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ShadowMar posted:overly focus testing to cut any fluff or things that might be weird or slightly get in the way of the player is the reason why we have dozens of identical AAA open world games with arbitrary RPG elements, skill trees, and random loot that all have the exact same cookie cutter gameplay loop, UI, and menus Amen. Edit: dumb snipe, here's a picture of my cats: 
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Mar 28, 2023 01:26
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ShadowMar posted:overly focus testing to cut any fluff or things that might be weird or slightly get in the way of the player is the reason why we have dozens of identical AAA open world games with arbitrary RPG elements, skill trees, and random loot that all have the exact same cookie cutter gameplay loop, UI, and menus if they were really cutting fluff those design-by-committee AAA games would remove the rpg elements
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Mar 28, 2023 01:29
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I'm a big fan of the idea that, no, all games should not be for all people. Like, I'm probably never gonna play Morrowind but godspeed to those who do.
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Mar 28, 2023 01:29
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RPATDO_LAMD posted:if they were really cutting fluff those design-by-committee AAA games would remove the rpg elements So like Mass Effect's sequels then?
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Mar 28, 2023 01:40
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Agents are GO! posted:Amen. Those are the three most beautiful cats I've ever seen.
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Mar 28, 2023 02:02
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RPATDO_LAMD posted:if they were really cutting fluff those design-by-committee AAA games would remove the rpg elements I mean they pretty much have, haven't they?
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Mar 28, 2023 02:03
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The biggest trap is that people always frame it as a dichotomy between MW style travel and Oblivion style travel. Thing is, I have problems with Oblivion's approach too.* Even as someone who values immersion, I will never get excited about memorizing the local bus routes. To me it's not far off from those people who insist that keeping track of the weight of your coinage in D&D is an integral part of the experience. Or any other groggy example of verisimilitude you wanna go with, really. And don't get me wrong, you can build a game out those kinds of minutia, but MW isn't really built that way the same way D&D isn't really built that way. Plus like...IRL transit systems have things like maps and and signage and guides, they don't expect you to just blunder around trying to blindly find your connections. Maybe my MW knowledge is failing me but I don't remember anything like that being present in the game, an omission that makes the transit lines less realistic. And I have to wonder...are there mods to make the boats and silt strider rides animate in real time? I mean, a quick loading screen isn't nearly as immersive as the real thing, right? *I love exploring, so I never, ever "skipped" from city to city in Oblivion even though it allows you to at the start of the game. However, once I made the trip the first time I had no issue at all warping around the game world because at that point it would be retreading old ground and wasting my time. MW occasionally does things very slightly differently, but realistically both games are chockablock with quests requiring you to go from Point A to Point B with nothing else going on in-between. At that point the only difference is jumping through extra hoops to get on the right bus line vs. just clicking on a map and getting on with the actual adventure part of the game. As I was getting at with modding in real time silt strider rides, there's still a layer of abstraction either way. It's also interesting to look back at Daggerfall's approach, where fast traveling again involved instantly jumping between dots on a map, but without totally abstracting away the various considerations to make w/r/t your travel logistics. To me that's a better compromise. Like, if you're approaching MW from the angle of one of those alt-start mods and you've piled on a ton of survival stuff so you're just some dude living in the simulated game world with no specific goal, then I totally get it. But in terms of Morrowind the video game with a plot and poo poo you gotta do, needing to blindly figure out upwards of half a dozen different travel routes is a pain in the rear end.
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Mar 28, 2023 02:06
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TGLT posted:I mean they pretty much have, haven't they? They've done the opposite, they've removed the actual meat of the rpg systems but kept the meaningless fluffy presentation. Like there are rpg stats all over in that suicide squad game or marvel's avengers or whatever but there's no meaningful nuance, it's literally just number-go-up and pick the thing with a better gearscore.
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Mar 28, 2023 02:23
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RPATDO_LAMD posted:They've done the opposite, they've removed the actual meat of the rpg systems but kept the meaningless fluffy presentation. I meant for Elder Scrolls. Like Skyrim is way less of an RPG stats-wise than Oblivion, which was less of one than Morrowind
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Mar 28, 2023 02:25
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RPATDO_LAMD posted:They've done the opposite, they've removed the actual meat of the rpg systems but kept the meaningless fluffy presentation. that's what happens when the design committee goes "marketing research says action games with RPG stats and skill trees are popular, we need that poo poo hamfistedly kludged into our game" without anyone in the room understanding what makes an RPG good or why
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Mar 28, 2023 02:35
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Kyte posted:This is assuming everyone is the kind of person that enjoys mastery. Morrowind and the like are RPGs, and there's plenty of people who play for the plot or the roleplay or even just for loving around killing everything that moves with a personal unoptimized gimmick, not for mastery of systems. Personally to me all that nonsense is nothing more than a hassle. I don't feel accomplished that I figured out how to optimize travel, I just feel annoyed I had to bother to do so. It's an obstacle in my way to do the things I want to do. I don't disagree, to be fair. What I'm trying to say is that I think Morrowind has the right idea with its in-setting travel systems, but in classic Morrowind fashion, whiffs the execution in a lot of meaningful ways.
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Mar 28, 2023 02:40
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Personally I was able to get into Morrowind with a friend's help but it died for me when I completed a quest and was forced to kill an NPC in town, which permanently booted me from a faction and also blacklisted me with the stilt strider guy even after I paid off my fine. I asked my friend about how I could avoid it and he said the only option was to leave that questline uncompleted.Ra Ra Rasputin posted:The fast travel debate is as old as fast travel, it's a single player game, the only thing making you use fast travel is the lack of willpower to not take the quick and easy method instead of walking/riding there the slow way like people say they want. I think it's kind of dumb to say that the motivations and rewards are the same for traveling manually in a game designed around having instantaneous fast travel and in a game designed around only having diegetic methods of transport
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Mar 28, 2023 02:45
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The travel system in Morrowind is cool because there's a ton of interesting stuff to find between places and weird stuff to see. It's small and dense and weird. If the overworld was as big and boring as Skyrim's or Oblivion's I'd want fast travel in Morrowind too.
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Mar 28, 2023 03:13
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John Murdoch posted:And I have to wonder...are there mods to make the boats and silt strider rides animate in real time? I mean, a quick loading screen isn't nearly as immersive as the real thing, right? There is, and they made boat/strider travel feel more worthwhile even though it takes a lot longer to get there. Of course the option to skip all that is still there for once you get bored of it. https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42270 https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/42267 As much as I love Morrowind, I can no longer play it without mods (I spent way more time modding than playing tbh). I’d also install the MWSE multimark mod, which I like better than later game fast travel systems since you can mark exactly where you want rather than having only select landmarks unlock Stuporstar fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Mar 28, 2023 |
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Mar 28, 2023 03:22
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The only games I don’t use fast travel in are the ones where travel itself is fun or novel. I’ll swing everywhere forever in Spider-Man but you bet your rear end I’m mashing that fast travel option if the alternative is walking from A to B.
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Mar 28, 2023 15:33
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Early game I like walking everywhere, because in Skyrim particularly (at least with mods) there are all kinds of little encounters and dungeons and set pieces and things everywhere, but by late game I'm like "gently caress I just want this quest to be finished already I'm teleporting"
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Mar 28, 2023 15:39
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I used the hell out of the mark and recall spells in Morrowind, including getting a mod to all for a second mark. Mix that in with the temple recall spell and it would often be a walk out, fast travel back result. If anything the "no fast travel" option in Skyrim is far more restricted due to the limitations of the cart and ferry network. Looking at you Winterhold.
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Mar 28, 2023 16:37
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History Comes Inside! posted:The only games I don’t use fast travel in are the ones where travel itself is fun or novel. I think the trick is for there to be actually something to do while moving between A and B, even if it's very slightly faster then just holding down W the entire time, for example Apex Legends is a battle royale where you spend the majority of your time just moving between loot spots and fights, but because you can slide jump off everything but upward slopes the game keeps you engaged enough to make it fun to move around. Grappling hook/websling mechanics in any game help a ton also.
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Mar 28, 2023 17:02
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I've given Hardcore Mode in Fallout 4 a few tries cause I like some of the gimmicks, but it's always the 'No Fast Travel' that ends up killing it cause if the area isn't a challenge I'm just hiking over some hills in a game when it'd be healthier to do it in real life.
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Mar 28, 2023 17:14
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Taerkar posted:If anything the "no fast travel" option in Skyrim is far more restricted due to the limitations of the cart and ferry network. Looking at you Winterhold. Yeah, I'm open to a debate about the convenience of click-to-teleport vs. the immersion of diegetic, but no fast-travel simply isn't an option in open-world games. It doesn't matter how beautiful the world is or how packed with content. 99.9% of people will get bored with walking around inside it before they are done playing. It does make me wonder, though... why don't more open-world games make traversal their primary interaction verb? It's always combat, but when I think of games like Assassin's Creed 2 or Sony's Spiderman, the focus on how you move around in the massive world does so much more to engage the player than any combat system I can recall. Skippy McPants fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Mar 28, 2023 |
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Mar 28, 2023 18:01
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Byzantine posted:I've given Hardcore Mode in Fallout 4 a few tries cause I like some of the gimmicks, but it's always the 'No Fast Travel' that ends up killing it cause if the area isn't a challenge I'm just hiking over some hills in a game when it'd be healthier to do it in real life. That's why I got a mod that let you do fast travel between your settlements.
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Mar 28, 2023 18:47
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Skippy McPants posted:It does make me wonder, though... why don't more open-world games make traversal their primary interaction verb? It's always combat, but when I think of games like Assassin's Creed 2 or Sony's Spiderman, the focus on how you move around in the massive world does so much more to engage the player than any combat system I can recall. It's because that'd require thought and innovation and a hell lot more animation work that won't show up in trailers. Also the faster your characters can move the better your tech stack must be to load everything in time. Insomniac had a GDC talk on the technical challenges of making your game keep up with Spidey's movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhKyIZd3O8 Action games can actually do this better because their tech is usually already leaning in that direction, but most RPGs are not made by companies with deep technical expertise. That said it's not impossible, Atelier Ryza 3 just came out and Gust did an amazing job at taking the usual multiple-zones map style and unifying it into a single map. They also made the main character like waaaaaaaaaay faster and added shortcuts and movement options so there's more choice than "run everywhere" and "fast travel everywhere". Kyte fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Mar 28, 2023 |
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Mar 28, 2023 18:48
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I've always felt that Dragonriding/Vertibird travel were sort of wasted in their implementation, especially since fast travel already existed without them.
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Mar 28, 2023 18:50
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Lol at Arthmoor
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Mar 28, 2023 18:55
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DaysBefore posted:Lol at Arthmoor
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Mar 28, 2023 18:57
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DaysBefore posted:Lol at Arthmoor Evergreen.
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Mar 28, 2023 19:02
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I really hope by the time ES 6 comes out in 2033 or whatever some other group will just pull the unofficial patch rug out from under Arthmoor and that game can be free from his grasp. Not only would it be better for the community, I'm sure the meltdowns will keep this thread going for ages.
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Mar 28, 2023 19:32
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Infinite green (with envy) energy.
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Mar 28, 2023 19:37
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Orcs and Ostriches posted:I really hope by the time ES 6 comes out in 2033 or whatever some other group will just pull the unofficial patch rug out from under Arthmoor and that game can be free from his grasp. Not only would it be better for the community, I'm sure the meltdowns will keep this thread going for ages. Arth and his crew started planning for Starfield's unofficial patch pretty much as soon as the game got announced. He sadly is not going anywhere.
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Mar 28, 2023 20:23
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Relyssa posted:Arth and his crew started planning for Starfield's unofficial patch pretty much as soon as the game got announced. He sadly is not going anywhere. I mean... good? What would we talk about without his manchild drama? Fast travel in video games?
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Mar 29, 2023 00:33
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TGLT posted:I meant for Elder Scrolls. Like Skyrim is way less of an RPG stats-wise than Oblivion, which was less of one than Morrowind I would argue that the perk system provides far more depth of specialization than the pure number system of Morrowind. Let's say you are the Master of Blocking in Morrowind. What does that mean? You now autoblock 50% of attacks, compared to 10% with no skill. Let's say you are the Master of Blocking in Skyrim. What does that mean? You can now sprint around at full speed with your shield raised, bowling people over, deflecting magic and arrows and using slowmo to disarming bash anyone who tries to power attack you.
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Mar 29, 2023 00:57
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Mm, and if you use one of those big overhaul mods each tree becomes its own playstyle really, which I think is more than any of the previous games have managed with mods. It suffers I think from the level of narrative complexity in the setting, I don't think anything has quite approach morrowind in that respect, but in terms of customizability of your character's method of interacting with the world I think it has previous games beat.
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Mar 29, 2023 01:02
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7c Nickel posted:I would argue that the perk system provides far more depth of specialization than the pure number system of Morrowind. Skyrim isn't just perks though, it is also a number system. A skill level 100 axe guy is noticeably stronger at axes than a skill level 10 guy, even without the perks which also stack on some cool weird moves. Fallout 4 is the Just Perks system and it feels flat because for the most part, a level 1 character is just as good with any given gun as a level 100 character. They're also equally good with all weapons across the board. In Skyrim you'd be less effective, in Morrowind you straight CANNOT effectively fight for poo poo if you're unskilled. That lack of ability is just as defining as the presence of ability. As for fast travel, the minor layers of friction add to the texture of the game world and make it feel alive. Get rid of those and you end up with an Ubisoft game; effortlessly gliding around a dead world absorbing meaningless resources. The ultimate No Fast Travel for me was FFXI tho. Absolutely sadistic choices there. Straight up took 40 minutes to run from a starting city to the main hub. To take a boat across the continent you had to wait for it to arrive in your port, then wait for it to sail across the world. You can get loving ganked on board too by The Kraken or pirates and have to straight the whole process over. It added so much weight to being in various parts of the world, and made it feel like a real decision to go somewhere and do something. Kinda made it real miserable to play tho! In summery, fast travel is a land of contrasts and maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle.
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Mar 29, 2023 01:22
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so I was never able to get into Skyrim and I couldn't put my finger on why, then I finally relegated my feelings to a friend. He asked why I didn't just download walk speed and better horse mods. ... ... ... ... Skyrim and I are set to get married in three months.
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Mar 29, 2023 02:06
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You fuckers gonna make me mod Skyrim again. I just uninstalled it, too.
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Mar 29, 2023 02:22
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marshmallow creep posted:You fuckers gonna make me mod Skyrim again. I just uninstalled it, too. But are you going to play it after
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Mar 29, 2023 02:26
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Playing videogames? How do you even find the time after setting up a modlist.
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Mar 29, 2023 02:29
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Nalesh posted:Playing videogames? How do you even find the time after setting up a modlist. This tbh
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Mar 29, 2023 02:57
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Wrr posted:Skyrim isn't just perks though, it is also a number system. A skill level 100 axe guy is noticeably stronger at axes than a skill level 10 guy, even without the perks which also stack on some cool weird moves. Fallout 4 is the Just Perks system and it feels flat because for the most part, a level 1 character is just as good with any given gun as a level 100 character. They're also equally good with all weapons across the board. In Skyrim you'd be less effective, in Morrowind you straight CANNOT effectively fight for poo poo if you're unskilled. That is very, very much not so I think. The perk effects in fallout 4 are gigantic and you need to use them to be competitive in the late game, absenting using one of the broken legendary weapons. You have both the crafting perks which allow you to maximise the base effectiveness of any given gun, and you have the ones that I think cap out at double effectiveness for weapons you're using. If you use a base gun with no perks against a high level enemy it would take you minutes of IRL time doing nothing but shooting at it to kill it. Now some of that is going to be offset by you being able to find upgraded guns as part of the normal progression system, but their improvements are multiplicative with the damage perks so it is still a colossal difference to use guns you have specced into, and it is not very likely that you will find the desired optimal parts for your guns until later in the progression curve if you don't craft them. You can physically hit enemies in fallout and skyrim no matter what, yes. But practically trying to fight without putting points into some manner of combat upgrade as the game progresses is still extremely difficult, you will expend a lot of resources and/or a lot of time trying to do it. Fallout 4 does have problems with legendary drops trivializing everything and poor balance in its perk paths, where automatic weapons are severely underpowered compared to semi automatic weapons (again unless it's a legendary) but both it, skyrim, and morrowind have similar levels of "you can't win this fight without cheesing it" if you don't put points into combat skills. Technically you can sujamma or enchant your way through any encounter in morrowind if you want to, exploration and finding valuable items are a form of progression entirely independent of the character building mechanics in that game as much as they are in later games. If there is a difference I think it is that the default form of combat is simply far weaker generally than magic and enchanting, which is less the case for skyrim and fallout doesn't have that distinction. If anything I feel like fallout 4 and its fixed location busted legendaries is more like morrowind than any previous game, in that if you know the game world well you can create an overpowered character very quickly through item collection.
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Mar 29, 2023 03:28
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Orv posted:But are you going to play it after modding is the game, who the gently caress actually plays Skyrim? Personally I spend days composing a modlist and seeing how much poo poo I can pile into the game before it collapses, and then uninstall it.
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Mar 29, 2023 03:48
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