Streamlining that you agree with

pookie101

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Pyrian said:
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.
homeworld did have a wonderful manual i will admit that. great worldbuilding
 

Prime_Hunter_H01

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Random skill inheritance in Shin Megami Tensei and Persona. I think the earliest game I saw it in was Persona 4 Golden, though moving forward in SMT 4, Apocalypse, and Persona 5, you choose the exact skills you keep when fusing demons/personas. Before it was random, which was annoying and unnecessary since the inheritance would reroll when ever you backed out and redid the fusion.
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Prime_Hunter_H01 said:
Random skill inheritance in Shin Megami Tensei and Persona. I think the earliest game I saw it in was Persona 4 Golden, though moving forward in SMT 4, Apocalypse, and Persona 5, you choose the exact skills you keep when fusing demons/personas. Before it was random, which was annoying and unnecessary since the inheritance would reroll when ever you backed out and redid the fusion.
I think that was done to give each demon/persona a "unique" feeling, which of course goes against the min max nature that the games encourage in every other aspect of them. I wouldn't see it as streamlining as opposed to simply a design choice. If you wanna talk persona streamlining, in p5 you automatically get prompted to a skill that the enemies are weak against when you open the persona menu, cutting the need to memorize weaknesses. I memorize them anyhow so it doesn't bother me but if someone doesn't like having to do that I don't mind they get helped. It basically cuts having to hit the examine button every now and then.
 

Zhukov

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All of it.

I cannot remember ever encountering an instance of streamlining that decreased my enjoyment of the game.

Mostly it's just the removal of tedious number-shuffling that makes the "hardcore" crowd feel clever and makes me feel sleepy.

"Behold! I have replaced my 13dps sword with a 16dps sword! Only a Real Gamer such as I could have cracked this brain-teaser! My core is so fucking hard right now!
 

Aetrion

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My favorite example of good streamlining is the Fallout 4 looting, where you just hover over a container and you can pick things up without having to go into a special menu for it. Prey uses that same system with icons, and it's just awesome.
 

Kreett

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Zhukov said:
All of it.

I cannot remember ever encountering an instance of streamlining that decreased my enjoyment of the game.

Mostly it's just the removal of tedious number-shuffling that makes the "hardcore" crowd feel clever and makes me feel sleepy.

"Behold! I have replaced my 13dps sword with a 16dps sword! Only a Real Gamer such as I could have cracked this brain-teaser! My core is so fucking hard right now!
"My core is so fucking hard right now!" Is my new favourite quote
 

Prime_Hunter_H01

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Zhukov said:
Mostly it's just the removal of tedious number-shuffling that makes the "hardcore" crowd feel clever and makes me feel sleepy.
I have always felt like the hardcore people latch on to the wrong thing, or misidentify what they like because something that was a symptom of it, or one of many elements that contributed to it. Quality of life improvements =/= dumbing down.

I am glad that most rpgs Japanese and Western, are using a revive after battle system. If the idea of the game is not a dungeon crawler, or something like a Bethesda game where long term survival is part of the setting, an out of battle full regen or at least a K.O. recovery is much better considering that in many games revive items are rare, and the spells are late game and expensive. I think it makes something that is more story driven flow better as the puzzles and navigation of the area are a separate challenge than the battles. This allows the fights themselves to be more intense as you do not need to stress about the long term when you may be in an area for a while, winning the fight is its own puzzle that you must complete during this dungeon, not a drain on your resources.
 

Cowabungaa

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Souplex said:
DnD 5th ed: removing excessive numerical inflation, and replacing all those floating +1s with advantage.
On the other hand, the way advantage and disadvantage work is kinda wonky sometimes. Wonky enough that I houserule it a little different. Usually, as far as I know, it's simply that you have can have advantage and disadvantage and they cancel each other out. You can't really have two sources of advantage so you still have advantage. I houserule it so that you can, so you kind of get a bit of that inflation back in favour of more options.

I like a certain degree of complexity in my tactical environments. I say "a certain degree" because, well, I play Shadowrun 5e. And, well, you know.
 
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I think there's been one person to mention it so far, but I really like the way loot systems have been streamlined. It's just a chore when you collect 50 swords in one outing, most of which you could care less about. Constantly having to shuffle your massive inventory to stay under the item limit, decide which would sell for the most/least. Ever so slowly you replace your weapons with pretty much equivalent weapons that will help you to kill enemies (or not be killed by enemies) as quickly as your previous equipment used to.

I think one of my favorite variations of this is the dark souls approach. You get new weapons pretty infrequently, and they're usually not strictly better or worse than other weapons. Weapons let you change your playstyle, not just creep up intangible numbers.

Kind of in a similar vein, while I do get a kick out of minmaxing, I like how newer editions of D&D are de-emphasizing sheer numbers, and making each individual feat feel more substantial. Some of the old feats were pretty bullshit and uninteresting, like dodge giving a +1 bonus to a single enemy you declared it against. There's a place for that, but I think that you should generally feel like your character is different after getting a new ability, not just miss 1/10 fewer attacks
 

K12

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Prime_Hunter_H01 said:
Zhukov said:
Mostly it's just the removal of tedious number-shuffling that makes the "hardcore" crowd feel clever and makes me feel sleepy.
I have always felt like the hardcore people latch on to the wrong thing, or misidentify what they like because something that was a symptom of it, or one of many elements that contributed to it. Quality of life improvements =/= dumbing down.
I think the real core of this complaint is the niggling thought: "You mean I spent all that effort learning your unintuitive game mechanics and now that means nothing! Fuck you!"
 

SmallHatLogan

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CaitSeith said:
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!
Not to mention the fact that it makes no sense that someone would be attacking an enemy's corpse.

Lilani said:
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.
And now in Sun and Moon they've finally dumped the fucking HMs. It boggles my mind that it's taken them this long to do it.
 

Jeremy Comans

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Lilani said:
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.
This is about streamlining the user experience, in particular the UI, rather than streamlining the games mechanics. And it's something that I think is always a good thing. It is something that modern cRPG's have made huge improvements on compared to the great examples of the genre from back in the 90's. The games and their systems can be just as complex, they just aren't as complex or unintuitive to use.
 

Dalisclock

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Phoenixmgs said:
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.
ME2's side missions were better, the combat was more fun and best of all, they fixed that stupidly bloated inventory system where you ended up juggling weapons and converting half of what you picked up to omni-gel because you kept running out of room. The only downside is the stupid "heat sink" ammo system they implemented, which acted exactly like ammo clips and couldn't be reused.

I'll agree with most of what you said about Bloodborne, but shields? Maybe not in 2, but in the first two games(Demons and Dark), a shield was very useful. I totally don't miss the convoluted weapon upgrade system from the earlier games(which I used a little in dark and totally ignored in 2).

The only thing about Bloodborne that kind of annoys me is that since bloodvials don't auto-replenish like Estus did, you occasionally have to go farm it, which usually means having to go beat up that intial mob of villagers in the early game a few times. Not terrible but annoying when you want to keep going in the game.
 

Arnoxthe1

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DoPo said:
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.
And not just that, Morrowind was sooo easy to spam through if you knew how. Just roll up a strong warrior character in class creation and go to town at fucking level 1. And let's not even get into the massive amounts of items with the seriously OP'd paralysis enchantment. Oh lawdy. Morrowind could sometimes easily be even more of a snoozefest, combat-wise, than Skyrim or Oblivion.

Magic users were a pain the ass to play at the start too, although to be fair, they did open up massively in the late game. Spellmaker is deliciously broken with enough skill and gold.
 

JUMBO PALACE

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Prime_Hunter_H01 said:
Zhukov said:
Mostly it's just the removal of tedious number-shuffling that makes the "hardcore" crowd feel clever and makes me feel sleepy.
I have always felt like the hardcore people latch on to the wrong thing, or misidentify what they like because something that was a symptom of it, or one of many elements that contributed to it. Quality of life improvements =/= dumbing down.
I bounced right off of Divinity Original Sin for exactly this reason. Everyone says how amazing it is and how wonderful to have a game not hold your hand and actually challenge you. Dark Souls did it right and in my opinion Divinity did it so very very wrong. All the complex systems and numbers driven gameplay gets at best vaguely outlined and your left to your own devices to inevitably realize you fucked up and need to start over. I don't understand the pleasure in that. Dark Souls' approach emphasized the story and aesthetic of the game. Divinity just didn't feel like explaining how it worked for no good reason.

OT: I'm pretty fine with how the newer Splinter Cell games have gone. 1-3 were so slow and clunky, and while the franchise kind of lost its way with Conviction, I think Blacklist find a nice medium between the highly mobile Sam and a focus on stealth over mass murder.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Dalisclock said:
I'll agree with most of what you said about Bloodborne, but shields? Maybe not in 2, but in the first two games(Demons and Dark), a shield was very useful. I totally don't miss the convoluted weapon upgrade system from the earlier games(which I used a little in dark and totally ignored in 2).

The only thing about Bloodborne that kind of annoys me is that since bloodvials don't auto-replenish like Estus did, you occasionally have to go farm it, which usually means having to go beat up that intial mob of villagers in the early game a few times. Not terrible but annoying when you want to keep going in the game.
I'm not saying shields aren't useful, I just don't feel the shield controls are very good against more than one opponent due to the over-reliance on the lock-on system. I shouldn't need to lock-on to backstep and strafe properly, which I've talked about in length in the current Bayonetta thread of all things. Shields are so good 1v1 (no risk and huge rewards basically), that they are sorta a "cheese" playstyle IMO. Bloodborne sorta removed all the cheese options like said shields, bow and arrows, and magic. To me, Bloodborne is a lean and mean Souls game with complete focus on its core gameplay. I definitely agree with the blood vials, especially the fact that some areas just having really shitty blood vial drop rates.
 

CaitSeith

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Phoenixmgs said:
Dalisclock said:
I'll agree with most of what you said about Bloodborne, but shields? Maybe not in 2, but in the first two games(Demons and Dark), a shield was very useful. I totally don't miss the convoluted weapon upgrade system from the earlier games(which I used a little in dark and totally ignored in 2).

The only thing about Bloodborne that kind of annoys me is that since bloodvials don't auto-replenish like Estus did, you occasionally have to go farm it, which usually means having to go beat up that intial mob of villagers in the early game a few times. Not terrible but annoying when you want to keep going in the game.
I'm not saying shields aren't useful, I just don't feel the shield controls are very good against more than one opponent due to the over-reliance on the lock-on system. I shouldn't need to lock-on to backstep and strafe properly, which I've talked about in length in the current Bayonetta thread of all things. Shields are so good 1v1 (no risk and huge rewards basically), that they are sorta a "cheese" playstyle IMO. Bloodborne sorta removed all the cheese options like said shields, bow and arrows, and magic. To me, Bloodborne is a lean and mean Souls game with complete focus on its core gameplay. I definitely agree with the blood vials, especially the fact that some areas just having really shitty blood vial drop rates.
No cheese? The Hunter Axe says hello. That weapon can stagger most enemies and even bosses, and has a decent range and wide attacks. For a starting weapon, it's pretty OP.
 

josemlopes

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Zhukov said:
All of it.

I cannot remember ever encountering an instance of streamlining that decreased my enjoyment of the game.

Mostly it's just the removal of tedious number-shuffling that makes the "hardcore" crowd feel clever and makes me feel sleepy.

"Behold! I have replaced my 13dps sword with a 16dps sword! Only a Real Gamer such as I could have cracked this brain-teaser! My core is so fucking hard right now!
You cant really mean that when Thief 4 and Deus Ex Invisible War exist.

I honestly feel that streamlining is something very subjective, and can only be used properly when the current system is not very good (is unnecessarily slow, cumbersome, boring, confusing, etc...).

But then to replace or remove what are relatively basic concepts like jumping or crouching, then something is wrong with the purpose of that streamlining.
 

UnhappyMaskSalesman

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Streamlining is great when it removes a bunch of unnecessary steps that make the game harder to play or enjoy. A relatively recent example is from SC2. Previously, each player started with 6 worker units, and spent the first few minutes training more without really doing much else. With the third expansion, however, they made a change where now you start with 12 workers (close to your initial supply cap). This streamlined the game by essentially cutting out 3 or so minutes from the 'do-nothing' phase of each game.

An example of where I feel there is an obvious opportunity for streamlining that was missed oils in the Witcher 3. Yeah, I get that it was flavourful that the oil would run out and have to be reapplied, but do you know what kinda ruined it? Being able to re-apply oils mid battle. Basically, it made one upgrade slot in the poisons tree useless, and it broke up long combats by forcing you to pause every 30 hits to go into the menu and re-apply the oil. If you could only apply oils out of combat, or if oils had a limited number of uses like potions, it might make sense, but as is all it does is add a tedious task to the action list that doesn't really add anything to the game. Having oils have infinite duration would have been a significant improvement to the game.