Video Games

[hyzmarca]

Levitate in Morrowind used the same base cost (3) in its formulas as water breathing and water walking, for comparison. It was not hard to put yourself in the air.

Water Breathing and Water Walking are binary effects. They're either on or off. There is no in between. They always have a magnitude of 1.

Levitate is a percentage effect. It's worse than useless at low magnitudes. Levitate 20 for 20 seconds is going to cost you ((20*2*21)+1)*3/40 = 63 magika. And at early levels you're going to be as slow as hell because that limits you to 1/5 your walking speed.

It's just not worth the cost. For a dedicated mage just starting out, that blows a more than quarter of your MP for a relatively minor advantage. For a reasonably maxed out mage, that blows a sixth of your MP.

Levitate spam is really only viable if you've got the Mantle of Woe, in which case you're better off throwing around high-magnitude fireballs.

[Juton]

I've played around a bit in Skyrim now, but I found myself getting bored with it, I think I'm ready to give up on it. I've played every other Elder Scrolls game but I've only won Daggerfall. I got pretty far in Morrowind but only scratched the surface of Oblivion. They all seem like the same game with just progressively more visual glitz added to it. After beating one I can seem to muster the attention to beat another. Which leads me to ask, has anyone here won more than one elder scrolls game?

[DSMatticus]

This has been the entire fucking conversation, PhoneLobster: you bitched about flight being missing, and the response was "here are some problems with flight, but yes, it is a salvageable concept (though more difficult than you give it credit for)" and because one of the problems mentioned was levitate + ranged attacks, you splerged the fuck out about how if flight obsoletes melee enemies we shouldn't actually care because melee enemies shouldn't be important. And surprise, surprise, your response to a framework for flight that is explicitly impossible to use during combat but allows for exploration a la the older games was "fuck that noise, non-combat flight isn't interesting enough!"

Do you want combat flight or not, PL? Make up your fucking mind. Or better yet, just tell us how you think Skyrim should support flight. Because if the answer involves combat flight, I think your idea is stupid. That's the conversation.

@Hyzmarca;
That's true, kind of forgot about that.

But more on point: low effect levitate is sufficient. It's a rather excessive way to duplicate "stand on rock, let their pathfinding run them into it," but it does that. And you have magicka restoration options available to you, and as a caster you're going to use them anyway because starting out as a mage was expensive and if you didn't have some magicka recovery potential combat usually boiled down to "oh god, run away!" I think. I can't really remember vanilla Morrowind, that was a long time ago.

Which leads me to ask, has anyone here won more than one elder scrolls game?

I put hundreds of hours into Morrowind and Oblivion before I beat their main quests, so "beating the main quest" may not be a good measure. They're sandbox games. What does 'win' mean? I just want to keep playing.

As for the spirit of your question, I'd consider Oblivion and Skyrim pretty samey, but Morrowind was a pretty different game than either of them. I've played and been interested in all of them except Arena/Daggerfall, which was mostly technical issues involving dosbox and massive lag.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You're not missing anything, DSMatticus. That game is ridiculously bugged out; it's seriously on the level of Megaman Battle Network 4, a game in which you could brick your entire game just by using a feature on the title screen. Even if you get past that Daggerfall just isn't very good. I appreciate the sandbox attempts but the technology just wasn't there yet and the entire world felt bleak and samey. I didn't approve of Battlespire or Redguard, but hey.

[Maxus]

I have a hard time doing the massive sandbox RPG games. I picked New Vegas up from a dying Blockbuster for ten dollars and made that back when I traded it in. I have Fallout 3--a gift--but can't get myself going in it because it seems like every time I turn around, the game's going "Lol no, can't go there yet, those fucking enemies will murder you." It was like being level 50-60 in Final Fantasy 6. All the stuff you can handle every time takes forever to get some dividends. All the challenging things have their 'I win' button that you'd better hope they don't hit.

I still made it further in Fallout 3 than Oblivion, and never been bothered to give Fable a try.

I can dig the idea of a game including a lot of ways to kill time. Hell, I like Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption pretty well, and they both have some time-wasting features. I guess I prefer a little bit more structure to story, everything else being equal.

[Stahlseele]

The Problem with F³ and with F³NV in terms of "lol no" is, that the enemies scale on your own prowress more or less . .
Meaning the stronger you get, the stronger they get too . .

[PhoneLobster]

I'm going to take the time to say that I think the "OMFG LEVEL SCALING!" thing is a piece of bullshit internet moron consensus.

The fact is that level scaling in some form is pretty much a standard for computer games, RPGs and CRPGs.

Various forms of level scaling have always been around, in Fallout and Elder Scrolls and everything else under the sun.

And while Fallout, Oblivion, Skyrim and friends do level scaling... poorly... the big problems that make it SEEM so bad aren't actually about the level scaling.

The problems actually are...
1) The character advancement systems are generally so screwed up there isn't really such a thing as a reliable "level appropriate" player character. So basically any level scaling thing is doomed to fail before it even starts.

2) The combat implementation in Fallout 3, it's retarded Obsidian spawned brother, and, well, basically every Elder Scrolls game since Arena, is really shallow and crappy.

Again. Assassins Creed, the enemies get more numerous and more challenging as you advance through the game. The character advancement however is predictable and the combat implementation is engaging and can actually be controlled with actual player skill without breaking in five different ways.

The reason internet folks love to rage on the "OMG LEVEL SCALING!" is largely because they are experiencing a crap combat engine/leveling system and either don't understand what is happening or they want to blame something else so they don't have their fan boy feelings too badly hurt.

Because it's easier to say "OMFG LEVEL SCALING!" and only that! than to say, well actually a wide range of really fundamental things have gone rather horribly wrong.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Can I interrupt PL screaming about Giant Crabs for a second? I have a question from another game.

I am trying to get all my high-end gear in Dragon Quest 9. Specifically, I'm trying to get all the legendary weapons (stardust sword, gringham whip, etc.) I tried farming the rank S chests, and I have about 50 or so gold bars, but only 3 of the weapons (and two are of the same weapon, boo!)

Anyway, I tried the chest time thing, from this link: http://www.yabd.org/apps/dq9/chesttimer.php

I follow all the instructions, and it always gives me the item three before the one I want. Even when I wait three more seconds, it somehow gives me the item three before the one I want. I... don't know how that works.

Does anyone have any advice?

[name_here]

I'm going to take the time to say that I think the "OMFG LEVEL SCALING!" thing is a piece of bullshit internet moron consensus.

The fact is that level scaling in some form is pretty much a standard for computer games, RPGs and CRPGs.

Various forms of level scaling have always been around, in Fallout and Elder Scrolls and everything else under the sun.

The problem is that Oblivion and Fallout3 and apparently Skyrim scale their enemies according to your level, as opposed to something else that will usually correlate with your level, so if you fuck up your leveling and are less powerful than you should be you can't solve it by going somewhere else and getting more levels. The fact that level is only loosely correlated with your actual power in these games simply exacerbates the problem.

[Darth Rabbitt]

I only managed to get what I wanted out of that chest timer thing once (after much fiddling around), and it was likely coincidence, since a friend of mine tried the same thing in the same chest in the same grotto and it didn't work right.

It was also the first one on the list of items in the timer, which probably made it easier.

So I'm sorry to say that I can't be of much help in figuring that out; the advice I found on sites about it was often contradictory.

I have to congratulate you on finding rank S chests, though.

[name_here]

So, anyone have any idea what my problem with running Assassin's Creed 1 might be?

Here's a picture of as far as it gets. It closes automatically and fails to launch the actual game at this point.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I only managed to get what I wanted out of that chest timer thing once (after much fiddling around), and it was likely coincidence, since a friend of mine tried the same thing in the same chest in the same grotto and it didn't work right.

It was also the first one on the list of items in the timer, which probably made it easier.

So I'm sorry to say that I can't be of much help in figuring that out; the advice I found on sites about it was often contradictory.

I have to congratulate you on finding rank S chests, though.

It's more a test of endurance rather than skill, and not going anywhere without my DS to grind levels. It only took me a year, but I managed to get my hero up to level 99 with 10 revocations, as well as having every single class represented in my party at level 99 (Warrior, Martial Artist, etc...) And Luminary isn't as bad as people say, but I can't deny they're the least useful. Just not completely useless (and if I had the patience to grind seeds, they have the highest average stats so it takes fewer seeds to max them out...)

[Koumei]

So, anyone have any idea what my problem with running Assassin's Creed 1 might be?

I think it's the bit where you're using the official Ubisoft stuff and expecting the game to actually work.

[Maxus]

Again. Assassins Creed, the enemies get more numerous and more challenging as you advance through the game. The character advancement however is predictable and the combat implementation is engaging and can actually be controlled with actual player skill without breaking in five different ways.

I was thinking about that, when I accidentally ended up with a crappy weapon for a section where I couldn't switch. It doesn't -matter- because player skill can account for enough to make up the difference. And it helps the most common kind of guard can defend against counter-kills and kill streak attacks so you can't just butcher through a group of them.

I had something like that in Fallout 3 when I killed my first Super Mutant. I ended up running in circles around a bus on top of a hill and shoot him when he came around the corner.

And for the Assassin's Creed 1...well, welcome to why I don't do PC gaming now, and shelled out for an Xbox 360.

[PhoneLobster]

you can't solve it by going somewhere else and getting more levels.

Well supposedly you sort of can because Skyrim and Fallout used a variant level scaling where opponents were scaled to your level at the time of entry into a new area and then sorta pinned there or something crazy. But, that's not precisely reliable on several levels.

However even without reactive level scaling that same scenario can and will happen with FIXED level enemies.

The ability to go somewhere and grind in order to be over leveled is in fact less standard in Western CRPGs than your enemies getting stronger as you get stronger. It's not unknown, but it's more of a thing among JRPGs and MMOs.

And in the end since your premise for that dilemma started with "screwed up character advancement to not be level appropriate" the character advancement hardly exacerbated the problem, it actually was the root cause of it.

Unless the subtext of your post was that actually the thing you chose to talk about, the screwed up character, was not what you REALLY worried about, but rather that you actually want to be over leveled. Which is another slightly less savory thing altogether.

[Username17]

So, anyone have any idea what my problem with running Assassin's Creed 1 might be?

Here's a picture of as far as it gets. It closes automatically and fails to launch the actual game at this point.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

What then happens is you get the Ubisoft U-Play thingy (it's the dark blue box), and it will then try to synchronize save games or some shit, which it will fucking fail to do, and then you'll have the option to "play now", you click that and then it will get around to launching your game.

Basically: FUCK UBISOFT. Find a crack for the game that takes Ubisoft's bullshit out, and then use it. Because holy fuck are those fuckers a bunch of fucking fuckups.

-Username17

[Koumei]

but rather that you actually want to be over leveled. Which is another slightly less savory thing altogether.

I definitely prefer being overlevelled. Or rather, to have the option to powerlevel when the game gets hard. If at first you don't succeed, come back after a few rounds of Cave of Ordeals and kick them into the sun.

And it's really annoying that so few Western games do that, because my refusal to play them makes me come across as a weeaboo.

[Neeeek]

but rather that you actually want to be over leveled. Which is another slightly less savory thing altogether.

I definitely prefer being overlevelled. Or rather, to have the option to powerlevel when the game gets hard. If at first you don't succeed, come back after a few rounds of Cave of Ordeals and kick them into the sun.

And it's really annoying that so few Western games do that, because my refusal to play them makes me come across as a weeaboo.

Weird. The most notable and egregious example of terrible level-scaling is a JRPG. Final Fantasy VIII. A game that legitimately became ridiculously hard if you didn't both actively avoid gaining levels and spend a ton of any level-gaining time with the main character unconscious. I don't know why you'd think Western games do it worse than Eastern ones, because that's just plain wrong.

[Koumei]

I'm well aware that FF8 is the worst example of that. But I enjoyed 7 and 9 without such problems, and found them quite enjoyable. Likewise DQ8. And any RPG that starts with the word "Atelier" is automatically good.

Actually, I didn't mind the scaling that NWN used, where they simply send more of the lower level foes against you. That way if you use the console to make yourself level 40 (or just accidentally skip an area and come back later when you're stronger than expected), you just get a whole heap of low level guys to fireball/great cleave through. I'm pretty sure the bosses didn't scale at all.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I've been playing lots of robot Unicorn Attack. I can get about 60k points now, and I have no idea where some of these high scores on Adult Swim come from...

[Count Arioch the 28th]

A friend let me try out skyrim for an hour while my laundry was at the laundromat downstairs from his apartment.

A couple things I notice:

It is nowhere near as hard to line up your strikes with someone as it was in Oblivion.

Warhammers are my favorite weapon in the first hour

The nords freak the fuck out if you kill one of their chickens. Seriously, I had like 5 dudes on me because I killed a chicken. Guys, it's a fucking CHICKEN, I'll buy you a new one.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

RUA gets kinda luck based (and prediction based) at a certain point. You just move way to fucking fast and have to guess which problem spot will come up next because you jump too slowly to avoid certain things.


Anyways, all this assassin's creed talk is bothering me. Why? Because Assassins creed 1 is a shitty, shitty game. Ass creed 1 is just absolutely garbage. Stealthy play is more difficult (and less rewarded) than just walking into places and murdering everyone present.

The enemies are all complete trash and the counter system is broken beyond all belief. They are also all gentlemen, and will engage you one at a time until you've slaughtered the lot of them. The problem with this is the stealth can be fun, but the punishment for getting seen is everyone who saw you gets killed. That's not punishment, I want some reward for playing the game.

Then there's the fucking cut scenes. The unskippable cut scenes that make you want to weep tears of blood. It is incredible the developers who were responsible for the cut scenes have not been publicly executed to get revenge for the hours of unskippable bullshit you have to put up with.

Fun Assassin's creed drinking game:

Take a drink every time you counter an enemy attack.

Take a drink every time you murder someone in the open and get away by clasping your hands together and walking away slowly.

Take a shot every time you get into an unskippable cut scene (including when you just get stuck in a tiny area and aren't allowed to do anything), and take a shot for every minute each cutscene lasts (research says this is the only way to make the cutscenes, and retarded plot, bearable).


Assassin's creed 2 is more of the same, so whatever.


Assassin's creed 3 brings multiplayer into the picture, the multiplayer is awesome and should be played by everyone at least once. The single player is even trashier than Assassin's creed 1, which is saying something because 1 is an objectively bad game. Every moment of the single player is bad. Between the stupid ass section where you're running around, with no time limit, just holding down the "parkour" button waiting for the plot to continue to the "follow this dude" quests to the "RPG elements that don't matter because you will never get hurt" shit.

Assassin's Creed 3 single player is a pile of shit, but the multiplayer is honestly worth it. Never before has hide-and-go-seek been so fun. Always be the courtesan and be sure to change your XBLA to cat-ear maid prostitute.

[PhoneLobster]

Assassins Creed 1 was indeed... limited. I won't say bad, it was in fact in many ways remarkably brilliant, but brilliance isn't always the same as enjoyable game play (Spoooooore! ).

However Assassins Creed 2 is a genuinely fantastic game all round taking all the brilliance of 1 and filling in all the boring gaps with excellent game play and more brilliance.

There IS no Assassins Creed 3, and both the other assassins creeds are spin off extension editions, and basically more of 2. I'm still waiting on the new one, which I'm sure will be brilliant and probably excellent too, but Brotherhood was AWESOME and if anything an improvement on 2 (though not as big a step as 1 to 2 was). Which was surprising because everyone was EXPECTING a smaller game knocked out as a exploitative spin off with a tacked on multiplayer mode. And we got pretty much a full on proper assassins creed game instead.

Presumably they are holding back the actual number 3 title for a major shift in the feature set or time era setting of the series. And who knows where that will go, but considering the background of the developers (holy crap even Prince of Persia was awesome) there is no reason not to expect good things.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Creed one was incredibly bad. It was pretty, but it was fucking awful. Running around cities was amusing for a few minutes, but once the shiny new feeling falls away you find out that the gameplay is just so monotonous and horrible you want to cut yourself.

Creed 2 changes absolutely nothing about the gameplay, and actually succeeds in making it easier.

3 (come on, brotherhood came out third so it's 3), added good multiplayer and managed to make single player UNBEARABLE. I did not finish its single player, and will not finish its single player. If people stop having fun with your game you have made a massive mistake.

I wanted to like assassin's creed, I really did. The movement is fantastic and it has SO MUCH potential. It's just that the stealth is an abortion and the combat is embarrassing. I tend to judge games based on game play. Assassin's creed is pretty and has some creative ideas but is an objectively bad game because playing it is not fun.

Brotherhood's multiplayer strips away the combat system (YES PLEASE!) focuses on movement (HOLY SHIT YES) and has a fantastic stealth aspect (WHOA NELLY). It is so incredibly good you have to wonder how the single player is so damn BAD. They manage to make a great system* into a bad game in single player.

You can't play the single player when that multiplayer is on the same disc. Honestly though, I don't understand what went on in the developers' heads. It's like some fucknut got confused with the single player and decided to make a completely different game. A very bad game.

*For running and shit, the combat system is unbearable.


Edit: Worth mentioning, the marketing for Assassin's Creed was really, really good.

[Maxus]

Assassins Creed 1 was indeed... limited. I won't say bad, it was in fact in many ways remarkably brilliant, but brilliance isn't always the same as enjoyable game play (Spoooooore! ).

However Assassins Creed 2 is a genuinely fantastic game all round taking all the brilliance of 1 and filling in all the boring gaps with excellent game play and more brilliance.

There IS no Assassins Creed 3, and both the other assassins creeds are spin off extension editions, and basically more of 2. I'm still waiting on the new one, which I'm sure will be brilliant and probably excellent too, but Brotherhood was AWESOME and if anything an improvement on 2 (though not as big a step as 1 to 2 was). Which was surprising because everyone was EXPECTING a smaller game knocked out as a exploitative spin off with a tacked on multiplayer mode. And we got pretty much a full on proper assassins creed game instead.

Presumably they are holding back the actual number 3 title for a major shift in the feature set or time era setting of the series. And who knows where that will go, but considering the background of the developers (holy crap even Prince of Persia was awesome) there is no reason not to expect good things.

Have to agree with you on 1.

Next year they're releasing 3. Before the December 21, 2012 thing, because that's part of their game's mythology.

And Revelations basically implies 3 picks up at the end of that one.

Revelations is shorter than Brotherhood, and has less twists and turns...but they made Ezio and Desmond and Altair...MORE than just some random fool.

Edit: Damn typos.