Give 'em what they want--that's the essence of capitalism...
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But keep them wanting more is another central tenet.
Publisher for allowing players to be lazy by doing the lazy thing themselves.
I suspect you take games a lot more seriously than I do.
Yes. I take everything i devote a considerable chunk of my free time very seriously.
That's understandable. Why you care so much about how others spend their gaming time is not, however.
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Hama... I understand you, but you can go TOO far with complicated controls. I tried to play a fight game a while back here Tekken I think. And after flailing at moves pointlessly for a while I decided to look up the character attack combos... OMG there were like over a hundred moves per character! WAY too many to memorize. Games are best when the moves are easy to find or figure out... I would rather be beat by someone who understands strategy and timing rather than because he can memorize more moves than I can. That's just lame.
I care because it affects my fun when kids decide they just wanna hold one button pressed and occasionally press another when the game prompts them. That is not gaming. That is interactive video.
Just by the fact that you regularly post here at Paizo, I can guarantee you will never escape that dilemma. You will never be a part of the lowest common denominator, and the biggest companies will never cater to your tastes. Welcome to the club.
The only thing you can do is support the few niche products that target you, and ignore the ones that don't. Complaining that not enough people like what you like will never change anything.
I guess they think that people who loved Thief and other series now have families and children so they dont have time to play "deep" games and only occasionally play flash-games, phone/tablet games or console.
I don't know what games you've been playing, but Thief was never particularly "deep". As a sneaker, it was pretty straightforward; it just happened to do it better than any other franchise. There's more depth of gameplay in Battlefield 4's multiplayer than in all three Thief games combined.
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Hama... I understand you, but you can go TOO far with complicated controls. I tried to play a fight game a while back here Tekken I think. And after flailing at moves pointlessly for a while I decided to look up the character attack combos... OMG there were like over a hundred moves per character! WAY too many to memorize. Games are best when the moves are easy to find or figure out... I would rather be beat by someone who understands strategy and timing rather than because he can memorize more moves than I can. That's just lame.
Me too, but then, i learned all the controls on mechwarrior 1 and 2. And you pretty much used all of the keyboard.
I agree you can go too complex. But hitting a button as a prompt appears is to me, insulting. Save that for tablet and smartphone games.
Hama... I understand you, but you can go TOO far with complicated controls. I tried to play a fight game a while back here Tekken I think. And after flailing at moves pointlessly for a while I decided to look up the character attack combos... OMG there were like over a hundred moves per character! WAY too many to memorize. Games are best when the moves are easy to find or figure out... I would rather be beat by someone who understands strategy and timing rather than because he can memorize more moves than I can. That's just lame.Me too, but then, i learned all the controls on mechwarrior 1 and 2. And you pretty much used all of the keyboard.
I agree you can go too complex. But hitting a button as a prompt appears is to me, insulting. Save that for tablet and smartphone games.
Yes... hitting a button as a prompt appears seems easy... unless it is a QTE. Maybe I am just bad with timing?
Hama... I understand you, but you can go TOO far with complicated controls. I tried to play a fight game a while back here Tekken I think. And after flailing at moves pointlessly for a while I decided to look up the character attack combos... OMG there were like over a hundred moves per character! WAY too many to memorize. Games are best when the moves are easy to find or figure out... I would rather be beat by someone who understands strategy and timing rather than because he can memorize more moves than I can. That's just lame.Me too, but then, i learned all the controls on mechwarrior 1 and 2. And you pretty much used all of the keyboard.
I agree you can go too complex. But hitting a button as a prompt appears is to me, insulting. Save that for tablet and smartphone games.Yes... hitting a button as a prompt appears seems easy... unless it is a QTE. Maybe I am just bad with timing?
See, that's what I'm wondering. Practically every video game has, as its core interaction, the idea of hitting the right button at the right time, and boiling that concept down to the basics is what a QTE is. Do you tend to have difficulty completing action-oriented games that don't have QTEs? I'm not trying to dissect you, here, but it is a problem I've never heard of before.
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Hmmm... now that I think on Tomb Raider. It wasn't my timing that was off. I have been acceptably good at FPS games which also require timing. No in tomb raider you have to hit the button repeated at what seems to be some specific frequency which I have yet to figure out. And I AM bad at repeatedly mashing the same button. I remember some old game where you had to mash the buttons faster than someone else... I always lost that game too.
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Hilarious. In the same thread that someone admits they are glad QTEs were removed because of difficulty, you're complaining they're too easy. A number of recent games use "blinky prompts", including the Arkham series - which, by the way, I hear is pretty successful.
Plus I don't need a blinky prompt telling me pretty much "The devs consider you too stupid to do this by yourself, so we have made it easy".
You may want to refrain from making such bold statements when it's glaringly obvious that you do need at least one easy button which was not only provided, but that you apparently neglected to use.
I was glad when Mass Effect 2 got away from QTEs to break into sealed containers; the hacking minigames were much better.
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Boiling concepts down to the basics is dumb.
No, it's not. There are plenty of boiled-down concepts that you enjoy. Stop making half-cocked blanket statements that sound good at the moment.
Basics should be expended upon.
And they are, almost always.
Plus I don't need a blinky prompt telling me pretty much "The devs consider you too stupid to do this by yourself, so we have made it easy".
That's not what a QTE is.
They are too easy.
You literally have someone three posts above you explaining that they're too difficult. If part of their audience is finding something difficult and part of their audience is finding it easy, it sounds like they're found an interesting mechanic.
Ok, give me a blinky prompt the first time an action is introduced. And never show it again.
That's how it usually works.
I think that Aranna had a specific problem with Tomb Raider QTEs, which were horrible by the way. Never used them.
How did you manage to never use them? It's not possible to beat the game without encountering QTEs.
I do think QTEs need to die in a fire. They are just cutscenes that require you to push a sequence of buttons to finish. Or worse yet the one-button "Press X to not die" prompts.
If you want a cool cinematic action moment in your game, that's fine, but if it doesn't look the way you want it to look in the actual gameplay, just make it a short cut scene. Don't make me play Simon Says when I came to play a character action game.
Likewise something that's been bothering me is when games constantly remind me which button is the interact button. I especially noticed it in first person shooters, when i walk up to a door or an interactable item suddenly a "Press [E] to open door/push button" flashes dead in the middle of the screen. Like I can't remember that for more than 5 secondes. Doing it once in the beginning of the game for inexperienced players or people who simply don't look into the control scheme before starting the game, that's fine, but even the newest of new beginners in video games will be able to figure out "E opened this door, it will probably open the next one too." without constantly being reminded.
Likewise i can understand having button prompts on things that aren't very easy to spot, or don't have any visual cues at all, like when an enemy in darksiders can be executed. But even there that's just lazy design. There are other ways to make that visible.
The only type of game where i can understand constant on-screen button prompts is one with a big variety of actual keyboard controls, like a strategy game, that has hotkeys for every building and unit you can make and each of their orders and everything.
I do think QTEs need to die in a fire. They are just cutscenes that require you to push a sequence of buttons to finish. Or worse yet the one-button "Press X to not die" prompts.
How far we've come. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but wasn't Dragon's Lair, a consensus classic game, entirely QTEs?
Likewise something that's been bothering me is when games constantly remind me which button is the interact button. I especially noticed it in first person shooters, when i walk up to a door or an interactable item suddenly a "Press [E] to open door/push button" flashes dead in the middle of the screen. Like I can't remember that for more than 5 secondes.
I think the intent is less to tell you which button to push, and more to let you know which doors can be opened. Of course, there are not only better ways to do that, but I prefer ALL doors to open. Doors that don't open or "paths to nowhere" are a huge pet peeve of mine.
I do think QTEs need to die in a fire. They are just cutscenes that require you to push a sequence of buttons to finish. Or worse yet the one-button "Press X to not die" prompts.How far we've come. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but wasn't Dragon's Lair, a consensus classic game, entirely QTEs?
It was! But it was also from another era(1983), it and its kin' were notoriously Nintendo hard(many had varied and entertaining deaths to make death fun!), and was essentially a long Don Bluth Cartoon(he made a chunk of many people's childhood!). More current day example might be Heavy Rain, but that's probably a topic for another thread.
Personally, I'm not big on QTE's myself. I love an interactive novel, but I like being in control and have options. The "Press X to do X" or "Press X not to die" kind tend to be raidroaded, and really kill replay value for me because I run into "oh.. here's where I press X" feeling and it can be distracting during cutscenes where I'd rather just watch cool stuff happen or better yet play the game through them. Its also a little boring I feel, and many times it just isn't entertaining.
I think QTEs could be well done. I don't think they generally are.
I would suggest the best way to utilize QTEs is either for getting bonuses, or creating (telegraphed and comprehensible) decision-making in (relatively) short time-frames to increase the intensity of decision making.
I suspect one reason so many people don't like QTEs right now is the same reason so many are getting frustrated about CGI in movies: it's being over-played and, thus, losing the novelty and entertainment value.
Regardless, that's a different topic. I'd be happy to add more (or more of the same) to it, if someone wanted to make that thread...
Dragon's lair may be a classic... but it's a twenty year old classic by now... and sadly, not a good game.
Yes. Die in a fire, QTEs.
You know which game handles QTEs well? Telltale's Wlaking Dead and A Wolf Among Us.
Well I am still very wary of buying anything with a QTE ever again. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say.
QTEs are best-used when they allow a player to take part in gameplay they normally wouldn't be able to. THE WALKING DEAD is an excellent example because it's an adventure game without a combat system (developing a dedicated combat system would cost money and you'd then want to have more combat to justify it, thus turning it away from being an adventure game), so when action beats take place they really don't have any choice but to employ QTEs. There were relatively rare and employed meaningfully.
In a lot of games they are more irritating because they aren't fully justified. If you have a game with a big combat system then giving you different buttons to press for a cinematic action scene (which you can't concentrate on for spectacle because you're too busy concentrating on what buttons to push) is pointless. CRYSIS 2 had a few of these which grated, but by far the biggest offender was SPACE MARINE: there wasn't a single one in the whole game and then the entire final boss battle is a long sequence of them. Extremely annoying.
TOMB RAIDER's weren't too bad because they generally turned up in places where normal combat options were not possible (in close melee, or when Lara is restrained in some fashion). The game also has quite long periods when you have full control and there are not QTEs at all.
The knife fight QTE in FarCry annoyed me..
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It's actually kind of sad what happened with the game. Whatever happened during development hell was probably the most interesting story there was to come. But PR dictates they can't say what happened, so there's no way to learn and studios in the same position will feel alone. It's just not healthy to let PR Firms dictate gaming history.
It's actually kind of sad what happened with the game. Whatever happened during development hell was probably the most interesting story there was to come. But PR dictates they can't say what happened, so there's no way to learn and studios in the same position will feel alone. It's just not healthy to let PR Firms dictate gaming history.
Employees leave game companies all the time, and many go on to discuss the problems they faced during development.
"PR" doesn't have the eternal information stranglehold that you think it does.
I do think QTEs need to die in a fire. They are just cutscenes that require you to push a sequence of buttons to finish. Or worse yet the one-button "Press X to not die" prompts.How far we've come. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but wasn't Dragon's Lair, a consensus classic game, entirely QTEs?
I never played dragon's lair but I can respect it for what it is. If you go into a game knowing that its gameplay is only QTEs that's fine. Usually not my type of game unless it comes with a really good story in tow, but I respect it. What I don't like is when it interrupts otherwise free and just plainly different gameplay.
Likewise something that's been bothering me is when games constantly remind me which button is the interact button. I especially noticed it in first person shooters, when i walk up to a door or an interactable item suddenly a "Press [E] to open door/push button" flashes dead in the middle of the screen. Like I can't remember that for more than 5 secondes.I think the intent is less to tell you which button to push, and more to let you know which doors can be opened. Of course, there are not only better ways to do that, but I prefer ALL doors to open. Doors that don't open or "paths to nowhere" are a huge pet peeve of mine.
Perhaps but as yousaid yourself there are much more elegant solutions to this, even if its just the old "green door"/"red door" trope. (and i'm sayign this as someone with red-green blindness) or an audible cue that the door can't be open, like in half-life for example.
Playing THIEF right now. On Chapter 3, so less than halfway through the game.
Initial thoughts:
Contextual jumping works okay but needs more signposting: it's often very unclear when you can jump and when you can't. It's also a bit random on what walls you can jump up and which you can't. It makes navigating the city a bit of a nightmare. In fact, getting across the city is a pain in the backside. The hub area is very, very small but they confuse the geography so much that it takes ages (and often traversing people's homes) to get anywhere. This puts me off doing the side-missions as traipsing around the hub just isn't any fun.
Generally, the stealth is well-done and the relatively high cost of supplies encourages you to steal everything in sight. I also like it that if Garrett spots some sweet loot he'll forget above everything else to grab it (and grumble if you leave without it), which reminds you that he is just an opportunist at heart. Combat is awful, which is just as well as it encourages you to avoid it.
The atmosphere and setting leave a lot to be desired. Is it steampunk or not? Clockwork robots, explosives and gas lights say yes, but no guns (at least so far), swords and coshes everywhere and the general level of peasantry seem to say no. The story is also poor and so far the characters have been absolutely non-existent.
Almost every moment of playing the game has been accompanied by me thinking that it's an inferior knock-off of DISHONORED, which given that the original THIEF games inspired DISHONORED is definitely not right.
So far, it's okay but needs to step it up a little bit and give me more of a reason for caring about what's going on.
After playing through a few hours of the game (shortly after its release), I finally threw in the towel and left that pile of steaming rubbish to decompose without me. It's not just that they've changed the voice actor--they've changed the character. The new voice actor is horrible and the lines he's expected to vomit up again and again are even worse.
RIP Thief
Raise the difficulty buddy.
The poor hub design changes if you raise the difficulty level? I can only imagine that doing that would make the combat even worse than it already is, which the game definitely doesn't need.
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I played Thief in what I like to call 'Classic Mode'. Made the game much more like the original. Set your Custom Difficulty to the hardest setting then add in the choices of getting caught causes you to fail the mission, killing causes you to fail, etc. There's even an Iron Man option that I chose where if you get caught, you start the game over from the beginning. It brings the stealth back to the forefront and really makes you think.
As for it not being a fantasy setting, that's entirely not true. Sure, it's not the original, but it's still a good game. I enjoyed it immensely. Not more than the original, but immensely.
As for Dishonored, those of you with an Xbox can expect Dishonored to be free with Games for Gold on the 16th!
After playing through a few hours of the game (shortly after its release), I finally threw in the towel and left that pile of steaming rubbish to decompose without me. It's not just that they've changed the voice actor--they've changed the character.
This is actually intentional:
This is not immediately clear in the game until later on, when people start mentioning some of the other gangs and factions from the first games and how they've been gone for centuries.
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After playing through a few hours of the game (shortly after its release), I finally threw in the towel and left that pile of steaming rubbish to decompose without me. It's not just that they've changed the voice actor--they've changed the character.This is actually intentional:
** spoiler omitted **
That is all very odd and disapointing that they chose that direction.
I finally got a copy of this from a friend who was done with it. Not a terrible game but not worth full price. In this case all the reviews I read at launch were right on the money.
Am I the only one who saw this on the Recent Threads bar and thought it was another "Rogues are broken" thread?
I'm assuming the colour coding is a reference to the way stealable items glint like miniature supernovae are going off (the game's way of saying, "YOU CAN STEAL THIS") or the map gets covered in handy-but-confusing markers. You can actually turn all of that stuff off.