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Comments
There are no Serbs in Middle Earth, so I'm afraid that the answer is no.
I do normally like JRPGs but I didn't like Xenoblade much.
3-person party + not being able to change mid-battle (you can't even change who you're controlling) + being more or less forced to have Sharla in your party all the time and Shulk during every boss fight (and more than that, you pretty much have to actually be controlling Shulk or boss fights will take twice as long because the AI sucks) defeats the purpose of having a choice of party members at all. This also has the side effect of making chain attacks extremely useless.
Dungeon designs are horrible and every environment is several times bigger than it really ought to be, making every place feel empty.
Combat lacks any depth whatsoever, just amounting to "do all of your attacks all the time" in 99% of fights. This sort of thing is disappointingly common in JRPGs but it doesn't mean it's any less valid a complaint, and because it's an action RPG (sort of) where you only control one character, you actually feel like you're doing less than in most other JRPGs. Since you generally don't have to even worry about healing and buffs (since you're going to leave that to the AI).
I still don't know what Tension is and I'm halfway through the game. It's apparently a stat that does something.
Sidequests are frequent but extremely boring and all of them are exactly the same. Fortunately, it's pretty streamlined (you can accept any number of quests at once and you don't have to return to the quest giver to get a reward) so it doesn't really waste your time but it really feels like a huge missed opportunity to tie them into the game's story more, considering the emphasis the game seems to place on developing relationships between NPCs and whatnot.
Characters' appearance changes to reflect their equipment but there is very little variety in what they actually look like, all equipment basically just being one of five or so models per character per body part, recolored appropriately (or not). And there is pretty much no consistency between how a given piece of equipment appears on one character versus another. These things combine to basically make everyone look ridiculous all the time and for you to never actually feel like your equipment is getting better (just that it's getting different-er. Maybe).
Fights against Telethia and Mechons, even like 20+ hours into the game, all have the feeling of being a tutorial. That is to say, it's nearly impossible to actually lose because the enemies are pathetically weak. This is a problem when they're both presented by the story as being extremely strong and threatening. It's also a problem because it's just not fun.
Even though the environments are huge, there's no incentive to explore them because there isn't actually any treasure to find for the most part. All you really get is a quest item if you're lucky, and you don't actually even know if that will ever result in you getting an item at all, much less a good one.
Missed opportunity for cool mech fights.
Heart-to-hearts are so difficult to unlock that I haven't actually been able to see any of them at all since like an hour into the game. It's fine if they're supposed to require effort/grinding to get all of them, but considering that their purpose is to expand on the story and characterization, I should be able to at least watch some of them without having to grind forever, or else I'm going to end up thinking that the story and characters are boring.
The story and characters are boring.
Anyway, it's possible that some of those complaints are my fault (in that maybe there was something I'm missing) or that some of the other ones do actually get addressed later on in the game (since as I said, I'm only around halfway through, by my own estimation [by which I mean random guess]). But... yeah.
tl;dr: disappointment.
You know, it occurs to me that nobody has ever actually told me why Xenoblade is apparently so good. I keep hearing that it is, but not what about it makes it so. I know basically nothing about the game.
Maybe I'm thinking of Xenogears here but I recall someone mentioning that it has a 45 minutes long cutscene so yeah no
I wouldn't mind a 45 minute cutscene if it were entertaining.
That said, I'm pretty sure that's Xenosaga or Xenogears. Xenoblade's cutscenes aren't very long for the most part.
Well, I play and love Metal Gear so it's not like I'm entirely opposed to the concept. I just think that it has to involve really really likeable characters, if nothing else.
So, started Dragon's Dogma. I'm hooked. And I didn't even know the Affinity system was a thing before, so I like it even more! Time for my Lesbian warrior to rise.
I tried this out once upon a time, and while it did have some really cool stuff, I found that it was lacking in the same way almost all LotR games are lacking.
LotR is the Unluckiest Franchise when it comes to game adaptation because every developer wants to impose external standards of fantasy onto it. The thing is that the WoW model of Special Ability --> Cooldown doesn't really apply, since the setting of LotR is often very mundane (a human warrior that fights orcs all day has probably never met a wizard or seen a magic weapon and so on). LotRO does its best to recontextualise MMORPG skills and abilities to fit the themes, but the MMO standard and structure was never meant for a setting as, well, sensible as Middle-earth.
The history of LotR games has been pretty ridiculous, to the extent that the film tie-ins were also the ones that most closely resembled the books and the "true" Middle-earth, so to speak. Here's a few examples:
So there's some examples of how the games industry has handled LotR games, and each one was probably very carefully, lovingly and painstaking crafted by dear fans of the material that just did not get it. These games impose a very North American, post-D&D-superhero-fantasy-mashup view on LotR when it was relatively down to earth instead. LotRO isn't anywhere near the worst of these games, but by having to adhere to MMORPG structures erected by games like Everquest and WoW -- both of them far higher fantasy than LotR could ever claim to be -- it must necessarily be among them all the same.
(Man, I am such a negative nancy.)
I liked Xenoblade a lot. Unique setting aside, the story was kind of a cliche storm, but it just somehow felt a lot more honest than Final Fantasy's recent pretension. It's hard to put my finger on, really. Also, it was fucking gorgeous and the music was amazing.
The combat was probably its weakest point though, despite the neat gimmick.
Xenoblade could be replaced with Ni No Kuni here.
Grinding for the second boss of SMT: Strange Journey.
Does this game ever stop being boring as shit?
^The game really starts to kick up around the third area for me.
GW2 at 44% after three and a half hours. Sadly, this is faster than expected.
So Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker
Does anything happen to make the Paz date thing less creepy?
You can also date Kaz, if it makes you feel any better (it won't).
But actually yes, sort of. Kind of.
There is one Paz diary entry where she talks about watching Snake wrestle a naked man, in extreme detail, and being so strangely enchanted by it.
Okay, so. I've been playing Skyrim again, and I've been thinking about how to improve Skyrim's combat without changing the underlying... factors? Mechanics, of how it currently works.
Basically, with Skyrim, you have a few factors:
1. Armour. You have three different types of armours; Heavy, Light, and Robes. Heavy Armour has a much higher armour rating, but it slows you down, and it weighs a significant amount. Light Armour has a lower armour rating, but it doesn't slow you down as much, and it doesn't weigh near as much as Heavy Armour. Robes have no armour rating at all, but they don't slow you down, and they weigh next to nothing- plus, each comes with Mage Enhancements.
2. Magic. You have three basic 'types' of magic; Fire, Ice, and Lightning. Fire Magic deals basic damage, and also sets targets on fire for additional Health damage. Ice Magic deals basic damage, and also drains the target's Stamina. Lightning Magic deals basic damage, and also drains the target's Magicka.
3. Weapons. You have a few 'basic' weapons- Daggers, One-Handed Weapons, and Two-Handed Weapons. Daggers are technically classified as One-Handed Weapons, but they're faster than regular Swords, and have a much smaller attack radius. One-Handed Weapons are slower than daggers, but they deal more damage and have a higher attack radius. Two-Handed weapons are slower again, but they deal even more damage, and have a huge attack arc.
4. Shields. You can 'block' with regular weapons, but the block is broken easily, and it doesn't reduce much damage. Shields can block arrows, and also block easier and reduce more damage than blocking with weapons.
5. Bows. Bows attack from afar, but they generally require the user to stand still to gain any sort of real accuracy. Depleting Stamina can also allow you to zoom in, gaining yourself more accuracy.
If I were going to 'fix' Skyrim's combat, I would do a few things:
1. Pay more attention to Blocking and Power Attacks. Blocking can only block attacks coming from the front, or from the front and to the sides. In wide-open areas, this leaves the defender vulnerable to blocking, but in tight spaces, it's a significant boost. Skyrim's environments also boil down to either 'tight, enclosed spaces' or 'wide open areas with a lot of room for flanking'. Depleting Stamina upon successful blocks (depleting less Stamina the higher your Block skill is) and staggering you when your Stamina is depleted would make for some quite interesting gameplay, particularly if the game differentiated between attack types- with blunt weapons (maces, warhammers) dealing more stamina damage against blockers, and Power Attacks dealing huge amounts of damage but staggering the attacker if the blocker successfully defends.
2. Paying more attention to the magic types would help. Mages are very maneuverable, but they're fragile in general unless they sacrifice Magicka to make themselves tougher. Allowing a Mage to significantly lower their target's Stamina and Magicka would allow them to be more versatile, while making their damage lower in general would help to make this playstyle risky yet rewarding.
3. I'd just drop focusing on Stealth styles completely unless I could fix Stealth to be more like that of Dishonored. If I could do that, assassination-style kills would work wonders.
Just, I dunno. Pay more attention to the ability to block and Power Attack (and Stamina in general), make maneuvering around and paying attention to the environment a bit more necessary, and so on, would make Skyrim a fair bit more enjoyable, at least to me.
Just started playing Paper Mario: Sticker Star.
While I'm slightly disappointed by the lack of partners and the simplified combat mechanics, the game's presentation is so far the best in the entire Paper Mario series, and that is saying something.
I also really enjoy the more nonlinear level design and the greater emphasis on puzzle solving.
@Nova
I think the most necessary improvement would be a combination of increased mobility and fine-tuning the arc of blocks. The game would still remain somewhat "broken" in combat via its dungeon map designs, though, which are almost universally made of narrow corridors that don't have room for mobile combat anyway.
So the first thing I'd do is implement eight "leaps" or "hops", one for each compass direction, and remove the foot speed slowdown while attacking and possibly blocking (depending on its limitations). The rule of thumb is that the more limited a blocking action is in the game, the more mobility its user ought to retain. Added to that, I'd probably use a system of staggers closer to Dark Souls (i.e. at least use a consistent set of known values) and ensure that each weapon "style" has a fundamentally different role. That is: daggers, sword-and-board, dual-wielding and two-handed.
Daggers would be good for close in aggression and stealth. Sword-and-board would be for survivability. Dual-wielding would be for raw damage. Two-handing would be for speed and stagger efficiency. Not hugely different from the metagame setup right now, but added mobility and a reduced emphasis on static blocking would demand differences in implementation. For instance, two-handing would disincentivise blocking because its stagger efficiency ought to prevent enemy attacks, while its speed would allow that to be accomplished without necessarily compromising oneself (unlike the existing balance). A shield for one-handed users would be more insurance than anything as they weave around adversaries -- kind of like combat insurance. And so on.
At the risk of ripping too much from Dark Souls, I'd probably have faster stamina regeneration and more stamina use in general, since the Dark Souls system prevents reliance on any one combat action. Using stamina efficiently is paramount to success in Dark Souls and does a lot to add depth to the game; many experienced players come to consider stamina more important than HP.
^Barring the movement changes, I think there's at least one mod that does exactly what you're suggesting.
I'm not sure. I'll get to that in a second.
See, that's the thing. I don't agree with this.
Essentially, in Skyrim, there's two "types" of combat: Open-field combat, and constrained combat. Open-field combat is much more suited to maneuverability in combat, weaving around opponents and running away to attack. Constrained combat takes place in narrow corridors, where the closest you get to maneuverability is moving forwards (closer to opponents and inside their range) or backwards (out of your opponent's range).
The combination of both maps increases versatility- a heavily armoured character built to survive in constrained corridors, where there's little room for opponents to maneuver around them and blocking is much more important will have a much harder time in open-field combat, where they can't maneuver around as easily as opponents and they can be flanked very easily. On the other hand, though, a mage built to run around and blast opponents in open-field combat will have a very hard time in constrained corridors, where the best they can do is retreat and blast opponents with glyphs and impact spells.
Unfortunately, it's kind of "broken" in that companions are useless in constrained combat. A heavily armoured companion will take to a corridor in front of you, but you will be unable to attack opponents in front of them, leaving you as only able to heal your companion.
That works for Dark Souls, but Dark Souls is focused a lot more around combat than Skyrim is. Skyrim is built around (mostly) multiple quick and short encounters, with the focus of the game being on exploration and discovery, with combat being necessary as an obstacle more than as a goal to overcome in and of itself.
That is, I'm trying to think of a way to make Skyrim's combat more fun without a) taking too much away from the "feel" of Skyrim's combat, and b) changing the focus of the game from exploration to combat. With the large amount of combat in the game, though, the combat must remain as short, quick, and generally over-and-done-with as possible in order to not bog the game down.
That's true of any game, but a good game supports both without compromising the other. Monster Hunter and Dark Souls aren't any worse off when their environments become constrained because they're both designed with a variety of environments in mind.
Dark Souls in particular is a good example because many areas (particularly buildings) are designed to be both open and constrained, with a large amount of short corridors and many open spaces as well. So what you can sometimes be blindsided and forced to fight in an environment you dislike, there's also the option of kiting enemies into your preferred arena (which is much more difficult in Skyrim due to the heavy preference it has for constrained environments in dungeons).
How to apply this becomes quickly apparent; if you're outnumbered, fight in a constrained environment, but fight out in the open against a stronger adversary. There's enough build options for players to break these rules if they feel the need, though, and the game is designed to put you in tight spots from time to time -- or even to use your perception against you. Between the Undead Parish, Blighttown and the Tomb of the Giants, there's three kinds of constrained environments: hallways and doors, precipices and perceived constraint (respectively). Tomb of the Giants does this by being hella dark all the time, so even when you have a better light source, you still don't get a complete picture of the environment. Each area has a combination of weak enemy groups and singular strong enemies, forcing players to adapt.
The way to win against tough enemies in constrained environments is basically to out-muscle them. If you stack equipment that gives good poise (probably some decent armour with the Wolf Ring) and a weapon that deals efficient poise damage for the time it takes to use (greatswords, ultra-greatswords, axes, great axes and so on), then you'll break your adversary's position before they can do the same to you, allowing you to get a stunlock and end it there -- as long as you manage your stamina efficiently.
So the versatility of the map design directly supports the versatility of the combat, and that's what a good combat system needs -- a combination of simplicity and versatility. Skyrim has simplicity down for sure, so it just needs versatility. The way to offer that, I think, is through increased mobility, stricter metrics when it comes to blocks and more versatile map design to support those factors. When any system (be it a game or not) has both simplicity and versatility in its favour, it will become as complex as the considerations of the end user. So people who like simple experiences win and people who like complex experiences win. These systems naturally tailor themselves to their users, which is why games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter have some of the most praised combat systems in gaming.
The issue with that statement is that one of Skyrim's strongest points is how it allows players to choose their own focal point. For what it's worth, though, a better combat system doesn't necessarily mean a game has to be based entirely around it. And honestly, there's a lot of necessary combat in Skyrim anyway, so making the combat more engaging is a no-brainer. Modifying stamina consumption and regeneration to create a more deliberate sense of tempo and force more consideration is a simple and easily understood way to get closer to a better combat system without scrapping the system, too.
There's a fair few kinds of combat system in games to do with close combat, and I'd imagine you'd want to keep Skyrim in the same "genre" of combat (that is, of a middling pace with simple controls and concepts at work). That limits the kinds of tools one can use to modify the combat heavily. But as it turns out, games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are within the same "genre" of combat but with far better execution, and provide us with a blueprint of how Skyrim's combat might have been better constructed.
The thing is, though, Skyrim isn't in that genre of combat. Simple controls, yes, but pacing-wise, its combat is generally over with in maybe five or ten seconds, and anything else wouldn't really work for the game.
The same is generally true of Dark Souls (although not Monster Hunter, which is mostly boss battles). Dark Souls has more enemy density than Skyrim, but it's not inherently a slower system be it through mechanics or pacing. The lack of versatility in Skyrim can also make certain battles ridiculously long, such as when an enemy is mathematically superior to you but you've got a massive stack of healing items. Winning that kind of battle is a slow, tedious case of fight --> flee, perhaps with kiting --> heal --> fight.
Additional flexibility and versatility in the system could help resolve issues like that, so strategy could take the place of mathematical superiority. It would actually quicken the pace of fights that you might otherwise be entirely outmatched in, as well as fights against shield-turtling enemies. Not to mention adding much-needed interest to the battles with dragons.
Well, yeah. But see, the thing is, you're sacrificing combat speed for combat consideration, which is exactly the wrong way to go about it.
Dark Souls and Monster Hunter both have slow combat. If every battle in Skyrim took half as long as every battle in Dark Souls, the game's length would be increased significantly.
Skyrim's focus is mostly on quick, sharp encounters, punctuated by encounters of increased length at climactic moments or encounters, such as Draugr Lords at the end of dungeons, Bandit Chiefs, or Bears. Giants and Mammoths also count.
The focus I am talking about isn't in sacrificing the speed of the encounters in order to facilitate challenge and complexity- it is in sacrificing complexity in order to facilitate a level of challenge and encounter speed, while still retaining enough options in its simple combat to make the combat itself engaging.
Dark Souls is more about... managing stamina and avoiding attacks. That's not what I'm saying for Skyrim- I'm saying that it should be less "Stand there and throw ten blows at an opponent as he does the same', and more 'Block an attack, strike a couple of times, enemy dead, move on' or 'throw a glyph of explosion down, hurl a fireball at an opponent, then turn and throw lightning at a mage as the enemy kills themselves on the glyph' or something. Requiring players to know what they're doing, but ending encounters quickly and decisively rather than the slow, cautious method of Dark Souls and Monster Hunter.
The thing is, though, that at the start of a fight in Dark Souls, you're expected to hang back a bit and see what the enemy is capable of, maybe wait for an opening.
At the start of a fight in Skyrim, you're expected to kill the enemy.
These two approaches, disregarding how well-executed the associated systems are, fit the two games: Dark Souls is about combat, while Skyrim is about adventuring, of which combat is a small portion.
I'm not arguing that lack of versatility isn't a problem. I'm the one who generally describes TES combat as "slap-fights," after all. All I'm saying is that Dark Souls and Skyrim combat have very different pacing demands with regard to combat.
In Dark Souls, when a fight drags on, it's an awesome, tense affair.
In Skyrim, when a fight drags on, it's a waste of time, and it still would be with a good combat system.
Once you understand the system, Dark Soul's combat isn't actually slow at all. Beginners will tend to play cautiously, but there are lots of ways to end fights very quickly (elite enemies aside). Magic is one way, and sometimes ranged attacks are as well. But the most reliable way to defeat enemies quickly is through efficient character builds, acting in accordance with the poise system and using aggressive rolls (and attacking out of them).
When you use long, slow weapons (for instance), you learn quickly that you'll run through all your stamina pretty quickly if you try to block and attack at the pace of someone with a lighter weapon. The solution is to use your own attacks as a defensive measure; since they break poise easily, you can continue through with more attacks to take advantage of the stunlock. So the most efficient means of defense with long, slow weapons is actually controlled aggression, which results in short fights against mooks. Furthermore, you deal extra damage for interrupting an enemy's attack animation, bringing the length of the fight down even further as long as you maintain control.
Even fighting defensively, there's the parry and riposte, which is a good way to waste just about any regular enemy in one or two hits.
Monster Hunter is once again an exception because it's mostly made up of boss battles, so in comparing it to Skyrim, we should look at fights against dragons and other boss-tier enemies rather than mook battles.
Mind you, I'm not saying Skyrim's combat should play exactly like these. But they're a good example of the same simplicity used for much greater effect and, in any case, Skyrim's combat already works like a (very) poor man's Dark Souls. The essential combat functions are the same -- attack, heavy attack, defend, move and so on, with both operating at medium pace and without any elaborate combos. Some of the differences in each system are, well, systematic, but others are a matter of balance. Skyrim is intentionally meant to be easier than Dark Souls, so enemies will have less HP, will attack in smaller numbers and generally be less prone to pressuring the player.
Very true. But...even for a very good player, there do remain enemies that must be approached with caution, even outside boss battles.
The systems are comparable, and there are many, many lessons Skyrim could learn from Dark Souls (or, well, any game with non-bad combat), but their diverging goals need to be kept in mind.
The thing is, Dark Souls acts like that because that's how From wanted the game to feel, while Skyrim acts like that because Bethesda sucks at game balance.
Dark Souls' combat is meant to give the impression that the world is hostile to you. It wants you dead- but beyond you being alive and it wanting you dead, the game really doesn't give a shit about you.
The combat, therefore, becomes about you overcoming the challenges. That is a goal in and of itself.
Skyrim's combat is meant to be there to provide some excitement to the game and to show that the world is alive (and, in turn, hostile).
The combat, therefore, becomes about you overcoming the challenges in order to progress to the next environ.
They both have extremely different goals; Dark Souls' combat is a challenge that the player is meant to surmount in order to achieve a feeling of victory, while Skyrim's combat is a challenge that the player is meant to overcome in order to proceed further into the dungeon, etc.
The combat, therefore, becomes intrinsically wrong for the game if you look at it in terms of 'The player should think about their actions and it should dominate a fair portion of the game'. Rather, the way to look at it is 'The player should have a variety of options at their disposal that they can mix-and-match in order to provide an engaging (but forgettable) experience.
There are mods out there that take the Dark Souls approach to Skyrim's combat already, such as Dual- Combat Realism. This mod looks at exactly what you are saying- using a variety of simple gameplay systems and enhancing the use of stamina in the game in order to provide a more challenging and ultimately satisfying approach to gameplay. And for the users who appreciated combat as a goal in and of itself, that was pretty cool.
But it also went against the game's core theme; exploration and discovery. In making the player think heavily about combat, the player's focus was taken from the world around them and placed on the encounter in front of them. This was the opposite of the game's vanilla system, which pretty much had you focus entirely on the world and just steamroll over all the enemies.
What Skyrim needs is something in the middle ground; a combat system that makes players be able to look at it and go 'huh, that's kind of cool' and then turn their concentration back to the world. It needs to be fun for the people who enjoy the game's combat, but it also needs to be non-intrusive for the people focusing on exploration.