- In the new Doom and Wolfenstein titles some player/weapon upgrades are unlocked by performing certain actions, such as kill 2 enemies with one shotgun shot. How do you feel about upgrade systems like these?
- Rise of the Tomb Raider, while a good game, has so many mechanics that I feel it detracts for the core experience. What other games suffer from this sort of "mechanical overload" and why?
- The true cost of a game: turning speculation in to hard numbers
- How would a Procedural Exploration Game work?
- Showing gameplay videos is basically pointless in terms of judging it's quality.
- An argument for piracy
- Thoughts on Downloading Indie Games for PS4
- Games forcing cut scenes into fluid gameplay can break games.
- For as much as people love to make fun of Fortnite and its fanbase, it does one thing incredibly right; its microtransaction system
| Posted: 08 Aug 2018 10:34 AM PDT The new Doom and Wolfenstein titles are some of my favorite games of the past several years. I think all 3 games are able to combine great aspects of early 90s shooters with some modern enhancements. One of these enhancements introduced in both franchises is the concept of an upgrade system. In DOOM, most player and weapons upgrades are obtained by finding collectables and/or gaining experience points, however the last upgrade for any weapon modification requires the player to perform a specific task such as kill two enemies with one shotgun blast or kill an enemy with a headshot with a certain weapon. Wolfenstein applies a similar system to its protagonist, increasing your ammo, stealth speed, or health capacity by killing enemies is certain ways. While I love both of these franchises, I absolutely hate this type of upgrade system. Wolfenstein's upgrades can be so arbitrary and miniscule, I often ignore them. Doom's upgrades on the other hand are so immensely powerful, they are pretty much a necessity on higher levels. What I end up doing is just grinding these challenges on weak, zombie type enenies by performing the needed action, killing myself, and repeating. This absolutely kills the break neck pace of Doom, and feels like an unnecessary chore to make the game more enjoyable in the future. I can understand the counterpoint for a system like this. The developers can incentivize you to play the game in an interesting and unorthodox way. They can help to demonstrate some of the strengths of a weapon that you didn't realize. Despite these pluses, I would say I'm firmly against this sort of system in these two franchises. What is your opinion of these types of upgrade systems? If you like progression like this, what games implemented something like this the best? If you don't , what is a better alternative? Is the trade XP for skills system the best we have? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2018 07:57 AM PDT I'm currently playing Rise of the Tomb Raider and for the most part I enjoy it. It has decent gunplay and platforming and looks gorgeous, however I take issue with just how many mechanics are crammed into this game. Crafting, a skill tree, weapon upgrades, equipment upgrades, 5 different kinds of arrows the list goes on and on. To me, these mechanics overcomplicate the game and detract from the experience. In addition to whatever I'm doing, I have to remember what materials I need for crafting, what bonuses my upgraded equipment gives me, or what additional skills I have purchased. I get that it can feel empowering to tune your character to exactly what you want, but I think there is something to be said about a more streamlined approach. What ends up happening is when taking an extended break from gaming, it becomes incredibly tedious to hope back in where you left off. I took a week and a half vacation and after starting up the disc, I was spending 30 minutes relearning all the changes I made to Lara. Are there any games that come to mind with a similar problem to this, and why do you think that is? [link] [comments]  |
| The true cost of a game: turning speculation in to hard numbers Posted: 07 Aug 2018 06:48 AM PDT I'd like to kick off a community project of sorts. The goal: figuring out a rough estimate of what a game actually costs annually to make and maintain, and debunk (or prove) the myth that games have gotten cheaper to make (with adjustments for inflation). So, as we know, games are far more complex to make today than they were just a decade ago. You have more engineers, more departments that didn't exist before. You have departments that have to be fully active year round, like support, community, abuse, finance, HR (I recently learned that proper HR departments are relatively new to most game studios), IT, etc etc. What I'm hoping happens here is that people with hard numbers on what things cost can weigh in with good or anecdotal numbers. [link] [comments]  |
| How would a Procedural Exploration Game work? Posted: 07 Aug 2018 10:04 AM PDT No Man's Sky Next update has come and gone and while it does fix some issue with the game the fundamental question remains unsolved. How can a Procedural Exploration Game work?The terrain generation has gotten pretty good and can be made even more sophisticated. Even things like space nebulas, asteroid belts and other weird stuff like that can be made with a bit of effort and be visually impressive. But it will still ring kind of hallow, it's just a background, you see it and then you leave. And there are still limitations you cannot have a completely unique background every time, it is variation and combination of elements ultimately. So how do you give meaning and function to the procedural generation?The biggest reason Minecraft works is that you are anchored to a base and as you explore the unknown around you in a quest for resources and progress you slowly familiarize yourself and shape it to make it into "your territory". The thing is this kind of exploration isn't the wide spanning kind that explores the whole universe, its much more local. Even if a player explores it is to find a place to build upon creative works, to mark it in their own image. To see how exploration can work I think we should start with simpler terms. Exploration boiled down can be broken up into two basic things, the process or journey and the thing you find. The process is the thing you do to get to the thing you find. It is usually some sort of challenge like combat, detective work or puzzles, here is also where other gameplay elements apply. As you can see in some Walking Sims if the process is "Walk" then even if you have authored content to explore it can get boring. This is especially a problem with No Man's Sky grinding for resource model where every bit of exploration is stopped abruptly by another resource gate. Not the thing you find does not need to be separate from the process, the thing you find can be the next puzzle piece that leads you on. So the questions are: How can you make the process of exploration, the journey interesting?And what exactly are the things you can find?For the first question you can your standard type of gameplay, combat, detective work, puzzles, building and preparation, maybe trading. It can be done in a procedural game pretty easily. For the second question is where things get tricky. What can you find in a space game that is interesting? One obvious thing is resources so how would we make them interesting? They can have a certain amount of rarity and even exclusivity linked to some places, but in a infinite scale gameworld once you find one source you can exploit there is nothing more you need. One idea to go around this is to implement varying parameters for resources like you find in Star Wars Galaxies harvesting nodes. Every solar system would have its own seed in which it would mutate the parameters of the resources in that system. This is interesting from the perspective of crafting and logistics trying to find the best materials in the local neighborhood in which to craft the best products. Especially if moving materials around from one end of the universe to another is cost prohibitive in terms of supplies and logistics. Another things to find is new ships, technologies and devices. But this a pretty easily exhaustible content if it is dependent on what the developer puts out. With the crafting mentioned before you can get very interesting results. One interesting consequence of this is having an encounter with ships that outmatch you and keeping some sectors off limits. You would have to analyze your opponents, adapt or come back when you progress further when you are ready for the challenge. The more you can keep things hidden the more you can have a sense of wonder of what is out there. But ultimately all of this is very utilitarian, things that are useful for your progression. If the exploration is meant for another game like say a 4X Strategy game then that utilitarian view is perfectly serviceable. But if you want to go beyond you need something more, you need history, you need humans. "A true exploration game is user generated."I mentioned in Minecraft that players makes the territory "their own". Every hole they dug, every stone they set is part of the history of that world and it got me thinking. What if players can explore a world where players can find exactly this kind of territories and come to understand the players that built them. To me that is the clearest picture of what an exploration game can be. A shared universe where players can stream their creations. Imagine traveling a battlefield with wreckage of a great battle a player's empire waged against another empire in a 4X style game. Imagine exploring Factorio like bases used as industry in powering a player empire. Imagine insane ships players crafted from resources from specific systems. Finding a particular material in a system and knowing there is a manufacturing base on a planet. The more the players can have creativity agency and tools in marking the world the more you can give depth to things that can be explored. There has been a lot of development in the Survival and Engineering genre so things are looking optimistic. Games like Rust has powerful base creation tools and From the Depths have already shown ways in how to make designs viable. Technology can be partitioned around so that players do not have full access and have to make do with the cards that were given. Sometimes even needing to scavenge for devices that they do not know how to build. [link] [comments]  |
| Showing gameplay videos is basically pointless in terms of judging it's quality. Posted: 08 Aug 2018 08:47 AM PDT I get that people demand gameplay videos and it is fine but ultimately it is impossible to judge quality of gameplay from video, only playing the thing can reveal if it is any good. Think for example Demon Souls, it looks like generic melee focused game from videos with bit janky animation transitions, so would anyone have guessed it has one of the most involving melee combat of all time before release without playing the game? Also I find that gameplay videos are often narrated these days because it is very hard to be innovative these days in a way that is immediately visible from video itself without explanation. In fact i find that gameplay videos can be somewhat harmful, because it puts emphasis on graphics and especially animation and game having animation priority usually makes controls an thus gameplay poorer, for example Euphoria tech in Rockstar games. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Aug 2018 08:08 AM PDT I know, piracy is a controversial topic. Just hear me out When I was younger, my family was going through a tough time. Basically, I couldn't afford any games, but I still had my PC from when times weren't so tough. I argued, the only thing you're really stealing with piracy is a sale. That's the only thing you're actually taking from the company. They're not actually losing anything, other than a potential sale Except, there was no potential sale. I simply didn't have money to buy any games. My argument was, because I can't afford it, there is no potential sale that I'm stealing I'm older, and independant now. I can proudly say I haven't pirated a game in years, as I have an income and can afford them. I have even gone back and bought a lot of the games I once pirated. The argument no longer applies to me. I mean, I cant buy every game I want, but I can buy any game, every once in a while. Several years ago, I could maybe afford two games a year, now I can probably afford 2 new games a month (though I like savings, so I dont buy that much). I know this probably isn't an argument that can stand up in court, but is it a fair moral argument? [link] [comments]  |
| Thoughts on Downloading Indie Games for PS4 Posted: 07 Aug 2018 08:37 AM PDT Hey All. I'm going through a bit of a transitional period in my life, and I think that the way I play games is going to be pretty affected by it also. While I do sincerely love the inclusion of indie titles to the PS4 Library, I also have some concerns if they'll be future proofed or if they'd be locked to the console, especially with the majority of them being digital only. I should also note that a lot of the indies that I enjoy have been 2D side scrollers/ RPGs, so it's safe to say that I understand my preference. I do love the exclusives that Playstation has to offer, but part of me is wondering if, especially with them being only digital, I should shift my indie gaming experience over to a PC. I've never been much of a PC gamer to be honest, and I've never really been too bothered if I was missing out on their exclusives (except for Cuphead, of course). However, with the future of consoles looking ambiguous after the most recent interview with Ubisoft, I'm wondering if I should keep investing in the digital library for Playstation, or if I should I hold out for a low-key gaming PC for my indie gaming experience, and more likely future proofing. Heck, I'd even be cool with playing indies on my MacBook Pro if it could handle them. Even so, I don't plan on getting rid of my PS4 anytime soon, since it was a gift from a close family friend. I'm just thinking if I should space out my gaming options for the digital medium, or if I don't need to worry about the PS Library's future and go all in with the digital purchases. Any input you have on the matter would be most helpful, friends. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Games forcing cut scenes into fluid gameplay can break games. Posted: 07 Aug 2018 08:05 AM PDT I'm going to be using Bioshock Infinite as an example because I love the entire series but I found Bioshock Infinite riddled with bugs and a few game breaking designs. Allow me to preface my complaints with the fact that I'm currently playing in 1999 mode and these apply to other difficulties but don't break the game for easy to hard settings. As you might know in 1999 mode you are charged for revival and if you dont have the money you're sent to the main menu. This isn't an issue if you're good at the game and the game is well made; Bioshock Infinite will deliberately mess you up by forcing cutscenes that are completely unnecessary while you're in the middle of a fire fight and give away your position, distract you from the fluidity of the battle or just fuck you over one way or another. Of course this isn't the only complaint I have about the game, this is just last wave that broke the levee. Here's another bit of Bioshock Infinite's bullshittery. I absolutely did not intend on getting launched into the open and this really put a plug in my play through because I had been saving money for upgrades and not dying. This complaint can be put into any other fluid action game but I don't have any examples off the top of my head, I can only say that I wish games as fluid as bioshock or half life were void of any cutscenes, especially mid action. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2018 02:16 AM PDT Fortnite is understandably controversial on certain parts of the Internet; however, ignoring its gameplay and fans, there is one aspect of the game (specifically the Battle Royale mode, I can't vouch for Save the World) which Epic has executed incredibly well, and that is the pricing/microtransaction model. For those who are unaware, Fortnite: Battle Royale is a free-to-play game, and all in-game microtransactions and purchases are purely cosmetic. There's a wide range of well-made and cleverly-distributed cosmetic content, that allows Epic to easily profit off of a free game just by selling cosmetics with strong marketing. Let's consider that the main industry trends are either to sell free games but have them be overly microtransaction-reliant for gameplay to the point where they're almost unplayable without, or include loads of microtransactions, both gameplay and cosmetic-related, in paid games, sometimes even full-price ones. When people complain about microtransactions in games, these are the trends that they're usually referring to; and they're both deserving of their bad reputation. However, Fortnite manages to completely avoid both of these trends and use a model which is not only obvious, but also benefits players, and benefits Epic due to the massive amount of profit which is being amassed just from selling cosmetics. I'm not trying to imply that this model is new or was created by Epic, but I think it's interesting that it's seeing so much success in such a popular game; in fact, I believe that this model is one of the main reasons for Fortnite's popularity in the first place, for the obvious reasons of it being free and players with money not being able to gain competitive advantages over children whose parents will not buy them in-game items. So then, the question is, why don't more games use this model, or at least keep to the rule of only having cosmetic microtransactions regardless of the game price? Some possible reasoning:
For all of these reasons (and probably more that I missed), do you think this model could hold up if it were used by more games? [link] [comments]  |
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