The Elder Scrolls Megathread XX: Might as well be XXX
3,795 replies, posted
[video]https://youtu.be/QJ0sSLWXrzU[/video]
I was thinking about the equipment repairing discussion earlier and I had a long thought about it. In my opinion I feel like the mechanics to repair things need to have a creative incentive and an engaging way to go about repairing things. "Armor breaks" is a more annoying incentive to fix armor and just clicking on a repair hammer to repair it is not enganging at all.
Now I don't know much about game design from an enjoyable aspect so I'll try to keep it short but the idea I had was that armor instead of breaking when it hits low quality, it just stops really protecting you and ends up being some metal you're just holding infront of you. It provides some protection but not enough to justify keeping it on in the long run, as well as making it harder to move (the reason being that the armor is technically falling apart so it's getting in the way of moving or something like that), or from a cosmetic standpoint your armor looks like it's in shambles, so you have a reason to fix it. But none of it really makes it fun unless repairing the armor yourself is enganging. Having a repair system where you repair the armor via bringing the right materials and some sort of quick minigame can make the repairing enjoyable if done right. To avoid annoyance, make sure armor isn't breaking every five minutes, except for low grade armor like iron and such (but it can still be improved to make sure it doesn't break as often).
It's a really rough idea but I wonder what you guys think of it.
[QUOTE=ChicagoMobster;52797729]I was thinking about the equipment repairing discussion earlier and I had a long thought about it. In my opinion I feel like the mechanics to repair things need to have a creative incentive and an engaging way to go about repairing things. "Armor breaks" is a more annoying incentive to fix armor and just clicking on a repair hammer to repair it is not enganging at all.
Now I don't know much about game design from an enjoyable aspect so I'll try to keep it short but the idea I had was that armor instead of breaking when it hits low quality, it just stops really protecting you and ends up being some metal you're just holding infront of you. It provides some protection but not enough to justify keeping it on in the long run, as well as making it harder to move (the reason being that the armor is technically falling apart so it's getting in the way of moving or something like that), or from a cosmetic standpoint your armor looks like it's in shambles, so you have a reason to fix it. But none of it really makes it fun unless repairing the armor yourself is enganging. Having a repair system where you repair the armor via bringing the right materials and some sort of quick minigame can make the repairing enjoyable if done right. To avoid annoyance, make sure armor isn't breaking every five minutes, except for low grade armor like iron and such (but it can still be improved to make sure it doesn't break as often).
It's a really rough idea but I wonder what you guys think of it.[/QUOTE]
This would've really worked in Skyrim or in a game where you fight as the Imperials/Stormcloaks vs the Dominion, having to scavenge enemy armors to repair your own or something like that.
But anything complex bogs and has bogged down the game very hard in past installments, so I'm not sure how Bethesda would approach it.
Yeah it would be hard to incorporate into the game without overwhelming the player. It's probably just the fact that I'm not really part of the demographic that Skyrim was made for anymore.
This armour talk just makes me think of a mod for FO:NV
it was called signature armours (there was another called signature weapons too and it did exactly the same just for weapons.)
Basically you set an armour your wearing as your signature and over time that armour gets better and better every
It had its own XP counter and every every bit of damage taken added up
When it reached level up, the DT increased and you got to pick a perk for it. Faster, stealthier, even more DT or DR, longer lasting repairs stuff like that
Bog-standard metal armour could outlast BoS power armour eventually
A piece of high level pre-war clothing could be on par with the sneak suit from OWB
Etc
You never had to worry about 'even though I really really like this outfit there is better over there.' because you could take your favourite all the way through to the end game
(same with signature weapon)
I player one entire game with a MP5 and jumpsuit and I never needed to swap out
I always thought Skyrim could benefit from a mod like that
So yes, you could use the work bench to upgrade it but the longer you wear that set, the more powerful it becomes.
I actually thought about that. I thought maybe in that system I was talking about you could use something like a paintbrush or a knife to paint armors and and use the knife to etch something into said armor. Or if you brought something like firesalts and use a tool you could make your armor fire resistant or something. Imagine etching a tally mark on your weapon for each boss you've killed or something like that
[QUOTE=27X;52797472]Except you're arbitrarily ignoring motion mechanics and states that don't exist in Skyrim and the fact that there is no armor in DDDA that does 85% mitigation to all damage sources, and that's not even covering non armor accessories and ward/bound states, which are permanent in Skyrim and extremely temporary in Dogma aside from L3 Bitter trinkets, which you cannot craft, temper or upgrade, and have to "finish" the game to get at all as a reliable drop.[/QUOTE]
That's because armour in Dragon's Dogma is not % based at all (not including bonus resistances), which is the reason why it's broken. It's especially noticeable earlier on, where if you walk into an area which you aren't properly geared for then taking any damage at all will one- or two-shot you. The dragon near the shadow fort and the ancient quarry are both areas that come to mind for this.
It's just not a good armour system, I don't know why you want to defend it so badly. Even if you manage to avoid damage it's going to be a grind to wear down the enemies because they are using the same broken damage reduction system. Skyrim has a much more sensible armour system, even if it's flawed also, it's not nearly to the same degree.
Taking full damage till you get to the 366 threshold and then at 567 basically shrugging off anything that isn't planet sized isn't remotely sensible, and I'm not defending anything other than dogma's mechanics are vastly deeper than skyrim's which plays directly into armor as [B]a supplementary complementation[/B] of two other interlocked mechanic sets which are skills and class abilities.
Considering I killed the dragon at the shadow fort with a [I]fire dagger[/I] by using the nearby trees and the big ass rock bluff to avoid any skullduggery trickeration and incineration, your "point" there is kind of immaterial. The game provided you with several venues to kill the dragon using various skillsets, and in league with my earlier point, the game did not hold your hand and allow you to simply click on the dragon till it was dead to do it, and it was entirely possible to have picked a skillset and weapon type that was very not great against flying lizards of the fiery variety, even though they were still nice enough have a nearby permanent merchant or even two considering a certain vagabond traveler selling rocks that might happen to be nearby, and lots of low level goblins to mop up if you wanted to try your luck against the dragon again after a couple of levels.
You didn't have to go in prepared, but you did have to go in invested in your golden triangle, of which the game spends three quests and three "bosses" instructing you very deliberately in, and even ignoring that by having a knowledgeable hire who will call out tactics to help, letting the player know that whether they are the chosen megapenis or not, they're expected to put some effort and tactics into their gameplay, not just clicking until the life bar depletes, or spending an half hour crafting daggers with Avenici so that you just ignore anything an enemy does to you with nary a shit given not even an hour of getting out of the helgen cave.
[QUOTE=27X;52800120]Taking full damage till you get to the 366 threshold and then at 537 basically shrugging off anything that isn't planet sized isn't remotely sensible, and I'm not defending anything other than dogma's mechanics ae vastly deeper than skyrim's which plays directly into armor as [B]a supplementary complementation[/B] of tow other interlocked mechanic sets which are skills and class abilities.
Considering I killed the dragon at the shadow fort with a [I]fire dagger[/I] by using the nearby trees and the big ass rock bluff to avoid any skullduggery trickeration and incineration, your "point" there is kind of immaterial. The game provided you with several venues to kill the dragon using various skillsets, and and in league with my earlier point, the game did not hold your hand and allow you to simply click on the dragon till it was dead to do it.
You didn't have to go in prepared, but you did have to go in invested in your golden triangle, of which the game spends three quests and three "bosses" instructing you very deliberately in, and that ignoring thaty having a knowledgeable hire will call out tactics to help on top of that, letting the player know that whether they are the chosen megapenis or not, they're expected to put some effort and tactics into their gameplay, not just clicking until the life bar depletes, or spending an half hour crafting daggers with Avenici so that you just ignore anything an enemy does to you with nary a shit given not even an hour of getting out of the helgen cave.[/QUOTE]
None of this really has anything to do with the armour system. I'm also not sure where your 366 / 537 thresholds come from; from what I've read, Skyrim's system is a basic % damage reduction for every point of armour, scaling linearly.
[QUOTE]from what I've read [/QUOTE]
I think I spy the flaw in your master plan.
Armor in DDDA was an integrated part of an interlocked set of mechanic(s) systems, Armor in skyrim is yet another way for bethesda to avoid having to craft ANY mechanics that might maybe possibly potentially could be perhaps make an active, persistent, long lasting choice in their gameplay style, or maybe in the most heinous and callous of crimes [I]actually damage the player[/I] and therefore cause them to apparently swear off playing video game forever and make pete hines homeless and an alcoholic the next day.
In the case of the shadow fort dragon we have:
[quote] I'm a fighter, so I have a strong physical weapon and this pretty ok til now shield with two skills that will really work on the ground only, but this one seems perfect for dragons on the ground cause it stabs upward in an arc for no particular reason [/quote]
Welp you need to get the dragon to land somehow, do you have bombs? Do you have an archer or wizard pal? or two? do you have a big strong amazon to literally throw you into the air at the dragon?
[quote] I'mma use my robe and wizard hat to sex the dragon [/quote]
welp junior the slight problem with that is this breed of dragon doesn't possess any fucks about your fire magic for some strange reason. Mayhaps you should hire some help or go learn some particular stuff about dragons? Maybe learn some skills in a complementary class? Get a draconic halitosis resistance passive?
[quote] deedlit cosplay and nude mod [/quote]
Congratulations, your dodge will be handy and so will sanic ball focus firing that one glowy spot, though it'll take a strong gear set while so maybe you should check out what the dragon does and learn when to best place shots, which incidentally speaking, might come in handy if you should switch classes later on to know what worked and what didn't.
meanwhile in skyrim:
[quote] difficulty levels 1-3 [/quote]
come across two guards standing around dead dragon skeleton at whiterun, casually loot body while glowing, while guards yammer on about how amazing you are
[quote] difficulty level 4-5 [/quote]
dragon manages to actually set you on fire once before dying as you circle strafe around mindless clicking on the mouse, you'll make sure that never happens again by whacking some hammers with Adrianne AY AY NUDGE NUDGE (Incidentally you've also figured out how to kill the final boss of the game)
One of these two scenarios is more interesting and engaging than the other and therefore more likely to be meaningful to the player's experience with the game.
[QUOTE=27X;52800192]I think I spy the flaw in your master plan.[/QUOTE]
Feel free to post how it actually works if that's not the case.
[editline]20th October 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=27X;52800192]Armor in DDDA was an integrated part of an interlocked set of mechanic(s) systems, Armor in skyrim is yet another way for bethesda to avoid having to craft ANY mechanics that might maybe possibly potentially could be perhaps make an active, persistent, long lasting choice in their gameplay style, or maybe in the most heinous and callous of crimes [I]actually damage the player[/I] and therefore cause them to apparently swear off playing video game forever and make pete hines homeless and an alcoholic the next day.
In the case of the shadow fort dragon we have:
Welp you need to get the dragon to land somehow, do you have bombs? Do you have an archer or wizard pal? or two? do you have a big strong amazon to literally throw you into the air at the dragon?[/QUOTE]
The problem isn't that I need the dragon to land. It's that, even climbing up to and stabbing at it's weak point, I do so little damage to it that it's going to take 30 minutes. Because of the armour system.
[quote]welp junior the slight problem with that is this breed of dragon doesn't possess any fucks about your fire magic for some strange reason. Mayhaps you should hire some help or go learn some particular stuff about dragons? Maybe learn some skills in a complementary class? Get a draconic halitosis resistance passive?
Congratulations, your dodge will be handy and so will sanic ball focus firing that one glowy spot, though it'll take a strong while so maybe you should check out what the dragon does and learn when to best place shots, which incidentally speaking might come in handy if you should switch classes later on to know what worked and what didn't.
meanwhile in skyrim:
come across two guards standing around dead dragon skeleton at whiterun, causally loot body while glowing, while guards yammer on about how amazing you are
dragon manages to actually set you on fire once before dying as you circle strafe around mindless clicking on the mouse, you'll make sure that never happens again by whacking some hammers with Adrianne AY AY NUDGE NUDGE
One of these two scenarios is more interesting and engaging than the other and therefore more likely to be meaningful to the player's experience with the game.[/quote]
I don't see what this long rant has to do with the armour system
[QUOTE=Glent;52800057]where if you walk into an area which you aren't properly geared for then taking any damage at all will one- or two-shot you.[/QUOTE]
This is literally the system working as intended.
[editline]a[/editline]
Speaking of DD, I recently started a new playthrough of it, and I have to say, I haven't really noticed armor upgrades being required. I'm not even wearing pants. I misplaced them or something and refuse to spend money on new ones, and I've been doing fine so idk.
[editline]a[/editline]
Only 6 hours in though so I guess I'll see in a few more.
[QUOTE=gk99;52800506]I'm not even wearing pants[/QUOTE]
Lewd
I feel like the argument is kind of pointless. The two games are meant to cater to two different types of people and provide two different types of experiences, just because there's dragons and a prophecy doesn't relate them. If you want depth then you just play DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDA.
FO4 proved Beth can make pretty decent gameplay, so IMO Skyrim's biggest shortcoming is time. They really should've just let it sit for one more year to iron out mechanics, 2012 "dragon apocalypse!!" would've worked as a gimmicky release date too.
As it stands with slightly modified Wildcat, TK Dodge and player staggers enabled I'm having a pretty good time.
I did hate how weird the pawn AI was in DDDA. I've done 3 playthroughs and they weren't ever really useful. I never once experienced two warriors/fighters helping eachother with the leap aid abilities, or any other interesting combos like that.
[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;52801438]
I've done 3 playthroughs and they weren't ever really useful.[/QUOTE]
They made FANTASTIC bait for large creatures. :v:
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52801508]They made FANTASTIC bait for large creatures. :v:[/QUOTE]
Most of my fights were me fighting the guy for a bit, guy instakilling all pawns, me reviving them, then repeat.
The gameplay was definitely good, but it really fell flat at times. I think back to the Isle undead dragon boss where my strategy -- with mystic knight, the strong mage class and warrior -- was to wait until he started instakilling all my dudes so I could hit him once with some fire attack and hopefully get the 20 hour long stun animation where I then did one out of like 6 health bars, then repeat until dead.
Even if he flew, did that crazy long windup attack from Grigori, it was still the same strat.
And the other dragon with his heart on the back? Pop that infinite stamina consumable, ride him, and stunlock him for all eternity until he dies. It wasn't too different from clicking on Skyrim's dragons.
[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;52801613]Most of my fights were me fighting the guy for a bit, guy instakilling all pawns, me reviving them, then repeat.
The gameplay was definitely good, but it really fell flat at times. I think back to the Isle undead dragon boss where my strategy -- with mystic knight, the strong mage class and warrior -- was to wait until he started instakilling all my dudes so I could hit him once with some fire attack and hopefully get the 20 hour long stun animation where I then did one out of like 6 health bars, then repeat until dead.
Even if he flew, did that crazy long windup attack from Grigori, it was still the same strat.
And the other dragon with his heart on the back? Pop that infinite stamina consumable, ride him, and stunlock him for all eternity until he dies. It wasn't too different from clicking on Skyrim's dragons.[/QUOTE]
I'm playing it right now and I can't bring myself to play anything but assassin.
The double jump.
The daggers skills that turn you into an actual living chainsaw
The bow skills that are capable of ending worlds
THE SANIC S P E E D
Its too good
[QUOTE=_Maverick_;52801633]I'm playing it right now and I can't bring myself to play anything but assassin.
The double jump.
The daggers skills that turn you into an actual living chainsaw
The bow skills that are capable of ending worlds
THE SANIC S P E E D
Its too good[/QUOTE]
All the classes are very good and very fun to play even if it's not readily apparent what you have to do. I had tons of trouble with MK until I realized you were supposed to buff, stack a quadrillion magic cannons and mash light attack. Stone Forest was also a really cool ability even if using it was really hard. Kinda curious why DD didn't get a sequel, or was it not very succesful?
I do hope Skyrim 2 gives you atleast one unique ability per perk tree but I see keybinds being an issue. Dodging in Oblivion was cool and there were anims and a perk in Skyrim but I never saw it until I installed TK dodge.
[QUOTE=MrHeadHopper;52802188]All the classes are very good and very fun to play even if it's not readily apparent what you have to do. I had tons of trouble with MK until I realized you were supposed to buff, stack a quadrillion magic cannons and mash light attack. Stone Forest was also a really cool ability even if using it was really hard. Kinda curious why DD didn't get a sequel, or was it not very succesful?
I do hope Skyrim 2 gives you atleast one unique ability per perk tree but I see keybinds being an issue. Dodging in Oblivion was cool and there were anims and a perk in Skyrim but I never saw it until I installed TK dodge.[/QUOTE]
There's a Japan-exclusive MMO, Dragon's Dogma Online. Why it's Japan-exclusive when Dragon's Dogma was made specifically to cater to western audiences I have no idea. Maybe WoW is just too big.
not sure what dragons dogma you are all playing but I manage to kill the dragon with the dinky dagger I started with and village clothes without dying, as a strider
The one where the difficulty letters are blue, not white. From the beginning, and the premise of the posts aren't whether or not it's difficult, it's how the issue is approached in the game itself, and how the player are engaged with solving the problem.
In DDDA protection and mitigation is a tiered and interrelation thing, in skyrim for the most part it's simply add to this state/stat with impunity and there are no skill or logistical locks or gates on completely maxing out that state in a literal hour.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52792424]Skyrim guards actually talk about how bandit raids are fewer and further between than they used to, implying they used to be rather common and that perhaps at some point in the past efforts were made to clear up some of the latent threat posed by banditry.
And you're implying there aren't any criminals who use their skills to earn an honest living if only as a front for criminal activities, when there are actually several NPCs in Skyrim doing that exact thing. Bandits simply are the criminals who were too dumb, too greedy or too murderous to live in organized society, so they ostracized themselves and lived on their own terms.
[editline]18th October 2017[/editline]
I feel like having to regularly [B]maintain your weapons for a damage buff[/B] (rather than losing damage and eventually breaking the weapon) with certain materials holding up a sharper edge for longer, would have been a nice system without the annoyance of weapon degradation.
Could even have added an interesting dynamic where maces can't be sharped since they're blunt weapons but have a much better raw damage value, meaning they're lower maintenance but can't achieve as much potential damage as swords or axes which can be sharpened for extra damage.[/QUOTE]
You complain about degradation but that's basically what the previous games were like, you repaired your weapon to keep its damage high.
Nah you repaired weapons because if you don't they'd literally break and become useless.
You had to struggle to keep the damage up to its maximum value.
[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52805883]Nah you repaired weapons because if you don't they'd literally break and become useless.
You had to struggle to keep the damage up to its maximum value.[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't that buff become the new maximum to struggle for then?
Snip nvm it apparently took me 10 extra minutes to say the exact same thing
I think it'd be nice if weapons'd just break if they degraded too much/got abused, but the damage doesn't decrease beyond a certain amount, or at all for a non-bladed weapon. Like, beyond loosing sharpness you're not going to do less damage for all the nicks and stuff you have.
And then you could just pick up the blade parts and do a re-forging, Narsil type montage.
Since we were talking about game design stuff I wanna pitch in with Vigilant. [url]https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/67103/?[/url]
That fucking mod is GOD. Bosses that are actually unique and bossy, good linear level design with shortcuts and optional little branching paths, a dark fantasy story that uses TES lore brought to life with Dark Souls and Berserk visuals, and tons of unique unforgettable moments.
The scale of it is so much greater than any threat Skyrim posed because of how personal it is. It also gives you a very concrete example that TES could very easily be a really good, really twisted dark fantasy game.
The rewards are pretty overpowered but the shit you have to do to get them kind of justifies that.
[QUOTE=DiscoInferno;52805910]Wouldn't that buff become the new maximum to struggle for then?[/QUOTE]
Not if the base damage is good enough for most fights and if it's relatively easy to hone your weapon.
Think of it like the well-rested perk which boosts your XP when you sleep. It's useful and a reward but it's not mandatory.
I'm waiting for the next game to add insane levels of weapon customization to skyrim.
Like I'm talking making a steel dagger the shape of an ebony dagger, giving a certain style of grip to the sword, making some sort of alloy to the metal. Given what fallout 4 is capable with it's weapon customization it's entirely possible and feasible to do with weapons and it can add a lot of depth to the game.
A lot of my unique rewards in terms of weapons and armor are just retextured vanilla assets. You can make something look completely different if you just modify the texture alone.
[t]https://i.imgur.com/qYYVLB3.png[/t]
Always thought it would have added a lot of depth to gear if there was a style/material system, i.e. you could make weapons in any given design (nordic, elven, etc) using any ore you have. So you could have Iron Orcish armor, Ebony Elven, Malachite Dwarven, etc with each respective variety having different abilities or bonuses
also the idea of Nordic armor being made with moonstone makes me giggle
[QUOTE=Lunik;52807708]Always thought it would have added a lot of depth to gear if there was a style/material system, i.e. you could make weapons in any given design (nordic, elven, etc) using any ore you have. So you could have Iron Orcish armor, Ebony Elven, Malachite Dwarven, etc with each respective variety having different abilities or bonuses
also the idea of Nordic armor being made with moonstone makes me giggle[/QUOTE]
That's actually pretty similar to what ESO does. Granted the style you use for your gear is cosmetic only (Argonian heavy armor is exactly the same as say Nord or Orc heavy armor.) The real stats are dependent on your crafting levels and what kind of enchantments/infusions you put onto it.
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The Elder Scrolls Megathread XX: Might as well be XXX
