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Philippe posted:Control is to some extent about finding ever deeper secrets that nobody knows about, but on a gameplay level it is impossible to find all the dang sidequests without a guide and it gets real frustrating. It's also obnoxious to try just exploring the maps and looking for secrets because you can't swing a dead cat without hitting multiple waves of two to three different bad guys that block the exits until you kill them all.
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Feb 7, 2022 20:13
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That's what compounds it all. 'Find 5 things in this area' aren't my favourite type of side mission but they can be a nice diversion if the area is interesting, just get systematic and have a look to see what hidden details and routes there are. The environments in Control are really really good so this should be in easy win but it's ruined by having enemies spawn so often, there's a layer of anxiety and frustration as you just get diverted over and over again by having to throw some debris at dudes. After one really hard boss fight, I got zero time to explore the fascinating area I was fighting in before a wave spawned in and killed me. Just leave me alone for a minute, jeez.
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Feb 7, 2022 23:11
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I'm a big Control fan, but yeah its map is terrible in a way that I'm surprised hasn't been updated with all the other QoL improvements they did since release. I was thinking about Fallen Order's 3D rotatable map, it's not perfect at all but Control really could've used something along those lines with all its ambiguous vertical spacing.
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Feb 7, 2022 23:20
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Cythereal posted:It's also obnoxious to try just exploring the maps and looking for secrets because you can't swing a dead cat without hitting multiple waves of two to three different bad guys that block the exits until you kill them all. When I finally got around to the DLC I turned on every cheat when it was explore time for this reason
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Feb 7, 2022 23:45
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Control worked so hard against its own success that they had to introduce cheats to make the game bearable.
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Feb 7, 2022 23:54
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Not to go restart fallout 4 talk but every loving one of us knew the "twist" the moment that first loving cutscene ended right. I was actively disappointed in the game from the word go because it was so blatant. Far harbor was nice though. loving hermit crab scared the poo poo out of me.
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Feb 8, 2022 04:00
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I don't know. It's impossible to devote much brain power into thinking about Bethesda plots. Or remembering them.
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Feb 8, 2022 04:02
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In Ghost of Tsushima your horse dies and it sucks. ☹️
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Feb 8, 2022 04:03
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"DID YOU SEE MY BABY COME THROUGH HERE?!?" "No. Well, there was that guy with a baby like 40 years ago" "NO MY BABY SHAUN IS A BABY. HAVE YOU SEEN MY BABY SHAUN??"
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Feb 8, 2022 04:03
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Going to Far Harbor with Nick makes up for a lot
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Feb 8, 2022 04:56
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While we're talking Fallout 4, I have one. I started another run of the game recently and decided to put a bit more effort into the settlement stuff than my first playthrough did, since I do kind of like building them up to be functional and decent looking (some mods help a lot). However, an annoyance is that no matter how well defended your settlement is, attacks against them will almost always still cause damage if you don't show up to defend. It doesn't matter if the place has 200+ defense score and the attack gets liquified in seconds if I'm present. If I'm not there, somehow it takes damage, but I just can't be arsed to fast travel halfway across the world to watch 5 seconds of missile turret rampage. There's probably a mod for this too.
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Feb 8, 2022 05:05
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Bussamove posted:The Greek gods were hedonistic uncaring rape-machines that ruined peoples lives on a whim, that was the most accurate part of the original GoW franchise. The fact they ended up actually effecting the natural processes they claimed to represent was dumb as hell. The gods were literally the embodiment of natural processes in the myths.
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Feb 8, 2022 05:08
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I just started playing 76 and it's kind of nice because they really don't expect you to care about what little plot there is, you can just run around looting things and stumbling onto side quests
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Feb 8, 2022 05:50
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just started playing tyranny (steam sale) and was reminded why i always drop the eternity engine games soon after starting: "scouting mode" is the worst goddamn mechanic (move slower to sneak and spot hidden items and objects). a mechanic where the only cost is to the player's time (not even marginal effort or resource cost, literally just moving slower across the screen) is very rarely a fun mechanic, especially when it offers access to unique things.
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Feb 8, 2022 07:13
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Captain Hygiene posted:I'm a big Control fan, but yeah its map is terrible in a way that I'm surprised hasn't been updated with all the other QoL improvements they did since release. I was thinking about Fallen Order's 3D rotatable map, it's not perfect at all but Control really could've used something along those lines with all its ambiguous vertical spacing. I have to think that it being so bad has to be intentional at this point. ZeusCannon posted:Not to go restart fallout 4 talk but every loving one of us knew the "twist" the moment that first loving cutscene ended right. I really think that making it clear that some significant amount of time had passed would have alleviated so much dissonance in the plot. Maybe have the spouses tube not close again so when you wake up again, they're dessicated. Boom, you still want to find Shaun but suddenly the urgency isn't I WANT MY BABY RIGHT NOW. Philippe posted:Going to Far Harbor with Nick makes up for a lot Nick and Far Harbor are the best parts of FO4 and its not even a close call (the only other thing even near to that in quality is going into the Glowing Sea for the first time.) Agents are GO! has a new favorite as of 07:20 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 07:16
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Control has a ton of foibles but the #1 absolute worst one IMO is tricking the player into thinking Alerts are in any way, shape, or form important or literally ever relevant at all. Almost without fail when people talk about picking the game up for the first time on SA they post about getting anxious about failing an Alert or needing to trudge back across the map to reach one before the timer runs out and it sucks because you literally never need to touch them at all whatsoever. And they double suck because even knowing ahead of time they can be safely ignored, you'll be poking around the map only to have INCEPTION NOISE suddenly scare the poo poo out of you.
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Feb 8, 2022 10:38
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John Murdoch posted:And they double suck because even knowing ahead of time they can be safely ignored, you'll be poking around the map only to have INCEPTION NOISE suddenly scare the poo poo out of you. They could at least have turned the sound off for the in-engine cutscenes.
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Feb 8, 2022 11:43
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ZeusCannon posted:Not to go restart fallout 4 talk but every loving one of us knew the "twist" the moment that first loving cutscene ended right. I thought it was obvious that a lot of time had passed to the point I was surprised when it became clear the PC didn't actually realize that. I didn't predict yuor babby being MIT Hitler, though.
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Feb 8, 2022 12:10
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The twist is doubly stupid because they could have milked so much tension and apprehension out of the idea that your child has grown up without you - how old are they? What kind of man is he? How has he coped in this horrible wasteland? Using it as a twist reveal is just about the dumbest, most boring way to handle it.
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Feb 8, 2022 12:20
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“Dumbest, most boring way” is the Bethesda MO when it comes to Fallout. Especially in progression of the setting in that there is none and the bombs might as well have dropped a week ago.
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Feb 8, 2022 12:35
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What do you mean, of course people would live under three pieces of corrugated steel subsisting on rats and cockroaches. 100 years after a nuclear war.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:10
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I remember how Fallout 3 and 4 reference Lovecrafft, which my phone keeps auto-correcting to "love raft." They call a place Dunwich building, and name a dude Pickman. That's it, they don't do anything interesting or draw from the source in a novel way.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:14
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Also, and I know this is kind of just part of the abstraction of an open world game like that but every Bethesda game since Morrowind has suffered from like a logistical cognitive dissonance? Like, we set up this "settlement" and even establish trade with other "settlements" but those settlements are less than a football field away from one another. In Skyrim you have entire cities that are a five minute walk from each other. In Oblivion, they tried to create the illusion of this massive capital but there are maybe 100 people inhabiting it? It made sense in Morrowind that the towns would be small because it was like this lovely frontier on a fuckin volcano.Opopanax posted:I just started playing 76 and it's kind of nice because they really don't expect you to care about what little plot there is, you can just run around looting things and stumbling onto side quests The worst part of 76 was the modular card system. If I wanted to fight, I had to go through this dumb system of swapping out cards. Oh, I want to loot, so I better get my loot cards equipped. Now I want to craft, better switch'em out. I don't know how it is now, but more than a year later they still hadn't built in any sort of card presets. I was using a mod that did that, and it worked for a while but then I started getting booted for using mods. And I want to throw in my usual complaints that there's no fuckin reason the Master's fuckin supermutants should be ANYWHERE outside of California, or MAYBE Illinois because there was at least some plot reasons in Tactics why they had migrated that far East (though I don't think it explained how they got over the Great Expanse or whatever it's called, the like uninhabitable deadlands between San Fransisco and Chicago.) credburn has a new favorite as of 13:28 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 13:21
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The audiolog in the Dunwich building about the guy turning into a ghoul was pretty Lovecraftian (in an "itchy itchy, tasty" kind of way), but that's it. They don't even do anything interesting with the Institute! There's a secretive underground society full of superscience, and it could be anything! A group of Morlocks who live in complete darkness among cyclopean machinery! The remains of Vault-Tec who keep watch over their experiments long after the results would matter! Hyperevolved big-brained mutants who worship a computer! But no, it's just a glass mall full of science nerds.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:24
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credburn posted:Also, and I know this is kind of just part of the abstraction of an open world game like that but every Bethesda game since Morrowind has suffered from like a logistical cognitive dissonance? Like, we set up this "settlement" and even establish trade with other "settlements" but those settlements are less than a football field away from one another. In Skyrim you have entire cities that are a five minute walk from each other. In Oblivion, they tried to create the illusion of this massive capital but there are maybe 100 people inhabiting it? It made sense in Morrowind that the towns would be small because it was like this lovely frontier on a fuckin volcano. Doesn't this apply to literally every open world game?
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Feb 8, 2022 13:26
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Yeah it sucks but the alternative is having a massive content desert between each town because filling it with fun stuff is expensive, or do tricks with fog or mountains to hide the distance. It's why I want old school world maps to come back, because they allowed bigger spaces and stuff without making it tedious to move around.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:27
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The weirdest part of The Institute in Fallout 4 is how they don't even try to justify the body snatching thing. You get there and they try to position themselves as good guys but conveniently leave out any discussion of them murdering and replacing people with robots.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:30
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Necrothatcher posted:Doesn't this apply to literally every open world game? Sort of. Different games handle it better than others, but Bethesda just feels the most blatantly lazy about it. The scene in Skyrim where you and an "army" invade some town, it was built up to be this huge thing and when it happened I laughed out loud because there were... ten of us? I'm hoping the next generation of open world games will try to make the world itself more believable. I don't need bigger graphics and physics and cosmetic hats. Hel posted:Yeah it sucks but the alternative is having a massive content desert between each town because filling it with fun stuff is expensive, or do tricks with fog or mountains to hide the distance. It's why I want old school world maps to come back, because they allowed bigger spaces and stuff without making it tedious to move around. I think it was on these forums in 2005 when I saw a screenshot of Oblivion without any fog and the viewing distance maxed, and it was laughable how extremely close each town was from another. credburn has a new favorite as of 13:35 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 13:32
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Monster Hunter World: I like this game, it's sometimes cumbersome, but learning the shortcuts and combos help a lot - I'm only at the the start and just established the second camp. However, every time it starts, it connects to PSN, reminds me I don't have PS+, and that not having it means I won't be able to use certain online functions. What functions, I don't know - I have to create an online session in order to start the game anyway, so presumably I can play with other people? Maybe? I can look through SOS requests, but there's none - so maybe I can't? Who can say. I do get the appeal of playing with other people, but I'd rather play by myself, even if that will be harder - for the stronger monster it might be another matter, also. And it would be really dumb if online is actually blocked and you can't get all the trophies without subscribing to PS+, although I can live with that.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:33
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Necrothatcher posted:Doesn't this apply to literally every open world game? There are some that get vaguely realistic scales with a lot of procgen, and driving games can cover larger areas because of the limited ways players can interact with the world, but those are exceptions and almost every open-world game is a shrunken down model.
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Feb 8, 2022 13:34
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If you don't shrink stuff down you basically get... Star Citizen (or, comedy answer: Elite Dangerous)
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Feb 8, 2022 13:41
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No Man's Sky, kinda.
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Feb 8, 2022 14:59
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Brandfarlig posted:What do you mean, of course people would live under three pieces of corrugated steel subsisting on rats and cockroaches. 100 years after a nuclear war. I can suspend my disbelief for this most of the time but I found a ghoul couple in fallout 4 who say they’ve been living in the same house ever since the bombs fell, and their house of course still looks like a mostly-destroyed wreck, like all the other actually abandoned houses in the area. after two centuries. it’s like they were trying to draw attention to this complaint
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Feb 8, 2022 17:38
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credburn posted:Also, and I know this is kind of just part of the abstraction of an open world game like that but every Bethesda game since Morrowind has suffered from like a logistical cognitive dissonance? Like, we set up this "settlement" and even establish trade with other "settlements" but those settlements are less than a football field away from one another. In Skyrim you have entire cities that are a five minute walk from each other. In Oblivion, they tried to create the illusion of this massive capital but there are maybe 100 people inhabiting it? It made sense in Morrowind that the towns would be small because it was like this lovely frontier on a fuckin volcano. On a similar note, I think it's funny how often games task you with killing 250 "bandits" to save a town of 6 people. Heroism! Gay Rat Wedding posted:I can suspend my disbelief for this most of the time but I found a ghoul couple in fallout 4 who say they’ve been living in the same house ever since the bombs fell, and their house of course still looks like a mostly-destroyed wreck, like all the other actually abandoned houses in the area. after two centuries. it’s like they were trying to draw attention to this complaint A bathtub full of skeletons is the post-nuclear apocalypse equivalent of hanging a bunch of guitars and counterfeit sports memorabilia on the wall. The Moon Monster has a new favorite as of 17:47 on Feb 8, 2022 |
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Feb 8, 2022 17:45
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That doesn't work if it's your only bathtub and your entire home looks like this, though. And everyone else's.
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Feb 8, 2022 17:58
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Inspector Gesicht posted:I remember how Fallout 3 and 4 reference Lovecrafft, which my phone keeps auto-correcting to "love raft." I mean, the Dunwich building's got atmosphere in spades and there's a quest attached to it where you have to do away with an Evil Book. Then in 4 there's the Dunwich Borers quarry where you get flashbacks to even more hosed up Lovecraft cult poo poo going on. Maybe not the deepest or most original take on things, but it's a change of pace compared to the rest of the happy-go-lucky-but-maybe-not-really? pre-war stuff. Honestly one of the things that Bethesda is legitimately good at is throwing weird poo poo at you. Several other parts of Fallout 3 land really well by making good use of mind-fuckery.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:01
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Doctor Spaceman posted:There are some that get vaguely realistic scales with a lot of procgen, and driving games can cover larger areas because of the limited ways players can interact with the world, but those are exceptions and almost every open-world game is a shrunken down model. On the subject of Elder Scrolls, Daggerfall from back in 1996 had that - the settlements were a good distance apart, but nothing between them but randomly placed trees and a few monsters. You could in theory walk between them in real time, but it was a massive waste of time! Luckily you could fast travel to them without having to discover them first (I think!)
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Feb 8, 2022 18:13
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Pseudohog posted:On the subject of Elder Scrolls, Daggerfall from back in 1996 had that - the settlements were a good distance apart, but nothing between them but randomly placed trees and a few monsters. You could in theory walk between them in real time, but it was a massive waste of time! And that's kind of the issue. You can make an open world game that's to scale, but it'll be turbo boring to go anywhere. Players want an expansive world, yes, but also things to do in it. Red Dead Redemption 2 solves that quandary pretty well, I think, because there are nine towns, fairly well spread out over the world, and they're all unique. And between them there are animals to study and hunt, legendaries to find, strangers to talk to, people to help and/or shoot, etc.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:22
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The Moon Monster posted:On a similar note, I think it's funny how often games task you with killing 250 "bandits" to save a town of 6 people. Heroism! Dying Light 2. The city is the last bastion of any kind of civilization. 95% of all living people are bandits.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:25
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Doctor Spaceman posted:There are some that get vaguely realistic scales with a lot of procgen, and driving games can cover larger areas because of the limited ways players can interact with the world, but those are exceptions and almost every open-world game is a shrunken down model. Far Cry 6 is an interesting version of this problem to me. The towns and city all feel decently sized, and they're not that close to each other, but then you realize that the objective marker on the other side of the map from you is listing a distance that's closer than my daily commute to work, and it all kind of falls apart.
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Feb 8, 2022 18:28
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