVID.

@@randyotte9599 YESSS!!! I loved how Ellen pitched KoA... again. :D

Absolutely. I really like the staged ones with the scripted jokes, but the personal ones show us that Oxtra are adorable even if it's not scripted.

agreed

Skipping dialogue and skipping cutscenes should be defaults and, crucially, should have the option of confirmation dialogues. Toggle-able confirmation dialogues would be extra nice, but just the confirmation that I do actually want to skip this really important story beat is very handy. I'm, uh. Old enough to remember the before times when PC game controls weren't standardized yet, and the agony of trying to open options to turn on subtitles because the opening movie didn't have them by default and didn't give you the option yet, only to accidentally skip the entire thing and jump right into gameplay... frankly, I want to press charges on some of those 😂

I'm sure Oxbox wish they could skip thru all of Ellen's ramblings about KoA, lol

There's a game that lets you reverse dialogue? I need this! Between accidental presses while adjusting position (or sneezing/coughing), family members that want to talk the exact moment something important happens, or even just an occasional spasm, I have lost count of the number of times I've had to reload to a save two hours prior just to find a single line of dialogue.

Also sounds! Like Minecraft. I use them because it helps me find caves.

and have said captions *NOT IN 0.2PT FONT* /glares at dragon age

Very much this! Not even as QoL, but just basic accessibility. Deaf, hard of hearing, auditory processing issues... There are so many people who miss out if they can't read what's going on. Plus people who can *technically* get by without subtitles, but find things a lot easier with them.

I'm not hard of hearing, but subtitles are a MUST for me nonetheless. There's a lot going on in many games and it's easy to mishear or entirely miss something being said when multiple sounds are being overlaid or I'm distracted by platforming or combat or the view...

This. Even the likes of game playthrough makers like patologTV had to be forced to get viewer assistance so to have subtitled NPC dialogues in the likes of, say, the Metro games, Quake 4, and Doom 3.

Yeah, it's really good in Elden Ring but I find myself missing the BotW scope so I can put the marker on exactly what I'm trying to mark. Also, I understand why they put in a "remove all markers" button but it terrifies me. I've put a lot of time into putting pins in my map and I really wouldn't want them all gone.

Assassin's Creed Origins has that

That gives so much space for character to be shown! I like that a lot!

Yes, I love the party chat feature! I've seen it in an older RPG too, I think maybe Phantasy Star IV? I wish more games did it.

The new pokemon game does that, and it's probably the easiest game to remember where to go that I've ever played. The objectives are all of the map. Crazy that some games don't do reminders.

DQ 11 Does this as well. It also has a little splash page when you load it up where a party member gives you a brief reminder of what was going on last time you played.

I'm playing Persona 5 right now. You can do that in the save rooms, and there's also a story recap in the menu.

Seeing more variations on this - Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal had costumes (although P5R on PS4 costumes are all DLC). I also played a freemium Dissidia game on mobile (I don't like mobile gaming but I'm a sucker for Final Fantasy) which let you use whatever weapon you could equip but make it look like any previous weapon you'd previously mastered.

Yeah Transmog in more games would be awesome.

I like an aspect of Diablo 3's transmog system where you could transmog to any item that character has used previously. That way I'm not a level 1 noob in ultra-legendary gold plate but can still change if I want. Unlike D3 though, it should be free and/or bound to a slot instead of an item. Either it'll take significant investment to get the perfect transmog over time, or the hassle of redoing it every time I get a piece of gear should come without the cost. It's not so bad on second characters onward as you have gold overflowing from your pockets. A brand new character can't keep up though.

The recent AssCreed games let you choose the appearance of all the armour (etc) and pick any other item that you've picked up. So you can wear the flashy golden alien armour of whatever, but your character will still look like some bum who just woke up in a gutter (eg).

The layered armor in Monster Hunter. We have the actual armor that gives us stat bonuses and buffs, and then the cosmetic version of the same armor we can pull on over the top for cool, funky, or just freaky combos without altering the stats any

And the complement to that feature is: just sort the unread stuff to the top already devs. If I want to read it, let me find it without scrolling. Popping up a "Press tab to read" jump to it for 3 seconds on-screen isn't sufficient especially when that 3 seconds overlaps with critical game dialog or an action sequence! Then I have to go back and hunt through and find what the thing was I was supposed to be reading.

As long as there's a big notice on screen saying "Press any button to continue" or something along those lines. A game I recently got into, Bladed Fury, has that but it's literally just a tiny button in the corner that's very difficult to see.

@@azuredragoon2054 Yes! Or, even better, if every game did it we'd all just assume it and wouldn't need a big notice. Make it the rule, not the exception.

I agree. By definition the duration of a loading screen is hardware dependent. For example, when starting a New Game in _Skyrim,_ the first loading screen is always the "Song of the Dragonborn" (which is a somewhat important foreshadowing for the prologue) but if you are running the game on a high-end PC with a SSD you don't get any time to _actually read it_ before the opening sequence kicks in.

The QoL detail of level selects showing you what you're missing in that area is also super nice.

Mini maps! An option to choose whether the mini map rotates so the character is always facing up, or the minimap stays aligned northbound. Also if the character and the camera are independant, *I want a cone of light to show me which direction I'm looking toward on the minimap.* Rune Factory 5 does NOT have the cone of light and it bothers me so much.

This, and in addition: the ability to save different loadouts. Warframe is goated imo for letting you save 3 configs for each character and weapon you own (and buy 3 more for each), AND letting you combine them into full loadouts.

While it would be fun, it also would only work in very limited games. The ability to freely re-spec your character would basically make the character's stats inconsequential. Imagine if in Souls games you could re-spec your character every time a new piece of loot drops, suddenly that difficulty spike is a lot less spikier.

@@jariolavilipponen3500 that's fair. I feel games like Borderlands and Skyrim had a good system for it. A nominal cost to respec, and many of the abilities were action based, rather than direct stat adjustments. I've never played any FromSoft games, so I'm not familiar with their stat systems.

[insert Ellen's explanation of being fateless in KoA and being able to respec anytime]

It is QoL but it also has mechanical implications. Some game design philosophy doesnt care and you're free to respec, but in some RPGs etc. you could just change your whole character's 'training and specialization' specifically for each challenging encounter and the entire game becomes trivial. If the devs really care about immersion or challenge or replayability & ppl learning from their mistakes they tend to at least limit how much you can respec. Or on the worse end if it's some kind of live service game they wanna make you grind (or sell you) a type of currency you have to use to respec lmao.

I'm now imagining you singing "It's time to try defying gravity!"

the second you give me the ability to jump i'm immediately on my way to get myself stuck in the silliest of places, ESPECIALLY on horseback

What about air dodge?

code vein

Even if jumping doesn't actually achieve anything in-game! It's like the lack of a jump button feels like a restriction from the devs. A small amount of control over your environment or actions can make an enormous difference.

Mass Effect Legendary Editions elevators. The option to skip the news broadcasts and party dialogue only appears once it's loaded. It's nice having the choice, and it serves as an indicator of load times as well. I love it.

A bit of an older game that did this wonderfully is the original mw2 with the sort of mission debrief loading screen. You'd have the progress bar at the bottom and once it's filled you can skip at any time

@@hitmanforhire1698 I loved that feature in CoD: World At War's mission intros.

There's a tradeoff regardless. The speed at which initial animations plays favors as little code between game launch and video playback. Tracking how far various assets have loaded has a computational cost that can substantially slow down the loading of those assets. An indeterminate loading bar that is cleared after loading is completed and then allows for the fast-forward seems the best design in terms of the performance/UI tradeoffs.

@@Tawnos_ a bar isn’t required to do the thing. It’s just a matter of having a “loading” indicator and a skip when the load is over.

Colorblind mode has been so alleviating in most new high definition games

i agree for subtitles. wether its a foreign language and it can help to read, or its your language but it's hard to understand what they're saying with everything else going on, or because you're deaf.

I'm not hard of hearing but I always turn on subs so I don't miss anything, I especially like it when they include background NPC dialogue

​@@Mulbert yeah subtitles are always useful no matter how good your hearing, its easy to mishear something.

@@Mulbert all of this yes, plus sometimes you get amusing descriptors for sounds that just adds to the fun

And on a related note: F5 to quick save, F8 TWICE to quickload so you didn't do it accidentally.

Yep. Totally agree. Having quicksaves is always the totally better option. Checkpointers or purists can just save alot less, while us manual/quick savers can save when we please. We're talking single player, it's not a "contest" that some people make everything out to be! It's funny how good old Wolf 3D can quicksave back in 1992 but then the big flashy reboot sequel New Colossus can't... Same with Doom of course. Quicksaves rule.

Ah, the old "they're telling me to go this way, so that means they've hidden the good stuff THIS way" philosophy.

Yeah unfortunately though I think that gameplay feature is patented 😒

Yup, in some games it's a (possibly virtual even within the game world) training room. No consequences chance to refamiliarise yourself not only with the game controls, but also the specific build you were using.

At a minimum, you should be able to turn subtitles on before the game starts. For a lot of games the first time you open it they will try and drop you into the game immediately instead of showing you the main menu, or if there is a main menu it doesn’t include the options section. So then you have to start the game, sit through a cutscene which you don’t want to skip but don’t have subtitles for, and then finally after several minutes you can open up the pause menu to turn them on.

Ironically, subtitles are the first thing I turn off. Just don’t need it.

@@fakjbf3129 Yeah this is my main gripe. Fine if they want to do that, but make subtitles on an industry standard.

But please avoid the Assassin's Creed "cat-itis" where running even vaguely near something you could jump up on causes you to do so. The AC characters apparently want to always be perching.

@@AthAthanasius Hah, so true, the number of times I've screamed at the screen "I just wanted to run down the street, not climb the walls". The other related peeve I have is the trend for games to put sprint on the same binding as "mantle". I just wanna run fast to get across the map, I don't want to keep stopping to do a 2 second animation to hop over a fence I brushed against.

That only works if the game is very basic. Like weapon only has Dmg number and Armor only has Defence stat. Otherwise it would be impossible to know which item is " best " Like if you have multiple stats on gear that all are good on their own way. Like what if you have 2 helmets, other has higher defence, lower mana regeneration and 2% faster running speed, and other helmet has lower defence, higher mana regen and 3% slower hunger rate.. which one is "better" ?

@@_Lunaria Pretty sure Octopath has a few variants, the Optimise button just goes for the best offense/defence (note it's been a few years since I played so I don't remember exactly). Like if you want to think in depth about all the various numbers involved, more power to you, but JRPGs are already pretty dense and can be inaccessible, so something that casual fans can use to streamline the process is useful.

@@bellarmire Yeah okay if it has some "sorting" options like Sort by Highest Defence / Agility / Mana Regen etc, then i guess it could work.

It can be tricky in games with gear that has enough differing stats that you might disagree with what the game calls "best", but yes, optimized gear is such a good option. I think if a game has a Set Bonus for gear it should also take that into consideration, at least asking if you want to go with the technically-weaker Set Bonus or not instead of dismantling the results of five hours of gear hunting for 5 extra Strength or whatever.

And then there's me who, given the option, names her saves as 1, 11111, 11112. 😔 But, yeah, I think that might be a symptom of console gaming that bled into PC gaming. Like having limited slots for your skills when you could just use them all with the num keys, without having to choose what to leave out, even after spending skill points on them. (Looking at you, Dragon Age Inquisition)

@@xstarsystemsx whatever keeps you organized. Sometimes i just say choice, or some letters or whater as well. Usually for quick saves i can reload to see what the choices do, or test out weapon or gear to see if i like it More permenent saves or bookmarks for later replays i do name better though Anyway the point is the game just saving with your profile name, date and such is BS

On one hand, having to come up with a new name for a new save every time gets annoying fast. On the other hand, just having a date and time (sometimes not even a profile name!) is the worst. It's nice when games reference the location and some other details when you check the save! Like, "Robin, Miretown, 52 hours" is a lot more context than "Feb-2-2023: 10:04 PM"

@@Soroboruo for onrs used like quick saves i just type a letter or something. Saves i make before decisions after hard sections or want to keep i actaully name. Like decision factions or before the massacre etc

Gives a sense of realism. I still remember in the older pokemon games, you had to stand on the cushion to sit, or clip yourself in the middle of the bed to lie down.

It's incredibly frustrating that games don't let you edit your character whenever you want. The Black Emporium in Dragon Age II and Inquisition is a brilliant example. Why it wasn't added as a quality of life improvement in Mass Effect Legendary Edition is beyond me.

I like games that have slightly different versions of the same outfit depending on the gender of the pc.

I noticed that too

I mean, he's right

Yes, right there with you on the ability Skip OR Pause cutscenes. Maybe someone walks in to ask me a question during a cutscene and I don't want to have to decide between skipping it or inviting them to watch it with me.

I also want rewatchable cutscenes. Some games allow you to watch the cutscenes again (typically from some "Extras" menu). I love this. Sometimes I end up missing something, sometimes the cutscene is just so cool that I want to see it again.

Pausable cutscenes are a must, cannot stand not being able to pause to do things if things come up.

+

For soundtrack releases, it wouldn't be a problem IF *IF* someone at the studio, not involved in the project, should double-check against spoilers. Imagine seeing a soundtrack track called, "Verbal Kent is Keyser Soze revealed".

This one being missing in more and more games lately is just weird too. It takes so little effort to fill in a default name in the input box but let the player delete and replace it if they want. Especially weird when it's missing from a PC game.

Yeah, loved it in e.g. TLOU or god of war that they just tell me what is in each area/level.

Any game that uses the arrow keys to move feels so out of place for me every single time, I love using this feature specifically to change movement to WASD

I am quite urked when the instructions are tell you what button to press on the previous port of the game. E.G. xbox / PS controls on the steam version.

As someone afflicted with the curse of being French and therefore using a different keyboard layout, I wholly agree with you, if I can't remap keys, I can't play the damn game because my physical keyboard and doesn't match the keys

So many PC ports have stuff hardbound to or do not let you bind anything to the Tab key...

@@Ozuhananas Exactly that for Czechs too. My row of keys just under the line of Fs looks like "+ěščřžýáíé" and I use QWERTZ as a standard layout. I can switch to US keyboard setting anytime I start a gime but I should not be forced to.

I remember some horror game came out with an invulnerability mode so you could play for the story and honestly it might compel me to actually play a horror game.

I do easy solely because you can’t get tutorials on the hardest difficulty

The Great Ace Attorney had that, and while I personally didn't use it, I loved having the option.

Yes! Add this to the list! I should never have to choose between the outfit that looks best and the armor that is three times better but looks like a metal bikini

This is generally how I used that feature in Dead Space

@@Xazyv that's how I use it in basically all games that have it!

YES! or at the very least a cue to know which way is progress and which way is optional so I don't have to backtrack.

Having played a game to around the 1/2 way point, then a new hotness game comes out, I find myself finishing that game, then starting from the old save. Some games, I'm generally lost as to what I was supposed to do, or where I was supposed to go. Having that button would help so much to just orient yourself again.

Honestly, even in games where the ability to only save at a checkpoint (such as a bonfire) is a part of the difficulty mechanics of the game, they should still have a "Save and Quit Game" option that saves your game state at that moment, and then deletes that save once you've loaded it the next time you boot the game and load your last game state, thereby disallowing "save-scumming" to lower the difficulty, while still respecting your time and your life outside the game.

Absolutely! Great point.

@@Aftershk One semi-fortunate consequence of the double-edged sword that is the always-online game experience, is that it discourages stingy checkpointing. A studio that's decided to tether their game to an inherently-unreliable, always-online service can ill afford to double down on that pain by losing all of the player's progress every time the server link glitches. (I'm sure plenty still do, because game studios are run by morons... but the _less_ stupid ones at least treat connectivity as a potentially unreliable resource.) The _almost-smart_ ones take a mobile-networking approach to connectivity and checkpointing: design everything around the assumption that random disconnects WILL occur at any moment, for any reason, and last for any length of time, and build the game to handle that without penalizing the player. ...And if sometimes the disconnect reason is you realizing you've got a bus to catch, so you switch off the console *immediately* and walk straight out the door... well, I hardly see how that's any of their concern. (Not that I'm saying this is a fair tradeoff for the pains of always-online. It isn't, not even remotely.)

That’s very game specific. For example in Alien: Isolation the developers originally had a save anywhere system but found that it removed the tension as people would just take stupid risks and know they’d only lose a couple minutes of progress. By making it so you can only save at specific locations the player feels like there are actual stakes which reinforces the horror atmosphere the game it trying to project.

@@fakjbf3129 Respecting my time isn't part of the "creative vision". That's like saying movies shouldn't be pausible on home viewing, because it ruins the director's artistic vision for how the film should be consumed: it was designed to be watched in a cinema where if you decide to go the toilet halfway through you should miss part of the film, IT'S PART OF THE EXPERIENCE, SHUT UP AND LET US REMOVE THE PAUSE BUTTON ON YOUR NETFLIX. I'm sorry but no, the ego and limited life experience of some 20-something game dev doesn't get to dictate the constraints and realities of how I fit gaming into my life.

I really like the Arma for this, the objectives are written in a pad or drawn on the map screen

Bravely Default.

All games I played (that I can recall) with a recap loading screen just load the game to full, and when it's loaded, the "Now Loading" mark just turns into "Push X to continue" (or the like). Basically the recap is a feature, like a part of a dialogue, not a throwaway. Are there games that don't actually od it like that? It seems like the most obvious thing in existence (for whoever it was that actually thought of including the feature itself or in any way interacted with it) in my eyes.

First time the game is played.. Intro waffle is fine... Every other time, after I load the game to play, straight to main menu please! :) I want to return to my keyboard with a drink and see the main menu, not a noisy intro I've seen a thousand times before.. But the rest of the 5 essential QOL features don't apply to most games I've played...

Maybe I should play Prey.... I love it when there's no disconnect between "I should be able to do this thing" and "I can do this thing" in games, it really feels like the devs put in the effort.

Playing RDR2 at the moment, the ability to stop and just start patting animals is my favourite thing.

This is tiny QoL improvements. Cat petting should be pretty much it's own subgame, so doesn't fit here.

That's not QoL, that's a fundamental gameplay loop.

Right? I like the lists, but they're a little polished and feel a bit more static in comparison to everyone doing a round table of their opinions and favorite moments. It's really fun to see them interacting like this.

Yakuza games don't give an option on the menu, but during the game you eventually get accessories that serve the same function. There's an accessory to disable random encounters, one to increase random encounters, one to increase the difficulty of those encounters, one to make them easier... It's just annoying that they take inventory space on the older games

At least 1/4 of Cole's or Vivienne's personality is their unique hats.

YES

This this this let us hide hats individually!

This gave me war flashbacks to Cole's hair. I kept headgear turned on and just took the hit to my Inquisitor's stats to wear something less awful looking but suboptimal, rather than have to endure Cole's bared head.

Resident Evil also has that.

Had the same thought about Dead Space (10:06 even shows copyright 2008 at the bottom) so I looked it up and it seems there was a mobile spinoff with the same name in 2011.

I'm sure if that had worked it would have been great.

Right? You'd think it'd be more common given how connected everything is to the internet and how much cloud saving is around these days, yet it seems to be dying out. It's a great little way of lending some charm to a new installment. Semi-related, I love it when Demos let you start the full game with your demo file still intact.

They’re kind of neat but it’s really annoying they’re unskippable even after seeing them 50 times. Yes game, I know where I’m at, I was playing just yesterday.

@Sorow Fame that is definitely fair

So a toggle in settings to ask if you want a prompt to show a recap?

@@SorowFame This was exactly what I was thinking in Mike's segment. I played a few dozen hours of W3 last year, didn't actually finish it, but the slow loading times combined with the incessantly repetitive summaries was hugely frustrating.

The transmog system is a godsend. Same patch also unified/color-coded the clothing outlets to better rep their areas/gangs.

@@meatchuck6984 yeah seems like people are picking it up, I believe it's in the game that shall not be named, and I heard starfield is adding it to.

Cyberpunk did another, related thing badly though (and The Outer Worlds did it even worse): it let you go through a million character customization options and spend an hour crafting the perfect look, then barely showed the character in the game at all. No third-person view option, no cutscenes with V on-screen -- why did you even give me the option of picking this specific haircut, game?

@@MikeHughey728 yeah they missed so many opportunities in that game, why can't I spray paint my mantis blades? Tattoos, car costomistion, street racing Brain dances for entertainment. The world still excites me but its so damn empty, honestly I don't know if I'm ever going to forgive CDPR for how badly they fucked it.

@@theubiquitouspotato Str Trek Online, Champions Online, and DCUO don't even have equipped gear as your costume, you edit that in the tailor the same as your face.

I'd love to have some Graphics options, everything's all blurry!

You have no idea how many people I would've beaten to a bloody pulp by this point, knowing I can just reload after I've gotten all my frustrations out, and they're perfectly fine again. lmao Although, sometimes you are so used to saving that you eventually forget once and don't realize soon enough, so I'd probably wind up in prison anyway.

Double jump

The Vat of Acid Episode

My unconscious mind seems to agree with you, given I sometimes find myself quick-saving while I'm dreaming

And FF12, when you press Select, gives a map with a marker of where you need to go and a one-line summary of what you're supposed to be doing. Fifteen years later, that still isn't standard.

Would be better if you could disable outfits after you realise that they look horrible though. I don't need to see St. Patrick's Day Dr. Strange on a serious mission.

@@JoeMH1995 Oh, it made my day when Blade showed up to a story briefing in a Book club shirt. Absolutely loved it.

I hate some of the glossary implementations though. Like subnautica would have a "ping" for every unread entry (same problem in Kingdom Hearts too!). And it won't go away until you have clicked on every single entry at least one (or three times lol)

​@@guyman1570 This is also true. Some games handle it much worse than others and pings can be annoying when they're intrusive. Personally though, I take more issue with the times when the glossary adds absolutely nothing at all to the game beyond stuff you already know. I like these things conceptually because they allow the game to open the door to things more difficult to show the player visually or audibly. When they fail to do that and solely function as a recap it always feels to me like a missed opportunity to do something cool with it.