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[TheChumpNation]

The quest structure in Rockstar games is the worst, I never understood what's the point to have a huge world fully explorable if you fail your mission just going 20m outside of the intended path.

The laggy controls and "press A to do the thing" gameplay design are annoying but tolerable. The absolute prohibition against any creativity in gameplay is what's caused me to put down every Rockstar game save RDR2 well before I saw a credits scene.

Fun to mess about with the world simulation stuff for 20 hours or so and after that I usually can't be bothered going further.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I've said this before but I don't get this complaint

Sure, some boundaries could definitely be loosened. What do you think missions are for? That's when Rockstar locks you in and tells the story they've spent years building. You want to just stop halfway through a high stakes heist or shootout and go play golf instead?

What's next? pausing a bank robbery so Trevor can do yoga?

Missions is when Rockstar pulls you into the world for real, when the story takes the wheel and you're along for the ride

The controls? That's a separate conversation. Half the people whining about them are just bad at games

you get the mission to look for someone who bystanders say went into a certain building, and you walk over an invisible barrier into an INSTANT game over...
THAT is what we're talking about here.
no time limit, no urgency... instant game over if you cross invisible limits.

or bad guys hide in a building, you try to climb up the side to look through windows... instant game over, because you were supposed to go through the door.

that is a real thing that can happen in RDR2.

With that said, RDR2 definitely feels more loosened on the invisible barrier restrictions GTAV had. I'm sure they'll build on that for 6 as well. Even GTAO opened them up more, especially with chase missions or the like.

But also, story missions are meant to be confined within that segment.

 

[kevboard]

With that said, RDR2 definitely feels more loosened on the invisible barrier restrictions GTAV had. I'm sure they'll build on that for 6 as well. Even GTAO opened them up more, especially with chase missions or the like.

But also, story missions are meant to be confined within that segment.

again, this isn't about open endedness. you can not excuse the examples I mentioned in any way. they are objectively bad game design.
these aren't made up examples, these are direct examples of what happens in RDR2.
-you stand in front of a house
-your objective is to go in and kill people
-if you try to go in through the easily accessible window by making 1 jump/climb up... instant game over

this isn't me wanting them to turn their games into Deus Ex... it's about not having restrictions so extreme that even slight and intuitive player decisions that are using the basic gameplay mechanics of the game, leading to instant game overs IN AN OPEN WORLD GAME...
the things I am describing here would be comparable to Super Mario World giving you a game over because you jumped onto a normal platform, with a normal jump for no other reason than "the Devs didn't want you to do that". it is inexcusable.
I legit can't think of a way to excuse design like this. is it good that you can't do basic decisions? is it good that you get an instant game over for daring to use basic mechanics? I can't see any excuse here.

having more open ended missions would be amazing, but all I actually want is missions with good game design, and that's a thing RDR2 was lacking in many missions.

 

[DeepEnigma]

again, this isn't about open endedness. you can not excuse the examples I mentioned in any way. they are objectively bad game design.
these aren't made up examples, these are direct examples of what happens in RDR2.
-you stand in front of a house
-your objective is to go in and kill people
-if you try to go in through the easily accessible window by making 1 jump/climb up... instant game over

this isn't me wanting them to turn their games into Deus Ex... it's about not having restrictions so extreme that even slight and intuitive player decisions that are using the basic gameplay mechanics of the game, leading to instant game overs IN AN OPEN WORLD GAME...
the things I am describing here would be comparable to Super Mario World giving you a game over because you jumped onto a normal platform, with a normal jump for no other reason than "the Devs didn't want you to do that". it is inexcusable.
I legit can't think of a way to excuse design like this. is it good that you can't do basic decisions? is it good that you get an instant game over for daring to use basic mechanics? I can't see any excuse here.

having more open ended missions would be amazing, but all I actually want is missions with good game design, and that's a thing RDR2 was lacking in many missions.

Remind me which mission that was in RDR2, since there were many I snuck into homes in various ways and it never failed it.

I'm not doubting you, just want to know which one for future reference.

 

[The artful mincer]

Yep

A Rockstar game has never won Game of Year. Neither at the VGAs or on Aggregate sites.

Everything remarkable about Rockstar games comes back to the budget.

Frankly Dogshit gameplay.

 

[Puscifer]

I don't have a horse in the mission design race, I play through Vice City every year, also play IV, V and RDR2 every now and then and I enjoy both types of mission design.
Whatever R* does for this one I'm game and I'm sure I'll love it.
In terms of freedom and gameplay variety the open world more than makes up for the close-ended mission design for me.

With this said, I do think VI desperately needs a complete law system overhaul, V's was quite terrible and such a gigantic downgrade from IV it's not even funny.

It's the one aspect about the game I'm afraid it might disappoint me since the law system in RDR2 wasn't exactly stellar either but I'm hopeful.

I mean they've been worse ever they went to a 5 star vs 6 star and ripped the Saints Row style of police chasing for IV. I never felt like any chase thrilled me outside of a mission like 3 leaf clover where it was designed for such an action. Cool for everyone excited about animated beer bubbles but that attention to the minutia killed RDR 2 for me since it became gameplay impacting.

 

[GudOlRub]

Yep

A Rockstar game has never won Game of Year. Neither at the VGAs or on Aggregate sites.

Everything remarkable about Rockstar games comes back to the budget.

Frankly Dogshit gameplay.

I know this is probably bait but I'll bite.
GTA V precedes VGA, Spike Game Awards though?
Rockstar won GOTY with San Andreas, IV, Red Dead Redemption and V.
RDR2 did not win goty but won a bunch of awards at VGA and it was heavily debated on whether it was better than GOW or not and whether it desrved GOTY or not.

The only frankly dogshit here is your claim Rockstar never won anything.

 

[GudOlRub]

I mean they've been worse ever they went to a 5 star vs 6 star and ripped the Saints Row style of police chasing for IV. I never felt like any chase thrilled me outside of a mission like 3 leaf clover where it was designed for such an action. Cool for everyone excited about animated beer bubbles but that attention to the minutia killed RDR 2 for me since it became gameplay impacting.

I understand that but personally I adore the details. The slow animations, the individual actions, the chores like gun and horse cleaning or wood cutting. I really became immersed in that world, one random Saturday I realised I had been playing RDR2 for 13 or 14 hours straight without eating, it's absolute insanity but that's how engrossed I was in that world and I haven't had another game do that to me since then.
R* really took immersion to another level with that game and I love it.

On the law system I agree. IV was far from perfect but I did enjoy it.
But V without cops roaming the city and then spawning out of thin air absolutely ruined that aspect of the game for me, I barely messed around with long cop chases in that game to this day.
But overall I did find V a lot more fun than IV though.

 

[EN250]

With that said, RDR2 definitely feels more loosened on the invisible barrier restrictions GTAV had. I'm sure they'll build on that for 6 as well. Even GTAO opened them up more, especially with chase missions or the like.

But also, story missions are meant to be confined within that segment.

RDR2 is definitely the gold standard and I'm damn sure R* will apply the same logic to GTAVI, being fully aware of how to this day, people complain about the "restrictiveness" of Story Mode

 

[The artful mincer]

I know this is probably bait but I'll bite.
GTA V precedes VGA, Spike Game Awards though?
Rockstar won GOTY with San Andreas, IV, Red Dead Redemption and V.
RDR2 did not win goty but won a bunch of awards at VGA and it was heavily debated on whether it was better than GOW or not and whether it desrved GOTY or not.

The only frankly dogshit here is your claim Rockstar never won anything.

There's a Game of Award Tracker site that tracks all Game of year awards from individual sites.

Last of Us beat GTA5 in 2013 God of war beat RDR2 in 2018. Maybe previous years Rockstars would the have won but the site only went live in 2012.

 

[simpatico]

Prove to whom? GTA is the most popular video game series of all time.

God of war beat RDR2 in 2018.

This is why no one mourns the "loss" of game "journalism".

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

i like some clunk
i like some heaviness
makes you a little bit more careful in how you move and respond

they havent shown anyone get shot yet
i shoot a lot of people in gta, so thats kind of important to me

shooting people in gta4 was so fun because their responses could be so unpredictable.
stumbling into each other
tripping down stairs
sometimes theyd get shot, lie down, keep breathing for a few moments... then die and bleed out.

thats what i want
if they have ass physics, they might give me what i want

 

[Woggleman]

Honestly I am worried that with new management it won't have that Rockstar feel. I don't want some super arcade kind of game. Controls and combat like TLOU2 would be a good middle ground though.

 

[calico]

A Rockstar game has never won Game of Year. Neither at the VGAs or on Aggregate sites.

Apart from GTA 4, GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

100% sure they'll improve the gameplay in this in one way or another.

With the giant 2 billion + budget, everything is bound to be beyond amazing.

It'll be the greatest game by far until Elder Scrolls VI or Fallout 5 comes.

GTA VI is not just the GOAT but the Dragon, DRACO THE DRAGON.

 

[ReBurn]

Frankly Dogshit

New band name. Called it!

 

[MoreJRPG]

Rockstar's 3 MASSIVE ISSUES need to be resolved:

1: Imprecise and laggy controls

2: the worst gunplay known to man

3: Mission design so linear and so restrictive that even corridor shooters like CoD feel less restrictive

I cannot believe point 1 is never brought up in reviews or anywhere else for that matter. It feels like the deadzones are set to 20 in Rockstar games.

 

[bender]

And story, characterization, radio station song selection, mission design. IV and V were really disappointing to me in those facets.

 

[MMaRsu]

Honestly I am worried that with new management it won't have that Rockstar feel. I don't want some super arcade kind of game. Controls and combat like TLOU2 would be a good middle ground though.

????

Sam houser is still there

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

 

[DavidGzz]

They will be more worried about perfect hair simulation over responsiveness. I hope I am wrong, but it will probably play even worse than RDR2. Still, day one lol

 

[The artful mincer]

Prove to whom? GTA is the most popular video game series of all time.


This is why no one mourns the "loss" of game "journalism".

Lol this forum voted god of war for game of the year over RDR2 you Fucking Banana!

 

[Seomel]

I dont think rockstar is out here to prove anything to anyone. They fo stuff that eorks for them, gta v was big improvement combat wise already from 4, after taking some systems from max payne 3 which was fantastic. Driving is arguable, exploration is arguable(its some rpg where you run around for loot). Im sure they are hearing feedback on mission design, but it really depends on missions themselves and hdow they tie in story. They always tried have some variety, but things are always kinda rooted in reality. Like give me an example of what would you wanna see

 

[nemiroff]

Sounds like a you-problem.

With that said, never been a fan of Rockstar's sometimes weird and frustrating mission failure trigger "system". Hope there'll be some improvements.

 

[Thaimasker]

I fully expect the gunplay and movement to be better.
We haven't seen anything from the mission design even in the leaks so it's hard to say.

Other than those 2 things, RDR2 was amazing.

 

[mrMUR_96]

Mission design being hyper restrictive is their biggest issue imo. I'll always remember that RDR2 mission where you have to sneak into that factory and you can only do it via one linear path or it fails the mission. It just jars soo heavily against the open world design, just awful. I understand when they want to do more set-piece focused missions, that's fine, but a lot of the missions should give you a lot more freedom to how you actually approach achieving the objective.

 

[PatientGamer]

even if the gameplay is horseshit, every publication will rate it 10/10 anyway and it'll win GOTY just because of name alone and how anticipated it is.

 

[Windom Earle]

The Rockstar bootlickers don't like to hear this but GTA is slop at this point:
- No gameplay evolution in 25 years
- Shitty controls and piss easy on rails gameplay
- GTA Online is a travesty
- No GTA 5 DLC
- After a brief evolution (GTA4), heavily downgraded driving physics in GTA5
- Key figures left the company, instead reports about woke hires

"Muh open world" doesn't save GTA or Rockstar from being criticized. 2001 Rockstar would be ashamed of 2025 Rockstar.

 

[DaciaJC]

- After a brief evolution (GTA4), heavily downgraded driving physics in GTA5

I am sorely hoping that VI takes serious inspiration from IV for its driving physics. Driving in V was only tolerable with mods.

 

[Baemono]

My only gameplay expectation: to not punch a horse by mistake

 

[Dr. Suchong]

Steel yourself for the same old wafer thin depth, tired and tedious mission design, ass controls, and try hard dialogue that makes the writing in Borderlands sound like Shakespeare.

Rockstar games are the undisputed epitome of style over substance.

 

[wolfboy203]

"hey I don't want my coffee to taste like coke"

"WHAT? SO YOU WANT IT TO TASTE LIKE PIZZA! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THIS IS TO DO!?"

that's literally you right now.

have you ever played Watch Dogs 2? how is it that Watch Dogs 2 can give me a mission to fulfill a specific goal, and I can fulfill that goal in 3, 4 or 5 different ways?

in Watch Dogs 2, there was a mission where you have to hack the central computer hidden inside (I think it was) a church that's at the outskirts of the city. after stealthily reaching it and getting the info I needed, I would have, in theory, needed to go all the way back through the well guarded property of that church... that was the obvious way to do it. the whole property was surrounded by a strong fence that I can't get through.

but I saw a highway in the distance, and I already unlocked the ability to remote control cars (as in being able to make them turn left/right a bit and make them accelerate).
so what I did was, I waited for a car to come by, it was just close enough to be hacked, made it steer right, made it accelerate, and break the fence.

then I hoped in and drove off.


this is is a simple example from a direct competitor of GTA. and something that gave the player more agency than any missions in any of Rockstar's last 2 open world games.





having invisible death barriers with instant game overs, in a mission with no urgency, is bad game design. plain and simple.

giving an instant game over to a player that wants to fulfill the given goal of the mission in a creative way that makes intuitive sense is bad game design.

the game has mechanics that let you climb, let you shoot through windows, hop into windows.
yet you get a game over if you dare to use these mechanics if the game puts invisible death barriers there for no reason other than limiting player agency.


this is more comparable to you using your queen to move all the way across the chess board, and the other player taking your queen away for no reason other than "that wasn't supposed to happen".
using established game mechanics and getting a game over for no intuitive or logical reason is insane.

Ayo! You are absolutely spitting right now!! R* honestly needs to loosen up in the amount of fail states their linear missions have. I don't get how that would that be a bad thing & thinking that making all of their missions open would not be realistic but having a few open ended missions with more choice wouldn't hurt them either. Hell people have done videos about their outdated mission design and we still have ppl that are still in denial when it comes to that lolz. Now WD 2 has it's flaws but the freedom on how you tackle most missions isn't one of them...

 

[tr1p1ex]

if isn't broke don't fix it .

broke = poor sales

 

[Thaimasker]

The Rockstar bootlickers don't like to hear this but GTA is slop at this point:
- No gameplay evolution in 25 years
- Shitty controls and piss easy on rails gameplay
- GTA Online is a travesty
- No GTA 5 DLC
- After a brief evolution (GTA4), heavily downgraded driving physics in GTA5
- Key figures left the company, instead reports about woke hires

"Muh open world" doesn't save GTA or Rockstar from being criticized. 2001 Rockstar would be ashamed of 2025 Rockstar.

I mean, you're pretty much just saying GTA 5 wasn't an evolution, which is one game.

All of those key figures that left worked on gta 5.
GTA online was invented and pushed by one of those key figures.

GTA 6 is going to be the bigger tell. From PS3 to PS5, post RDR2 should be quite the jump.
From the looks of the leaks it does already look like they are making the gameplay way better.

 

[Hudo]

I also want them to be more like TLOU2 which i think has a great middle ground between realistic gameplay but also doesn't have those lengthy animations which make their games a slog sometimes (RDR2).

This. As much as I dislike TLoU2, it's the perfect mixture of good-looking animations while also being relatively responsive.

 

[QLQ]

Preach! My man.

Every single one of those giving you the laugh emoji reaction you can put down on a list of "know shit about gameplay".

Thanks to all of them for coming forward, it makes it easier to ignore your opinions on the matter of good games.

 

[wolfboy203]

I mean, you're pretty much just saying GTA 5 wasn't an evolution, which is one game.

All of those key figures that left worked on gta 5.
GTA online was invented and pushed by one of those key figures.

GTA 6 is going to be the bigger tell. From PS3 to PS5, post RDR2 should be quite the jump.
From the looks of the leaks it does already look like they are making the gameplay way better.

How have the leaks shown that the gameplay will be better?

 

[QLQ]

absolutely no.. Rockstar's gunplay is so insanely bad that RDR2 is nearly unplayable unless you use full lock-on auto aim

I beat RDR2 with a Dualshock 4 on PS4 with auto-aim off. The controls are not a big issue, the action, scenario, AI (or lack thereof), animation, etc etc are all as archaic as shooting sitting ducks at a carnival.

 

[Thaimasker]

How have the leaks shown that the gameplay will be better?

Significantly more interiors.

And ofc you can't tell how it feels unless you play, but the movement they tested *looked* significantly better/more advanced and smooth to me.A lot more options too.It's clearly not just copy and pasted from gta v or RDR2.

 

[kevboard]

I beat RDR2 with a Dualshock 4 on PS4 with auto-aim off. The controls are not a big issue, the action, scenario, AI (or lack thereof), animation, etc etc are all as archaic as shooting sitting ducks at a carnival.

I don't call it unplayable due difficulty, but unplayable because it feels so bad that I find it impossible to enjoy. at least with auto aim enabled I don't have to care about one of the many aspects about RDR2's gameplay that feels awful

 

[simpatico]

Racing is one of my top game genres. Can someone share an example of an open world game with better driving that GTA V? I preferred 4 as well, but I think they changed it for the sake of accessibility. For my tastes it still shits all over the competition. Watch Dogs, Saints Row etc.

I can understand console players trashing RDR2 gameplay, the amount of input lag there is unacceptable. But on PC with a controller, Aurther moves just like I do IRL. We're about the same age and I thought they nailed it. I don't want him to slide around over the ground while a walking animation is technically happening like Saints Row or Just Cause. GTA V has pretty good locomotion too. Vastly improved in RDR2, but still well ahead of competitors. For my money MGS V is still best in class. GTA VI if done correctly, will have a vastly different feel between protagnoists on-foot and the driving would feel like NFS Shift 2.

 

[Iced Arcade]

I feel like people who didn't like RDR2 have major attention span issues... that game is definitely in my top 10 of all time, and I have ADHD.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Given how many people agree with OP's points, why do people even like GTA? That is 90% of the game. Why do people worship it?

 

[GudOlRub]

Given how many people agree with OP's points, why do people even like GTA? That is 90% of the game. Why do people worship it?

Because GAF like every other online forum is mostly an echo chamber and many of its opinions are not really representative of the general gaming population.

 

[Woggleman]

GAF is mostly hard-core capital G gamers and many of this group have issues with games that are not arcadey.

 

[Krauub24]

They dont have to prove anything.

 

[PixelatedBeast]

They defintely need to improve gun play, and melee combat. I dont want a reskin of GTAV with new activites.

 

[DryvBy]

Maybe the game isn't for you. It doesn't need to prove anything. It's GTA, for goodness sake! It'll sell without the dime of non-fans.

 

[PSYGN]

I think it would be really cool and complimentary to the open world sandbox if they had surfing, skateboarding, skating, and bmx executed well. But yeah, the core of the game like shooting, driving, and movement can be tightened up and more responsive... I think some of that is bound by the design of realism.

 

[amigastar]

I think it would be really cool and complimentary to the open world sandbox if they had surfing, skateboarding, skating, and bmx executed well. But yeah, the core of the game like shooting, driving, and movement can be tightened up and more responsive... I think some of that is bound by the design of realism.

Skateboarding would be so sick.
Anyways i'm sure they will improve gameplay in GTA VI, it will be all around good with fantastic driving and beautiful graphics.