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This is a general gripe against long RPGs, and probably says more about how I play games, but if you start an RPG of significant length, be sure to finish it or at least conclude you don't want to finish it before setting it down for an extended period of time. Coming back to Dragon's Dogma after a long break, I have no feel for where I need to go (even with a quest log!) or what my party is capable of, but starting from square one sounds about as appealing as getting my wisdom teeth removed 
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Dec 10, 2014 23:36
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Yeah, it's not the game's fault you stopped playing it.
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Dec 11, 2014 01:37
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Jaramin posted:Yeah, it's not the game's fault you stopped playing it. Well, some games are just really poo poo when it comes to letting you know where you left off. I can't say anything about Dragon's Dogma though. The opposite problem is happening for me in Far Cry 3. Every time I load up my save, it plays the last voice acting scene about what to do. "Jason, I tried calling you what happened?" gently caress you game I don't need this every single time.
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Dec 11, 2014 03:40
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Dragon's Dogma doesn't really have a complex story though. There's a dragon talking poo poo to you in Latin and you have to go fight him. All the main quests are basically go and kill some guys and pick up some items without any real story springing up in them, and most of them are optional anyway. It doesn't matter where you left off. Pack up on some potent greenwarish and big mushrooms and beat up some goblins until you get back into the swing of things. You can reset you and your pawns skills at the inn and fire whichever pawns you rented to get some new ones and you won't even have to worry about your party. You can actually beat the game in a half hour if you place those teleport stones around the map on your first playthrough and just skip around doing the bare minimum of quests. The game's more about having fun fighting huge things and playing around with the different fighting styles.
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Dec 11, 2014 05:23
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Jaramin posted:Yeah, it's not the game's fault you stopped playing it. Yeah and gently caress games that give you poo poo like quest logs too, you should be forced to use a paper notebook like back in the good old days. And gently caress maps too, and gently caress saving your game at all, if you wanna play a game you should do the whole thing in one hideous sitting like it's Turtles in Time
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Dec 11, 2014 05:42
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Games are designed to be played in a fairly contiguous series of sessions. If someone plays half the game, puts it down for six months, and then comes back to it, it is not the fault of the game if that person forgets what they were doing. It's actually a no-fault situation since games aren't typically meant to be played in that fashion.
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Dec 11, 2014 06:02
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So his real gripe with the game was that the game sucked so bad he put it down for 6 months.
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Dec 11, 2014 06:03
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So then you're saying that the best game is WoW?
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Dec 11, 2014 09:55
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DStecks posted:Yeah and gently caress games that give you poo poo like quest logs too, you should be forced to use a paper notebook like back in the good old days. And gently caress maps too, and gently caress saving your game at all, if you wanna play a game you should do the whole thing in one hideous sitting like it's Turtles in Time I don't think that's what anyone's trying to say? Though I don't really understand what could possibly be added to a game to fix this problem if you can't figure out what to do from a quest log and objectives. I understand the feeling that poster was talking about, but it's usually fine after I dig through the menus a bit or talk to people and get myself back up to speed.
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Dec 11, 2014 10:50
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The Batman games (or maybe just the latter two? I don't remember) have a recap whenever you start the game back up and load a save. Not just "here's your current objective" but also "this is what led up to the current objective". I'm not sure if that style is 100% appropriate for every single game ever made, but certainly helps alleviate that feeling of being lost at very little cost.
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Dec 11, 2014 10:53
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John Murdoch posted:The Batman games (or maybe just the latter two? I don't remember) have a recap whenever you start the game back up and load a save. Not just "here's your current objective" but also "this is what led up to the current objective". I guess it would help if you've taken a long break, but I hated that sort of thing when it was in a game I was playing continuously. If it's skippable though, I wouldn't mind.
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Dec 11, 2014 11:16
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DStecks posted:Yeah and gently caress games that give you poo poo like quest logs too, you should be forced to use a paper notebook like back in the good old days. And gently caress maps too, and gently caress saving your game at all, if you wanna play a game you should do the whole thing in one hideous sitting like it's Turtles in Time Absolutely no one is even implying this. Dragon's Dogma has every one of those things and you're still going to feel lost if you leave for 6 months because that's how almost any similar game works. Progressing quickly requires learning a lot of info about the game (both mechanics/skills and simply where you were/what you'd done) so of course you're going to forget it if you leave for a long time. It took me 20 minutes or so to get sorted out after just a couple weeks away from Lords of the Fallen in the middle of my second playthrough, and that game is considerably shorter.
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Dec 11, 2014 11:24
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Kimmalah posted:I guess it would help if you've taken a long break, but I hated that sort of thing when it was in a game I was playing continuously. If it's skippable though, I wouldn't mind. It's on the loading screen. It works out pretty great.
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Dec 11, 2014 11:42
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Piell posted:It's on the loading screen. It works out pretty great. That I don't mind. I was thinking it was something along the lines of Darksiders 2, that basically made you watch a cutscene recap every time you loaded the game up.
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Dec 11, 2014 11:45
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Skippable, or only happening the first time you start the game, is key. I got really tired of having to sit through a 3-minute phone call in Far Cry 3 every time I died trying to take a stronghold or just farting around the island.
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Dec 11, 2014 17:42
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I was playing Professor Layton Unwound Future last night, and used a hint on a puzzle. The hint basically boiled down to "This one is tricky! Think about it carefully!" Wow thanks Professor go to hell
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Dec 11, 2014 22:23
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DStecks posted:Yeah and gently caress games that give you poo poo like quest logs too, you should be forced to use a paper notebook like back in the good old days. And gently caress maps too, and gently caress saving your game at all, if you wanna play a game you should do the whole thing in one hideous sitting like it's Turtles in Time Turtles in Time is literally the worst example you could have used because it can be completed in under 30 minutes.
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Dec 11, 2014 22:45
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triplexpac posted:I was playing Professor Layton Unwound Future last night, and used a hint on a puzzle. The hint basically boiled down to "This one is tricky! Think about it carefully!" The hints in the Layton game I've played usually go like this: 1) In no way helpful 2) The Answer 3) The Answer again
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Dec 11, 2014 23:44
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Captain Falcon's gloves in the new Smash Bros game look terrible to me. He looks like his wrists are snapped in almost every screenshot.
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Dec 12, 2014 00:08
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Amoeba102 posted:The hints in the Layton game I've played usually go like this: Yeah this is pretty much how Layton hints work. Question: "What is two plus two?" Hint one: "Think about what two plus two is." Hint two: "One, two, three, ____" Hint three: "The answer is four." It's like playing the trivia game at Buffalo Wild Wings.
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Dec 12, 2014 00:29
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I always kind of wanted to spend all my hint coins on the really easy puzzles at the start of the games and see if the hint messages get incredibly condescending by the third hint.
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Dec 12, 2014 00:54
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im pooping! posted:Turtles in Time is literally the worst example you could have used because it can be completed in under 30 minutes. The game can be beaten before the credits to FF8 finish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-2oJ3GGUIQ
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Dec 12, 2014 01:04
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And speaking of Dragon's Dogma, that game has a lot going for it, and a lot of poo poo working against it. Two things bothered me more than anything: Enemy spawns are the exact same every time you go into the game world, and your pawns never stop saying stupidly obvious things. Apparently you can make them less talky, but that option is oddly worded and doesn't shut them up completely IIRC. That game had just a ton of little problems dragging it down, so hopefully Capcom is willing to make a sequel at some point. Maybe even with a PC version so people can mod things like that out.
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Dec 12, 2014 05:08
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Mildly Amusing posted:And speaking of Dragon's Dogma, that game has a lot going for it, and a lot of poo poo working against it. Two things bothered me more than anything: Enemy spawns are the exact same every time you go into the game world, and your pawns never stop saying stupidly obvious things. Apparently you can make them less talky, but that option is oddly worded and doesn't shut them up completely IIRC. Wolves hunt in packs.
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Dec 12, 2014 05:22
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im pooping! posted:Turtles in Time is literally the worst example you could have used because it can be completed in under 30 minutes. Uh, not if you're a seven year old kid.  I wasn't trying to demean Turtles in Time, it makes sense for that game that there's no saves, because yeah it's meant to be beaten all in one sitting. I just hate seeing people moan about games making the story easier for the player to follow, because there's a long history of games that were miserable because they made no such concessions and you only put up with that because you were a kid/teenager with mountains of spare time and probably a limited number of games.
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Dec 12, 2014 06:12
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Love how they keep nerfing the good items in Binding of Isaac Rebirth into uselessness while leaving the garbage items alone. Also the lost is still a horrible lovely character that everyone hates, goes completely against what the game is about and everyone who finished the game with him did so via a glitch that rendered them invulnerable. The hard mode is pretty weak to, it just starves you of keys and bombs and gives you horrible room lay-outs that in some occasions make it impossible to avoid damage unless you have flight.
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Dec 12, 2014 06:32
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Alteisen posted:Love how they keep nerfing the good items in Binding of Isaac Rebirth into uselessness while leaving the garbage items alone. Do BoI and Terraria have the same designers?
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Dec 12, 2014 06:44
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triplexpac posted:I was playing Professor Layton Unwound Future last night, and used a hint on a puzzle. The hint basically boiled down to "This one is tricky! Think about it carefully!"
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Dec 12, 2014 09:56
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Piell posted:It's on the loading screen. It works out pretty great. Human Revolution had this too, IIRC.
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Dec 12, 2014 09:57
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Alteisen posted:Love how they keep nerfing the good items in Binding of Isaac Rebirth into uselessness while leaving the garbage items alone. Any singleplayer game that receives nerfs on literally anything is the dumbest poo poo I've ever heard of in my life.
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Dec 12, 2014 14:33
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Alteisen posted:Love how they keep nerfing the good items in Binding of Isaac Rebirth into uselessness while leaving the garbage items alone. At least the most recent patch gets rid of the key/bomb starvation in hard mode. Now only heart drops are limited.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:12
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Heavy Lobster posted:Any singleplayer game that receives nerfs on literally anything is the dumbest poo poo I've ever heard of in my life. Balance in singleplayer games, while not as immediately vital as it is in multiplayer ones, is still pretty fundamental to good game design. Even moreso to a game like BoI where the challenge is a part of the appeal.
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Dec 12, 2014 16:35
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John Murdoch posted:Balance in singleplayer games, while not as immediately vital as it is in multiplayer ones, is still pretty fundamental to good game design. Even moreso to a game like BoI where the challenge is a part of the appeal. This is true, but the solution isn't to make things that are fun into unfun things, it's to improve the unfun things so that they're also viable options. Admittedly this is harder to pull off in games where high difficulty is an appeal, but if games like that ship with obvious Best strategies then it doesn't sound like a solidly designed game to begin with. There's also the classic response, just don't do the too strong thing if it takes away from your enjoyment. e: This isn't to say I disagree with you, I just think that with a few exceptions nerfing is not the best way to get a game balanced.
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Dec 12, 2014 17:03
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I can see why some people prefer Fallout: New Vegas to Fallout 3, but I sometimes think that it's a little overcomplicated. After completing the first act (which is quite linear, but in a good way), the game really opens up... but it does this by throwing a bunch of quests at you all at once, all from or relating to different factions that have different relationships with one another. It's still fun because it gives you things to do, but it really raises its head when you follow up on a suggestion to meet the Brotherhood of Steel. They arrest you and fit you with an explosive collar, effectively holding you prisoner until you "deal with" an NCR Ranger for them. It seems like you can do something with the Ranger's radio or pass a speech check, which I would've liked considering I've been working for the NCR previously... but I couldn't pass the speech check nor see the radio (he was apparently in the wrong place due to another New Vegas glitch). Therefore I had to kill him in order to continue with the Brotherhood quest, but in a moment of inconsistency I'm apparently not given a bad reputation with the NCR anyway? The only way I found out about most of this was by looking online (and even then I can't find an explanation for the last thing I mentioned), which takes us back to the discussion a while ago about games that get you looking online for things. I don't like it.
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Dec 12, 2014 18:04
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Heavy Lobster posted:This is true, but the solution isn't to make things that are fun into unfun things, it's to improve the unfun things so that they're also viable options. Admittedly this is harder to pull off in games where high difficulty is an appeal, but if games like that ship with obvious Best strategies then it doesn't sound like a solidly designed game to begin with. There's also the classic response, just don't do the too strong thing if it takes away from your enjoyment. Whereas I would argue that more often than not nerfing is inevitably going to be the best option because the presumed alternative, buffing a much larger pool of choices to compensate, takes far more work, is more likely to introduce more problems in the process, and even if all goes well is going to add power creep which can mess things up all the same. Ideally nerfing is just another tool in the toolbox, though.
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Dec 12, 2014 18:24
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One thing that bugged me about New Vegas and really any other game with competing factions is that they're all perfectly psychic. If I get the drop on a completely unawares soldier and take him out with a single headshot and he has no buddies for miles, I should not take a reputation hit. If there's two or whatever I can write that off as a radio transmission but not one clueless guy who died before he heard the rifle fire. I'm an invisible spirit of wrath dammit, let me play like one.
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Dec 12, 2014 19:08
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Chard posted:One thing that bugged me about New Vegas and really any other game with competing factions is that they're all perfectly psychic. If I get the drop on a completely unawares soldier and take him out with a single headshot and he has no buddies for miles, I should not take a reputation hit. If there's two or whatever I can write that off as a radio transmission but not one clueless guy who died before he heard the rifle fire. I'm an invisible spirit of wrath dammit, let me play like one. I know why they do that, but yeah. It sort of kills the feeling of immersion when they know instantaneously. Starsector did good with this thought. Since fights aren't exactly one-on-one or instantaneous, it makes sense that they can send a transmission out to their allies, or you can to yours. When it comes to smuggling, they launch an investigation when smuggling happens, and a while later it can lead back to you - but they don't know it was you that did it right away.
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Dec 12, 2014 19:30
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What frustrated me about New Vegas was that despite having good rep and bad rep levels, you still largely had an even divide between "shoot on sight" and "leave alone" with almost all factions. If you piss of a monolithic group even a little then you'd be slamming the ceiling of negative rep like a rocket just from defending yourself.
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Dec 12, 2014 19:42
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Chard posted:One thing that bugged me about New Vegas and really any other game with competing factions is that they're all perfectly psychic. If I get the drop on a completely unawares soldier and take him out with a single headshot and he has no buddies for miles, I should not take a reputation hit. If there's two or whatever I can write that off as a radio transmission but not one clueless guy who died before he heard the rifle fire. I'm an invisible spirit of wrath dammit, let me play like one. "We're getting attacked by the mercenary! Yeah, the mercenary that Sedano hired! Yeah, he's here and he's killing all of us! Send rein-*urk*" Apparently the command center couldn't figure out who was attacking them without that last sentence being finished.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:20
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Lotish posted:What frustrated me about New Vegas was that despite having good rep and bad rep levels, you still largely had an even divide between "shoot on sight" and "leave alone" with almost all factions. If you piss of a monolithic group even a little then you'd be slamming the ceiling of negative rep like a rocket just from defending yourself. When I did a run for the Legion side of things, I had already done a bunch of quests for the NCR first. So my reputation with them was so high that I managed to outright assassinate their president and only get down to "Wild Child" status, which still isn't a shoot on sight reputation.
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Dec 12, 2014 21:28
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