Tanukitsune

Quitter's Club: Don't be ashamed to quit the game.

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I usually avoid asking for advice in games on my first play through, but I may have to break a rule. 

But you're totally right, I wasn't far in (although I spent 2 hours grinding assuming that the boss was so hard because I was a couple of levels low...which was so wrong).

I think I'll pick it up again this week and if I need help, I'll ask!

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I generally want to do the same, but with Dark Souls I do feel like there are a couple of brick walls that can be hit that are worth seeking a bit of help. 

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I'll chime in quickly to endorse the helpfulness of the Dark Souls thread. I posted about how I was quitting the game after getting stuck for far too long, and Bjorn and a few other people helped me get past that part. I ended up blowing through the rest of the game rather quickly. I now would consider it one of my favorite games ever.

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Why can't I get into Dark Souls?! I loved Demons' Souls, but I found Dark Souls so frustrating. DS2 coming out has made me reconsider it, but I'm not sure whether I'll like it. 

I think what I found most frustrating is that I didn't know if I was doing it right. Never. I was doing ok, killed the 2 gargoyles, rang the bell then I was like...now what? Worked my way through what I thought was the right way, got to a boss who had 2 dogs with him. He would one shot me every time then I'd have to walk all the way back, constantly thinking "Is this the boss I'm meant to be facing?"

The horrible stats too; which make no sense, and asking anyone online you get the same response:

"What weapons do you want to use?" I don't know! Which ever weapons I find a long the way.

 

I need to try it again. It's pretty cheap on steam and I just bought a PS4 controller for RE4 on PC. 

 

The feeling of not knowing if I was doing it right was part of what attracted me to it, even if I ended up looking at a guide about that same time you're stuck to at least get the recommended world order down. In general you can start out with putting stats into whatever weapon you have on hand at the moment. Then when you find one you really like the move set of, concentrate on that and maybe look up what other weapons are like it. Personally, I went for rapiers since I hated when I would swing and my sword would hit the wall next to me.

 

Minor spoilers regarding that boss and my path through the game:

 

That boss is, in theory, the next boss you are supposed to take on, but there are multiple paths you can take and it certainly isn't the only option. I found that boss crazy hard as well, and ended up going a completely different way that allows you to skip it completely if you so desire (I went back later and ran that area anyway.)

 

A little bit more spoilery help with one of your other complaints about that boss, but still not too bad.

 

There is a shortcut not too far past that boss room that makes repeated deaths a little more tolerable.

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Interesting you guys are talking about Skyrim, I just started playing that for the first time recently. I was completely uninterested it for the longest time because of how much I disliked Oblivion. I bought it for 5 bucks or something on a Steam sale a while back, and for some reason decided to start playing it a week ago or something.

 

Well, I'm about 8 hours in and I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. Maybe my expectations had been set properly or something, because once I got past the initial awkward story conversations (which seem to be universally no good), I'm having a lot of fun. I'm playing a sneaky bowman, and its fun to one shot an entire room before they see you. The leveling is way better than Oblivion, what with how using skills unlocks the ability to put points in specific perks when you get them from leveling.

 

The game still seems like that "wide as an ocean, shallow as a puddle" cliche that everyone says, but I'm enjoying it for what it is. Sometimes just listening to podcasts instead of the gameplay. I think if I was not playing with bows I would be feeling very different, because the brief bit of one handed swords and shields gameplay I played didn't feel good at all.

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Regarding Dark Souls:

That capra demon boss is an optional boss, it's a little harder than most people will ready to deal with, when they find it.

Grinding for stats also won't really get you much, those gains are incredibly incremental. What actually matters much more is the gear you have, and not in the sense that you're waiting for better drops. Find stuff that works for you and then start upgrading it. Beyond that, it's very much a skill-based game. Each weapon having its own moveset is something to keep in mind, get a handle on the feel of the attacks and the dodge and all of that.

Also, on the stat screens, you can hit... I don't know what the button would be on the PC version, but it's the back button on a 360 pad. It will bring up a few terse tool tips that explain what everything is, at least enough to have a functional understanding of the game.

Regarding Skyrim:

Did public opinion turn on this game while i wasn't looking? What's going on here? I certainly still think it's one of the best games in the series, i only love Morrowind more, and i'm saying that as somebody who's played TES games since Daggerfall.

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I think the general opinion is that Skyrim is a good game, but the more a game is loved the more eventual backlash there is going to be against it. I think generally people think it was a huge improvement on Oblivion.

 

I wonder if anyone else has had this problem: I keep getting stuck in dungeons, quickly decide that I'm just going to look up what to do instead of figuring it out, and realizing that I didn't "take" a book to activate the next part of a quest, I only "read" it. That's some weird design, especially considering I just kind of automatically hit B after I'm done reading a book, not thinking there are other options.

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I think if I was not playing with bows I would be feeling very different, because the brief bit of one handed swords and shields gameplay I played didn't feel good at all.

Having played Dark Souls and Mount & Blade, Skyrim's melee combat feels really dull. Especially with dragons. Archery is fun, and I would look into magic mods. The latter doesn't feel tactical like I would want it to, but at least you can get it to look real pretty.

 

I wonder if anyone else has had this problem: I keep getting stuck in dungeons, quickly decide that I'm just going to look up what to do instead of figuring it out, and realizing that I didn't "take" a book to activate the next part of a quest, I only "read" it. That's some weird design, especially considering I just kind of automatically hit B after I'm done reading a book, not thinking there are other options.

Hmm... aside from one of the last story dungeons, I never found myself getting stuck. :erm:

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Regarding Skyrim:

Did public opinion turn on this game while i wasn't looking? What's going on here? I certainly still think it's one of the best games in the series, i only love Morrowind more, and i'm saying that as somebody who's played TES games since Daggerfall.

 

I've noticed the same thing and am equally confused. I absolutely adored Skyrim and it is most definitely in my top 10 favorites of all time. Even after putting 250+ hours in as my stealth archer, I still regularly think of jumping back in and going through it all again as a different class. The only reason I don't is because I know it will completely dominate my gaming diet and I will play nothing else during that time. 

 

But then again, I also really liked Oblivion and had no issues with that game either so I am probably just partial to Bethesda's style of open world game.

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Having played Dark Souls and Mount & Blade, Skyrim's melee combat feels really dull. Especially with dragons. Archery is fun, and I would look into magic mods. The latter doesn't feel tactical like I would want it to, but at least you can get it to look real pretty.

 

Hmm... aside from one of the last story dungeons, I never found myself getting stuck. :erm:

It's very possible that I'm just a stupid idiot. I will make sure I'm taking every vaguely quest related book now, too. :manny:

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I treat Elder Scroll games like they are toys waiting to be broken.  I can't say I've ever really gotten super deep into one in terms of the main story, I just faff about until I figure out how to make my character a god, then I'm done with it.  I really only play around with them because it's guaranteed to be around my house.  My wife is a giant fan, she'll sink hundreds of hours over the course of a year into the newest one.  I've felt that way about them since Morrowind, so nothing different for me.

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I've noticed the same thing and am equally confused. I absolutely adored Skyrim and it is most definitely in my top 10 favorites of all time. Even after putting 250+ hours in as my stealth archer, I still regularly think of jumping back in and going through it all again as a different class. The only reason I don't is because I know it will completely dominate my gaming diet and I will play nothing else during that time. 

 

But then again, I also really liked Oblivion and had no issues with that game either so I am probably just partial to Bethesda's style of open world game.

I'll point out (even though I think I have been much more positive on Skyrim than most of the people who posted about it before me), that I'm not that big of a fan of this style of open ended game. That's why I avoided playing it for so long. I'm liking Skyrim, though, which is part of what I'm surprised about.

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I'll point out (even though I think I have been much more positive on Skyrim than most of the people who posted about it before me), that I'm not that big of a fan of this style of open ended game. That's why I avoided playing it for so long. I'm liking Skyrim, though, which is part of what I'm surprised about.

 

That's totally fair to not be a big fan of this style of game and I'm glad that you're liking it despite that. Also, that's awesome that you're going as a "sneaky bowman". I can't speak for any other build but I found the combat as a stealth-archer type to be very satisfying. Especially when your archery and stealth are fully leveled up and complemented by some Illusion magic. Going through a dungeon and killing everyone before they could even figure out where I was never got old for me.

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That's totally fair to not be a big fan of this style of game and I'm glad that you're liking it despite that. Also, that's awesome that you're going as a "sneaky bowman". I can't speak for any other build but I found the combat as a stealth-archer type to be very satisfying. Especially when your archery and stealth are fully leveled up and complemented by some Illusion magic. Going through a dungeon and killing everyone before they could even figure out where I was never got old for me.

Never thought about using Illusion magic too (duh), I'll check into that! I was just doing pure Stealth. I think I even have a hat that increases my Illusion Magic skill.

 

It's definitely fun to fully stealth a dungeon. I killed a bunch of the undead dudes in front of a dragon word wall without them ever knowing I was there. They just kept triggering as the previous enemies died and then I popped the new guys.

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Even after putting 250+ hours in as my stealth archer, I still regularly think of jumping back in and going through it all again as a different class.

That's just it right there, I don't really enjoy games that way. The longest I've ever stuck with a game is about 30 hours I think, and I was getting tired of it. I think Skyrim is fantastic in a lot of ways, just not my thing personally.

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That's just it right there, I don't really enjoy games that way. The longest I've ever stuck with a game is about 30 hours I think, and I was getting tired of it. I think Skyrim is fantastic in a lot of ways, just not my thing personally.

 

Yeah, I have a tendency to spend ridiculous amounts of time with a game, even if it isn't super compelling. Case in point: I played Final Fantasy XIII for about 90 hours. Horrible story and characters but the battle system was interesting enough that I couldn't stop until I had beat all the high level bosses and fully leveled all my characters.

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Yeah, I have a tendency to spend ridiculous amounts of time with a game, even if it isn't super compelling. Case in point: I played Final Fantasy XIII for about 90 hours. Horrible story and characters but the battle system was interesting enough that I couldn't stop until I had beat all the high level bosses and fully leveled all my characters.

 

So did I, and I kind of hated myself for it, but then I was for some reason super compelled to see how far I could push the capabilities of my characters.  That's the rare game where I felt super conflicted about it from start to finish.  I was sure that I didn't really like it, and yet I kept having fun screwing around with the systems. 

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I just enjoy Elder Scrolls games as like... exploration spaces. I like wandering around the cities and through the wilderness, venturing into dungeons for items to hoard. I love all the little incidental environmental story-telling, and then the more overt forms too, going around talking to the NPC's and reading the books. (I actually like the TES lore, i think Bethesda's always done some fun things with it that a lot of other fantasy settings never really even consider. It's a world filled with unreliable histories and contradictory mythologies.)

It's why Morrowind is still my favorite game in the series, despite Skyrim being such a better game. Morrowind had the most interesting setting and story. They could both probably be in a personal top ten list for me, i suppose.

Not to completely disparage Oblivion, i loved it when i played it and i think the game gets a bit of a unfortunate reputation these days, but Cyrodiil just came off as such a bland setting. (It's presented as a pretty standard medieval fantasy location, one quite contrary to how imperials were presented in other TES games as a very roman empire-esque culture.)

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So did I, and I kind of hated myself for it, but then I was for some reason super compelled to see how far I could push the capabilities of my characters.  That's the rare game where I felt super conflicted about it from start to finish.  I was sure that I didn't really like it, and yet I kept having fun screwing around with the systems. 

 

I had this same internal conflict while playing the game. When I finished it, I wasn't sure if the overwhelming feeling I was left with was one of regret or a sense of accomplishment. Usually it is pretty easy to distinguish those things but that game made me question the deepest foundations of my being. That being said, I think I liked it? But I will never fucking touch that game again or even consider playing any of it's successors.

 

Edit: Actually, no, fuck that game! I just remembered I was never able to defeat Long GUI and was robbed of the true sense of accomplishment that I deserved after putting 90 fucking hours into that game. 

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On Exploration in Dark Souls:

 

I normally love exploring areas in games, but I constantly felt lost, and the game makes you pay if you get lost. 

 

Part of my issue with Dark Souls too was finding a weapon. I prefer a stable sword & board character or a katana with fast movement and quick strikes, but I could find no weapon to fit my play style. I ended up using a great sword variant that hours of toiling in the grave yard got me (again, thinking that was the area I was meant to do next). While it made short work of some things, the slow movement and slow swings were not for me.

 

Regarding Skyrim:

Did public opinion turn on this game while I wasn't looking? 

 

I seem to remember many critics (including myself) of Skyrim didn't say anything because it was pretty much uniformly called an amazing game. While I don't want to go into what I disliked about it too much it was really one main thing:

The open world was a lie. They built this fantastic open world full of nothing. Any quest you did was inside a homogeneous cavern. I felt like I had done every quest 100 times because the caverns all looked the same.

 

I love WRPGs, they're my favourite genre, but Skyrim was a poor example of how to do it. Then again, I don't enjoy any of the Elder Scrolls series. 

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I normally love exploring areas in games, but I constantly felt lost, and the game makes you pay if you get lost.

 

I agree. I'm actually watching this thread and the Dark Souls thread with great interest. About six months ago, I bought the game on a whim, played hard until ringing the first bell, and stopped dead. I was at a crossroads, but every direction seemed to take me to places that, using the knowledge I'd gained from dying to the Black Knight four times and to Havel the Rock six, looked to me like I shouldn't go. I softshoed around a weird vine-covered area for about half an hour, thought I should quit while I was ahead, and never came back. Now I want to start again, but I'm the same as you, Griddlelol. The game seems to disincentivize exploration with immediate death, but I don't know how else to find out where to go.

 

It probably doesn't help that my character's shit. I started with the Pyromancer, but I keep tending towards a tank wielding as big a sword as possible. Hey, it may be feasible, but my reactions are terrible, with only maybe one parry in five landing, so he's certainly not great for keeping his distance and testing out bosses' weaknesses. The only time I did really well was the gargoyle, which I beat in just a few minutes after just one other try. Otherwise, I feel like I don't know what I want and don't want to admit it on an internet forum.

 

I also had a weird glitch happen with my humanity after an invasion, so now I have nine humanity, more than I ever had before, and I'm terrified of death.

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I don't want to be that guy that struts in all cool and tries to calm you down, but don't worry about losing anything. Souls are very easy to come by, and humanity is only useful if you want to summon people into your game. Don't stress about dying - all you're going to lose is your time invested in that run. 

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I don't want to be that guy that struts in all cool and tries to calm you down, but don't worry about losing anything. Souls are very easy to come by, and humanity is only useful if you want to summon people into your game. Don't stress about dying - all you're going to lose is your time invested in that run. 

 

I kinda like the increased drop rate, but yeah, it's silly. The drop rate is zero if I'm too scared to play the game.

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That's a great point. I think I recall getting stuck where you are and it's the only place I got stuck in the game.

 

Did you find any keys? If so, recall any locked doors to use them on?

 

I don't really think you're cheating yourself too much if you look at how to get past this one sticking point.

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I seem to remember many critics (including myself) of Skyrim didn't say anything because it was pretty much uniformly called an amazing game. While I don't want to go into what I disliked about it too much it was really one main thing:

The open world was a lie. They built this fantastic open world full of nothing. Any quest you did was inside a homogeneous cavern. I felt like I had done every quest 100 times because the caverns all looked the same.

 

I love WRPGs, they're my favourite genre, but Skyrim was a poor example of how to do it. Then again, I don't enjoy any of the Elder Scrolls series. 

So the radiant quest system in Skyrim did tend to leave many of its quests feeling indistinct. Since the system randomly looks for an unexplored dungeon in your game state to populate with objectives and enemies for your current quest, the result is that it tends to leave the quest design in Skyrim always pushing you towards a dungeon even moreso than in previous games.

So i'll give you that, if you don't like dungeon-diving in TES games, that sucks. (I think it helps to bump up the difficulty and use the dungeons as an excuse to actually think about all the supplies you're hoarding.)

I would still argue that the dungeons in Skyrim are, at the bare minimum, better than the dungeons in Oblivion. In my time with the game, i found many distinct and elaborate dungeons, quite a few with unique events and even some with dungeon-borne quests to stumble across while pursuing the objective for one of those radiant-assigned quests. (Everything in and around Blackreach really stands out to me as awesome.)

On the other hand, If you mean to try and argue that Bethesda failed to populate the overworld itself with interesting content, I think that is crazy talk. I don't think anybody does that stuff better than Bethesda.

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