Cutscenes especially. The pause button should pause cutscenes, with an option to skip the cutscene on the pause menu. The pause button should never just outright skip the cutscene. It should always pause the cutscene.
snooggums@piefed.world 21 hours ago
The ability to pause should be a requirement for single player games. Not being able to pause long cut scenes, combats, etc. is so frustrating when nobody else is impacted.
Any game completely opposed to pausing for whatever design reason should instead be required to have a minimum of 30 seconds between pauses to allow for interruptions while playing without it allowing for rapid pauses to impact game play. 30 seconds minimum is because of how many interruptions are immediately followed by another interruption by kids/spouses/parents/pets.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 45 minutes ago
Oh yeah that was the worst. Game devs really shooting themselves in the foot with that design.
Once paused, should it just be a single button? Maybe a menu with an “are you sure? Y/n”, or maybe a hold down one or two buttons together for a couple seconds like on consoles?
snooggums@piefed.world 19 hours ago
Yeah, pause and skip should be separate things. I have some games pm PC where the ESC key pauses and brings up the menu but to skip the scene you have to be watching it and then hold some specific button like mouse 1 for a couple of seconds to skip. Those are my favorites because I have time to reconsider skipping!
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
I’m sure I have seen it before, but I can’t think of a single game that lets you pause during a cutscene. It really sucks for turn-based games where you need to watch whats happening when it’s not your turn in order to respond correctly.
I remember a game I used to play years ago that had no ability to pause, so what i would do is alt+tab to the task manager and suspend the process, and then resume it later. Obviously that’s way more clunky than just hitting a pause button.
Lojcs@piefed.social 20 hours ago
Conversely I can’t remember a game in recent memory that didn’t let me pause in cutscenes.
Just off of my head: Ubisoft games, Control, Shadow of Mordor, Crysis, Witchers, Borderlands 2, Devil May Cry, Celeste support it.
snooggums@piefed.world 20 hours ago
I have played a lot of games where pausing the game to get to game menus pauses cutscenes, generally ones where they use in game assets to do the cut scene. I would have to check to confirm, but I think BG3 let you pause by going to the menu and there was also a separate option to skip the cuts scene.
Definitely played a lot with unskippable cut scenes too. Mostly avoid those games now.
dukemirage@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
It’s been a very common feature for the last few years and has been very rare before that so it really depends on when you started playing new releases.
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Yeah, I’m probably what you’d call a patient gamer. Usually not playing anything more recent than 5 years old, and often way older.
dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Ghosts of Yotei lets you pause during cut scenes. It doesn’t let you skip most cut scenes, though.
Malix@sopuli.xyz 20 hours ago
started Red Dead Redemption 1 last night, seems like just hitting esc during cutscene pauses it.
Admittedly I was wanting to go to settings and drop some settings, but that’s only allowed during gameplay, not cutscenes x)
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 48 minutes ago
Yeah no-pause feature was cool for one or two games as a gimmick, but Jesus h christ I’m an adult now and sometimes you need to freeze everything RIGHT NOW and single player games that you can’t pause are stupid as hell. Like I get maybe not pausing for accessing gear menu. But then at least give us a separate pause in case I have to run to the post office or take a business call or something