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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Baldur's Gate II and Morrowind were pretty good though, right In hindsight it's easy to see the same flaws that affect their later games but yeah, they are good.
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Mar 15, 2017 07:41
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bloodychill posted:The odd thing is all the Mass Effect games had way better combat than DA:I and came before it. It's been too long for me to comment on the side quests though. All I remember are the character quests, which were usually good. There is a reason you only remember the character quests in Inquisition, most side quests were really cheaply done or really cheaply done and also just text with a timer. Did the party member sidequests even have choices?
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Mar 15, 2017 07:46
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Yeah you could tell Sera to gently caress off
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Mar 15, 2017 07:49
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:Did the party member sidequests even have choices? You mean things like who to save in Bull's side quest? Once choice leads to you having to kill Bull in Trespasser. How you handled various quests affected who became Divine too, I think.
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Mar 15, 2017 07:50
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bloodychill posted:The odd thing is all the Mass Effect games had way better combat than DA:I and came before it. It's been too long for me to comment on the side quests though. All I remember are the character quests, which were usually good. I watched a couple streams of Andromeda and I think ME combat really loses its flow when you're just driving around from prefab structure to structure, fighting 3-4 guys at an outpost and then moving on. Without some setpiece elements to add some challenge and compelling visuals it gets very dull indeed.
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Mar 15, 2017 07:52
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So apparently the new hacking minigame in Andromeda is a sudoku puzzle. That seems like an incredibly annoying decision. They give you the option to bypass it with special decryption keys which are, naturally, consumables.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:02
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The big quest in Inquisition where you go to a party and pick the next queen or whatever reminded me of Alpha Protocol but bad and with much more of the boring combat.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:04
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alpha boredocol just kidding alpha protocol is a video game of acceptable quality
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Mar 15, 2017 08:04
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:The big quest in Inquisition where you go to a party and pick the next queen or whatever reminded me of Alpha Protocol but bad and with much more of the boring combat. That mission didn't work well, especially with the timer.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:04
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Kai Tave posted:So apparently the new hacking minigame in Andromeda is a sudoku puzzle. That seems like an incredibly annoying decision. They give you the option to bypass it with special decryption keys which are, naturally, consumables. Cautious optimism... evaporated.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:11
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It's amazing that people managed to somehow enjoy the original Deus Ex in the dark years before you needed a minigame for hacking and lockpicking.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:16
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:Cautious optimism... evaporated. To be fair the streamer I was watching had just played for like five hours straight and it was midnight where he was so he wasn't approaching it fresh, but even still I can't imagine who thought it was a good idea to go "you know what would really help break up all this tedious combat and exploration? A nice round of sudoku."
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Mar 15, 2017 08:17
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TF2 HAT MINING RIG posted:It's amazing that people managed to somehow enjoy the original Deus Ex in the dark years before you needed a minigame for hacking and lockpicking. Hacking that is just 'press button : win" is really boring. I played Deus Ex that way but I certainly didn't go "oh boy I can't wait to hack, it's so fun," especially because the time limit meant that I was either looking for passwords anyway or copy-pasting emails to read awkwardly. The fun part of hacking in DE was what it let you do,not the actual gameplay, and finding a way to make hacking more engaging and interesting is a good thing. Making it sudoku is probably not the solution there.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:18
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ImpAtom posted:Hacking that is just 'press button : win" is really boring. I played Deus Ex that way but I certainly didn't go "oh boy I can't wait to hack, it's so fun," especially because the time limit meant that I was either looking for passwords anyway or copy-pasting emails to read awkwardly. The fun part of hacking in DE was what it let you do,not the actual gameplay, and finding a way to make hacking more engaging and interesting is a good thing. I would go so far as to say making it take ten times as long is bad.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:21
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Despite everything I've said I really would have liked Andromeda to be good, and if it looked awesome like Horizon did in previews I'd be heaping praise and excitement. But right now it just looks supremely... not good, and I think my gamer instincts are right on this one.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:24
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All right, so what are the games with good hacking minigames then? Like it seems to me that the ideal solution would be to make it so that the player actually has options to approach things beyond "do annoying puzzle" or "use consumable item." Make solving the puzzle give some little non-exclusive reward of some sort (I don't mean like XP even, just like extra crafting materials or something) if you solve it manually or you can just freely hit the "make my AI buddy do the work for me." Maybe make it a choice between "solve the puzzle" or "engage in timed combat while your AI does the hacking" and apply rewards either way. Or hell, copy the Deus Ex approach and put the solution on the ancient precursor equivalent of a post-it note and have that be a third solution.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:24
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ImpAtom posted:The fun part of hacking in DE was what it let you do,not the actual gameplay I think this is the key part. If all hacking is in your game is gating content behind a skill point dump/wasting your time, you don't need it as a gameplay action and should just abstract it out. In a role-playing game context, if you're going to make "hack" a verb in your game, it should allow for cool ways to affect other characters / the game world.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:25
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The match-3 hacking minigame in ME2 was perfectly acceptable, but the best hacking was in ME3 (where it didn't exist).
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Mar 15, 2017 08:25
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Kai Tave posted:All right, so what are the games with good hacking minigames then? exquisite tea posted:the best hacking was in ME3 (where it didn't exist).  Doctor Spaceman fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Mar 15, 2017 |
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Mar 15, 2017 08:27
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Also to head off pedantry at the pass, it's not literally hacking that they're doing in ME:A, it's reactivating precursor technology, but since that's a big focus of the game I'm assuming this will be employed as more than a one-off puzzle on a single planet, if that's not the case I apologize for spreading false information. I don't know if there's a literal hacking minigame in ME:A at all. e; the fact that there are consumables specifically for bypassing these sorts of puzzles strongly implies it's going to be a semi-frequent occurrence.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:29
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Every hackable item should just give you a puzzle from TIS-100 Edit: Man, I really hope that the story somehow takes a different spin on things and it's not just "Prothean" find-and-replaced with "Precursor"
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Mar 15, 2017 08:32
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I'd wait for more people to play Andromeda before dogpiling on it. People realized pretty quickly when Dragon Age 2 was awful so it's not like there's some extreme headstart needed.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:34
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Looking forward to learning more about the mysterious Precursors in Mass Effect: Andromeda! Can't wait to see how they measure up to the mysterious Protheans, the mysterious Reapers, the mysterious lost Elf civilisation, the ancient evil Tevinter wizards, the mysterious ancient dwarves, the mysterious spirit monks, the mysterious primordial evil from that one Jade Empire sidequest, the mysterious etc etc etc.... I never played Baldur's Gate, what's ancient and evil in that
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Mar 15, 2017 08:35
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Palpek posted:I'd wait for more people to play Andromeda before dogpiling on it. People realized pretty quickly when Dragon Age 2 was awful so it's not like there's some extreme headstart needed. I just want to post some about Mass Effect without having to post in the Mass Effect thread, please don't make me do that.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:35
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Dragon Age Inquisition was called a "return to form" for Bioware for long enough that I stupidly bought it, not falling for that again.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:36
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I also like that it's keeping to the tried-and-true template of "Your character gets a special named designation that explains why they can go anywhere and do anything and also all NPCs can address you by your title"
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Mar 15, 2017 08:36
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:I also like that it's keeping to the tried-and-true template of "Your character gets a special named designation that explains why they can go anywhere and do anything and also all NPCs can address you by your title"
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Mar 15, 2017 08:37
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Red Bones posted:Looking forward to learning more about the mysterious Precursors in Mass Effect: Andromeda! Can't wait to see how they measure up to the mysterious Protheans, the mysterious Reapers, the mysterious lost Elf civilisation, the ancient evil Tevinter wizards, the mysterious ancient dwarves, the mysterious spirit monks, the mysterious primordial evil from that one Jade Empire sidequest, the mysterious etc etc etc.... "Ancient civilization" is pretty much Every Single RPG On The Planet unfortunately. Even the Witcher has its ancient relics and ancient swords and ancient lost magic. Someday I'd like a RPG with an ancient civlization that is just lovely and crap and you find swords there that are piles of rear end compared to what you already use because modern civilization has metal working.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:37
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CharlieFoxtrot posted:I also like that it's keeping to the tried-and-true template of "Your character gets a special named designation that explains why they can go anywhere and do anything and also all NPCs can address you by your title" In fairness if you keep the default names of Scott or Sara the NPCs will actually address you by your first name instead of calling you Pathfinder all the time, unless you're really married to naming your character Dick Ryder (and if you aren't why aren't you?).
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Mar 15, 2017 08:38
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I wish Mass Effect's setting was a whole lot less star trek and a whole lot more Star Control.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:49
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ImpAtom posted:"Ancient civilization" is pretty much Every Single RPG On The Planet unfortunately. Even the Witcher has its ancient relics and ancient swords and ancient lost magic. I'm ok with ancient civilisations because it's definitely part of the history of a lot of places and peoples to have these more complex societies that have come and gone. The fall of Rome remains a big element in the way western cultures think about history. I just think there's a difference between the ancient civilisation/evil/magic/whatever being worldbuilding on the side, like it is in plenty of games (including some bioware games) and the way that bioware really leans on it as a plot element. KotoR 1, DA:I and all three Mass Effect games are about it, DA2 has that ancient idol in the last act as a big plot point too. It's a big chunk of their overall work and it's kinda disappointing to see ~ancient ruins~ being such a prominent part of yet another new setting and narrative for them. Maybe it'll be a neat twist rather than playing it absolutely straight this time though 
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Mar 15, 2017 08:50
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I liked the "ancient civilization" in Horizon. There was something uncanny and cool about everyone talking about "The Ancients"... and those ancients were us.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:52
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I liked the goony collector dude who went crazy over "ancient vessels" that were just old broken coffee mugs.
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Mar 15, 2017 08:54
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It's a shame they've stopped making D&D video games outside of Forgotten Realms stuff because the campaign setting called Eberron has a nice take on the whole ancient civilization thing where the ancient civilizations had some cool stuff to steal...and contemporary society has vastly improved upon the original designs, achieving degrees of sophistication and efficiency that don't require vast cyclopean pyramids and blood sacrifice in the tens of thousands, so when people go out to plunder the ruins of ancient civilizations and long-lost tombs it isn't because ancient magical engineering is sooooo much better than the dumb crap you have today, it's because people are looking for the next big thing to swipe and reverse engineer (and, like, gold and gems too while they're there).
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Mar 15, 2017 09:00
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Make the hacking mini game picross and I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
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Mar 15, 2017 09:10
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All minigames that you are expected to do constantly over the whole game are bad. Except inventory tetris in RE4 if that counts.
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Mar 15, 2017 09:12
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Played some more NieR Yesterday. Making my way through playthrough B. I wish I was at home still playing it. Such a great game. I cannot wait to continue.
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Mar 15, 2017 09:20
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Kai Tave posted:I just want to post some about Mass Effect without having to post in the Mass Effect thread, please don't make me do that.  '
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Mar 15, 2017 09:27
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Palpek posted:You can do that, it's cool to read about game impressions even if you're just watching a stream. I just wrote my opinion on dogpiling when people who chime in are like 'heh, this one review says it's bad so it's time to poo poo all over the game Yeah I'm trying to avoid that because prerelease dogpiling always runs the risk of being hilariously and flagrantly off-base like with Retard 4, excuse me, like with Doom. Or Horizon, people were trying to issue early warnings because of something to do with cutscenes? And that seems to have turned out okay. I'm not deriving any sort of vicarious satisfaction from ME:A looking like it's going to set the 2017 benchmark for mediocrity in a AAA game, I'd genuinely like it to be good, but I've played a fair chunk of Bioware's games in the past and used to think they were good but having gone back to some of them since ME:A was announced I've found that they haven't really aged very well and so while it'd be great if Bioware used Andromeda as both a clean break from the first Mass Effect trilogy as well as their last generation of games on their way to make something new and fresh and exciting, my (admittedly non hands-on) impression so far is that Andromeda looks like Mass Effect 3 2: Mass Harder, and by that I mean that it looks like more of the same in every respect but that means more of the same bad along with the same good (and with maybe some new bad thrown in as well). Even if it didn't have the misfortune of coming out so soon after Horizon and the new Zelda and whatever else has already come out this year that's really, really good, I'm not getting the impression it's got more chops to it than "well I guess this'll pass the time while I'm waiting for something better."
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Mar 15, 2017 09:38
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