Mass Effect 3 discussion

[TorontoReign]

Fallout 2 was one of the first "Real" Rpg's I ever played, as opposed to more linear games like FF7. The difficulty was amped up, and you could get ambushed by 10 people and die easily if you did not know what you were doing, but that is exactly what attracted me to the game. Now games hold your hand too much....like Mass Effect.

 

[Alphadrop]

You could get ambushed by 10 people and die easily if you did not know what you were doing...

Legging it like heck towards the exit tiles?
Always liked that there were fights you had to run away from, modern RPGs don't really do it in such regard anymore.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Which was my point. The fact that it's real-time (or real-time with pause) doesn't mean you just point, shoot and call it a day. There's still character-building and strategy involved.

Sometimes when you have a point to make it's best to just out and say it, subtext doesn't work well on the internets.

Well, the thing is most of the time one-hit kills in games are fairly obvious and are meant to be dodged. Think of the snipers in ME1; they could easily 1 or 2 shoot you, but before they fire you could see their painting laser. So you could avoid it. In Fallout I could not avoid that Super Mutant's gatling gun critting and instantly killing me whatever armor I wore. I mean, I imagine there are games with cheap one-hit kills, but as far as I remember Mass Effect has none of them.

Only if you see them coming, that's the problem with most real time games they tend to be first or third person and if you're looking the wrong way at the wrong time kapow. Turn based games tend to be more about preparation and real time games more about reaction, if you see a mutant with a gatling you start moving. In ME, Thresher Maws can kill you pretty darn quick, the Asari Commandos can make short work of you as well as some of the larger Geth or rocket turrets for that matter.

And how are you going to know it is on your first playthrough? You can hear about the city several times, and it seems like a pretty big place, and if there's one thing RPGs have taught us it's that everything is there for a reason and you should do everything you can, so that big city must be there for a reason. Of course, New Reno is actually one giant XP and money farm, but there's no knowing beforehand.

Well if you are actually roleplaying a character who wants to find the macguffin to save their people asap then the only reason for you to be going to New Reno or a third of the locations in F2 is if you couldn't get into Vault City or could get into the Vault City Vault or couldn't use the VCV computer to find out the location of Vault 15. Or if iirc you can't get any help in the NCR to find Vault 13. Either way if you are actually roleplaying on your first playthrough if you are led to New Reno then by the time you get there you should be able to handle it more readily.

 

[Crni Vuk]

But that's the thing. For a first time player, Fallouts 2 and 1 was a nightmare and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. The only thing that kept me engaged in them was the world an setting was interesting

Yeah. But back then we kinda got used with such kind of RPGs.

I mean if I compare the difficulty of those games with today ... I seriously ask my self sometimes how I managed to stay motivated trough the game - which is meant in a positive way though I have to agree I would probaly not try again to beat a game like R-Type today.

 

[Lexx]

Oh come on, this almost sounds like it was hardcore to play through the games. I can't remember that Fallout frustrated me at any point except when I was searching the secret door to the master for like 1 month. Even the Mariposa super mutant encounters always had been easy with my power armored minigun / plasma-character. Yea you had the chance to die quite often in the game, but so what? I can remember much, much harder games from back then.

And to jump back to Mass Effect 3: Though it's said that ME3 will be much harder, I have a hard time in believing that I will die more often while playing than in ME1 or ME2. It's just not "in" anymore to let players die often... they could lose the will to finish the game.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Yeah, what happened to the "dying periodically is the norm" setup? Seems like there's very few Western developers left who live by that motto, and most of them indie.

I don't recall FO1/2 ever being a nightmare. First visit to the Glow was, eh, an unpleasant surprise, but everything else was OK. FO2 had some mean REs, but nothing reloading from an earlier save or running away couldn't solve.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Oh come on, this almost sounds like it was hardcore to play through the games

Compared to today ?

Yes. When was the last time you spend more then 2 or 3 hours to pass a certain part in a game today ? RPGs to say that.

As said. I mean that in retrospect. Fallout 1/2 was much less forgiving then any Fallout game which followed it. Except for Tactics maybe. But definitely less then F3 and Vegas. Now if I remember a few other games like Super R-Type or Super Ghouls n Ghosts ... awesome games no doubt. But I would not beat such games again today simply because it feels like wasting to much time on playing the same part over and over again because of the difficulty. Does not mean its the same case with Fallout 1 or 2. It is not nightmare to play them.

But compared to games like Mass Effect for example they are today rather "light" in the difficulty.

 

[brfritos]

And to jump back to Mass Effect 3: Though it's said that ME3 will be much harder, I have a hard time in believing that I will die more often while playing than in ME1 or ME2. It's just not "in" anymore to let players die often... they could lose the will to finish the game.

Well, you can call me "older" - wich I am BTW, but I prefer old fart - but I died a number of times when playing ME1 for the first time on very hard setting (hardcore) during the beginning of the game, specially when going to Feros.
That damned skyway!

Of course after a number of times you die less and less, but my first playthrough was on normal, my second on veteran and from on always on hardcore.
Those Thorian creepers, Geth Armatures and Geth Destroyers gave me a hard time on Feros the first time I played on veteran and a nightmare in hardcore, unless you fight on the Mako, but you lose a lot of XP points that will make your character advance much slower (and I mean really A LOT, but is your choice)

But in ME2 I died much less, I give you that.

And at least I have to congratulate Bioware, ME is one of the few games out there in wich you have lots of difficulty settings.
Enemies on hardcore and insanity are tough to kill and deal much more damage than normally.

 

[Ilosar]

But compared to games like Mass Effect for example they are today rather "light" in the difficulty.

I had a tougher time in my Insanity ME 1 and 2 playthroughs than in my Difficult runs of the first Fallouts. And that's using optimized builds in both games. Fallouts are hard a th beginning, but once you get good skills, perks and gear most of it is rather easy. Horizon in ME2 on Insanity? Friggin nightmare, took me many tries because of the fairly clever ways reinforcements could F you up. I certainly passed and hour or two trying to beat that part the first time around.

I guess it boils down to individual skill. But I don't think modern games are super-easy. The Witcher 2 at Insane is deserving of it's name. Dark Souls is popular despite it'S rather crushing difficulty. Shogun 2 is extremely hard at Legendary. Even the campaign of Call of Duty is vary hard at Veteran. I could go on, but most modern games have a difficulty setting that poses a true challenge.

 

[Surf Solar]

I agree that Mass Effect 2 on highest difficulty is really hard. I died countless times on various missions, often time abandoning certain builds because I just couldn't proceed anymore.

I don't know how Fallout can be considered that hard, either. It's only hard if you gimp your build, that's not the games fault. It is quite the contrary, combat is mostly way too easy in Fallout and Fallout 2...

 

[Ausdoerrt]

I can see your point if you're talking about action games where twitch reflexes are king. Miss a button - die - rinse and repeat till you have the pattern down. It's incredibly fair, if frustrating for people who care little to memorize arbitrary patterns, or lack the eye-to-button coordination.

Classic RPG games are different, they're all based on systems with RNGs at their core, which naturally includes an element of luck/chance. That's what makes them fun and almost infinitely replayable. Plus you can try to bend such luck you your side by using basic tactics. I don't really have much of a problem with that - combat in FO without criticals would've gotten boring much faster.

 

[brfritos]

But compared to games like Mass Effect for example they are today rather "light" in the difficulty.

I had a tougher time in my Insanity ME 1 and 2 playthroughs than in my Difficult runs of the first Fallouts. And that's using optimized builds in both games. Fallouts are hard a th beginning, but once you get good skills, perks and gear most of it is rather easy. Horizon in ME2 on Insanity? Friggin nightmare, took me many tries because of the fairly clever ways reinforcements could F you up. I certainly passed and hour or two trying to beat that part the first time around.

Horizon! Good call, now that's a example of a brilliant designed level.

Is in the transition from the beginning to middle, has great spots for firing and interesting waves of enemies.
Sheppard and his/her team began to become powerfull, but they aren't yet overpowered, so the battle is rather very difficult.
I was only able to make a "smooth" run with my Vanguard and Engineer runs, the others types had more troubles than normally.

Maybe smooth is not the right word, is more like "sleek".

And more important, is a rewarding level in every sense after you complete it.

And Sea maded a good point, randomly diying because of forces out of your control - like rolling the dice! - is not a good game design either.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

If death is something that happens regularly beyond the control of the player, as opposed to doing stupid things (lucky criticals, etc.) then I think that's a legitimate issue. Dying is fun when you realize your mistake - when there are no mistakes to make, and death was beyond your control, however, it's no longer fun or interesting as a game mechanic, it's just punitive.

Mass Effect on Insanity, for all its challenge, always felt fair to me - I was losing because I made mistakes, rushed in, was careless, etc. In Call of Duty, on Veteran, I rarely die due to a lack of skill, but rather due to random chance. Death comes so quickly that there's almost nothing you can do to stop it (peek your head out at the wrong time? dead) and the game has a sick habit of throwing four grenades at you at once, with escape pretty much impossible. Winning in Call of Duty can feel more like luck than anything else, which isn't really appropriate to a shooter in my mind.

Random does not mean that you can or should die regularly based on things beyond your control. Sure, the die rolls are random, but the decisions in dealing with a situation - good and bad - have far, far greater influence. A bad player can take a good situation and do stupid things, just as a good player can take a tough situation and come out on top. The randomness is there to make things interesting, but that doesn't excuse the whole "your spell failed, you take 10,000 and die horribly" stuff that constitutes the "difficulty" of many RPGs.

And Sea maded a good point, randomly diying because of forces out of your control - like rolling the dice! - is not a good game design either.

Oh come on just listen to yourselves you're pathetic. Is it bad design that a random roll of the dice lands you on the head of the snake and sends you back down the board? Is it bad design that a random draw of the cards sends you straight to jail without passing Go? No it's the essence of the game, different games have different objectives and different mechanics. Turn based games are basically an extension of board/table top gaming but on the computer. They have a very different design philosophy based on player decisions rather than player reactions, different not better not worse though of course some design decisions are better suited to achieve certain goals than others. An action game that totally relied on the player fucking up with out any random chance would be totally boring to play, you might as well script every sequence and reduce combat to little more than QTEs I believe some developers already make this type of game, or I should say un-game.

 

[Tagaziel]

Dying entirely on a random chance is bad design. It is quite unfun to step into an empty corridor, only to die because you failed an arbitrary dice roll. Dying because you made bad decisions (forgot to pack the right armor/guns/ammo/stimpaks, fucked up tactics etc.) is fine.

Dying at random because the RNG doesn't like you? Unfun. Particularly because RPG games and similar rely so much on player input and player decision, making these purely luck-based elements jarring in context.

 

[Sabirah]

Games are supposed to be fun. Dying at random is unfun. I work at a hospital, if I wanted to see people who were injured by quirk of fate I would just do overtime.

 

[Lexx]

Because games are real life.


If you think that Fallout and Fallout 2 are too hard, even if you lower combat and game difficult to lowest setting, then you are a sissy or aren't trying, it's as simple as that, imo.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Dying at random because the RNG doesn't like you? Unfun. Particularly because RPG games and similar rely so much on player input and player decision, making these purely luck-based elements jarring in context.

Depends. It did never bothered me that you had "dieces" working in the background when playing Jagged Alliance 2. Granted it was not THAT random (there have been many many things you could do to change the situation for your favour). But often enough "luck" was a very important factor. And it made the game very fun. And quite a challange to say that.

 

[brfritos]

Oh come on just listen to yourselves you're pathetic. Is it bad design that a random roll of the dice lands you on the head of the snake and sends you back down the board? Is it bad design that a random draw of the cards sends you straight to jail without passing Go? No it's the essence of the game, different games have different objectives and different mechanics. Turn based games are basically an extension of board/table top gaming but on the computer. They have a very different design philosophy based on player decisions rather than player reactions, different not better not worse though of course some design decisions are better suited to achieve certain goals than others. An action game that totally relied on the player fucking up with out any random chance would be totally boring to play, you might as well script every sequence and reduce combat to little more than QTEs I believe some developers already make this type of game, or I should say un-game.

It's interesting that this particular battle in ME2 contradicts in every way what you've said.

The battle depends more of your strategy and how you move your "pieces" on the battelfiled, like a chess game, than Shepard skills.
You have lots of different ways to fight and the battle is hard, but if you make a wrong or poorly move the chances to be killed are raised exponencially.

Is funny that people take the comment as a direct "insult" against Fallout.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Random does not mean that you can or should die regularly based on things beyond your control. Sure, the die rolls are random, but the decisions in dealing with a situation - good and bad - have far, far greater influence. A bad player can take a good situation and do stupid things, just as a good player can take a tough situation and come out on top. The randomness is there to make things interesting, but that doesn't excuse the whole "your spell failed, you take 10,000 and die horribly" stuff that constitutes the "difficulty" of many RPGs.

Your example is taken out of the air (or less pretty locations), but I'll play along. Random rolls like that are there for variety more than difficulty. Critical hits aren't very common. Instant-death criticals even less so. "Your spell failed" scenarios usually have an even lower chance (IIRC, for example, DnD teleport spell has something like a 1% fail chance, and even then it's not a guaranteed death). So "die regularly" is really an overstatement. For FO1/2 definitely. And imagine how boring the game would be if invincibility granted by PA/APA would be absolute. I'm positive I'd have a lot less incentive to continue playing.

Regularly? No. Occasionally? More than welcome. Random variables, if occasionally frustrating, make combat organic and replayable. Games where you have 100% chance of winning if you go through the one set of correct motions are disposable.

Dying entirely on a random chance is bad design. It is quite unfun to step into an empty corridor, only to die because you failed an arbitrary dice roll. Dying because you made bad decisions (forgot to pack the right armor/guns/ammo/stimpaks, fucked up tactics etc.) is fine.

Where does luck end and control begin, though? What if you died because you chose to pop into that corridor at the exact moment an enemy AI decided to? Or got a lucky headshot off? Do you blame RNG or yourself?

 

[mobucks]

gotta agree with ausdoerrt
Failing a speech check pisses me off though but as for dying, no big, I probably saved. If dying really annoys me I'll turn down the difficulty.
Anyone ever try Brothers In Arms on hardest difficulty? If you died on the last part of the level you had to re-do the entire mission.