Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@JackEatsSparrows That pickup seems to be a regular continuous work in progress, seeing as I frequently see you mentioning repairing and/or cleaning some part of it...

As far as you going crazy over noises: you should talk to @NEStalgia, seeing as that's something that you two might have in common...

Yeah, it's a '98 Dodge Dakota. It's a great vehicle, but I'm slowly replacing all the factory items that age out over time. Hence all the wheel bearings and control arms and bushings. The engine and transmission are still great, and that's important for all my rural daily driving. Almost as good as my old Cherokee motor, but without the factory defect (that's an entire monologue).
It's only had 2 previous owners, and it was primarily driven on the interstates. That alternator I pulled off a few months back was the factory install, so 22 years for most of these parts isn't bad at all
I love the truck, it's just the right size. More like the old Ford F-100s or Chevy Chevelles than these new giant things. It helps that I've been working on cars since I was 16, so I really don't mind the work and I save oodles of money. Instead of replacing an $80 starter, I spent $9 on some carb cleaner, brushings and a couple hours to break down and rebuild the factory started. World of difference and just as shiny.

Man, I could go on all day. Just one of those things that feels fulfilling when I can do it myself. It's getting to be a lost talent.

@JackEatsSparrows Well, you've certainly earned my respect for being able to do that. I really love cars, especially old-timers and muscle cars, but I wouldn't be able to repair one, even if my life depended on it.

@Octane I generally agree with you with microtrans and all, but I still feel like the AC: Odyssey exp boost thing was overblown by a factor of ten for the very reason you state: " If you ignore most of the side content you're going to hit an EXP wall. " - I can't really think of a single RPG that doesn't work the exact same way. The exp boost thing is for weird lazy western gamers that just want a movie without playing the darned game. From FF1 through DQXI and SMT1 through Persona 5, if you ignore most of the side content you're going to have a really bad time, so I don't think the existence of the exp boost breaks it as a game. Similarly FE: Awakening and SMTIV had a pay-to-get-DLC-levels-to-break-leveling cheat.....but there wasn't the same level of outrage. Because everyone expected those to be grindy RPGs while people expected AC to be an interactive cinema and specifically not a grindy RPG.

@ThanosReXXX I believe you have me confused with @Zuljaras , I don't go crazy over noises, I just listen to my HDDs to see if MS's bad patches are burning their servo life away 20 times an hour. Zul is the one that hears the screams of the ghost of the CDi inside his consoles.

@NEStalgia Grinding in games is stupid anyway.

The problem is the grind though, it's them offering a paid solution to it. If they thought the game was too grindy (and they did realise that by offering the EXP boost), why not make it less grindy in the first place? Or offer the EXP boost for free, as an easy mode or whatever. Because let's be honest, you're not even paying for a cosmetic design, you're just paying for different numbers. It's so abstract, and they had the audacity to charge $10 for it.

And referring back to my ''player's choice'' argument. If you want to allow people to play the game in any way they like, then why not do so?

I honestly didn't know any of that was in those games. But I hardly play JPRGs, so don't expect me to know it.

@ThanosReXXX Oh yeah, I'd love to have an old truck from the 40's-60's. Carburetor motors are my jam! I had a carburetor 4-cyl '87 Honda CRX in college, the last generation before they moved away from the boxy design. Yanked out all the California emissions redundancies and rerouted vacuum lines, replaced and removed some heavy exhaust piping with lighter versions. That thing got 41 mpg when gas was $1.35.

@NEStalgia You DO realize I was kidding, right? Then again, a guy putting his ear to his hard drives, is probably not considered to be the average person...

@Octane Grinding in games in and of itself isn't stupid, it's actually quite logical and natural, seeing as it just represents what you'd also need to do in real life: get experienced at stuff, and hone your skills, which can only happen if you repeatedly try to improve them, so as long as it's not overdone, I'm perfectly fine with a grinding element in a game.

@Octane Don't get me wrong, I was uncomfortable with SMTIV and the paid "break the leveling" antics as well considering how notorious SMT is for difficulty. The game did include an easy mode that was easier than traditional SMT, so the DLC was kind of "baby mode" to get a ton of levels fast. (Similarly Bravely Default sells you what's basically "temporary super power mode" potions...for real money. Not a fan of that either.

BUT while I dislike it, the one thing these "pay to cheat" options have in common is they're selling modes that severely break the pacing of the game. It's basically a per-game officially sanctioned Game Genie. It costs extra but you can cheat to victory with it. I'd rather it be included for free, but while I"d prefer that, I can't hold as criticism for a game a "hard cheat" mode that otherwise wouldn't have been included in the game anyway for being sold separately. Honestly AC:O does it better with a single pay DLC than S-E did with the "buy a potion every time you want to cheat" garbage.

The criticism I initally heard for AC:O was that they made the game too grindy with damage sponges if you don't have the DLC, but then I started hearing that if you do the sidequests your levels are fine. Personally I feel like AC:O wouldn't have received that criticism if it wasn't weirdly shoehorning a mass market action game into a niche RPG. RPG fans expect the game to play as it does and don't see the point of the DLC. It's milking action game fans that don't like playing RPGs for a "make the new RPG more like an action game" mode. The devs should have made it turn based battles just to seal the deal.

Their "crime" was selling known audience a game in a different genre than they expected, then charging them to break the new game to make it more like the old games, even though that's not what it was trying to be.

There's a LOT of bad examples of microtrans, and even within RPGs S-E is a lot uglier with it, but I still feel bad for AC:O with all that. It's a victim of trying something different.

@NEStalgia Sounds like AC:O should have tried the gameplay style selection that ME did, where you could choose for it to play out like an RPG or Action genre, and the rest of the dialogue and combat encounters would be affected accordingly.

This is probably the best one-line summary on the concept of micro-transactions.

They created problems which are best resolved by paying. (And the illusion of choice that you could overcome by playing) The focus is no longer on good immersive game design but a constant revenue generating system with a gaming mechanism.

@JackEatsSparrows That's really expensive to do though, and it worked better in a "simpler" game design like ME1. Personally I love the idea of AC as an RPG, but in retrospect I'll never understand what inspired them to take a huge, mainstream, popular, massively profitable and famous franchise, and change it from a mainstream casual genre to a niche nerdy genre. I love that they did it. But I can't fathom why. OTOH, it reminds me why Ubisoft is the only one of the big Western publishers I still love.....for all their faults they still have that Nintendo streak of upending the tea table and doing whatever you'd least expect. Turning their cinematic "HBO-treated" action brawler and making it a stat based NerdPG is not what you expect a Western publisher to do. EA would not ever do that. Activision would not ever do that. It's like Nintendo making a new Mario game and making it an RTS.

@puddinggirl I agree with that for mots of the microtrans garbage. Just not AC:O where I don't think they actually created a problem....it's a properly designed RPG, IMO. They just sold the "un-RPG-ify-it option. Not a fan of that idea, but it's not problematic like BFII etc.

@ThanosReXXX ''so as long as it's not overdone'', I think that's the very definition of grinding

@NEStalgia Just because it includes some RPG elements doesn't excuse it for being grindy IMO. Look at TW3; a well designed RPG, and you can play it however you like. Don't fancy the side content? You can skip it. Want to do everything? Go ahead. Experience points are scaled so that it prevents you from over-leveling too quickly, and if you think it becomes too easy, just increase the difficulty. It wasn't perfect, but it's better than offering a paid ''solution''. Anyway, I do agree that AC Odyssey isn't the worst example, but I'm still of the opinion that micro-transactions don't belong in single-player games (and I'd even go as far as say that they don't belong in full-priced games).

@Octane Well, now we're into debating what is good RPG design rather than AC:O's implementation TW3 is more of an open world adventure with RPG elements. Almost more like AC:Origins or BotW. AC:O clearly wanted to be more Skyrim than Witcher. With a (un)healthy side dose of Squeenix RPG for good measure.

We can all agree: At least it's not FFXV!

I'd love to abolish microtrans....but....I can live with one time purchase add on/mod content for which the game plays fine without. In the case of AC:O, SMTIV, FE:A etc, the add-on actively breaks the game on purpose rather than the game depending on it to play right. That's a world I can live in. I owned a Game Genie!

Loot boxes, upgrades, weapons, levels, variety of anything etc etc require the game to be broken to solve a problem though. AC:O if you didn't read the internet you'd never even know there was a $10 option to buy to break it....it's burried in menus most people never look at. They're not promoting it at all. The guilty MT games however never miss a moment to remind you to buy store currency for this that and the other thing to stay current. and ahead. (OTHER Ubi games do this....Division, etc.)

@Octane No, not really, that's just the negative connotation that people have given it, but grinding in and of itself, as I already explained, isn't necessarily bad, and also pretty logical. I'm pretty sure that most people don't see normal leveling up structures in games as being a chore, it only becomes that, when it's overdone, but it can be done in such a way, that it simply becomes a natural part of the game.

Just imagine that in real life, I'd give you a bow, a rifle or a bunch of medicinal ingredients and you'd instantly be an expert at using them and knowing all about them. That just doesn't happen, so it shouldn't happen in games either, unless your character already possesses some kind of proficiency in certain areas, but other than that, experience only comes with time and investing effort, and THAT is the very definition of grinding.

Well, at least: the positive one...

@ThanosReXXX I can do all that perfectly the first time. I stayed at a Holiday Inn.

@JackEatsSparrows Ah, yes. Where they make you BELIEVE you're doing everything perfect the first time around...

"No, no, those gutter barriers really aren't for amateurs, they're just there so you're completely focused on the pins, champ... "

@ThanosReXXX "You other surgeons are wasting time washing your hands. That's why the patient has an immune system!" Hahaha

@ReaderRagfihs Exactly. You forgot Breath of the Wild, though...

@JackEatsSparrows Surgeons just wash their hands before the operation, so they can't be blamed afterwards,
if something bad happens...

@ThanosReXXX That's it! Just like Pontius Pilate!! ;p