General Commentary & Chat Thread

[Sar1n]

I wrote better that Fallout 3+, not good.

Okay, it is decent. It's at least bit tactic/cover based, though you get kinda overpowered and being able to yolo through the fights eventually...

[Flinn]

I am curious. How did you (or anyone else reading this) feel about the frequency of combat in the game and the selection of enemies? To me, it kills immersion that there is a super mutant or some insanely dangerous enemy lurking around every corner. It makes me ask how could any of these societies, travel, and commerce work if the shortest of routes in between human settlements is crawling with enemies of all sorts.

In general, I would wish games to have less of everything. Fewer high-powered enemies, fewer overpowered weapons lying around, etc. A game in which running into a group of raiders would be a dangerous situation, and a game in which getting your hands on something powerful actually feels special. As if you have been lucky to find something grand. Fallout 4 is a prime example of how way too early in the game nothing feels like anything anymore, because there is too much of everything. And the character gets too powerful. Oh, a behemoth. Well, I have this shotgun that magically makes ordinary shotgun shells take care of it with just a few blasts. On to the next boring and inconsequential encounter that no doubt happens sooner than I would hope.

this is because of how Bethesda balances games, everything is kept updated with the actual level of the character and the difficulty level chosen.. except very few hardcoded encounters, which in any case are under-leveled, this in order to avoid main plot encounters to become excessively hard to beat.. in other words, difficulty scales according to level of the character in everything minus the most important, plot-wise, encounters, which means that you can beat down the main game boss in 3 minutes, included a 2:30 break for a tea, but you maybe end up beaten up during a random encounter with leveled bandits, on the road back from the boss fight.

On the other hand, having a realistic un-leveled word has it's pros and cons as well; I'm thinking of Gothic or Risen, where during the first five minutes of gameplay, you can end up in a ruin hosting monsters who only full developed character managed by skilled players can hope to beat. Trilling, but somewhat ends up ruining the game for most of the players, since you got to be scared of everything unless you have been proven many times that you can beat them.

Truth be told, it's very difficult to balance well a game, because it's not just about the actual difficulty, but also the skill of the players (and not only in arcade/platforms, but also their ability to develop well their character in RPG games, for instance), where they have gone/what they have done before getting to that specific point (read as what items do they have, what power ups, what experience with that specific enemy/trial/feature, etc).

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I remember Risen I to be one of the hardest games ever, one enemy hit almost instant kill. After completing it i have immediately deinstalled it.^^

[Flinn]

Yes Risen I was a pretty tough game, but IIRC the hardest one was Gothic II I believe, anyways the one you begin at into a monastery and you have to train yourself before leaving it and then when you finally leave, even the most stupid monster can kill you.. Was it Gothic II actually?

[Septentrionalis]

this is because of how Bethesda balances games

Yes, I am aware of that, and I must tell you that I do not like it although I like many things about Bethesda games, including the beautiful scenery and the true feeling of freedom and exploration.

The character progression mechanism is somewhat tolerable in an Elder Scrolls game, in which one can imagine a fantasy hero being very effective with his swordplay or the equivalent. In a game such as Fallout 4, it is much harder to accept that a gun can do many times the damage just because the character has a high skill, and the whole thing was incredibly badly implemented for such a great title. I mean a deathclaw should be a really powerful enemy, as it was in earlier installments (particularly 1 & 2), but soon enough it becomes a mere nuisance.

Also, in Bethesda games in general, I do not understand why everything has to be leveled so that, on the hand, we get constant buffs which turn out to matter very little because the world also gets buffed. Why not less of both?

As a humorous remark, I remember my playthrough of Oblivion. In the early game, I trained the knitting and pottery kind of skills for a while only to find out that I could no longer stand up to a rabbit basically. Later on very few things presented a challenge and the feeling of lurking danger was gone from the game.

you can end up in a ruin hosting monsters who only full developed character managed by skilled players can hope to beat.

I really enjoyed games like Baldur's Gate in which you just had to flee from dangerous places until you had slowly progressed and got some decent gear. The slow level progression and no super weapons to be found around every corner made every achievement and piece of progress feel like something all the way to end. Those were some seriously good times. I am not sure if it is so hard to do. It just feels like many devs have quit designing games like that.

Of course, for Bethesda, the great challenge is that it tries to allow the player to play in a great number of different ways. It is almost a universal principle in the world that if you try to please everyone equally well, you end up pleasing everyone equally badly. That is true of almost every human endeavor that I can think of.

[Sar1n]

Yes Risen I was a pretty tough game, but IIRC the hardest one was Gothic II I believe, anyways the one you begin at into a monastery and you have to train yourself before leaving it and then when you finally leave, even the most stupid monster can kill you.. Was it Gothic II actually?

Doesn't sound like Gothic II. That one started at mage's tower and dumped you into the wide open world right away. But it had a combat system that could be quite difficult in the beginning when your character was just....clumsy due to lack of skill.

That was actually one great thing about it. Rather than arbitrary diceroll accuracy that many games use, your character would just be clumsy, taking wide swings and had difficulty chaining them together, and only got better with training. I wish more games had that approach.

[Flinn]

If I have to choose a progress mechanism among the others, is the one UltimaOnline used; basically, the more you repeat an action, the more you become good to that action.. that is not different from the progression used in Bethesda games, but with the difference that there are no "levels", the character progression is simply based on the values of each single skill in any given moment (and the items/buffs used of course).
Sure, UOL was a very crude game with a lot of issues with lag and many cheaters, but it still remains unique in the way it actually rewards players for the time spent playing the game; basically, the more you play, the better you get at it (very much different from the modern pay-to-win philosophy, innit?)

[Sar1n]

If I have to choose a progress mechanism among the others, is the one UltimaOnline used; basically, the more you repeat an action, the more you become good to that action.. that is not different from the progression used in Bethesda games, but with the difference that there are no "levels", the character progression is simply based on the values of each single skill in any given moment (and the items/buffs used of course).
Sure, UOL was a very crude game with a lot of issues with lag and many cheaters, but it still remains unique in the way it actually rewards players for the time spent playing the game; basically, the more you play, the better you get at it (very much different from the modern pay-to-win philosophy, innit?)

Quest for Glory series had that system. Fun, until you tried raising lockpicking by picking your nose

[Flinn]

ah, the infamous nosepicking

I can't believe I never saw Quest for Glory before, I'm shocked, probably it never really arrived here in Italy?

[Sar1n]

Haven't played them yet? Do so. Save often, and especially in first one, look everywhere and do weird things. You'll get a funny game over quite often that way.

[Septentrionalis]

Yes, the repeating thing that was already present in some tabletop RPGs, at least Runequest and the subsequent Call of Cthulhu. That works, and works fine in (low-fantasy) games in which the world does not level either.

The first Quest for Glory (that I seem to remember as Hero's Quest) was something of a formative experience in my childhood for me and friends alike. Like a game to surpass previous games; combining RPG mechanics with a classic Sierra adventure game, two of my favorite things. Good memories; too bad Flinn does not share that particular experience although we are almost the same age.

[Flinn]

Related to the discussion taking place here and following posts, I wish to clarify something:

Everybody is welcome to start a new thread for a new game, this is what the Coliseum is for; just check in advance if a similar game already exists and of course if you have any question or doubt, you can use this very thread to discuss every detail.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

As probably there will be a new counting of the competition points, you don't need to count my points, as i'm just for fun in the competitions and don't want a new medal.

Thanks in advance.

[Akar]

Its probably best if your points are counted anyway. Less work for whoever has to go back and recount all of them when you inevitably decide to change your mind.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I simply want to make no additional work now and in the future. But do what you think is the best.

I guess not, a month has gone and i'm not missing them.

[Ältester der Motten]

Yes Risen I was a pretty tough game, but IIRC the hardest one was Gothic II I believe, anyways the one you begin at into a monastery and you have to train yourself before leaving it and then when you finally leave, even the most stupid monster can kill you.. Was it Gothic II actually?

None of the Gothics had you start at a monastery or left you vulnerable to the most basic enemies after completing induction into a group. I think you are remembering a completely different game series. I can't think of a single Piranha Bytes game fitting that description. Gothic II was the only game that had you play in a monastery for a bit if you went to become firemage, but by the end you were pretty powerful.

[Sir Adrian]

Imho Risen was easier once you got the patterns down - as long as you fought a max of 2 enemies at once - because it had much better controls. Gothic otoh was the only game where I actively searched for babysitting quests, because the npc was immortal and could clear fights for me.

[Flinn]

None of the Gothics had you start at a monastery or left you vulnerable to the most basic enemies after completing induction into a group. I think you are remembering a completely different game series. I can't think of a single Piranha Bytes game fitting that description. Gothic II was the only game that had you play in a monastery for a bit if you went to become firemage, but by the end you were pretty powerful.

Dude I'm so old it's a miracle I barely remember to breath. However, I'm pretty sure it was Gothic II.. it's just that I'm not sure if that was a temple, a monastery or what else What I remember is that before you could leave that place you had to get yourself trained in some basic skills (combat, I remember a staff as a weapon) and some basic magic.

It was like 20 years ago, heck maybe even 22-23, just saying eh

[Sar1n]

Dude I'm so old it's a miracle I barely remember to breath. However, I'm pretty sure it was Gothic II.. it's just that I'm not sure if that was a temple, a monastery or what else What I remember is that before you could leave that place you had to get yourself trained in some basic skills (combat, I remember a staff as a weapon) and some basic magic.

It was like 20 years ago, heck maybe even 22-23, just saying eh

You're a time traveling old man too, then? Gothic 2 isn't that old. 19 years since first release in Germany.

The way you describe it reminds me more of Baldur's Gate, but that had isometric-ish view.

[Ältester der Motten]

Dude I'm so old it's a miracle I barely remember to breath. However, I'm pretty sure it was Gothic II.. it's just that I'm not sure if that was a temple, a monastery or what else What I remember is that before you could leave that place you had to get yourself trained in some basic skills (combat, I remember a staff as a weapon) and some basic magic.

It was like 20 years ago, heck maybe even 22-23, just saying eh

Well, that sounds like Gothic 2 as Firemage. But it's kinda in the end of the first half of the game. You should recognise this building then.