Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ShoesandHats]

My main problem with Morrowind, which is probably the reason why I don't currently own it, is the combat system. As Alex said, I don't want to have missed something that I very clearly hit. It just makes it artificially more difficult. Still, the next time it goes on sale on Steam, I'll probably buy it. It's one of those things where you never got into it, but you always say to yourself "You should really get around to doing that."

[Vattic]

I spent time planning my character and watching him grow.

Spoiler: rant about RPG's in general (click to show/hide)

This is one of the things I do not like/get in RPG's. I don't want to plan out my character, I just want to play and "my character" can evolve naturally as I do so.

And I have never had the illusion of my chatacter growing - the stats system in most RPG's are super simple and generalise characters to a handful of integers (which are rendered straight onto the screen, noless). I cannot associate my characters various abilities with arbitary numbers, and when those numbers increase it is very obvious the effect that has - my character does not get stronger, but instead a higher value goes through a function to calculate how much HP to subtract from the integer representing the enemies HP.

TES games were better with this (With D&D games like Neverwinter Nights being the worst, right down to printing the maths they used onto the screen) but this is one aspect I thought they had been improving over the series - hiding the numbers so I feel more like I am playing a character in a possibly-believable world, rather than a world made out of statistics (especially with the combat change between Morrowind and Oblivion. I just can't see my character missing what clearly hit).

I do wish characters in Oblivion/Skyrim had more weaknesses though. preferably not of the "+15% fire damage" type though, since again with the statistics. Why not just say "X is vunerable to fire" - I don't need to know the exact value (I will get used to the vunerability as I play).

Also some people who play RPG's often go on about how much more "in depth" or even "True Scotsman" that this type of RPG gameplay is. Its more deep as a statistical machine, but it does not add more depth for "Playing a Role of a character in a Game" for me.

It is of course my opinion and people will definetely have different tasts in this regards. I also rarely put in over 20 hours into a game (including Skyrim) except for a very small number of long-played games.

I agree with this mostly, but I still think that simplifying the skills is a shame. I don't necessarily want the numbers shown but having it be more granular is still better in my book.

[Neonivek]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Get a list of old games from a website like mobygames or something, pick games totally at random (to avoid selection bias) and see how many good "deep" games you get

Yeah that is definately going to make them seem equal if you chose things completely at random, however you will see that even a slight ability to chose the games which you use as a representative entirely changes the results.

This is because people in the past were aware that there were terrible games and bought good ones, and thus the reason we remember the good ones is because we had the ability to buy the good ones, most of the time.

You see in chosing completely at random you actually introduced an entirely different bias. It is the equivilant of saying that "France has terrible food because I went outside and pointed at random objects and most of them tasted terrible".

Which is funny because if you compared Modern games COMPLETELY AT RANDOM with games from the 1990s and 1980s you would actually end up with old games being FAR FAR FAR supperior... simply because of the "Facebook game" and "touchscreen game" boom (and that is saying something because the Internet actually increased the general quality of games at first because it stopped the guessing game when you bought new games. Thus a "terrible but well selling game" stopped happening)

Anyhow I think the real question is: When will we ever play this gam and actually deserve to be the arch mage?

[Dutchling]

I spent time planning my character and watching him grow.

Spoiler: rant about RPG's in general (click to show/hide)

This is one of the things I do not like/get in RPG's. I don't want to plan out my character, I just want to play and "my character" can evolve naturally as I do so.

And I have never had the illusion of my chatacter growing - the stats system in most RPG's are super simple and generalise characters to a handful of integers (which are rendered straight onto the screen, noless). I cannot associate my characters various abilities with arbitary numbers, and when those numbers increase it is very obvious the effect that has - my character does not get stronger, but instead a higher value goes through a function to calculate how much HP to subtract from the integer representing the enemies HP.

TES games were better with this (With D&D games like Neverwinter Nights being the worst, right down to printing the maths they used onto the screen) but this is one aspect I thought they had been improving over the series - hiding the numbers so I feel more like I am playing a character in a possibly-believable world, rather than a world made out of statistics (especially with the combat change between Morrowind and Oblivion. I just can't see my character missing what clearly hit).

I do wish characters in Oblivion/Skyrim had more weaknesses though. preferably not of the "+15% fire damage" type though, since again with the statistics. Why not just say "X is vunerable to fire" - I don't need to know the exact value (I will get used to the vunerability as I play).

Also some people who play RPG's often go on about how much more "in depth" or even "True Scotsman" that this type of RPG gameplay is. Its more deep as a statistical machine, but it does not add more depth for "Playing a Role of a character in a Game" for me.

It is of course my opinion and people will definetely have different tasts in this regards. I also rarely put in over 20 hours into a game (including Skyrim) except for a very small number of long-played games.

I disagree with you here. Half the fun is looking at a giant sheet of numbers . Although I can't remember playing ever playing an RPG like you described, probably because it's much harder to accomplish than just showing the player the numbers you are using in the game anyway...

[Neonivek]

I think what he means is that the focus on stats as the representation of power in many ways is just another form of "Show don't tell"

Where the game says "Ohh yeah you are awsome" with vague words without you seeming any better.

and with games like Dragon Age where the scaling uttarly destroyed the sense of progression... I can relate.

[SalmonGod]

Scaling is something that really fucks with a lot of RPGs.  It's one thing that actually really impresses me about Mount & Blade.  You scale up to the point that you can literally stand in the middle of a horde of angry farmers and they won't be able to hurt you.  There's a seriously awesome sense of growing more powerful.  But in the process you also find yourself facing tougher and tougher challenges.  And those challenges are there from the beginning.  They're not scaled in as you play.  You just don't fuck with them until you're ready (which is whenever you decide you are), and that process happens in a somewhat believable fashion.  All sandbox RPG designers should definitely take note.

[alexandertnt]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

however you will see that even a slight ability to chose the games which you use as a representative entirely changes the results

With respect to working out if old games are better or new games are better, being able to choose representatives does indeed completely change the results - it invalidates them. Anyone who thinks old games are better and new games are worse (or vice versa) is more likely to pick good old games and bad/aveage new games (or vice versa).

You see in chosing completely at random you actually introduced an entirely different bias. It is the equivilant of saying that "France has terrible food because I went outside and pointed at random objects and most of them tasted terrible".

No. You could say "France has terrable tasting objects" if you did that. You introduce a new selection bias if you do that to measure the quality of food (by selecting objects that are not even relevant). In my example you are selecting random games to measure the quality of games. In your example you are selecting random objects to measure the quality of food.

What I am trying to get to is that the "plenty of games" you have are the exception.

There is someone on youtube (ZetaPlays) who is trying to play every single NES, SNES and genesis game made, and he uses a program to select them at random. Most of them are terrable, and it gives you a perspective on earlier gaming (consoles in particular) that many people who grew up loving their NES would never see, the "dark side" of their favourite era of gaming. It is quite interesting.

I disagree with you here. Half the fun is looking at a giant sheet of numbers . Although I can't remember playing ever playing an RPG like you described, probably because it's much harder to accomplish than just showing the player the numbers you are using in the game anyway...

Excel does not make for a fun game in my book

Some RPG's have had various parts of the game mechanics that I like, but not as a whole.

Its not hard to replace "15% weakness to fire" with "is vunerable to fire". Its still dependant on a simple statistical system, sure, but its a good start. Consider DF (a game whose combat system is an excellent example of what I mean), in DF you "slice" and "cut" things, you do not do 2d5 damage. You might sever a tendon, instead of doing a "crit".

[Dutchling]

Its not hard to replace "15% weakness to fire" with "is vunerable to fire". Its still dependant on a simple statistical system, sure, but its a good start. Consider DF (a game whose combat system is an excellent example of what I mean), in DF you "slice" and "cut" things, you do not do 2d5 damage. You might sever a tendon, instead of doing a "crit".

In 'a game like DF' +15% fire damage does not make sense, as there is no hit points system. So while I agree with you that combat like that is fun, I still prefer numbers in a game that already shows you a lot of numbers. Basically, I prefer to either know all the numbers (Neverwinter Nights, Fallout 2) or none of them (Dwarf Fortress). Not saying that something in between makes a game a crappy (as there will always be plenty of stuff you do not know), it's just something I prefer.

[Ultimuh]

If i'm not mistaken, the total overhaul mod for Skyrim, Requiem removes those numbers entirely.

[alexandertnt]

Its not hard to replace "15% weakness to fire" with "is vunerable to fire". Its still dependant on a simple statistical system, sure, but its a good start. Consider DF (a game whose combat system is an excellent example of what I mean), in DF you "slice" and "cut" things, you do not do 2d5 damage. You might sever a tendon, instead of doing a "crit".

In 'a game like DF' +15% fire damage does not make sense, as there is no hit points system. So while I agree with you that combat like that is fun, I still prefer numbers in a game that already shows you a lot of numbers. Basically, I prefer to either know all the numbers (Neverwinter Nights, Fallout 2) or none of them (Dwarf Fortress). Not saying that something in between makes a game a crappy (as there will always be plenty of stuff you do not know), it's just something I prefer.

In my mind its a sliding scale with bad (numbers) and good (descriptions, or something a bit less precise). That is not to say that it completely ruins the game, or automatically makes a game awesome though (though it can be a very strong influence).

Of course I have no issue with you prefering what you prefer, its all subjective after all. Except your wrong

If i'm not mistaken, the total overhaul mod for Skyrim, Requiem removes those numbers entirely.

Im reading the description and there are some very nice things in it (more descriptive perks over numbers. yielding AI that doesnt try to kill you the second you turn around). Will have to look at installing if it doesnt conflict with other mods (so the shared-computer copy doesnt break...)

[fqllve]

I actually really like Skyrim's magic, though I still regret the loss of spellmaking. Mages in oblivion were incredibly underpowered, enchanting being the only powerful thing they could do. The enemies gained in hitpoints and resistances much faster that a mage could gain in magical damage or magicka efficiency. Morrowind, in contrast, would let you become godlike if you made it past initial rockiness in magic.

What? Magic in Oblivion was OP, I mean, not compared to Morrowind but considered by itself, it was extremely broken. All you had to do was spell stack. Even at high levels on 100% difficulty spell-stacking + alchemy is essentially an instant win in Oblivion. In contrast, destruction in particular is extremely underpowered in Skyrim and is essentially useless for playing on Master difficulty. Comparing any game to Morrowind and saying it is underpowered is kind of crazy since Morrowind has the most broken magic system in any game I've ever played by a ridiculous margin.

There is someone on youtube (ZetaPlays) who is trying to play every single NES, SNES and genesis game made, and he uses a program to select them at random. Most of them are terrable, and it gives you a perspective on earlier gaming (consoles in particular) that many people who grew up loving their NES would never see, the "dark side" of their favourite era of gaming. It is quite interesting.

Also of note is Chrontendo, where a guy plays through every NES game in chronological order. The ratio of good to terrible is exactly what you'd expect, extraordinarily low. We do have an extreme selection bias when it comes to the past.

[Ultimuh]

If i'm not mistaken, the total overhaul mod for Skyrim, Requiem removes those numbers entirely.

Im reading the description and there are some very nice things in it (more descriptive perks over numbers. yielding AI that doesnt try to kill you the second you turn around). Will have to look at installing if it doesnt conflict with other mods (so the shared-computer copy doesnt break...)

I am sure it is quite incompatible with several mods.
So yeah, good idea to check it thoroughly.

[Neonivek]

Scaling is something that really fucks with a lot of RPGs.  It's one thing that actually really impresses me about Mount & Blade.  You scale up to the point that you can literally stand in the middle of a horde of angry farmers and they won't be able to hurt you.  There's a seriously awesome sense of growing more powerful.  But in the process you also find yourself facing tougher and tougher challenges.  And those challenges are there from the beginning.  They're not scaled in as you play.  You just don't fuck with them until you're ready (which is whenever you decide you are), and that process happens in a somewhat believable fashion.  All sandbox RPG designers should definitely take note.

Oddly enough the modern game I feel that does level scaling the outright best... is Fallout 3. Say what you will about the game, it allowed encounters to get tougher while at the same time making you feel tougher.

Though that isn't really an option for Skyrim... though I guess they could try it for the next game that isn't an MMO (assuming the MMO doesn't end the series)

[SalmonGod]

There is someone on youtube (ZetaPlays) who is trying to play every single NES, SNES and genesis game made, and he uses a program to select them at random. Most of them are terrable, and it gives you a perspective on earlier gaming (consoles in particular) that many people who grew up loving their NES would never see, the "dark side" of their favourite era of gaming. It is quite interesting.

Also of note is Chrontendo, where a guy plays through every NES game in chronological order. The ratio of good to terrible is exactly what you'd expect, extraordinarily low. We do have an extreme selection bias when it comes to the past.

I think evolving sensibilities have some part in this.  Our expectations regarding production value and design choices have changed considerably.  Comparing what we enjoy now to what we enjoyed back then, when our expectations were completely different, isn't entirely fair.

[Soadreqm]

Triple A

Do any of those 'A's actually stand for something, or is it more like "'A' isn't a good enough letter to describe how awesome our game is so we're using A WHOLE BUNCH OF THEM"?

Spoiler: rant about RPG's in general (click to show/hide)

This is one of the things I do not like/get in RPG's. I don't want to plan out my character, I just want to play and "my character" can evolve naturally as I do so.

And I have never had the illusion of my chatacter growing - the stats system in most RPG's are super simple and generalise characters to a handful of integers (which are rendered straight onto the screen, noless). I cannot associate my characters various abilities with arbitary numbers, and when those numbers increase it is very obvious the effect that has - my character does not get stronger, but instead a higher value goes through a function to calculate how much HP to subtract from the integer representing the enemies HP.

TES games were better with this (With D&D games like Neverwinter Nights being the worst, right down to printing the maths they used onto the screen) but this is one aspect I thought they had been improving over the series - hiding the numbers so I feel more like I am playing a character in a possibly-believable world, rather than a world made out of statistics (especially with the combat change between Morrowind and Oblivion. I just can't see my character missing what clearly hit).

I do wish characters in Oblivion/Skyrim had more weaknesses though. preferably not of the "+15% fire damage" type though, since again with the statistics. Why not just say "X is vunerable to fire" - I don't need to know the exact value (I will get used to the vunerability as I play).

Also some people who play RPG's often go on about how much more "in depth" or even "True Scotsman" that this type of RPG gameplay is. Its more deep as a statistical machine, but it does not add more depth for "Playing a Role of a character in a Game" for me.

It is of course my opinion and people will definetely have different tasts in this regards. I also rarely put in over 20 hours into a game (including Skyrim) except for a very small number of long-played games.

Well, the first thing that pops to my mind when I hear "RPG" is Baldur's Gate, which was based on pen-and-paper Dungeons and Dragons, and obviously had you rolling virtual dice all the fucking time. If you threw a 20-sided die, you could only miss a huge pile of 20-sided dice on a natural 1. From this background, it's kind of odd to think that RPGs should make the numbers less of a thing because, well, I literally equate "RPG" with the numbers. Character skill is independent in some ways of player skill, and that character skill is internally represented as a number.

I suppose you could keep the numbers as parts of the game logic, but hide them from the player, but I don't really see what that would accomplish, besides keeping information from the player. You need to know how good your character is at hitting things with swords, and how good a sword he owns, to make informed decisions about what you should be doing. Should you be fighting this troll, or running away screaming?

What? Magic in Oblivion was OP, I mean, not compared to Morrowind but considered by itself, it was extremely broken. All you had to do was spell stack. Even at high levels on 100% difficulty spell-stacking + alchemy is essentially an instant win in Oblivion. In contrast, destruction in particular is extremely underpowered in Skyrim and is essentially useless for playing on Master difficulty. Comparing any game to Morrowind and saying it is underpowered is kind of crazy since Morrowind has the most broken magic system in any game I've ever played by a ridiculous margin.

Morrowind's magic system felt more like playing the system than the game. The mana pool is small and doesn't regenerate, so you need to either be an atronach or carry a ton of restore magicka potions if you want to use it to actually fight enemies. On the flipside, restore magicka potions aren't too hard to come by, and atronachs can restore their mana by summoning a ghost and baiting it into attacking them. And you need to do some serious grinding to cast any of the bigger spells. It's more tedious and finicky than actually hard to become a powerful mage. :/

Assuming of course you don't exploit alchemy and enchanting. Those two were just straight up broken.