Crossing from fun to frustrating by design.

[Hassat Hunter]

I re-state my statement from the spider thread; So. Many. A-Holes. In. This. Thread.

 

And here I thought RPG-players were more mature than this. Sadly, second thread to prove me wrong :/

 

Anyway, the developers on PE know what they are doing. Several of the listed changes like XP and lower healing aren't done just to make it harder on people, but exactly to allow the multiple different builds and characters to role-play that you want in. To make sure there is no "one way" to play the game and the rest will suffer behind that skill-wise.

[UncleBourbon]

I think the best way for cRPGs to do it is to be flexible - especially if a major part of their draw is their story. I know a few people (who sadly face a good bit a ridicule) for plaiyng rpgs for the story of it. I'm not saying I think cRPGs would benefit from the DA2 menu option "I don't want any dialogs, just choose for me" sort of thing, but it should have an embracing attitude for both casual players and individuals unfamilair with the game system. I am a big fan of high-challenge games - I want my characters to hang on for life, or die if I fail to account for them - I want something beyond a visual novel with combat minigames. Of course, development for both would seem to increase developement time/resource consumption, but I would thing you could strip down the AI a bit and add a sort of "auto-revive" function or something - though it would likely break continuity. I think those are probably best left to third-party mods and the like (and example would be the Fallout3/NewVegas companions essential mods).

 

That said, the premise of xcom was as a brutal, punishing and painful game to play - there are points where the ability to name and customize soldiers was purposely to make the player suffer upon their death. Additionally, if you save in a new slot earlier in combat, before a soldier's death, you should be able to load it and try again without issue - it works for me. There are some bugs, but the most aggrevating things to me are the design choices regarding enemy behavior on being spotted and the reaction shots/normal shots despite clearly no line of sight (through a truck and around a doorway?). I knew that when I purchased the game, and when I was readying for the final mission I wasn't surprised that I had ~35 casualities. That said, I had only failed a single mission, and that was because I sent the VIP out and he got gassed.

[Stun]

Wow, the dog-piling on this thread is nausiating. I'm gonna defend the op, now.

 

Where to begin?

 

 

Oh! Right here:

Badmojo, what part of "old school cRPG in the spirit of Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale" you don't get?

How about.... the part where we're supposed to think that those games were anything resembling hard? They were not. None of them had draconic resting limitations. None of them had wonky save-game overwrites that forced artificial "challenge". None of them had a "healing magic is rare" philosophy. None of them had a weird stamina-equals-health-and-health-equals-real-health system.

 

Hard for the sake of hard isn't "old school". It's modern day attempts to be "cool" by developers who don't get it. The games you mention didn't try to be l33t with their difficulty and tedium. Whatever challenge existed within them felt natural. Organic. Nothing like the examples the OP gave, which are, IMO, contrived and unnatural mechanics that aren't the least bit neccessary for Fun or challenge.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Stun

[Jasede]

Nobody is asking for contrived mechanics. But if you happen to set the option for permadeath - as has already been stated will exist - and someone dies they ought to be, well, dead. Just like they'd be dead in BG and in need of resurrection - or "too far gone" and unrezzable. We're simply grumpy that people would even so much as hint at bemoaning mechanics we've become accustomed to: failed resurrections, characters taking too much damage to be resurrected, HP management, risk of death.

 

You can not with a straight face tell me old games weren't much harder than the crud we get nowadays, with the rare exception of some Japanese games. Nobody is asking for forced difficulty; nobody said as much, nobody asked for that much. What we're asking for is to be spared of forced ease and having the game be designed around the needs of those looking for an easy time instead of designing the game to be challenging and then including an easy-mode. Unlike what some people may believe it's very possible to make difficult games that can be completed in the RPG-game equivalent of not ever getting hit in an action game (Ninja Gaiden, DMC, Bayonetta, God Hand), games containing no artificial difficulty whatsoever that are simply mechanically demanding. It'd be nice to have a technically demanding combat experience.

 

Because we sure as hell aren't going to get it anywhere else.

[Stun]

Did Planescape Torment have Perma-death? Or did it have a Protagonist who could, at level 1, cast ressurection 3 times per day?

 

Did Icewind Dale have a 'no resting except at campsites' system? Or could you rest pretty much anywhere you wanted, and any time you wanted, as soon as there were no enemies visible?

 

Was healing in Baldurs Gate rare? Or did those games flood you with more healing potions and Clerics than you could ever use?

 

I don't get this "Old school = Hard" belief that seems to be running rampant on this forum. Your memories are defective. Those games held you with their warm, loving hands. And if you *really* knew and loved those "old school" games, you wouldn't want it any other way.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Stun

[Jasede]

Planescape:Torment was about a man who cannot die, a game focused on the story with combat thrown in as an afterthought.

You asked if it had permanent death.

As a matter of fact it did but it was rare; very few things in the realms could harm TNO. There were also several ways to permanently rid yourself of your companions.

 

Icewind Dale didn't have a "no resting except at campsites" system - but it did have an optional difficulty that was very challenging and the game was designed to be beatable - if difficult - using realistic P&P style resting cycles. It didn't prevent me from playing the way I want to to make concessions to players.

 

Yes, healing in Baldur's Gate was rare. The only potions were Cure Light Wounds potions which were next-to-useless in any battle that matters.

 

 

Incidentally, two of these games featured D&D-style permanent death that you could not Resurrect from if characters took too much damage. Whatever point you were trying to make is lost on me. It's only natural someone as experience in RPGs as I is looking for something more challenging that pushes the boundaries in terms of challenge rather than something that is just as hard as all the games I already played. We need to quest for bigger challenges, not settle for what we can already comfortably beat.

 

And yes, older RPGs were positively brutal compared to today's games because they punished you for your mistakes rather than preventing you from making any in the first place.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Jasede

[Malcador]

Heh, reminded me of this http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/24/games-arent-best-when-things-go-wrong/

[Jasede]

That was the worst thing I've read since the romance thread. Someone should suggest to the journlolist in question she ought to take up knitting or stitching and never touch a video game ever again.

[YourVoiceisAmbrosia]

Heh, reminded me of this http://www.rockpaper...hings-go-wrong/

 

The fact that this is considered "gaming journalism" is terrifying.

 

Regarding the OP, it doesn't seem like PE is going to aim to be frustrating. There are a ton of options that allow you to modify difficulty to suit your needs. The stamina bar is basically like a second health bar that goes down at a faster rate than your first, and can be recovered, while your first goes down at a slower rate, but can't really be recovered except for resting. Permanent death and few to no options for resurrection doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Lore wise, it makes sense that resurrection is difficult, and it also makes death have meaning. Besides, if you've played IE games before resurrecting dead party members was annoying and I'd rather just reload a save.

[Jarmo]

Not having played new X-COM, can't comment on that but agree with OP in principle.

 

There's something like "Oh, players are having fun playing the game in a way we didn't intend, quickly do something!"

And then there's the bunch of players who've learned to game the system, are really proud of that,

and get insulted if someone doesn't like everything in their game.

 

Been (re)playing BG2 the past week, and while it's not really hard hard, it can be frustrating.

And its difficulty settings don't work too well, rather causing the difficulty go all over the place.

 

On easy you do a lot more damage and take less. So something like an ogre is just fine and easy.

But a mage that autocasts invulnerability to everything is just as invulnerable on easy as on hard, until you dispell the defenses.

And if he casts dire charms and death spells, you die just the same on easy as hard.

 

Basically I advocate varied difficulty settings, with easy being real easy and hard being real hard.

If someones happiness and game enjoyment is broken by someone else having fun playing on easier settings,

I'd say it's time to do some soul searching and find out why your happiness is so fragile..

Edited October 26, 2012 by Jarmo

[LordCrash]

I don't have problems with hard games as long as they stay fair and the game design isn't frustrating in core mechanics. With XCOM there is the big problem, that the cover system just doesn't work properly and so characters are hit which actually should be quite well covered. I haven't played the EU version but in my imported US version I can freely save my game on normal difficulty without override after someone in my team dies. Any other option should be only effective in an optional hard modus.

 

I think in PE such unfair gameplay mechanics will be avoided since OE already confirmed various hard modus. And I still hope that you will be able to turn on and off many single "hard" options individually so you can create you very own difficulty setting.

[UncleBourbon]

I think some aspects that are sometimes sorted into "difficulty enhancers" are really just pen and paper holdovers - like restricted resting. Reasonably, a party on a critical quest isn't going to rest for 36 hours combined while trekking through a lair to stop a villian. That said, a normal pen and paper party has several individuals, each with a chance of having insight and innovation able to help overcome the villian, and perhaps just as importantly: the pen and paper party tends to have a Dungeon Master or equivalent. This means the difficulty should be a sort of sliding thing - a skilled DM can scale difficult to a party as they please (usually) - though even they may be unable to account for a bad rolling streak. The issue is that incorporating an adaptive difficulty system into a video game is difficult, to say the least. Truly, I can't think of many cRPGs that boasted a low-magic setting throughout, though segments of BG1 had less magic than most.

 

I'd like to see some holdovers from PnP in PE - some are vital, I think. I'm interested in seeing which ones Obsidian chooses to include, if any, and I feel confident they'll balance it well. I think having fully optional companions is a good way to put difficulty in the player's hands, and I hope to play through my first time without any.

Edited October 26, 2012 by UncleBourbon

[Gyor]

You talk like someone put a gun to your head and forced you to play Ironman mode. After that you felt "emotionally" drained. wow...

Are you serious?

That's why fans must fund games like PE nowadays and games are dumbed down. Because too many people feel emotionally & intellectually (I bet) drained

 

its not ironman, it set on EASY. This feature should NOT be in easy mode.

 

You can start the game on easy and select ironman mode. ironman=save&exit ONLY

Let me guess, you couldn't decipher how to start a new game and someone else configured it for you.

I don't even....

Emotionally drained you said?

 

 

 

Excuse me, but I am glad PE its not forced to cater your needs as a gamer.

 

Wow are you rude, PE isn't just for hard core gamers so cut the arrogent attidude. Its for people of varying abilities, people who also donated.

 

Thankfully for those of us looking for fun instead of frustration there different modes, base line is maimed instead of permadeath, plus you can save when you wish. The hard stuff like ironman and the other two modes is optional.

 

 

 

 

[Stun]

Planescape:Torment was about a man who cannot die, a game focused on the story with combat thrown in as an afterthought.

You asked if it had permanent death.

As a matter of fact it did but it was rare; very few things in the realms could harm TNO. There were also several ways to permanently rid yourself of your companions.

So... lets recap

 

Essentially Immortal protagonist? Check.

Companions that can't be gibbed/chunked? Check.

Protagonist could raise his companions from the dead almost at will? Check.

Combat was Ridiculously easy anyway (almost an afterthought by design)? Check.

 

So far, we've got: Not-hard, and difficulty-wise, not a whole lot different than your standard RPG of today.

 

Icewind Dale didn't have a "no resting except at campsites" system - but it did have an optional difficulty that was very challenging and the game was designed to be beatable - if difficult - using realistic P&P style resting cycles.

And this stands in Stark contrast with today's games, which 1) Also Let you rest anywhere; and 2) Also Have "nightmare" and "master" difficulty settings. Right? Right! We're batting 1000, so far.

 

 

Yes, healing in Baldur's Gate was rare. The only potions were Cure Light Wounds potions which were next-to-useless in any battle that matters.

Perhaps in the first game. Of course you and your party members in the first game also don't have that much health to begin with. In the first half of the game your average party member will have ~20-50 hit points, So the 20 or so cure light wounds you had did indeed help out a great deal (you don't take much damage in BG1's early game. And in the second half of the game your cleric and druid will have cure serious wounds. Your mage will have Vampiric touch, and even your Paladin and Bhaalspawn protagonist will be able to cast cure spells.... and that's in addition to potions.

 

So lets add that all up now. 1) Potions. 2) Cleric spells, 3) Druid Spells 3) Main character Bhaalspawn abilities. Also 4) temples and 5) rest anywhere.

 

 

But of course, this particular aspect of the discussion *ends* when we bring up BG2. In BG2 and Throne of Bhaal we've got:

 

1) FULL Heal and Mass heal spells cast By Druids, and Clerics, and Items

2) Enough Potions of extra healing to fill up multiple potion bags

3) Regeneration Items. Enough to equip your entire party with.

4) Polymorph spells and Items which can be used to heal its caster/user

5) Rods of ressurection - which can be used on living party members to fully heal them... instantly

6) Greater Restoration -- which has a casting time of 1, and completely heals the WHOLE PARTY instantly

 

Rare my ass.

 

 

Incidentally, two of these games featured D&D-style permanent death that you could not Resurrect from if characters took too much damage.

Well, except for BG2, where normal mode does not have unressurectable perma-death.

 

But this is all beside the point. The OP wasn't really complaining about most of this. He was more talking about the artificial, contrived stuff like draconic resting limitations, and save-game manipulation.

[evdk]

Wow are you rude, PE isn't just for hard core gamers so cut the arrogent attidude. Its for people of varying abilities, people who also donated.

"Hello, I've donated to your project promising to resurrect hard core games of old and I would like to voice my displeasure with you including old school hard core elements in it. Can't you make the game more like Mass Effect?"

[Althernai]

Let me make it clear, besides this and some other features, xcom EU IS fun, but it is overshadowed a bit by this frustrating "feature". I am fine with permadeath in PE (I do think it could be put in as a fun way like I mentioned in my necromacy/reserection thread, but its all cool either way), however I think not having healing magic/medicine and only healing by mandatory resting *groan* areas in certain fixed locations (from what I gathered in the update) is crossing from fun into possible frustration territory.

I think your version of xcom is buggy, but never mind. Project Eternity will not have perma-death by default -- it is a setting that you can enable if you want to (although of course it is automatically enabled in Expert Mode). Regarding healing: I think you misunderstand. Obsidian's problem with healing is setting-driven: they don't want every party and every temple to be capable of curing wounds and disease because it doesn't make sense as far as the world is concerned. To avoid this, they split the concept of hit points into health and stamina. Mechanically, there will still be healing spells, they'll just restore stamina rather than HP.

 

More generally, I don't think you really have anything to worry about with respect to frustration in Project Eternity. There are a lot of people on these forums who would prefer the game to be hardcore, but there is another bunch (which doesn't really go into these threads) which cares mainly about the story and characters. I don't know what the relative sizes of these groups are in the general population, but the second group is not small and Obsidian knows this. I very much doubt that the easiest difficulty will be frustrating -- if it was, then there would not be a point to the challenge modes put in to placate the hardcore crowd.

[BBMorti]

Wow are you rude, PE isn't just for hard core gamers so cut the arrogent attidude. Its for people of varying abilities, people who also donated.

"Hello, I've donated to your project promising to resurrect hard core games of old and I would like to voice my displeasure with you including old school hard core elements in it. Can't you make the game more like Mass Effect?"

 

 

 

CTRL + Q to Enable/Disable GoPhoto.it

This.

 

I don't think it's fair, it is because of people like this OP that many old school gamers find themselves flocking to the kickstarter page, to help fund games like this upcoming RPG. Because you always scream for easier and easier and easier, simpler simpler simpler etc. How do people even end up backing a project like this when they the next week come and voice concerns about difficulty and game design (They were very clear on the project page about the type of game they were going to make). People who love Mass Effect are swimming in games. Why this, too?

[Jasede]

They won't be happy until everything is a realtime action-packed drama cutscene fest voiced by Liam Neeson with QTEs, romances and a difficulty curve ranging from coma patient to imbecile. You know, like Uncharted.

 

And people wonder how we got to be so bitter and hostile! Wouldn't you be, too? If the one hobby you truly enjoy was pooped on? It's like being a fan of the opera and hearing that all showings are to be replaced with Britney Spears shows.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Jasede

[evdk]

This.

 

I don't think it's fair, it is because of people like this OP that many old school gamers find themselves flocking to the kickstarter page, to help fund games like this upcoming RPG. Because you always scream for easier and easier and easier, simpler simpler simpler etc. How do people even end up backing a project like this when they the next week come and voice concerns about difficulty and game design (They were very clear on the project page about the type of game they were going to make). People who love Mass Effect are swimming in games. Why this, too?

There was a person on the WL2 boards who somehow misconstrued one of Brian's comments as a promise of a single protagonist story focused playstyle (a la DA) being possible and after the Kickstarter ended went on a crusade, including vandalizing the project's Wikipedia page. Some people just don't read.

[Darkpriest]

Today's gamer's need to man up.

And if they don't "have time" for this sort of hobby then they should stick to the billions of casual games already available rather than corrupting the few difficult games that still remain.

 

Um, what? Sorry but I love a hard game as much as the next person, but if there is multiple play types like insane/hard/normal/ and EASY, then you kind of expect easy to be..um...easy? Have you played the game? I know quite a few who said the same thing before they played it and after they played it their attitudes changed quickly.

 

Dude... I have not lost a soldier on Normal Ironman.... I rarely get my soldiers killed on Classic... you have to do some things really bad...

 

and what you say about saves is either lack of knowledge or a lie... I've played also regular Classic and I can save game mid game and restore to that position (in-missions) even if my soldiers die... - only Ironman disables that.. perhaps you ticked that option as well? Ironman toggle is just above the Tutorial switch at the start of the game...

 

You do know that Ironman is a mode of the game, not an actually difficulty level?

[HungryHungryOuroboros]

I'm so confused by the concept of people who want their games to be easy feeling somehow persecuted or some ****. Of all the games released in any given year, the vast majority of titles are designed specifically for them. Of the resources, especially the sheer DOLLARS, that go into video game production, the vast majority are turned directly toward making sure that they feel like it's technically *possible* to fail, but they're just *so good* after picking something up for the first time that they simply can't be beat.

 

I don't think I ask for much. Out of every dozen interactive storybook RPGs with $20 million+ budgets, I'd like ONE difficult small-scale RPG with a sub $5 million budget that caters to my admittedly relatively small niche. I don't want to care if people who get everything in the universe handed to them on a silver platter feel excluded. Yes, I'd like Easy mode to be the afterthought for once. My Hard modes have been the same easy garbage but with enemy health lazily scaled, so it's still easy but now takes more unnecessary time. I'm sick and tired of being the afterthought.

 

The film industry may be ****ed, but I at least don't have to worry when I go to the one independent theater anywhere close to me that someone will walk in and complain that something has subtitles, or that it uses a non-linear storytelling style, or that the sound and color are broken.

[HereticSaint]

I'm sorry, but if you are struggling as much as you say on Easy then you have absolutely no right to complain about how the game works mechanic wise because you are very clearly doing something wrong. On top of that, complaining about how the a game such as X-Com handles character death and wanting it changed is precisely why a lot of games released today that could've been good otherwise are garbage, because their mechanics are mutated into stupid piles of **** that will be pleasant on hard even for the soccer moms.

 

It's like if you started playing a real time strategy game, found you didn't have the physical dexterity and hand eye coordination to handle the amount of inputs required to win a mission on easy, then wanted it changed to turn based instead.

 

No.

[Hassat Hunter]

For complaining about "how people should read" most of you have done a fantastically good job of not properly reading the OP's post.

 

CONGRATS.

Basically what it says is he doesn't want OE to implent a system like the "prevent scum saving" thread guy wanted, and we all agreed with that, didn't we? It's just stating if they make changes it should be tested if it works properly, and not is just added irritation (think armor/weapon degredation) with no gain.

 

*sigh*

Edited October 26, 2012 by Hassat Hunter

[jivex5k]

Dude, you can manually save.

 

If your so worried about losing one soldier then your gonna have to manually save before each soldiers command.

 

What kind of auto-save would you have implemented? Seems like you want it to auto-save every turn except when a soldier dies.

 

Name a game that does anything close to that.

Edited October 26, 2012 by jivex5k

[evdk]

For complaining about "how people should read" most of you have done a fantastically good job of not properly reading the OP's post.

 

CONGRATS.

Basically what it says is he doesn't want OE to implent a system like the "prevent scum saving" thread guy wanted, and we all agreed with that, didn't we? It's just stating if they make changes it should be tested if it works properly, and not is just added irritation (think armor/weapon degredation) with no gain.

 

*sigh*

It's his own fault for starting his post with a weird, erroneous tangent about the X-COM. After that his credibility was shot and nobody truly cared about his concerns for PE, given that they were built on a faulty premise.