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Taear posted:Fighting is kinda boring. That's not what I'm in an RPG for. You missed the entire point of the RPG genre. RPGs are about the fighting mechanics.
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Jan 11, 2016 20:38
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Considering how boring and mindless the combat is for the first several dozen hours of the game, you should expect some skepticism toward the idea that the post-game bosses are cool and interesting to fight. "Hey, I know your head hurt the last 50 times you banged it into this wall, but it'll get good soon"
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Jan 11, 2016 20:43
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I should have known well in advance that this game would be the one to reap my taint.
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Jan 11, 2016 20:44
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X certainly has some issues but hopefully they know what to improve on in any sort of sequel. I still really like the overall concept and the robots and no really pointless Lao moment is going to ruin that for me. But they definitely could try to make you want to use other characters or go back to a more varied ground combat system.
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Jan 11, 2016 20:49
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The Taint Reaper posted:It sounds like all you did is unlock the probe sites and didn't bother to fight any of the harder Tyrants or do the multitude of world quests that are out there. I got super freaked out when I warped to that probe site that overlooks nla right in front of a slumbering Elvira the whateverdrake. It was a pretty cool moment, and showcased the enormity of some of those tyrants since I wasn't riding a skell at the time
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Jan 11, 2016 20:55
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Taear posted:I rationalised that as the Aliens wanting to torture humanity. So they knew people would escape Earth but they didn't want to destroy the last humans until they'd seen everything else get smashed up. It doesn't really need to be rationalized there is an in-game explanation for it that is kinda spoilery. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 20:58
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Supercar Gautier posted:Considering how boring and mindless the combat is for the first several dozen hours of the game, you should expect some skepticism toward the idea that the post-game bosses are cool and interesting to fight. you're given at least 3 different combat styles to try out before they split into 12 other classes. And not only that the enemies have different breakable weakpoints that you're supposed to go around and wreck. There's a bunch of skills that you level up as well as abilities to make your guy a powerhouse that each tree has for different endgame builds. they all play differently similar to the different weapon classes in monster hunter or the different classes in Diablo. The object becomes essentially how long you can stay in overdrive, which apparently a ton of Japanese players like to do. Because they like seeing how long they can keep their chains up, which is why you have a few bosses centered around doing this. The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 21:02
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The Taint Reaper posted:you're given at least 3 different combat styles to try out before they split into 12 other classes. And not only that the enemies have different breakable weakpoints that you're supposed to go around and wreck. There's a bunch of skills that you level up as well as abilities to make your guy a powerhouse that each tree has for different endgame builds. This is granularity, which is not the same thing as depth or engagement. During the course of the main campaign and the level-appropriate missions that coincide with it, you don't have to do anything but pick a class at random, hit whichever arts are lit up while fighting, and upgrade your armor/skills/arts periodically. The fine-tuning aspects are present, but they're obtuse, tedious, and most of all, completely unnecessary for success. I can't think of a game I care less about learning to be "good at" than XCX, because it's already so easy and getting good is so boring. After dozens of hours of that, why would anyone expect the post-game to get more interesting? People are going to look at the amount of time the game has already wasted, and write the game off once they beat the final boss (or even before).
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Jan 11, 2016 21:24
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The Taint Reaper posted:You missed the entire point of the RPG genre. RPGs are about the fighting mechanics. I like RPGs because they tend to be the genre that best mixes fighting and gameplay mechanics with things like a compelling story, immersive setting, interesting characters, etc. XCX kind of lacks those things, and it's hard to stay interested in the combat alone without having any of that other stuff around to keep me engaged.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:24
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Davos posted:I like RPGs because they tend to be the genre that best mixes fighting and gameplay mechanics with things like a compelling story, immersive setting, interesting characters, etc. XCX kind of lacks those things, and it's hard to stay interested in the combat alone without having any of that other stuff around to keep me engaged. How could you say it lacks an immersive setting when the world is just loaded with explorable areas? This isn't like daggerfall where poo poo is randomly generated from a bunch of presets, all the areas have been meticulously planned and have secret passages, hidden unique subzones, and a ton of stuff to seek out in them. Xenoblade's world is probably one of the most immersive settings for an open world games this side of Morrowind. Hell it certainly beat the pants off of Skyrim's world.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:29
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The Taint Reaper posted:How could you say it lacks an immersive setting when the world is just loaded with explorable areas? Being able to explore things doesn't make it immersive, things like logical consistency, atmosphere, sound design, compelling backstory and characters, etc. do that. While Mira looks visually interesting I just don't find it that immersive to run around this world filled with MMO mobs collecting floating blue diamonds and completing a checklist of hunting and gathering quests
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Jan 11, 2016 21:33
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Davos posted:Being able to explore things doesn't make it immersive, things like logical consistency, atmosphere, sound design, compelling backstory and characters, etc. do that. While Mira looks visually interesting I just don't find it that immersive to run around this world filled with MMO mobs collecting floating blue diamonds and completing a checklist of hunting and gathering quests The first game has an immersive world. This one has some amazing visuals - like the gigantic dinosaurs and such - but it never actually comes alive. Also combat against things that aren't real people is always boring and I play RPGs entirely because of the story and exploration. XCX scratches the second part of this but not the first. I'm fine to carry on to see more aliens though.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:37
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Davos posted:While Mira looks visually interesting I just don't find it that immersive to run around this world filled with MMO mobs collecting floating blue diamonds and completing a checklist of hunting and gathering quests But... that's what you did in Xenoblade?  That is 90% of Xenoblade's gameplay unless you flat-out ignore everything that isn't the main story.I'm getting the weird feeling that despite all the praise for Xenoblade people really didn't actually like much of it which would explain a lot.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:37
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Davos posted:Being able to explore things doesn't make it immersive. Yes it does, all that other poo poo is just bells and whistles. Havn't you ever played Myst before? The exploration took center stage for Myst and Riven. The Story was just to string the player along to the next set of areas with puzzles and to see how the world intersected. Hell Myst and Riven started with just dropping the player off in an area and the games hoped you read the manual/diary. Supercar Gautier posted:This is granularity, which is not the same thing as depth or engagement. Nothing about Xenoblade's abilities are obtuse and the descriptions are pretty on the nose for character stuff. They flat out explain what they do and they couldn't be anymore clearer. Hell the abilities are on par with what Blizzard has for their games which allows people to dick around with different builds and find what works. And there really is no such thing as level appropriate for an open world game. Because I was level 50 before I even got my flightpack, the game is incredibly non-linear. And the Board missions will keep changing until you complete them all so you're allowed to stop at any point in the game and just max out your characters stuff. The missions provide incentive to go deeper into the world itself. Yeah they may be kill big boss guy, but big boss guy may be located on an area where you have no figured out how to access yet since many areas have multiple entry points. The only thing that limited me was the small section of areas where you couldn't jump up to like Divine Roost or the out of reach islands located in the pit or above the sea. And those are less than 1% of the whole explorable world.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:38
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ImpAtom posted:But... that's what you did in Xenoblade? The first game has a plot that provides personal investment and forward momentum for most of your actions. This one doesn't. That's about the long and short of it. Also the numerous QoL issues probably don't help either, Xenoblade was already pretty bad at that and XCX fixes one problem (sidequest queues) and somehow makes everything else even worse
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Jan 11, 2016 21:41
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ImpAtom posted:
This, I was about to say the same thing.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:44
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Taear posted:The first game has an immersive world. This one has some amazing visuals - like the gigantic dinosaurs and such - but it never actually comes alive. Xenoblade had an interesting story and characters to drive things, with the plot integrating into the gameplay in novel ways such as the Mondao's story powers translating directly into Shulk's combat abilities, every character having unique movesets and abilities that related to who they were as a person, party affinity being represented by shared skills, etc. X lacks a lot of that and instead leans heavily upon exploration and sidequests, the latter of which was by far the weakest part of the previous game.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:44
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Davos posted:Xenoblade had an interesting story and characters to drive things, with the plot integrating into the gameplay in novel ways such as the Mondao's story powers translating directly into Shulk's combat abilities, every character having unique movesets and abilities that related to who they were as a person, party affinity being represented by shared skills, etc. X lacks a lot of that and instead leans heavily upon exploration and sidequests, the latter of which was by far the weakest part of the previous game. Except the object of a game is to not tell a story. Games are all about mechanics and the story is supposed to be more of an afterthought. like dman do you think people play Settlers of Catan or Dungeons and Dragons for the gripping world lore? gently caress no it's basic as hell to provide a leaping point for everything else.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:46
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Oxxidation posted:The first game has a plot that provides personal investment and forward momentum for most of your actions. This one doesn't. That's about the long and short of it. Yep, as we said earlier in the thread - each part of Xenoblade is introduced to you via the main story. It gives it weight. Each character has a role in the story and is unique with their own special role. XCX hasn't got this. For me it fixed the issue of taking forever to find quest givers which was the worst part of Xenoblade but that's the lot. It's also a shitload more opaque generally, so much stuff isn't told to you even in the manual. quote:Except the object of a game is to not tell a story. Games are all about mechanics and the story is supposed to be more of an afterthought.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:47
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Taear posted:Yep, as we said earlier in the thread - each part of Xenoblade is introduced to you via the main story. It gives it weight. Each character has a role in the story and is unique with their own special role. I think I get now why Square Enix makes the story and cinematics first and then gave final fantasy 13 nothing but hallways.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:49
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Taear posted:
a game that uses mechanics as an afterthought does not have phonebook sized rulebooks with nothing but monster stats. D&D gives you the freedom to do whatever the gently caress you want within the context of the game.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:50
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The Taint Reaper posted:Except the object of a game is to not tell a story. Games are all about mechanics and the story is supposed to be more of an afterthought. I disagree, I think that telling stores is the primary purpose of games. Whether it be a developer written story or one formed by the player's own unique experiences, it's all about creating and telling stories. But at this point it seems like you're just trying to argue about the different ways in which people play and enjoy games, which is something that you're never going to convince people about.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:50
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Oxxidation posted:The first game has a plot that provides personal investment and forward momentum for most of your actions. This one doesn't. That's about the long and short of it. So what this is boiling down to is that people really did only enjoy Xenoblade for the plot and setting. I mean that sounds dismissive but it explains a lot. When Xenoblade came out people wouldn't stop shutting up about how it was a revolution in JRPG design and generally I assumed people actually were fond of the gameplay elements and design elements. It feels like it's completely reversed and now Xenoblade was lovely all along but people put up with it because they liked the characters and plot. Which is perfectly fine and there's nothing wrong with it, but I genuinely assumed people were into Xenoblade for its core gameplay and design. I liked Xenoblade a lot but I never found it this extreme revolution that a lot of people seemed to and I never quite got why. And I can certainly understand playing a game whose gameplay annoys me because I like the characters and plot. It's basically what carries me through Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Taear posted:Nope. Especially you using D&D as an example, that's all about stories and mechanics are the afterthought. ... what? The entire point of D&D is the mechanics. If you only cared about stories you wouldn't be playing a game with randomized dice rolls and character optimization and tons of source books dedicated to more complex character building and monster classes. There are in fact a lot of people who do that.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:51
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The Taint Reaper posted:a game that uses mechanics as an afterthought does not have phonebook sized rulebooks with nothing but monster stats. D&D gives you the freedom to do whatever the gently caress you want within the context of the game. The stats don't make the game. The game is the story and the stats are there to frame it within. Whereas you believe it's the other way around. I played D&D because I liked the setting. The rulebooks are there to give more stuff to do within that setting that's approved by the people who created the setting instead of having to rely entirely on our own imagination. They frame the story. The story is the bit you're actually there for, or why bother with a role playing game at all?
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Jan 11, 2016 21:52
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ImpAtom posted:So what this is boiling down to is that people really did only enjoy Xenoblade for the plot. Lots of people need a reason to do stuff in games, man. I was beating this same drum when FFXIII came out. It doesn't matter how fun or solid the gameplay is, if you're just spending hours and hours hitting buttons and watching bars go up without context or purpose then many people feel a yawning pit in their stomach as the fleeting minutes of their lives trickle away. Functional stories provide context. XCX doesn't have one.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:53
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Davos posted:I disagree, I think that telling stores is the primary purpose of games. Whether it be a developer written story or one formed by the player's own unique experiences, it's all about creating and telling stories. Year 2016 people don't understand videogames. Time to fill this thread with discarded copies of Sonic:The Dark Brotherhood and then seal it off for all eternity.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:54
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Davos posted:Xenoblade had an interesting story and characters to drive things, with the plot integrating into the gameplay in novel ways such as the Mondao's story powers translating directly into Shulk's combat abilities, every character having unique movesets and abilities that related to who they were as a person, party affinity being represented by shared skills, etc. X lacks a lot of that and instead leans heavily upon exploration and sidequests, the latter of which was by far the weakest part of the previous game. I would consider the Monado's story powers impacting gameplay to be a huge minus, honestly. Not being able to damage mechons with normal weapons, or worse, having to rely on your AI allies to get a Break -> Topple combo to actually damage a boss was one of the worst aspects of the game. The way that arts were integreated into cutscenes were nice though, you see Reyn shielding people a lot, because that's his role in the party. Unlike, say, Lin, who just kinda stands around in every cutscene (I believe there is one comedy option that's like "Use Lin as a shield" which is silly because she's the party's tank).
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Jan 11, 2016 21:54
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ImpAtom posted:So what this is boiling down to is that people really did only enjoy Xenoblade for the plot and setting. I think you're downplaying the way in which people's enjoyment of one aspect of a game affect the others. Yes, I liked the story and setting and Xenoblade, but I also enjoyed the combat and exploration. And my enjoyment of the former affected my enjoyment of the latter because they worked together and complimented one another well. The plot and interesting setting contextualized the gameplay mechanics in a way that drove me to play on and find continual enjoyment. Elements of games don't exist in a vacuum from one another. I liked the story of Xenoblade but I wouldn't have enjoyed a novel that was just that story so much, and similarly while I liked the gameplay I wouldn't enjoy that devoid of the other things surrounding it.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:56
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Oxxidation posted:Lots of people need a reason to do stuff in games, man. I was beating this same drum when FFXIII came out. It doesn't matter how fun or solid the gameplay is, if you're just spending hours and hours hitting buttons and watching bars go up without context or purpose then many people feel a yawning pit in their stomach as the fleeting minutes of their lives trickle away. Functional stories provide context. XCX doesn't have one. Absolutely 100%. And I disliked FF13 for the same reason that XCX has mostly rubbed me the wrong way. Characters that felt 'off' and annoying as well as tonnes of busywork quests without an interesting context behind it.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:56
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The Taint Reaper posted:Year 2016 people don't understand videogames. I'm sorry if people liking things for different reasons than you like them upsets you
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Jan 11, 2016 21:57
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ImpAtom posted:The voice acting is honestly not much worse I have to say. It's got a lot more generic voice actors but I think there are some good performances considering the material. The cutscene direction absolutely is though and that's a big flaw with the game. The cutscenes are largely boring even ones like "Nagi goes apeshit on a dude" which should be amazing as hell. There are way too many which are just 'characters sit around talking with no animation" which is kind of inexcusable and should have just been non-voiced if they were gonna do that. This, so much this. Almost feels like the cutscene director just stopped coming into work one day, and a bunch of placeholder scenes with the characters stuck unmoving in their starting locations made it into the final game without anybody noticing, that's how bad it is sometimes
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Jan 11, 2016 21:57
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Oxxidation posted:Lots of people need a reason to do stuff in games, man. I was beating this same drum when FFXIII came out. It doesn't matter how fun or solid the gameplay is, if you're just spending hours and hours hitting buttons and watching bars go up without context or purpose then many people feel a yawning pit in their stomach as the fleeting minutes of their lives trickle away. Functional stories provide context. XCX doesn't have one. XCX has a functional main story, just not a very good one and not much beyond functional.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:58
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There are plenty of games I play for the mechanics rather than their story. For example, I've recently been getting back into Starcraft 2, which has an absolutely horrible story, but the multiplayer gameplay is staggeringly deep and fun and rewarding to learn. XCX's combat is not very fun, or rewarding to learn. It is only deep in the sense that accounting is deep.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:58
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Suaimhneas posted:This, so much this. Almost feels like the cutscene director just stopped coming into work one day, and a bunch of placeholder scenes with the characters stuck unmoving in their starting locations made it into the final game without anybody noticing, that's how bad it is sometimes Can't wait for Zelda Wii-U to have a talking Link and Zelda.
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Jan 11, 2016 21:58
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Motto posted:I honestly have no idea what "anime" means as a descriptor or adjective. If you're having trouble parsing what someone means when they describe something as being anime, think of it as the difference between mechwarrior and anything related to gundam. The less grounded in reality you are, the more anime it is. And yes, I'm aware that I'm using walking mechs as my baseline for something grounded in reality.
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Jan 11, 2016 22:02
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ImpAtom posted:So what this is boiling down to is that people really did only enjoy Xenoblade for the plot and setting. I liked Xenoblade for the characters and plot, but I also appreciated the cooldown-based combat because running out of MP in the middle of a dungeon is an archaic game mechanic that needs to die. XCX improves on the combat with the secondary cooldowns and soul voices that make it so there's more decision-making than just "hit everything as it comes off cooldown", but it totally dropped the ball on that other stuff. Edit: it also drops the ball on combat when you get later into the game and find yourself doing more of the simpler and more boring skell combat Suaimhneas fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jan 11, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 22:04
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Oxxidation posted:Lots of people need a reason to do stuff in games, man. I was beating this same drum when FFXIII came out. It doesn't matter how fun or solid the gameplay is, if you're just spending hours and hours hitting buttons and watching bars go up without context or purpose then many people feel a yawning pit in their stomach as the fleeting minutes of their lives trickle away. Functional stories provide context. XCX doesn't have one. This isn't true though. There are plenty of games that people play just for their mechanics without need of anything more than a barebones storyline, or even games where people say the storyline gets in the way of the core gameplay. A good story can absolutely improve a game but if you're unable to enjoy the gameplay without the story backing it up then I think that says poor things about the gameplay. And that is fine. I've enjoyed games with character and stories I've liked but lackluster or unimpressive gameplay.
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Jan 11, 2016 22:04
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ImpAtom posted:This isn't true though. There are plenty of games that people play just for their mechanics without need of anything more than a barebones storyline, or even games where people say the storyline gets in the way of the core gameplay. A good story can absolutely improve a game but if you're unable to enjoy the gameplay without the story backing it up then I think that says poor things about the gameplay. Yeah, there are lots of games for people who don't care about that. MMO's, roguelikes, the entire Monster Hunter franchise. But there are also many that are benefited by their stories, and that is why they are enjoyed by people who need context for their actions. Xenoblade was one of the latter. XCX is one of the former - actually, it's even worse, since so much of the story and writing is actively detrimental to the experience. The disparity is unpleasant to many people.
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Jan 11, 2016 22:06
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The combat is cool for the first few hours but then you realize it quickly devolves into building your character to kill everything before it can attack, or you die instead. Then you're so used to skell combat, that when the game suddenly decides you're not allowed to use them you're horribly unprepared.
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Jan 11, 2016 22:10
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ImpAtom posted:This isn't true though. There are plenty of games that people play just for their mechanics without need of anything more than a barebones storyline, or even games where people say the storyline gets in the way of the core gameplay. A good story can absolutely improve a game but if you're unable to enjoy the gameplay without the story backing it up then I think that says poor things about the gameplay. And that is fine. I've enjoyed games with character and stories I've liked but lackluster or unimpressive gameplay. Games are more than the sum of their parts. It's entirely possible that there is a game who's story I might not enjoy enough to carry bad gameplay, or that has gameplay I like but not enough to enjoy when lacking the context of a solid story or world. But add together that story and that gameplay and it could create a much greater experience.
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Jan 11, 2016 22:12
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