"Gameplay of xyz game is repetitive". Can someone explain when it's not "Repetitive"?

Note:

This thread is not about grinding/side quests but just about gameplay/mechanics.

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In recent years, I've come across several comments where people say that they don't like [insert game's name here] because it was "repetitive". Can someone point out what are "non-repetitive" games? From what I understand, most of these complains come from people, who actually want to say "there aren't enough cutscenes and I can't handle too much gameplay without being interrupted by an epic set piece every once in awhile".

So, how to create "variety" in gameplay? There are fixed mechanics in every game and the game is built around those mechanics. For example in every shooter you shoot people, in every RTS you build armies by gathering resources and launch big assault on enemies, in every horror game you explore and collect useful items to use them when it's "do or die" situation and so on.

So, by this logic everything becomes repetitive. Is it necessary to have "Press F to pay respect" scenes to make a game "non-repetitive"? Or it is just an excuse from people who can't do anything on their own and expect every game to treat them like a kid by displaying big indicators and showing a cutscene after every 2 minutes to give them this feeling that there is "variety"?

Explain.

@Cloud_imperium:

You are right.

For example I love Mario. At its core it's basically running and jumping. It feels fresh because the level design is top notch.

Then you get a Ubisoft game for example, let's say Assassins Creed. That has its core, running, parkour and combat. The missions and the enemies are repetitive.

So yes it does make me somewhat of a hypocrite. It's all about how you use the games core to feel fresh throughout the game.

It's not really about the core mechanism but about what you do in the game. For example let's take gta IV and gta V. They have roughly the same core mechanism yet I find gta IV to be tedious and repetitive as hell because 95% of the missions were kill people in a very similar fashion the whole game. Even though gta V had also its share of kill everyone mission it had other things going on as well. There needs to be a certain progression of what you are doing with core mechanism. Red dead redemption went down the gta iv repetition path too yet to my surprise almost everyone seems to like that game.

Repetition is a symptom of a bunch of smaller problems. All gameplay is repetitive after awhile. One major factor in what keeps a game from not feeling repetitive is giving the player something meaningful to work towards. This is done in a variety of ways based on the kind of game it is. Sometimes it's high score chasing, sometimes it's completing some grand story arc, sometimes it's trying to conquer some sort of a strategy map. This makes very repetitive games like Civilization, Total War, World of Warcraft, and other grand-scale games playable even after hundreds of hours of doing the same thing or slight variations of the same thing.

If the game's ends don't justify the means, the repetition of gameplay becomes much more apparent. You keep wondering why you're doing the same stuff over and over and that just drags the whole experience down. It's the absolute death of a lot of MMOs, large scale strategy games, and grand strategy/4x games. It's still important to give a player an objective worth playing for in shorter games too, but it's the defining element of those bigger games.

Of course there are other variables to repetition that are more relevant to shorter game experiences. Poor or lacking core mechanics makes a game feel more repetitive much quicker. Think of the best FPSs out there. Their shooting mechanics alone are worth playing levels over and over. Think of a shooter that just had average or even mediocre shooting. Those games felt a lot more repetitive a lot quicker because the core mechanics just aren't that fun.

Poor pacing and level design can make a game feel much more repetitive too. If each encounter, puzzle, or obstacle can be overcome with the same strategy, beating the game just becomes a routine of the same mechanics over and over. Good level design and good encounter design goes a long way to alleviating this issue.

At the core games are repetitive. It wouldn't be much of an FPS if the core gameplay mechanics kept switching. A game would be very difficult to play if at one moment you were playing an arena shooter then it turned to a hardcore tactical FPS and then jumped to some arcady modern military shooter. Mechanics need to stay the same through the game because that's mostly what defines the game. Level design, pacing, the core of the mechanics themselves, and the overall objective of the player all play into keeping a game from being repetitive even if the core mechanics are repetitive.

The perfect gameplay would be a merger between a point-&-click adventures puzzles, rpg mechanics of Baldurs Gate and the difficultly and lack of hand holding of Dark Souls.

Lems - meh, just looks like another Uncharted

Omfg Forza 6 looks like Forza 5 best evarrr GOTY

Variety can be achieved through, scenarios that differ from eachother, and puts you thorugh new challenges. Too much variety can lead to incoherrency.

Variety can be achieved in multiple ways.

• StarCraft 2 used gimmicks
• WoW uses bosses and environments, with each new boss bringing a new "puzzle" for the players to solve
• Divinity: Original Sin throws in new enemy types, enemy positioning and tosses you a new spell every hour or so to keep things fresh.
• Super Mario Galaxy (and Nintendo in general) uses a combination of gimmicks, level design, and implementation to keep things varied.
• Good combat oriented RPGs tend to regulary introduce new enemies, many of which require new tactics to overcome.
• Fallout puts you in new scenarios, often require different approaches to solve.
• DOTA2 has a large cast of team compositions and heroes, which can be played in multiple ways. Not only does what hero you pick heavily affect how you play, but what heroes your allies pick and your opponents pick affect gameplay heavily as well. Leading to plenty of variety, even if the game only has one map.

Repetitiveness is the absense of a satisfactory (combination) of the above

• Guild Wars 2, had you fighting centaurs and bandits for 50 levels or so, and threw you most of the active abilities you would ever use in the first few hours. The dungeons lacked tactically varied and challanging mechanics that made you leave your repetive rotation. What build your team members have is of very little consequence due to piss poor teamplay.

In my opinion, make the game (engaging) fluctuate within in the confines of it's parameters; a simple goal repeated, but a varied experience in how the player accomplishes it.

Like crosswords.

If you want a great example of a game brought down by lack of Variety, just play Ryse son of Rome.

Which could have easily been avoided by removing the stupid ass execution fake ass qte's, improving the variety of weaponry you can use other than just that lame sword, increasing enemy variety, making missions more about than just killing everyone and perhaps improving your magic past the terrible one they provide which is basically a get out of jail free card that freezes the entire screen on all but bosses.

See the entire God Of War Series.

Holy shit, you're doing the same exact thing from the 1st level to the last. Thankfully it was short.

Cows - meh, just looks like another Halo

Omfg Gran Turismo 6 looks like Gran Turismo 5 best evarrr GOTY

Zelda games are some of the best designed in the industry. Good enemy variety and different ways to take them out. Lots of weapons and gadgets that help you both interact with enemies and the environments. Good variety in environments, puzzles, bosses etc.. Zelda introduces things at a steady pace and always keeps things fresh. Good character progression and empowerment as well. It rewards exploration and always keeps the player engaged. It really is masterful game design. I wish the sword combat was a little more in depth in terms of moves you can perform like Darksiders.

Games like Halo, COD are basically the same shit from start to finish with little variation. The core gameplay in those games is good, but the games lack variety and do become repetitive.

@ReadingRainbow4: i liked the executions in Ryse, never got tired of them. Ryse's problem wasnt the repetition of qtes or the campaign it was how the MP was designed which should have really been the focus of the game. You can tell they originally wanted to do something else with it but cut it short for time. Ryse should have had the PVP MP of Spartacus War of the Damned but with the Ryse engine. I'd still be playing it right now if it did lol.


@TC:

its not really about repetition, it about having fun doing it. Example most open world games nowadays have a bunch of repetitive filler content to make the games seem bigger which isnt fun. Shadow of Mordor was boring to me because of this. So is GTA V.

Repetition cant really be the issue or else people that play competitive genres where you do the same things over and over like RTS or MOBAs wouldnt be popular. I think its more about how the tasks are presented.

Take Destiny for example. Sure it polarizes people, but the people that like it love it.

Ryse's problem was definitely the repetition. It's true you can forego using executions but I actually found myself using them more often than not just to look at something different, which didn't occur all that much regardless seeing how they recycle the few canned death animations quite a bit.

I didn't play the MP, so I only have the SP to go on and that was a complete fail. Even largescale battles took place constantly in small pocket sized arena's. I never once felt like I was at war.

Once again lack of weaponry didn't help. I don't care if romans traditonaly only used gladius's in battle (which isn't true,), there needed to be much more variety than they offered. Romans traditionally also didn't call down on the favor of a time freezing god so the realism argument goes out the window fast.

It's really a shame because it was an interesting setting for a game brought down by terrible execution.

Judging the way champ writes his posts, I'd wager he holds a PhD in a video game design.

@ReadingRainbow4: yeah thats why I said it should have focused on the MP and made it pvp like Spartacus War of the Damned. They had lots of different weapons and you competed in an MP ladder.

I played a lot of the Ryse MP and you can tell by the way the modular arenas were designed that they actually had bigger ambitions for it. It was basically co-op survival mode with different scenarios acted out in the coliseum. Would have been really fun having this as a pvp option. Just my opinion.

When is a game not repetitive? When it supports that individuals agenda.

All games are repetitive to some degree, to say a game is repetitive is at best a buzzword used to attract fanboys to an argument for or against console X or console Y.

and forza 6 is RGOTY by golly!

Uncharted Drake's Fortune = repetitive as ****

Uncharted 2 Among Thieves = problem fixed

On both you shoot a ton of people but in Uncharted 2 the variety of scenarios, goals established by the narrative and puzzles break the pace nicely contrary to Uncharted 1 where all you do is the same shit every time till the end when you start killing zombies and they have different patterns to the hundreds NPC's you killed before.

Repetitive is just another buzz word from people incapable of expressing a well thought out response. By characteristic all games are "repetitive" since they are structured play.

What he said ^

@Wasdie: I like the way you put it.

I also believe repetitiveness is kind of a feeling, which is kind of objective sometimes and can not be put into words.

It's what reviewers say when they run out of things to knock about a game on.

Lol.

Very interesting responses, and I agree with all of these posts.

I think this is exactly the case most of the time.

MGS5 is the most repetitive game I've ever played hands down.

• 2 of the most bland, empty and uninteresting open world maps.
• 3-4 enemy types that basically do nothing but stand at bases all day
• Tons of repetitive missions that don't stray too far from shoot guy in the head with a tranq gun then attach balloon to him.
• Zero interesting story to keep things fresh.

But 10/10 right GS? It boggles my mind, That the most boring repetitive game of the century is some how game of the year material. I've played countless of games that have more variety than this game.

I guess every single game is frustrating in one way or the other, eventually it gets to any title. It's just how well you will have taken by the end of the game that measures up if it brings the game down or not.

What? Yes games have a formula, yes games work around their core, but there is a clear difference between an obvious formula that the game repeats ad nauseam with no deviation: Destiny's main story missions, all of them come down to ending on the same trick: Ghost will either go scan something or is trying to open a door, and that's when you get a wave of enemies that come running at you. It does for all the missions, on the flip side Halo 3 mixed it up with vehicle segments the first stuff is in that jungle area where you are moving from core combat to dealing with jackal snipers, the next mission in corridors going back and forth, the following mission upons up with a warthog sequence, then you go on foot till you have to bunker down in a space where you deal with brutes and a wraith, after that you get on a brute chopper, next mission you do your core halo shooting, but then get on a mongoose to deal with a Scarab. Said Scarab can actually be taken down about 3 or 4 ways.

That's the difference. Games that have mechanical layers to them will have more going for them than just the status quo. Bayonetta for instance is a lot of go forward fight dudes, Bayonetta's enemy variety however is second to none. Each enemy type in Bayonetta 2 has his or her own wrinkle or two that will require you to do more than just y, y, y ,y y over and over again. The games weapon variation and how much more effective certain weapons are with certain enemies helps the cause there as well. Plus it has its shmup levels, flying levels, under water action sequences, and boss fights that aren't just a standard drone enemy you fought a bunch, but now he's a giant (another one of Destiny's sin).

Resident Evil 4 is a bastion of variety and that game is all about shooting dudes in the face you have that opening village sequence which has elements you never see in the game ever again, like the way going to specific shacks/houses triggered new mobs or the chainsaw dude, you had the sniping part in the valley, you had the minecart level, the stuff with the dragon statues, the invisible bugs in the sewers, the stuff with the cannon ball, being stuck in the cage with the blind thing, the boss fights between Krauser, U3, and Vertugo being wildly different from each other. Of the knocks you can present at Resident Evil 4, repetitive would not fly. The Evil Within most recently had enemy types that you see once, and then never see for the rest of the game. And it wasn't as simple as just shoot all of them with the pistol and you good.

Games that are repetitive and get called out for it, are because they establish a formula, and never let go of that formula. Assassin's Creed 1 is a game about killing dudes, to get to the part where you had to kill dudes, you always had to do scouting missions after you eagle eyesd a tower. Those scouting missions were all identical after you had done 3 of the 9 assassinations in that game. Beat up guy for info, eavesdrop for info, go run around for flags for info?

Alan Wake- We're in a creepyish town, but all we came up with was a forest, so somehow you're going to leave the police station and end up in a forest, you're going to start in a construction site so you can walk into a forest, you leave the loony bin to end up in a forest, you get dropped from a helicopter to end up in a forest. Throw in the part where neither Ass Creed 1 or Alan Wake have any layers to their mechanics, as they are shallow games, even by their respective genre standards. Yeah repetitive.

Repetitive in it of itself is not a death sentence. The Souls games by any measure are repetitive. It's a matter of if the overall composition of the game can overcome said short coming, no different than a game having shallow mechanics but still being good (Uncharted 2, God of War 2), no different than a game with a bad story being good (most good video games). In the case of a game like Ass Creed 1 or Destiny? Their overall composition is entirely compromised because of said short coming.

The "all gameplay is repetitive" counter is ridiculously short sighted and looking at things on too much of a superficial level.

People who regularly use words like "repetitive" and "boring" are just ignorant to higher vocabulary.

Be stuck in the exact same situation countless times with little to no changes, with the same enemies and the same mechanics over and over and over again.. As I stated in the other thread, Alan Wake, had that problem.. There were entirely too many fights with too little changes dealing with the exact same enemies the entire game more or less.. There is little strategy and actual changes you could do, this resulted in you facing very similar engagements repeatedly where you did the same things, feeling much more like a filler than actually playing the core of the game..

Dragon Age Inquistion had this problem if you decided to grind out quests, because they were repeated copy and paste quests through out.. I still highly enjoyed the game, but would not recommend any one to try to 100% it because it would become tedious.

Thats the problem with open world games, if your an unimaginative person that chooses the tranq and play the same way over and over again, your gonna burn your self out on the game world before you do anything interesting.

People who claim games are repetitive are almost certainly burned out or just playing the wrong games.

To anyone who says AC games are too laborious and repetitive I say 'no shit Sherlock' and return the compliment by explaining the world is round and the sky is way up there somewhere.

For me games are experiences and repetition in gameplay can be forgiven if the game is enjoyable to 'live in'. Lords of the Fallen is what I'm playing at the moment and I'm doing the same shit all the time and absolutely loving it. And that's without a particularly coherent story or objective. I don't care, the game looks great, it's great fun to play and I just love the atmosphere it creates everywhere I go, brooding, atmospheric and oppressive and the graphics are fantastic it's just a joy to play but no doubt some clown will point out it's repetitive therefore I should hate it.

The best games have exactly the same gameplay as all other games in their genre but you don't notice it because you're too busy having fun. In a world where videogames have reached the point where just about everything that can be done has been done and innovation is extremely rare it's now all about the devs who do the basics properly and story is now more important than ever as we have kind of reached a plateau with graphics they can't really get THAT much better anytime soon so with story being paramount I can now use this post as yet another excuse to point out how incredibly pissed off I am with Halo fucking 5.

Right, rant ends here.

@waahahah: I didn't burn myself out due to lack of imagination the game burned me out due to lack of it's own compelling content and it lasted way too long for it's own good. The game just has way too much useless padding in it in the form of fulton recovery, resource farming, side ops missions, base management.. Things I would not usually care for in a MGS game. An even if I where to skip all of that shit thus skipping out on like 70% of what the game has to offer. What I would have left is a very average main story which by MGS standards just isn't that great. An sitting through those boring ass helicopter rides where it forces me to watch the credits every single mission. You can't honestly say that's not repetitive. It fuckin is.

For me it's more of a problem with open world games. Linear games generally are always pushing you forward, generally into new areas, but open world games you constantly need to go to a point to a start a mission and then get to the "real" start of the mission and when you're confined to just one city it magnifies the problem cus you're seeing the same places over and over again. They also tend to be longer then the average linear game so there's that (partially because of the artificial lengthening from travelling ).

Some repetition is fun, look at the 'souls series, dodge roll, attack, dodge roll, attack, you died.

Then you have shit like babysit NPC, defend NPC who is unlocking some piece of bullshit until all enemies are dead and the over use of it. When they make annoying pieces of gameplay repetitive then well it's annoying.

I have yet to see a game which isn't repetitive. I don't mind repetitive so long as it's fun. Space Invaders, Galaxian, air to air dogfights, replaying De Pleur's party mission in Far Cry 4..........

Some Games get it right, as someone has said already, Zelda is a very good example. Throwing different enemy types, rewards you with different tools you need to solve the puzzles, each enemy type has a variety of ways you encounter them, Each dungeon has unique puzzles and twists. I think open world games with limited interactions suffer the most from repetition. I've recently made a topic about Infamous with the same concerns. Due to the limitations (in favor of fast and fluid movements)those games rely on a single pattern.In inFamous case it would be: great movement to climb buildings or do parkour, shoot enemies, save people on the maps(with each task being very similar) go underground to search for the powerup. Rinse and repeat

Repetitive would be having nothing but skirmish mode in an RTS like Supreme Commander.

Campaigns usually lead you gradually up to having everything....and in many theres a story.

So you're not just doing the same exact "build these things to get super weapon > end game" as fast as you can every....time...you....play.

That sort of thing. It's less about repetitiveness and more about dynamics in the gameplay throughout the game.

As others already noted, I believe "repetitive" was confused for something like "very repetitive", "very grindy" or "not enough choices" and such.

Every game establishes it's patterns and optimal ways over time, just some are doing it rather quickly while having quite narrow paths.

Lots of platformers like Mario or Donkey Kong keep from being repetitive because they keep throwing new situations, level pitfalls or enemies at you.
You see a situation and then you are supposed to act on it. Trial and error. You learn as you go along.

A game can get repetitive if it doesn't spice up its core gameplay enough. Or can't extend it with other and new meaningful gameplay mechanics.

What most games do these days, and I've especially noticed this with FPS, is take elements from RPGs: like progression systems, XP, and unlocking more powerful weapons, ... It's a way for a game to not get as repetitive as quickly.
Look at destiny, and how that games handles not getting repetitive ...

I believe it's quite simple. If your core gameplay doesn't do enough to vary itself by throwing you in unique situations, or if other design aspects aren't properly reinforced (enemy encounters, general pacing, level design, etc), then yeah the game will feel repetitive. To an extent every game is, but it always falls back to how strong the core gameplay turns out and whether or not it survives in spite of this.

But then you have the odd cases like MGSV, where repetition falls almost entirely on player agency. I've noticed a lot of people who've complained of its repetition are those who take little to no advantage of the great wealth of options it tends to provide you. It's kind of tricky as it all depends on what each player looks for.

@Cloud_imperium: In SC2, especially online (bronze is not as intimidating as you think), there are various strategies that you have in your hands that creates a lot of variables. Same with shooters.

At its core, the game will always have a simple mechanism that they must show clearly to the player. The great ones will push and expand on the concept to its utter limits, while others (like Assassin's Creed) is more than content to sell you on its potential.

Such a great threads and well-though responses.

Personally i believe that the gameplay should have some variety to it , variety in enemy types, in guns and gadgets, and especially in mechanics. Half Life 2 is a great example of a game having "variety" in its core gameplay.

That's not enough tho, for me the game should have an immersive world with some depth into it, this highlights in Open-Worlds, Assassin's Creed games which get this "oh that's repetitive af" statement a lot are great at creating an immersive worlds and since i'm into history i play them even though they're not great in gameplay department, i beat only the story and some side ops and move on since the immersive world is not enough.

And finally story, it plays a critical role in me beating a game ... Shadow of Mordor which is a great game suffered from lack of a good story and it has some kinda repetitive elements in gameplay department as well leading to me getting bored of it and not even beating the main story. Skyrim is an another example, goddamn how did it manage to get high scores with lame story and shallow and hollow world , i wonder.

The Witcher 3 is the perfect example of not being repetitive at all , main missions and side ops have a great story (the only game that pulls this off) , the world is incredibly immersive and the gameplay has lots of variety to it. And i believe it's revolutionary in terms of side ops. Open worlds tend to have shitty and boring side ops without any satisfying story, and i hope devs took a page of TW3.

Definately a criticism that gets thrown around too loosely in the gaming community too much.

An example is MGSV Phantom Pain. One of the best gameplay loops ever, and not once did the gameplay ever stop being "fun". yet people still throw that shit around.

I think a game really become repetitive and a few people mention this is when you feel like either A) your not being challegened enough or B) everything else around the gameplay is just boring. At a games core is the gameplay, which if that is bad then the game honestly as a whole isn't worth playing. But once the gameplay is solid then it comes down to is the story, technical, and everything else good because that will distract you from the general repetitiveness of the game.