On Thu, 19 Dec 2024 08:45:23 -0800, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:

Grinding - I'm o.k. with a little bit, especially if I can kill two
birds with one stone, such as in ER where I test out weapons on
albernaics and get souls (money/xp) at the same time.

I've been grinding in games since at least the Temple of Apshai on the
C-64. I am totally ok with this.

Backtracking - don't like it, especially if it's a lot, a little bit is
o.k. I particularly don't like where like in some of the older games
you'd have to go find a key to an area and go back repeatedly.

Yeah, a little bit is ok. A lot starts to get annoying. But I am more
ok with it in MMOs since I expect to be doing a lot of running back
and forth. But in a single player game? It annoys me more quickly.

Open World - if there's not interesting things to do you can stumble
upon, and it gets repetitive boring or like driving through endless
fields I hate this. I feel like Fallout 3 is the only one that did this >fairly well. Possibly ER as there's not a lot repetative, but it's just
too big, really that's the only game I've ever felt was way too big
long, so it doesn't deserve it's own general complaint.

I don't have much of an opinion on this other then I prefer the world
to be made by humans then by programming algorithms. Procedural
generation really sucks in my experience.

Inventory Management and Junk - So much junk and often poor inventory >management in RPGs, pretty much all bethesda games fail on this, BG3 as
well. I don't want to spend my time doing organizational inventory
chores.

I HATE inventory management. I fucking hate it. I've been doing it
since at least the Pool of Radiance on the C-64 and I was already
tired of it then. I love RPGs but inventory management is the worst
part of them for me.

Puzzles - Although I've been seeing better puzzles of late, in the past
you pretty much had to have internet or cheat books to get past some
puzzles in games that use them much.

I am not very good at puzzles so naturally I don't like them. :) More
combat and fewer puzzles will always get my vote.

Easily broken quests - I'm looking at you Fromsoft. The Selvius Quest
for the Magic Scorpion Charm I couldn't complete on either of my
attempts at a mage, and ER especially with it's length and no save
backups (and even if it did often times being broken so far back that
you wouldn't want to play over 20 hours again to fix it.)

This is not really an issue for me. Maybe because I tend to play games
long after they have been fixed.

No save backups - Again Fromsoft, yes you can set up an auto save backup
mod, but in this day and age it should be part of any game, even if it's
only once an hour or something in case something goes horribly wrong >corrupting your game.

I backup my saves in every game I play as I tend to play longer games
and I don't want to lose my progress. I test them in every new game I
play. First, I find out where it is saving. Then back up that save.
Then I delete that save and make sure it is gone in game. Then I put
the save back to make sure it is working again.

Limited character slots - especially RPGS, MMOs, and again Fromsoft. I
want to try a number of different characters and/or builds. I have 4 or
5 backup saves in DS3 with mostly different characters. Why can't I
have more than 10 characters saved?

This has never been an issue for me but your mention of MMOs makes me
think of Lord of the Rings Online. A new account only gets two
character slots I think.

Unnamed/badly organized saves - Fallouts and Cyberpunk are bad with
this, you can't easily change between characters as there's nothing
easily telling you what saves are what.

Maybe this has been an issue for me from time to time but if it has, I
can't remember any specific examples now.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 12/19/2024 8:45 AM, Justisaur wrote:

Or is it just game dev decisions?

Mike S. mentioned a few things in another thread, and I thought it would
be an interesting topic. Or at least an opportunity to rant a lot.

Grinding - I'm o.k. with a little bit, especially if I can kill two
birds with one stone, such as in ER where I test out weapons on
albernaics and get souls (money/xp) at the same time.  If I have to do
it a lot in one spot against the same thing over and over I don't like
it.  Of particular mention would be something like killing silver
knights in DS3 for the blue sentinel's for something like 20 hours.
Though that's probably a bad example as I did that grind by helping kill invaders along the way instead, but many people complain about it, and
now there's not enough people playing to do that.  If it's offline
without chance of getting banned I'm fine with cheating that sort of
thing after I've proven I can do it regularly without loosing anything
but time.  BL 2 had really bad drop tables, and was similar, I ended up cheating to change the % rarity drops there.  I'd rather not cheat and
just have the devs make it reasonable.

I have to admit that a lot of the games I play involve a fair amount of
grind but I don't mind too much as long as I feel like I'm making
progress and the grinding isn't excessive.

Backtracking - don't like it, especially if it's a lot, a little bit is o.k.  I particularly don't like where like in some of the older games
you'd have to go find a key to an area and go back repeatedly.

Like you say, a little, okay. Too much and "meh".

Open World - if there's not interesting things to do you can stumble
upon, and it gets repetitive boring or like driving through endless
fields I hate this. I feel like Fallout 3 is the only one that did this fairly well.  Possibly ER as there's not a lot repetative, but it's just
too big, really that's the only game I've ever felt was way too big
long, so it doesn't deserve it's own general complaint.

Open world is hard to do well apparently. One suspects because it takes
time and money for game makers to FILL all that "open" with something worthwhile.

Inventory Management and Junk - So much junk and often poor inventory management in RPGs, pretty much all bethesda games fail on this, BG3 as well.  I don't want to spend my time doing organizational inventory chores.

Another thing that a lot of developers can't seem to properly balance.
They want to add a little "realism" or challenge but they just can't
seem to hit the sweet spot.

Puzzles - Although I've been seeing better puzzles of late, in the past
you pretty much had to have internet or cheat books to get past some
puzzles in games that use them much.

I'm not a puzzles kind of person. And one sub-set of this that I hate
is when the game forces you into doing parkour. That jump, bounce,
slide over/around/through obstacles for no real reason. THAT will make
me drop a game real quick.

Easily broken quests - I'm looking at you Fromsoft.  The Selvius Quest
for the Magic Scorpion Charm I couldn't complete on either of my
attempts at a mage, and ER especially with it's length and no save
backups (and even if it did often times being broken so far back that
you wouldn't want to play over 20 hours again to fix it.)

I'm not sure that really qualifies as a "game mechanic". Just a bug
they refuse to patch.

No save backups - Again Fromsoft, yes you can set up an auto save backup
mod, but in this day and age it should be part of any game, even if it's
only once an hour or something in case something goes horribly wrong corrupting your game.

"Get gud noob!" Hate that. Just bad design for no reason based on
fantasies of how "good" rogue like games are.

Limited character slots - especially RPGS, MMOs, and again Fromsoft.  I
want to try a number of different characters and/or builds.  I have 4 or
5 backup saves in DS3 with mostly different characters.  Why can't I
have more than 10 characters saved?

Not really an issue for me. I basically stick with one character until
I finish the game.

Unnamed/badly organized saves - Fallouts and Cyberpunk are bad with
this, you can't easily change between characters as there's nothing
easily telling you what saves are what.

One should ALWAYS be able to name a save. Otherwise what's the point of allowing multiple saves?

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 19/12/2024 16:45, Justisaur wrote:

Or is it just game dev decisions?

Mike S. mentioned a few things in another thread, and I thought it would
be an interesting topic. Or at least an opportunity to rant a lot.

Grinding - I'm o.k. with a little bit, especially if I can kill two
birds with one stone, such as in ER where I test out weapons on
albernaics and get souls (money/xp) at the same time.  If I have to do
it a lot in one spot against the same thing over and over I don't like
it.  Of particular mention would be something like killing silver
knights in DS3 for the blue sentinel's for something like 20 hours.
Though that's probably a bad example as I did that grind by helping kill invaders along the way instead, but many people complain about it, and
now there's not enough people playing to do that.  If it's offline
without chance of getting banned I'm fine with cheating that sort of
thing after I've proven I can do it regularly without loosing anything
but time.  BL 2 had really bad drop tables, and was similar, I ended up cheating to change the % rarity drops there.  I'd rather not cheat and
just have the devs make it reasonable.

I really don't like grinding at all and to me character progressions
should be based on organic rewards from just playing the game. It's one
of the reasons I don't even like crafting in games, I have no interest
in wondering around trying to gather ingredients.

A couple of exceptions I can think of which can be considered grinding
are Sunless Sea and Dredge but I think of them more of resource
management games.

Backtracking - don't like it, especially if it's a lot, a little bit is o.k.  I particularly don't like where like in some of the older games
you'd have to go find a key to an area and go back repeatedly.

Open World - if there's not interesting things to do you can stumble
upon, and it gets repetitive boring or like driving through endless
fields I hate this. I feel like Fallout 3 is the only one that did this fairly well.  Possibly ER as there's not a lot repetative, but it's just
too big, really that's the only game I've ever felt was way too big
long, so it doesn't deserve it's own general complaint.

That probably tops my list. I don't want to spend time just wandering
for five minutes where nothing happens. Why not just transport me to
where I need to go. Like you I do make an exception for FO:3/NV as
there's lots of interesting content to just discover.

Inventory Management and Junk - So much junk and often poor inventory management in RPGs, pretty much all bethesda games fail on this, BG3 as well.  I don't want to spend my time doing organizational inventory chores.

I dislike it more for that fact that there is just so much 'junk' to be collected for no other reason than to sell it for cash, I don't see what
it adds to a game besides a chore. Oh a bastard sword, I add it to the
other twenty I have. Torchlight II had this neat idea of having a dog
companion that you could load up with loot and then sometime later it
would return having sold it for you.

Puzzles - Although I've been seeing better puzzles of late, in the past
you pretty much had to have internet or cheat books to get past some
puzzles in games that use them much.

Yeh, it kinda depends on getting the balance right between being
pointless and 'forcing' you to go to google. OF course puzzle games are
an exception to that.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> writes:

Grinding

Thinking of Horizon Forbidden West here, grinding for animal parts to
max out my ammo pouches. Machine parts for other upgrades, usually armor
I think. I hated that but the completionist in me made me do it
anyway. To some extent, some upgrades were so much work I just didn't
bother.

But it was tedious as heck and also buggy and weird. Especially the
fishing. Apparently Aloy swims like a fish since that's the only way to
fish underwater. You catch up to a fish and get a prompt to grab the
fish and then get a random fish part for your trouble. Repeat ad
nauseam, especially as the fish just randomly disappear too. At least
the game gives hints where specific machines or animals might spawn.

So, generally not a huge fan but will do some for reward.

Inventory Management and Junk - So much junk and often poor inventory management in RPGs, pretty much all bethesda games fail on this, BG3
as well. I don't want to spend my time doing organizational inventory chores.

Yah, not a fan of the Bethesda flavor of inventory in Fallout 4 and
London inherits that. The categories they have are OK (weapons/apparel/aid/misc/junk). But the game wants to handle some
categories in different ways. I'm just in an annoying situation in Fallout:London. I can't disassemble random bits of leather or clothing
to get plain leather or cloth to use as raw material, unless I take over
a settlement and use the base building UI. Leather armor though,
I just need an armor workbench.

Other kind of inventory, what to keep and what to leave behind? Yes,
it's annoying to figure out where I can leave stuff that'll be needed
later. Or having to hoof it back and forth to get a few more guns or
ammo clips to the new area I can't return from... It's annoying. Star
Trek Elite Force got it right, you could just dematerialize anything you
didn't need at the moment into a transporter buffer. Then again, it
didn't have a lot of stuff anyways, a few different energy weapons and a tricorder maybe.

Puzzles - Although I've been seeing better puzzles of late, in the
past you pretty much had to have internet or cheat books to get past
some puzzles in games that use them much.

I'm game. As long as I don't have to do another "towers of Hanoi" ever
again. Or have to think up really weird solutions to obvious puzzles. I recently played the old adventure Rex Nebular and in one of the puzzles
all you need to do is put an audio tape in a tape player. Except you
can't *unless* you pick up the player first and it looks like a big old
ghetto blaster so I'd rather leave it on the table... To confuse the
issue the game actually has two other tape players but those you can't
have. So I was stuck there.

OTOH, I quite enjoyed the chess puzzle in the System Shock
remake. Although once I read how simple the algorithm the game uses is,
it's a little embarrassing I screwed up so many times... It's also a
pretty good puzzle in that you can't easily cheat. I guess you could put
the situation on the board to some chess engine and get help or even a
solution but that's actually some learning curve too for someone who
doesn't play chess.

I didn't really like the "Pipe Mania" style puzzles that are more common
in System Shock. Can't really complain, there aren't that many. Except
one time one seemed impossible and another time there was a lighting
issue that made one really hard.

Some other maybe unlikeable gameplay features that came to mind:

* Legendary weapons/gear that's really powerful?
Ridiculous immersion breaking crap or useful to break up the tedium
inevitable in a long game?

For example, I just picked up an "instigating service rifle" in
Fallout:London. Double damage if target has full health. With my stealth
build I expect to be using this for a lot of deadly headshots. So, a fun
thing and considering I get damage buffs from other skills too, it
doesn't break my immersion any more than the game mechanics already do.

Borderlands 3 also had a couple of extremely powerful weapons (drops
from the "Miami Vice" event thing) and it's been a bit of a staple in
the series, e.g. the Hellfire SMG and the corrosive revolvers in
the original game.


* Passing gear from one character to another?

To me this is a cool idea but I've almost never used it in practice. In
a way, the different gear you get in different playthroughs shapes that particular playthrough.

* Needing a specific skill to do a simple thing?

Fallout 4 example again, need to have "scrapper" skill to, for example,
get screws when disassembling a weapon. Um, why exactly? Without this
skill you can't figure out a screwdriver, only a hammer? Or maybe just a
rock? Even if your INT stat is 8?

I guess this generalizes to something like "your player character can't
do things that most people can do without specific training". Knee high railings you can't get over, impenetrable hedges, portable ladders you
can't move or climb. In some other games, weapon classes. Can't even
equip a weapon if you don't have a specific weapon skill. I guess
there's been more of this sort of thing in more traditional RPGs.

* Enemies that drop random loot instead of the thing they were just
killing you with?

Hate that.

* Enemies that drop a nerfed version of the weapon they were just
killing you with?

Hate that too.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thu, 19 Dec 2024 08:45:23 -0800, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Justisaur wrote:

Or is it just game dev decisions?

Mike S. mentioned a few things in another thread, and I thought it would
be an interesting topic. Or at least an opportunity to rant a lot.

Grinding - I'm o.k. with a little bit, especially if I can kill two
birds with one stone, such as in ER where I test out weapons on
albernaics and get souls (money/xp) at the same time. If I have to do
it a lot in one spot against the same thing over and over I don't like
it. Of particular mention would be something like killing silver
knights in DS3 for the blue sentinel's for something like 20 hours.
Though that's probably a bad example as I did that grind by helping kill >invaders along the way instead, but many people complain about it, and
now there's not enough people playing to do that. If it's offline
without chance of getting banned I'm fine with cheating that sort of
thing after I've proven I can do it regularly without loosing anything
but time. BL 2 had really bad drop tables, and was similar, I ended up >cheating to change the % rarity drops there. I'd rather not cheat and
just have the devs make it reasonable.

I generally enjoy grinding, but I have to be in the mood. Especially
grinding for drops. It's like playing the slots. If a game has bad drops,
then I stop grinding. BL2 had that funny talking shotgun and all was
forgiven.

Backtracking - don't like it, especially if it's a lot, a little bit is
o.k. I particularly don't like where like in some of the older games
you'd have to go find a key to an area and go back repeatedly.

See below for my tales of woe.

Open World - if there's not interesting things to do you can stumble
upon, and it gets repetitive boring or like driving through endless
fields I hate this. I feel like Fallout 3 is the only one that did this >fairly well. Possibly ER as there's not a lot repetative, but it's just
too big, really that's the only game I've ever felt was way too big
long, so it doesn't deserve it's own general complaint.

If handcrafted, I'm fine with this. It's just when it's procedurally
generated. Then it kinda sucks. Except in the original Elite, where they
had no choice due to disk space and it seemed uber cool at the time.

[snip]

Easily broken quests - I'm looking at you Fromsoft. The Selvius Quest
for the Magic Scorpion Charm I couldn't complete on either of my
attempts at a mage, and ER especially with it's length and no save
backups (and even if it did often times being broken so far back that
you wouldn't want to play over 20 hours again to fix it.)

Let's just call this one "bugs." It's not a game mechanic, _per se_, and
they are always unwelcome. If gamestopping, they are intolerable.

[snip]

- - -

My biggest pet peeve:

ESCORT QUESTS. Omg escort quests. Keep this dumb bastard alive. Then he/she/they charge out into enemy fire, with the worst AI and pathfinding
ever, and it becomes a chore just to manage all the aggro they're
drawing, let alone protect them. Maybe keep a low profile and _follow_,
not lead dumbass. Maybe don't get stuck jogging against that rock like
you're running a no-log macro.

What's worse? _Hidden_ escort quests. That's where you have to keep
someone alive and you don't even know it's a thing.

Most recently for me, BG3 did this. If you want to play any of the Jaheira/Minsc material, you have to keep Jaheira alive at the battle of Moonrise Towers. Unfortunately, she immediately wild shapes and charges
into combat like she's on a suicide mission.*

First time I played it, she died. I couldn't even find her amongst the
corpses in fact. And for some unholy reason you *can't raise NPCs,* even important ones. If she's part of your party? Sure. Go ahead and use that
reviv scroll. But she doesn't become available to the party until _after_
this battle.

I asked a friend if I just screwed myself out of content, he said "yes."
I had to backload an old save after several more hours of play. Once I
knew, "Hey it's an escort quest; keep Jaheira alive," it was not hard to structure the battle in a way that did so. All they had to do was make
Jaheira not permadead in that case. Instead, escort quest.


The rest of the list...

Save checkpoints instead of "save wherever you like." Thank you consoles
who needed to save as a bunch of binary flags due to storage needs.

Respawn, or at least overzealous respawn, especially if there's a lot of
travel on the map. Far Cry 2, I'm looking at you.

Game extending crap. Example: backtrack over the entire map finding
hidden items that suddenly reveal themselves in the endgame. Not worth
the hours of rehash. Metroid: Prime, step up and be recognized.**

Any dialog mechanism that isn't a dialog tree of some kind. ES4:
Oblivion, wth is this? (On that note, silent protags. It doesn't break my immersion to not hear my own voice. It's just weird.)***

Monster closets or wave spawns. I scout for a reason folks, it's not
novel or fun to have something just show up out of thin air. Don't
neutralize sound tactics with cheese.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08) `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
* There are whole Reddit threads about her incredible recklessness. She
has no value for her own life, and for some reason, the devs decided to
put her in with _that_ as her strat. Google "suicide Jaheira."

** I actually quit playing M:P outright because the backtracking included non-trivial Ghost Chozo respawns every time you reentered particular
central rooms. I am not very spatially aware and had to reenter these
nexus rooms all the time, disoriented and confused. While non-trivial,
they were surefire wins, so there was no point to it other than to mess
up the player. Like spinning someone three times before they get to pin
the tail on the donkey. I probably missed a battle with Ridley. Whatever.

*** As a bonus, BG2 allowed you to make custom voice files, and I voice
acted all my character's chatter dialog, which was super kewl.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Fri, 20 Dec 2024 06:53:33 -0800, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Justisaur wrote:

On 12/20/2024 4:05 AM, JAB wrote:

On 19/12/2024 16:45, Justisaur wrote:

Or is it just game dev decisions?

Mike S. mentioned a few things in another thread, and I thought it
would be an interesting topic. Or at least an opportunity to rant a lot. >>>
Grinding - I'm o.k. with a little bit, especially if I can kill two
birds with one stone, such as in ER where I test out weapons on
albernaics and get souls (money/xp) at the same time.  If I have to do
it a lot in one spot against the same thing over and over I don't like
it.  Of particular mention would be something like killing silver
knights in DS3 for the blue sentinel's for something like 20 hours.
Though that's probably a bad example as I did that grind by helping
kill invaders along the way instead, but many people complain about
it, and now there's not enough people playing to do that.  If it's
offline without chance of getting banned I'm fine with cheating that
sort of thing after I've proven I can do it regularly without loosing
anything but time.  BL 2 had really bad drop tables, and was similar,
I ended up cheating to change the % rarity drops there.  I'd rather
not cheat and just have the devs make it reasonable.

I really don't like grinding at all and to me character progressions
should be based on organic rewards from just playing the game. It's one
of the reasons I don't even like crafting in games, I have no interest
in wondering around trying to gather ingredients.

Oof, crafting. Yeah that's another thing I usually don't like. There's
some games where it's pretty limited and it works. Or just the game is
about crafting like Minecraft.

Yeah. I blocked that out due to trauma. I absolutely *hate* crafting. Especially absurd crafting. I don't play survival games where you take a
stick and a rock and make an axe with it. Or a metal bar and a crystal
and make a laser gun.

Only crafting I ever did was weapon mods in FO:4. I completely avoided
the base-building, which is also a mechanic I hate. So no tower defense
games either.

Also... cards. No cards, including anything that can be described as "deckbuilding." Not even Pazaak. If I want to play cards, I have my own.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote in news:ajndmjpg8i8lddt1q0oof7feuv217cbvoe@
4ax.com:

My biggest pet peeve:

ESCORT QUESTS. Omg escort quests. Keep this dumb bastard alive. Then he/she/they charge out into enemy fire, with the worst AI and pathfinding ever, and it becomes a chore just to manage all the aggro they're
drawing, let alone protect them. Maybe keep a low profile and _follow_,
not lead dumbass. Maybe don't get stuck jogging against that rock like
you're running a no-log macro.

Right with you there. I have loathed escort quests ever since the first Wing Commander
game (1990).

mpn.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> wrote:

I remember one mission I could not do in Wing Commander because the
damn guy I needed to protect from the Kilrathi kept dying. I thought
that was the second game though but after reading your post I am now >wondering if it was the first game and I am thinking of the exact same >mission you are.

There was probably an escort mission like that in both games, but I
also remember having trouble with an escort mission in the original
Wing Commander. Fortunately someone posted a strategy for beating that
mission here on Usenet. The trick was to break off from dogfighting
when you heard the ship you're supposed to attack come under fire and
go to its defence.

It was then I realized I was playing the game in realistic mode as I
didn't have a sound card then and so couldn't hear anything. Just like
you'd expect in the vacuum of space.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 17:17:44 -0000 (UTC), in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Mark P. Nelson wrote:

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> wrote in news:ajndmjpg8i8lddt1q0oof7feuv217cbvoe@
4ax.com:

My biggest pet peeve:

ESCORT QUESTS. Omg escort quests. Keep this dumb bastard alive. Then
he/she/they charge out into enemy fire, with the worst AI and pathfinding
ever, and it becomes a chore just to manage all the aggro they're
drawing, let alone protect them. Maybe keep a low profile and _follow_,
not lead dumbass. Maybe don't get stuck jogging against that rock like
you're running a no-log macro.

Right with you there. I have loathed escort quests ever since the first Wing Commander
game (1990).

mpn.

Oh god. I had completely forgotten how bad it is in space sims. X-Wing
1993, Rogue Squadron (not a sim), Descent: Freespace. OMG so bad.

Usually due to lack of feedback from your charge. Like, get on the radio
and tell us "Under fire! Request assistance! Mayday!" Give me a fucking
heading for incoming attackers. Something ffs. I don't care how annoying
it gets; SA is just hell in those games.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 17:45:45 -0000 (UTC), in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Ross Ridge wrote:

Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> wrote:

I remember one mission I could not do in Wing Commander because the
damn guy I needed to protect from the Kilrathi kept dying. I thought
that was the second game though but after reading your post I am now >>wondering if it was the first game and I am thinking of the exact same >>mission you are.

There was probably an escort mission like that in both games, but I
also remember having trouble with an escort mission in the original
Wing Commander. Fortunately someone posted a strategy for beating that >mission here on Usenet. The trick was to break off from dogfighting
when you heard the ship you're supposed to attack come under fire and
go to its defence.

It was then I realized I was playing the game in realistic mode as I
didn't have a sound card then and so couldn't hear anything. Just like
you'd expect in the vacuum of space.

This is where coms traffic might come in handy, but you wouldn't have
heard that either. Realistic mode has working coms though.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

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On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 17:17:44 -0000 (UTC), "Mark P. Nelson" <markpnelson@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Right with you there. I have loathed escort quests ever since the first Wing Commander
game (1990).

mpn.

I remember one mission I could not do in Wing Commander because the
damn guy I needed to protect from the Kilrathi kept dying. I thought
that was the second game though but after reading your post I am now
wondering if it was the first game and I am thinking of the exact same
mission you are.

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On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 12:24:22 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Mike
S. wrote:

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 17:17:44 -0000 (UTC), "Mark P. Nelson" ><markpnelson@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Right with you there. I have loathed escort quests ever since the first Wing Commander
game (1990).

mpn.

I remember one mission I could not do in Wing Commander because the
damn guy I needed to protect from the Kilrathi kept dying. I thought
that was the second game though but after reading your post I am now >wondering if it was the first game and I am thinking of the exact same >mission you are.

Since we've opened up space sims, I'll add one more: Closing distance.
There's a mission in Rogue Leader (GC) where you spend like 10-15 minutes closing, then it turns into a furball. Fail? Another 15 minutes drifting through space, another furball, probably fail; another 15 minutes. Rinse. Repeat.

Why would anyone design a mission this way? It isn't even a "mechanic,"
it's just aggravating level design. It is realistic, I'll give them that.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

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Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote at 16:45 this Thursday (GMT):

Or is it just game dev decisions?

Mike S. mentioned a few things in another thread, and I thought it would
be an interesting topic. Or at least an opportunity to rant a lot.

Grinding - I'm o.k. with a little bit, especially if I can kill two
birds with one stone, such as in ER where I test out weapons on
albernaics and get souls (money/xp) at the same time. If I have to do
it a lot in one spot against the same thing over and over I don't like
it. Of particular mention would be something like killing silver
knights in DS3 for the blue sentinel's for something like 20 hours.
Though that's probably a bad example as I did that grind by helping kill invaders along the way instead, but many people complain about it, and
now there's not enough people playing to do that. If it's offline
without chance of getting banned I'm fine with cheating that sort of
thing after I've proven I can do it regularly without loosing anything
but time. BL 2 had really bad drop tables, and was similar, I ended up cheating to change the % rarity drops there. I'd rather not cheat and
just have the devs make it reasonable.

Backtracking - don't like it, especially if it's a lot, a little bit is
o.k. I particularly don't like where like in some of the older games
you'd have to go find a key to an area and go back repeatedly.

Open World - if there's not interesting things to do you can stumble
upon, and it gets repetitive boring or like driving through endless
fields I hate this. I feel like Fallout 3 is the only one that did this fairly well. Possibly ER as there's not a lot repetative, but it's just
too big, really that's the only game I've ever felt was way too big
long, so it doesn't deserve it's own general complaint.

Inventory Management and Junk - So much junk and often poor inventory management in RPGs, pretty much all bethesda games fail on this, BG3 as
well. I don't want to spend my time doing organizational inventory
chores.

Puzzles - Although I've been seeing better puzzles of late, in the past
you pretty much had to have internet or cheat books to get past some
puzzles in games that use them much.

Easily broken quests - I'm looking at you Fromsoft. The Selvius Quest
for the Magic Scorpion Charm I couldn't complete on either of my
attempts at a mage, and ER especially with it's length and no save
backups (and even if it did often times being broken so far back that
you wouldn't want to play over 20 hours again to fix it.)

No save backups - Again Fromsoft, yes you can set up an auto save backup
mod, but in this day and age it should be part of any game, even if it's
only once an hour or something in case something goes horribly wrong corrupting your game.

Limited character slots - especially RPGS, MMOs, and again Fromsoft. I
want to try a number of different characters and/or builds. I have 4 or
5 backup saves in DS3 with mostly different characters. Why can't I
have more than 10 characters saved?

Unnamed/badly organized saves - Fallouts and Cyberpunk are bad with
this, you can't easily change between characters as there's nothing
easily telling you what saves are what.

Beginners traps/not explaining stuff is the WORST.
The worst one that comes to mind is TF2, with its almost nonexistant
tutorial. Rocket jumping especially is so annoying bc its such an
integral part to soldier, and the only way you'd know it EXISTS without
relying on the community is a single weapon that does 0 damage. Also the
MannCo store is a complete ripoff.
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

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On 20/12/2024 14:53, Justisaur wrote:

I really don't like grinding at all and to me character progressions
should be based on organic rewards from just playing the game. It's
one of the reasons I don't even like crafting in games, I have no
interest in wondering around trying to gather ingredients.

Oof, crafting.  Yeah that's another thing I usually don't like.  There's some games where it's pretty limited and it works.  Or just the game is about crafting like Minecraft.

That's basically my view but I feel the problem comes when it's been
added not because it's a positive for the game experience but instead
just used as cheap filler so the game is longer.

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On Sun, 22 Dec 2024 10:39:54 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Here's another:

First-person platforming and jumping. Because it's never fun.

I instantly thought of System Shock 2 when you are in the Body of the
Many. The Rickenbacker wasn't much better.

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On Sun, 22 Dec 2024 12:15:14 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Those god-damned gnashing teeth!!! Argh!

Exactly.

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Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> looked up from reading the entrails of
the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs say:

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 12:24:22 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Mike
S. wrote:

On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 17:17:44 -0000 (UTC), "Mark P. Nelson" >><markpnelson@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Right with you there. I have loathed escort quests ever since the first Wing Commander
game (1990).

mpn.

I remember one mission I could not do in Wing Commander because the
damn guy I needed to protect from the Kilrathi kept dying. I thought
that was the second game though but after reading your post I am now >>wondering if it was the first game and I am thinking of the exact same >>mission you are.

Since we've opened up space sims, I'll add one more: Closing distance. >There's a mission in Rogue Leader (GC) where you spend like 10-15 minutes >closing, then it turns into a furball. Fail? Another 15 minutes drifting >through space, another furball, probably fail; another 15 minutes. Rinse. >Repeat.

Why would anyone design a mission this way? It isn't even a "mechanic,"
it's just aggravating level design. It is realistic, I'll give them that.

To take up your time and so they can claim 100 hours of gameplay, even
though it's really only 10-15hrs with massive amounts of repeats.

Like one of the Indy games where the savepoint was before a lengthy
cutscene and the action started immediately after as you jumped and whip
jumped over chasms while chased by a tank.

Fall, fail, reload, 5 min cutscene, 30 seconds of jumping, fall, reload....repeat ad nauseam.

Xocyll

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On Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:42:24 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

This is the only mechanic that you mentioned that I have much of a
problem with. The other things can be anoying at times, but none bother
me as much as puzzles. I don't like puzzle games and I don't like when
they get added to RPGs and FPSs. In particular I'm sick and tired of
that that lever puzzle where pulling one lever causes two other levers
to go back up.

LOL! I am imagining you pulling one lever and hearing two more nearby
click back up and then you saying, 'ok, what the fuck just
happened?!?'

I can't speak for FPS games but in RPGs puzzles can get annoying
really fast. Levers, pressure plates, buttons, spinners, darkness
squares, no magic zones and illusionary walls. Did I forget any? I
probably did. They are bad enough on their own... but combine them...
ugh.

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Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:

Puzzles - Although I've been seeing better puzzles of late, in the past
you pretty much had to have internet or cheat books to get past some
puzzles in games that use them much.

This is the only mechanic that you mentioned that I have much of a
problem with. The other things can be anoying at times, but none bother
me as much as puzzles. I don't like puzzle games and I don't like when
they get added to RPGs and FPSs. In particular I'm sick and tired of
that that lever puzzle where pulling one lever causes two other levers
to go back up.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

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On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 17:23:49 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

Well, I consider things like spinners, darkness and no magic squares
more like traps than puzzles. They were meant to cause you to get lost
by make mapping the dungeon much harder, but weren't really something
you could solve.

Fair enough but I do think of these traps as puzzles because you need
to figure them out to get through them without messing up your map at
the same time. Doing so, is to me, a solve of a sorts.

For instance, I could not (and would not) do this at some point in
Bard's Tale 2 so I gave up. The game through multiple different kinds
of traps at me at the same time. I never 'solved' that 'puzzle'. I
just couldn't get through it without getting totally disoriented.

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Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> wrote:

LOL! I am imagining you pulling one lever and hearing two more nearby
click back up and then you saying, 'ok, what the fuck just
happened?!?'

The first time I encountered this puzzle I probably didn't have a
soundcard, but I do remember wondering for a bit about why this lever I
had already pulled down was now back up. Even when I figured out what was going on I couldn't solve the puzzle and gave up on it and went to bed.
The next day I was able to solve it somehow, but I really hated these
puzzles for the longest time. I think the last time I encountered one
it didn't take long to solve by just randonmly pulling levers until I
found the correct order, so I've gotten better at them at least.

I can't speak for FPS games but in RPGs puzzles can get annoying
really fast. Levers, pressure plates, buttons, spinners, darkness
squares, no magic zones and illusionary walls. Did I forget any? I
probably did. They are bad enough on their own... but combine them...
ugh.

Well, I consider things like spinners, darkness and no magic squares
more like traps than puzzles. They were meant to cause you to get lost
by make mapping the dungeon much harder, but weren't really something
you could solve.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca:11068/
db //

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On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 12:51:57 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

- Really, any movement puzle where you have to time your way past
traps (spikes moving in and out of the floor, flame spurts, giant saw
blades in the wall)

Your list is good but I like this one the most. I should have thought
of it. It made me immediately think of a game called Anvil of Dawn
where you had to make sure you never got hit by rolling boulders. :)
So you had to time your way in and out of corridors to avoid them.

Your post also had me thinking of this a bit more, and I have another.

Teleporters in older RPGs.

They aren't bad usually. BUT if the game does not play a sound effect
when you teleport and you teleport to a square where the walls are in
the same position, you will probably have no idea you were just
teleported.

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On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 12:54:38 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

For instance, I could not (and would not) do this at some point in
Bard's Tale 2 so I gave up. The game through multiple different kinds
of traps at me at the same time. I never 'solved' that 'puzzle'. I
just couldn't get through it without getting totally disoriented.

The game *threw* multiple different kinds of traps at me...

Ugh.

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On 12/30/2024 10:07 AM, Mike S. wrote:

On Mon, 30 Dec 2024 12:51:57 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

- Really, any movement puzle where you have to time your way past
traps (spikes moving in and out of the floor, flame spurts, giant saw
blades in the wall)

Your list is good but I like this one the most. I should have thought
of it. It made me immediately think of a game called Anvil of Dawn
where you had to make sure you never got hit by rolling boulders. :)
So you had to time your way in and out of corridors to avoid them.

Your post also had me thinking of this a bit more, and I have another.

Teleporters in older RPGs.

They aren't bad usually. BUT if the game does not play a sound effect
when you teleport and you teleport to a square where the walls are in
the same position, you will probably have no idea you were just
teleported.

ALL the developers of the "old school" RPGs for some reason had it stuck
in their minds that there ABSOLUTELY HAD to be puzzles and traps that
were one micron short of impossible to solve. I really don't understand
what the point of it was and why they felt every single *censored* game
had to be that way.

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

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On 12/30/2024 9:51 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 23 Dec 2024 11:09:12 -0500, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

On Mon, 23 Dec 2024 15:42:24 -0000 (UTC), rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:

This is the only mechanic that you mentioned that I have much of a
problem with. The other things can be anoying at times, but none bother >>> me as much as puzzles. I don't like puzzle games and I don't like when
they get added to RPGs and FPSs. In particular I'm sick and tired of
that that lever puzzle where pulling one lever causes two other levers
to go back up.

LOL! I am imagining you pulling one lever and hearing two more nearby
click back up and then you saying, 'ok, what the fuck just
happened?!?'

I can't speak for FPS games but in RPGs puzzles can get annoying
really fast. Levers, pressure plates, buttons, spinners, darkness
squares, no magic zones and illusionary walls. Did I forget any? I
probably did. They are bad enough on their own... but combine them...
ugh.

Let's see, here's a few more of the top of my head.

- Jumping puzzles. Especially jumping puzzles with moving platforms.
(Yes, I'm looking at you, Ultima 8!)

- That inevitable knight and knave puzzle ("One always lies, one
always tells the truth") that _will_ show up in the game eventually.

- Any fucking 'trick' boss who is completely invulnerable except to
that One Special Thing or in that One (usually bright orange) Spot. Especially if it's not explained in the lore but is Just Because to
make the fight more difficult

- The Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade 'step on only the right stones' movement puzzle

- Really, any movement puzle where you have to time your way past
traps (spikes moving in and out of the floor, flame spurts, giant saw
blades in the wall)

- "I am a weak goblin but still the only way you can pass me by is if
you do a long and annoying quest to find the item I want" bit (also
works for a flimsy wooden door that should collapse if you so much as
sneeze upon it but still can't be bypassed without the all-precious
key needed to unlock it)

- It was mentioned before, but a god damned escort quest. Bonus
spitefulness points if the escortee moves slowly and dies in one hit.

Worse is when the escortee moves faster than you, is suicidally
aggressive and dies in one hit.

- Any 'puzzle' which requires you to have done something outside the
dungeon (or otherwise unconnected to the current quest) to progress
(e.g., if you didn't ask Bob the Baker about mushroom soup, then for
some reason the magic mushroom doesn't appear in the dungeon

I probably could go on. ;-)

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

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Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> writes:

My biggest pet peeve:

ESCORT QUESTS. Omg escort quests. Keep this dumb bastard alive. Then he/she/they charge out into enemy fire, with the worst AI and pathfinding ever, and it becomes a chore just to manage all the aggro they're
drawing, let alone protect them. Maybe keep a low profile and _follow_,
not lead dumbass. Maybe don't get stuck jogging against that rock like
you're running a no-log macro.

I remember one game which did it right but can't remember the name. Kind
of a stab at a PC version of the Amiga classic "Warhead" but with
horrendous live action video and the game seemed unfinished. Oh,
wikipedia tells me it was "XF5700 Mantis Experimental Fighter". The
escort missions went like this: mission starts, you engage autopilot,
mission ends. Best escort missions ever :)

The rest of the list...

Save checkpoints instead of "save wherever you like." Thank you consoles
who needed to save as a bunch of binary flags due to storage needs.

I don't mind if they aren't too far apart.

Respawn, or at least overzealous respawn, especially if there's a lot of travel on the map. Far Cry 2, I'm looking at you.

Yah, not a fan.

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On Thu, 02 Jan 2025 09:59:24 -0500, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action,
Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:40:17 +0200, Anssi Saari ><anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com> writes:

My biggest pet peeve:

ESCORT QUESTS. Omg escort quests. Keep this dumb bastard alive. Then
he/she/they charge out into enemy fire, with the worst AI and pathfinding >>> ever, and it becomes a chore just to manage all the aggro they're
drawing, let alone protect them. Maybe keep a low profile and _follow_,
not lead dumbass. Maybe don't get stuck jogging against that rock like
you're running a no-log macro.

I remember one game which did it right but can't remember the name. Kind
of a stab at a PC version of the Amiga classic "Warhead" but with >>horrendous live action video and the game seemed unfinished. Oh,
wikipedia tells me it was "XF5700 Mantis Experimental Fighter". The
escort missions went like this: mission starts, you engage autopilot, >>mission ends. Best escort missions ever :)

Heh. Finally somebody else familiar with XF5700 Mantis. Truly a
horrific game. Even after thirty years, it remains my top pick for
worst voice acting in a game.

(The gameplay wasn't much better either. But the intro was pretty
neat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIdUhRNZXRQ )

That is a deep, deep cut. I'm surprised. I had no idea what either of you
are talking about.

--
Zag

This is csipg.rpg - reality is off topic. ...G. Quinn ('08)

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