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[yamo]

I hated magic candle because of all the drug use...it was "  take drugs go into battle, take drugs go into battle..." made me stop playing.

[Sowelu]

Sergius beat me to proper identification of Yoot Tower.  I guess nothing's obscure on the Bay 12 forums...

I disagree on additional gameplay modes. Done right, makes the game wonderful. Like Space Rangers.

And random encounters are a necessary evil in games that can't afford to accurately model monster movement.

Look at 7th Saga's encounter system. Or Chrono Trigger's.

Remember that both are more than decade old( more like 15y), and do not have random encounters, and are better games for it.

Extra modes can be fun, certainly.

[/quote]

7th Saga didn't EXACTLY have random encounters.  It was much like Zelda 2, with potential encounters popping into existence and being dodgeable, except the enemies were harder to dodge.  Also the US version needed the most grinding of any SNES RPG I ever played.  (Ironically, the JP version of Chrono Trigger needed tons of grinding, too!  They dumbed it way down for the US version through massive stat boosts for the player characters.  And it was a better game for it.)

[CobaltKobold]

Beware, for 7th saga they took out stat boosts e'ery 10th level (compared to Elnard)...for the player;s characters.

But not for the characters who are not in your party, importantly, two of which you'll fight. So levelling can screw you over.

Harder to dodge? you got HUGE radar distance instead of them popping into existence 3 squares away.

[JoshuaFH]

How does anyone remember 7th Saga? That was such an old, obscure game, and such a pain to play!

[Sowelu]

such a pain to play

Which is exactly what made it so memorable.  Not in a good way, either.  It sticks in my mind with lots of bad memories...mainly because it had such a neat concept so my expectations were high.  But yeah, the game balance was whacked out in that game, and the huge tiles weren't all that awesome.

[CobaltKobold]

It zoomed in and used the surroundings as your battlefield in MODE 7

Also good music. Also I now own the cart.

[Mephisto]

While escort quests aren't particularly fun, they absolutely destroy turn-based strategy games.

Here I am, playing Wild Arms XF (FX? I guess I'm dyslexic, it's one or the other). Right after the stealth sequence, you're dropped right into an escort quest. You're escorting nine or so villager NPCs to the other side of the map. One of the enemies has an ability that can potentially OHKO one of the NPCs. If one dies, you get to go back to the easy-but-frustrating stealth segment.

[Draco18s]

While escort quests aren't particularly fun, they absolutely destroy turn-based strategy games.

That has nothing to do with escort quests, or turn based strategy.

That's an "Strategy?  F*ck strategy.  I'm going to roll a d10 and if its not a 10 you lose!  And if I do roll a 10, then I'm going to roll again..." douche-baggery that is the result of game designers getting lazy and artificially increasing the difficulty of the game.

[CobaltKobold]

Escort quests are, like stealth quests, only really bad if they're done wrong.

The problem is, when they're in the middle of another game, they are, 90% of the time, rather like underwater stages in platformers, though worse.

Hmm, there was a thread about setting out to design the worst game possible recently on /v/...

[kuro_suna]

The problem with escort missions is nine out of ten times you lose you aren't being punished for your own mistake but for poorly designed artificial intelligence. Very often its artificial intelligence recycled from enemies that are expected to attack with little sense of self preservation.

The worst I can recall was a quest in morrowind where I need to help a guy who got all his stuff stolen so he had no weapons or armor. I accepted and he started following me but after getting about 10 feet he runs off in to the distance and starts punching random animals. After he finished beating them up I barely got past where we started before he did it again and died.

[JoshuaFH]

If it's Morrowind, then couldn't you mod in a leash and just drag him against his will to where you want to go?

[JoshuaFH]

Ignore the above comment if it turns out I'm retarded.

Anyway, what does everyone think about Numerical Hard?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NumericalHard

I think it's a really cheap way for developers to increase difficulty. It's really just switching out the variables for higher numbers. I'd like it if games made themselves harder in fun and creative ways in order to reward a skillful player.

[Mephisto]

Numerical Hard doesn't bother me much. I would rather have the devs spend more time on improving the game than on coding up another AI.

[Muz]

Oh, I hate escort missions. They're highly dependent on AI (which is usually bad) and horrible in action games too. I play an action game to run around with an adrenaline rush. Or sneak. Escort missions throw away both of those things, making them not fun.

Turn-based games that have too many turns also suck. Titans of Steel ruins multiplayer by making you literally wait seconds to turn.. more seconds to walk.. more to step forward. Civilizations is also guilty of this. One turn can take minutes to process on a late game large map, and sometimes all I do in that turn is walk a few steps.

Titans of Steel also messes up with the extreme difficulty. You HAVE to savescum to win. X-Com is nasty, because it kills your pros, but they're easy enough to replace. With ToS, you can expect all your bots to get crippled by the end of a mission, while a hit would instantly kill a pro.

Speaking of X-Com 2: The goddamn ship missions. I don't mind searching rooms so much, but when you design it like a maze, and make it turn-based, that's like torture. Oh, and after 2 hours on the same mission, you get bored, open a closet without proper preparation, then blam! Some alien reflex shoots you with a sonic cannon.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I like escort missions in good simulators, even good arcade simulators, of whatever flying vehicles. Escorting or protecting someone in Edge of Chaos is difficult, but doable, and lots of fun. Well, unless it's difficult and happens a few light-hours away, or off-system, in which case it can become mildly tedious. Thankfully, the AI still does its best to avoid missiles, and the ships that can't evade missiles are usually tough enough to weather the onslaught until you clear the attackers. In Echelon, and its expansion Wind Warriors, it's a "wee" bit tougher because just one missile hit will mean death for just about anything you may be protecting - but thankfully, missiles are rare, and can actually be shot down with enough skill. In IL-2 Sturmovik and its kin, the difficulty is a given since it's realistic, but that also means a fair fight - if you lose, it's just your skill; the gunners are doing the best they can. I like how it's inverted in B-17 Flying Fortress, too - it's you who is escorted, and you get to see what it's like to have a pack of pilots who can't hit the broad side of a barn as support.