RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS - CON SEASON

[Gfted1]

Well there's grinding and then grinding.  I just miss the days when you didn't have a progression system tacked on to things other than an (MMO)RPG

But people are different. Ive grinded for an item in WoW longer than RDR2 has been released. In my case I didn't mind, in the RDR2 case there are already complainers. I do not think its possible to strike a perfect balance as someone, somewhere, will always be butthurt over any matter. 

 

A game that's fun to play at install. And, if there is a leveling system, it doesn't require repetitive tasks.

Can you give me an example? 

 

No one is arguing for things to be fully unlocked at install. What they're arguing is that the grind exists to force you to use the microtransactions. If it takes 200 hours to get $250k but you can spend $15 to get $1 million; what is the point of playing 200 hours?

Chicken or the egg! Grinds existed long before microtransactions as a means of lengthening the gaming hours. Now there is a monetary solution if you don't want to do the time. Easy peasy.

 

The one point I do agree on; if an item can ONLY be attained via microtransaction, even after purchasing the full game, then that's wrong imo.

[Tale]

Can you give me an example? 

I'm sure I can give you a few. I've always hated MMO raiding for one example. Going through the same dungeon, fighting the same bosses, week after week. Or even something as simple as camping spawns for hours at a time to get one particular drop or enough materials for one particular item. 

 

Progression raiding is kind of interesting, people trying to figure out how to beat the bosses. But gear raiding? Complete drivel. Repetitive attempts on solved content to stay competitive or move to the next tier because the developers weren't able to make enough interesting content without repetition to keep people engaged.

 

If you're wanting RDR2 examples, I can give none, because I won't play it. GTAV Online had this problem when I did play it. To unlock some later missions that might have been interesting, you first need to grind levels in deathmatch and races even if you don't care for deathmatch or races. It was a game that gated fun behind tedium.

[SonicMage117]

 

Again? Bethesda always seems to be in some lawsuit lol

[213374U]

Do you remember a time when difficulty was geared towards entertainment instead of profit? No; good, because it didn't exist.

Since the times of Arcades difficulty was a way to get more money out of you.

Rather than them focusing on a single element I would like that they address the main issue and that is that games now are a lot of fluff and no real content. The solution is someone designing an actual pleasant experience, instead of representatives of the board making sure that you hit all the checkmarks on elements they believe will make a game good/profitable. At this point  I don't who to blame; the developer or the publisher, it seems like they're melding into this hideous amorphous corporate entity.

I'm pretty sure that games like Dark Sun (the SSI RPG), Moonstone and Star Control 2 had a difficulty that was designed to make the games primarily entertaining enough to play without being trivial, rather than as another mechanism to extract revenue. It may have been one element in a commercial product, so you could argue that technically the aim was profit, but that's extremely reductionist.

 

The design-by-numbers approach may be atrocious, but it's hard to dispute that it, alongside a marketing budget in the tens of millions produces the kind of roi that publicly traded companies are after. It's only when they get cute and try to push the envelope that sales may be seriously affected. And at the same time, "cult" titles where all the bells and whistles and assorted fluff take a backseat to strong and/or innovative gameplay systems and narratives have a disturbing tendency to land the companies making them in financial dire straits.

 

I'm really looking forward to Iron Tower's space game, but calling it even a niche product is a bit of an understatement.

 

 

 

I'll counter that with an example where I think the mtx works or used to before the new lootboxes, Lord of the Rings Online. As a MMO is was always kind of grindy and always had deeds where you had to kill hundreds of something to finish but when they went free to play they added deed accelerators that allow you to finish those objectives in half the time. Add to that it's very easy to earn decent amounts of cash shop currency in game and both the lootboxen and keys to open them were landscape drops and deed rewards.  Here the game plays almost exactly as it did before even if you don't spend a dime and spending money lets you speed things up from normal as the devs didn't slow the base game down to push you to spend as they did with NBA 2K.

 

I never played LotRO, but it's a Turbine game, right? That sounds fairly similar to how DDO worked, and it's another example of MTX done right. On top of that they sold each of the adventure packs separately which you could buy with cash shop currency earned ingame (or from the subscriber stipend), which provided an incentive for F2P players to keep at it without affecting subscribers. I think there were XP boosters that helped if you were crazy about reincarnations and that sort of thing, but that was it. It's a MMO so the grind is still there, but it's not a means to push you towards the cash shop, so as you say, it doesn't feel exploitative.

 

I think Star Trek Online's model was on the more benign side as well, even if all the cool ships came in lootboxes. Never actually subbed there so I don't know how premium players were affected, though.

 

In any event, those are online games with a recurring spending model meant on its face to fund ongoing development of additional content. You know what you are getting into. This recent trend of turning single-player, offline games into GaaS-lite abortions is bull**** greedy ****ery, plain and simple, and it needs to die.

[Gfted1]

I'm sure I can give you a few. I've always hated MMO raiding for one example. Going through the same dungeon, fighting the same bosses, week after week. Or even something as simple as camping spawns for hours at a time to get one particular drop or enough materials for one particular item. 

 

Progression raiding is kind of interesting, people trying to figure out how to beat the bosses. But gear raiding? Complete drivel. Repetitive attempts on solved content to stay competitive or move to the next tier because the developers weren't able to make enough interesting content without repetition to keep people engaged.

 

If you're wanting RDR2 examples, I can give none, because I won't play it. GTAV Online had this problem when I did play it. To unlock some later missions that might have been interesting, you first need to grind levels in deathmatch and races even if you don't care for deathmatch or races. It was a game that gated fun behind tedium.

I was only looking for an example of: "A game that's fun to play at install. And, if there is a leveling system, it doesn't require repetitive tasks."

[Tale]

 

I'm sure I can give you a few. I've always hated MMO raiding for one example. Going through the same dungeon, fighting the same bosses, week after week. Or even something as simple as camping spawns for hours at a time to get one particular drop or enough materials for one particular item. 

 

Progression raiding is kind of interesting, people trying to figure out how to beat the bosses. But gear raiding? Complete drivel. Repetitive attempts on solved content to stay competitive or move to the next tier because the developers weren't able to make enough interesting content without repetition to keep people engaged.

 

If you're wanting RDR2 examples, I can give none, because I won't play it. GTAV Online had this problem when I did play it. To unlock some later missions that might have been interesting, you first need to grind levels in deathmatch and races even if you don't care for deathmatch or races. It was a game that gated fun behind tedium.

I was only looking for an example of: "A game that's fun to play at install. And, if there is a leveling system, it doesn't require repetitive tasks."

 

The answer is FEAR. It's always FEAR. Except when it's XCOM. Or SOMA.

 

Apparently games where the title is ALL CAPS are universally excellent.

[Keyrock]

Apparently games where the title is ALL CAPS are universally excellent.

Let's try...

 

DOOM

 

It works!    

[Gfted1]

Does DOOM 4 really have a leveling system? I dont remember one in the original.

[Orogun01]

Does DOOM 4 really have a leveling system? I dont remember one in the original.

The weapons do.

[Malcador]

 

Well there's grinding and then grinding.  I just miss the days when you didn't have a progression system tacked on to things other than an (MMO)RPG

But people are different. Ive grinded for an item in WoW longer than RDR2 has been released. In my case I didn't mind, in the RDR2 case there are already complainers. I do not think its possible to strike a perfect balance as someone, somewhere, will always be butthurt over any matter. 

 

 

 

 

It definitely is, but as some others have said, you see naked examples of the developer incentivizing you to take the shortcut.  GTA Online is like that, sure you get 750k free as a gift but you can't afford things to get content as you need a high level apartment, bunker, nightclub, etc. and those all need large amounts of money - and you do a heist likely with 3 monkeys to get 150 k or some relative pittance.

 

Though really, nothing wrong with it in any case, just trying to explain the distinction in my mind.

[Malcador]

I was only looking for an example of: "A game that's fun to play at install. And, if there is a leveling system, it doesn't require repetitive tasks."

 

 

Unreal Tournament

[Gfted1]

I thought for sure that "a leveling system that didn't require repetition" was a unicorn but you guys have proven me wrong.

[SonicMage117]

I think if a game designs grinding as different types of quests, then it wouldn't require any repetition at all.

 

It really depends on the design choices I suppose. Like more linear action games that possess leveling up, the linearity doesn't allow for much replay value but always doing something different. Can't tell you what titles I'm thinking up exactly but maybe something like Breathe Of The Wild-ish.

[injurai]

Bethesda owns Gamebryo. It's their engine since years.

 

Yeah... I'm gonna need a source on that. As far as I'm aware they simply forked the project and rebranded. It will take a while for them to transition away from the underlying architecture of the library and the game logic built around it.

[AwesomeOcelot]

I ask this sincerely; players squeal at grinding, then they squeal at other players paying real world money for things (while pretending to being worried for the children), so whats the solution? The game being fully unlocked and leveled up at install?

 

This isn't aimed at you Lexx, you just made me think about it.

 

I think what changed was that skipping grinding got monetized which incentivised game play loops to not be fun and the amount of grinding to have a progression curve that many more people don't have a tolerance for. Grinding has always existed, there's always been some grinds that were just as bad, but the amount of grinding in the amount of genres, in the amount games has exploded to the point that it's beyond more people's tolerance by design. This has also led to a lack of specialization and meaningful choice in that progression curve. A multi-player shooter should be fully unlocked and levelled up at install. That's how they were, and they were great, there's a lot of games where the progression system is just there to make money, it adds nothing to the game.

 

Paying real world money for things that effect gameplay seems to me to pervert the point of games and is definitely less consumer friendly. I don't know whether loot boxes actually promote gambling in children, but I sure don't like that I would have to gamble to get an item I want instead of paying a fair price for it. Of course the market is in such a way that I never feel the items are ever worth the price so I just don't buy the item, or don't buy the game. I don't disparage player bases complaining about these practices though, because there have been climb downs e.g. Diablo III's real money auction house.

 

I played WoW at launch for a year, had a lot of fun with real life friends, online friends, played in a guild, quit at end game content because it was too much grind. The thing is you could not grind in that game for most of it. You wouldn't get the best items but you could be competent at each level. Also end game content for vanilla WoW was a minority interest of people who sunk a lot of time into that game anyway, and a lot of people took a vacation from it until the next expansion.

 

Diablo II is such a great game and is still played to this day, grinding will get you levels and items, but you don't have to grind to progress meaningfully and by the time you hit the grind you've had your money's worth. The gameplay loop and progression works so well that it's not a grind. I don't think you get that in modern games, I think it's become corrupted by profit incentive. I do get annoyed the amount of squealing from people that should stop giving these companies their money. There's always a competitor with a better model in the same genre that could do with that money. Gamer's money is their vote, and they keep on voting for **** and wondering why things get worse.

[marelooke]

 

Bethesda owns Gamebryo. It's their engine since years.

 

Yeah... I'm gonna need a source on that. As far as I'm aware they simply forked the project and rebranded. It will take a while for them to transition away from the underlying architecture of the library and the game logic built around it.

 

 

Ok, so I went ahead and read the Wikipedia articles about both Gamebryo and the Creation Engine. From what I gather Bethesda's fork isn't quite that old (< 10 years). Skyrim being the first Bethesda game using a (presumably) lightly modified version of it. So despite its issues I'd say Fallout 4 marked a clear step forward for the engine.

 

Based on what Wikipedia says using it for Fallout 76 seems like it was just a bad idea as the concept of a single player apparently was a core assumption the engine made. I imagine just getting that to work on top of all the networking seems like it must have sucked up all the time of the engine team leaving other quite crucial changes behind, which could explain why, aside from the networking, the engine seems to have barely evolved since Fallout 4.

 

The fact that they put all that effort in leads me to believe they're probably going to want to include some form of multiplayer in future Creation Engine games (TESVI co-op? Not certain how I feel about that), if not then this could have been a very expensive mistake.

 

It would be easy to say they could have built a new engine in that period (I mean, teams have built engines in less time), but... How big is Bethesda's engine team? How talented are the people on there? How about the tooling around it? I mean, working on something you have vs building that same thing from scratch are quite a different ballpark. And of course, while building a new engine, you can't really use it to build anything...

Edited November 29, 2018 by marelooke

[SonicMage117]

Rockstar getting in on the Battle Royale experience it seems...

 

Was there ever any doubt?

[Mamoulian War]

 

 

Bethesda owns Gamebryo. It's their engine since years.

Yeah... I'm gonna need a source on that. As far as I'm aware they simply forked the project and rebranded. It will take a while for them to transition away from the underlying architecture of the library and the game logic built around it.

Ok, so I went ahead and read the Wikipedia articles about both Gamebryo and the Creation Engine. From what I gather Bethesda's fork isn't quite that old (< 10 years). Skyrim being the first Bethesda game using a (presumably) lightly modified version of it. So despite its issues I'd say Fallout 4 marked a clear step forward for the engine.

 

Based on what Wikipedia says using it for Fallout 76 seems like it was just a bad idea as the concept of a single player apparently was a core assumption the engine made. I imagine just getting that to work on top of all the networking seems like it must have sucked up all the time of the engine team leaving other quite crucial changes behind, which could explain why, aside from the networking, the engine seems to have barely evolved since Fallout 4.

 

The fact that they put all that effort in leads me to believe they're probably going to want to include some form of multiplayer in future Creation Engine games (TESVI co-op? Not certain how I feel about that), if not then this could have been a very expensive mistake.

 

It would be easy to say they could have built a new engine in that period (I mean, teams have built engines in less time), but... How big is Bethesda's engine team? How talented are the people on there? How about the tooling around it? I mean, working on something you have vs building that same thing from scratch are quite a different ballpark. And of course, while building a new engine, you can't really use it to build anything...

I think in-house Crystal Engine by Squeenix is big enough warning to every other big developer when the idea of making their own engine crosses mind of any of their managers

Edited November 29, 2018 by Mamoulian War

[injurai]

Yeah, Luminous engine became a disaster. But that's mostly because the lead engineer jumped ship.

 

Capcom's Panta Rhei as well. I haven't necessarily heard nightmares about that, but they still seem to be on MT Framework which still seems like a solid engine compared to a lot of what is out there. Maybe that was used more for research and mocking? Maybe whatever Deep Down was supposed to be is still in the works? Who knows...

[Keyrock]

I forgot all about Deep Down.  Is that still a thing that is happening?

[Cpl Halsbart]

Bethesda should assemble the project Offset guys.

 

Here, I'll add something: https://www.gog.com/game/battle_brothers_beasts_exploration

Edited November 29, 2018 by Ada'tyool

[213374U]

Bethesda swindles $200 CE owners out of promised canvas bags, blames it on "unavailability" of materials

 

https://twitter.com/Fallout/status/1067908200182222850

 

Bonus points for throwing the temp contract worker under the bus, while confirming that what they said is, in fact, accurate.

Edited November 29, 2018 by 213374U

[Oner]

The gaming industry is a sad, sad mess.

[Chilloutman]

sounds like clean up season to me finally.

[Gfted1]

500 Atoms will probably buy a lot of loot boxes.