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PrimeJunta

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  1. PrimeJunta
    I've also played Oblivion, Gothic 3 (modded out the wazoo), Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins, to name a few other relatively recent ones. I put a quite a lot of hours into all of them, but only finished ME, and that because it was so short. I didn't ragequit any of the others, they just started to feel more and more repetitive and tedious the further I played them. As a general rule I stop playing a game if it's less fun than my day job. Not saying I loved all the oldies. Arcanum had the same soporific effect on me as those others I didn't like; that was a real disappointment actually because many people whose taste I generally trust think very highly of it. It just never clicked for me. Felt like so much hitting things until they fall over and doing do-this do-that busywork for various people. Skinnerian mechanics again. (N.b., I also loved the original Witcher when that came out. Or, strictly speaking, after version 1.1 came out, which got rid of the insanely long loading times whenever you entered a building. I just think The Witcher 2 did everything it did only better, and without the tedious back-and-forth trekking of the first one.)
  2. PrimeJunta
  3. PrimeJunta
    @Karkarov -- Yes, and no. But mostly no, I think. Yes, games have gotten better in some ways. For example, in general they're better nowdays at exposing their mechanics to the player, either via tutorials or tutorial-like events, and they rarely have any completely useless character-building options, even if it's still entirely easy to end up with a squib if you don't know how stuff works. That is good in my opinion. But no, they're still not rid of the kind of god-awful design bloopers that were a dime a dozen in the good ol' days. And mostly no, they're not better. They've gotten "streamlined" to the point that a lot of the depth and breadth is gone. Instead there's a shallow wading pool of pretty but easily accessible pap. And they rely more on Skinner type mechanics that have you pushing the lever to get the pellet. If I had to name five or ten all-time favorite cRPG's, I think only one relatively recent one would make the list (The Witcher 2). And even that one had some truly bizarre design moments, specifically with some of the boss fights. [God I hated that squid-thing.] OTOH if I had to list ten most forgettable or actually "I want my N hours back" cRPG's, most of those would be relatively recent. This despite the mechanics being really badly broken on some of the golden oldies.
  4. PrimeJunta
    I would very much like to see better AI, with enemies trying to actively outflank you and such. I recognize that it would probably be too much of a break with cRPG tradition, but I'd like to see AI features of squad-based real-time tactical games introduced. Like suppressive fire, units seeking cover autonomously if under fire, even (dare I say it?) morale. The latter would be a natural tie-in to abilities and skills and would make things like willpower more meaningful.
  5. PrimeJunta
    I love puzzles. My only stipulation would be that there's some effort to fit them into the larger context. I.e., that there's some excuse for the puzzle to be there in the first place, and ideally some reason nobody else has shown up to solve it yet. Even better, put in some really hard puzzles in optional areas.
  6. PrimeJunta
    It's funny, but I still think the game with the best squad-based tactical combat I've played was Microsoft Close Combat from the mid-1990's. It was simple enough to be manageable, the command UI was perfect, there were enough unit and terrain types to provide genuine variety, and it had a hell of a good campaign. The AI was really well done, especially in the way it modeled behavior of individual soldiers under fire. It made concepts like suppressive fire actually matter -- you could pin down an enemy squad with one well-placed machine gunner and then have the rest of your squad outflank them. The enemy AI was smart enough to try that on you as well. It managed it with a handful of basic unit types -- the rifleman, the machine-gunner, the sniper, the tank, and the fixed gun emplacement. No tank-healer-dps archetypes there. (Well, other than the actual tank, which is not at all like the cRPG tank. Very satisfying to bust when getting close up. Very annoying to lose through careless use.) I played some of the later ones in that series as well, but didn't like them as much. They started trying too hard, piling on more and more mechanics that just added complexity (and realism, of course) but none of them were just as much sheer sweaty-palmed fun. (Hm. That sounds naughty, but you know what I mean.) I remember thinking "Goddamn, somebody needs to put this into a cRPG" back then. I'm still waiting. Apologies to those who disapprove of tangents. Thought it might be interesting anyway.
  7. PrimeJunta
    Yeah, New Crobuzon had some seriously imaginative stuff. It would make for a great RPG setting. Very not P:E though. Erm, I think. Come to think of it, that universe could work out great for a Torment spiritual successor. Certainly more than weird enough...
  8. PrimeJunta
    ^- QFT. It ain't rocket science people, just introduce a mechanic properly as it comes into play, whether it's a mad new technique, or a scary new monster. Beyond that, make 'em as fiendish as you want. At highest difficulty levels the toughest fights damn well better be sadistic nightmares of encounter design artistry.
  9. PrimeJunta
    That would be bad, yes. I would prefer to have visibility range a good deal higher than spell effect range, which would give you time to buff up when you spot those wellithids headed your way, before they can use their mind-control ray on you. Or, even better, have a stealthed rogue scout ahead. The IE games did allow this at least some of the time. I should hope P:E does too. I'm not saying there should never ever be ambushes where a bunch of nasties catches you flat-footed, but that should not be the most common type of combat challenge you get. And ideally, I'd prefer that you did something careless to walk into the ambush, rather than the usual cut-scene-followed-by-ambush thing.
  10. PrimeJunta
    On a more serious note, I'm in the pro-buff camp. It adds a lot of variety. What I don't like, though, is the encounter-as-puzzle mechanic, where you have to repeatedly die and reload to find out what they're going to throw at you, then set the right buffs, then win. For example, the game could drop hints about what to expect in a boss fight so you can prepare buffs intelligently beforehand, and, like, throw one mind-controlling wellithid at you so you'll have an idea what to do when faced with a roomful of them. I also dislike generic "make ur character stronger/faster/tougher" buffs, except very short-duration ones that can be used to swing a battle. Long duration generic buffs just end up as chores. MotB had plenty of those, like long-duration damage reduction, AC improvement or stat improvement buffs. They're just boring. If you want to make it possible to do that, just provide items for it instead. The best buffs are specific, and have a great deal of utility in specific circumstances but are near-useless in other circumstances. So, mind-control/elemental/paralysis/any-specific-effect resistance is good. Extra damage to undead/demons/beasts/humans etc., good. Short-duration, high-cost haste/damage reduction/damage boost/ability boost, good. Long-duration of the same, bad. Just my 10¢.
  11. PrimeJunta
    Yes! And since I always play self-inserts, I consider this extremely welcome news.
  12. PrimeJunta
    It was not intended as an objection. I do love that image. Also, think of the role-playing possibilities. Exactly what kind of hero will collect four bards to tag along and sing to him on his adventures? http://youtu.be/BZwuTo7zKM8
  13. PrimeJunta
    I love that image. Four bards singing a cappella as the fighter goes a'choppin'. http://youtu.be/lk5_OSsawz4
  14. PrimeJunta
    Good thread. Golden age cRPG's were merciless. They just basically threw you into the world and had you figure it out from there. So it's hardly surprising that you go wtf, buffs? if nothing and nobody has introduced the concept, except mmmaybe some small print on page 52 of a manual you skimmed through once. Fortunately games have gotten a lot better in this respect since. There is a pretty strong convention of having some in-game introduction of a mechanic once it first comes up, even if it's not a straight-out tutorial (which I don't care for much). It's a fine line to balance, though; Valve does it a bit too well for example, which makes Half-Life 2 etc. feel more like a rat running through a maze than a game where you have actual agency, even for a linear shoot-em-up. So yeah, I very much agree that degenerate gaming is symptomatic of failure -- either failure of the game design itself, or failure of the game design to communicate itself to the player. More commonly the latter, I would suspect. I'm really hoping Sawyer meets his goal of minimizing it. In a system as complex as P:E it's bound to be impossible to eliminate it completely, but it's one area where it can certainly improve massively upon its antecedents. Here's to hoping.
  15. PrimeJunta
    That looks... manly. (Also yeah, best thread on this board so far. Keep 'em coming...)
  16. PrimeJunta
    Thank you. In that case, I have no interest in what you may have to say about game mechanics. I won't be wasting your time in pointless discussion in the future.
  17. PrimeJunta
    Before we continue, Dream, one question: what are your thoughts about metagaming? Problematic or not? By "metagaming" I mean abuse of mechanics to get desired results. For example, using the save/reload mechanic to get around a failed skill check or to get better random loot, grinding for XP, min-maxing, farming, or rest-spamming. I believe that metagaming is unequivocally a Bad Thing, and that one core measure of how good a game system is, is how good it is at marginalizing metagaming. For example, if game F lets you open a chest by saving before your lockpick attempt and reloading and trying again until you succeed, but game G gives you the same result with every reload, then in my opinion game F's lockpick mechanic is worse than game G's. I'm asking because I think there's a possibility we're talking at cross-purposes. I.e., if you do not see metagaming as problematic -- which is, naturally, an entirely legitimate position to take -- I will bow out of the discussion at this point.
  18. PrimeJunta
    Okay, I may have been exaggerating a little. Consider "anywhere" struck out. There were no-rest areas here and there, 'tis true. Even so, the rest mechanic was fundamentally broken in all of the IE games, and the "no-rest areas" were a ham-fisted attempt at mitigating that fundamental design flaw. I take it you're conceding your "complexity for no reason" point, since you're no longer arguing it?
  19. PrimeJunta
    Yes! One of the few actually interesting bits in DA:O was the dwarf noble background. It at least attempted this, where you could play your dwarven prince so that he never actually spoke to the dirty plebes, but had his servant do it for him. That was a great idea, and it's too bad it went out of the window the minute the actual game started.
  20. PrimeJunta
    You have a strange sense of humor, Dream. (You are joking, right?) Edit: In case you weren't joking, what, specifically, do you think was different in the resting mechanics between the IE games and NWN that made the former 'fine' and the latter 'not fine?'
  21. PrimeJunta
    Not at all, you'd be adding complexity to the game to discourage rest-spamming. Surely you can't actually like NWN-style "sit down for six seconds anywhere at any time to recharge all resources" derpiness that nerfs the whole idea of resource management? There are other ways to do this, of course, but resource-limited camping is one of the better ideas IMO.
  22. PrimeJunta
    "Do you have a moment to talk about St. Waidwen Martyr?"
  23. PrimeJunta
    Funny, the Aumaua is the concept art I've liked best so far. Well, them and Sagani.
  24. PrimeJunta
    One of the things I liked best about Fallout was the effort at making a believable world, with farms, herds, caravans, and what have you. I would very much like to see P:E do this too. You don't need to show everything, but I would be delighted to see hints that it is there.
  25. PrimeJunta
    Only if CHA is the only stat check you ever make in conversation. Which would be silly. INT and WIS are at least as relevant, as are various knowlege-based skills, reputation, and experience.
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