Author: Zubon

.

Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

.

Loot Bonuses: Bad Multiplayer Mechanic

Socializing costs and privatizing benefits is a lousy combination.

Many games allow you to increase your difficulty and your reward. This could be explicit in the form of a difficulty dial tied to rewards, but it is more often an opportunity cost. For example, you might equip an item that improves your loot, but doing so forgoes equipping an item that improves your damage. The fight is marginally harder and your rewards are marginally better. Kingdom of Loathing is an example of a game that does both: there are ways to increase monster level, and you can also equip items that have +monster level instead of (or in addition to) stat bonuses.

Kingdom of Loathing is also a single-player game. City of Heroes similarly gives you tools to adjust mission difficulty, and it gives the same difficulty increase and reward increase to everyone.

Multiplayer games that allow individuals to equip +loot items allow those individuals to increase their rewards at a cost of increased difficulty to everyone on the team. Alice is a tank using best-in-slot gear for damage resistance while Bob is a healer using best-in-slot gear for improved loot drops; Alice is working harder and incurring more repair costs for Bob’s benefits. Alice’s only way to avoid players like Bob is to stick with known companions or be That Guy and demand to see your equipment before letting you into the group. If everyone or no one is wearing +loot gear, the situation is fair and both risks and rewards are shared. Allowing individuals to unilaterally increase group difficulty for personal benefit is a solid example of anti-social design. Continue reading Loot Bonuses: Bad Multiplayer Mechanic

[PS2] Tutorial

I have criticized ArenaNet for explaining major game features with “go read the wiki.” PlanetSide 2’s entire tutorial is a link to YouTube videos on the launcher. Logging in, you are dropped directly into a warzone without an explanation of advanced features like “how to tell who is on your team.” You are told to go control the land for your faction without mention of how to do that.

This has a worse introduction than Dwarf Fortress. There are other games that start you without a tutorial or have a steep learning curve, but this one drops you directly into combat with experienced players rather than “start level one and figure it out as you go along.” On a scale of 1 to 10, the introduction gets a negative number for skipping both the tutorial and that entire space where the beginning would be. I was killed by teammates before seeing an enemy, then again before shooting one. The part of the game that every player will see seems designed to drive away new players.

MMOs strive to be a niche market by making the players work for it. If you want to play this game, you must go watch these videos and read these links on another site so you can know what is going on and how to play. It is a strange thing that almost every buy-the-box game gives you an introduction so that you can start off on the right foot, though they already have your money even if you never re-load the game, while this F2P+cash shop game is making it hard to get started, but they need new players to come back and spend money after their horrible first experience.

: Zubon

[BL2] Off-Screen Adventures

The Borderlands 2 end boss fight is long rather than difficult once you find the perfectly safe spot on the map. Your only risk is leaving it to grab more ammo. To help you rally in case of catastrophic misadventure, the boss fight includes an endless swarm of rakk. If you get knocked down, shoot one, and you’re back. Your main threat there is falling down so often that you do not have enough “fight for your life” time to shoot a rakk.

Playing as the Mechromancer, her pet robot contributes to the fight oddly. With the talent tree I was using, the robot could one-shot rakk to add 5 seconds to its battery life. It did so every 3-4 seconds. Instead of fighting the boss, it sat there farming, and it did so endlessly unless the boss accidentally AEed it out of existence. Free xp and money, scattered loot and ammo, auto-rez: everything you want except a meaningful contribution to the fight. That’s okay, I had it under control.

That endless rakk swarm does not stop spawning with the boss’s death. The rakk only occasionally hit the robot, so it just kept farming them as they flew by. I watched for a while, amused. I wandered around and picked up loot. I explored the area. Once it got around 200 kills, I activated the game’s ending. The robot was still farming rakk in the background of the cut scene. I watched the credits. When they ended, the robot was still farming rakk, and it had been doing so the entire time the credits were rolling. I leveled. I watched for a while, amused. I threw away less valuable loot and picked up better drops. I went to the bathroom, considered making a sandwich. The robot had 500 kills and was still at half health. I quit because I wanted my computer back, but I’m guessing you could get to the level cap just by leaving it running with a macro to hit F occasionally in case the robot dies.

: Zubon

Of course, at that point, just edit your save file.

Rally!

An exciting mechanic I do not see in enough games is a state between fully capable and dead. Some games weaken the player as injuries accumulate, but most follow the trope codifier in letting you (and your enemies) operate at full power with 1 hit point and instantly die to the next falling leaf. For this post, I am less interested in gradual weakening than a transitional dying state. This is variously known as dying, downed, unconscious, “fight for your life,” bleeding out, second wind, etc.

Continue reading Rally!

[BL2] Colleen Clinkenbeard

Would Borderlands (2) be as much fun without the voice acting? I love both the lines and the delivery on Patricia Tannis, but I’m not sure how well the lines work without the delivery. There are some other performances I cannot cite without mild spoilers (feel free in the comments), so let me add that she was also great as the Firehawk, and I may need to go back and play Lilith in BL1 to hear what she does there. Marcus Mauldin also gives great delivery as the Slab King, and I may need to play Brick in BL1 to hear his performance there. Which is funny, because those two were the melee characters and so of less interest to me.

: Zubon

Colleen Clinkenbeard is the sorceress in the Orcs Must Die! games, also great work. Hey, the OMD warmage is also the voice of Axton? Hmm, I may need to try the BL2 Commando.