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.
Star Craft even supports pausing in multiplayer games.
This is one of the few things I hate in Baldur’s Gate 3. Sure, the game is round based, but I still can’t pause cutscenes. So if my mother barges in while I’m getting it on with Astarion I loose valuable dialogue.
That’s why I don’t mind having to interact for dialogue to advance. It’s a simple way to allow for a sort of pause and for people people to read at their pace.
Huh, now that you mention it that’s definitely a nice thing about playing on the steam deck. Just put it to sleep.
Among online games Starcraft has an advantage that it is strictly 1v1 as far as I know. I have never played it because just hearing about APM gives me carpal tunnel syndrome. FIFA despite being a complete shit game allows pausing in online matches too. Not sure what it is like in fighting games.
Starcraft can be 2v2 or 3v3 or even 4v4, though that is far, far less common for more serious competitive players, as it’s way too easy to just focus fire one opponent as a group and then move onto the next once they’re destroyed.