Did people forget this..?

[Quadocky]

I think the problem I have is that IF there is a feature that breaks the game, then why should it be there at all? In Oblivion and Skyrim a game that is a huge world that is meant to be explored, you can pretty much instantly teleport wherever you want. To me that feels game breaking because then the game is not about exploration so much getting quests done as quick as you can. The sense of pacing is gone and one is left feeling unfulfilled and directionless, ironically.

Fable 3 is different given the Pacing is much much better, and given its not so much an exploration game than an Action RPG with a smallish-medium size world.

As a game, Fable 3 to me is worlds different than Skyrim.

I would much prefer instead of opting to use them, rather than the game being constructed better overall so one doesn't feel like they actually HAVE to use it.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

Oh there's no excuse for Darius blatently overpowered people in multiplayer games though. It's just unfun for practically everyone.

Wow you just made my morning with that comment there, He really is OP.

OT: Honestly, I don't get it either, I mean I bought FE: Awakening the other day, took one look at casual mode and selected Classic instead and *POOF* oh look I'm not affected by casual mode and the series remains the same as it always has.

Seriously though, some mechanics are different. You can choose not to play on 'easy' or 'casual', and thus people can stop complaining about it. You can choose to not use your pistol in AC3, as that also makes the game easy. However, you can't really turn off quest markers in most games as they assume you'll be using them and they make the game unplayable.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

If a game has fast traveling, and if you're against it. DON'T USE IT. Self control.

If a game has over powered skills. (Skyrim crafting, etc.) Don't use it!

If a game has quest markers TURN THEM OFF. don't use it! (Unless there isn't any way to turn them, then feel free to complain)

Didn't like Fable 2 & 3 bread crumb trail? TURN IT OFF, AND DON'T USE IT!

I agree with the sentiment here, but there is some onus on the developer not to include broken systems in the first place. And often the only way to discover how bad things are is trial and error.

I didn't realize that Smithing/Enchanting borked the game balance in Skyrim until I was WELL into my playthrough, and I wasn't about to start over at that point. Fortunately I knew fast traveling functionally broke the game from Oblivion and FO3, so forewarned was forearmed.

With Dishonored, I knew from reviews that turning off quest markers was the way to, but without those reviews I would've had no way of knowing how much that improved game play for me.

So there's definitely a little room for criticism. Bethesda especially, those guys can't design working mechanics to save their life. They've been doing this series for some 20 years now you'd think they'd have learned a trick or two by now about balancing, but nooooo...

 

[loa]

No, there were some things in the game that completely were *not* explained. There are core mechanics that were *not* mentioned in the tutorial. Do you need to know all about combat? Pretty much. What about stats? miracles? Spells? Shops? Armor? Weapons? What the fuck is humanity, and why was it so important? Outside the tutorial nothing is explained in the little time I played. This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad design. I can't care how many people say "IT'S PART OF THE GAME. IT'S SUPPOSE TO BE HARD." Because this argument is completely *stupid*

It's not "hard", the name of the game is "exploration" on every level.
As the most recent example, in dead space 3, some npc will always always always tell you to shoot at the glowy shinies of bosses to kill them right down to the final boss where carver will literally tell you to shoot the bright orange tentacles every single time the monster does its ohno instakill attack thingy.
You get no opportunity to figure that ever so blindingly obvious tactic out by yourself at all. Dark souls is the polar opposite of that.

In dark souls, even seasoned veterans will still find things they had no idea they can do and ways they didn't know they could go after hundreds of hours of playing it.
That's the appeal of it, that's what is so rewarding about dark souls, not the difficulty.
It's actually not that hard once you figured things out a bit but you have to work for that.
No one will tell you to shoot the glowy shinies of bosses but they are there.

 

[Loonyyy]

I cant comment on the witcher because Ive not played a witcher game since the first one that came off as Mysoginistic making me completely uninterested i the rest of the franchise.

Misogynistic, maybe. But guess what? In medieval times people weren't as tolerant, open minded and emancipated as today. Is it really that terrible that a game tries to portray a more realistic version of how life was in those days? Or do you rather have happy fantasy worlds where the feminism movement apparently also already happened like in Skyrim?

I mean, it's fine if you do. But don't call a game misogynistic just because it did some fact checking on human history. People in the game are misogynistic. The game itself isn't.

In medieval times, people didn't collect playing cards for getting someone into the sack and shagging them, to varying degrees of explicit content. The game has an immature and sexist depiction of women, interacting with them, and sex in general. I'd hesitate to call it misogynistic, simply because I think that part is stupid and infantile, rather than rooted in actual hatred towards women, and rather in some teenage "American Pie"-esque desire to collect "All the sex" from the supporting cast. It's still mildy off-putting, and demonstrates a poor attitude towards sex. It's childish and sexist, but not too far to be beyond understanding.

Whether or not the characters are misogynistic (Something I don't really care about) is of less importance than the tone of the game, which is well established during the tutorial, where my conversational choices led to me fucking a main supporting character (The red-and-purple whatever her name was in the starting castle), and getting a collector card for it. I mean, really, it's just pathetic. You get a better idea of sex at a strip club. That's just sad.

 

[Radoh]

Try to play Skyrim without quest markers. Go ahead, try it. If the game is built around (a) certain feature(s), you can't just say 'don't use them'. It doesn't work like that.

By this logic, Morrowind should be nigh-impossible. It was, at the very least, just a little difficult since I was so used to waypoints. I had to remember names and places and maps, and Oblivion onward never asked that much of me. But back then, Morrowind was considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time. So no, a sandbox WRPG does not need waypoints.

Actually no, Morrowind would have the quest giver give you actual directions to go to places, Head out the east gate, take a left at the fork, once you reach the fort go south etc...
At no point would it have been impossible, you just need to pay attention, and the journal would log your discussions with the character so even if you forgot them you'd be able to just look up what the directions were and use that.

To assume that, you would have to think I said that the journal and map were also gone. I did not. Quest-givers will mark your destination on your map, and your journal will remind you where your next quest objective is for the most part. "Go see X in Y-heim and pick up the Z." "When you're done with that, go talk to Q." [map updated, questgiver showed you where Y-heim is] It's not that hard, and there's an option to turn the marker off. You don't need lefts, rights, and into-the-caves when you have a map and the fellow is nice enough to point the place out to you. If anything, Morrowind made things worse by logging conversations in the order they happened, not sorting lore fluff from jobs, and expecting you to re-read the whole journal (that you presumably wrote) to figure what you were doing last, should you ever put the game down for more than two days. Waypoints aren't necessary if you manage objectives and record keeping right, but the thing is, Morrowind didn't. And yet, (if i keep my own pen and paper journal along with a physical map like any traveler should buy fresh off the boat) that doesn't ruin the game. It's still amazing and immersive. I just have to get used to my sprint speed starting out slower than Skyrim's "Overburdened" speed.

That's just not true though, they'd occasionally mark a key place on your map for certain times yes, but only in cases of towns and villages, for things like the dwarven fortresses, daedric shrines, caves, and other locations that you are only likely to visit once they would not mark it and would give you directions. And even though for locations where they do mark it on your map you really can't find it easily without the directions they give since if you just make a beeline straight there you are likely to get stopped by an impassable rock wall with no clear way over it.

As for marking things in order of what was said, that's only for relevant information, and that's still only half true since you could easily just sort the journal by quests, then click the location for key phrases and boom, there are the directions right there and ready.

 

[V8 Ninja]

Oh, hey, Another "Dark Souls Should/Shouldn't Have An Easy Mode" thread. And look at that! You disguised it! Clever girl [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO5wryDdEI0]...

A Bit More OT: Dark Souls should have an easy mode. Simple as that. Granted, maybe the easy mode should be offline only, but denying people to have a more newbie-friendly option is just asinine.

 

[z121231211]

A game isn't inherently better just because it has more features. Where's the game that has no easy way out? Where you actually have to challenge yourself if you want to see the end? It's like thinking a movie would be more interesting if a scene had a more vague outcome, which people then reply, "Well, you didn't HAVE to watch that part if you didn't like it."

 

[Uriain]

Try to play Skyrim without quest markers. Go ahead, try it. If the game is built around (a) certain feature(s), you can't just say 'don't use them'. It doesn't work like that.

I don't think this is the point though. Skyrim isn't built around using the smithing or resto or enchanting skills. Dark Souls, if it had an easy mode, it wouldn't be built around that.

The aspect I think the OP is going for is that something like Fast travel, or other skills like that, while are part of the game AND could be used prolifically in the game, are not the primary aspect of the game itself.

You CAN play Skyrim without fast travel
You CAN play Play a game without using its most powerful combo's (Again using skyrim for smithing/resto/enchanting)
You CAN play a game without quest markers, player names, and other notification style aspects of games (although this, I will condend, makes the game much harder)

The choice really comes down to WHAT/HOW you want to play

 

[The-Traveling-Bard]

No, there were some things in the game that completely were *not* explained. There are core mechanics that were *not* mentioned in the tutorial. Do you need to know all about combat? Pretty much. What about stats? miracles? Spells? Shops? Armor? Weapons? What the fuck is humanity, and why was it so important? Outside the tutorial nothing is explained in the little time I played. This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad design. I can't care how many people say "IT'S PART OF THE GAME. IT'S SUPPOSE TO BE HARD." Because this argument is completely *stupid*

It's not "hard", the name of the game is "exploration" on every level.
As the most recent example, in dead space 3, some npc will always always always tell you to shoot at the glowy shinies of bosses to kill them right down to the final boss where carver will literally tell you to shoot the bright orange tentacles every single time the monster does its ohno instakill attack thingy.
You get no opportunity to figure that ever so blindingly obvious tactic out by yourself at all. Dark souls is the polar opposite of that.

In dark souls, even seasoned veterans will still find things they had no idea they can do and ways they didn't know they could go after hundreds of hours of playing it.
That's the appeal of it, that's what is so rewarding about dark souls, not the difficulty.
It's actually not that hard once you figured things out a bit but you have to work for that.
No one will tell you to shoot the glowy shinies of bosses but they are there.

Exploration shouldn't mean figuring mechanics, and features of the game. I understand what you're getting at, but sometimes if gone too far in the right direction. It could hinder the game, and hinder the player's Spencerian. But if it goes too far in the left direction. It could make the game boring, and not worth playing.

You need to find a way to make things. "Explorable" without hindering the game. I agree with you. Finding things out is more exciting than just being told, but there were some core mechanics in Dark Souls that just not explained very well.

I guess what I mean the CORE mechanics should be explained, and there are some things that should be rewarded upon figuring out/finding.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

I remember people complaining about the kick in Dead Island being OP and that it was no fun because they didn't use anything besides the kick, and I'd tell them just not to use it and then they'd ask me why they'd use anything else... because you're not having fun otherwise dipshit!

Yeah, I totally get your point.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I dread seeing a "I use the resto/enhcnating loop in Skyrim and now the game is too easy" thread, because I know when I tell them that they dont have to use it, they just sit there like I told them its possible to live without breathing.

Seriously.

I did use that trick. And the game was too easy - so I removed my overpowered equipment and made some new, less powerful equipment. It took a few tries to get "Really Good" without getting "Game Breaking" but my fourth set of armor was the perfect balance for me. The trick was that some abilities needed a higher boost than others (Stealth needed to be really high, but resistances needed almost no boosting at all).

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Playing a game meant to be played with things such as quest markers or bread crumb trails without those things would be an exercise in frustration. These games are designed to have those things in them and to play without would often leave you lost without a good way of finding out how to get to where you want to go.


It is NOT the same as playing a game where there's no markers but the game world itself tells you through it's structure the direction you need to follow.


When people complain about these issues, they're complaining that the game is fundamentally different in it's design philosophy in a way which necessitates those markers to avoid frustration and they say they wish the game was like those in which the world itself guides you and there has been effort throughout development for that to be the case.

 

[Innegativeion]

It's the designer's job not to make their game broken. The designer sets out the rules. It is their job to point out the avenue by which to play.

In the case of glaring oversights like Skyrim's abysmally overpowered enchant/alchemy system and melee combat, you can't blame players from pushing the established rules to their limits, and overpowering the game. What incentive is there if challenge is not imposed? They're just using what was presented to them. Sure, you can ignore rules to pretend the designers did their job right, doesn't mean the person in charge of balance in Skyrim didn't to a fucking awful job.

I shouldn't have to handicap myself to make a game engaging.

 

[Bad Jim]

I don't think the fast travel issue is a big deal.

1) The first two games, Arena and Daggerfall, had the same sort of fast travel system that Oblivion and Skyrim had. You open a map, select a settlement and instantly travel there. It's not like they introduced a mechanic that had no place in the series.

2) With all the options for getting around in Morrowind, it might as well have had fast travel. If I wanted to get to any city, I would cast Recall to teleport to the Mages Guild, from which I could use guild guides, silt striders and boats to reach any town in less than a minute. What fast travel made easy was already easy.

3) A lot of the methods of getting around that fast travel replaced were broken in some way. The teleportation spells allowed you to flee from danger easily, whereas fast travel requires you to fight or flee from your enemies first. Teleportation also allowed you to carry fifty tonnes of vendor trash to the merchant of your choice, whereas with fast travel you are restricted to what you could plausibly carry. Levitation is also pretty broken, as most enemies do not know how to deal with it.

 

[ninjaRiv]

People have made successful blog posts about not using features like fast travel. "Prepare yourself... I will describe a play through WITHOUT fast travel!!!" Like it's fucking magic! And folk eat the shit up.

I just don't... Get it.

 

[zerragonoss]

snip

ignore the people saying its not the first one was pretty bad. the second one was vastly improved in the not being Misogynistic department. If you don't trust me you can go look up the extra punctuation on the witcher 2.

otherwise most people have covered why ignoring way-points does not work. As far as ignoring fast travel, I would be happy to do so if they included something ways to actually move faster as you went up level. Like flight spells, run speed boots, mounts that are more than 2% faster than you, or in the case of something like fallout cars and motorcycles. Their run speed is balanced for their combat, and feels very slow when going down a road you have gone down a dozen times before.

On dark souls easy mode most people seem to completely misunderstand what easy mode is for. Dark souls is a hard game for people who are highly skilled gamers (at least their first time through) which makes it extremely difficult for anyone who has not been gaming for years or is just not that dexterous to get thought it and even if they can its crazy to expect them to have fun while doing so. Easy mode is to present the same level of challenge to them that we get form the normal mode. So its not to make a different game experience but the same one for different people.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

This is the exact reason I never got the invincibility and infinite ammo uprgrdes in Saints Row 3. The game is fairly easy allready, but those would just make it boring.

 

[burningdragoon]

The advice is generally sound. But it's not really always that simple and it's not to say complaining about "optional" features is unreasonable.

1. That's not really how your brain works. Even if literally all you need was a bit of willpower, having to exert that willpower can itself detract from your experience. This really depends on what experience you want to get out of your game, which granted, will vary from person to person, but at the same time you really can't satisfy everyone.

For example, in Skyblivion you can join (almost) every faction even if there's no way your realized character would. Sure if you don't like that you can actively choose to not join factions that conflict with the character your roleplaying, but knowing that you can will be there in your head.

2. Features and "options" don't appear in games magically and they don't exist in a vacuum. They have to be built in, which means they are planned, which means they have some effect, even if slight, on the overall package beyond in or out.

See: everyone mentioning how Skyblivion being designed around using quest markers can make not using them a chore instead of fun puzzle.

Again, it will depend on what experience the person is looking for.

 

[imagremlin]

Try to play Skyrim without quest markers. Go ahead, try it. If the game is built around (a) certain feature(s), you can't just say 'don't use them'. It doesn't work like that.

By this logic, Morrowind should be nigh-impossible. It was, at the very least, just a little difficult since I was so used to waypoints. I had to remember names and places and maps, and Oblivion onward never asked that much of me. But back then, Morrowind was considered one of the greatest RPGs of all time. So no, a sandbox WRPG does not need waypoints.

I started Morrowind after I finished Oblivion, and stop playing within the first few hours because of this.

Can it be done? Of course, people did, just like you. Is it enjoyable? That's debatable, but the fact that Bethesda will not release a game without waypoints nowadays should give you a clue.

Once upon a time you could not save your progress. People still played and praised those games. Do you think its reasonable for a modern game not to implement any form of save?