What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Pyro]

You should be able to FS humans and other things if you nail the "weakness" even without Min damage, but...

VERY IMPORTANT COLLARY TO NIU's SUGGESTION:

Don't forget to take the Min Damage skill off for bosses, as you can't remove skills in the middle of a fight <_<

[Captain K.]

Dragonball Z has a devoutly-loyal fanbase. Does that excuse its writing from being terribly designed AND executed? People will like shit, that doesn't change the fact that it's badly designed.

To be fair, the Dragonball manga is pretty good, and has things like actual pacing.  It's when they try to drag it out into a million episodes for animation that things go to hell.  See also: Naruto filler episodes.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If you don't like level-grinding, fine - Disgaea's not for you. It's not bad game design, it's just pandering to its devoutly-loyal fanbase.

-Djinn

Dragonball Z has a devoutly-loyal fanbase. Does that excuse its writing from being terribly designed AND executed? People will like shit, that doesn't change the fact that it's badly designed.

You missed the point of my post. I wasn't saying 'Disgaea has fans, therefore it is good', I was saying 'Disgaea does level-grinding well'. If you want to call level-grinding itself innately bad game design, that's your choice. But there's going to be disagreements over what kinds of gameplay styles are 'fun' and which are not.

Also, you're comparing writing and gameplay as if they are measured on the same kind of scale, which really isn't the case...

-Djinn

I don't really see why I can't measure them on the same scale, since that's what I do. More or less: how unique it is versus how tedious it is.

[superaielman]

XF: Haven't advanced the plot any (Just past Rupert 1). I have done some investing in new gear, which is very shiny. Game's picked up with the second round of classes, though I can't wait for the third set.

[Sierra]

Disgaea 3: Beaten. I fully approve of the last-minute recruits. The final, though? Sad, sad, sad. Looks good on paper, but spent most of his turns on worthless standard physicals (~450 damage. That struggles to 3HKO my archer. What the hell? The feeb's ATK is over two thousand. He should be one-shotting people). After two full-party combos, all it took was a poke to finish him off. Pathetic. He did have some good techs, just didn't like using them for some reason (the first form, oddly, had no such problem). Will have to go back and grab some numbers for those. I intend to stat-topic the game, actually (it's for the greater good--I mean, is anyone else likely to play this in the near future?)

Game as a whole is pretty standard N1 fare. Mao and the plot surrounding him is mostly Laharl redux (with less charm--Mao is staggeringly obtuse in the later chapters, and it's quite clearly deliberate on his part), with Almaz and Beryl varying shades of Flonne/Etna. Villain's a total wanker with laughably dumb motives, but hey, so was Zenon, and at least this guy meets a truly fitting end. Beryl's probably the standout member of the cast to me--however much she might emulate human behavior just to be a rebel, it's clear on many occasions that her and her flunkies don't quite get the essence of what it is they're mimicing.

Not sure if I'll bother with the aftergame right now. Finishing HL2 comes next. (Well, and D3 stat-topicing. I kept saves for all two of the plot-relevant bosses).

[Dark Holy Elf]

MM9 - Beat without using E-tanks, among other pointless challenges. Wily's a lot of fun.

[Cotigo]

ToE- Fuck Finality Deadend.

You know Reid's final Aurora Arte is designed specifically for you to counter that, right?  Just hit Square/Circle/X at the start of the attack and it won't go off.

[Grefter]

Fun does not equate to good design.  Things that are fun as they are can be improved by better design.  Level grind endless treadmilling can be fun.  Everquest sold.  It doesn't mean anything about design.  Time sinks and treadmills are not a subjective thing for what makes good design.  They are lazy design and nothing more than "There is a shiny at the end, press A for 50 minutes and get the shiny".

Calling implementing yet another kind of grind to an N1 game and calling it an improvement in design is like the ultimate in cynical gameplay design.  As is thinking of it as adding gameplay value by sheer number of man hours.  It completely throws the Time : Reward ratio completely out of whack if it is just another numbers grind for the sake of a numbers grind (Remember we are talking about a MANA Grind here, not even unlocking stuff, just getting Mana to be able to do your OTHER grinding to unlock the scenes).  You get extra grind you have to do without any extra one of those 15 second plot scenes that you grind to be able to get to.

You end up with games that push how much pointless grind can you shovel in to make people waste time without having to generate new content.

I mean a Mana grind just like item world.  Hey it is a whole new kind of grind where you don't have to make anything new, just copy in the Item World random level generator, hey presto, instant content.  That is fucking disgusting design.  It is as bad as some of the dodgier MMO grinds around there (I am thinking paralells between Transmigrating and losing all your Mana which you use to buy skills and adding sockets/scrolls/whatever it was that Sopko was doing to his helmet in Maple around the time of DL Con.  Adding more stuff to the item makes you more powerful, but it has an inherent chance to break and destroy your item.  Both have a kick in the nuts, go back to start for minor power upgrade elements).

Edit - Oh yeah Disgaea 2 gave you experience for other actions besides killing things (Healing only maybe?  Buffs as well, but not for normal attacks I think).  This was a good start.  While this should have really highlighted how bad the design in Disgaea 1 was or the standard N1 fair even was, it instead just gets taken as an "Oh this is a nice improvement" instead of damning of the previous bullshit.

Edit 2 - Missed a 2 in the above statement

[Cmdr_King]

You know Reid's final Aurora Arte is designed specifically for you to counter that, right?  Just hit Square/Circle/X at the start of the attack and it won't go off.

Yeah.  It, uh, didn't work for me.  I dunno if I hit it too late, didn't hold it down enough, or what.  Did end up beating her anyway because Nurse was animating when she died and it preempted the attack, oddly, so that's cool.

[superaielman]

Oh yeah. Dhyer, do you know exactly how Legaia Maya's physicals work? Uno claims they're based off of STR but not completely walled by either Velna fight.

[Hunter Sopko]

some of the dodgier MMO grinds around there (I am thinking paralells between Transmigrating and losing all your Mana which you use to buy skills and adding sockets/scrolls/whatever it was that Sopko was doing to his helmet in Maple around the time of DL Con.  Adding more stuff to the item makes you more powerful, but it has an inherent chance to break and destroy your item.  Both have a kick in the nuts, go back to start for minor power upgrade elements).

To be fair, I was kinda cheating in that I was getting free scrolls and free replacement helmets from the group I was in. Plus, not all scrolls in the game have a chance of breaking the item, those were just the only ones availible for that item/stat at the time. The ones that break it also have a higher chance of working to offset the risk.

Plus a +18 dex jump in equips isn't a minor upgrade in Maple at any level.

[Monkeyfinger]

Fun does not equate to good design.

The entire point of a game is to be fun. Anything that furthers that end is, by definition, good design.

Yes there are objective, technical aspects to designing a game, but they're a means to an end, not something to be judged on their own set of criteria to determine how good the game is.

[Cotigo]

The thing is, fun is entirely subjective.  A well designed game won't always be fun, and a badly designed game won't always be not fun, depending on the person playing it.  Saying something is a means to an end is pointless when that end is almost entirely based on whoever is playing it.

For instance, I find both Disgaea and Kingdom of Loathing incredible amounts of fun.  However, the former has obvious issues which have been discussed, and the latter, after your first playthrough, is the same game over and over again only slightly different (until you get a character good enough to be allowed into Hobolopolis by some clan or another).  I cannot justify either of these games on a gameplay level, and yet I enjoy both very much on that level.  Both are very much games that rely on their humor and writing yet replaying either I still find enjoyable even though there's no justification for it.

Saying that fun is the end to which all design are the means to it is shortsighted in that it ignores that sometimes people irrationally like crap.

[Grefter]

Can anyone ever seriously say they have played a game where their response was that the game had great design but it just wasn't fun?  Like seriously, ever?  The only times I have ever seen people bitch about design improving is in MMOs where they are being streamlined so cut out some of the bullshit grind and people piss and moan about how others won't have to go through the same bullshit as them out of some misguided sense of entitlement.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I have. People who have massive hard-ons for Nintendo Hard can be very entirely stupid.

[Grefter]

Nintendo Hard can be a design choice in and of itself, if that is your goal then you have good design.  Of course there are a large number of Nintendo Hard games that are just bad though...  and yeah I guess I was discounting the ADOMs and IWTBTGs with that statement (Milage varies).

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Can anyone ever seriously say they have played a game where their response was that the game had great design but it just wasn't fun?  Like seriously, ever?  The only times I have ever seen people bitch about design improving is in MMOs where they are being streamlined so cut out some of the bullshit grind and people piss and moan about how others won't have to go through the same bullshit as them out of some misguided sense of entitlement.

The SMAC clone mod that comes packaged with Civ4: BtS is very well designed. It's simply not fun because it's overly-designed. Too much stuff to do, when compared to the relatively low-hanging fruit that is a particular victory condition (thanks to the way Civ4 tech trees work).

[Grefter]

A significantly easier victory condition than others to get is kind of blah.  Sounds like a single piece of bad design sticking out like a sore thumb.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Overlimits themselves are better.  They carry over between battles (I don't think they did that in TotA?) AND seem to raise quicker than in TotA, but the OLs are shared, so while you're getting up 4 in TotA, you're only getting up 1 in ToV. 

OLs carry over between battles in TotA. And in ToS they had one "OL meter" shared by the whole party. Both of which raised very slowly. ToS characters go into OL mode based on a lot of different factors (what food they eat, how much damage they/other party members take/deal, a few other things I forget) and it is nearly impossible to go into OL mode during the span of one battle as a result. The shared meter is for big comboing Team Attacks and builds up like a normal limit-style meter.

-Djinn

[Captain K.]

Pearl:  Battle Tower streak of 75.

Azelf@Focus Sash
Psychic/Flamethrower/U-Turn/Nasty Plot

Garchomp@Choice Scarf
Outrage/Earthquake/Fire Fang/Crunch

Registeel@Leftovers
Metal Claw/Curse/Amnesia/Rest

Lost to extreme Brightpowder hax.  At least I know my team is fairly viable.  There were only two close calls prior to the loss.  First was a Miltank with the surprisingly effective set of Curse/Milk Drink/Earthquake/Return.  Second was a Rhyperior who missed two Horn Drills against Registeel while Regi hit the 10% attack boost from Metal Claw and finished it off.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

A significantly easier victory condition than others to get is kind of blah.  Sounds like a single piece of bad design sticking out like a sore thumb.

Well, the real problem is that the AI gets it too, so it limits your options for victory conditions on higher difficulty levels too (since the AI will be comparative in tech to you on a higher seting). Other than that, a great official mod, but the amount of crap you need to do, combined with the amount of time you get before SOMEONE wins, cuts down on what you can do.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Legaia 2 - Beaten! Wow, that was the epitome of cotton-candy, only not with the sexy design of Mana Khemia. I guess it was okay. 6/10? That area.

[Excal]

A slight change was made to my FF3 line up, replacing my Magus with Arc: Sage.  This led to a quick run to get a second copy of Raise, Curaga and Curaja so that he would have some use, as well as Titan and Ifrit because they're useful (though Titan didn't make the cut.  Mediocre MT damage in the final dungeon loses out to Raise, Lv3 Cure and Lv3 Elemental blasting).  Decided against another Eureka run, though if I lose to Dark Cloud, one will be in the future in order to get a second Araise as well as more Shurikens.  As it stands, between the shurikens given to you and the legendaries I have no use for, the Ninja should have no shortage of sharp pointy things to throw.

At present, in the Dark World, having bested Cerberus and one of the Ribbon chests.  Enjoying the fact that the final series of dungeons just generally has really awesome music.

[Niu]

Villain's a total wanker with laughably dumb motives

You somewhat miss the point.

[Magic Fanatic]

BvS Update:  Wil just got a second Sevens Trophy (while going for the three character themes, never got 'em) while Opposites Attract was on AND a Fox Rune out of a set of 4 Ash Covered Runes (yay for Spice and Wolf being available!).  First alt recently got Loyal Sacrifice and the Kage's using him to bash in the face of a whole lot of other villages so Godaiyou can get more shinies (yay A-team and Regalia?).  Second alt just recently got Vanilla before failing - 24/25 successes needed on Math Problem (I only have 1M XP, so I'm trying to save for the Ramen instead of getting Nightfall).

Perfect World: good god this game is addicting.  Why?

IaMP: failing it up with Meiling still.  Youmu continues to give me fits.

Other games: I forget they exist.  Repeatedly.