E3 2018
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Starts tomorrow! Personally, I'm more hyped this year than usual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2kIfS6fb8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4
I also hope for some Spyro Reignited gameplay, but I'm not sure if it's mainstream enough to get on stage.
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I wonder if The Elder Scrolls will have more than three types of cave this time around.
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@coldandtired Following the trend of Bethesda games:
- It'll have a more balanced (but less fun) magic system (they'll maybe remove enchanting this time around)
- It'll have a more balanced (but less fun) combat system (they'll double-down on removing hand-to-hand and maybe only have one weapon skill)
- It'll be less creative and more generic fantasy (more gnomes, less netches)
- It'll incorporate base-building for no reason and you'll have to spend half your playtime planting beets or some retarded AI argonians will bitch at you
- There will be no delayed gratification whatsoever. Like Fallout 4, you'll get the Power Armor less than half an hour into the game. I'm not sure what this'll look like in Elder Scrolls VI but maybe the tutorial will just drop all of the daedric artifacts in your lap.
- Speaking of intros, it'll be mind-numbingly long with no "skip" button, so long that it'll discourage people from starting a second game for years on end.
... sorry am I a bit bitter?
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@blakeyrat you're being very generous to them. I wouldn't be surprised if TES6 was unmodified Skyrim with new maps and quests.
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@gąska There's precedent of that too, with Skyrim Special Edition being perhaps the most lazy special edition ever put out by any publisher ever. "Look, there's like 3 new shaders. And a new texture! Just one though. BTW all your old mods are broken."
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
... sorry am I a bit bitter?
Nah, in this case it's justified.
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Like Fallout 4, you'll get the Power Armor less than half an hour into the game.
And thanks to level scaling you'll have streetside robbers in full Power Armor mug you for 20 copper pieces.
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And thanks to level scaling you'll have streetside robbers in full Power Armor mug you for 20 copper pieces.
I don't mind level scaling.
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@blakeyrat It will also have even more pointless shit to pick up and if we're lucky we can look forward to another ten years of whatever this version's 'arrow to the knee' is.
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@coldandtired said in E3 2018:
@blakeyrat It will also have even more pointless shit to pick up
I've heard people complain that Gamebryo games aren't fun because they literally pick up every object that isn't nailed down and have to make like 7 runs back-and-forth to sell them at town before finishing a single dungeon.
Those people are crazy.
Just don't pick up the ground clutter idiot.
There's not going to be some super magical quest because you have 56 "burnt book" in your inventory. Just stop picking it up.
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
56 "burnt book" in your inventory
Come on, that burnt book could be worth 0.1 gold!
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@adynathos It's sad because the reason they're physics objects is so you can do fun things with the Fus Ro Dah or telekinesis spells, not because the game developers expect you to pick them up and sell them. Why do people do that.
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Why do people do that.
To get all the monies. If they don't have every piece of loot and/or wealth in the game, they're not winning.
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~
player.additem 000f 90000000000There now you have all the gold, now enjoy the fucking game.
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I wouldn't be surprised if TES6 was unmodified Skyrim with new maps and quests.
You basically stole Bethesda's joke:
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
There now you have all the gold, now enjoy the fucking game.
Which is also kinda pointless to cheat for as gold is only a problem at the very beginning, at least if running all the sidequests and making sure to pick up and sell all the valuables found in the dungeon.
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Which is also kinda pointless to cheat for as gold is only a problem at the very beginning, at least if running all the sidequests and making sure to pick up and sell all the valuables found in the dungeon.
Including all those lovely burnt books!
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
@adynathos It's sad because the reason they're physics objects is so you can do fun things with the Fus Ro Dah or telekinesis spells, not because the game developers expect you to pick them up and sell them. Why do people do that.
Because they can, of course!
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
I don't mind level scaling.
I always found the implementation in Skyrim (and perhaps more so in Oblivion) particularly egregious. Specifically, wherever one went, one would always find the sameish things for a certain level, making exploring more boring (IMO). And less exciting, since the things one would encounter would always be things one could handle (no "oh-shit" moments).
In the recent TES games, it also created this slightly weird staircase effect, where the game would get more difficult when one leveled up to certain levels for a level or two, then easy, and then again more difficult as the next level of scaling kicked in (at least, this is how I remember it).
I get why the level scaling is there. But I think I prefer having certain areas "level gated", where you get some sense of achievement when you finally get powerful enough to be able to reach them. (Sure, that's of course down to personal preference, though.)
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@cvi That's one reason I kind of like how Final Fantasy 14 handles some content. Once you outlevel a zone, normally stuff in that zone is trivial to either just run past or blow up with a glance, but there are some dynamic-ish events called FATEs that you can choose to join for some XP and whatnot that when you join it level-syncs you down to around the level of the FATE for as long as you're participating.
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@e4tmyl33t Not sure if I'm down with being leveled down, but haven't played any of the FFs, so I don't know what exactly it entails there (e.g., losing abilities/skills?).
I'm currently playing Pillars of Eternity 2. I think they have found a decent way of doing the level scaling. Essentially it gives you options when starting a game, where you can specify which parts should scale ("critical path", other or all) and whether or not it should just scale difficulty up or in both directions.
I'm playing with difficulty only being scaled upwards, and having fun so far. So you still get to feel like you're playing a powerful party after a few levels (but without completely roflstomping things), and there's still the occasional oh-shit moment when you get to an encounter/place where you're totally outclassed and totally shouldn't be yet. (And it feels nice when you finally beat an encounter that's technically higher level than you are anyway.)
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I get why the level scaling is there. But I think I prefer having certain areas "level gated", where you get some sense of achievement when you finally get powerful enough to be able to reach them. (Sure, that's of course down to personal preference, though.)
This. I think the goal is basically good, but they haven't found a good way to actually implement it.
I just got Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and it has level scaling as an option at character creation. I chose to turn it off.
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@e4tmyl33t
Downleveling would suck less if you didn't lose all your useful skills
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@izzion That's true, I suppose. I know I was confused as hell with the melee portion of my Red Mage rotation when I did a below-50 FATE, since the finisher melee skill got locked out.
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certain areas "level gated"
Each area should have a range of levels for which it is designed. Go there significantly under-level? Be prepared to be stomped by random critters for no good reason. Go there well over-level? Either things ignore (or run away from) you, or the fights with them are so trivial they might as well be doing that. This persuades most people to stay in the areas where the content is about right: no embarrassing deaths, and no grind-y boredom.
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@blakeyrat one thing that makes TES level scaling particularly bad is that if you focus on non-combat skills early on, the game becomes impossibly hard.
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Hitman 2 - yet another game to become ungooglable because new developers lack creativity in naming...
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@gąska That's true of every RPG ever, scaling or not.
It used to be established dickishness that every PC RPG would have skills you could put points in early on, like "speak trollish", that were utterly useless. But the player had no way of knowing there's only one non-hostile troll character in the entire game and it's 4/5th of the way through and all he says is "go away" unless you have 50 points in "speak trollish" and if you dedicate 50 points to that you're too clumsy to use a sword and can't possibly get 4/5ths through the game.
Even older Elder Scrolls has those types of "skill point landmines".
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
I don't mind level scaling.
I always found the implementation in Skyrim (and perhaps more so in Oblivion) particularly egregious. Specifically, wherever one went, one would always find the sameish things for a certain level, making exploring more boring (IMO). And less exciting, since the things one would encounter would always be things one could handle (no "oh-shit" moments).
In the recent TES games, it also created this slightly weird staircase effect, where the game would get more difficult when one leveled up to certain levels for a level or two, then easy, and then again more difficult as the next level of scaling kicked in (at least, this is how I remember it).
I get why the level scaling is there. But I think I prefer having certain areas "level gated", where you get some sense of achievement when you finally get powerful enough to be able to reach them. (Sure, that's of course down to personal preference, though.)
Level scaling is fine, to a point. Really, all these bandits have high level and expensive glass armor and swords?!
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The only thing about E3 that happened and matters in the slightest, (and I say this knowing full well that the new DMC is back to the real series!) is the announcement of the new Battletoads! WOOOO!
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
@gąska That's true of every RPG ever, scaling or not.
Not entirely. There are games where picking non-combat skills early on doesn't slow down your future combat development, or it outweighs the slowdown with more experience/gold. You could say Fallout 4 is like that, but it's a bad example because combat skills hardly matter at all. Gothic would qualify, if the early game combat wasn't absurdly brutal anyway. Morrowind had that, but the levelling system was totally broken in a different way.
It used to be established dickishness that every PC RPG would have skills you could put points in early on, like "speak trollish", that were utterly useless.
It used to be established doctrine to be as much of a dick to the player as you can in all games of every genre that came out between 1980 and ~1995.
Even older Elder Scrolls has those types of "skill point landmines".
Every single TES game is a great example of how NOT to do levelling. In Arena and Daggerfall, it was decided more by RNG than anything you did or didn't do. Morrowind and Oblivion gave you only 25% of possible attribute points unless you spent dozens of hours carefully planning your grind sessions. Skyrim had good mechanics, but the skill levels themselves were pretty much useless except for the fact they blocked access to perks - and due to level scaling, levelling up was actually a bad thing. Also, limited number of trainer uses made me forego the idea of ever grinding armor or shield skills above 30 (except for that one time when I played as thief - and getting weightless armor perk was the most boring hour of my life).
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Way back when I used to play RuneScape, I collected tinderboxes, because I could. They only stocked 5 at a time at general stores for one gold each, so I'd hit all the stores as I was playing the game and buy them out. By the time I quit the game (around 10 years ago) I had tens of thousands of tinderboxes in my bank.
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Not entirely. There are games where picking non-combat skills early on doesn't slow down your future combat development, or it outweighs the slowdown with more experience/gold.
Pillars of Eternity works around this by putting combat skills and non-combat skills into different categories. You get points for each category separately. One could argue that it's a bit of a lazy workaround, but it does seem to solve the problem.
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Every single TES game is a great example of how NOT to do levelling. In Arena and Daggerfall, it was decided more by RNG than anything you did or didn't do. Morrowind and Oblivion gave you only 25% of possible attribute points unless you spent dozens of hours carefully planning your grind sessions. Skyrim had good mechanics, but the skill levels themselves were pretty much useless except for the fact they blocked access to perks - and due to level scaling, levelling up was actually a bad thing. Also, limited number of trainer uses made me forego the idea of ever grinding armor or shield skills above 30 (except for that one time when I played as thief
See, here's the thing: I don't care.
I'm not one of those people who whips out Excel when presented with a new game and puts in all the formulas and does all the min-max and all the math and oops halfway through this dungeon but the spreadsheet says need mercantile skills so better leave and do that and... etc.
I create a character and play the video game as if it were a game.
So none of that bugs me. Because playing an RPG in an Excel sheet is boring as fuck.
So when I read stuff like this:
and getting weightless armor perk was the most boring hour of my life).
You sat there doing boring shit for an hour because some spreadsheet told you to? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Look, it's easy: Gamebryo/Creation Engine games have already solved all your issues, they have a real-time difficulty slider. Always have. Play like this:
Blakeyrat's Guide To Playing RPG Vidya Gamez:
- Create a character (the actual fun part of an RPG)
- Play the vidya game
- If something's too hard, turn down the slider a bit and try it again
- If it's too easy, turn up the slider a bit and try it again
- Don't do boring shit
- In fact, don't do anything that would make Blakeyrat exclaim "what the fuck is wrong with you?" Like picking up all the garbage in all the dungeons
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
@gąska That's true of every RPG ever, scaling or not.
It used to be established dickishness that every PC RPG would have skills you could put points in early on, like "speak trollish", that were utterly useless. But the player had no way of knowing there's only one non-hostile troll character in the entire game and it's 4/5th of the way through and all he says is "go away" unless you have 50 points in "speak trollish" and if you dedicate 50 points to that you're too clumsy to use a sword and can't possibly get 4/5ths through the game.
Even older Elder Scrolls has those types of "skill point landmines".
ADOM--often considered the greatest Roguelike of all time--comes to mind here.
There's one specific level where, in order to obtain a MacGuffin required to progress toward the end of the game, you have to find a way to cross water infested by "chaos piranhas" that will eat you alive instantly if you fall in.
There are only three ways to cross water: swim, freeze it solid, or build a bridge across it. It's possible to gain access to ice-based magic, but it's quite rare before you get past the point that this MacGuffin enables you to pass. For most characters, this leaves bridge building, which is a skill that no one starts out with IIRC; it has to be learned from a specific NPC as the result of a quest, and then you spend tons of time and precious skill training points training the skill up so it will be useful at this one and only point where you ever actually need it.
In later versions, an alternative quest was added (it's not possible to do both) where you can gain access to some ice magic. You just have to be careful to not use it up before you reach this point...
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
See, here's the thing: I don't care.
See, I do.
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
I'm not one of those people who whips out Excel when presented with a new game and puts in all the formulas and does all the min-max and all the math and oops halfway through this dungeon but the spreadsheet says need mercantile skills so better leave and do that and... etc.
Back when I was a kid, I've had more time. Much more time. So senseless grinding didn't bother me as much. But it was still boring.
I create a character and play the video game as if it were a game.
Some shooters let you not worry about ammo by giving you infinite/virtually infinite amount. Others forced you to count your shots if you want to get to the end of level. Some RPGs let you get away with whatever build, others become virtually impossible - and you don't know until you get stuck near the end. I don't care about squeezing out 10% more damage or whatever - but in Morrowind, it was about getting 400% stronger. Normal gameplay yields you a quarter of available skill points, and it's very sensible to assume the game is balanced around getting about half the skill points. And I can tell you that playing a maxed out Morrowind character was way more fun that one with 70 in half the things and 40 in the rest.
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
You sat there doing boring shit for an hour because some spreadsheet told you to? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Teenagers are stupid and don't value their time. And playing a thief with 70 sneaking was the best time I've had in Skyrim - while playing one with 69 or less simply didn't work at all. Perk-based leveling does that to your game.
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Create a character (the actual fun part of an RPG)
If only I could actually do it in most newer games... And no, visual customization doesn't count as customization. I'd love to pick from different backstories that affect the story throughout the whole game - like in Mass Effect, but with more than 3 options, and more than 5 related dialogues. Sadly, most games let you either just pick one of several classes which affects some quests (rare), one of 4 classes that are never mentioned in-game (common), or pick a class that only changes starting statistics and doesn't block you out of any skills, quests or gameplay mechanics (also rare, but less so than first).
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
If something's too hard, turn down the slider a bit and try it again
And redo the first 50% of the game, which will be incredibly boring now because I've lowered the difficulty?
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Don't do boring shit
If I avoid doing the very boring shit entirely, all the actually interesting parts are locked out and I'm left with a slightly boring game through and through. Enchanting is fun, but not if the bonuses are negligible, and they're negligible until you're like 75 (and it gets 10x better the very moment you level up from 99 to 100).
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And redo the first 50% of the game, which will be incredibly boring now because I've lowered the difficulty?
Do you not understand the phrase "real-time difficulty slider"? Sorry, I assumed 5th grade reading comprehension skills.
The games we're talking about here, Gamebryo/Creation Engine games, all have difficulty sliders that work in real time. Even Morrowind. That solves your problem without requiring you to make a spreadsheet or do boring shit for hours on end.
If I avoid doing the very boring shit entirely, all the actually interesting parts are locked out and I'm left with a slightly boring game through and through.
OR! You could just use the fucking difficulty slider!
https://youtu.be/JnoIclboPFY?t=2m20s
Why are you making shit hard on yourself. Bethesda solved this problem for you.
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
And redo the first 50% of the game, which will be incredibly boring now because I've lowered the difficulty?
Do you not understand the phrase "real-time difficulty slider"? Sorry, I assumed 5th grade reading comprehension skills.
Most games don't have one. And in those that do, actively using it takes away the entire challenge - and I like my games to be challenging. If I'm going to turn down difficulty, I might as well enable god mode and not worry about anything!
If I wanted to see a movie, I'd open up Netflix.
If I avoid doing the very boring shit entirely, all the actually interesting parts are locked out and I'm left with a slightly boring game through and through.
OR! You should just use the fucking difficulty slider!
Turning down difficulty doesn't make my footsteps any more silent. It doesn't make my enchantings more powerful. It doesn't let me enable perks earlier.
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@blakeyrat This sounds depressingly realistic.
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Just don't pick up the ground clutter idiot.
There's not going to be some super magical quest because you have 56 "burnt book" in your inventory. Just stop picking it up.Oh come on, who hasn't launched Morrowind for the first time and then spent 2 hours stealing EVERYTHING from the census office, before they realized that crap is everywhere and they should just ignore it?
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Most games don't have one.
Games that force you to select difficulty before you've played any of the game are satan. Games that force you to restart the game to change difficulty are satan.
These are some of the reasons that Bethesda games are considered "good games". If you're playing bad games, then all bets are off.
And in those that do, actively using it takes away the entire challenge
So don't fucking turn it down! Nobody's holding a gun to your head! Christ.
If I'm going to turn down difficulty, I might as well enable god mode and not worry about anything!
Sure why not. If you just want to experience the story, go for it. I've done it before for games that are too bad to play but I'm curious enough to want to know how the story ends.
Turning down difficulty doesn't make my footsteps any more silent. It doesn't make my enchantings more powerful. It doesn't let me enable perks earlier.
Games with more than one type of gameplay (say combat & jumping puzzles) where the difficulty slider doesn't affect all aspects of gameplay (looking at you, ReCore, the game with trivial combat but fucking difficult jumping puzzles!) are also satan. Satan.
@cartman82 said in E3 2018:
Oh come on, who hasn't launched Morrowind for the first time and then spent 2 hours stealing EVERYTHING from the census office, before they realized that crap is everywhere and they should just ignore it?
I haven't. Why would I have? I'm not insane.
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@cartman82 said in E3 2018:
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Just don't pick up the ground clutter idiot.
There's not going to be some super magical quest because you have 56 "burnt book" in your inventory. Just stop picking it up.Oh come on, who hasn't launched Morrowind for the first time and then spent 2 hours stealing EVERYTHING from the census office, before they realized that crap is everywhere and they should just ignore it?
Except golden plate, of course.
@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Most games don't have one.
Games that force you to select difficulty before you've played any of the game are satan. Games that force you to restart the game to change difficulty are satan.
Well, it really depends on the game. And the player.
These are some of the reasons that Bethesda games are considered "good games".
Nope. They're considered good games because of branding, awesome intros, vast worlds with deep lore, and the great illusion of choice you get at the beginning (and they keep it long enough for reviewers not to notice it's an illusion) - not actual gameplay. With enough marketing, people will enjoy every half-decent game you release. Same as every other entertainment medium. Which movies make more money on average - critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning masterpieces, or summer blockbusters with lots of explosions?
And in those that do, actively using it takes away the entire challenge
So don't fucking turn it down! Nobody's holding a gun to your head! Christ.
: This thing kills all the fun in a game for me.
: So use this feature! Problem solved!
: But this thing also kills all the fun in the game.
: So don't use this feature! Problem solved!If I'm going to turn down difficulty, I might as well enable god mode and not worry about anything!
Sure why not. If you just want to experience the story, go for it. I've done it before for games that are too bad to play but I'm curious enough to want to know how the story ends.
Too bad Skyrim's storyline sucks.
Turning down difficulty doesn't make my footsteps any more silent. It doesn't make my enchantings more powerful. It doesn't let me enable perks earlier.
Games with more than one type of gameplay (say combat & jumping puzzles) where the difficulty slider doesn't affect all aspects of gameplay (looking at you, ReCore, the game with trivial combat but fucking difficult jumping puzzles!) are also satan. Satan.
I wouldn't call TES Satan, but yes, it definitely sucks. But there's also the question of whether difficulty should be about how skilled the player must be, or how much grinding is required. Letting the player adjust the latter sounds like a lazy game design. And it also doesn't remove the problem that sneaking under level 70 doesn't work.
@cartman82 said in E3 2018:
Oh come on, who hasn't launched Morrowind for the first time and then spent 2 hours stealing EVERYTHING from the census office, before they realized that crap is everywhere and they should just ignore it?
I haven't. Why would I have? I'm not insane.
Enjoying RPG games in the same way as the majority of people playing RPG games = insane. Gotcha.
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Well, it really depends on the game.
No it does not.
It's also satan for a game that doesn't let you turn on subtitles before it starts playing a cutscene with dialog, BTW. Lots of satan in the gaming industry. I don't understand how it's 2018 and a lot of new AAA games get some of these things wrong.
Enjoying RPG games in the same way as the majority of people playing RPG games = insane. Gotcha.
The majority of people are hoarders?
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
The majority of people are hoarders?
The majority of all RPG players? Yeah, I'm pretty sure more than 50% hoard as much as they can.
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Well, it really depends on the game.
No it does not.
It's also satan for a game that doesn't let you turn on subtitles before it starts playing a cutscene with dialog, BTW.
100% agreed. It's even more satan if it doesn't let you switch from Polish to English dubbing!
Lots of satan in the gaming industry.
Also agreed.
I don't understand how it's 2018 and a lot of new AAA games get some of these things wrong.
The first feature movies came out in early 1900s, and 2018 movies still get basic things wrong. It really shouldn't surprise anyone that anything at all is bad quality on average, even the multi-million-dollar projects.
Enjoying RPG games in the same way as the majority of people playing RPG games = insane. Gotcha.
The majority of people are hoarders?
In RPGs, yes, apparently. I am totally a hoarder, but I never picked up more than half dozen cabbages throughout my entire play time - and somehow eating 50 cabbages mid-fight became a well-known meme!
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The majority of all RPG players? Yeah, I'm pretty sure more than 50% hoard as much as they can.
Ok; well that's their problem, not mine, or Bethesda's.
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@blakeyrat nothing is Bethesda's problem if it doesn't affect sales. And releasing mechanically bad games apparently doesn't.
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@gąska You're cruising for a bruising.
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Ok; well that's their problem, not mine, or Bethesda's.
How is it not the game designer's problem to account for the behavior of the players? That doesn't make sense.
I'm not saying every game should have unlimited inventories, but at the very least they should give you enough hints to figure out what's worth keeping. The #1 reason people hoard is because they have no idea which items they're going to need later on.
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How is it not the game designer's problem to account for the behavior of the players?
Because the players are behaving irrationally. If Silly Ted likes to bang his head against windows, and I move his cubicle far away from any windows in the building, is that my problem or Ted's?
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@blakeyrat said in E3 2018:
Because the players are behaving irrationally.
There's nothing irrational about hoarding. How am I supposed to know whether I'll need weapons that deal a certain kind of elemental damage later on? At the start of the game, how am I supposed to know which potions are rare and should be saved for boss fights? Are those worthless mushrooms I find in the early game maybe an important ingredient for a potion I don't know yet? And how do I know which items I might need for important quests?
There are many ways you could accidentally screw yourself over by selling or throwing away the wrong items in the early game and you might not find out until many hours later when reloading an old save is no longer an option.
It's been a while since I played Skyrim, so I don't remember how bad or good it was in that regard, but there are definitely RPGs that expect you to keep certain items but never tell you that they're valuable. That sucks.
