This "To Arms!" sidequest in TPS is frickin tedious... Id never guess 50 garbage whites would be so hard to come by. Reward looks like an orange oz kit, though so...
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
This "To Arms!" sidequest in TPS is frickin tedious... Id never guess 50 garbage whites would be so hard to come by. Reward looks like an orange oz kit, though so...
Yea...did you notice the place name of where you go turn them in? Struck me as intentional.
So what are modern telltale adventure games actually like? People always talk about making decisions that matter long-term, when honestly, I just want to pick up something, walk to the other side of the game world, and put that thing in something else. I haven't touched the series since Back to the Future because of that, am I actually missing out on anything?
So what are modern telltale adventure games actually like? People always talk about making decisions that matter long-term, when honestly, I just want to pick up something, walk to the other side of the game world, and put that thing in something else. I haven't touched the series since Back to the Future because of that, am I actually missing out on anything?
Modern Telltale games are nothing like that. Whatsoever. Try new King's Quest if you want that.
So what are modern telltale adventure games actually like? People always talk about making decisions that matter long-term, when honestly, I just want to pick up something, walk to the other side of the game world, and put that thing in something else. I haven't touched the series since Back to the Future because of that, am I actually missing out on anything?
Modern Telltale games are nothing like that. Whatsoever. Try new King's Quest if you want that.
Sam and Max season 1-3 and Tales from Monkey Island are great modern adventure games. Tell Tale kinda left the classic point and click adventure formal behind after that.
Watching a playthrough of Tales, well, it felt like watching a cartoon show.
And from what I could tell of player inputs, probably felt that way for them too.
I don't hate Telltale, but I'm disappointed that this is where 'adventure' games have ended up. Well, barring the occasional buggy-as-hell greenlight monstrosity on steam.
Tales from the Borderlands is very fun. Yes player interaction and exploration is limited, but you get to shape the narrative. It's very far from the traditional classic point and click adventure games, but still fun in its own right.
Telltale games are let's say 80% linear. Traditional adventure games are 100% linear (and no, fuck ups that lead to game overs aren't branching paths). It's funny that modern Telltale games are the ones criticized for telling a linear story...
I do wish there were some more optional stuff with actual game-play in Tales, though. Like, I dunno, give the player a puzzle to solve with a cash reward if you do get through it, but you can just say eff it and continue on if they're just interested in what's going on with the plot.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Telltale games are let's say 80% linear. Traditional adventure games are 100% linear (and no, fuck ups that lead to game overs aren't branching paths). It's funny that modern Telltale games are the ones criticized for telling a linear story...
well i mean
presumably much of the appeal of point and click adventures is puzzle solving
modern telltale games are decision simulators where most of the decisions don't matter
kind of a different thing with different expectations
(i actually love modern telltale games, but if we're being honest tales is the only one that's replayable in the slightest, thanks to at least having different jokes on different "paths")
I had like... 13 guns left to collect for "To Arms!" and the Rooster Booster dude at the train station dropped an orange oz kit. Something something oxidizer or whatever. Was gonna just use that and give up on the quest, but I figured I'd gone that far, might as well finish it. Glad I did, because corrosive damage is more useful than fire in the outdoor vacuum areas.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
0
NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
Plus if I recall correctly, the orange oz kit you get from trading in the white weapons is team-based and gets better if copies are used by other players.
Does anyone else dislike Borderlands' character progression mechanics? You're offered a variety of characters with distinct playstyles, choose one, and then are stuck with that character, which could involve multiple playthroughs of an already reasonably long game. Switch characters, and you're stuck right at the beginning of the first playthrough with absolutely nothing. You do get some benefits that you can carry over, but they're pretty much irrelevant compared to benefits from leveling, and you're still trapped at the beginning of the plot.
What I'd love to see would be a system where you could switch between characters relatively easily while retaining your progress in the plot (basically following the existing conceit that they're canonically all there but you only see the one you're playing as for gameplay reasons). Experience wouldn't be shared, but to make up for this, the leveling curve would be greatly flattened, with levels providing skill points but very little direct power. Instead, the Badass Rank system would be completely reworked to constitute the majority of your statistics and equipment unlocks. Basically, you'd always have a powerful character, but you'd put in effort to make them interesting.
I'd also like some sort of AI coop. Grab another vault hunter from your list, give them some weapons, set their skills, and have them follow you around shooting things and obeying targeting and positional instructions. Decide that you'd rather be them instead, and you could swap at will, switching them to the player character and you to AI.
The Fight for your Life system is also incredibly stupid in my opinion. It could use reworking so that running out of health before you kill your opponent isn't somehow safer than running out of health after you kill them. Though, if you always have a coop buddy around to revive you when things are clear, that could solve some of the issues there.
BL gameplay (and the sequel even moreso) is built around (the assumption of) co-op to a degree that I, as a dedicated single player, often find disheartening.
I enjoy the story and humor of Borderlands to some degree. Especially since Tales from the Borderlands came out.
But I've never seen the appeal of gun farming. It just never grabbed me the way Diablo did.
There just isn't enough that you can do with it. I'd love some sort of complex crafting system, but even letting you grind weapons on the fly and allowing grinding to raise the level of the output slightly if the input is lower level than you would be nice. I like the idea of taking a pile of pure shit and converting it into a smaller pile of things that are slightly more reasonable, but limiting grinding to a single location makes it too cumbersome to really take advantage of, and grinding weapons that you've used but outgrown just gives you slightly nicer weapons that you've also outgrown.
I love the idea of AI coop, @jothki (although not as much as just making the game less coop reliant, to @Commander Zoom's point.)
And your point about the grinder is spot on. Making the output gun's level the lowest level of the three guns you grind (combined with the low drop rate of rarer guns), means it's super, super unlikely that a good gun you grind will be at your level. And since the gaps between the upper levels in BL2 and TPS are so much wider than they were in BL, that pretty much makes any gun more than a few levels lower than your character ineffective.
Another complaint that I have is that the games don't provide enough information about the characters while you're selecting them. I shouldn't have to be aware of the history of modern policing to know that Nisha is going to have a skill tree focused on beating the crap out of people, I should just be able to see that tree.
Nisha's not social commentary. She's a thug that was dating Handsome Jack, who killed the then-current Sheriff of Lynchwood and took over. Pre-Sequel is entirely based on the idea that you've played both previous games (or at least BL2), so you know who the characters already are.
You also (at least in BL2) get a handy little ECHO recorder when you start that involves the character you're playing.
edit: And this is also what trailers are for, in addition to Gearbox being pretty good about putting out everyone's skill trees on their site before/at release.
BL gameplay (and the sequel even moreso) is built around (the assumption of) co-op to a degree that I, as a dedicated single player, often find disheartening.
it's like pokemon though
selling 4 copies of the game instead of 1 is a lot more revenue
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
The Fight for your Life system is also incredibly stupid in my opinion. It could use reworking so that running out of health before you kill your opponent isn't somehow safer than running out of health after you kill them. Though, if you always have a coop buddy around to revive you when things are clear, that could solve some of the issues there.
I love FFYL. It'd just be a death in other games or a bleedout period until a partner revived you, but giving you a second chance if you score a kill makes those moments tense and rewarding. Dying to acid or something after the last enemy goes is annoying when it happens, but not that big of an inconvenience on the whole it can only happen once per fight and because death isn't very punishing (coop definitely neutralizes it, though, and I really recommend playing with a friend because I find it way more fun).
I think a bigger problem is the game "balance" in late play leading to repeat bouts of FFYL as soon as an enemy glances at you, but almost everything about late balance could use some work.
Nisha's not social commentary. She's a thug that was dating Handsome Jack, who killed the then-current Sheriff of Lynchwood and took over. Pre-Sequel is entirely based on the idea that you've played both previous games (or at least BL2), so you know who the characters already are.
You also (at least in BL2) get a handy little ECHO recorder when you start that involves the character you're playing.
edit: And this is also what trailers are for, in addition to Gearbox being pretty good about putting out everyone's skill trees on their site before/at release.
But Lynchwood is completely missable in Borderlands 2. I didn't go there until UVHM, and only then because it was part of the daily quest in the loot hunt.
You really should be able to at least start a new character at the beginning of which ever difficulty you have unlocked, so you don't have to grind up all the way from level 1.
Nisha's not social commentary. She's a thug that was dating Handsome Jack, who killed the then-current Sheriff of Lynchwood and took over. Pre-Sequel is entirely based on the idea that you've played both previous games (or at least BL2), so you know who the characters already are.
You also (at least in BL2) get a handy little ECHO recorder when you start that involves the character you're playing.
edit: And this is also what trailers are for, in addition to Gearbox being pretty good about putting out everyone's skill trees on their site before/at release.
But Lynchwood is completely missable in Borderlands 2. I didn't go there until UVHM, and only then because it was part of the daily quest in the loot hunt.
You really should be able to at least start a new character at the beginning of which ever difficulty you have unlocked, so you don't have to grind up all the way from level 1.
This so much.
Also, games should never require players to search outside the game to find important information. That way lies madness and Minecraft.
Edit: Which reminds me, there's nothing quite like opening a chest to find a unique, high level weapon that does things that you'll never understand without checking a wiki.
Nisha's not social commentary. She's a thug that was dating Handsome Jack, who killed the then-current Sheriff of Lynchwood and took over. Pre-Sequel is entirely based on the idea that you've played both previous games (or at least BL2), so you know who the characters already are.
You also (at least in BL2) get a handy little ECHO recorder when you start that involves the character you're playing.
edit: And this is also what trailers are for, in addition to Gearbox being pretty good about putting out everyone's skill trees on their site before/at release.
But Lynchwood is completely missable in Borderlands 2. I didn't go there until UVHM, and only then because it was part of the daily quest in the loot hunt.
You really should be able to at least start a new character at the beginning of which ever difficulty you have unlocked, so you don't have to grind up all the way from level 1.
This so much.
Also, games should never require players to search outside the game to find important information. That way lies madness and Minecraft.
Edit: Which reminds me, there's nothing quite like opening a chest to find a unique, high level weapon that does things that you'll never understand without checking a wiki.
a mysterious weapon with a vague description is probably better than a midget wrestler to the face
Tho I wholeheartedly agree that as BL has progressed it has become more obfuscated, and really lost some of what made the original fun.
It's made strides forward too, at least. Having the player actually interact with NPCs makes so much difference to the flavor of the world. You're not playing as a Gladiator, an Enforcer, a Lawbringer, or a Mistake, you're playing as Athena, Wilhelm, Nisha, or Claptrap, and it's nice to have the game finally acknowledge this rather than pretending that their very distinctively designed characters are blank slates for you to project yourself on.
It's made strides forward too, at least. Having the player actually interact with NPCs makes so much difference to the flavor of the world. You're not playing as a Gladiator, an Enforcer, a Lawbringer, or a Mistake, you're playing as Athena, Wilhelm, Nisha, or Claptrap, and it's nice to have the game finally acknowledge this rather than pretending that their very distinctively designed characters are blank slates for you to project yourself on.
agreed. game balance aside, the improvement in writing seen in BL2 and TPS was really welcome
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I definitely wouldn't mind if, for a hypothetical BL3, they looked at how Diablo 3 does difficulty settings and adventure mode and stuff and just wholeheartedly ripped it off.
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Did they ever explain exactly why all the original vault hunters were so scared of him? Was there perhaps a special scene in which he wipes the floor with them or something?
Or was that just a device to make the new vault hunters seem all the more special?
Then mechanics-wise, the numbers in BL2 are higher than the ones in BL1 (even before the ridiculous scaling); the Original Four just couldn't put up the numbers necessary to beat Wilhelm (and Nisha, indirectly). Plus, Jack probably took them out of the Hyperion Digi-struct stations, so dying was permanent.
+1
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
Then mechanics-wise, the numbers in BL2 are higher than the ones in BL1 (even before the ridiculous scaling); the Original Four just couldn't put up the numbers necessary to beat Wilhelm (and Nisha, indirectly). Plus, Jack probably took them out of the Hyperion Digi-struct stations, so dying was permanent.
Aren't Nu-U stations not canon in-universe? Also IIRC there is a cut line where Jack talks about how he poisoned Wilhelm to make sure he loses.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Completely unrelated to everything else, I like the symbolism of Handsome Jack basically just being yet another vault-obsessed Psycho. The only difference is that instead of wearing the vault symbol on his mask, he wears it under it, and uses the mask to pretend to be normal.
There's one thing that's kind of bothering me about the latest game.
Where is my Tiny Eye of Helios? I don't care if the sidequest and the main plot occur in the wrong sequence, that could have been corrected. It just needs to exist, and yet it doesn't.
BL gameplay (and the sequel even moreso) is built around (the assumption of) co-op to a degree that I, as a dedicated single player, often find disheartening.
Yeah, the first game was a bit more forgiving. I did very well solo with Brick. BL2 was alot tougher solo, but I managed with Maya, because she is a powerhouse of death and destruction. Also Gaige. TPS has been the toughest for me so far. Finally found a character that works well for me in Athena, but these later missions are rough. Trying to shut down the laser on Helios, and there's just so many robot suit guys and elemental laser jerks. Aspis recharges really fast, but still... yikes!
I hope BL3 gives some consideration to people who prefer to play solo. Gearbox's next game, Battleborn, appears to be solo friendly at least.
Everyone has a price. Throw enough gold around and someone will risk disintegration.
0
Descendant XSkyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered Userregular
I've got a bit of an odd bug in TPS. I'm currently doing Let's Build a Robot Army and my game is not saving properly. Yesterday at lunch I played a bit into the mission and saved it, but when I came back home after work my progress was lost and I was back at the entrance top the Titan facility. So I figured that it wouldn't let me save in the middle of the mission and plowed through, killing the boss, and finishing the mission. I saved in Concordia. Came back to the game to play a bit before bed, and I was back at the beginning of the mission.
There's obviously some kind of bug because it's saved the fact that I've saved that nerdy guy, and the AI is telling me that it's having a problem with the doors when I load my savegame. I even tried to modify my savegame, with no luck.
Has anyone had anything like this happen to them?
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
That whole area seems buggy. I get the entrance speech every time I go there, even though it's no longer relevant or canonically possible.
+1
Descendant XSkyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered Userregular
I finally heard back from Gearbox this morning. They suggested that I coop with someone through the mission. Fair enough, but what if I had shitty Internet access? Now I have to find someone who still plays and is interested in doing that particular mission at a low level.
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
I finally heard back from Gearbox this morning. They suggested that I coop with someone through the mission. Fair enough, but what if I had shitty Internet access? Now I have to find someone who still plays and is interested in doing that particular mission at a low level.
Are you on PC? Could you use the gibbed save editor to just mark the mission complete? I think it's in the Raw menu
It's made strides forward too, at least. Having the player actually interact with NPCs makes so much difference to the flavor of the world. You're not playing as a Gladiator, an Enforcer, a Lawbringer, or a Mistake, you're playing as Athena, Wilhelm, Nisha, or Claptrap, and it's nice to have the game finally acknowledge this rather than pretending that their very distinctively designed characters are blank slates for you to project yourself on.
agreed. game balance aside, the improvement in writing seen in BL2 and TPS was really welcome
BL1 didn't really quite know how it wanted to play out its world. That all changed in the Knoxx DLC, when the answer was to just go fucking wild with silly shit. The game always leaned comedic, but you see a huge shift in tone with that DLC.
+2
Descendant XSkyrim is my god now.Outpost 31Registered Userregular
I finally heard back from Gearbox this morning. They suggested that I coop with someone through the mission. Fair enough, but what if I had shitty Internet access? Now I have to find someone who still plays and is interested in doing that particular mission at a low level.
Are you on PC? Could you use the gibbed save editor to just mark the mission complete? I think it's in the Raw menu
Tried it, didn't work.
Garry: I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time I'd rather not spend the rest of the winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!
Posts
Yea...did you notice the place name of where you go turn them in? Struck me as intentional.
Modern Telltale games are nothing like that. Whatsoever. Try new King's Quest if you want that.
Sam and Max season 1-3 and Tales from Monkey Island are great modern adventure games. Tell Tale kinda left the classic point and click adventure formal behind after that.
Steam ID: Good Life
And from what I could tell of player inputs, probably felt that way for them too.
I don't hate Telltale, but I'm disappointed that this is where 'adventure' games have ended up. Well, barring the occasional buggy-as-hell greenlight monstrosity on steam.
Steam ID: Good Life
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
presumably much of the appeal of point and click adventures is puzzle solving
modern telltale games are decision simulators where most of the decisions don't matter
kind of a different thing with different expectations
(i actually love modern telltale games, but if we're being honest tales is the only one that's replayable in the slightest, thanks to at least having different jokes on different "paths")
What I'd love to see would be a system where you could switch between characters relatively easily while retaining your progress in the plot (basically following the existing conceit that they're canonically all there but you only see the one you're playing as for gameplay reasons). Experience wouldn't be shared, but to make up for this, the leveling curve would be greatly flattened, with levels providing skill points but very little direct power. Instead, the Badass Rank system would be completely reworked to constitute the majority of your statistics and equipment unlocks. Basically, you'd always have a powerful character, but you'd put in effort to make them interesting.
I'd also like some sort of AI coop. Grab another vault hunter from your list, give them some weapons, set their skills, and have them follow you around shooting things and obeying targeting and positional instructions. Decide that you'd rather be them instead, and you could swap at will, switching them to the player character and you to AI.
The Fight for your Life system is also incredibly stupid in my opinion. It could use reworking so that running out of health before you kill your opponent isn't somehow safer than running out of health after you kill them. Though, if you always have a coop buddy around to revive you when things are clear, that could solve some of the issues there.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
But I've never seen the appeal of gun farming. It just never grabbed me the way Diablo did.
There just isn't enough that you can do with it. I'd love some sort of complex crafting system, but even letting you grind weapons on the fly and allowing grinding to raise the level of the output slightly if the input is lower level than you would be nice. I like the idea of taking a pile of pure shit and converting it into a smaller pile of things that are slightly more reasonable, but limiting grinding to a single location makes it too cumbersome to really take advantage of, and grinding weapons that you've used but outgrown just gives you slightly nicer weapons that you've also outgrown.
And your point about the grinder is spot on. Making the output gun's level the lowest level of the three guns you grind (combined with the low drop rate of rarer guns), means it's super, super unlikely that a good gun you grind will be at your level. And since the gaps between the upper levels in BL2 and TPS are so much wider than they were in BL, that pretty much makes any gun more than a few levels lower than your character ineffective.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
You also (at least in BL2) get a handy little ECHO recorder when you start that involves the character you're playing.
edit: And this is also what trailers are for, in addition to Gearbox being pretty good about putting out everyone's skill trees on their site before/at release.
it's like pokemon though
selling 4 copies of the game instead of 1 is a lot more revenue
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I love FFYL. It'd just be a death in other games or a bleedout period until a partner revived you, but giving you a second chance if you score a kill makes those moments tense and rewarding. Dying to acid or something after the last enemy goes is annoying when it happens, but not that big of an inconvenience on the whole it can only happen once per fight and because death isn't very punishing (coop definitely neutralizes it, though, and I really recommend playing with a friend because I find it way more fun).
I think a bigger problem is the game "balance" in late play leading to repeat bouts of FFYL as soon as an enemy glances at you, but almost everything about late balance could use some work.
But Lynchwood is completely missable in Borderlands 2. I didn't go there until UVHM, and only then because it was part of the daily quest in the loot hunt.
You really should be able to at least start a new character at the beginning of which ever difficulty you have unlocked, so you don't have to grind up all the way from level 1.
Steam ID: Good Life
This so much.
Also, games should never require players to search outside the game to find important information. That way lies madness and Minecraft.
Edit: Which reminds me, there's nothing quite like opening a chest to find a unique, high level weapon that does things that you'll never understand without checking a wiki.
a mysterious weapon with a vague description is probably better than a midget wrestler to the face
Tho I wholeheartedly agree that as BL has progressed it has become more obfuscated, and really lost some of what made the original fun.
agreed. game balance aside, the improvement in writing seen in BL2 and TPS was really welcome
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
Did they ever explain exactly why all the original vault hunters were so scared of him? Was there perhaps a special scene in which he wipes the floor with them or something?
Or was that just a device to make the new vault hunters seem all the more special?
Then mechanics-wise, the numbers in BL2 are higher than the ones in BL1 (even before the ridiculous scaling); the Original Four just couldn't put up the numbers necessary to beat Wilhelm (and Nisha, indirectly). Plus, Jack probably took them out of the Hyperion Digi-struct stations, so dying was permanent.
Aren't Nu-U stations not canon in-universe? Also IIRC there is a cut line where Jack talks about how he poisoned Wilhelm to make sure he loses.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Yeah, the first game was a bit more forgiving. I did very well solo with Brick. BL2 was alot tougher solo, but I managed with Maya, because she is a powerhouse of death and destruction. Also Gaige. TPS has been the toughest for me so far. Finally found a character that works well for me in Athena, but these later missions are rough. Trying to shut down the laser on Helios, and there's just so many robot suit guys and elemental laser jerks. Aspis recharges really fast, but still... yikes!
I hope BL3 gives some consideration to people who prefer to play solo. Gearbox's next game, Battleborn, appears to be solo friendly at least.
There's obviously some kind of bug because it's saved the fact that I've saved that nerdy guy, and the AI is telling me that it's having a problem with the doors when I load my savegame. I even tried to modify my savegame, with no luck.
Has anyone had anything like this happen to them?
Are you on PC? Could you use the gibbed save editor to just mark the mission complete? I think it's in the Raw menu
Steam ID: Good Life
Tried it, didn't work.