Tyranny - Evil won @ PC Gamer

Fluent said:

Everyone always says this, but I find it to be meaningless.

Please, give me some examples of these 100+ hour games that are filled with boring grinding and fetch quests. Where are they?

The RPGs I'm talking about with over 100 hours of gameplay are all epic masterpieces to me.

Morrowind
Oblivion
Skyrim
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate 2
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Divinity: Original Sin
Elminage Gothic
Lords of Xulima
etc. etc.

I mean, 30-40 hour games can be cool, too. But if you want to truly build something magnificent, it's got to be bigger than that.

A 20-30 hour game with lots of replayability is not great for me. Give me a 140 hour game with lots of replayability.

I know those games take more effort to make, but there's got to be some way that huge, epic games can be put together in this, the RPG Renaissance that everyone seems to acknowledge is happening around us right now.

A 20-30 hour game is really a dime a dozen nowadays. Give us the epic, massive sagas, plz.

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Fluent, you don't finish games based on your you tube videos, so why are you asking for 100+ hour games? I would have thought you don't play any game for more than 20 -30 hours max :lol:

And to be honest, all of the Bethesda games in that list are enjoyable only on 40-60 hour gameplays focusing on the main storyline and couple of remarkable meaningful side plots. Once you wander off to do repetitive auto-scaling fetch quests the fun is over. You enter the nth generic cave with generic bandits only now they wear glass armour instead of leather. The true sandbox experience right there.

Personal opinion, obviously. I've enjoyed games that lasted 100+ hours, as long as it was done in a meaningful/entertaining way (ie, Mass Effect games). But not through dull and repetitive fetch quests, respawning mobs, and autoscaling difficulty. Those are fun killers for me every single time.

JDR13 said:

Yeah..we get that. You've already stated it multiple times.

If you don't like the concept, that's fine, but whining about it and talking about how you're going to pirate the game isn't necessary.

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Opinions, like art, aren't necessary. They sprout from the core of a person's consciousness, and are meant to be shared to express one's ideals. And like in art, the only secret about sharing your opinion is that you respect everyone else's because it's as valid as yours - without dictating or shunning their voices only because they differ with yours.

Now stop and think. How necessary is your opinion? Do you think we could all live our normal lives without it?

Think of it next time you call someone else using a derogatory tone on whether their opinion is necessary or not.

lostforever said:

Fluent, you don't finish games based on your you tube videos, so why are you asking for 100+ hour games? I would have thought you don't play any game for more than 20 -30 hours max :lol:

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It's much different playing a game for a YouTube series than it is playing in my own time.

I do finish games, and I've spent the following hours with games:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - 330 hours in one playthrough
Skyrim - 300+ hours in one playthrough
Morrowind - god knows, at LEAST 300+ hours total
Oblivion - 300+ hours in a recent playthrough, 100+ hours in a past playthrough
Baldur's Gate - 100 hours in one playthrough
Elminage Gothic - 80 hours in one playthrough (much of which is on YouTube)
Divinity: Original Sin - 130 hours in one playthrough
Final Fantasy 7 - hundreds of hours in one playthrough

So yes, I definitely play games more than 100 hours when they are available. I just don't do YouTube video series that long because it's a bigger hassle when you have to encode videos, edit, etc.

Besides, even if I do only play a game for 20 or 30 hours, I want the feeling that I'm playing a huge epic. I'm actually less likely to finish an RPG, or even play it, if I know that the game is only 20-30 hours long. I kind of get the feeling like, "What's the point?" with games like that. Just when I'm starting to get into it, it will be over. Nothing to really sink your teeth too deeply into.

Fluent said:

Everyone always says this, but I find it to be meaningless.

Please, give me some examples of these 100+ hour games that are filled with boring grinding and fetch quests. Where are they?

The RPGs I'm talking about with over 100 hours of gameplay are all epic masterpieces to me.

Morrowind
Oblivion
Skyrim
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate 2
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Divinity: Original Sin
Elminage Gothic
Lords of Xulima
etc. etc.

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As always, opinions are multifaceted, but KoA imho is one of the best examples of games that went too long. Even if you only play main quests, you reach the level cap quite fast. It's also just walk there, kill this and return. It's unneccessary, repetitive and tedious, just like the Ubisoft game. On the other side you have games like Final Fantasy VII or Planescape: Torment that don't play for more than 100+ hours and are considered classics.

I just think that if you have the tech, manpower and quality assurance to create 100+h of content, you normally also have the money to refine your mechanics. A game like Morrowind is expensive, so this is better a game above average or you're bankrupt. Like Kingdoms of Amalur.

Fluent said:

It's much different playing a game for a YouTube series than it is playing in my own time.

I do finish games, and I've spent the following hours with games:

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - 330 hours in one playthrough
Skyrim - 300+ hours in one playthrough
Morrowind - god knows, at LEAST 300+ hours total
Oblivion - 300+ hours in a recent playthrough, 100+ hours in a past playthrough
Baldur's Gate - 100 hours in one playthrough
Elminage Gothic - 80 hours in one playthrough (much of which is on YouTube)
Divinity: Original Sin - 130 hours in one playthrough
Final Fantasy 7 - hundreds of hours in one playthrough

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Going by that list, you are very slow player.

Baldur's Gate, with expac, has 40-50 hours of content. Divinity: Original Sin has 80-90 hours. A game that claims to be 20-30 hours will probably give you 40-60 hours instead.

I just finished Pillars of Eternity in 50 hours with the White March. All quests completed (even all the bounties) except Durance (failed) because for some reasons I never got his last chit-chat. I find it amusing when people says the base game is 80 hours. Are your loading time that long or do you read that slowly?

azarhal said:

Going by that list, you are very slow player.

Baldur's Gate, with expac, has 40-50 hours of content. Divinity: Original Sin has 80-90 hours. A game that claims to be 20-30 hours will probably give you 40-60 hours instead.

I just finished Pillars of Eternity in 50 hours with the White March. All quests completed (even all the bounties) except Durance (failed) because for some reasons I never got his last chit-chat. I find it amusing when people says the base game is 80 hours. Are your loading time that long or do you read that slowly?

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I don't rush through games like 99% of gamers. I take my time, thank you, and I am a completionist.

Baldur's Gate: EE on Howlongtobeat.com (note the Completionist runs) - http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=814

Divinity: Original Sin - http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=17451

So, you're wrong on both examples. You're also wrong that I read slowly and that I would get 40-60 hours out of a 20 hour game. But thanks for trying.

GabrielMP_19 said:

Dragon Age Inquisition: a loooot of boring fetch quests. Played it for around 110 hours. It's a good game, but I wouldn't mind LESS CONTENT if the content is not really that good.

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I think I played it more than 110 hr, but that's me I just have to explore everything and nitpick each stone.
While the main story/quests are fantastic, the filler is atrocious. It's the first time Bioware added MMOlike grind in a game and they made it utterly wrong.
The sad fact is it's not moddable and you can't remove unstoppable mobspawning points from the map. Because of that, to avoid getting annoyed to the point of uninstalling play main areas on hardest and respawn-o-rama areas on the easiest difficulty possible.

GabrielMP_19 said:

Fallout 4: I know of people that spent hundreds of hours in this game. I was bored to death of this Far Cry: Apocalypse from the very start.

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Do what I did. Install no respawn mod and no minutemen rubbish. I promise you, the game gets so much better with it. If you won't fastrun the main story, you'll still get to at least 100 hours with very nice and sometimes awsome side content, but you won't quit because boredom.

So lets get back to Tranny. One of the previews said combat had cooldowns..
COOLDOWNS..
COOLDOWNS..........

Archangel said:

So lets get back to Tranny. One of the previews said combat had cooldowns..
COOLDOWNS..
COOLDOWNS……….

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hundreds of voices (at the Watch and Codex) cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

Cooldowns, mana, D&D spell memorization... just different ways of stopping the 'Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!' syndrome. What's the problem?

Fluent said:

I don't rush through games like 99% of gamers. I take my time, thank you, and I am a completionist.

Baldur's Gate: EE on Howlongtobeat.com (note the Completionist runs) - http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=814

Divinity: Original Sin - http://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=17451

So, you're wrong on both examples. You're also wrong that I read slowly and that I would get 40-60 hours out of a 20 hour game. But thanks for trying.

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Technically, How-long-to-beat completionist include getting all achievements/medals and experiencing all available content in the game (some of which will require another playthrough in some games) per the site own front page.

A normal complete playthrough will fall into Main+Extra and the median of that category for both games is pretty much what I said.

Fluent said:

I mean, 30-40 hour games can be cool, too. But if you want to truly build something magnificent, it's got to be bigger than that.

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I can agree with that... if by "magnificent" you mean "big".

wolfing said:

Cooldowns, mana, D&D spell memorization… just different ways of stopping the 'Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!' syndrome. What's the problem?

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Because cooldowns is the most 'gamey',nonsensical and artificial way of them all.

Japol said:

Because cooldowns is the most 'gamey',nonsensical and artificial way of them all.

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Why would that be? Compared to some of the alternatives it makes a lot more sense.
A cooldown reflects a short exhaustion period before the character can perform the same action again. Depending on how mentally/physically exhausting the spell/action is, this makes tons more sense to me than a mana pool.
What is mana? Does the caster carry around a backpack with blue liquid on their back? Or is it some blue fluid in his brain that gets drained with every spell and magically instantly replaced via potions? Does none of that ring 'WTF' to you?
Or spell memorization… is every D&D caster an Alzheimer case? Why would you not be able to memorize frequently used spells for virtually unlimited use?

See… that stuff is a lot more 'gamey', nonsensical and artificially limiting than a cooldown period. You have to make up lots of strange stuff to come up with reasonable explanations for a depletable (and in most games instantly restorable via potions!) mana pool or limited spell memorization while an explanation for a cooldown (the character is simply taking a breather to refocus) period comes almost naturally.

I think the problem with cooldowns is that they enforce a twitchy, or in the case of RtwP, frustrating time management playstyles.

azarhal said:

Technically, How-long-to-beat completionist include getting all achievements/medals

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Getting all achievements is far from being completionist.

Achievements are mostly rubbish and cater to griddlovers. Usually you'll spot "kill 347856389725692385 squirrels" idiocy and in order to do it, you have to waste time on something that's work and not game.

An example of a game that does it wrong is Tomb Raider reboot where an achievement to find all GPS exist (and artificially prolongs your gaming time with no_fun content) but to get all achievements done you also need to do that game's multiplayer garbage. Similar goes with Mass Effect 3. You want all achievements? Go grind their bloody multiplayer crap then.

Some games do achievements right however. An example is Valkyria Chronicles where getting an achievement impacts the game so you get some nifty stuff as a reward. Not to mention that achievements in there are not grindy.

Completionist should ignore getting all achievements rubbish.
Achievements that should matter in all games are "game finished" and "all side quests/content dealt with". Sure, in c&c branched games you won't be able to do all sides in one playthrough but then it can be set as getting at least half of sides done.
Achievements where you have to strategize like remain undetected or kill noone apart from bosses in DX:HR are also nifty.

But achievements that are designed to force a player on timewasting grind should never be considered as a completionist route.
Call them "grinderist" or something as completionist it is not since everything is already completed except you didn't kill enormous amount of squirrels but a 100 less.

I like cooldowns when they are done right. A cooldown on an attack that does extra damage is kind of boring and doesn't add much to the game. But for a spell with a big dramatic effect, like one that freezes all enemies and teleports the caster away from them, cooldowns can create the balance necesary for it to have a really dramatic and fun effect without being overpowering.

Regarding RWTP if they are going to have 6 party members with lots of abilities like in Pillars, I hope they let us set specific tactics for party members like in DA1. I would have enjoyed pillars a lot more if I could have setup something like that.

@Moriendor
And why would the character not be able to cast lightning right away but is able to cast a fireball for example.Because it has a different cooldown?How does this make sense?
Mana is to spells what stamina is to running and swinging a weapon.One can only exert himself so much.Makes perfect sense.
Spell memorization also makes some sense.Haven't you refreshed your curiculum the day before an exam?

Cooldowns are different because:

Both Mana and memorisation systems require that you enter a tactical encounter with limited resources. The tactical element is knowing how best to utilise your resources for that one specific encounter.

With Cooldowns you have unlimited use of your resource just as long as you can stay alive long enough.

So the first two are associated with tactical combat whereas the latter is associated with action combat.

Edit: though excessive insta-glug Mana Potions are also a subtle action combat tweak to the established rule, hence some confusion.