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Alteisen posted:Fast as gently caress, hides around corners, spawns in the most awkward places, can OHKO you and is tanky enough to walk through a swarm of bullets before going down. Nah, none of that is bad. Cloakers ganking you from across the street without moving, resetting, then taking out your buddy with "Get the gently caress Up"-skill is bad. But I haven't played in months. Still a good hangout game? e: Phone posting while walking at night, so my content is: Games that expect players to make meaningful character decisions at generation, or soon after without appropriate context. I mean, older rpgs had trap talents and the like, but I'm still put off by games saying "Your character has 39/40 Science, have fun with the terrible version of this conversation" when I'm a dozen hours into them. Polyseme has a new favorite as of 07:05 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 07:01
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Wasteland 2 was like a personification of that problem. I realize it's goal was to be an old school crpg, for better or for worse, but man did it bring some of the worst at times. 3 different lockpicking skills?!
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May 14, 2016 08:34
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Polyseme posted:Nah, none of that is bad. Cloakers ganking you from across the street without moving, resetting, then taking out your buddy with "Get the gently caress Up"-skill is bad. But I haven't played in months. Still a good hangout game? Yeah, it was really odd of Obsidian to make the skill checks a Yes/No situation when 3's were a roll of the dice. The latter feels more tabletop-y, which suits the game better.
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May 14, 2016 08:39
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Kay Kessler posted:Yeah, it was really odd of Obsidian to make the skill checks a Yes/No situation when 3's were a roll of the dice. The latter feels more tabletop-y, which suits the game better. The problem with the dice-roll system is that it's trivial to savescum, and especially so in Fallout 4 where you can quicksave in the middle of a conversation. It makes even a 1% chance an eventual guarantee if the player is willing to make the game unfun for themselves, and they usually are.
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May 14, 2016 08:43
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Red Minjo posted:The problem with the dice-roll system is that it's trivial to savescum, and especially so in Fallout 4 where you can quicksave in the middle of a conversation. It makes even a 1% chance an eventual guarantee if the player is willing to make the game unfun for themselves, and they usually are. While also meaning that there's not a whole lot of point to actually focusing on it, because you can never eradicate the chance of failure... unless you savescum, in which case it doesn't matter what your stat is. I hated dice-roll speech checks so much in Fallout 3 and 4 that I sometimes reloaded when I succeeded, because it felt like such an unearned shortcut victory.
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May 14, 2016 09:03
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Cleretic posted:While also meaning that there's not a whole lot of point to actually focusing on it, because you can never eradicate the chance of failure... unless you savescum, in which case it doesn't matter what your stat is. Er what? So if you had a less than 50% chance or something did you just reload? Why even take the option?
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May 14, 2016 09:22
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RagnarokAngel posted:Er what? So if you had a less than 50% chance or something did you just reload? Why even take the option? I'd take the option for kicks, because it seemed like it would be funny to say, or occasionally because I thought it'd fit the character to say it. Sometimes I'd underestimate how much it cut down, leading to a sidequest I might've been enjoying just ending because I got lucky. Once or twice it was because failing the speech check pissed people off, and I was more interested in fighting. I never made a speech/charisma-focused character, so I was rarely interested in the speech/charisma options. I'd take them sometimes to make myself laugh, but those games always (or at least, should have always) had alternative quest resolutions, and I wanted to do those instead.
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May 14, 2016 09:40
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New Vegas had the better system because you don't always need to pass a skill-check to get what you want, and you get the option to say something stupid when you're bargaining with people. "Chip out of luck"? Was that an attempt at humour?
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May 14, 2016 09:42
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Vegas won simply by not having it tied to one particular skill. Persuasion still generally works for most things but science+bartering will do just as well.
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May 14, 2016 09:57
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Cleretic posted:I'd take the option for kicks, because it seemed like it would be funny to say, or occasionally because I thought it'd fit the character to say it. Sometimes I'd underestimate how much it cut down, leading to a sidequest I might've been enjoying just ending because I got lucky. Once or twice it was because failing the speech check pissed people off, and I was more interested in fighting. I too frequently pick options I don't actually want, and then reset the game when they work out exactly as intended
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May 14, 2016 10:21
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Nuebot posted:I don't know what that guy's problem is, but here's what drags down online games for me. Timezones. Every game that has some kind of raid component, even loving destiny, is absolutely destroyed because my timezone is rear end backwards so just getting a group together is a pain let alone finding a big enough group of people that don't suck to do higher end content like raids, without having to schedule my free time around it completely like a complete poopsocker. This ruins games for me, too. Even stuff like Dark Souls leans on online. You can summon AI players, but there's a good portion of content that's just not reasonably possible without others. There's no way to do it in certain timezones. Even near launch, DS2 summons were ridiculously unreliable in Australia.
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May 14, 2016 12:23
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Polyseme posted:Nah, none of that is bad. Cloakers ganking you from across the street without moving, resetting, then taking out your buddy with "Get the gently caress Up"-skill is bad. But I haven't played in months. Still a good hangout game? The point of skill checks is that you should get extra options at different points in the game because of your choices. In your example you can't finish the quest in a "master of science" way but due to where you've put your skill points you can probably pick a lock and get some extra loot or use your high Medicine to figure out who's a drug addict just by looking at them. Having 39/40 science is only bad if the game expects you to put points in science and only science and doesn't reward other skills elsewhere.
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May 14, 2016 12:24
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Plus I think specifically the 39/40 science problem is supposed to be solved by keeping a utility belt of chems/magazines. I kept a few of my skills at weird numbers like 41 or 77 when leveling because I knew I could get up to a likely breakpoint by popping some mentats.
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May 14, 2016 13:00
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getting Speech to 48, and using items at just the right time to pass the only Speech 90 check in the game that matters, For The Win.
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May 14, 2016 13:08
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Cleretic posted:It's really just Kefka that's the problem, it's hard for a boss to stand as a strong narrative point when he goes down before he can even show all his phases.
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May 14, 2016 14:55
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ro5s posted:The thing dragging down every RPG I can think of is that there are no cosmetic armour options. Let me wear some ridiculous collection of bullshit for the stats and let me pick what my character's armour looks like as two separate things. It sucks because Bloodborne already nailed this - there's no equip load so you can wear whatever you want for appearance sake. In DS3 armor still doesn't make much of a difference between sets but now you need to invest in a stat just to look cool and not roll like a fatass.
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May 14, 2016 15:16
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well why not posted:Even stuff like Dark Souls leans on online. You can summon AI players, but there's a good portion of content that's just not reasonably possible without others. All of the games are perfectly doable in solo, and really I'd say most of the encounters are tuned around a single player engaging them.
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May 14, 2016 15:25
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Inspector Gesicht posted:New Vegas had the better system because you don't always need to pass a skill-check to get what you want, and you get the option to say something stupid when you're bargaining with people. New Vegas also had a speech check that you could pass by either being smart enough to figure out the password, or dumb enough to just say "Ice cream?" (which happened to be the password).
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May 14, 2016 15:36
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RagnarokAngel posted:Wasteland 2 was like a personification of that problem. I realize it's goal was to be an old school crpg, for better or for worse, but man did it bring some of the worst at times. 3 different lockpicking skills?! Alarm Disarming - occasionally unlocks electronic safes Computer Science - unlocks different, but sometimes the same, electronic devices Lockpicking - unlocks normal locks; like, the ones with keys Mechanical Repair - unlocks broken things, like safes you've critically failed to unlock (but only once!) Safecracking - unlocks nonelectronic safes Toaster Repair - unlocks toasters Brute Force - unlocks walls All of which use the same system of "fidget while a meter fills" and can be repeated indefinitely until it either works or you critically fail (and hit quick-load). And then, anticipating people would use the quick load button to cheese them, most of the later things to unlock require max skill to even have a chance to succeed, so if you want in a particular box you always have a significant chance to critically fail (something like 11% chance to succeed and 60% to crit fail, ie reload or lose out). They did it better with the rear end skills--if you have the skill to do something, you can do it, and if you can't, you can't, but there's no random chance, no farting around waiting for an animation to complete and sometimes using an rear end skill isn't automatically the best solution to your situation, so you can have characters specialized at negotiation, intimidation and wise-cracking and still have to make an interesting decision about who does the talking. marshmallow creep has a new favorite as of 15:42 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 15:37
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RyokoTK posted:All of the games are perfectly doable in solo, and really I'd say most of the encounters are tuned around a single player engaging them. Yeah, there's a few where the difference made by coop is particularly striking, generally ones where you're fighting two or three enemies, but they're entirely soloable. The only parts you should categorically not solo are the bonus areas in the Dark Souls 2 DLC since even if they're possible without help they're kind of a slog. It sucks to not even have the option though, since aside from knowledge of systems you can game and to a lesser extent grinding, summoning friends is the only way you can reduce the difficulty in those games.
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May 14, 2016 15:50
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Overcoming a severe challenge is quite actually the point of those games though, I think having an Easy Mode option would actually run counter to their own intention.
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May 14, 2016 15:58
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So is a lot of what they do these days. Nothing wrong with being difficult, but being difficult for the sake of being difficult is backwards and being so far up your own rear end with having to be difficult that you drag down the game with lovely design choices is even worse and it sucks every time a game gets this wrong. You can still be hard as balls without being inconvenient and purposefully arcane.
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May 14, 2016 16:07
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Also I think any intention that involves purposefully not having an easy mode is a misguided one but I've had that argument enough on these forums, go far back enough in any given thread and you'll probably find my lovely posts about it.
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May 14, 2016 16:11
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RyokoTK posted:Overcoming a severe challenge is quite actually the point of those games though, I think having an Easy Mode option would actually run counter to their own intention. I almost agree, but then I'm usually only interested in enemies in these games until I figure out the parry or dodge timings, and then I'm more interested in staring at a texture for a few minutes because that's the most interesting thing in the area. Or, at least, I did that in DeS and DS1. Then my PS3 broke. I mean, overcoming the challenge is fun, sure, but - for the sake of the one budding (and actual, by now) architect looking over my shoulder in horror while playing DS2 on PC - it would be nice to be able to walk through those dying lands without having to worry about just how many invincibility frames the PC has when equipped with the armor that protects from whatever. At some point, I'd like to just hand them the controller and tell them to have fun in their own way. Just, I don't know, with the acknowledgement that some things just won't work or something.
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May 14, 2016 16:13
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Morglon posted:So is a lot of what they do these days. Nothing wrong with being difficult, but being difficult for the sake of being difficult is backwards and being so far up your own rear end with having to be difficult that you drag down the game with lovely design choices is even worse and it sucks every time a game gets this wrong. You can still be hard as balls without being inconvenient and purposefully arcane. I think the stuff about their games that's backwards and arcane is less an issue of them trying to make the games as hard as possible, and more the fact that From are a bunch of bizarre and disconnected weirdos that have no idea how to interact with their fans and don't seem to be overly sure of how people play their games. That is dragging the games down. When it comes to the things that are actually, honest-to-god difficult, it really is about player skill, trying and failing certain strategies, dodging enemies and countering when you have a chance. Having a thorough understanding of how poise works, or removing weapon durability, isn't going to stop you from getting a loving sword in your face from a hard boss, dodging or blocking is, and that stuff is perfectly straightforward. HMS Boromir posted:Also I think any intention that involves purposefully not having an easy mode is a misguided one I really don't want this to come off as a git gud post, but to me the absolute best part of all these games is the second playthrough, when I know how the game works and how the bosses act and I just loving stomp through everything. I feel great, like I actually overcame a trial and got gud. That relief of beating a tough fucker of a boss is palpable. Having an easy mode option absolutely would cheapen that design intention. If that's not for you then that's not for you, and I don't think anyone around here would deride you for that, but that doesn't mean the game is bad for it. There are lots of games that you can sleepwalk through and look at the pretty architecture, but are very good games nonetheless.
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May 14, 2016 16:29
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RyokoTK posted:I really don't want this to come off as a git gud post, but to me the absolute best part of all these games is the second playthrough, when I know how the game works and how the bosses act and I just loving stomp through everything. I feel great, like I actually overcame a trial and got gud. That relief of beating a tough fucker of a boss is palpable. Having an easy mode option absolutely would cheapen that design intention. If that's not for you then that's not for you, and I don't think anyone around here would deride you for that, but that doesn't mean the game is bad for it. There are lots of games that you can sleepwalk through and look at the pretty architecture, but are very good games nonetheless. I've beaten DS1 and DS2 plenty of times, the Easy mode I campaign for isn't for me personally and it isn't even necessarily about Dark Souls in particular, it's just a high profile game that's hard and has no difficulty options. I just disagree about easier difficulty settings cheapening anything and think the improved accessibility of putting an easy mode in your game is all upside. The counterargument I've seen that has the most legs in my mind is that people who could handle normal mode would play easy mode and have a diminished experience, but to me that doesn't outweigh the potential number of people who would play the game on easy instead of not at all. It's a matter of opinion to be sure, I just feel like having an easy mode is the more considerate approach.
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May 14, 2016 18:18
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i like how souls games account for coop in their fights. cooping bosses scales their hp so the more people in your team, the more hits it takes to drop the boss. the fights are easier because the bosses now have more than one target. even an AI bot can be helpful just to take the pressure off you while you're healing up. I don't think every boss is well designed, but I like that balance. not sure if every fight has an AI summon or not. as for the obtuse side quests, that's just from being from. my second playthrough is gonna be a little faster than my first one but I'm gonna have to have the ds3 wiki on my second monitor so I don't miss moundmakers again. 
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May 14, 2016 18:28
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HMS Boromir posted:I've beaten DS1 and DS2 plenty of times, the Easy mode I campaign for isn't for me personally and it isn't even necessarily about Dark Souls in particular, it's just a high profile game that's hard and has no difficulty options. I just disagree about easier difficulty settings cheapening anything and think the improved accessibility of putting an easy mode in your game is all upside. The counterargument I've seen that has the most legs in my mind is that people who could handle normal mode would play easy mode and have a diminished experience, but to me that doesn't outweigh the potential number of people who would play the game on easy instead of not at all. It's a matter of opinion to be sure, I just feel like having an easy mode is the more considerate approach. I don't really think broad market accessibility is something every game needs to concern themselves with. Niche titles exist in every medium and for every genre. Dark Souls and Demon Souls were difficult and obtuse, and King's Field was difficult and obtuse before those. I don't think they were ever really intended to be mainstream action RPGs, and they became popular because of what they are, not despite that. To me it seems that the high difficulty is intended to be a core part of the experience, so the idea that "I want to experience Dark Souls but I want an easy mode toggle" is inherently contradictory.
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May 14, 2016 19:27
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This article makes some decent arguments about having an easy mode. I don't agree with it entirely, but it has a point in that these games aren't difficult just because of their numbers, but are hard because of how they're designed. And regardless of whether you change that design itself or just make the numbers so slanted in the player's favor that anyone can win, an easy mode ends up compromising that design. And for all the parts of the games I complain about, the design is one of their strongest features and something that should really be preserved if possible. That said they're far from perfect, and often do resort to dumb numbers poo poo like the cursed chalice dungeons in bloodborne, which is so bad it actually compromises other mechanics like the regain system. If there was a toggleable easy mode, you bet I would turn it on for those dungeons, because "the same game but now you have half health" is the laziest loving design on from's part and something they should be ashamed of, considering how much better they've proved they can be.
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May 14, 2016 19:30
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Somfin posted:In D3 you're a direct descendant of angel-demon hybrids, and an NPC explicitly states that's the only reason why you can win fights against strong monsters. gently caress genetic superiority bullshit in power fantasy games, I don't want to be strong because of my more interesting parents. It lowers the stakes because suddenly you were always just mathematically better than most of your enemies and allies. You're leaving out the part where the demon/angel thing was literally the origin of all humanity. Scaly Haylie has a new favorite as of 19:34 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 19:31
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I think I don't mind a high difficulty if it still feels like the game wants me to win. Dark Souls 3 has that for the most part, but I've hit a wall where it seems to have stopped doing that, at the beginning of Lothric Castle. The knights wouldn't be too bad but pairing them with the mages makes things incredibly obnoxious. The red eyed knight does enough damage and has enough health to be a major threat already, and it's the first knight of that type that I recall, so does it really need a limitless health refill and a damage buff? Then there are the two lothric knights straight after with a mage of their own, this area seems deliberately designed to punish solo play, while before I only had to summon for a couple of bosses. The garden optional area doesn't seem like it'll be too bad, I can load up on black firebombs with Patches and potentially kill those corrupted guys fairly quickly, but it's still a pain in the rear end that I'll have to rely on summoning to get me past this original hurdle. Apparently after this set of encounters there is a bonfire and then it sounds like it gets much more manageable after that, but these encounters at the beginning of the area just seem backwards due to their difficulty. I know I know ~*~get gud~*~ but I haven't got the parrying down so this area is particularly hard for me. BioEnchanted has a new favorite as of 20:35 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 19:52
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BioEnchanted posted:I think I don't mind a high difficulty if it still feels like the game wants me to win. Dark Souls has that for the most part, but I've hit a wall where it seems to have stopped doing that, at the beginning of Lothric Castle. The knights wouldn't be too bad but pairing them with the mages makes things incredibly obnoxious. The red eyed knight does enough damage and has enough health to be a major threat already, and it's the first knight of that type that I recall, so does it really need a limitless health refill and a damage buff? Then there are the two lothric knights straight after with a mage of their own, this area seems deliberately designed to punish solo play, while before I only had to summon for a couple of bosses. The garden optional area doesn't seem like it'll be too bad, I can load up on black firebombs with Patches and potentially kill those corrupted guys fairly quickly, but it's still a pain in the rear end that I'll have to rely on summoning to get me past this original hurdle. Apparently after this set of encounters there is a bonfire and then it sounds like it gets much more manageable after that, but these encounters at the beginning of the area just seem backwards due to their difficulty. That area sucks but you can dash straight through to the bonfire in like 15 seconds, fyi.
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May 14, 2016 20:09
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RyokoTK posted:I don't really think broad market accessibility is something every game needs to concern themselves with. Niche titles exist in every medium and for every genre. Dark Souls and Demon Souls were difficult and obtuse, and King's Field was difficult and obtuse before those. I don't think they were ever really intended to be mainstream action RPGs, and they became popular because of what they are, not despite that. Again, really don't know that it's worth having this argument again, but here goes: I disagree that there's such a thing as a game that "doesn't need to concern itself" with accessibility. There are certainly games that don't and it's not the end of the world, just like it's not the end of the world if you don't put in a colorblind mode or put in a map or similar nods to accessibility, or indeed put in detailed graphics settings or carefully design characters to have striking silhouettes for easy readability, or any number of other things some games do that other games don't, but that it would be nice if every game did. It's a matter of priorities, to be sure, but I don't think you should write off difficulty options even if your game is meant to be challenging. Most hard games, even ones where the difficulty is important to the experience, have something to them other than just the fact that they're hard - I wouldn't suggest putting in an easy mode for, say, Stephen's Sausage Roll, since there is (to my knowledge) nothing to that game other than its puzzles. At most, I'd suggest putting a set of easy levels into the game so someone who's not very good at it can get some enjoyment out of it. Dark Souls on the other hand is a particularly good example, since people love it for the exploration, for the cryptic lore, for playing dress-up with themed characters. Seems like a shame to lock that behind a challenge that you don't get to adjust directly. The multiplayer makes it rough to actually implement difficulty selection the way you would in a game that didn't have Dark Souls' invasion/co-op system but again this is mostly an argument about easy modes in general rather than specifically Dark Souls. Metal Gear Rising, another of my favorite hard games, has a difficulty setting, and even if you don't get as much pleasure from the mechanics if you're not good enough at the game to play on a higher difficulty, you still get to be along for a wild ride, moreso than you would watching a Let's Play or whatever. Plus, consider that for people who wouldn't get past the first boss or what have you on a harder difficulty, easy mode probably would be challenging. Not every game has an impeccable difficulty curve and even those that do can be too hard for some people. But they might still get something out of the game if they were allowed to turn down the challenge a bit. It just seems nice to me to give the player the option. Please take my lunch money for making this post at your earliest convenience HMS Boromir has a new favorite as of 20:15 on May 14, 2016 |
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May 14, 2016 20:10
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The Moon Monster posted:That area sucks but you can dash straight through to the bonfire in like 15 seconds, fyi. Yeah, in Dark Souls, when in doubt, just run through an area.
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May 14, 2016 20:11
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BioEnchanted posted:I think I don't mind a high difficulty if it still feels like the game wants me to win. Dark Souls has that for the most part, but I've hit a wall where it seems to have stopped doing that, at the beginning of Lothric Castle. The knights wouldn't be too bad but pairing them with the mages makes things incredibly obnoxious. The red eyed knight does enough damage and has enough health to be a major threat already, and it's the first knight of that type that I recall, so does it really need a limitless health refill and a damage buff? Then there are the two lothric knights straight after with a mage of their own, this area seems deliberately designed to punish solo play, while before I only had to summon for a couple of bosses. The garden optional area doesn't seem like it'll be too bad, I can load up on black firebombs with Patches and potentially kill those corrupted guys fairly quickly, but it's still a pain in the rear end that I'll have to rely on summoning to get me past this original hurdle. Apparently after this set of encounters there is a bonfire and then it sounds like it gets much more manageable after that, but these encounters at the beginning of the area just seem backwards due to their difficulty. You might wanna mark that as Dark Souls 3 considering the block of spoiler text.
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May 14, 2016 20:19
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Lizard Wizard posted:You might wanna mark that as Dark Souls 3 considering the block of spoiler text. Sorry about that. I temporarily forgot there were 3 of the fuckers. I got past that though, running worked like a charm.
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May 14, 2016 20:36
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Suggesting an easy mode for dark souls makes me clutch my pearls, and type long boring rants that boil down to "why are you trying to steal from me the thing that is mine and not yours"
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May 14, 2016 21:17
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There is an easy mode in DS3, you turn it on by using an ember and equipping the Way of the Blue covenant
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May 14, 2016 21:23
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I think modifiable difficulty in games is fine because I really don't care about how hard other people play the game for themselves. Play the game however it's enjoyable for you that doesn't involve aimbotting or cheats like that. Unless it's single player.
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May 14, 2016 21:43
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HMS Boromir posted:snip I haven't played Dark Souls 2 yet but I've seen a playthrough and there's a covenant in Majula that makes things harder than they already are, right? someone can correct me on this. that could be a way to organically add in an easier mode to the game, because I think anything else would cause some portion of the fanbase to lose their poo poo. either that or someone could make a souls type game with a lower difficulty curve, like how bloodborne is a souls game with a faster pace and more emphasis on aggressive combat.
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May 14, 2016 22:15
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