/v/ - Video Games

>>16795720

FUCK, stealth

Combat/magic. Do not pick a birthsign that fortifies an attribute because those don't take you over 100 which you will very likely reach in a playthrough. The Mage or The Apprentice are the most convenient.

>>16795735

It's flawed but it's the only TES I'll ever play. I'll never accept the LOOK, QUEST MARKER HERE shit that undermines real pathfinding and exploration. The setting and world are by far the most unique and interesting in the series. The fast travel transports feel more organic and well-designed than clicking any destination you want on your map, not to mention you can fast travel by metal as fuck means like jumping through the sky or overdosing on crack. Also levitate, fuck them for removing that effect.

>>16795720

>'Stealth'

>literally crouching and walking

It's more a consequence of life than part of a 'build', play it long enough you end up becoming everything anyway.

I usually do a bit into stealth just to make it easier to swipe shit and less likely to have something run up my ass if I'm off trail.

>>16795816

Dark Messiah and non-lethal Deus Ex are the only 2 that come to mind. And that's just 100% because of level design.

>AND WHAT MODS DO YOU SUGGEST THIS IS MY FIRST PLAYTHROUGH

The chan is slowly returning boys

Stealth is for pussies, go full wizard.

>>16795859

> And that's just 100% because of level design.

And the fact that both don't punish you for doing stealth by withholding experience points. What is the point of having stealth if you miss out on all those EXP?

>>16795863

>The chan is slowly returning boys

>chan

And so is the cancer.

>>16795879

Good stealth and EXP don't really mix. I think Deus Ex's augs are the only time that level progression worked in stealth. Were it's to unlock things that are basically limited use get-out-of-jail free cards. That's one thing I also liked about Deus Ex. The abilities were essentially a tool you can use in niche situations.

For example: Invisibility. It lasts a really short time and you choose once whether it will be against humans or computers, and that decision lasts the entire game. Forcing you to change your approach to certain situations, such as a gigantic room full of machines and human snipers. Depending on what you chose you're either hiding from the snipers above or the machines on the ground level, and even then it's just something you use in little burst sprints you can't be invisible the whole time.

Dark Messiah's stealth also worked because it didn't really need a leveling system. You could just sneak around and set off environmental hazards that do the same thing regardless on your build is and it usually one shoted enemies.

Stealth in Morrowind is broken in the sense that it doesn't work consistently without magical invisibility. Even with OpenMW it's not really worth it.

>>16795735

i want to meet lifts-her-tail sister squeezes-her-breasts and her mom spreads-her-cheeks.

>>16795720

i dont remember if there are even any benefits to stealth in morrowind. it works very poorly. you're going to get detected 99% of the time even in the open, you cannot escape the cliffracers invisible or not.

>>16795749

Endurance still isn't a bad attribute to fortify with a sign, since you gain max hp every level up based on your current endurance level, making it the only attribute that's actually super important to increase at low levels.

>>16795919

Is OpenMW feature complete yet?

>>16795963

You become inevitably overpowered so fuck it, not necessary. I'd rather have the convenience of extra magicka that doesn't regenerate in MW.

>>16795735

Every TES is lifeless, they're all sandbox loot sims in Todd's own words, you go in into caves, get treasure, go into more caves and get treasure while everyone talks and repeats themselves like retarded robots when talked to.

>>16796064

Welcome to open world RPGs.

>>16796070

You mean TES.

>>16796073

What are some good ones that don't have that?

>>16795992

welcome to 4chan, brothaman!

it is fucking brutal, especially the fact this is the only post calling it out

>>16796075

Why the fuck would I play a sandbox RPG? I hate skinnerbox grinding lootsims.

>>16796080

So your post was pointless?

>>16796083

Just like The Elder Scrolls? "Open-world" may as well just mean no fucking content you asswipe.

I never had a good experience with Elder Scrolls, personally. Couldn't get into Morrowing or Oblivion because they're too antiquated and consolefaggish, and Skyrim is more like a movie than a game.

Also, I don't like mechanics like the potion/potion making system where you can just make them ridiculously powerful by stacking buffs. Like you buff yourself to produce stronger buffs, and then you use those stronger buffs to produce stronger buffs, and repeat until you get absurd numbers, and then make poisons that kill anything in one hit. That's so janky and bizarre, it offends my OCD, things should have nice, neat limits. The engine those games run on is so antiquated and wonky as well. I guess Oblivion had the demon shrine things that give you cool artifacts? That seemed nice, but not worth getting into the whole game for.

>>16796087

meant to reply to

>>16795735

>>16796084

I said every open world RPG is like that, you saying "You mean TES" implied otherwise. Stupid.

>>16796084

He meant to recommend an Open World RPG that's not an uncanny slogfest, you mongoloid.

Other anon, my obvious recommendation is New Vegas. It's pretty buggy, but the writers did a pretty good job with accounting for most possible outcomes. You never really feel like you did something you weren't supposed to do, or like the world is ignoring your actions. The "dungeons" are very nicely crafted and aim for realism + storytelling as opposed to looting. There are a few vaults in the game that I think are very nice from a gameplay perspective though.

Other than that, the Gothic series also does something similar, but it's Eurojank and not quite as responsive to the player.

>>16795720

what you need is Chameleon effects to stack to achieve true stealth

>>16796226

That's boring though.

>>16796075

Adding on, Todd himself said Morrowind was just 3D Ultima. Try out Geneforge or Avernum/Exile, hell there's even newer shit like Kenshi, Atom RPG and Underrail, never mind other simulation rpg shit like Sea Dogs, Sid Meier's Pirates, Mount & Blade, Star Control 2, Starflight. I'd even consider Stalker with conversion mods or Fallout 1-2 to be better "open world RPGs" than TES.

>>16796096

I just like shitting on Bethshit since I had to put up with braindead recommendations and memes for over a fucking decade just to see that TES fans are fucking retarded.

>>16796096

He's being sarcastic you jackass.

>>16795891

>Good stealth and EXP don't really mix.

Vampire the Maskerade: Bloodlines begs to differ. The stealth isn't that sofisticated but it works well enough and is fun to use. It also works because your XP isn't tied to kill count like in other games but rather just completing quests.

I often mention this example since it's a perfect one to explain this stuff:

Deus Ex Human Revolution is a terrible game where the most rewarding playthrough is to go around a whole level stealthly knocking out every enemy and then crawl back through every vent before hacking every PC around.

The worst part isn't even that moral now has a tangible reward associated with it (more XP for being non-lethal) but rather that you get a reward for using alternate routes even if you no longer need them anyway, defeating the idea of rewarding you for using it.

Amusingly enough, the game actually provides a simple answer to this. Every level is structured in large "arenas", areas where there's a bunch of enemies on patrol that you have to deal with before entering a corridor or evelator that cuts you out of the action for a while before opening the next area. This is a way for the game to handle loading large levels.

Now, sum all the experience you could get in one of these "arenas" and simply give it to the player whenever he reaches the exit. That's it.

Doesn't matter if he went guns blazing or crawled around some vents, he is rewarded with XP because he managed to pass that obstacle. If he took a more stealthy approach, his reward is not wasting supplies, if he hacked PCs his reward is information about some section or enemy that's coming up, etc.

Even moral standards can be taken into account by the reaction some NPCs have to you outside the mission, giving you items or providing services if they agree with you. This also has the bonus that you can have 2 NPCs with different points of view and rewards so the player gets something either way. For instance, a politician that doesn't want a scandal will reward you with a lot of cash if you manage to not kill anyone but an ex-cop will give you weapon mods if you killed the criminals, etc.

TES could be a decent idea for this but due to the way leveling works, it can somewhat screw your character if you were trying to minmax. Even in Skyrim, every unintentional level in Sneak will make level ups take longer, and all because they never managed to balance attributes right despite how many mods there were showing better approach to it.

>>16796384

>where the most rewarding playthrough is to go around a whole level stealthly knocking out every enemy and then crawl back through every vent before hacking every PC around

Do you have OCD that forces you to minmax every game or something? It's not like the game is hard enough to need every drop of exp.

>>16795749

>is stealth viable

Like most skills if you want to be effective you learn the spell that completely invalidates the skill's existence and practice casting it. In stealth's case, chameleon.

The thief playstyle is pretty well supported in Morrowind as though it's piss easy to steal certain things even without skills, and stealth gives more opportunities, you have to keep track of what you stole from who. NPCs are basically just vending machines and travel brochures in straighter playthroughs.

>>16795886

How come of all the people that we lost, edgy aspies like you are the one that came back first.

Flash news mongoloid, 8chan never was and never will be the edgy supa seecreet site you retarded children want.

inb4 hysterical, cringey rant about how the chan is now A KUN

Yikes.

>>16796575

>Do I fit in yet guise???

>>16796033

Only shadows are missing, and I always disabled shadows in MW because they fucked up on anything but flat ground (you got things like them appearing on the underside of bridges) and to my memory they didn't reflect your equipment.

>>16795720

Stealth isn't useful for long as there is a steep increase in power later in the game. When I want to avoid enemies I find it more useful to run and jump like a maniac, or levitate/invis if you are a caster. The AI is pretty dumb in this game and it's easy to avoid getting hit.

With enough money you will max every skill eventually anyway. Only thing that matters early on is having Endurance as a major attribute and getting it to 100 first, so you end up with the highest possible HP later. You get more HP per level the higher your endurance is. I also like to major in Luck since it's the hardest attribute to get to 100, otherwise you may end up never having very high luck.

Use a weapon your character is good with (major/racial bonus) or you will see why the MISSMISS meme exists. Since it's your first time you could go Redguard and abuse their racial ability and not have to worry about missing (but then you'd be a nigger). You don't need to major/minor in multiple weapon types, just focus on one so you can free up more major/minor slots.

For future playthroughs, a power gamer may want their major and minor skills to have as low value starting out as possible to increase the amount of levels you can get. Alternatively you can go to prison to lower your skills and level up infinitely. Basically, starting skills don't matter in the long run.

>>16796410

It's not because of grinding XP, it's because of what it gets you.

DXHR and VTMB for instance tie all the cool powers and abilities behind the level progression, so the sooner you get more XP, the faster you'll be pulling the really fun toys.

This means that while in VTMB you unlock stuff as you play along at a fixed rate (since XP rewards are static) and you get stuff based on how you're prioritizing it only, in DXHR you can potentially unlock newer stuff if you actually do all that autistic shit I mentioned, and I didn't boot up a cyberpunk game just to shoot guns.

>>16796834

Oh right, sorry about that.

I'll still disagree though, it depends on what level progression gives you and it can work quite well.

If it's just something like TES where the only real difference is how close you can be before you're detected, then it does break stealth for low and high levels, the former being nigh useless and the latter being OP.

But if level progression just gives you more tools to work with, that open new paths or give you more options to deal with problems and stay stealthy, that'd be good level progression.

Styx does this to an extent. A lot of it's skills are about giving you extra equipment or improving your abilities that allow you to sneak around more easily. The Clone in particular, the more you upgrade it the more shenanigans you can play on the guards for instance.

The idea that level progression ruins X is valid for literally anything when all it does is statistical increments to passive stats, but that's the actual issue, not that there's level progression. You could say that level progression would also ruin melee or magic if all it does is give you bonus damage, for instance.

Exceptions exist however, when the level\game design is considered and the statistical differences actually open new possibilities, like having a guard near a door but if your stealth is high enough his detection range is low enough that you can get close enough to go through the door.

>>16796374

>Stalker with conversion mods

I need to stop being lazy and install CoC

>>16797694

>Styx does this to an extent. A lot of it's skills are about giving you extra equipment or improving your abilities that allow you to sneak around more easily. The Clone in particular, the more you upgrade it the more shenanigans you can play on the guards for instance.

I honestly wasn't much of a fan of Styx. It can work though, which is why I gave my Deus Ex example. Like in my example, picking invisibility does not make you invisible. It only makes you invisible to certain types of enemies of your choosing, which are usually mixed together, so it can completely change how you tackle a level plus it doesn't last too long and eats up cells like crazy.

>The idea that level progression ruins X is valid for literally anything when all it does is statistical increments to passive stats, but that's the actual issue, not that there's level progression. You could say that level progression would also ruin melee or magic if all it does is give you bonus damage, for instance.

I agree that that type of progression is cancer, but I also feel active ability progression is also usually bad. Take Dishonored for example. Most of the abilities are so powerful you're not so much sneaking as you are a god ninja mage.

>Exceptions exist however, when the level\game design is considered and the statistical differences actually open new possibilities, like having a guard near a door but if your stealth is high enough his detection range is low enough that you can get close enough to go through the door.

This is how I feel about active abilities you get through progression. Passive scaling stealth is always shit.

>>16795816

Jagged Alliance 2

Neverwinter Nights sometimes

Deus Ex

Dark Messiah

Kotor 2