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Meowywitch posted:Every single solo battle duty is a travesty that brings the whole mmo down The solo battle duties in the MSQ all suck, because they have to be designed not just to be easy, but also beatable by any job. No DPS checks, no healing checks or debuff cleansing, no aggro management or interrupting tankbusters. They have to all be fairly tepid DPS races. And the role-playing instances where you play another character can't serve it up either, because a lot of players refuse to deviate from their usual playstyle enough to recognize 'okay I'm a healer for this quest', or 'this one's a stealth mission'. They tried making an actually difficult role-playing instance in Endwalker, and people whined so much they made a patch specifically to nerf it, despite it being the best quest in Endwalker if you actually played it as intended. Job or role-specific solo duties are usually pretty okay, because they can actually challenge a specific playstyle that they can already assume you're doing. Even then though, the tank ones are usually crap.
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Dec 3, 2023 11:06
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Zero_Grade posted:The discussion earlier about best direct sequels led me to thinking about the worst #2 games in a franchise
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Dec 3, 2023 11:07
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Splicer posted:Sword of the Stars 2
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Dec 3, 2023 11:51
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Nuebot posted:That's not a particularly new innovation, it's been done a few times over the years; the first game that springs to mind that did it was Megaman Battle Network. A large reason why most games don't do it is because for any encounter to possibly pose any degree of threat or challenge it has to be capable of reducing you from full to 0 HP since damage doesn't last and there's no meaningful war of attrition in you vs. the dungeon. Which means a lot of the time enemies either wind up incredibly over tuned, or way too weak. Yeah I wasn't trying to imply the game invented it. It's just an example of how they try to get away from bad, old jrpg design tropes. There's also no random encounters, which I know has been a thing since at least Chrono Trigger, for example. I gotta say, I find the "war of attrition" argument super unconvincing. The only games I can think of that implement it in a way that feels meaningful are Persona 3+ where it ties in with managing the number of days you have to accomplish things outside of the dungeon. And in Persona 4 one of the best feeling mechanical moments in the game is when you get your fox friendship level high enough to completely ignore this aspect. Most games trivialize it by either giving you more consumables than you can ever use, spacing restore points very generously, or just being really easy. It works in things like Dark Souls where every encounter is still meaningful and requires a significant degree of execution from the player, partly because any enemy can kill you fairly quickly if you're not at least somewhat on the ball. In a typical jrpg style game it just leads to you scrolling through menus to select "normal attack" repeatedly or holding down R2 to autobattle as your character runs over a bunch of speed bumps. It's lame because a big part of the appeal is having a party of strong characters with cool attacks, but then you end up saving them for the handful of fights that matter. The Tales games strike a decent balance at least, although they still have way too much trash. I dunno anything about Megaman Battle Network but if you say it's bad I'll take your word for it.
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Dec 3, 2023 12:49
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Yeah, the whole war of attrition thing requires the attrition to be both meaningful and interesting. It goes to a common issue with that style of RPG since the original D&D that being punched nearly to death usually has no mechanical consequences, while the only described mechanical consequence for completely running out of fightpoints is "well you're dead I suppose". Across the Obelisk does some actually neat stuff with attrition and combat death. On the tabletop side WFRP3E was the best crunchy not-quite-death simulator. What they have in common is it's less about what good stuff you run low on and more about the bad stuff you accumulate. Splicer has a new favorite as of 13:57 on Dec 3, 2023 |
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Dec 3, 2023 13:50
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FF13 had a great balance because of the way that if you went out of your way to fight everything in a chapter you can keep up with the level curve.
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Dec 3, 2023 14:08
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FF13 also treated every battle as its own "puzzle" and fully restored your health after each one, so there wasn't really any concept of attrition other than a few items only usable outside of battle.
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Dec 3, 2023 14:22
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Captain Hygiene posted:I'd be there for either version of Mario Bros 2, though. The Japanese version is just an uninspired (and sometimes cheap) romhack, and the US version is just kind of meh in general, even if I like a lot of the enemies it brought over to the franchise. I can't really think of any later games in the main series that I like less - the NSMB got kind of uninspired, but I'd still rather play them in general. credburn posted:Mercenaries 2 was pretty good, wasn't it? Wasn't it just more more more of Mercenaries?  Pandemic.
Zero_Grade has a new favorite as of 15:19 on Dec 3, 2023 |
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Dec 3, 2023 15:17
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Splicer posted:Sword of the Stars 2 Nothing like a game where the release version contains multiple divide by zero errors.
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Dec 3, 2023 15:25
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Mercs 2 had some weird issues, like everything you bought was delivered from your base but you couldn't just collect things from said base. So if you needed new equipment you had to go outside, order it and use up fuel resources to deliver it five feet.
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Dec 3, 2023 15:52
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Mercs 2 was one of the few games that was too glitchy for me to be fun. It didn't have the biggest glitches by far but enough lil ones to get in the way. Did it end up getting patched on 360 or ran better on PC? Croccers has a new favorite as of 16:59 on Dec 3, 2023 |
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Dec 3, 2023 16:56
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Cleretic posted:Job or role-specific solo duties are usually pretty okay, because they can actually challenge a specific playstyle that they can already assume you're doing. Even then though, the tank ones are usually crap. Healers have the worst role specific solo duties because they make you heal NPCs who aren't technically in your party, so your aoe heals don't work and there isn't a party list so you have to manually click them on the battlefield
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Dec 3, 2023 17:01
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Tender Bender posted:My Little Things Dragging This Game Down is: lack of editing, dragging down so many games. Games never know how long a conversation should be or seem to have any desire for brevity, so dialogue exchanges are often repetitive and go on for 2-3 times as long as they need to be. Even games with great writing suffer from this. I'm playing Yakuza 0 now, and loving it, and the writing is a highlight, but even then I so often see long rambling dialogue box spam where a decent editor could have stepped in and tightened things up. Just re-upping this complaint now that I've picked up Xenoblade Chronicles 3 to try to finish the game after having put it down for a year. I really like this game, the characters, and the story, but there are so many long rambling cutscenes that I find it really hard to pay attention. Every conversation goes on forever repeating the same points and I just completely zone out.
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Dec 3, 2023 20:03
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NikkolasKing posted:You know another BW sequel which was wildly different from the first one? Mass Effect 2. And yet it has always been and will probably always be the most popular ME game. DA2 meanwhile. even after all these years, is still fairly divisive. Sad. Me2 had some issues but it did slick widescreen space opera so well, I loved it.
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Dec 3, 2023 20:28
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Why does Hollow Knight hate giving me a functional map so much? You don't start with a map at all which, ok, you get it pretty quickly. But then you have to pay to upgrade your map so it logs the locations of various things. Oh, you want to put a pin in yourself? gently caress you, gotta buy it. Want a different colored pin? gently caress you, buy that too. You want to see where on the map you currently are? Better believe you gotta buy that and it takes up an active item slot too for some reason.
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Dec 3, 2023 21:02
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I'm glad that absolutely no other game followed in HK's map style. Feels like the dev team had a serious grudge against quest arrows and overshot way too far.
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Dec 3, 2023 21:35
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Croccers posted:Mercs 2 was one of the few games that was too glitchy for me to be fun. It didn't have the biggest glitches by far but enough lil ones to get in the way. It ran like hot buttered dogshit on PC. It seemed like the kind of game I’d love but I hit show stopping bugs constantly and never got to play more than a few hours.
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Dec 3, 2023 21:49
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tripwood posted:I'm glad that absolutely no other game followed in HK's map style. Feels like the dev team had a serious grudge against quest arrows and overshot way too far. I wonder if the map support was grudging because the obvious inspiration Dark Souls didn't have a map. But a 3D game needs a map far less because you can use distant landmarks to keep your bearings
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Dec 3, 2023 22:28
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I'm sure Team Cherry learned their lesson and Silksong will have a much better map when it releases in 10 years
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Dec 3, 2023 22:30
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muscles like this! posted:Mercs 2 had some weird issues, like everything you bought was delivered from your base but you couldn't just collect things from said base. So if you needed new equipment you had to go outside, order it and use up fuel resources to deliver it five feet. The first mercs had all kinds of awesomely destructive air strikes and support you could call in, through varied means like satellite map or laser designator. Mercs 2 had an expanded menu of awesomely destructive air strikes and support you could call in, except each and every one was called in via smoke grenade. You couldn't use the majority of them for fear of blowing yourself to poo poo! And/or getting shot to hell trying to get close enough to the thing dangerous enough to warrant a carpet bombing run to bean it with a smoke grenade.
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Dec 3, 2023 22:42
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Zero_Grade posted:I'm positive I've replayed SMB2 more than SMB1, and if you gave me the choice between the two today I'm pretty sure I'd still choose to replay 2. The platforming and general gameplay feels good despite the game overall being kinda goofy. There's variety in the characters too, even if the Pro Pick is Toad 90% of the time. I've run through both in the last week for the first time in a while, and I was surprised how bored I was with SMB and how impressed I was with SMB2. SMB1's physics still feel great to play and and sort of put the second game's to shame, but SMB2 is just *loaded* with weird secrets and puzzles and creative levels and general weird poo poo. Plus, as great as SMB1's physics are in general, SMB2 really excels in certain weird levels like the one where you can basically speedrun through an ice track dodging snowball enemies like some kind of 8-bit Neo. SMB2 also does a lot of interesting stuff with the mechanics themselves, like starting a level with two hitpoints but being able to find more in a given level. also the pro-pick for pretty much everything but the desert worlds is luigi. you can find some weeeeird stuff when you're able to jump over seemingly-impassible walls.
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Dec 3, 2023 22:47
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Yeah but Luigi just sucks so much. Like as a person. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 3, 2023 23:12
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Mods?
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Dec 3, 2023 23:52
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Arrath posted:The first mercs had all kinds of awesomely destructive air strikes and support you could call in, through varied means like satellite map or laser designator. The 1st mercs had a laser designator for nukes and bunker busters. The 2nd had you throw a smoke grenade. I will never understand what happened. I heard you were having fun blowing stuff up, we can't have that now. Probably a lovely destruction draw distance problem.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:15
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I remember reaching the end of Mercenaries 2, having to do a QTE on the boss and the game freezing up. I definitely wasn't mad.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:40
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Arrath posted:The first mercs had all kinds of awesomely destructive air strikes and support you could call in, through varied means like satellite map or laser designator. I think the air strike system in Mercs 2 stands out as the biggest issue, but there was just something missing in the game that Mercs 1 had. I can't remember if Mercs 2 had it, but Mercs 1 had a fun thing where each of the playable characters knew a foreign language, so when you went to speak to a mission giver, they'd be talking to another person and you'd get a bit of background. If they didn't, you just get a subtitle that said something like "Dialog in Korean"
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Dec 4, 2023 04:19
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Mercs 2 is the definitive example of any game being fun with a friend. It’s a broken mess but I only have fond memories of doing coop with my mate.
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Dec 4, 2023 06:16
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Tales from the Borderlands? Hilarious, arguably both the best Borderlands game and the best Telltale game. Huh, what's wrong with New? lovely writing, or something else (performance issues, etc)?
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Dec 4, 2023 07:16
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Mercs 2 had that amusing song attached to it.
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Dec 4, 2023 11:14
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Thing dragging down a few games: treating you to a pop quiz about the razor-thin plot, presumably because the writers are pre-emptively mad at you for skipping through boring parts of the game to get to the Good Stuff. A drag: the latest Pokemon game's quiz at the Elite Four, asking you to remember the details about the various gym leaders. It's not that this one is actually hard, it's just... if you wanted me to remember who the gym leaders were, maybe make them more than just a one-dimensional sketch you only interact with for one battle apiece. Less of a drag: an event in FTL where a random event will happen on "one of the [x] moons of a planet in the nebula", and you can recruit a crew member if you can answer "How many moons does this planet have?" This one's less annoying to me because FTL does actually have a lot of good flavor, and it's so unabashedly fourth-wall-breaking. Like, there's no way the captain of an actual spaceship isn't just glancing down at their dashboard to say "Five" or whatever, but this is a game, YOU can't do that.
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Dec 4, 2023 15:28
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Every time you get to the end of a run in World of Horror you get an event that asks you what the second monster you killed was and I will never remember that
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Dec 4, 2023 16:17
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I’m like 3 ½ hours into Cyberpunk and I’ve only been in one and a half combat encounters. Yeah the world is beautiful but I’m tired of people talking at me constantly while driving me around. On the other hand, I chose the Corpo start and it feels like that mattered for a whole 20 minutes before some random guys walked up to me at a bar and went ‘You’re no longer corpo, bye’. My half combat experience was me helping the cops kill some gang members, which resulted in the cops turning on me. I then proceed 5 feet from the fire fight and got into a car for a very secretive meeting with a very important person. All while the cops were actively shooting at me. moosecow333 has a new favorite as of 18:15 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 18:12
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RandolphCarter posted:Every time you get to the end of a run in World of Horror you get an event that asks you what the second monster you killed was and I will never remember that See if you never get that far due to being poo poo at it you can't even get the answer wrong
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Dec 4, 2023 18:35
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Read After Burning posted:Huh, what's wrong with New? lovely writing, or something else (performance issues, etc)? Calling it lovely writing is an insult to poo poo, it feels like the writers looked at the cliffnotes of Tales and Borderlands 3 and went "Nah, we can do better".
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Dec 4, 2023 21:53
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Judge Tesla posted:Calling it lovely writing is an insult to poo poo, it feels like the writers looked at the cliffnotes of Tales and Borderlands 3 and went "Nah, we can do better". What a bummer, I really enjoyed Tales (and the soundtrack!). Scooter. 
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Dec 4, 2023 22:12
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Judge Tesla posted:Calling it lovely writing is an insult to poo poo, it feels like the writers looked at the cliffnotes of Tales and Borderlands 3 and went "Nah, we can do better".
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Dec 4, 2023 22:18
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moosecow333 posted:I’m like 3 ½ hours into Cyberpunk and I’ve only been in one and a half combat encounters. Yeah the world is beautiful but I’m tired of people talking at me constantly while driving me around. Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but the long rear end linear introduction felt deliberate to me. Because most services won't offer you a refund after you've played for 2 hours; so cyberpunk which was broken as gently caress launches with a two or more hour long introduction before you can even actually play the game. And those first two hours mostly played fine! But then once you hit the broken poo poo it became incredibly hard to get a refund from steam or whoever else. Anyway the update fixed most of the bugs, now it's just kind of an open world game about on par with skyrim imo. I played it for a few days, didn't play it once then felt zero urge to go back and continue and haven't touched it since.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:48
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Nuebot posted:Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but the long rear end linear introduction felt deliberate to me. Because most services won't offer you a refund after you've played for 2 hours; it's sixty to eighty hours long without the dlc. you're being paranoid
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Dec 5, 2023 02:12
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Cyberpunk was only broken on old consoles, it was basically fine on PC, if buggy.
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Dec 5, 2023 07:56
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It was still pretty drat buggy on PC at launch.
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Dec 5, 2023 08:07
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