18 votes

What do you look for in a game and why do you play?

I myself am a very, very competitive person. Because of this, I play almost exclusively competitive titles that feature a ranked ladder and esports. I find that even on a game that takes care to be competitive, there are still plenty (read: the vast majority) of people that don't seem to care for playing to win, or that don't make any sincere effort to ever improve. There's a guy called Labor on a game I play who plays hundreds and hundreds of ranked matches per season, but plays exactly the same today as he did a year or two ago. He's totally average, stagnant in rank, but keeps playing. Are any of you like Labor? If you are, what do you look for in a game? Even if you aren't, I'm curious. What kinds of games do you play? What types of experiences are you looking for? Why do you look for those experiences?

19 comments

  1. [2]
    MimicSquid
    Link
    I look for a really tight core gameplay loop. If the basic action of playing the game doesn’t feel good, no writing, no art, no music will keep me there. If it’s a FPS, pulling that trigger has to...

    I look for a really tight core gameplay loop. If the basic action of playing the game doesn’t feel good, no writing, no art, no music will keep me there. If it’s a FPS, pulling that trigger has to feel good and feel like it does something. If it’s an RPG, fighting an enemy has to not be a boring grind. If it’s 4X, the micro has to feed into the macro.

    On top of that, there need to be regular and significant choices to make. If it’s just a matter of “learn this one skill, and then do it 1000x until you beat the game.”, I’ll be out after a couple of rounds. Enjoyable mastery comes from adding new skills to handle new challenges, and that pacing is important.

    16 votes
    1. tunneljumper
      Link Parent
      I believe it was one of the original Halo devs that said something along the lines of, "every great game is thirty seconds of extremely compelling gameplay dressed up different ways."

      I believe it was one of the original Halo devs that said something along the lines of, "every great game is thirty seconds of extremely compelling gameplay dressed up different ways."

      4 votes
  2. boot20
    Link
    I look for story and character interaction. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Deus Ex pulled me in because of the deep worlds and amazing story. I also like coop games like L4D or Destiny. PvP tends to...

    I look for story and character interaction. Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Deus Ex pulled me in because of the deep worlds and amazing story.

    I also like coop games like L4D or Destiny. PvP tends to either just end up being banking, cheating, or so many hours to even be halfway decent.

    6 votes
  3. zlsa
    Link
    I'm honestly not sure what kind of game I like to play. I started out with open-source games like Xonotic and BZFlag before making the jump to story-driven first-person shooters like the Half-Life...

    I'm honestly not sure what kind of game I like to play. I started out with open-source games like Xonotic and BZFlag before making the jump to story-driven first-person shooters like the Half-Life and Portal series and competitive online shooters like Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Overwatch. I have over a thousand hours in TF2 and over 900 in CS:GO, and I honestly have difficulty saying that I "enjoy" those games. (A lot of those hours are also me idling in the game while making maps.)

    When Elite Dangerous: Horizons came out, I tried that out for a while, and greatly enjoyed it. I love the completely open-ended gameplay; I'm out in the middle of nowhere right now, 10k light years from the closest colonized system, and it's incredibly calming to just hop in my spaceship and fly around for an hour or two. (It's vastly improved by VR, too!)

    Obviously, these two categories of games are very distinct (or at least, how I play them.) I think in CS:GO and Overwatch, I'm trying to improve at the game; while for Elite Dangerous, I'm using it purely as relaxation and/or immersion. So while they're both games, and I do like to play both of them, they satisfy very different niches.

    6 votes
  4. SunSpotter
    Link
    I've always considered myself adventurous and imaginative, I love to seek out interesting new places in the real world. Hiking is a personal hobby of mine, but I find my day to day life often gets...

    I've always considered myself adventurous and imaginative, I love to seek out interesting new places in the real world. Hiking is a personal hobby of mine, but I find my day to day life often gets in the way, and just as importantly gets monotonous.

    So video games are a means of escape for me, and the ones I enjoy most are the ones that allow me to feel adventurous and explorative.

    Specifically, open world games with interesting lore to uncover gets me the most excited. Games like those in The Elder Scrolls or Fallout series, The Witcher games etc are all favorites of mine.

    Overall, I'd say we are nothing alike in terms of what we look for in a game lol. But that's alright, the world is all about variety.

    6 votes
  5. uselessabstraction
    (edited )
    Link
    I don't care much for e-sports and ladders, but I love me an old school, fast paced multiplayer twitch shooter. Doom 2, Q3A, Unreal Tournament, those were my favorites. In particular, there was a...

    I don't care much for e-sports and ladders, but I love me an old school, fast paced multiplayer twitch shooter. Doom 2, Q3A, Unreal Tournament, those were my favorites.

    In particular, there was a client/server mod of Doom called Zdaemon which had a capture the flag mode, and I insist it was the greatest competitive shooter ever conceived. It was laser fast, high stakes, constant seek and destroy action. There was a healthy clan community, and all the teams worked together like well oiled machines.

    It was never about rank though. The community was small and tight enough that there were only about 20 clans. Playing a scrimmage was all about bragging rights on IRC, not being at the top of a list of 10 million anonymous randos.

    1v1 matches were truely duels. A mechanism for players to size each other up, to examine each others technique. You wouldn't just 1v1 some rando. You'd pick some smug shit-talking tough guy from IRC and virtually kick his ass just for the reputation.

    Damn, I miss those days. The whole environment has just never been the same since private dedicated servers were phased out. Dedicated servers were like pubs. You could walk into your typical watering hole and instantly recognize familiar faces.

    When it comes to shooters, I'm not a fan of classes, and I'm not a fan of grinding to unlock items. I loath skin economies, but I can deal with them. Lately, the three games I've stuck to are CS:GO, Rocket League, and Kerbal Space Program.

    5 votes
  6. Thrabalen
    Link
    I have a few standby categories of games. Open world sandbox is my primary go-to. Story is secondary, freedom has to be primary. I like to be able to make my own gameplay (GTA Online is my current...

    I have a few standby categories of games.

    Open world sandbox is my primary go-to. Story is secondary, freedom has to be primary. I like to be able to make my own gameplay (GTA Online is my current king of this... sometimes, I just like to sit on a rooftop and snipe NPCs.)

    Next up is 4X games. Master of Orion II is still, in my mind, the best game ever released.

    I like survival games, but a very narrow slice of them. They have to have private servers, be configurable, and be moddable. I'm very much into Conan: Exiles for this reason.

    Finally, I love me a good builder/resource manager. SimCity, Rollercoaster Tycoon, that sort of thing. Right now, Survivng Mars is filling that niche.

    3 votes
  7. [2]
    shaunxcode
    Link
    Can I chop down trees? Can I break through walls? Rust is the only game that has kept me captivated for years on end because of these things. I just wish you could dig caves and divert rivers.

    Can I chop down trees? Can I break through walls? Rust is the only game that has kept me captivated for years on end because of these things. I just wish you could dig caves and divert rivers.

    2 votes
    1. Maimai
      Link Parent
      RustCraft would be pure love, im a big fan of both games but for me the block nature of minecraft is a major downer, getting something like rust but with the ability to alter the landscape to some...

      RustCraft would be pure love, im a big fan of both games but for me the block nature of minecraft is a major downer, getting something like rust but with the ability to alter the landscape to some degree in order to further personalize bases would be fantastic, being able to delve below a wall and have to worry about being raided from below would just be an incredible improvement, and one that would likely fit very well into the games pre-existing font.

  8. [2]
    somewaffles
    Link
    I feel like most games today hold your hand too much. It takes away a sense of discovery in both environment and gameplay. I won't neglect that devs want to make a game accessible enough to be...

    I feel like most games today hold your hand too much. It takes away a sense of discovery in both environment and gameplay. I won't neglect that devs want to make a game accessible enough to be played by everyone, but by doing that you take away a players ability to figure stuff out on their own. I think it's why so many people hold games like Dark Souls so highly. I think what I look for is a game that gives you the basic controls and then sets you out on your own. I don't want to know what each weapon does or where I can find the best equipment, just let me figure that out on my own.

    2 votes
    1. Emerphish
      Link Parent
      Did you like PUBG, then? I find PUBG delightfully difficult, and every time I feel like I'm not even that good at the game, I'll run into a new player who is still fumbling with the controls,...

      Did you like PUBG, then? I find PUBG delightfully difficult, and every time I feel like I'm not even that good at the game, I'll run into a new player who is still fumbling with the controls, attachments, leaving their gun on single fire, not looted enough, etc. I like the watching the way a game changes as the average player improves, and PUBG's average player is really good, which makes the game so challenging and so much fun.

      1 vote
  9. vili
    Link
    I guess I would say that I seek games that allow me to learn something new about myself and my place in the world. Exactly how this process happens is less important. For instance, a narrative...

    I guess I would say that I seek games that allow me to learn something new about myself and my place in the world. Exactly how this process happens is less important.

    For instance, a narrative game can make me reflect on choices that I make, both in-game and outside of it, while a puzzle game can teach me new ways of thinking or even learning. An action game can show me what my limits and breaking points are. And so on. I suppose I tend to play with self-improvement in mind.

    Sometimes it goes beyond what exists in the game itself. The last game I played (yesterday), The Last Ninja 2, drew me in because it has been 30 years since it came out and almost as much since I last played it. The experience of playing it again took me back to the late 80s and made me think about my life back then and how it compares to my life now.

    2 votes
  10. Nitta
    Link
    I look for ease of playing (moderate RPG elements or none), nice relatable NPCs if any are in the game, cozy world, and a personally suitable system of emotional reward for playing. For example...

    I look for ease of playing (moderate RPG elements or none), nice relatable NPCs if any are in the game, cozy world, and a personally suitable system of emotional reward for playing.

    For example some NFS racing games have beautiful worlds, driving mechanics are simple on controller, and these games kinda use my hunter instinct to chase other cars and keep ahead of them, that just feels nice. Stardew Valley is chill, cozy, and it has simple progress system involving nice NPCs to befriend. But for example Final Fantasy games feel complicated in most aspects (too many RPG elements), not relatable, personally not very rewarding. In the middle there is for example Fortnite, it has many things right about mechanics, simple inventory system, and a nice world, but it is a bit too hard, which is frustrating.

    1 vote
  11. Maimai
    Link
    For me the focus in gaming is a mix of immediate core gameplay, freedom, and progression. I love RPG games like Metroid Prime, Zelda:OOT/MM, and pokemon (My gaming life started in 2004, I have...

    For me the focus in gaming is a mix of immediate core gameplay, freedom, and progression. I love RPG games like Metroid Prime, Zelda:OOT/MM, and pokemon (My gaming life started in 2004, I have trouble getting into 2d and sidescrollers, as well as older games in general, just from a graphical point of view).
    My main game series are Pokemon, Souls, and Monster Hunter, though i am also loving Path of Exile, and especially destiny 2. for me in these games being able to heavily customize my character (or team) is 60% of the fun. A good example is Pokemon Omega Ruby within which i played with a steel type team, the ability to choose from dozens of steels to fill the roles i desired and customizing their stats and movesets made the game incredibly fun for me, in destiny 2 (maingame) the maximum level can be achieved before you are even a third done with the main storyline, and from there it is a simple gear progression, and Monster Hunter being an unending grind from start to finish, with no leveling system past gear and items.

    In stark contrast, games like COD, and Smash hold no attraction to me (beyond short online play with friends ). In contrast to that some shining gems like Baldur's Gate, and FFVII are borderline unplayable for me despite the fantastic stories, the graphics, mediocre (for me) gameplay mechanics, and lack of customization are just too lackluster for me. The worst game that i can think of would be Pokemon black which keeps your hand in a death grip, feeling more like a graphic novel than a game.

    1 vote
  12. mb3077
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    I like to think that I have high standards of what makes a good game. But at the same time I can get addicted to those idle clicker games.. Literally just clicking buttons and watching numbers go...

    I like to think that I have high standards of what makes a good game.
    But at the same time I can get addicted to those idle clicker games.. Literally just clicking buttons and watching numbers go up, forever.

    So I don't really know what makes a game good.

  13. Akir
    Link
    It's different things for different games. The only thing that is common for all of them is how much creativity is put into the project. Donut County was a really simple game, but I bought it...

    It's different things for different games. The only thing that is common for all of them is how much creativity is put into the project.

    Donut County was a really simple game, but I bought it anyways because the aesthetic and comedy style was just that good.

  14. [2]
    moocow1452
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    I'm only really regularly playing Hearthstone right now, working though Celeste right now on my Backlog, but Hearthstone brings me back because of the Daily Quests to get more currency to buy more...

    I'm only really regularly playing Hearthstone right now, working though Celeste right now on my Backlog, but Hearthstone brings me back because of the Daily Quests to get more currency to buy more packs for the next expansion, it's on my phone so it's very accessable, and I can easily test out new decks, relatively quickly, and even have a card that will replace my deck with a randomly selected prebuilt deck for no additional resources than just the one card.

    1. Emerphish
      Link Parent
      I've been on and off with Hearthstone for years. Every time I really start to sink my teeth into it, I get warded back off by all the RNG effects. I think I'm finally done this time, but I said...

      I've been on and off with Hearthstone for years. Every time I really start to sink my teeth into it, I get warded back off by all the RNG effects. I think I'm finally done this time, but I said that the last two times I stopped playing.

  15. a_wild_swarm_appears
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    It has to be challenging, engaging, with a good story and be something that I can play for an hour or two and put down after that. XCom 2 and portal 2 are my current favourites.

    It has to be challenging, engaging, with a good story and be something that I can play for an hour or two and put down after that.
    XCom 2 and portal 2 are my current favourites.