GLOBAL BULLSHIT OF VIDEO GAMES

The resurgence of the coin-op mentality behind videogame design, where when you lose or get defeated it's less "you weren't good enough" and more "you didn't pay us enough to advance"

Yeah, I like challenges too, but starting a game on the hardest difficulty and complaining that it's too hard seems like player BS to me.

Playing a game on the hardest difficulty, especially in RPGs, should only be done when you comprehend the systems. Otherwise you end up making mistakes and you don't power up the proper way to handle the game. A game like Skyrim is meant to be so open-ended, allowing you do whatever you want. There will be ways to screw yourself over. It's not bad design, it just means you made the wrong choices. You're supposed to learn from your mistakes, not bitch about the games design. Many other people don't seem to have the same problems as you.

You say it was too easy on lower difficulties, but you probably turned it down and killed a few things and changed it back. Most games start off easy so you can figure how to play and they slowly get harder. Play a few hours on that one notch down and I'm sure it will catch up to you. You of all people should know these things.

I gotta stop reading this topic. It angries up the blood.

Yeah fuck. I gave up trying to play PS3 games because every time I did it was all PATCH PATCH PATCH. Patching Station 3.

For a person that plays a videogame once a month, that was horrendous.

See, here's the thing about Skyrim; it's not a game that hands you power. "Okay, you hit this thing 100 times, so now you're more powerful. Do that a couple more times and you'll be able to beat anything!". Skyrim is more, "You hit this thing 100 times, so here's the opportunity to be more powerful."

Instead of giving you straight up stat increases, it gives you points to invest in tactics and abilities depending on what you're doing. But it's not just that, you have to find and earn your power via exploring and finding things. But even if you don't and just level, nearly every skill discipline/tree has tactics to completely mow down the game. Enchanting can enable you to turn any piece of equipment into a beast. Smithing can let you craft equipment much higher than you can normally get. Sneak can enable you to do over forty times the amount of damage in a hit.

Unless you're actually retarded and invest everything into Magicka every single level when you don't have any magic or something, it's exceedingly difficult to level yourself into a wall in Skyrim.

Oblivion is .. well. The fights take longer, I guess? I barely noticed the enemies, you just beat 'em down, and toward the end they just become even more of a bother. But not more of a danger, quite the contrary.

I think I already mentioned unlocks, but seriously, why does every racing game I try out these days start you off with only 3 cars and 3 tracks or some shit? Its like, I bought a multiplayer game to have some fun with some people and stuff? Not spend 15 hours playing and replaying single-player modes to go for the gold and grind currency and EXP or even sometimes HUNT FOR COLLECTABLES ON THE TRACK WTF?! Some games even have the audacity to require EACH INDIVIDUAL PLAYER to unlock this shit on their own account!!

Speaking of which: The gradual disappearance of local multiplayer and co-op. Got one of those Transformers games -- I think it was War For Cybertron? Anyways, there's co-op and MP, BUT ONLY ONLINE. My sister and I are big TF fans, so not being able to TRANSFORM AND ROLL OUT with each other is just whyyyyyy?? ;_;
(I hear system link is going the way of the Dodo, too. I never used it, but I bet people who did aren't happy about this either.)


Also, having your path blocked by stupid things. Especially stupid things you have no business being blocked by. Like, in Darksiders, you get this Titan Fist or whatever it was that lets you smash big crystals that get in your way (no, your giant, demonic Devil Trigger transformation can't dent these for some reason), and in THE SAME ROOM YOU GET THIS, a door is blocked by a loose-looking pile of dirt, rocks, and some bent girders. WHY CAN'T I JUST PUNCH THESE?!

author=Pizza
Games with a primary focus on competitive play against friends or whatever should come with everything unlocked

but pizza if errything is unlocked from the start then their's no replay value. you cant keep things fresh and exciting if you don't have to repeatedly play a duller, more limited version of the full game for 15 hours or more.

author=Pizza
There is no excuse for wasting the player's time when it can be avoided.

but if there isn't at least 60 hours of geamplay then its not worth $15. games that are fun but only 5 hours long for one play through aren't worth the price of a large pizza that i could eat in 15 minutes.


Seriously, though, I think Link_122876 was on to something with the idea of a "Global Bullshit of Players" thread! ;D

level scaling works when it's within specific ranges. for example, if the dev intends you to get to the Magmaleaf Swamp around level 8, he could tune it to adjust to L7-10. If you get there early, a bit of edge is taken off. As you get stronger, so does it. Make the boss L9-10 and you're good. If you wind up getting too much xp, the next area will be hader to compensate!

As long as that shift from 9-10 gives the boss fewer stats that you have -- for example, your party gains an average of 4 attack and the boss gained 2 attack -- limited level scaling can work REALLY WELL for games that have growing accuracy/evasion ratings (or whatever other stats). If your accuracy formula is

then having enemies slightly (SLIGHTLY) adjust toward you can help provide a game with a lot less frustration on the player's end.

also skyrim was intentionally less leveled than oblivion. oblivion was just completely unleveled, and skyrim had limits like "this is a level 3-18 area." ...so in the end it was basically completely unleveled. i think most places outside of the L3 whiterun/riverwood area had a minimum level of 6 aka completely non-threatening. gj bethesda, i had such high hopes

edit: apaprently i missed an entire page of discussion.

Blue.

author=Corfaisus
1-hit K.O's in a single-player, single character party game. Bonus points if it's something that you cannot feasibly avoid. I've experienced this in two games I've played back to back recently, .hack//Infection and Path of Exile.

One hit normal attack KOs. Especially in the first chapter of the game. Part of what cheesed me off of Soul Shepherd (you can still see my rant somewhere).

.hack: I'm running the quest where you have to meet with Mia at the bottom of that dungeon with only Kite in your party. I get all the way to the bottom with a few close calls and start wailing on the boss which just so happens to be a fire-breathing bird. I get it down far enough to Data Drain and then go to work on its now-limited HP when suddenly it spits fire at me for a whopping 130+ damage (give-or-take), killing me instantly. Cue game over + rage quit.

You should have known to wear fire bracelets. Physical 1 hits are much more egregious, because it's the game makers thinking the game is "hard" instead of broken. I have a rule I call the 3-hit rule.

If an enemy can kill you in three hits, and is not an upper-tier enemy or boss enemy midway into the game, the game is likely broken. If the enemy is able to kill you in two hits, this pretty well forces a constant defensive without any breathing room, the game is doable (assuming turn-based instead of ATB) but probably not much fun. If an enemy can kill you in three hits, it is still difficult (3333 out of 9999 is still huge), but manageable in terms of a strategy. Since more than three hits is usually a low damage chump, this means the optimum among of hits is probably three.

If an enemy can kill you in 1 or 2 hits, the game should give you some means of halving damage at this point, like a barrier ring.

The biggest global BS is actual global BS. I'm talking regions. I have a series beef with developers releasing region-exclusive games. If people want to buy it, the idea of a region is an issue. I mean, it's not like copyright, they legitimately want to buy, and there's archaic "not for sale in the US" rules.

I haven't much of a beef with most games, but I have a beef with hearing about the latest KH or something in Japan and then, "Whoops, no export for you."

author=bulmabriefs144
The biggest global BS is actual global BS. I'm talking regions. I have a series beef with developers releasing region-exclusive games. If people want to buy it, the idea of a region is an issue. I mean, it's not like copyright, they legitimately want to buy, and there's archaic "not for sale in the US" rules.

Indeed. With digital distribution there's no reason not to release all the things globally. So what if the game is only available in Punjabi, clearly say it is in Punjabi and it's my own damn fault if I don't understand what it's about.

And a minor issue of course. But staggering digital release dates. Oh the US will get it on Wednesday and then Europe will get it next week. Why not just let everyone have it at the same time?