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Devs who don't implement pausing should be beaten with a rusty pipe in Minecraft (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 2 years ago by ksynwa@lemmygrad.ml to c/games@lemmygrad.ml

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Nothing frustrates me more than not being able to pause for no seemingly good reason. I'm playing Wild Hearts right now and even though I never play online I cannot pause for some reason. To simulate pausing, I can turn off the xbox and the quick resume feature makes it look like the game was paused when I turn the console back on.

Other games guilty of this are Fromsoft games: Dark Souls, Elden Ring and so on.

Obviously all of these games have an online component. Not allowing pausing when this component is activated makes sense. But if I am playing completely online why cannot I pause? In Soulslike the worst exploit I can think of is switching equipment on the fly but is that really that bad? When stuff comes up in the middle crucial moments it frustrates me a lot.

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[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I don't play games that don't have a pause button. I'm an adult with adult shit to deal with. That might be as simple as cooking dinner. I don't have long for leisure in the evenings but if I can pause a game in between e.g. cooking, I can play it. If I can't pause, I can't play.

If devs want to say 'fuck you, user, we aren't making our game accessible,' then fuck them, too. Just another symbol of the shit hole that is game development. I don't really care what their justifications are. Online games could be made with a pause button as well if the devs cared about accessibility. It's an industry that takes itself far too seriously, as if games aren't supposed to be a bit of fun. That's what happens when games are commodities, I guess.

It's another factor in gamers being so reactionary; so much of it is de facto the reserve of people without responsibilities or people who don't care about their responsibilities. Down with inaccessible games.

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

counterpoint: not being able to pause creates tension and puts pressure on the player. that wii U zombie game didn't pause while you were digging around in your inventory and that game would be way less interesting if it did. i probably wouldn't even remember it exists.

if you don't like that tension and pressure that's fine but there's no shortage of games that don't restrict you like that and no-pause is a legitimate design tool.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If there was a pause button and you wanted the tension, all you would have to do is simply not press pause.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Whether not having a pause is justified or not, you surely must know this isn't a good response, right? "Just play wildly suboptimally for dramatic effect" is not viable game design.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So not building in a pause button automatically makes gameplay wildly suboptimal?

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Optimization only happens within constraints. How the game is built represents the constraints.

But in a game where you can pause, making a rule of not pausing would put you at a drastically lower "power level" than someone who pauses.

[–] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I'm afraid you've moved the goalposts or something. I don't really care about optimization. Games should be accessible. Not having a pause button means I can't play the game at all. Optimization doesn't come into it. The person I responded to argued that having a pause button makes games less tense. I understand that because being able to pause the game gives the player a breather. But just because there's a pause button doesn't mean the player has to press it. If they want the tension, they can simply choose not to press it. It's not up to me, the end user, to solve the problem beyond demanding accessibility.