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Replaying the Mass Effect Trilogy. I'm at the 3rd game. And the MP still functions and has a healthy community. But Overwatch spoiled me. In Me3mp I cannot do a 'GG' in chat at games' end. Or give particular team mates a recognisition acknowledgement. There's no good way to appreciate team members.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 20:27 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 05:37 |
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Hardspace Shipbreaker First off, weird name. Just one or the other would be fine I love this game, early access as it is. It's a game about laser-cutting a ship apart and feasting on the goo inside, and trying to do so in an order that doesn't make the reactor go critical before you can pop it outta there, or explosively decompress some loose debris into your face. I even kinda like (perhaps in a Stockholm-syndrome way) the small variety of ships available to break, since you get a ton of practice on each, and I get a lot of satisfaction from getting a work order down from 6-7 days of work down to just three. BUT! The early access nature of it means there is juuuuuust enough jank, particularly that fuel tanks (and annoyingly, ONLY fuel tanks) like to detach violently, into each other, exploding themselves and other things that happen to be nearby (typically, the reactor). Even better, you'll start to very, very carefully detach tanks, then on the last two you'll be like "oh the last 9 went okay and this last bit of engine cowl is pretty far from the rest of the hulk" ZEBAM there goes your bridge section, nincompoop Evilreaver has a new favorite as of 21:05 on Jul 10, 2020 |
# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:02 |
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A better morrowind can only come from a smaller developer nowadays. Sadly I used to love games with depth but nowadays I can only play multiplayer shooters I miss playing morrowind.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:23 |
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Morrowind is just Daggerfall dumbed down for casuals
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:29 |
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Having to bake a hundred potions to get slightly better at it is still the most rear end backwards progression system in RPGs. Someone looked at Final Fantasy 2 and decided it wasn't bad enough.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:31 |
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Samuringa posted:Having to bake a hundred potions to get slightly better at it is still the most rear end backwards progression system in RPGs. Someone looked at Final Fantasy 2 and decided it wasn't bad enough. The looked at the American grading system and decided, yeah that's definitely a system we should be using for our game. Make 40 potions to get 3 points better at it but if you gently caress up once we'll drop your skill level by 27 points.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:34 |
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Samuringa posted:Having to bake a hundred potions to get slightly better at it is still the most rear end backwards progression system in RPGs. Someone looked at Final Fantasy 2 and decided it wasn't bad enough. FF2 was great because I could toughen up my team through ritual hazing
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:36 |
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Hollow Knight is too drat big.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:39 |
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RareAcumen posted:The looked at the American grading system and decided, yeah that's definitely a system we should be using for our game. Make 40 potions to get 3 points better at it but if you gently caress up once we'll drop your skill level by 27 points. I am increasingly convinced that nobody discussing it in this thread has actually ever played Morrowind at all.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:45 |
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Qwezz posted:Replaying the Mass Effect Trilogy. Krogan headbutt.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:52 |
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food court bailiff posted:I am increasingly convinced that nobody discussing it in this thread has actually ever played Morrowind at all. We can all agree the sandworms that ate your magic so that you couldn't cast anything anymore was bullshit, right?
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:52 |
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Dash Rendar posted:Hollow Knight is too drat big. He's an inch tall at most.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 21:55 |
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It takes so many mods to get Morrowind playable to the point it's a ship of Theseus and you might as well make a new game. From what little I played of it I hated the combat, the walking-speed, the original Baldur's Gate journal, the dialogue system, and that Expansion ninja who shivs you when you try to sleep.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:03 |
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SkeletonHero posted:He's an inch tall at most.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:08 |
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food court bailiff posted:I am increasingly convinced that nobody discussing it in this thread has actually ever played Morrowind at all. I got really tired of dragons always swooping in. Like yes I need your souls but cmon. Cliff racers are bad enough!
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:09 |
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I hated trying to get the best time on those cliff races.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:12 |
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I'm on my nth Skyrim character and I pretty much never bother tripping the event-flag that makes Dragons appear.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:12 |
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Samuringa posted:It does have the standard TES stupid levelling system, which is what they are talking about. Nah, it had a slightly different stupid levelling system. It was the same idea - skills level through use, every 10 skill ranks you get a level up. Whenever you levelled up you'd get to increase 3 of your attributes (oh yeah, it had attributes, Strength, Int etc) by one point, but this gain would be multiplied by how many ranks in linked skills you gained that level. So if you'd gained 3 ranks in Strength-associated skills you would increase your strength by 3 points. But this multiplier capped out at 5x. So if you'd ranked up Strength skills 10 times that level you'd still only get 5 points in strength (and 1 point in two other stats). Or if you'd spread out your skill ranks across loads of skills you'd get like 2x on all of them. To make it messier - your class gave you three sets of skills - Major, Minor, Misc, which all started at different ranks. Only your Major and Minor skills are what determined when you would level up, but all three sets would determine your attribute multiplier. So if you wanted to maximise your attributes you'd want to be levelling a bunch of your Misc skills too so you'd get that sweet sweet 5x multiplier on all 3 attribute boosts.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:13 |
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christmas boots posted:I hated trying to get the best time on those cliff races. If you just get out of the silt strider and shoot the quest Dunmer you don't have to deal with the cliff races at all, n'wah.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:14 |
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While it's cool that stealing from an NPC means they'll sic bounty-hunters on you later, the illusion is broken when it's a dead character you've wronged. Looking at you, Deekus.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:16 |
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Evilreaver posted:Hardspace Shipbreaker I think the issue is that some other game is just called Shipbreaker.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:32 |
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exquisite tea posted:Krogan headbutt. Headbutt parties, with the occasional flamethrower spray were all the communication needed.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:32 |
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So "The NOUN" titles in games are still as grating as ever.I understand that it's basically the only way to have voiced lines reference you, without having either a lot of variants (and thus costly additional recordings.), or a set name. But loving christ does it get grating. WATCHER WATCHER WATCHER WATCHER WATCHER WATCHER WATCHER WATCHER watcher watcher watcher watcher watcher watcher watcher watcher watcher watcher (Atleast a couple people do refer to you by other titles occasionally, but it is grating at the best of times.) It'll be nice when we get to a point where those deepfake-voice NNs are good enough that you could use them to slip in new names into prerecorded lines set up for them. Having them generate entire voice clips with decent inflection and everything will take ages, but having them be able to swap out a name is probably a good first use for 'em.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 22:44 |
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Fallout 4 had a decent sized list of player names that your robot butler would recognize and call you by instead of "sir" or "ma'am".
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 23:10 |
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Destiny is so full of Nouns and big-dumb-objects that the whole world feels sexless and rote. Attempts at injecting a little life into proceedings feel like giving the reshoots of a troubled production over to Joss Whedon. In contrast, what I love about Outer Wilds is that it's a sci-fi mystery that's the complete antithesis to so much other sci-fi. It raises a ton of questions at the start, and actually answers them later on in a satisfying manner. There's a good reason as to why time is in a circle, why is the sun blowing up, who is this dead civilization and what do their toys do. It has a wide galaxy-spanning plot but also packs in a ton of character. You play a space hillbilly whose astronaut friends all play instruments. Your spaceship is jury-rigged out of bits of wood. You can explore a planet with a black hole at it's core. You can get eaten by giant Angler Fish. There are so many disparate ideas in the game that are tied together in a plausible manner. If JJ Abrams wasn't a rich hack who so no reason to improve his writing he'd probably realize how lame his mystery box is in comparison.
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 23:16 |
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rydiafan posted:Fallout 4 had a decent sized list of player names that your robot butler would recognize and call you by instead of "sir" or "ma'am". IIRC “fuckface” is among them
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# ? Jul 10, 2020 23:17 |
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food court bailiff posted:I am increasingly convinced that nobody discussing it in this thread has actually ever played Morrowind at all. Yeah I got that when people said it had no level scaling lol
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 00:10 |
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food court bailiff posted:I am increasingly convinced that nobody discussing it in this thread has actually ever played Morrowind at all. I certainly haven't, I was making a joke about how breaking the game in Skyrim worked from secondhand knowledge since I never figured it out for myself.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 00:25 |
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Cleretic posted:That wasn't quite how it worked in Oblivion; it was instead that everything around you scaled, which meant that if you leveled more than you 'should have' then you hit the level range for stronger enemies. I remember the first bad one was level 4, when the clannfears turned up. True. I did something wrong in that game level wise and, god help me, almost never escaped that level/sidequest with the Minotaur painting. I wound up saving there and couldn't reload my way out of it.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 00:32 |
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I think the weird, convoluted mechanics are a huge part of especially Morrowind's charm—they're complex and unorthodox in a way that fits really well with the complexity and unorthodoxy of the world. And they present the player with such a broad variety of options for completely breaking out of any strictly rote linear RPG power progression no matter what kind of PC you're playing as (again, fitting very well with the themes of the game) that they become more a tool for self-expression than anything else. But I always felt that combat in elder scrolls was more of a pacing and characterization thing than anything else, hence the game giving you so many ways to completely trivialize it—or like, I think nothing of value is lost by taking advantage of the dozens of in-game ways of trivializing combat, or the metagame way of just bumping down the difficulty slider, unless the player is choosing specifically and intentionally to roleplay a character that has to really struggle to get by. The value of the game is just so totally outside of strategically-rigorous battle skill challenges. I mean, the player always has the option of freezing time in the middle of combat to eat 13 apples and chug a bottle of wine, which again even in the absolute most vanilla, by-the-book, I-take-flappy-arm-sword-man-combat-very-seriously kind of playstyle really ties the difficulty to your inventory size and patience for preparation more than anything else. The problem with Oblivion's scaling as far as i'm concerned is less in the player hitting a brick wall (just bump down the slider or solve your problems with magic if you want to stay 'in-character,' like... enchanting some reflect gear is totally in line with the rules of the world) and more with making every area samey and less evocative. Daedroth and spider daedra everywhere is less interesting than varied wildlife, and bandit squatters with armor and weapons worth thousands of gold should really have cashed out already, like go sell that poo poo and buy a nice house instead of sleeping in a dungeon two rooms over from rotting corpses, jeez. anyway my little thing for skyrim is that they didn't tie dragon voice power to the speech skill at all. just a totally missed opportunity to be expressive with the mechanics of the game
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 01:27 |
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Inspector Gesicht posted:I prefer it when an RPG has a status screen that shows how all your attributes, perks, skills, and equipment affect one another so it isn't just a load of big. numbers. Skyrim's unmodded UI never bothers to tell you what figures into Attack Power or how strong your Magic spells are because it was more concerned with looking like a sleek IKEA magazine. I think the Surge 2 had better gameplay but it really didn't grab me like the original. The Surge had this great sort of "blue collar cyberpunk" vibe, like Elon Musk better not gently caress with this forklift operator who was born in February and owns a lhasa apso. They really committed to the concept of the weapons and armor being industrial hardware and the levels being job sites. The Surge 2 is just "the cyberpocalypse is happening and you're the chosen one", it could be any near future sci fi game. also The Surge 2 doesn't have the savepoint music, minus that one part BiggerBoat posted:True. On my first playthrough I missed that you had to sleep to level up, or that you could sleep. So I just went through it without leveling up. Little did I know I was actually power gaming. The Moon Monster has a new favorite as of 02:52 on Jul 11, 2020 |
# ? Jul 11, 2020 02:45 |
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Morpheus posted:I'm talking starting the game as 'warrior' - you are good at fighting, can't magic, can't pick locks, but fighting enemies gets you xp, so you're going to charge into combat as much as possible. For the record, I believe this is pretty much the Quest for Glory series. Though they were RPG/point and click adventure game hybrids rather than traditional RPGs.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 03:23 |
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Morpheus posted:Not quite - in those, the levels of your skills contributed to some vague player level that didn't really mean anything, because your skills were where you got your power from. Then enemies for some reason scaled from your player level, which ruined the whole game. It could work -- and I swear there's a game out there that does something like this, I just don't know for sure -- to have a multiclass system with this idea. You have Warrior, Rogue, and Mage "spheres" that have various abilities you can unlock or improve. Everyone starts with the first rank in all three spheres so you can do the most basic actions of the three. Do you punch someone? That's a warrior ability and you get Warrior XP. Do you rob someone? That's a rogue specialty and you get Rogue XP. Did you read a book? That's a nerd rear end mage thing, so you get Mage XP. Level up your spheres based on how you want to play, unlock abilities suited to those styles of play. Some actions combine one or more spheres! Sneak attack for warrior and rogue XP. Read a martial arts manual for warrior and mage xp. craft a magic poison for rogue and mage XP.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 03:31 |
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The Moon Monster posted:To be fair that was at least as much because of Oblivion's busted-rear end scaling system where having a lower character level made you relatively stronger. I never played Morrowind so I can't speak to that game. When I play Oblivion I target a specific level to stop at because your damage stops scaling at a certain point well before enemies stop scaling (if they ever do) if you level well. So after a certain point you're literally just making your enemies take longer to kill each time you level. I think the best 2 spots are 10 for the master key or 20 for all quests available.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 03:39 |
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Morrowind did have slight level scaling, in that stronger enemies would appear from certain spawn points as you leveled. ie. level 1 you get the little bug worm thing, level 4 you get the bug dog thing however there were min and maxes to that, so there would always be easy and difficult areas. and most importantly it didn't actually effect enemy stats- the bug dog things would always have X health no matter what level you were. likewise quest rewards and special artifacts had set stats, but random crap from a barrel in a cave pulled from level-based set of lists.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 03:47 |
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HookedOnChthonics posted:I think the weird, convoluted mechanics are a huge part of especially Morrowind's charm—they're complex and unorthodox in a way that fits really well with the complexity and unorthodoxy of the world. ... I think something that would help these sorts of games is mixing in some actual combat moves and real fighting styles, Arkham Batman and Spiderman PS style, where the stuff you build and unlock actually changes the way you fight and the different poo poo you can do instead of just having enough armor, potions and a strong enough sword or whatever. Not sure if I'm explaining it well but having some actual moves and different styles to handle different poo poo would be a lot more fun than just having Bigger Numbers than the Monsters or whatever.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 04:00 |
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TLOU2 They've got tons of accessibility options here but I really wish the health had two very different colors to it. I tend to try and use a medkit every so often because I can't really tell the difference between the white and slightly darker grey they're using.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 04:20 |
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It'd be great to see a varied fighting style but I can't imagine that happening in a game where it's not the sole focus and could be easily skipped by players. Frankly, any 1st Person brawler would be a breath of fresh air, I can't believe Zeno Clash still is the standout of the genre after ten years. (Kindly correct me if I missed some hidden gem because boy howdy that would be a nice surprise)
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 04:26 |
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BiggerBoat posted:I think something that would help these sorts of games is mixing in some actual combat moves and real fighting styles, Arkham Batman and Spiderman PS style, where the stuff you build and unlock actually changes the way you fight and the different poo poo you can do instead of just having enough armor, potions and a strong enough sword or whatever. In a game where the player can choose such radically different character archetypes, it's hard to add any depth to combat outside of Bigger Numbers. Like, in the Spiderman game, the enemy behavior is entirely designed around being fun to fight as Spiderman - if you could decide to play the game as Doctor Strange instead then basically none of the things the enemies are doing are going to be interesting to deal with using his powers. Same goes for the game's environmental challenges and puzzles. Basically developers should just make a good swordfighting game, and then a separate good wizarding game, instead of trying to mash the two together (also with a stealth game blended in there too, why not). Like yeah it's cool to have player choice and all but that necessarily leads to challenges that are watered down so they can be approached regardless of the kind of character you're playing, or has the weird Dark Souls resistances problem where the game just kicks one kind of character in the balls because they couldn't figure out how to make an experience that worked equally well for them.
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 04:35 |
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# ? Jun 4, 2024 05:37 |
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Morpheus posted:Would be interesting to see a game where, based on the class you pick at the start, you get experience for doing different things. Fighter-type class? Punch guys and get xp. Rogue? Treasure and locks. Wizard? Reading tomes and discovering/improving spells. classic dnd gave xp for getting and spending treasure at a 1:1 xp:gp ratio, which ended up being like 90% of what a character levelled up with. (if you kept magic items you either got no xp or a tiny pittance)
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# ? Jul 11, 2020 04:51 |