/v/ - Video Games

Permanently missable things is almost always shit game design. Even missables that aren't permanent are a damn pain if the game pulls the rug under your feet. Such as when you're exploring a cave or such and there's a split, and there is zero indication of which is the dead end with treasure and which is the one that progresses the story and takes you far away from the area. That's why I stopped playing FF6 a whole bunch of years ago. Explored a cave, picked the wrong path because there was no indication whatsoever which was the story-progressing one, and got whisked away against my will. I was in no mood for that bullshit so I simply closed it and never looked back. Don't fucking punish the player for wanting to explore.

>>16269634

>Certain Stray Beads become inaccessible after progressing too far into the game

Like what? I don't remember that.

I don't mind missable stuff if it isn't some collectible or a useful item but otherwise yeah fuck it. There's no excuse for that shit.

>>16269634

>not keeping multiple saves

Regardless, its a major draw back to long JRPGs.

I always like to compare Okami to Platinum games' games.

Platinum has gone in the entire opposite direction of Okami in game stages.

Many of their more recent games have chapter selects, which helps eliminate the issue of missing side content, but it completely eliminates any and all side questing, and that really disappoints me.

Glory Kills in nuDoom

>here's a mechanic that rewards you with extra health if you press F near a staggered enemy

>it encourages you to stay close to enemies instead of being a sniping little bitch

<but it puts the gameplay on hold while the canned animation plays as control is taken away from you, so it mildly kills your flow even if it plays out very fast

<staying close to enemies is supposed to be more risky, but while performing a Glory Kill you are made invincible and all enemies can't do any new attacks during, so there's no risk in the actual execution of this where you dangerously stay fixed in one place for extra health

<but at the same time enemies can reposition while you are Glory Killing because you can't see what's happening around you because the camera is zoomed in on the poor sod you're brutalizing while the background is blurred and the sounds of enemies around you are muted, so by the time your invincibility frames wear off you have no idea where all the enemies have gone to as you get hit by a fireball for 50 DMG while you're still trying to reassess the situation

<in fact, slow projectiles which were fired before you started a Glory Kill can hit you and damage you just as you end a Glory Kill

<is the risk in this case then simply staying close or performing the actual execution? because id sure went out of their way to make performing it as safe as possible, yet it still gets you very easily killed on Nightmare because of the aforementioned issues, in fact ultra-nightmare runners says they always never Glory Kill because the rewards are shit

<if you are on full health, Glory Killed enemies drop only +5HP, which is fucking peanuts on Nightmare and not worth the effort, so why wouldn't you just shoot staggered demons to death

<Glory Killed enemies drop extra health if you are at lower health, but enemies which are simply killed the normal way if you are at low health will also drop some bonus health to help you up, so what's the point of Glory Killing for health then

<you could Glory Kill to save ammo, but ammo is never a problem beyond the first level because lol 50% global ammo refill with the chainsaw

<if Glory Killing only gets you killed on higher difficulties and the rewards are often negligible, why the fuck would you ever do it

>>16269780

It's astounding how poorly designed that game is compared to a mod made by a single huezillian edgelord. If it weren't for that pesky brain drain it would be universally seen as an embarrassment.

>>16269743

Could've been Okamiden instead, some areas become blocked off or inaccessible without the right partner, who seem to come about and leave whenever they want. Both games are filled with "What, why?" moments and honestly don't seem as polished. Like the overabundance of fetch quests or asked to be somewhere extremely specific at an extremely specific time.

Speaking of which, why do some games insist on escort missions? Do some believe to be mandatory or is simply easy to program and shit out?

>>16269767

Except in the case that some games keep your progress confined to one save file. That's another odd design decision I'm glad some have done away with.

>>16269826

I recall Okami having lots of save slots.

>>16269826

They do it because other people did it. Developers are more interested in being "in" with one another than actually making something someone wants to play. This is why it takes people like Blizzard and Bethesda years to add in basic UI features into their games that people had to resort to modding in for over a decade up to that point.

>>16269831

That's why I stated "in the case of some games." Even then, it can be a pain to progress too far and then have to figure out which save file would allow you to get what you want and then have to thread through what you've already completed. It's sort of ironic considering a lot of game I've seen with the option for multiple save points are a chore to play or are just exhausting to play overall.

>>16269634

Look for Final Fantasy 8, 13 and 15. The whole games are shitty designed from start to finish. They have enough material to make a whole thread about them.

wtf

Extremely rare random drops that you only have a single chance to obtain per playthrough since the enemy that drops said extremely rare items spawns only once, for example Black Witch Domino Mask and Old Mirrah Greatsword in Dark Souls 2

>>16270019

Drop rates in general are just fucking stupid. It only even begins to make sense in MMOs and even then I'd imagine there's still better ways to do it.

>>16270019

>Dark Souls 2

DS2 wasn't questionable game design, it was outright intentionally objectionable gameplay design.

4 mechs in Battletech

>>16270019

Bonfire ascetics

>>16269780

>canned animations for chainsaw

>chainsaw only has like 3 uses

>shadow warrior 2 instead offers a full locomotion chainsaw that can slice pieces off in any way and came out sooner

Biggest disappointment in that game.

>>16270316

What now?

>>16270612

Never got into Halo, but the second one in your second image is probably the best designed of the 4. Then again, they basically modeled Cortana after Lena Dunham, so…

Let's consider RNG. Do you all consider it a legitimate form of fluid challenge dynamic that forces the player to actively adapt to ever-changing situations, or is it a cheap mechanic that throws curveballs at players in such a way that they can never really prepare for, preventing them from being able to maximize and fully profit off preparation and nullifying any skill the player may have?

>>16270675

Yes

>>16270675

RNG can effect so many completely innocuous things that blaming it directly is retarded and I hate speedrunners for turning it into a colloquialism for unpredictability in general. For example the direction and speed coins pop out of a killed enemy or broken block in Mario 64 is determined by RNG yet you'd be hard pressed to see anyone complain about it.

>>16270690

They did it because Brutal Doom did. That one sentence might as well be the entire design doc.

>>16270675

As i said in >>16270638 RNG is fine in my book.Its just that games seem increasingly keen on BULLSHIT RNG that doesn't benefit the game in any way except in giving streamers/youtubers an excuse to overreact on camera.

Much of the same happens with grinding, even in the cases with no monetization games put fucking grinding everywhere to pad out the game-time from that one play-through streamers/yt are going to do on release/major patch.Looking at you Darkest Dungeon.

>>16270743

The kind of people who like NuDoom likely never even played Brutal Doom, or at least not any time recently because it outclasses it in every conceivable facet. It really does seem like the kind of game designed specifically for memespouting secondary scum.

>>16270743

are you afraid to place blame on the ones who are doing it on purpose you coward?

>>16270638

The game is based on the addictive effect of gambling, it's doing exactly what's designed to do, the devs just won't tell you about it

>>16270698

Yeah but their implementation of it is somehow worse, the health you get for not executing them when your health is low which is greater then Glory Killing and on top of that there is virtually no variety so it's a mercy those animations are so short.

>>16270779

Meanwhile the early versions of Brutal Doom from like 2012 before NuDoom was even announced had alternate melee modes to bypass the cinematic kills. What a joke.

>>16270786

youre defending the actions of corporations

>>16269634

Literally everything about Bioshock 1 minus the setting.

>>16270803

Taking advantage of retards is perfectly fine. Retards being retards isn't.

Starforce 3's subcard system. If you've ever played Battle Network, then imagine what would happen if your chips randomly became locked for a few turns, and the only way you can use them without waiting is to convert the chip into something like Rockcube or Panelout. Up to all of your current chips except one can locked at any time.

At least the game had the best real-world -> wave riding transitions.

>>16270823

youd make the same decisions then

Crafting in Freedom Wars is a textbook case of retarded design decisions in an otherwise solid game.

>crafting even mid tier weapons requires materials unattainable until post game content

>game autosaves when you set something to craft, forcing you to have to back up your save on PC or GoodGoy+ if things go south

>every weapon has a low and high end value for base damage

>the weaker it starts, the better it will be in the long run

>said "late bloomer" weapons are absurdly rare

>also, slots for upgrades are completely random

>a great late bloomer can come with 0 slots

>if gaming gods bless you with late bloomer with lots of slots, adding upgrades is completely random every time

>you can get weapon with 5-6 great upgrades, risk getting a 7th, and have all upgrades become trash

I was actually enjoying the game until the point I tried out crafting. I've played one of the most retardedly pay to win MMOs on the market, and crafting in that game didn't have as many layers of RNG as Freedom Wars. I say this whenever I mention FW, but it's the first game I've ever played where a single aspect managed to ruin the entire experience.

>>16270868

Don't forget

>F2P-tier real time timers on crafted items

FW is one of those games where great gameplay was held back by bad mechanics in every other part of the game. I absolutely hated having to suffer through mandatory stealth missions in a game not built for stealth in order to get back to shooting giant robots.

Anyway, to discuss something relevant to the topic at hand, I'll bring up the inclusion of "no-damage" categories in certain games. I've been playing Copy Kitty recently, and although I'm having a lot of fun with it, I doubt I'll return to many levels to replay them chasing the star which comes with a no-damage (or minimal-damage) clear.

Mostly my reluctance stems from the game's design, where every level is filled with hordes of enemy robots you're meant to trash for a high score and so as to give the player easier access to various weapon elements to combine (since the entire gimmick is being able to combine enemy attributes and make dozens of different guns).

The runoff effect of this, sadly, is that many levels are messes of enemies, many of whom shoot projectiles that glow just as brightly as yours and which are lost in the game's obscene explosions just as easily. Half the time I get hit in this game is because I didn't realize there was even a projectile coming towards me.

Looking at Copy Kitty as a whole, it's clear the devs are just enthusiastic about their game and want to include as much stuff as possible for as much replayability as possible. I respect this, and I think the game is improved for having these challenges, but they really should have thought about whether or not this kind of challenge would mesh well with the mechanics, because it really doesn't. It demands such a different, frankly kind of unfun pace from the game that I only do it on very predictable bosses and levels with a clear optimal path.

For a visual reference, consider embed related around 1:05, where even casual play during an early level can easily fill the screen with garbage.

It's a very good game, and I've had a lot of fun playing it (paid $20 for it and the OST, which is also excellent), but mechanics like this do show that it's an amateur effort from untrained developers. If there had been some kind of shield mechanic that broke after a certain amount of daamge and never recharged, then I could see something like this working better.

>>16270893

I still like how in FF10 overkilling an enemy or killing it a certain way could could increase the amount of a certain item dropping. More games need to do that.

>>16270612

The one good thing at least with their redesign in 4 is that they feel and sound like they're 7-9 ft tall aliens that can kill you with a kick to the chest as the Sangheili are supposed to be. The scaliness, lack of armor, and other brute aspects they transferred over is dumb though.

>>16269735

>Spend two hours redoing the cave to get the item in question

>It's a High Potion

>>16270916

>Optional challenge requires to play very differently

>No damage runs require you to be methodical and cautious

I was under the impression that was the point.

>>16270916

But the fact that its unfair is what makes it a worthy challenge.

Its not for you to have fun with unless you consider mastering the game to true perfection fun.

It would just not be the same if you had a shield and only had mastered the game to "perfection"

>>16269780

Because the game is designed for Normal difficulty. Where keeping topped up on HP by getting the 5HP pickups from it is worth your time. In laymans: It's for casuals

Ys Memories of Celceta, the fast travel system

>Game lets you teleport to save/heal points you've discovered

>Save points have different colors and shapes depending where you are.

>You can only teleport to similar colored/shaped save points from a save point

>game is made in such a way that in order to go from the first town to the first village, you have to

<Go outside of the town and run for 20 seconds to the red save point

<Teleport to the last red save point outside of the first camp

<Run through two screens to the blue save point

<Teleport to the blue save point closest to the river crossing

<Cross the river and then run for 20 seconds down a slope to the first dungeon's entrance, which holds the a green save point

<teleport to the green save point which is located at the entrance of the first village

I should add that this is a game where leveling up occurs at a snails pace and normal enemies are capable of one-three shotting you, and your party AI is retarded and will most likely be at 1 hp if you don't have it set to evasive, but if you have it set to evasive they don't level up their skills.

Also while I'm on the subject of the later Ys games, Flash Guard and Flash move

>give the player two ways to completely avoid enemy attacks that do not take resources and have very large and easy windows to execute

>One speeds up player animations while slowing down enemy animations, while keeping them invincible for ~1 second

>The other gives the player crits for ~1 second

>In a trilogy where bosses have lots of health

>In a trilogy where bosses are designed around these mechanics so that all of their attacks are super slow, super telegraphed, short range attacks that either force you to avoid them using flash guard/move or step out of range and wait for five seconds until they attack

>In a trilogy(to be fair, Ys 8 is far less shitty about this and you can tank things more often) where you are very susceptible to getting one shot by bosses

>In a trilogy where boss ranged attacks are either

<(Seven) large, multi hitbox tracking tornadoes that can only be avoided by flash guarding for 8 decades

<(Celceta/Dana) highly damaging exploding meteors that deal damage over time and are almost always preceded by a long 5-10 second charging animation

What the fuck is Falcom thinking?

>>16269780

It's a mechanic handled much better in Ninja Gaiden 2/3 RE.

>Cutting off an enemy's limbs makes them go into full kamikaze mode because they realize they're already fucked. Now they'll start trying to grab onto you to deal insane damage. Some enemies will throw body parts at you if they're near some.

>Pressing Y near them instantly kills injured enemies. Most enemies make it so you can throw a shuriken at them to stun them for a sec so you can safely approach them.

>Insti-kills give you invincibility frames so you can get some breathing room from the shitstorm.

>Corpses spawn orbs which you can use to instantly charge your Ultimate Technique.

>>16269735

IIRC in FF6 you can actually revisit those cave levels much later in the game and if you didn't open the chests early on you get more powerful items this time around. If you did open the chests they're still empty when you return.

>>16272014

Whoever invented this mechanic should be thrown at a pack of rabid dogs.

>>16272025

IIRC you end up revisiting those cave levels for plot reasons.

>>16272040

I was talking about the chests. Chrono Trigger and FFXII also do something similar.

>>16270638

>gameplay is just slot machine every 30 seconds with some stupid animation inbetween

Idea was bad from the start. Why anyone would play it?

>>16272025

>>16269735

Alternatively, you could not get assblasted at an item which wouldn't have mattered anyway because FF is not a difficult franchise and enjoyed the other 99% of what was probably an enjoyable game.

>>16270638

It's literally a card game you clown. The synergy keywords are suits and the individual heroes are the face value.

>>16272101

It's a retarded, pointless mechanics that adds nothing to the game and actively discourages players from exploring.

There's probably other examples, but one thing that I disliked A LOT in MGS 5 was having to wait actual, real world time for shit to complete.

I can understand it for the missions you send your troops in for balancing, but there is absolutely no reason why I should have to wait for upgrades and research to be complete. It adds absolutely nothing to the game and makes it feel like on of those shitty farmville clone apps that were all the rage like 10 years ago.

This shit was sorta excusable for Peace Walker because it was a handheld game originally, but it has no reason for being included in a PC/console game.

>>16272114

Yes, all games have flaws. Ultimately, though, when you consider that they are optional items which usually do not add content to the game, I do not find it to be a flaw worth ragequitting a game I otherwise enjoy. Sometimes you are an obstacle to your own enjoyment.

>>16272051

Yes in Black Omen and the sealed chests. The sealed chests in particular you have to go to the 600 AD version, charge it, and not open it, and then in 1000 AD you get a stronger item (and then you can go back to 600 AD for the weaker item too).

I think the only case where you might really want the weaker item over the stronger item (aside from wanting more resist gear for your party) is with Marle's Siren bow that turns into a Valkyrie bow. The Valk bow does higher damage and has a doubled crit rate, but the Valk bow does no inflict a status effect while the Siren bow inflicts Stop.

>>16270432

SW2 was also the better game.

>>16272220

>WHAT WHERE THEY THINKING?

>I wonder if we can sell same game twice if we just tint it a bit differently

>>16272220

director's cut looks better

boss fights in director's cut are better as well

>>16272220

>HR comes out

>Everyone complains about the piss filter

>HRDX comes out

>People complain it no longer has the yellow filter

The best option would be to give players the abilty to adjust the color of the light filter, as well as not have the light filter on

>For what purpose?

Because if you miss it, it's not the end of the world.

>Is it supposed to incentivize me to replay the game?

Nope, you're just not smart enough to get it.

>Why should I be forced to go after certain objectives or otherwise have the threat of having them taken away?

forced to get an optional item, interesting perspective. Why are you threatened over not getting something in a video game?

>it seems odd to block off players from content in any way

It's not, sometimes you get things, sometimes you don't. No need to cry about it.

>>16272368

>Because if you miss it, it's not the end of the world.

In some games if you miss shit then you can't get the best ending

>>16272398

Good.

>>16270019

I love metroidvanias, but I admit drops are a bother even if they are not rare because of the RNG in drop rates.

My dream solution to the problem was always defeating the enemy in a creative but logical way in order to obtain said item. If you are fighting a chicken looking enemy and kill it with a fire based attack you'll get roasted chicken or similar stuff like that.

Even forging is a better solution for drop rates if enemies drop materials, but even then is kinda shallow and grindy.

>>16270767

Action rpg where you need to grind level, there's no more enemies locking out the best part of the game, making said game a boring mess since the character moves slowly outside of battle.

>>16270880

>>16270868

Is this shit Korean? Sounds Korean.

>>16270638

There are people that are consistently better at this game than others, so saying it's "all RNG" is retarded.

>>16272149

Peacewalker upgrades didn't actually take real time, at least in the HD version. The time for them would only advance when you went and did a mission.

>>16272893

It may not be all RNG, but it sucks when you do everything right, manage risk, and capitalize on opportunities only to get fucked by a series of bad rolls you can't change. Never played this DOTA chess garbage but there are many games where RNG will fuck you in the ass without warning. The good ones let you mitigate it or have a backup plan in case shit goes bad.

>>16272634

>If you are fighting a chicken looking enemy and kill it with a fire based attack you'll get roasted chicken or similar stuff like that.

This is a system in Etrian Odyssey. "Conditional Drops" can only be acquired by killing enemies in specific ways, or while they're afflicted by specific statuses.

>>16272946

>but it sucks when you do everything right, manage risk, and capitalize on opportunities only to get fucked by a series of bad rolls you can't change.

But at that point you are just complaining about the nature of card games.

>The good ones let you mitigate it or have a backup plan in case shit goes bad.

Auto chess does that better than the mtg-clones at least. Especially if you get fucked at the start you can start abusing lose streak gold.

>>16272975

>>16272893

Your game is trash.

FF2

>enter battle with low level monster

>attack your teammates instead of the monster

>have your healer heal your team back up

>keep attacking and healing yourself

>do this until you're out of MP

>finish off low level monster

Everyone's attack power, HP, defense, magic, etc increases! Yay! Do this a handful of times and you'll be overpowered the rest of the game.

>>16272979

>FF2 IS BROKEN

And water is wet, thanks for your insight we were unbeknownst to.

>>16270652

>People being shocked by fucking Argon Vile of all people

Come on, he's tame as fuck

>>16272220

I've only ever played the DC.

>The game was piss easy, even doing a non-lethal play through on the hardest difficulty

>Boss fights were ass, completely breaking the pace of the game

>The DLC being crammed in the middle was strange and messed with story pacing

Is the non DC any better? It was a decent game overall, a lot of potential wasted by the issues above

>>16272999

>>16272979

To be fair, it wasn't like they had a lot of experience with making those sorts of games at the time. I imagine they were just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck, it was sort of the point of those early FF titles.

>>16273058

I never encountered any bugs or crashes, and it ran pretty well on my toaster

>>16273015

>>16273058

>havent tried out the DLC but it is seperate from the main game

>>The DLC being crammed in the middle was strange and messed with story pacing

The fact that you keep all the praxis points and items you get during the former-DLC part just makes the game even more of a joke.

>>16272963

Oh, yeah, like killing that mantis binded. I think I got the idea frfrom there. It helped that most drops were also guaranteed.

>>16272051

In FFXII if you opened basically the first "chest" you came in contact with in the game, you can't get the best weapon in the game, it's locked. And even getting the weapon is a random chance drop in a room full of ton of chests (although you can come back and try again until drop).

How could anyone know that the first time, or any time until someone released a guide for it?

>>16273328

Ah, someone else remembers Loki.

The company that made it (which I think later made the Styx games) only made Cyclist Simulators before and it shows.

It was full of bad design choices and didn't seem well thought out. But I still absolutely loved the art direction. The models of the enemies and the levels all looked amazing. Too bad they just repeated over and over.

>>16272318

Since killing the mercs is unavoidable even for a pacifist I just upgrade the Typhoon and F2 to skip boss fight. If they didn't put any effort into it, neither will I.

>>16273333 (checked)

On the note of Vanquish

>have melee attacks overheat your suit

<melee attacks are rarely every worth the risk of overheating as you can generally only punch one enemy with a melee attack, or you could use the entirety of your energy bar to more easily headshot several enemies in slow-mo while powersliding to somewhere safe

<weird ass reverse upgrade system where you upgrade weapons by NOT using them because weapons upgrade only if you pick up the same weapon when you're at full ammo for that weapon, which means you shouldn't shoot weapons ever if you want to upgrade them unless you find a rare weapon upgrade point

<the contents of a weapon box are always random because ???

<reload canceling completely nulllifies the reload time on all weapons to the point where there's no good reason for reloading to be in the game at all

<cigar smokes can only be activated in cover

<suit automatically going into slow-mo and draining energy to the point of overheating when you reach critical health means that on higher difficulties you can sometimes overheat twice in a row before your health finishes regenerating

>>16273303

You get really lucky. I knew about it too begun with, but the chests you aren't supposed to open have acertain je ne sais quois about them and I was able to get zodiac only knowing that there were certain chests that shouldn't be opened. XII has mountains of bullshit like that though. Read up in how chest rng works if you want an aneurysm. You have to manipulate rng to get anything that's good.

>>16274148

>>16273303

The real kicker is the spear isn't even that good.

>>MMOs with content separated by levels.

MMOs should be encouraging people to play together, as a group or just as two people in the same vicinity.

>>16275529

>try MMO with a friend

>make characters, both same race

>fuck you, here's a personal dungeon thing you have to play solo for the first 15 minutes

>get done with it

>finally in the overworld

>fuck you, the server population is arbitrarily divided into separate instances because retards on the forums get triggered when seeing more than 3 other people outside of a capital city

Has any other genre strayed so far from its initial concept? They're hardly massive, just barely multiplayer and only forcibly online at this point.

>Certain Stray Beads become inaccessible after progressing too far into the game

Thats ficking bullshit

You can get every single bead before the last boss, every dungeon can be reentered and none of then is locked

>>16276266

There are some things you can't reenter, like that one dungeon you have to shrink to into. I don't think this prevents you from getting anything important, but from experience I can say that it definitely does prevent you from getting all the bestiary entries.

>>16270612

>someone gave the elites fucking hunter feet

I can't fap to this!

fromsoft's tracking, hitboxes, and grab attacks

>>16277904

Fap to your own death.

>>16269634

Last one was nearly impossible on the wii. Most frustrating thing in a game

>>16269634

Had the same issue playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Enter the city and decide to do the main quest. Only one day passes according to the story but suddenly the other quests are no longer available in the span of one day.

>>16270623

I hated in Dark Cloud 1 were you were basically FUCKED up the arse if you didn't rotate characters and grind them by the final dungeon were they seal off rooms that only certain characters could use.

I basically had to cheese it and run through the levels as fast as I could.

>>16276246

Surely you were somehow able to force yourself into the same zone as him.

>>16270638

DotA autochess has fucking nothing on Warcraft 3's Soul Chess map.

>>16276905

Also hate when the AI doesn't attack much but auto blocks 99% of your fucking attacks, which seems to be the default behavior in Mugen when people aren't just making assrape machines

>>16274010

>weird ass reverse upgrade system where you upgrade weapons by NOT using them because weapons upgrade only if you pick up the same weapon when you're at full ammo for that weapon, which means you shouldn't shoot weapons ever if you want to upgrade them unless you find a rare weapon upgrade point

It has been a very very long time since I played Vanquish but there was an exploit for that, it was something like: you drop the weapon you have that you want to upgrade, you pick up the weapon you would have upgraded it with, this weapon has full ammo so you pick up the weapon you dropped and now you have the upgrade.

>>16271413

>>16271440

For posterity's sake, I wanted to clarify that there is actually an option to reduce the visual clutter of explosions and hitsparks, which makes the games MUCH more visually appealing. I'm having much more fun with it now, even when I get stuck on a level.

>>16279385

Spellforce has a lot of questionable decisions in it. For example: the spell that instant kills enemies is based on their total hit points, not a percentage. This means, if you power level into dark magic, and with some luck, you get a spell which can instant kill large numbers of orc mages at once when you first get it, but quickly becomes useless because of another issue the game has. The other issue is that the leveling of your units is outpaced by the enemy, which means you will almost always be not only outnumbered, but out powered as well. You don't get many situations where a large number of enemies get below that threshold at once, and since you want to focus down enemies, single target spells end up being more useful. The idea being that your hero unit, which is fucking strong, will make up the difference via things like necromancy, offensive spells, buffs/debuffs, being a near unkillable tank, or abilities that just heal everything around them.

However, there are more! Despite all this, magic can be resisted to no-sell it completely. This isn't bad on its own, but when you are a mage, you need those spells to go through unless you are a necromancer or using that build that reflects damage as that bypasses resistance checks. Magic resistance gets pretty high as the game goes on. Auras are not actual auras but auto-cast spells that drain the fuck out of your magic in crowded situations. So you need to either focus on auras to buff/debuff or cast your fuck off huge spells. Not a game breaker if it weren't for the sheer number and how weak your units are compared to the enemies around halfway through the game.

>orcs

Are you talking about multiplayer or single player, because in single player your units are way weaker, level wise, compared to the enemy at the point in the campaign when you get them. That, in case you haven't noticed, is one of the single biggest design flaws in the game, and I think part of why they started separating out the RTS and RPG portions of the game in the sequels.

>>16269634

> Not so much about flaws, but otherwise confusing inclusions which could be argued in both ways.

Darksiders 3: Stronk Whipmyn edition. The only way to avoid damage is to dodge. 9/10ths of your dodge animation allows you to get hit by an attack, and the end of the animation also leaves you vulnerable for half a moment. Fights against groups were broken for this reason, and the complaints about it so common that they had to increase the I-frames, but that still 1) didn't remove the actual problem and 2) proved nobody actually did serious playtesting.

I pirated it, so no harm to foul I guess, but how the fuck could you make such a shitty decision? Some defended it using rationale involving tensions, keeping on your toes, "all you want is button mashing to win," etc.

>>16286237

It has to be better than Darksiders 2 having no invincibility frames on your roll, enemies having high homing on their attacks, and every third roll being slightly longer but having huge end lag if you do them rapidly.

>>16286262

It's written right there, can't you read?

>>16286328

nigga i dont speak moonrunes i only masturbate to them

>>16286302

>>canonically dies anyway

but she shows up in MD.

>>16286288

DSII has a special place in my heart and I played a lot of it because I really enjoyed the combat. To answer your question, no, DSIII suffers from far worse combat mechanics all around, and mechanics in general, than 2 does. Making things more frustrating, 3 COULD have been an actually excellent hack n slash DMC clone, if it weren't for a handful of stupifying antithetical decisions. 2's worst issue is that some enemies have egregious tracking on their attacks, but it's never a serious problem other than one particularly horrible enemy that has no really solid method to counteract (the Banshee/fallen angel thing, maybe called Valkyrie, don't remember).

I played lots of the Crucible in Darksiders 2, where you try to fight through 100 waves of increasingly difficult enemies, so I know the combat inside and out. I can safely say that it's pretty academic to not get hit, ever (except for the Valkyrie). The dodging system was also done pretty well; the lag on your third dodge was intentional, to prevent dodge spam, and you do have a healthy number of I-frames per dodge and a forgiving window in which to "parry" (your Reaper counterattacks with a perfect dodge, which is quite easy to do). The largest complaint Darksiders 2 had against it was that it was too easy, even on the hardest difficulty.

I will tell you that if they had taken DSII's dodge system and used it in DSIII, it would have played fucking worlds better.

Another example of "what the fuck is wrong with you" design is Mass Effect series having a "do it all" button. You can press [button] to open doors, interact with shit, take cover, pick stuff up. So when there's low cover, and an item you can pick up sitting on top of the low cover, what does your character do? Does he pick up the nuke sitting right in front of his face that he needs to use? No, he takes cover, pressing [button] again makes him stand back up, rinse and repeat. Streamlined control decisions like this are absolutely cancerous and I fucking hate normalfags and shitty abortions like EA who enable it.

>>16286507

Consoles being shit and controllers lacking enough buttons to map all the various commands to different keys/buttons.

>>16286541

>It's a half-assed mechanic that works in tabletop role-playing because they're never intended to be serious games. They're elaborate make-believe scenarios subject to rule changes at any moment by the master.

t. glue-munching tard

>>16286418

Only thing I remember being bad in 2, mechanics wise, were the loot/stats. The combat was a pretty good attempt at a DMC/Bayo style. Not the greatest but if they had focused on that and actually finished the game, it would have been pretty good.

>>16286388

WHERE?

I want more of my persian pilot tomboy waifu

>>16286388

>manage to combine diversity virtue signaling with cute brown tomboy

>proceed to shit it up in the sequel and replace her with a bunch of niggers

I will never understand liberals.

>>16286554

Controllers have plenty of buttons to do the piddling amount of commands Mass Effect has.

>>16286262

>being into dickgirls

faggot

>>16287372

Isn't a speedrun of one of the Digimon games something in the ballpark of 72 hours because of this kind of shit?

>>16287405

>72 hours

DW2003 any% is like 7 hours. for a 100% run your estimate would be about right I believe. however if you're extra autistic and you want all cards, all partner digimon's forms and their levels at 99 (overkill beyond overkill), etc. be prepared to sink 200+ hours into the game.

>>16286940

I don't think she actually shows up, but there's a hidden cutscene where Jensen receives a present from Malik.

>>16285650

Yes I am talking the campaign, I noticed the level disparity after the first point of getting the Orcs but the lack of any healers and two units who don't even work as they're supposed to really soured me to the Orcs. Even Dwarves, which lack an ability to build towers, held out better overall because healers would keep them alive.

>>16292862

That is fair. If you don't build a certain way, some of the quirks of the armies doesn't mesh well. If you were playing as a heavily combat oriented character you can get a mass heal to make up for the lack of healers. I can't remember which particular path it is.

Spellforce was a fucking mess. Another questionable design decision, although it did give it a unique feel, was the way enemy armies work in campaign. They spawn infinitely from spawn points with no regards to resources. The upside to this is that if you kill scouts, you can postpone a full scale meat grinder, but eventually you will have a meat grinder.

>>16273333

>Game has a level select

>But it wont let you in any way keep upgraded weapons

>so starting later in the game gives you the weaker, lower ammo, less accurate guns, when just starting a new game would give you time to get the weapons you want with upgrades you want.

>>16274010

Most melee have another use outside like the flip kick, the shotgun melee when fully charged can kill the final variant of those big hunters so that one is worth it to attempt.

The disk launcher is the only one they genuinely want you to attempt using constantly.