What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[Gfted1]

Any form of countdown is an instant non-buy / quit forever scenario for me.

[Malcador]

Also one of those things you realize it's a game you're playing and move on.

[Wormerine]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

A good example of this is Fallout. You have 100 days I think (it's been a while) to get the part you need. You can go wherever you want and do whatever you want, but if you waste too much time ****ing around then Vault 13 is ****ed.

Uf, I disagree. Timers like that (or ones in Kingamer) add problems instead of fixing anything. One either designs the game so it is about making choices on what to do (or in what order to do them like in Alpha protocol) or one doesn't. I find adding generous timers, just so there is illusion of pressure frustrating - do I need to rush through the story? Does timer not matter (it really doesn't in fallout and kingmaker? It's a pointless addition, which creates unnecessary frustration and anxiety on first playthrough, and is irrelevant on consequent playthoughs.

[Keyrock]

7 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Uf, I disagree. Timers like that (or ones in Kingamer) add problems instead of fixing anything. One either designs the game so it is about making choices on what to do (or in what order to do them like in Alpha protocol) or one doesn't. I find adding generous timers, just so there is illusion of pressure frustrating - do I need to rush through the story? Does timer not matter (it really doesn't in fallout and kingmaker? It's a pointless addition, which creates unnecessary frustration and anxiety on first playthrough, and is irrelevant on consequent playthoughs.

For me, if the story has a ticking clock then the gameplay should have a ticking clock. Ideally, it's an option so that people can play the way they want, which I think was patched into Fallout eventually, or maybe it was a community made patch or something.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

To be clear, I think you can have a ticking clock element in an open world game, it can work really well, in fact, but it needs to be a real ticking clock integrated into the gameplay and not just a "ticking clock".

A lot of people absolutely hate that though.

Games seem to handle this 'problem' three different ways.

1) Have a hard mechanic that is rigorously enforced and not at all generous. That would be something like the Spirit Meter in Mask of the Betrayer. You have to consider very carefully whether to rest, and how to manage it, and it's pretty easy to mess it up especially at the beginning. You might also include games like Age of Decadence here, where 'urgent' secondary quests fail if you leave a location having not completed them.

2) A soft mechanic, like Fallout 1 (yes, post patch, prepatch it was way more aggressive). You can do all the content within the time limit pretty easily, you only get in trouble if you try farming random encounters or really don't pay attention.

3) Just don't have a time limit, everything stands still until you hit the next plot progression point.

The issue from a game design perspective is that people are conditioned to the third option as it's far and away the most popular- while people love having the 'urgency' of being told they are racing against the clock they hate having the urgency of actually racing against the clock, and that's true for a lot of non gaming stuff too.

Practically, there's very little difference between post patch F1 and TW3 except not being able to perpetually farm random encounters in F1. You can deal with the monster contract of Shady Sands' radscorpion infestation as easily within the time limit as [Temerian Hamlet's] Nekker infestation; you won't hit F1's time limit unless you're deliberately messing around or trying to defog the entire map on foot. But what was the #1 most hated thing about MotB? The Spirit Meter, by absolute miles. I liked it, but it's pretty clear objectively that a lot of people really, really, didn't; plus I'd still buy MotB if the Spirit Meter wasn't there. When you're making a commercial product those people count, because they won't buy. Hence making the timers a lot more generous in the F1 patch.

On the positive side, at least TW3 isn't Bioshock, and point out that the whole thing's gamey then continue on blithely with the exact same gamey stuff.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Zoraptor

[Keyrock]

5 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

But what was the #1 most hated thing about MotB? The Spirit Meter, by absolute miles. I liked it, but it's pretty clear objectively that a lot of people really, really, didn't

You can count me as one of the few other weirdos that liked the spirit meter. 

[Zoraptor]

There are dozens of us! Dozens!

[HoonDing]

Best Witcher game is unironically that card game with Queen Meve.

[Vaeliorin]

3 hours ago, Keyrock said:

You can count me as one of the few other weirdos that liked the spirit meter. 

I wouldn't say that I liked it, but I found it to be a non-issue (other than the alignment change stuff...seemed basically impossible not to end up lawful good or whatever the alignment shift for eating regular people was.)

[Hurlshort]

In Disco Elysium, I helped a young DJ find the true beats and unlocked the music. Then I danced like it was the end of times. It was cathartic. I shed a tear. Kim couldn't help but join me. I spoke to the city with my moves.

Now I'm ready to solve this case.

[bugarup]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

There are dozens of us! Dozens!

Spirit-o-meter was a non-issue on suppressive goody-goody runs, but on soul glutton runs you could easily die when travelling on not totally full stomach. Still, manageable and I liked it. 

'sfunny how I love tricky resource management systems like in MOTB or "Pathologic" or "The Void" or even long term timers like in Fallout 1, but short term timers where you must race somewhere IMMEDIATELY RIGHT NOW NOW NOW GO!!! make me feel something between road rage and stepping barefoot in dogsh†t.

Edited December 16, 2021 by bugarup
wrong Fallout

[melkathi]

I am ok with timers, soul-o-meters etc if it is pretty obvious they are there.

I may decide a specific game uses them in a way I don't like.

What I dislike is games that have hidden timers or just situational timers, where you don't know if you can take your time or not.

[Malcador]

9 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

In Disco Elysium, I helped a young DJ find the true beats and unlocked the music. Then I danced like it was the end of times. It was cathartic. I shed a tear. Kim couldn't help but join me. I spoke to the city with my moves.

Now I'm ready to solve this case.

I regret I could not shoot them.  Or shoot more people.

Finished off SoTR, that last mission has some enjoyable puzzles although a bit repetitive cutting cords to keep pressure plates depressed.  Maybe will do NG+ but for now, that's dusted.   

Nothing in backlog is catching my interest, leading me to wonder why I bought these things in the first place, so maybe will see how bad Omerta is

Edited December 16, 2021 by Malcador

[Sarex]

18 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I regret I could not shoot them.  Or shoot more people.

HARDCORE!!!

[Malcador]

6 minutes ago, Sarex said:

HARDCORE!!!

And Internally coherent. 

 

Although I guess wanting to shoot people is a bad sign...

[melkathi]

I was given Wildermyth. I think the legacy thingie is done ok and the game is pretty. The writing I don't care all that much for.

[Wormerine]

17 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The issue from a game design perspective is that people are conditioned to the third option as it's far and away the most popular- while people love having the 'urgency' of being told they are racing against the clock they hate having the urgency of actually racing against the clock, and that's true for a lot of non gaming stuff too.

I think it is simplifying problem. I am not against racing against the clock by priciple. I am big fan of roguelites (in this bit I will quite Invisible Inc) and the very premise is about picking what you will be able to do and gain and make hard choices. 

The problem is that RPG so far haven't been well designed for that. Same with resting system, resource management etc. I am not against those things, but they need to be implemented in appropriate setting. A handcrafted open RPG designed to have enjoyable side content is not a place where a timer adds something positive. Perhaps RPG makes should reconsider stories they are writing, I will agree with that.

 

Back to my Sekiro. I knew the previous fight I mentioned was suspiciously easy and basic (no perilious attacks at all?) Uff ,the real version took me a few tries and was far more satisfying

I like how various factions have their own fighting styles. This one in particular mirrored a lot of the stuff that Sekiro can do. He even Mekiri countered my butt.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Wormerine

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

I was given Wildermyth. I think the legacy thingie is done ok and the game is pretty. The writing I don't care all that much for.

Playing it, I was curious how difficult it would be to create some better storylines. It seems like it is designed to be able to create your adventures.

[kanisatha]

On 12/15/2021 at 10:33 AM, BruceVC said:

Kanie this is very important debate around a contentious issue that many gaming forums discuss. With the general question being " can Larian deliver a worthwhile BG3 experience and honor the originals " ? And for the record BG2:ToB is my favorite RPG of all time so I want BG3 to succeed 

I am of the view Larian  can because of how much I enjoyed D:OS2 and then the salient question is " okay but what did you enjoy about D:OS2 ". So me it was

• I enjoyed the overall narrative and the lore was believable and interesting but could have been deeper
• The party companions were memorable and had interesting side quests which matters to any BG game, your party matters.They even had some Romance at the end of D:OS2 which I always appreciate
• The combat was a huge part of the enjoyment with the different strategies and how you utilized your companions skills and magic 
• And then the monsters and places to explore seemed adequate and entertaining. I am expecting more with BG3 because of the variety of monsters and interesting Forgotten Realm world 

So what are yours and others concerns with BG3 ?

Just a side-note on D:OS, I have only tried the first game, and hated it so much that I am unwilling to try the second one.

Re. BG3, and again to note, I am not playing the EA and only know the game from a LOT of time I've spent discussing it on various forums plus watching every video of it I can find. Anyway, here goes, in no particular rank order:

Don't like TB combat at all as I find it too slow, aggravating, and immersion-breaking. But, on this issue, I have come to terms with the fact that this is not going to change in BG3, and as long as they give me easy/story difficulty modes that I can switch to any time within the game so I can breeze through disliked combat I should be okay.

Relatdely, don't know if there will be a robust set of difficulty modes and toggles that can be changed even after you start the game.

Party size of four. This could be a dealbreaker all by itself.

Too many Larian home-brew mechanics I dislike, such as elemental surfaces, barrelmancy, shove, etc. All of them I find to be cheap, lame gimmicks.

The way Larian does party movement (i.e. their chain-linked party movement).

No true pause function during real-time exploration. Only a pseudo-pause function by force-triggering TB combat.

Do not like their concept of origin characters, and especially that a custom PC has no connections to the game/world and is the most irrelevant and disconnected member of your party. In a party with origin character companions, they are the "stars" of the party; they are the ones central to the story. Your custom PC just doesn't matter in the game.

Not a single likeable companion for me so far, and especially the question of whether I will be able to have a full party (of six with a mod?) of likeable and good-oriented companions.

Relatedly, no Lathander as one of the included gods? That's bullcrap.

Having one companion with some deep dark secret and who is not what they appear to be is fine, even interesting. Having this be ALL the companions is just plain ridiculous, and reflects unimaginative and weak writing ability.

Party companions locked at the end of Act 1, and companions not in your active party are lost to you.

Game visuals/art-style looks way too much like D:OS (or more specifically like Rivellon, a game setting I hated).

A writing style that is all about being hip and edgy and cool and angst-ridden. Even their so-called humor is just not funny to me.

And may be a few other things I can't quite remember right now.

[Lexx]

Oh no, Fallout 1 watertimer discussion.

Ok, first thing: the default 150 days are enough time to finish all content on the red story path up to that point. In worst case you can buy 100 more days a bit later.

So unless you start walking around randomly on the worldmap (which you never have a need for actually), you will not run out of time.

Next thing is.. Fallout 1 doesn't even have *that* much content. The only way for you to run out of time is if you literally waste it. The game is never sending you to a place without giving you hints about how to proceed.. players just have to read what the NPCs are saying.

That said, you can as well just ignore most side quests at first and do them once you return with the water chip. You will walk past every single settlement again and can do stuff there - hell, personally I'd say it makes even more sense to do the side quests later. Half of them have higher level requirements, which are hard for the early game (Raiders, for example -- pretty sure the developers didn't intend the player to slaughter them on level 3, but level 8 when he returns from the water chip delivery task).

etc. etc. yadda yadda. IMO people are scared of the timer for unreasonable reasons. I blame other games with crappy writing for this, though. People got trained to not read and just blindly follow arrows.

[Oner]

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

etc. etc. yadda yadda. IMO people are scared of the timer for unreasonable reasons. I blame other games with crappy writing for this, though. People got trained to not read and just blindly follow arrows.

Isn't it more unreasonable to attribute a gameplay mechanic's unpopularity to the writers?

The threat of getting shafted with a game over hanging over your head as soon as you start the game can be daunting for people and rightly so.
Yeah, the 150 days in FO1 were generous. Except you wouldn't know that until you played enough to learn this. And other games were more or less forgiving with their timers or lied about there being a time limit in the first place, etc. There isn't even a standard you can use as a reference to gauge how tight your deadline is. Other folks just don't want to stress over these kind of mechanics when daily life is already stressful enough.

[Hurlshort]

I finished Disco Elysium. It seems like it is a new evolution in adventure games. It was very well done.

Spoiler

At the end of the game you find out you have been trying to get over your lost love for 6 years. The writers make it seem like that is too long. But like Harry Du Bois, I am also 43 years old, and that number sounds perfectly reasonable. This poor guy gave up his spiritually fulfilling job as a teacher to become a respected detective, and it seems like he did it to impress a woman. He found professional success and paid the spiritual price for it, and still lost the love of his life. 6 years sounds about right. Just my 2 cents.

The game definitely spoke to me on a deeper level. It helped that I was a beer or two in when I played it, and a bit deep in my winter moribundity. I didn't expect to have nearly this much in common with this down on his luck detective.

[Amentep]

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