Streamlining that you agree with

Ziggy

New member
Jul 13, 2010
252
0
0
When games are streamlined in a sequel, the fans of the original often feel like parts of the game have been replaced by inferior mechanics (fucking dialog wheel).

This thread is not about that, it's about the changes, big or small, that you like.

Having recently played through Fallout: New Vegas and afterwards Fallout 4, i'm really happy that they got rid of armor and weapon degradation. Having to constantly worry about my equipments integrity is not something i find enjoyable
 

DoPo

"You're not cleared for that."
Jan 30, 2012
8,665
0
0
Skyrim - changing the levelling system. Yeah, I get it, it's not as deep as the levelling systems used in past games. I have seen people express that opinion and it's somewhat correct. The problem is that the Morrowind/Oblivion system was obtuse and obsolete to begin with. The "depth" provided was false and it just meant micromanagement of stuff you really shouldn't care about. Pretty much the whole crux of the old system was flawed. I truly don't understand how people are not OK with the idea of changing the levelling system considering that by far the most popular mods for both previous games dealt with the levelling system. And of them, by far the most popular were the ones that did changes similar to what Skyrim does - you just use skills and that increases your level and attributes automatically. Skyrim axed attributes altogether in favour of "do you want more health, magicka or stamina" and that's actually a step above. The levelling system mods had to work with attributes in place but those were redundant as well.

XCOM 2 - removing the air game. I didn't really like that from Enemy Unknown, removing it altogether seems fine by me.

Heroes 6 - a lot of it.
- buy your population from anywhere - I love, love, love the series but when I look back, I realise just how much time I've spent collecting my troops. In Heroes 3 the god strat was to have both the Wisdom skill, so you can learn Town Portal and the Earth Magic skill, so you can actually choose your destination. Thus you finally solved your population collection issue. But it was still boring. Go around, purchase all the troops, repeat - on large maps it became tedious. Just being able to buy all troops from everywhere makes more sense.

- removing some resources - if you're not familiar, the series has ran on the following resources: wood, ore, mercury, crystals, gems, sulphur and gold. For pretty much all intents and purposes wood and ore are the same thing - they have the EXACT same exchange rate with everything else and for the most part a building will need equal measures of both. Occasionally you get something that needs lots of one but not the other but whatever. As for the rest, mercury, crystals, gems and sulphur are in the same boat, although they do have a higher exchange rate than wood and ore. Well, also buildings do want exclusively one most of the time. At any rate, you essentially have three tiers of resources - gold, a common resource (wood and ore), and precious resources (the rest). Heroes 6 did stripped down precious resources to a single one: blood crystals. As interesting is to be strapped for those 3 mercury you need to build something, it's also incredibly frustrating. In most cases, each race has a high demand for one of the precious resources, so if you cannot secure income for it (entirely possible on random maps), you are in a bad place.

- removing random skill selection for a skill based system - if you've ever played the series enough, you'd have had a level up when the choices you have simply suck. It's super annoying when that happens. In general, you don't have a good ability to plan out your heroes, either - some skills are more likely for some classes, but other than that, you cannot really guarantee you'll get any. That's why that Wisdom/Earth Magic combo is strong - you could easily just not be able to get it. Heroes 6 instead gives you skill points on level up and you can just buy whatever skills you want in the skill trees.

- you no longer gain spells from the magic guilds - it's now actually a skill you buy with skill points. Again, the reasoning for why I like it is similar to the skills themselves - the spells you get are random and you can definitely just not have Town Portal at all. Even if you take over another town, you are not guaranteed to get useful spells, since you can get duplicates. And I can't express just how disappointed I've been when I get Summon Boat or Scuttle Boat on a map that doesn't have any water in H3. There is a good selection of spells that aren't really useful to begin with. At least with skills you have SOME control of what you get, with spells you really only need a handful but you could keep getting the rest without much you can do about it aside from keep rolling dice building magic guilds.
 

CaitSeith

Formely Gone Gonzo
Legacy
Jun 30, 2014
5,343
358
88
Final Fantasy I remake (and pretty much everyone after the first one) - attacks get redirected to other enemies if the selected one died in the same turn. Some people say that having your party members wasting their attacks on a dead enemy makes the game more strategic, keeps the player invested on the battle and stops the game from becoming a mindless button-pressing feast. I say: screw that!
 

Poetic Nova

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus
Jan 24, 2012
1,974
0
0
Quite frankly, I do have my problems with Borderlands 2's loot system, but it made it alot easier to understand. Whereas Borderlands 1 requires a manual the size of the moon.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
Legacy
Mar 8, 2011
8,411
16
23
Skyrim compared to Oblivion (not Morrowind) did virtually everything better. Better environment, better combat, and one thing Skyrim does that I like even more than Morrowind, is not worryign about Min/Maxing. While I was able to get all Max stats (minus HP) in Morrowind, it required alot of proper timing and use of skill trainers, but ever since the Legendary update, I like that I can without worry get all stats maxed with all perks.

I hope the next TES does even better with that.
 

WeepingAngels

New member
May 18, 2013
1,722
0
0
Saelune said:
Skyrim compared to Oblivion (not Morrowind) did virtually everything better. Better environment, better combat, and one thing Skyrim does that I like even more than Morrowind, is not worryign about Min/Maxing. While I was able to get all Max stats (minus HP) in Morrowind, it required alot of proper timing and use of skill trainers, but ever since the Legendary update, I like that I can without worry get all stats maxed with all perks.

I hope the next TES does even better with that.
The other stuff may be arguable (me, I prefer the green fields and forests to the icy mountains) but Oblivion absolutely had better quests which is a pretty big chunk of the fun.
 

pookie101

New member
Jul 5, 2015
1,162
0
0
the biggest thing for the most part is i dont have to sit down with a manual for an hour or two before i play a game these days
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

Muse of Fate
Sep 1, 2010
4,691
0
0
Bloodborne removed everything that basically didn't work in the Souls games. Shields? Gone. Magic? Gone (until New Game+). Weapon upgrades? So much simpler (you could no longer make your weapon worse). Bloodborne also had less reliance on RPG stats that were horribly implemented in the DkS; you could switch and try new weapons without feeling underpowered as damage wasn't based as heavily on stats.

From what I hear about Mass Effect (I never played the 1st game), the sequels heavily streamlined issues from the 1st game. RPGs especially add too many elements that usually only serve to dilute the core of the game. One of the goals of any RPG in development should be limiting time spent in the inventory, which obviously the Mass Effect sequels did. Even something like Borderlands requires way way too much inventory time that doesn't make the game any better whatsoever.
 

Catfood220

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 21, 2010
2,098
357
88
pookie101 said:
the biggest thing for the most part is i dont have to sit down with a manual for an hour or two before i play a game these days
That never used to bother me, I'm the days before I could drive I used to have to bus it everywhere so the journey home from buying a game in town was spent reading the manual. While I appreciate that everything is easier with in game tutorials, I do miss the manuals.
 

pookie101

New member
Jul 5, 2015
1,162
0
0
Catfood220 said:
pookie101 said:
the biggest thing for the most part is i dont have to sit down with a manual for an hour or two before i play a game these days
That never used to bother me, I'm the days before I could drive I used to have to bus it everywhere so the journey home from buying a game in town was spent reading the manual. While I appreciate that everything is easier with in game tutorials, I do miss the manuals.
i know what you mean some were full of lore and virtual works of art.. but yeah these days i prefer just to pick up and play
 

bluegate

Elite Member
Legacy
Dec 28, 2010
2,324
933
118
Assassin's Creed Syndicate - The Zipline that lets you instantly climb buildings.

Slowly climbing buildings was fun in Assassin's Creed 1, maybe even in 2, but now it's mainly a pain in the ass when trying to traverse the city, especially considering that buildings are getting ever higher, they all look the same and streets are further apart so you can't jump across rooftops as easily as you could in the first games.
 

Lilani

Sometimes known as CaitieLou
May 27, 2009
6,581
0
0
Taking all the bullshit out of using the PCs and Pokemon storage systems in the new games, oh my goodness. I can't believe it took them that long to streamline that button mashing nightmare.
 

sanquin

New member
Jun 8, 2011
1,837
0
0
From mass effect 1 to mass effect 3, the skill system. In ME1, a lot of stuff gave very boring upgrades like 1% less cooldown or 5% more damage. And only rarely did you unlock something new. In ME3, every skill point you spend made something noticeably better or gave you something new. I leave out ME2 because that system was definitely worse...
 

pookie101

New member
Jul 5, 2015
1,162
0
0
Ezekiel said:
pookie101 said:
Catfood220 said:
pookie101 said:
the biggest thing for the most part is i dont have to sit down with a manual for an hour or two before i play a game these days
That never used to bother me, I'm the days before I could drive I used to have to bus it everywhere so the journey home from buying a game in town was spent reading the manual. While I appreciate that everything is easier with in game tutorials, I do miss the manuals.
i know what you mean some were full of lore and virtual works of art.. but yeah these days i prefer just to pick up and play
I think tutorials have made it worse. Some people rip on Demon's Souls and its sequels for being too vague, but I like how the games left you alone. They gave you the simplest instructions in the opening areas that you could totally ignore if you wanted. Most tutorials are extremely disruptive. It's one of the things that killed any interest I had in Ass Creed IV. It kept forcing me to perform certain actions before I could progress. At one point, the game even prevented me from fighting back because it wanted to teach me how to flee. Those Ubisoft games are unintuitive and full of worthless distractions, though. It kind of amazes me that such bad mechanics and design make it into the most expensive AAA games.
on the upside it meant you werent forced to do 150ft long boat stealth
 

Ironman126

Dark DM Overlord
Apr 7, 2010
658
0
0
sanquin said:
From mass effect 1 to mass effect 3, the skill system. In ME1, a lot of stuff gave very boring upgrades like 1% less cooldown or 5% more damage. And only rarely did you unlock something new. In ME3, every skill point you spend made something noticeably better or gave you something new. I leave out ME2 because that system was definitely worse...
My thoughts as well. Really, I would say the entire combat system as a whole got better between ME1 and 3. Not 2, however, as that slow combat was murder.

I'm also very much on board with the streamlining between Dragon Age Origins and DA2. I know, I know, heresy, but the combat feels much more fluid and entertaining than the slog-fest that was Origins (unless you had a couple mages, then it was just a clusterfuck). Plus, the skill in DA2 trees didn't have quite as much filler.
 

Pseudonym

Regular Member
Legacy
Feb 26, 2014
802
8
13
Country
Nederland
The combat of mass effect 2. It was actually fun and not totally irritating. Getting rid of the 500 different weapons, of which 80% was straight up inferior to certain other weapons also helped.

Also, I remember (dimly) in the original version of age of empires there was no good way to queue. Like none at all. Whenever I heard that villager spawn sound I quickly had to tell my town center to make another one.

DoPo said:
XCOM 2 - removing the air game. I didn't really like that from Enemy Unknown, removing it altogether seems fine by me.
Amen.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,981
118
pookie101 said:
Catfood220 said:
pookie101 said:
the biggest thing for the most part is i dont have to sit down with a manual for an hour or two before i play a game these days
That never used to bother me, I'm the days before I could drive I used to have to bus it everywhere so the journey home from buying a game in town was spent reading the manual. While I appreciate that everything is easier with in game tutorials, I do miss the manuals.
i know what you mean some were full of lore and virtual works of art.. but yeah these days i prefer just to pick up and play
Normally I would agree, but then I think back to the wonderful manual for the first Homeworld game. Which was like 80 pages, and half of it was this very detailed narrative of how the people developed their culture, and ended up finding this buried starship. It was a REALLY fun read, and I remembered, being so enthralled with the story, that I didn't start loading the game. And the entire novella/short story, was condensed down to a handful of lines in the actual opening dialogue of the game. "An ancient starship, buried in the sands...." "The clans were united, and a massive construction effort was mounted" That's technically accurate, but holy shit does it leave out a LOT of cool details, that the book fleshed out.

So yeah, part of me does miss those manual days, when they had a lot of the foundation lore, that in the game itself, would probably be 30 minutes of dull exposition.
 

Souplex

Souplex Killsplosion Awesomegasm
Jul 29, 2008
10,312
0
0
DnD 5th ed: removing excessive numerical inflation, and replacing all those floating +1s with advantage.
 

Pyrian

Hat Man
Legacy
Jul 8, 2011
1,399
8
13
San Diego, CA
Country
US
Gender
Male
Happyninja42 said:
Normally I would agree, but then I think back to the wonderful manual for the first Homeworld game.
Oh, geez, that book. I insisted on reading the whole thing. Almost none of it is helpful in-game. There's a bunch of ship stats in the back which would've been cool except they're all different from the ones used in the game itself.
And all that cultural backstory only to have Karak wiped in the third mission when the game has hardly gotten started.