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slingshot effect
Sep 28, 2009

the wonderful wizard of welp
Do your synchronisation dives into a wood chipper.

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Namarrgon
Dec 23, 2008

Congratulations on not getting fit in 2011!
So Sleeping Dogs got a lot of praise on SA and most of it is deserved. It has a fun environment, reasonable combat mechanics and the story seems to be going into the right direction.

It also has the hands-down worst controls I have ever seen. It was so bad that I was sure it was my computer, until I found out that it is apparently more common. Trying to steer the camera is an exercise in futility and aiming is literally impossible. Aimng with the gun or camera is inconsistent to the point where I just gave up, downloaded a trainer for infinite health and beat the gunmen to death. Unfortunately, I am now stuck in a car-chase mission where the infinite health does not work on the car. So these guys destroy my car and there is nothing I can do about it because I can't aim to kill them back.

Now this is obviously some Console->PC port issue and I assume it is not this bad for everyone but I am not running anything exotic, just a run-of-the-mill computer with a boring OS and the latest drivers.

It's a shame because I really want to like this game. Even if I take away the aiming issues the controls are still very, very bad. Enough to almost completely compensate for the fun.

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

Namarrgon posted:

It's a shame because I really want to like this game. Even if I take away the aiming issues the controls are still very, very bad. Enough to almost completely compensate for the fun.

Either you're terrible at shootgames or something is terribly wrong. I just beat Sleeping Dogs (PC) with 0 control issues using a 360 controller.

Namarrgon
Dec 23, 2008

Congratulations on not getting fit in 2011!

GrandpaPants posted:

Either you're terrible at shootgames or something is terribly wrong. I just beat Sleeping Dogs (PC) with 0 control issues using a 360 controller.

No trust me I'm plenty good at shooters and there was one mission where I actually could aim, but for most of the game the cursor doesn't respond to the mouse, or goes in the other direction or decides it doesn't feel like shooting today. It doesn't apply to everyone, but it is common enough that it is a known problem. It's also not going to get patched. Basically means I'm poo poo out of luck.

e. Found a fix. Pressing a sideways movement button after entering aiming but before shooting seems to temporarily work. However, the controls of the game in general are still terrible and I do think unfixed rather critical bugs count as things dragging the game down.

Namarrgon has a new favorite as of 16:13 on Aug 11, 2014

kazil
Jul 24, 2005

A fancy little mouse🐁!

Namarrgon posted:

No trust me I'm plenty good at shooters and there was one mission where I actually could aim, but for most of the game the cursor doesn't respond to the mouse, or goes in the other direction or decides it doesn't feel like shooting today. It doesn't apply to everyone, but it is common enough that it is a known problem. It's also not going to get patched. Basically means I'm poo poo out of luck.

e. Found a fix. Pressing a sideways movement button after entering aiming but before shooting seems to temporarily work. However, the controls of the game in general are still terrible and I do think unfixed rather critical bugs count as things dragging the game down.

Gonna join GrandpaPants and say I had zero control issues for the game. It might just be you.

Xinlum
Apr 12, 2009

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Dark Knight

I feel like Sleeping Dogs is like Saints Row/Just Cause/GTA/ect and you really REALLY should be using a 360 controller or it plays like total rear end.

Sardonik
Jul 1, 2005

if you like my dumb posts, you'll love my dumb youtube channel
I played Sleeping Dogs with KB+Mouse like god intended and didn't have any problems, other than the driving physics taking a little to get used to. :colbert:

e X
Feb 23, 2013

cool but crude

Sardonik posted:

I played Sleeping Dogs with KB+Mouse like god intended and didn't have any problems, other than the driving physics taking a little to get used to. :colbert:

For me, console ports of GTA clones always turn insanely easy because the aiming mechanic was clearly not made for mouse aiming and as a result, I always simply equip a pistol and turn into the head shot god.

Thoughtless
Feb 1, 2007


Doesn't think, just types.
Skyrim's inability to let you finish quests in any other way than the intended. The daedra quests often have you doing horrible stuff, and while I like being evil in games I don't like being forced into it.

Or the thieves' guild quest that basically ends with you selling your soul to a daedra for some awful armor in order to beat an enemy you really wouldn't need help with.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Here's a thing that drags Sleeping Dogs down: right at the end, during the final fight, your objective gets updated with "put the bad guy's head in the wood chipper" and that just takes me the hell out of it all immediately. I feel like it's bad form to highlight the scripted nature of the fight like that; of course you'll be hard pressed to find a game that doesn't do this in one way or another but they all do a much better job of at least attempting to hide it from you, even if it's just to keep up appearances. But even more than that, the game spoils its own climactic moment for no good reason by announcing the resolution of the fight right there. "Oh, that's what I'm gonna do, is it? Okay, I guess. Mmmyep, that's sure what's playing out now. Welp."

Take a look at Portal 2, where similarly the very last action you perform leads to a "what" moment. That one wouldn't have been half as effective if they'd put PORTAL THE loving MOON across the screen right away, instead they naturally direct you towards it with the camera direction and previous clues and leave you that little moment where you don't know if it's really going to work/if it can possibly be what you're supposed to do, and you won't find out unless you pull the trigger. No reason Sleeping Dogs couldn't have done a similar thing.

RyokoTK
Feb 12, 2012

I am cool.

Thoughtless posted:

Skyrim's inability to let you finish quests in any other way than the intended. The daedra quests often have you doing horrible stuff, and while I like being evil in games I don't like being forced into it

The Daedra are evil, though. If you want their horrible artifacts you have to serve them in horrible ways.

Canemacar
Mar 8, 2008

RyokoTK posted:

The Daedra are evil, though. If you want their horrible artifacts you have to serve them in horrible ways.

But what if you'd rather thumb your nose at the eldritch gods than play along? Or get creative and pull a reverse-Faustian bargain where you fulfill the letter of their wish, but not the spirit of it?

The Thieve's Guild quest is probably the worst offender in railroading you, especially since most people wouldn't want to explicitly sell their soul for crap armor they don't need. I personally just stopped the quest there and RP'd it as my character suddenly realizing his friends were complete idiots and backing away slowly.

Thoughtless
Feb 1, 2007


Doesn't think, just types.

Canemacar posted:

But what if you'd rather thumb your nose at the eldritch gods than play along? Or get creative and pull a reverse-Faustian bargain where you fulfill the letter of their wish, but not the spirit of it?

The Thieve's Guild quest is probably the worst offender in railroading you, especially since most people wouldn't want to explicitly sell their soul for crap armor they don't need. I personally just stopped the quest there and RP'd it as my character suddenly realizing his friends were complete idiots and backing away slowly.

Me too, but that leads to a secondary annoyance: it stays in your questlog forever.

WickedHate
Aug 1, 2013

by Lowtax
The secret is to do all the Daedric quests, so they fight over who owns your soul.

Mokinokaro
Sep 11, 2001

At the end of everything, hold onto anything



Fun Shoe

RyokoTK posted:

The Daedra are evil, though. If you want their horrible artifacts you have to serve them in horrible ways.

Sanguinis and Azura don't seem that bad.

kazil
Jul 24, 2005

A fancy little mouse🐁!

Look, I just want to forcibly break into people's homes and rob them of everything they own to further my own personal wealth but I don't want to be a bad guy.

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

What Sleeping Dogs should've done for the finale is just tell you to do an environment kill. It's an established thing so you'll grab the guy and then look around for something red and then realize what the only thing is.

J-Spot
May 7, 2002

Thoughtless posted:

Skyrim's inability to let you finish quests in any other way than the intended. The daedra quests often have you doing horrible stuff, and while I like being evil in games I don't like being forced into it.
I love Skyrim but if I could change anything about it this would be it. The rest of the game gives you all the freedom in the world to do whatever you want to do, but the quests lack even a basic good vs. evil level of branching with only a couple of exceptions. My favorite example of just how bad this gets is the Boethia's Calling quest. I stumbled upon the Boethia cultists in my travels and they asked me to bring them a human sacrifice. I was trying to role play a mostly good guy so I figure I'll go ahead and slaughter the entire cult. I expected a nice little "quest failed" thing to pop up like it does in the Fallout games. Instead Boethia possesses the corpse of one of the cultists, chastises me for killing all of her followers, and proceeds to give me the quest to bring her a human sacrifice anyway.

scarycave
Oct 9, 2012

Dominic Beegan:
Exterminator For Hire
I could never do the quest where you had to kill Cass in NV.

J-Spot
May 7, 2002

scarycave posted:

I could never do the quest where you had to kill Cass in NV.

The great thing about New Vegas is you could whip out your grenade launcher and murder Gloria Van Gaffe for even making the suggestion. If that quest were in Skyrim she would be immortal and you would have no way to get that quest off your to-do list.


\/ It is pretty loving funny, I'll give you that.

J-Spot has a new favorite as of 23:59 on Aug 11, 2014

poptart_fairy
Apr 8, 2009

by R. Guyovich

J-Spot posted:

I expected a nice little "quest failed" thing to pop up like it does in the Fallout games. Instead Boethia possesses the corpse of one of the cultists, chastises me for killing all of her followers, and proceeds to give me the quest to bring her a human sacrifice anyway.

Wrong thread. :colbert:

RyokoTK
Feb 12, 2012

I am cool.

J-Spot posted:

Instead Boethia possesses the corpse of one of the cultists, chastises me for killing all of her followers, and proceeds to give me the quest to bring her a human sacrifice anyway.

That actually sounds pretty in-character with Boethiah, but your point is valid anyway.

RenegadeStyle1
Jun 7, 2005

Baby Come Back
I hate it, I wish they could just put an option that's like "Nah don't want to"

Lunchmeat Larry
Nov 3, 2012

Mokinokaro posted:

Sanguinis and Azura don't seem that bad.
Azura tricked some random dude into thinking he was a prophesied hero so he would perform quadruple deitycide and indirectly destroy an entire province and culture. She just likes her revenge served a bit colder than most.

Also the Daedra quests were hilarious because of the inability to change your mind (other than walking away and leaving the quest in your quest log unfinished, but that's "you can turn Spec Ops off if you want to not use white phosphorus" level poo poo). I go into a haunted house with a paladin dude to cleanse an evil presence, and at no point between this and beating an imprisoned old man to death with a blunt object does my character get the opportunity to say anything other than "yes, that is what I want to do, good poo poo"

quantumfoam
Dec 25, 2003

J-Spot posted:

The great thing about New Vegas is you could whip out your grenade launcher and murder Gloria Van Gaffe for even making the suggestion. If that quest were in Skyrim she would be immortal and you would have no way to get that quest off your to-do list.


\/ It is pretty loving funny, I'll give you that.

You go in unarmed, so you have to take out gloria+henchmen with your fists, or buy/steal a weapon & ammo to murder them.
If you buy a weapon, and kill everyone, the money you spend vanishes into thin air.
So thats another thing dragging down Fallout:NV....money vanishing from merchants.

...of SCIENCE!
Apr 26, 2008

by Fluffdaddy
Re; Sleeping Dogs, on PC I had a control problem where doing rapid mouse-clicks to fight would make the controls freeze entirely, I had to play it with a controller. Of course a controller is a much better experience anyways since the game is a glorified brawler and the shooting is a rare distraction, so it worked out better in the end.

Thoughtless posted:

Skyrim's inability to let you finish quests in any other way than the intended. The daedra quests often have you doing horrible stuff, and while I like being evil in games I don't like being forced into it.

Or the thieves' guild quest that basically ends with you selling your soul to a daedra for some awful armor in order to beat an enemy you really wouldn't need help with.

In keeping with the trend of the Dark Brotherhood quests being the best, it has an entire alternate path in Skyrim: When Astrid gives you the choice of killing the three hooded captives you can go "gently caress this poo poo", murder her, and then do a short questline to find the hidden base of the Dark Brotherhood and kill them all. The end.

scarycave
Oct 9, 2012

Dominic Beegan:
Exterminator For Hire
The Thieves Guild Questline was the only guild questline I actually completed (besides the Arena but that's not really an actual guild). Mages Guild took forever to get into, and when I did finally get in I was so sick of it that I could careless about the necromancers so I pretty much stopped doing them, Fighters Guild did not leave a good first impression on me either.

Rockman Reserve
Oct 2, 2007

"Carbons? Purge? What are you talking about?!"

Thoughtless posted:

Skyrim's inability to let you finish quests in any other way than the intended. The daedra quests often have you doing horrible stuff, and while I like being evil in games I don't like being forced into it.

This applies to the randomized quests, too - pick up that book you found in a random dungeon? Well, now you've got a quest to give it to someone, but they won't take it because you need to pick it up from the dungeon to advance the quest tracker, and it's not in the dungeon anymore.

I love Bethesda games, but what in the everlasting gently caress. That is like, the first scenario that would be worth testing in a randomized quest system like that. I have no idea if it's fixed now but I originally played it like half a year after it was released and the problem persisted.

scarycave
Oct 9, 2012

Dominic Beegan:
Exterminator For Hire

Ryoshi posted:

This applies to the randomized quests, too - pick up that book you found in a random dungeon? Well, now you've got a quest to give it to someone, but they won't take it because you need to pick it up from the dungeon to advance the quest tracker, and it's not in the dungeon anymore.

I love Bethesda games, but what in the everlasting gently caress. That is like, the first scenario that would be worth testing in a randomized quest system like that. I have no idea if it's fixed now but I originally played it like half a year after it was released and the problem persisted.

They usually do have that under control. At least for "quest items". Now responses on the other hand...ugh.
There's a big one (for me at least) with Raul in NV, his quest will become impossible to finish if you learn the Ranger Takedown without him there with you. Really don't want to talk about how much I had to replay to fix that.

HairyManling
Jul 20, 2011

No flipping.
Fun Shoe
Mario Kart 8 why do your battle levels occur on the racing courses? This is a terrible idea. How did anyone over at Nintendo think this was better than arenas?

ChaosArgate
Oct 10, 2012

Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble?

HairyManling posted:

Mario Kart 8 why do your battle levels occur on the racing courses? This is a terrible idea. How did anyone over at Nintendo think this was better than arenas?

I wouldn't be surprised if they rushed the last few months of development to get it out faster and give people a reason to buy the Wii U and couldn't finish battle tracks in time.

Action Tortoise
Feb 18, 2012

A wolf howls.
I know how he feels.

I didn't really care for Big Smile Lee. They build him up as the guy behind all the backstabbing and underhanded poo poo going on but I think you only really talk to the guy in two scenes and then you fight him in the teahouse area.

Also it's cool to do slow motion shootouts in the game but I didn't like how you had to trigger them with stunts instead of having a dedicated button for it. It works when you vault over cover but it was a crapshoot if it activated when you're shooting from your car.

DStecks
Feb 6, 2012

Tomb Raider '13 is a pretty decent game when it remembers it's a game, I just wish it would stop wrenching away my camera control every 30 seconds. It's painful to me, personally, because all I can see when it happens is all the money and man-hours that went into putting the camera in just the right place, to give you the most interesting possible view of what's happening, at the small cost of smashing the player's immersion with a sledgehammer.

Like, I can't even say it's badly done, because yeah it really does show off what's happening, and achieve the intended goal of looking expensive impressive as gently caress, but it's used so constantly that instead of having any real impact it just keeps ripping you out of the experience over and over again, and the effect at some points makes it feel almost like playing Dragon's Lair, or one of those lovely anime Sega CD games Retsupurae's featured; even though full control of Lara herself is usually maintained. Everything about it, to me, screamed "this is intended to look impressive as hell in the E3 trailer even if it's weird as hell to actually play".

Inco
Apr 3, 2009

I have been working out! My modem is broken and my phone eats half the posts I try to make, including all the posts I've tried to make here. I'll try this one more time.
Wonderful 101's "switch playview to Gamepad when indoors" was cute when they did it the first couple of times, but gently caress the designer who thought combat in the Gamepad view was a good idea. I'm using the Pro Controller, and my audio is being supplied by the Gamepad, so I'm forced to use the Picture-in-Picture mode. It's not too terrible, because I can dismiss the PiP view, and the PiP controls only take up a small portion of the main screen.

In this combat zone, however, you have to either play on one-sixth of the main screen, or a lovely-looking 6x blown up version. You're entirely at the mercy of the uncontrollable camera, because the camera controls in the "indoors" sections are tied to the Gamepad's gyroscopes. The Gamepad controls are completely locked in Pro Controller mode, so I can't just grab that and use it. I also can't open the menu, so I can't change the Gamepad to the active controller. Also, you're on a time limit in a maze with tiny tiny corridors and floor hazards.

Obviously, the best course of action is to switch to the Gamepad, but the indoor sections are still terrible because the gyroscopes are the only way to control the camera. In every other game I've seen use them, the gyroscopes are used for fine-tuning, while the right stick can move the camera faster and the player can change view without having to stand up and spin around.

Inco has a new favorite as of 06:42 on Aug 12, 2014

beato
Nov 26, 2004

CHILLL OUT, DICK WAD.

Action Tortoise posted:

I didn't really care for Big Smile Lee. They build him up as the guy behind all the backstabbing and underhanded poo poo going on but I think you only really talk to the guy in two scenes and then you fight him in the teahouse area.

Also it's cool to do slow motion shootouts in the game but I didn't like how you had to trigger them with stunts instead of having a dedicated button for it. It works when you vault over cover but it was a crapshoot if it activated when you're shooting from your car.

I think that was a problem with all the characters, you rarely spent enough time with each one to develop any bond with them yet the game makes out that they are either your best friend in the world or public enemy number 1 even though you've only met them in 1 or 2 missions. I felt that there could've been a lot more side missions away from the main story missions to help build up your relationship with them. It would've helped gain Triad rep too.

Zedd
Jul 6, 2009

I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?



On the other hand I'm kind of glad they knew that the story can't go on forever without getting too stale; I actually liked GTA4 but drat that game really could have been condensed into 15-20 less missions.

Walton Simons
May 16, 2010

ELECTRONIC OLD MEN RUNNING THE WORLD

Thoughtless posted:

Skyrim's inability to let you finish quests in any other way than the intended. The daedra quests often have you doing horrible stuff, and while I like being evil in games I don't like being forced into it.

Or the thieves' guild quest that basically ends with you selling your soul to a daedra for some awful armor in order to beat an enemy you really wouldn't need help with.

This killed Skyrim for me coming from New Vegas. There's a murder mystery quest and you must do everything in the correct order or the next bit won't show up. You can't get it wrong either, whether accidentally or on purpose. You do what your quest log tells you to and then you get a big pat on the back. Contrast to solving who kidnapped Boone's wife in New Vegas. You can do it properly, or you can blame anybody at all, have Boone kill them, then tell Boone you don't know who did it, you just thought it would be a laugh to have him shoot someone.

Same with a Boomers sidequest. You're supposed to take some Boomers clothing to a girl outside the base so she can approach without being fired on. Or you can not give her the clothes and tell her 'whatever, they're expecting you' with predictable results.

Skyrim quests are dull beyond measure, which would be forgivable if the combat and gameplay in general was fun but it's not. It's piss easy if you're stronger than someone and if you're not, just chug the 214 health potions you're carrying!

Has someone modded in some quests that aren't really bad? I was really excited for Skyrim but it for a game of that genre, the lack of player agency is criminal. Fallout combat is hardly thrilling but what I remember from New Vegas was agonising over some choices, mostly whether to go with the NCR or Mr. House. I put it off as long as possible but I eventually killed Mr House. After turning back and forth several times because I couldn't decide. I even felt bad doing it. In Skyrim, I'll do anything and not care because it says in my quest log, what can you do, eh? I really got into Skyrim until I started to realise I was thinking 'hang on, I didn't want to do that, but I had to' a lot. On top of that I am a Stormcloak until I die because I stumbled across them first and now I'm locked out of the other guys' quest. New Vegas gave you enough to feel who each faction you were before you made your choices, leaving me in the situation where I felt bad turning on a faction because I'd already done several missions and built up a rapport, but in the end, two factions' goals were incompatible, and I had to make a hard choice.

Walton Simons has a new favorite as of 12:33 on Aug 12, 2014

GOTTA STAY FAI
Mar 24, 2005

~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~
College Slice

Mokinokaro posted:

Sanguinis and Azura don't seem that bad.

I love that Azura is one of the "good" evil princes but is pretty much the only one you can totally gently caress over in Skyrim.

"Azura's Star is broken, pls be her champion and fix it, also pls don't corrupt it into an infinite use black soul gem kthx"

"NO FUCKIN' PROBLEM BUDDY!"

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Red Dead Redemption had a sidequest like that. You come across a man trying to kill his wife. Because it's the Wild West I shoot him in the head, she runs away screaming, mission failed, you killed her husband! Okay. So I reload, because I need to see all the quests dammit, and do whatever it is the mission actually wants me to do, thinking about how limited the morality system is after all.

The way the mission eventually plays out is they get back together, he kills her while you're not looking or something, and you come across him at her grave, where you kill him in a duel. I thought, you know, if I'm gonna kill him anyway, we could have saved a lot of time and a virtual life if we'd done it my way. Such a Rockstar moment.

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Action Tortoise
Feb 18, 2012

A wolf howls.
I know how he feels.

beato posted:

I think that was a problem with all the characters, you rarely spent enough time with each one to develop any bond with them yet the game makes out that they are either your best friend in the world or public enemy number 1 even though you've only met them in 1 or 2 missions. I felt that there could've been a lot more side missions away from the main story missions to help build up your relationship with them. It would've helped gain Triad rep too.

I think it depends. I like the characters you meet early on. I thought Jackie and Roland were annoying cliches initially, but the writing was good enough to get me on their side when it mattered. Same thing with Winston and Conroy.

Big Smile Lee gets talked up but when you meet him he just feels like a regular thug instead of someone really threatening.

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