Tanukitsune

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

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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.

 

No, I'm not trying to say that. Hunting giants was so much fun. Random little villages and encounters outside were great too. I didn't know about the quest system randomly populating dungeons, that makes a lot of sense now! The overworld was good, none of it mattered though. The side quests and stories generally forced you into a dungeon which just got old for me, very quickly.

 

My other complaint is that the whole thing needed streamlining. Individually, things felt old fashioned but when all the systems come together, it's like the designers didn't have enough time or didn't care about the little parts. 

Example: spamming black smithing/any skill. Tedious, but you have to do it to level it. Why? They could have done this so much better! 

Another example: Voices becoming more quiet as you turn away. I get they're trying to feel realistic, but I don't want to spend the long speeches looking at the gross TES faces. I look around me and miss all the exposition. The very beginning I wanted to look around me but as soon as I did I was missing speech. Why bother to make all this beautiful scenery if I'm forced to stare at the ugliest faces in video games.

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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.

The main thing that made me love the Souls games is that they never actually make you pay anything other than time. Death is meaningless, there is an infinitude of souls available (though 2 messes with this a bit) and you, as a player, are improving all the time if you are focusing on learning. This is immensely liberating once you realise it.

There is difficulty in all directions, but without that difficulty it's impossible to feel accomplishment.

The sense of trepidation on entering a new area is something to be savoured, not lamented. This is something that will never return until a new Souls game comes out. And if an area is kicking your ass then yeah, explore some of the many other branches you've undoubtedly missed or left earlier.

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.

Starting as the warrior gives you a perfect sword/shield combination. You can also buy a heater shield/reinforced club from the undead merchant in the 'burg that can carry you through the game with some judicious upgrading.

On Skyrim: I love exploring the world and the freedom, but the combat was completely spoiled for me once I got into the Souls games. Only archery and stealth were fun to me, precisely because the Souls games don't do those well.

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The main thing that made me love the Souls games is that they never actually make you pay anything other than time. 

 

Maybe this is the key. I play games maybe one day a week, and on my extremely old PS3, the loading times were killer too. Losing time to a cheap death is frustrating to me, because I'm losing my gaming time. DS is very hard to come back to after not playing for a week too. It's like learning all over again, but in an area designed for people who have progressed. 

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Oh yeah, I play on PC where load times are trivial. Still, it's a good thing to sit back for a bit after a death and reflect on what went wrong, and what to do better next time. I kind of miss that on PC, and have gotten into the habit of not immediately dashing off again after spawning in, but having a brief pause, maybe checking equipment and the like.

Besides that, if your goal is progress the Souls games can be supremely frustrating, because a lot of the progress you make is nonspatial and invisible, because it's you as a player getting a little bit better.

It's possible to see Souls as a game that bullies you by preventing you from getting to the 'cool stuff' by putting seemingly insurmountable difficulty in your path.

I however see it as a playground that lets you always learn something new, and get better at playing in it.

Note that this doesn't mean I don't curse like a sailor at times when playing.

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I originally posted this in a new thread because I wasn't aware of this one, so forgive the double post!

 

I've made a new video looking at the reasons I stopped playing Borderlands 2, after getting over 60 hours of fun from it.

 

Anyone else have the same experience?

 

Beardo

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Then welcome to Quitter's Club!

 

Ooh, I'd say 60 hours is a fair crack of the whip. Did it become Ennuilands 2 for you much before that point or was it a fairly sudden realisation?

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It came over time, after stumbling a bit when I first started. I moved on to other games but struggled whenever I came back to Borderlands 2. My last play through was painful: basically an hour of killing bugs.

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ive also temporarily quit BL2 at this point as well, but with 168hrs logged since release & in Ultimate Vault hunter mode @lvl55.  for me it wasn't the repetitive gunning & endless looting that dragged me down...it was the 3rd play through

 

The scale of difficulty between end game True Vault hunter & Southern Shelf UVHM is incredible...i died 6x (if not more) before getting to hammerlock's little shack.  as zer0 and the weapons i had at the time it was too much, on the other hand i have a friend who continued and is right around lvl-72 now.  he said he died a lot but trucked through and on the other side of the difficulty wall after some decent drops a much more reasonable time playing

 

 

i think it was a great improvement on BL1...and some of the DLC made for great additions to the story (and fairly good length, and good loot for farming)  Great pick up on a GoTY on steam for ~$15

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I gave up on Doom 3 RoE because after enjoying the gravity gun/bullet time for a while, it got too repetitive again to make it worth going through the last few hours.

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I've been trying to play through The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but between already not liking the 3-day system, and having a huge amount of trouble with the Snowhead Temple I'm giving up.

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I started Infamous and after a few hours I'm calling it a day. The combat is pretty bland, the world is pretty boring (I'm not sure if the other islands are better), and the writing is so bad. I really wanted to like it, I liked Sucker Punch's other games, but I don't think this is going to work out.

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CastleStorm. For those who don't know CastleStorm is a multiplayer tower defense game. I had fun with the single-player campaign, but it didn't feel like it was going anywhere so I immediately stopped once I felt my enjoyment of it go down just a tad. Figured it'd be better to have short, positive memories of the game. The mechanic mix-up is interesting- though sometimes hectic- and I overall liked it. Just wish the levels were a little more creative.

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CastleStorm. For those who don't know CastleStorm is a multiplayer tower defense game. I had fun with the single-player campaign, but it didn't feel like it was going anywhere so I immediately stopped once I felt my enjoyment of it go down just a tad. Figured it'd be better to have short, positive memories of the game. The mechanic mix-up is interesting- though sometimes hectic- and I overall liked it. Just wish the levels were a little more creative.

 

im enjoying castlestorm as a second-screen game...but i think the mouse/keyboard controls are pretty bad.  the gameplay doesnt necessarily change...there is some "castle" building elements & ranking up different elements

 

but it was so clearly a console - first designed game because the ultra-precision of a mouse arrow launcher makes head shots the fastest way to clean up the map.  Im about halfway through the 1st campaign going full-stars.  

 

i hope multiplayer could be some fun

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This is more of a purge than it is a quit:

 

Quantum Conundrum - Cute and jolly.  Not what I'm looking for in a puzzler.  Controls felt tight, but the narrative setup lacked any sense of urgency and was a bit thinly veiled ("we need to activate three generators!!").

Fallout 3 - Got out to Nuketown, and couldn't continue.  Everything was so grey and brown and ugly.  The scope of the world felt off.  I had no desire to explore.

Papo & Yo - Loved what this game was built on, and was especially excited when it just dumped me into the world to play almost immediately.  The tone ended up feeling like so many 3D platformers with its silent protagonist and its cartoonish sidekicks.  Not my jam!

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Fallout 3 - Got out to Nuketown, and couldn't continue.  Everything was so grey and brown and ugly.  The scope of the world felt off.  I had no desire to explore.

Papo & Yo - Loved what this game was built on, and was especially excited when it just dumped me into the world to play almost immediately.  The tone ended up feeling like so many 3D platformers with its silent protagonist and its cartoonish sidekicks.  Not my jam!

 

I really liked almost all of Papo & Yo's visual aesthetics, loved the magical realism stuff expressed in the themes, and enjoyed the environmental manipulation you end up doing. You're criticism is fair, but I liked the rest of game so much that I was willing to overlook it. Also, good on them for having an Afro-Latino protagonist.

 

In regards to Fallout 3, the city is where I found myself falling in love with the game. Mapping out the metro system was fun and then popping up into different parts of D.C. to poke around the buildings while sneaking about was thrilling. The broader wasteland holds a lot of interesting stories, but having to walk across long spans of empty land to get to them isn't engaging. 

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In regards to Fallout 3, the city is where I found myself falling in love with the game. Mapping out the metro system was fun and then popping up into different parts of D.C. to poke around the buildings while sneaking about was thrilling. The broader wasteland holds a lot of interesting stories, but having to walk across long spans of empty land to get to them isn't engaging. 

 

That's my problem with F3.  Like 80 percent of the wasteland is completely empty of anything interesting.  The 20 percent that has stuff is great!  But I really wanted a world to explore, and too often that world was boring.  Makes sense for a post apocalypse, but that doesn't mean that it is interesting.

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I still need to go back and play through Fallout 3 for the DLC and new ending. I guess while I'm at it I should do Mass Effect and Skyrim as well.

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I really liked almost all of Papo & Yo's visual aesthetics, loved the magical realism stuff expressed in the themes, and enjoyed the environmental manipulation you end up doing. You're criticism is fair, but I liked the rest of game so much that I was willing to overlook it. Also, good on them for having an Afro-Latino protagonist.

 

Yes!  There was a ton to like about that game!  :)

 

Though, to expound on my thought a bit more:  I think it may also be that I didn't connect with a "childhood lost in imagination", as I had some weird block as a kid and struggled with "play".  Maybe that's why I can't get into Marquez's books?  I just feel wired in a way that it's lost on me.

 

I should also note that I tend to be turned off by games who use puzzle roadblocks at every turn, and that was all that I saw of my time with the game.

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Though, to expound on my thought a bit more:  I think it may also be that I didn't connect with a "childhood lost in imagination", as I had some weird block as a kid and struggled with "play".  Maybe that's why I can't get into Marquez's books?  I just feel wired in a way that it's lost on me.

 

news_photo_50932_1396552234.jpg

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(Also, I deserved that...)

 

Naw, I just love that picture.

 

Also, news came out a couple of hours ago that he passed away. Damn.

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Naw, I just love that picture.

 

Also, news came out a couple of hours ago that he passed away. Damn.

 

That's a bummer!  ):

 

Now I feel like his ghost must have heard me saying I wasn't a fan and he's like, "damn son, too soon."

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South Park the Stick of Truth

 

If i was flicking through the channels and South Park came on i would think "Cool!" and watch it for 5 minutes and then turn over

 

I started playing this game and it was just like a episode of South Park "Cool!" i played it for 2 hours, now i want to turn over

 

Searching through cupboards and draws was tedious and i don't like having to use my brain during the combat.

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I'm thinking of quitting Daedalic's Alcatraz 1954, for starters, it doesn't really feel like it's 1954, but it's giving me a bit Runaway vibe... crossed with a Telltale Game?

 

I'm only played it for a while, but the game is very unsubtle with the the choices it forces you to make, not to mention, I don't really like Noir games... The fact the game is about backstabbing and getting money for a mobster, which is kinda Runaway-ish anyway is really turning me off.

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Mercenary Kings has lost its shine. If you know that what you're getting into is Metal Slug x Monster Hunter, the grindy repetition isn't bad. The artwork is also lovely and gross in that special Paul Robertson way.

The problem is the level design. There are a handful of stages where all the missions take place that are nicely nonlinear, but the enemy placement is bespoke yet sloppy. Too often you have to creep forward to avoid an enemy off camera that you know is there, but won't move until you can see them. Since grind is built into the loop of the game, you'll end up playing the same mission multiple times but I never felt like I could seamlessly get through the stage. I constantly had to stutter-step through screen transitions or wait for an enemy to path out of the way of a landing or do an attack that I know is coming but with hit me in the middle of a jump if I just charge forward with abandon.

Grind is fine if you can get into a rhythm, but I can't get into one here.

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