Do game devs need to respect our time better? Can shorter games be better?

[SvennoJ]

Good check pointing, save anytime, no roadblocks requiring grinding is the first thing that comes to mind to respect my time. The worst is feeling like I'm being held hostage by a game because you can't save and continue later. Hence I'm not a fan with Souls games, can't even pause them...

Instant retry (not having to watch the same cut-scenes, same dialog, walk all the way back etc) is respecting my time. And older games definitely did not do that. Exceptions of course like Half-life, that respected your time to the max with instant save/load anywhere. Tombraider the same (to the fault of accidentally saving while in mid jump to certain death instead of loading oops)
Thus no extensive game over screens, long load screens and other nonsense.

I rather have a shorter game with NG+ than games with busy work to pad for length.

Adjustable difficulty at any time is also part of respecting my time. (If you can't balance the game, let me balance it myself) Instead of grinding for a boss, let me adjust the difficulty and move on. GoW was great for that. Lower difficulty for certain boss fights, put it back up for regulars. That kept fighting against regular enemies interesting/challenging enough without bosses becoming a roadblock. PoE2, fun in co-op, but not respecting our time, having to grind the same levels over to get past certain bosses, which then makes the levels after trivial until the game catches back up to out level. Luckily it seems better balanced in ng+ (cruel mode)

Bloat is harmless as long as it can all be skipped. If you really get into a game then the bloat feels fine like in BotW and TotK. Yet if it is essential to do all the side quests to be able to finish the game, then no.
Repeated bosses is a big no for me though. I don't want to see the same boss again, not as a regular enemy later or combined with other bosses, or with multiple of the same. Zelda is guilty of that too. If I want to fight them again, I'll do it in ng+.


I can't say shorter games are better in general since VR games are shorter and guilty of all the above just as much. The current trend seems to be reaching 10hr play time with repetition, bad check pointing and cheap deaths :/