Lurker > Lokarin

trodi_911 posted...

A kangaroo.

Have you seen wild kangaroos, they're weird... they don't hop around like in cartoons, they kinda crawl/walk like a weird rat/bunny hybrid

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Sahuagin posted...

truly well-designed RPGs/games should be as little like that as possible. a truly great game is beatable at level 1, and still somewhat challenging at level 100, while nevertheless still giving a full sense of progression in between.

it's not easy to do; dark souls and rogue-likes are what come to mind as examples. the game mechanics have to be rich enough for it to be possible.

games where the difficulty scale is so narrow that 1 level makes the difference between impossible and possible, and another level makes the difference between possible and cake-walk are bad games that have turned the game mechanics into, as you say, gate-keeping systems. the designer is attempting to control the player rather than creating deep and meaningful game systems and then presenting the player with equally rich challenges to overcome.

games like you're describing are reducible to that RPG sim where you're walking on a line fighting battles over and over.

(I wouldn't be complaining about this except that you started off describing grinding as a solution to bad design, and then presented this as "good" design, which it definitely is not to me. grinding is a solution to the player's lack of ability to win a scenario. if the player's skill and knowledge of the game is completely irrelevant to winning the scenario, that is bad design, and then yes, grinding is then transitively a solution to bad design.)7

Maybe I missed a part.

We can agree/disagree if DQ1 was good/bad design, the takeaway is that they didn't anticipate people playing the game multiple times, so what was good design in naive isolation becomes a glaring flaw on repeated plays.


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Sahuagin posted...

I would call this bad design. what makes RPGs so widely popular is that they effectively have dynamic difficulty. you can make the game as easy or hard on yourself as you want, and in the best of these games, that scale will be extremely broad. when that scale is extremely narrow (close to impossible if you're a little under-leveled, and either OPd if you're a little over-leveled, or else it's impossible to be over-leveled), that is bad design. that whole system might almost as well not even be in the game.

It's two forces competing against each other. The exploration and rewards of failure made sure that you were the appropriate level when you beat Dragon Quest. The developers planned the XP and gold curves around an expected level of failure... this is a standard thing in designing RPGs. The problems come when players bypass the system. They'll either refuse to accept failure and never explore, using straight grind instead of natural encounters to level up.

There's a few things DQ1 could have changed to correct this. First would be to give the Healmore spell (the gatekeeping ability in the game) at a lower level, or to award it through a quest. Second would be to add more optional dungeons in the level 12~15 range.

I remember reading a design document for Charnok Castle (or whatever, the final dungeon) and the developers expected players to take 8 dives to get Erdrick's Sword. That means if you use a map to go through, you've effectively only gained 1/8th the expected reward.


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Miroku_of_Nite1 posted...

Death/KO.

I wish there were more creative mechanics around this; such as the Critical Marks in the Hiryu no Ken series... or Vanish/Doom :D

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Mead posted...

So your plan is to rely on the UN to do something about human rights abuses

No. Just to complain to them, so we can do nothing together.

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Mead posted...

Do you have a plan?

I didn't know doing nothing required planning... :D

....

First up would be to bitch to the UN, then form a fact-finding mission, and then add sanctions on China, and then wait until the salt piles up

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Let's do nothing about it!

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Mittens is a cute name for a cat... but what animal would you name Gloves?

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Is there a True Crime 5 yet? Assuming Sleeping Dogs 2 exists, that is.

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_AdjI_ posted...

Basically. Grinds are introduced to make games last longer. People enjoy them when they're reasonably done because they do provide a sense of working toward some sort of desirable reward, but ultimately they exist because coming up with dozens of hours of real, unique content is hard.

I've done this write up countless times, but it all dates back to Dragon Quest 1. If you are playing the game as intended, exploring and dying, you will be the right level when you get to the end.

BUT, if you've played the game before and are savvy enough to skip all the dead ends, you'll be a good 4~6 levels SHORT of the game being possible.

The game was designed with your failures in mind, which is why you keep all your XP but only half your gold - so that you are appropriately gatekeep'd based on how you explore.

...

Problem is, every started copying Dragon Quest based on their memories of it and not their first RPG experience with it. People only remember farming Metal Slimes, not searching caves for a useless ring.

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TheWorstPoster posted...

How about the Christmas Shitting Log?

https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/12/feeding-the-poop-log-a-catalan-christmas-tradition.html

No Yule

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Nope. I've only been to one play, one ballet, and the Zelda orchestra twice.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz_W6BOgEXg

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blu posted...

Its a crappy mechanic.

idk why its so utilized in games and so popular.

Funny thing is, it wasn't meant as a mechanic... grinding is a solution to bad design.

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Pringles...

I get pains and illness every time,...

I pretty much just buy them when I want to self harm

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Beans are gross. Meat only

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Kyuubi4269 posted...

https://www.amazon.com/Nona-Lim-Whole-Wheat-Ramen/dp/B01CIF9X34?th=1

Nice, I've never seen that brand before... mostly because I don't buy food from amazon.

But I'll keep an eye out for it in the store now

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But RE4 is already the easiest one (by virtue of having ammo out the wazoo)

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Mead posted...

shut up

Stop hectoring me :p

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As an aside: How come there's no whole-wheat ramen?

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Mead posted...

flat tax

mead out

Given the American position on taxes and charity, a voluntary only tax might be a good thing to try out... I mean, that's what everyone apparently wants anyways

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/23/millionaires-support-a-wealth-tax-as-long-as-they-arent-getting-taxed.html

lulz

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It was ok, but the robotization at the end gave me nightmares for like 2 years when I was a kid

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Is that legit a thing? I mean, I've heard of pickle nightmares... and that's related to vinegar

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Mine's chocolate!

I mean, ehhhh,...

I'm a fan of Armour Break, and any effects that shred defence such as Meltdown (FF8), Expose Weakness (Dota2, but I think it was renamed to Corrode or something), Flask of Ichor (Terraria) and so on

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wolfy42 posted...

Phantasy star online

Ya, I want this on Steam using the Steam servers... where it can live FOREVER

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I forgot to morning 'cuz XMAS sleepin'

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WhiskeyDisk posted...

Turkey doesn't bacon half as well as Bacon bacons, but lamb knows how to burger.

Ever had an Ostrich burger?

Ostrich's are pretty dang calorie efficient (in terms of factory farming) so I wonder why there aren't more Ostrich farms

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A literal VIC 20.. with 20 commodore classics, not necessarily from the VIC proper

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FF Brave Exvius is ... ok, it's SHIT like ALL mobile games!

But at least you have excellent graphics and sound, it really holds the spirit of FF in it... graphically. The sprite-work is excellent and the special events are good.

Like, they did a King's Knight event, that poopy NES game... but they made the event great!

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Ducks are pretty fat, so their bacon might be ok

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It's Britain, why don't they just say something like "you'll be the most intersectionalist by joining!" or "kill people all ALL creeds!"

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_AdjI_ posted...

I've never gotten the hang of Io. I get why he's considered a great support (or at least has been, since I haven't exactly followed the current meta), but he's just never really clicked with me.

I agree, mostly because Io has amazing shot priority so last hitting is fun and easy. They buffed him recently, so try him out again

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I bet ur son uses Tediore

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Y'all know the 2nd ammendment's purpose was to make training draftees easier

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I beat that back in the day, on normal...

...

But ONLY "I wanna be the guy", I haven't played any spinoffs such as Camilla

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But I'm using bacon as a verb

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faramir77 posted...

That's a good question. Bacon doesn't why not tasty other animal bacon.

Y'know what I mean

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Cool.

Will wup ya at any game you like, if you want

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I mean, if you get the fat stacks of beef, it doesn't bacon

Birds don't bacon... but birds ain't go no fat

Not sure if Moose bacons

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Wizard of Oz?

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Santa and God not real

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she's a bot

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Hybrid Heaven is my favourite Christmas video game

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Won too hard on Binding of Isaac

Need harder challenges to bring me down

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Deer are such a strange species - it's like they've evolved to die easy and not sure how that somehow makes it work for them.

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Catgirls are fine, but I'm more into r/lamia

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Maybe this will do better in the morning

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TheWorstPoster posted...

(when the in-game counter was coded by an idiot who can't do math and forgot one)

Oh, did they fix it? I'm stuck at 99% even though everything is destroyed because of such a bug

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Metroidvanias are typically divided into zones and gates, with items connecting them. In a non-metroidvania this is also often the case, with the difference being that in a metroidvania the key items are also movement/combat/etc abilities... we all know this, moving on.

So, lets say you are designing a Metroidvania for the jaded fans who know all the tropes and will break immersion at the drop of a hat. If they see a wall of fire blocking an item or passage, they'll immediately think something like "well, Ima be getting another ice ray... woop de doo". Under normal circumstances this is good level design, you are foreshadowing progress while also adding a mental note of a place to backtrack to.

So, how do we trick such players? What are some good gate designs that can turn foreshadowing on its head?

using the above example, another progress idea could be to flood the entire map... it can be unexpected, and it's certainly a permanent change; the foreshadowing still applies, and new movement possibilities are opened - both beyond the presented gate, but also elsewheres where flooding may have had an impact.

...

One way to solve this problem is to make your game possible to do with 0%, such as the great MV Rabi-Ribi, and to a lesser extent HERO CORE (which requires you get only 1 item). If your level design is competent enough to do with 0%, then jaded players will either enjoy the challenge, or be thrilled with being able to tackle zones in any order, or reverse order, or whatever.

...

ehhhhhhhhhhhh. I might end up rambling if I type more.

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