Anti-fun

[Spartacus]

Some games, such as DotA or Final Fantasy offer disabling moves. Whether it be a stun for 2 seconds or sleep for 5 turns, both take someone out of the fight for a time. Normally, these are fine, it adds some dimension of strategy. however, there are times where it gets to be too far. Maybe you get enough people with a 2 second stun that you can chain the stuns on someone until they are dead, giving them absolutely no opportunity to respond. Maybe there are three enemies, each with a 50% to sleep your whole party. There is a good chance you will be doing nothing for a long time. This is known (in at least some places) as Anti-Fun.

I recently ran into a particularly annoying example in Final Fantasy Tactic Advance 2, where there is a particular enemy that can cast charm with a 100% hit rate in an area. Charm is a status that makes you attack your allies instead of the enemy. This enemy also has an area attack that causes Slow, meaning the interval between each party member's turn is longer, letting the enemies go more frequently. There are 6 of these enemies. All together, this means that my party members are all slow and charmed, attacking each other and out of my control. It went on for 6 full minutes of gameplay without me having an opportunity to input a command.

Normally, status effects are not so bad. There are spells that effect a large area that cure them, and they rarely have a hit chance of above 50%. Charm, however, can only be cured by getting hit. When the only time you get hit is your party members and the gap between turns is so large, it is likely that you can be hit, cured of charm, then recharmed all before you get to take another turn. Even if my heal gets a turn, he cannot cure anyone of this status.

I just kinda got really annoyed. Due to frankly poor game making, I was totally unable to play the game for large stretches of time, with no possible way to avoid it. Extremely irritating.

Has anyone in the playground run into a similar situation? An unbreakable stun-lock in a fighting game? Mines blocking the exit from the spawn room in a shooter?

[Hyudra]

Any competitive game with disables/CC is going to create this dynamic. A FPS may not take you out of action for 6 minutes, but losing control of your character for 3 seconds is a very, very long time in some games.

What immediately springs to mind, for me, is the Heavy in Team Fortress 2. For a long time (1.5 years?) he had a minigun called Natascha (http://steamgames.com/tf2/heavy/natascha.htm). Does less damage, but as long as you're taking damage, you move slower.

What you wound up with was a confrontation between yourself and a heavy... a guy with more health, more damage (unless you're a heavy who isn't using Natascha), and an equal move speed to you. Once he started firing on you, you were doomed to either die in a matter of seconds unless there was cover you could (very slowly) move behind or you were left to deal some spite damage to the heavy to make life slightly less convenient to him before watching your health bar disappear and looking forward to a 10-30 second respawn time. Since cover isn't always available, the latter was far more likely.

What's really anti-fun, and what I'm getting at, is when you lose and you find yourself saying, "There wasn't anything I could've done." (Except not play, which is an underlying sentiment that created a gameplay dynamic in TF2 where Natascha Heavies on the server would lead to stalemates where nobody was willing to aggressively push forward).

[Geno9999]

To sort of relieve the situation you described in the OP, are there any items at all that can help reduce or even remove the chance of getting the status in the first place? Because that can save a LOT of aggravation levels like that (the Feeling Fine Badge from Paper Mario comes to my mind.)
Yeah, I agree, having most of your party down at the same time is not fun at all. That's just poor design.

I can't really think of any major problems outside of indie platformers that have this, but I think Kaizo-style traps are a really cheap way to up the difficultly. 1: it eliminates all of the hard work I've spent on the level, 2: It makes me paranoid about the other supposedly safe goals, as if a bottomless pit is suddenly going to appear under my feet without me being able to do a thing about it.:smallannoyed:

[Spartacus]

To sort of relieve the situation you described in the OP, are there any items at all that can help reduce or even remove the chance of getting the status in the first place? Because that can save a LOT of aggravation levels like that (the Feeling Fine Badge from Paper Mario comes to my mind.)


There are, but they are not available as early in the game as the quest is.

[TheSummoner]

I suppose that rules out any items that grant permanant haste or some such that would cancel out the slow?

Are there any spells that cure the Charm or is it just damage and only damage? Haven't played the game, but my guess would be to spread your party out and have a couple of characters set to be able to buff and dispel. Counter their debuffs with your own buffs and debuff them as well. Like I said, haven't played the game so I don't know how viable that is, but that is my guess based on how you described the scenerio.

[Spartacus]

The only way I know of to stop Charm is to take damage. Yes, I could Haste my party members, but one class has Haste, and every enemy has slow. It would help, but only partially, and only when I am not charmed. There is an item that makes you immune, again, but it is a very lategame item. I am not yet lategame.

I managed to beat the level through sheer bloody-mindedness and being overlevelled slightly, but not being able to actually input commands for 6 freakin' minutes made me rage a little hard.

[thegurullamen]

This is something that used to bother me about DotA, especially when the other team massed stuns like Levi, Magnataur, Faceless/Troll/any other permabasher, Rooftrellan and Enigma. Usually, you just had to hope one of the enemies was an idiot who solo pushed himself into a vulnerable spot, ganked him to death and then retreated before the team fight started.

Of course, things have come a long way since then, including the designers. League of Legends, a spin-off of DotA made by some of its original designers, tries to define and excise some of the more anti-fun elements and one of the designers, Zileas, wrote a pretty good summary of DotA's gameplay failings/successes. It can be found here: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417

Definitely worth the read.

[Hyudra]

Can you poison yourself to deal damage and break the charm?

[dgnslyr]

Don't Minwu orbs negate most statuses? And of course, there are always Ribbons for the ladies. FFTA strategy was to ASSASSIN ASSASSIN KILL KILL KILL, but that's not really how FFTA2 works.

[Spartacus]

Can you poison yourself to deal damage and break the charm?

I actually have no idea. None of my characters have poison, unfortunately.


Don't Minwu orbs negate most statuses? And of course, there are always Ribbons for the ladies. FFTA strategy was to ASSASSIN ASSASSIN KILL KILL KILL, but that's not really how FFTA2 works.

No thief, and too early to buy a Orb. I've only seen one total, to date. No ribbons seen, either.

[Cespenar]

Heh. This reminds me: I recently did a battle with some six 'Mindflairs' in Final Fantasy Tactics, and their Mind Blast is basically an area attack that Berserks and Confuses.

Lots of time spent simply watching, and won just barely when Ramza finally got in the range of his tentacled overlords and decided to pummel on them in his stupor.

[factotum]

Wizardry 8 used a turn-based combat system. Didn't have a problem with that, per se. However, it required you to input all the orders for your party members at the beginning of the turn, then sit and watch them play out, rather than tell the character what to do when their turn came up. Not only was this a bit dull--you'd often get a minute or two between being able to actually do anything--it caused problems:

e.g. you might tell one character to put an enemy to sleep. If a character who went *after* him in turn order had lost their target for some reason (most likely because it had died earlier in the turn) they'd pick somebody else to attack, and the number of times that turned out to be the guy you'd put to sleep to put them out of the fight was astonishing!

[KillianHawkeye]

The original Final Fantasy on the NES had a similar problem. You input all your guys' commands at once, but if the enemy one of your guys was going to attack gets killed too early, his turn basically gets wasted attacking empty space. This kinda diminished the usefulness of doing focused fire.

[Miscast_Mage]

Wizardry 8 used a turn-based combat system. Didn't have a problem with that, per se. However, it required you to input all the orders for your party members at the beginning of the turn, then sit and watch them play out, rather than tell the character what to do when their turn came up. Not only was this a bit dull--you'd often get a minute or two between being able to actually do anything--it caused problems:

e.g. you might tell one character to put an enemy to sleep. If a character who went *after* him in turn order had lost their target for some reason (most likely because it had died earlier in the turn) they'd pick somebody else to attack, and the number of times that turned out to be the guy you'd put to sleep to put them out of the fight was astonishing!

To be fair, you could switch to realtime mode to change commands before they were executed, if you had the reflexes for it. Of course, this could also start the next round of combat automatically if you don't switch it back to turn-based mode, putting you into a frenzy trying to give your characters orders before their turn. Also frustrating were things like a group of allied creatures(the guards in the first town were the worst, I recall.) on the map a mile away from you, all spending their turn rushing towards you because you encountered an enemy that will take maybe a few hits for you to kill, and encountering large groups of enemies; nothing more exciting than waiting for your turn against yet another swarm of about 30 giant wasps. Aaand then dealing with half of them running away. In turn-based. Ugh. Both of these reasons are why there's a mod that speeds up creature movement by hundreds of what's capable in the game options.

I'm putting foward Mount and Blade here; there's tournaments you can join where you fight round by round in different types of groups. Depending on where the tournament is, you have different weapons given to you(eg, one town might have sword+shields and crossbows only, another nothing but javalins on horseback, another that has all weapon types available, etc). One of the worst possible situations to get is a horseback and lance/shield only tourny, because the final round is always one-on-one. Because of the combat AI, it's near-impossible to get in a situation where you can build up enough speed to damage the opponent without them hitting you first, and you can't just trap them and poke them to death in melee, because the lance literally does no damage without momentum. Also, managing companions was a hair-tearing frustration, untill I downloaded a mod which disabled the annoying parts and streamlined the monotonous. Bliss~

Edit: Just remembered, Lost Odyssey also shared Wiz8's problem, and then some. Particularly, you gave your group commands, but you could only give viable commands(eg no using healing/buffs on foes). The worst part was when a member went down. You could set someone to revive them next turn, but you couldn't set someone else to heal them untill the next turn because you can't target dead allies with healing spells(okay, you could get someone to cast a group heal, but still...), meaning they'd most likely die in the next turn anyway. Repeat untill you throw the controller at the tv screen.

[dgnslyr]

I actually have no idea. None of my characters have poison, unfortunately.



No thief, and too early to buy a Orb. I've only seen one total, to date. No ribbons seen, either.

I see you haven't "shook the vending machines." Those auctions give dang good loot when exploited, if the FFTA2 LP on Something Awful is to be believed. I haven't really played FFTA2 myself, though I plan to once I'm less busy. Now, FFTA, on the other hand...

[Spartacus]

I see you haven't "shook the vending machines." Those auctions give dang good loot when exploited, if the FFTA2 LP on Something Awful is to be believed. I haven't really played FFTA2 myself, though I plan to once I'm less busy. Now, FFTA, on the other hand...

I've just been doing them as they come up, not waiting 200 days every time the auctions are over. I probably could get some amazing loot that way, but since I figure I'm powerful enough compared to almost every enemy to have absolutely no chance of failure, doing that may be a bit over the top.

I may have to, though, if enemies like that start showing up more and more.

[Traab]

I remember something like this happening to me in ff7 a couple times. There was this one spot where you would get attacked by creatures that would turn you into frogs, and they had a follow up song that put you to sleep. Both are broken by taking damage, but when they are spamming these abilities over and over the fight never ends. Luckily that was a rare scenario since it involves them all spamming these abilities repeatedly in between regular attacks to keep you locked down, and they have to keep landing. Eventually they would miss one of my guys, or NOT automatically hit me then the next guy followed up with another frog spell before I could make a move.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

PvP in Everquest (way back in teh day, not sure how it works now) was interesting. Mesmerize style spells were broken on damage. Some classes had low level DOTs they would cast on themselves to prevent mez from sticking for more than 3 seconds. Also most stuns, fears, charms, and mezes were easily resistible with a decent set of magic resist gear. The spells that had a resist adjust or used a different resist check normally were far less effective or were mana inefficient.

The bard was an interesting case. He had exceptional combat mobility with his best in game run speed enhancement and the unique ability to move and cast at the same time. He could run in and out of spell range and drain the mana of the caster. Sure the mana drain was inefficient, but the bard could do it forever and could hardly be punished for using such tactics. Any caster without mana was then helpless against a bard.

[Winterwind]

I've always considered this a weakpoint of DotA, too (though, to be fair, DotA is by far not the worst when it comes to this, compared to many other of the less-known AoSs in WC3). That they also included an item to Hex you for a while, further increasing the duration during which you are helpless on top of anything enemy heroes can do (and every enemy hero can get that item to chain it, too) is just adding insult to injury. I don't care whether it's ultimately balanced or not, it's bad design anyhow, because it's not fun to play against.

[banjo1985]

Oh no, you'rebringing back bad memories for me there. I remember that fight well! :smalleek:

It's an aggravation, and so early in the game there isn't a fat lot you can do about it, or nothing that I came across anyway. As in your case, sheer bloody-mindedness got me through at the first attempt, but it really wasn't a fun fight. A nasty blemish on a decent game really.

Maybe use as many archers and mages as you can and keep on the move? I can remember that shooting a couple of those monsters into submission before they got close enough to charm helped me a fair bit.

[Misery Esquire]

One of the worst possible situations to get is a horseback and lance/shield only tourny, because the final round is always one-on-one. Because of the combat AI, it's near-impossible to get in a situation where you can build up enough speed to damage the opponent without them hitting you first, and you can't just trap them and poke them to death in melee, because the lance literally does no damage without momentum.

In this situation, you can just abuse the AI. I'll give the trick to you in a few sneaky steps!

1.) Get off horse
2.) Stand near wall
3.) Let AI crash into wall and try to run through it to turn around
4.) Walk back and forth using the Lance as a two-handed spear
5.) Win... Eventually.

[Folytopo]

CC is pretty vital for most games. It is not anti fun in well balanced games because there was tons of stuff you could have changed before you got hit with CC in the first place.

Mount and Blade lances are not bad against a computer if you just aim for the horse. The computer is pretty easy to juke. Also the companion arguments are just not fun. You are all paid mercenaries buck up!

[Airk]

Yeah, MMOs have been struggling with this since EQ and have never gotten beyond the "kludge" level of solution (usually in the form of a temporary immunity to debilitating status effects following having one wear off, so you get stunned for 3 seconds, then are immune to stun for X seconds, repeat.).

Some early fighting games had "re-dizzy" combos, where if you scored a dizzy on an opponent, you could perform a certain combo (which might be specific to the victim character) and...dizzy them again, allowing you to essentially kill them with no chance to recover. Modern fighting games have removed this (Usually by not having the dizzy counter "reset" until after whatever combo the dizzy character gets hit with) and also either seriously reduced the impact of dizzies (SSF4 - any hits done on a dizzied character count as part of the same combo as the hits that dizzied them, so are subject to high levels of damage reduction) or just removed them completely (BlazBlue has no 'dizzy' at all, the closest thing it has is a guard break.).

For purposes of your FFT question, I've never played the game in question, so I can only suggest - is there anything that gives you a CHANCE to resist charm or slow? A "luck" stat (ala Shining Force)? Items or skills that give a chance to resist certain status ailments (ala Tales of...)? If not, the answer is, sorry, FFT (or at least, that fight) is crappily designed and maybe you should play something else. ;)

[Hyudra]

For purposes of your FFT question, I've never played the game in question, so I can only suggest - is there anything that gives you a CHANCE to resist charm or slow? A "luck" stat (ala Shining Force)? Items or skills that give a chance to resist certain status ailments (ala Tales of...)? If not, the answer is, sorry, FFT (or at least, that fight) is crappily designed and maybe you should play something else. ;)

Given that I'm a nigh-religious fan of the original Final Fantasy Tactics, I feel the need to point out that the OP specified Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2... which is a completely different game, and arguably, not as good a game.

[Spartacus]

A "luck" stat (ala Shining Force)?

Resilience, but that (for whatever reason) does not apply to certain attacks. All are attacks used by monsters, btw, so players cannot obtain a 100% status hit chance :(


Items or skills that give a chance to resist certain status ailments (ala Tales of...)?


Items, yes, skill no. However, as another posters confirmed, barring wasting lots of time and overgearing through breaking the intended game system, you cannot get those items that early on. If you do get those items, you can likely breeze through any fight from that point onwards using the other itmes you obtain from the same source.

I feel, personally, that it is simply poor design.

[Airk]

Resilience, but that (for whatever reason) does not apply to certain attacks. All are attacks used by monsters, btw, so players cannot obtain a 100% status hit chance :(


So it doesn't apply to THESE attacks?




Items, yes, skill no. However, as another posters confirmed, barring wasting lots of time and overgearing through breaking the intended game system, you cannot get those items that early on. If you do get those items, you can likely breeze through any fight from that point onwards using the other itmes you obtain from the same source.

So no "level appropriate" items. Tales of ... generally offers items in the early to mid game that offer resistance to single status effects. They're not usually the sort of thing you want to use, but every once in a while, you bump into something that uses enough status effects to merit them.


I feel, personally, that it is simply poor design.

I think "poor" is being too kind here. It doesn't seem like you have much control over the outcome of that battle at all.

[Spartacus]

Well, you could take a lot of gunners, archers and elementalists and Immobilize them (prevent them from moving) or Blind them (reduce hit chance, I suspect it works on the ability but I am not sure) and attack from superior range, but that is building a whole team specifically to combat one set of enemies.

Also, in this game, if you move or attack, your next turn comes up faster than if you do both. This makes kiting less effective, and gives the enemy an opportunity to catch you and use their 100% hit-rate hax.

Also, no, Resilience does not apply to these moves. Otherwise they'd be sub-50% hit rate and I wouldn't mind at all.

[Miscast_Mage]

In this situation, you can just abuse the AI. I'll give the trick to you in a few sneaky steps!

1.) Get off horse
2.) Stand near wall
3.) Let AI crash into wall and try to run through it to turn around
4.) Walk back and forth using the Lance as a two-handed spear
5.) Win... Eventually.


Mount and Blade lances are not bad against a computer if you just aim for the horse. The computer is pretty easy to juke. Also the companion arguments are just not fun. You are all paid mercenaries buck up!

Still, you shouldn't have to spend five minutes poking the opponents horse to death just to have a chance of winning. Also frustrating is that you can't swing a lance like a spear or quarterstaff. I did just discover you can swing javalins though, and to be honest they're actually worringly effective:smalleek:.

Oh, and about the companions; mods. Mods mods mods. I downloaded one, a "native compilation" style one, and included in it is the ability to; A) disable all companion complaints, B) make all companions appear in the first city, and C) Actually make arming and preparing a party containing every single companion streamlined, simple and automatic(and let's you use them as mules. About time, considering almost every single one has points in inventory manangement for some reason. >_>).

Another odd thing I came across in M&B there; normally in battles you have a chest where you can access you're inventory, but on siege maps(when you're attacking, at least) there is no way to access your inventory. Y'know, the one situation where you'd need to restock on arrows or bolts because jumping into the middle of the fray is (admittedly fun) suicide.

[toasty]

Yeah... getting Chain-stunned in a AoS/MOBA game is never any fun. League of Legends has done a better job at keeping CC undercontrol (it was never fun fighting a fed Faceless Void or Troll. You just... died), but its always something they have to work on.

[Folytopo]

I have been playing mount and blade since .751. Mods were so key back then. Actually a mod called battle for Sicily gave us the over world map and campaign as we see it now. Yeah most mods should have that feature. Actually ones were the companions of different factions bicker are not as bad because at least it makes more sense and is easy to predict ahead of time.


As far lances go, are you even couching your lance? A couched lance should one shot a horse. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1bVCXxMN20 like that video

[Miscast_Mage]

I have been playing mount and blade since .751. Mods were so key back then. Actually a mod called battle for Sicily gave us the over world map and campaign as we see it now. Yeah most mods should have that feature. Actually ones were the companions of different factions bicker are not as bad because at least it makes more sense and is easy to predict ahead of time.


As far lances go, are you even couching your lance? A couched lance should one shot a horse. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1bVCXxMN20 like that video

Yeah, I remember reading about a few other mods that got adopted into the official game.

And I have gotten pretty good at couching, the problem is I can't seem to couch before he reaches me, and when there's only one other guy there it turns into a game of ring-around-the-rosies for ten minutes. Also frustrating is when the final round has you with a bow against against a 1hander+shield. I got this set-up just there, and I just dropped the bow, drew my dagger and started swinging and stabbing like a madman untill the other guy dropped.

[Cespenar]

You can easily shoot the legs of the shield user, you know.

[Folytopo]

That is probably a problem of not enough riding or prof then as those both effect it. Many anti fun things are strategies that cause lots of frustration when employed without information and/or tactics.

[Miscast_Mage]

@Cespenar: You can get two, maybe three shots off before he reaches you. Though admitedly, a final round against a 2hander is a walk in the park. And is it just me or is there some *serious* hit-box dissonance with shields? I've seen arrows blocked that didn't hit the shield, and some that wouldn't have even hit the guy! Ugh, I need to see about finding a mod that tweaks the shield skill so it doesn't break the laws of physics:smallmad:.

@Folytopo: Definately not enough riding. I've got a lot of polearm proficiency from relying on couching(and a bit of horse archery) in the early game, but I only pumped riding up to 3 because of low agility. It's actually manouvering around that kills me.

Hmm, that brings up another anti-fun element: Rock vs paper vs scissors style strategies. For example, in M&B 1 vs 1 fights, an archer against a 2hander with some distance between them is an easy win for the archer. Against a 1hander+shield, you have little chance of winning. A melee infantry against a horse-back archer is also a one-sided situation.

And for a non-M&B example(okay it still has M&B in it): The game ending when your character dies. In M&B, if you fall in battle, the batlle ends and your army retreats, no matter how great an advantage you have. I have a mod which disables this, and often my army can still demolish the enemy on it's own, even without me. I've actually made a stratagy of going solo myself with a blunt weapon, knocking out as many enemies as I can to capture and sell, and when I fall, my army comes charging in to mop up the survivors. The example that really bugs me here is the Dynasty Warriors(and Samurai/Orochi) series. The map ends if you die, even if you've got your entire side of a dozen heroes beating the boss of the level to within an inch of his life and he has literally no troops left. It's more annoying on 2-player, where it doesn't even make sense, or in Warriors Orochi where you have a team of three characters you constantly switch between.

Lack of control is another anti-fun. In DW, where you can't control your army, you have to bend over backwards protecting your bases and allies because calling the friendly AI as stupid as a rock would be an insult to rocks. I honestly have no idea how you would even do half the missions in WO 2 without a second player, as I play with my brother and every single map we split up to cover different objectives.
It was so relieveing in the Empire expansions where you could actually order heroes around, and even then you had to send them as a massive horde together and go on your own because they just couldn't do anything by themselves.

Bringing the topic back to stun-locking; DW suffers from it pretty bad. It's not so bad on the easier difficulties, but on chaos mode where some bosses can kill you in two or three hits, getting frozen by enemy mook sorcerors for about 10 seconds, or even getting stunned by plain old mooks and archers, is an outright death sentence near enemies heroes... When the AI isn't standing around scratching it's rear. Still, you can break out of it with Musou attacks, and in WO 2 some characters get counters which only take half their Musou bar. Add in that you get Musou when you take damage, and you can end up with close calls and running away as opposed to dying a lot of the time. It can actually be pretty exciting at times, so it's a not a full anti-fun measure.

[Cespenar]

@Cespenar: You can get two, maybe three shots off before he reaches you. Though admitedly, a final round against a 2hander is a walk in the park. And is it just me or is there some *serious* hit-box dissonance with shields? I've seen arrows blocked that didn't hit the shield, and some that wouldn't have even hit the guy! Ugh, I need to see about finding a mod that tweaks the shield skill so it doesn't break the laws of physics:smallmad:.


Two-three shots is a bit of an exaggeration, you'll get a great many more if you lock on as soon as the battle starts, and strafe while nocking an arrow. And on hit-boxes, as you probably know, the Shield skill widens it. This isn't unrealistic or all that extreme. The Shield skill doesn't open up a black hole or bend the gravity around you. It simply emulates that the wielder isn't stupid and can reflexively move his shield arm.

[Miscast_Mage]

Two-three shots is a bit of an exaggeration, you'll get a great many more if you lock on as soon as the battle starts, and strafe while nocking an arrow. And on hit-boxes, as you probably know, the Shield skill widens it. This isn't unrealistic or all that extreme. The Shield skill doesn't open up a black hole or bend the gravity around you. It simply emulates that the wielder isn't stupid and can reflexively move his shield arm.

Two-three aimed shots I should mention. sorry:smalltongue:. I think the spawn points can vary, actually. The last enemy I fought like this appeared in the corner to my side, as opposed to the corner opposite. My problem isn't that the shield skill widens it, it's that you can't tell how much it's been widened. I've wasted shots shooting at a guys feet when they would have hit if he didn't have points in shield, that's what bugs me about it. Though I'm being a hypocrite here as putting points into shield has saved my rear(alright, my legs specifically) from a few puncture wounds. Especially since my strategy of late has been what is essentially rideby-hammer-to-the-face against the enemie's archers while my line of marksmen make pincushions of their infantry, though I haven't come up against much calvary.

[Suedars]

This is something that used to bother me about DotA, especially when the other team massed stuns like Levi, Magnataur, Faceless/Troll/any other permabasher, Rooftrellan and Enigma. Usually, you just had to hope one of the enemies was an idiot who solo pushed himself into a vulnerable spot, ganked him to death and then retreated before the team fight started.

That team really isn't scary at all. Spread out and position well to minimize their disables. Split push multiple lanes since all those heroes are weak on their own. Let them fire off their ultimates then use the 3 minutes they have to wait for them to recharge to punish them hard for taking an entire team of heroes that do nothing when their ult is on CD.

Basically that lineup is really scary once every three minutes if you bunch up and all push down mid. With any sort of strategic play it crumbles due to its massive vulnerabilities.

[Flickerdart]

Oh, so that's why the box appears in M&B? I've always thought it was just to mark the spot where your reinforcements would arrive from.

[shadow_archmagi]

My problem with Mount and Blade was multifold, really

1. Losing means you lose the battle, and if your troops fight without you, they become so terrible. The auto-battle machine hates you.

Let me put it this way: A mountain bandit fires an arrow at a knight. The knight takes it to the head and has some HP left over. The knight slashes the bandit and one hit kills him.

Encounter ten bandits, tell your 100 knights to fight without you? Expect five dead.

2. In order to be good at personal combat, you need a completely different skillset than as a leader, and you're forced to choose between the two. Since, at the later stages of the game, you'll generally be unable to defeat 300 soldiers by yourself, it's best to invest in maximizing your army's effectiveness.

So, basically, my late-game optimal strategy was to arrive on the battlefield and hide behind a rock, because I had invested all my points in Leadership and Surgery, and now that I had Lead them here, I just had to wait for them to need my Surgical skills. Entering combat would invariably just cause scenario 1 anyway. So here we have a game that explicitly rewards a start-fight-eat-sandwich-read-newspaper style of play that doesn't involve playing the game.

3. There isn't a way to remotely interact with towns. Want to recruit peasants? Ride across the entire country. Collect your business earnings? Ride across the entire country (I'm told taxes are now mailed to you automatically, SO THAT IS SOMETHING.) Want to buy a windmill in all the cities you own? Ride across the entire country. M&B was clearly not designed with you being king in mind, and just doesn't have the infrastructure to support organizing a large domain.

4. The AI is potatoes. Sometimes an enemy king will rally eight lords and march out with a thousand men, and murder anything in his way. Your own lords, however, seem to be of no help at all. They'll never conquer anything. If you want world domination, you have to personally recruit peasants, train the peasants into knights, and then capture each castle one at a time, and you can't do that until you've spent six years capturing lords so that the enemy can't send a horde at you.


ugghh Mount and Blade was just such a *headache* I totally remember why I stopped playing

[Folytopo]

There is a mod that fixes each of those issues. Then there is a pack that installs them all in one click. In your seat of governance you have an npc or Stewart that helps run your empire. Also being a melee champion is okay if you do not want to run a large kingdom. It makes sieges much easier because you can chop your way in.

Edit: Although you are right, Native has all those issues. There are several strategies that make the game less cumbersome. I think there is anti fun in mount and blade but several play styles lesson it greatly

[shadow_archmagi]

The mods I tried didn't really address the issues very well, but-

The overwhelming feeling I get from Mount and Blade is that once you get past the parts you don't like, there's very little there. Like, if I *could* get NPCs to siege efficiently, recruit troops, build stuff, and organize my kingdom in an effective manner?

Well, then it'd take like a half hour to win. Done. Maybe, in a worst case scenario, I'd have to leave the game idle while I waited for things to build and troops to train.

[Poison_Fish]

I've always considered this a weakpoint of DotA, too (though, to be fair, DotA is by far not the worst when it comes to this, compared to many other of the less-known AoSs in WC3). That they also included an item to Hex you for a while, further increasing the duration during which you are helpless on top of anything enemy heroes can do (and every enemy hero can get that item to chain it, too) is just adding insult to injury. I don't care whether it's ultimately balanced or not, it's bad design anyhow, because it's not fun to play against.

There is a solution to this, but it actually requires team work and intelligent tactics. Ward up, split up, and push. You play the guerrilla warfare game and poke all day. Know your positioning and spacing. This is actually quite effective in other MOBA games as well. However, when you have a team of randoms who aren't willing to work together vs some other randoms who will at least be semi-coordinated to engage team fights, it might be easier to say you are doomed from the beginning.

[Cespenar]

Mount & Blade excels at emulating battles in a fun, action-packed and different way. I, personally, don't look at it as a "full game" and rather focus on that aspect, expecting little else.

Though yes, there are mods that address some of the other gameplay issues. Not extensively, but still.

[Anteros]

I don't really think it's a gameplay issue in most of these cases. I mean, everyone else who plays these games manages to counter these things with little problem.

Maybe you just need to re-think your strategy? Or maybe the type of game you're playing just doesn't appeal to your particular tastes?

Personally, I enjoy the rare battles in games like FFT that are actually challenging.

[Miscast_Mage]

The thing about M&B is why I love PC games. It's a base; a lump of unmoulded clay. Given the right tools you can tweak it to your personal preferences juuuuust right. Personally, I think vanilla M&B without tweaks or cheats is a horrible excercise of drudgery and frustration. It's when you add in mods, tweaks, and the ability of the user to tweak stuff to their liking that it can become a good game, because M&B has amazing potential, it's just a matter of unlocking that potential.

Got another anti-fun from Dynasty Warriors(Warriors Orochi 2, to be specific), and from Touhou Project:

In WO2, one of the bosses you fight throughout the campaigns, Kiyomori, has an attack that drains health. This isn't bad in of itself(I actually have to play as him to see what it's really like), but it becomes much worse when you add in the insane amount of defence bosses have. Add in the fact that you also don't stun or stop Kiyomori(and a few other characters, but I'm not sure which ones specifically) when you hit him with regular attacks... scratch damage + heailth drain + able to attack during your combos = Not. Fun.

The third boss from the Touhou 13: Ten Desires demo has a way of regenerating health; she shoots out spirits(that you normally collect yourself) and pulls them back in to heal herself. I haven't once been able to kill her when uses these spellcards, and I just have to time them out. Regeneration is not something that should completely negate any damage you do whatsoever to the enemy.:smallmad:

[Draconi Redfir]

Battle of giants Dragons.

It makes you play the game (Plus all tutorials) four times. I am on my third right now.

at this point i'm only playing to say i beat the game before throwing it in the microwave with my i-pod.

[warty goblin]

My problem with Mount and Blade was multifold, really

1. Losing means you lose the battle, and if your troops fight without you, they become so terrible. The auto-battle machine hates you.

Let me put it this way: A mountain bandit fires an arrow at a knight. The knight takes it to the head and has some HP left over. The knight slashes the bandit and one hit kills him.

Encounter ten bandits, tell your 100 knights to fight without you? Expect five dead.

This is true. On the other hand, why on earth would you not want to fight a battle? It's the only way to get noticeable XP, and is also fun.


2. In order to be good at personal combat, you need a completely different skillset than as a leader, and you're forced to choose between the two. Since, at the later stages of the game, you'll generally be unable to defeat 300 soldiers by yourself, it's best to invest in maximizing your army's effectiveness.

So, basically, my late-game optimal strategy was to arrive on the battlefield and hide behind a rock, because I had invested all my points in Leadership and Surgery, and now that I had Lead them here, I just had to wait for them to need my Surgical skills. Entering combat would invariably just cause scenario 1 anyway. So here we have a game that explicitly rewards a start-fight-eat-sandwich-read-newspaper style of play that doesn't involve playing the game.

This I find less true. Many army building skills are warband wide - there's never a reason for the PC to put many points in any of the medical skills, or construction, because they're party wide. Give 'em to your followers, and put them towards the bottom of your unit queue, so they're less likely to show up in battles and get beaten up.

And it is fairly authentic to the period for leaders to be front line combatants in addition to their army leading roles. Nor is it in-effective, I always did well either standing in my infantry line, or else pulling an Alexander and personally leading my cavalry charge. Being a combat built character meant that I fairly quickly became the most effective warrior on the field, and together with being able to see what was going on, I had much more control over the course of the battle.

Also, and again, fighting in battles is fun. Last I checked people played games for fun. Why would one decide to play in an unfun way?


3. There isn't a way to remotely interact with towns. Want to recruit peasants? Ride across the entire country. Collect your business earnings? Ride across the entire country (I'm told taxes are now mailed to you automatically, SO THAT IS SOMETHING.) Want to buy a windmill in all the cities you own? Ride across the entire country. M&B was clearly not designed with you being king in mind, and just doesn't have the infrastructure to support organizing a large domain.
All of the village stuff is completely optional. If you don't like it, don't do it. I never do.


4. The AI is potatoes. Sometimes an enemy king will rally eight lords and march out with a thousand men, and murder anything in his way. Your own lords, however, seem to be of no help at all. They'll never conquer anything. If you want world domination, you have to personally recruit peasants, train the peasants into knights, and then capture each castle one at a time, and you can't do that until you've spent six years capturing lords so that the enemy can't send a horde at you.
I really don't see the problem. You want world dominion, go put in the work to dominate. You don't want to mess with it? Don't.

There's a lot of ways to play M&B. If you don't find trying to conquer the entire map fun, don't try for that. I for instance hardly ever do anything faction related, and instead just ride around the map slaying bandits. Why? Because I enjoy the combat system, and the game lets me ignore the parts I don't like.

[Cheesegear]

Tends to happen a lot in League of Legends, or any other sort of PvP game around. Quite often, people will build entire teams around stun-locking. Particularly in the laning phases.

Taric and Sion = Double Stun
Cho'Gath and Xin Zhao = Double Knock-Up (and Silence)

And those are only the examples I can think of, and I'm hardly the best player around.

One of the newer champs (Jarvan), has a rather nice ultimate that's usually a guaranteed kill unless his victim has Flash because it creates a barrier that you can't get out of.

[Spartacus]

Cho'Gath and Xin Zhao = Double Knock-Up (and Silence)

Blitzcrank replaces Xin Zhao, I think.

[Forbiddenwar]

Dragon Age is very guilty of this.
You can be stunned, paralyzed and slowed all at the same time. One time I just left the computer to get a drink when that happened (Since the tactics for other characters work better than I do with strange abilities mismatched on the bar) And of course turn about is never possible, as stun and paralyze almost never work on the creatures you fight.

Also, every game with a loading screen does this. When the time spent loading exceeds the time spent playing, it becomes anti-fun, resulting in an explosion canceling any fun to be had. ("You've died after 6 seconds of game play, please wait 30 seconds for me to load so you can try that jump again" :smallfurious:) I haven't had that problem lately. Game equipment and design has improved since the 90s consoles and computers. However, every now and then I encounter this in a newer game (why does it take Bioshock so long to load? I have 10 gig of RAM)

[Miscast_Mage]

Dragon Age is very guilty of this.
You can be stunned, paralyzed and slowed all at the same time. One time I just left the computer to get a drink when that happened (Since the tactics for other characters work better than I do with strange abilities mismatched on the bar) And of course turn about is never possible, as stun and paralyze almost never work on the creatures you fight.

Odd, I built Morrigan(assuming you're talking about DA:O here, of course) for CC/stuns/debuffs and remember her being an absolute powerhouse.:smallconfused:



Also, every game with a loading screen does this. When the time spent loading exceeds the time spent playing, it becomes anti-fun, resulting in an explosion canceling any fun to be had. ("You've died after 6 seconds of game play, please wait 30 seconds for me to load so you can try that jump again" :smallfurious:) I haven't had that problem lately. Game equipment and design has improved since the 90s consoles and computers. However, every now and then I encounter this in a newer game (why does it take Bioshock so long to load? I have 10 gig of RAM)

Ugh, don't get me started on technical anti-fun elements. One of my biggest gripes with console games(and pc games too, but the problem is much lesser there) is that everyone is obsessed with graphics to the point of harming other elements of the game. Not even getting into the budget issues with modern graphics or that the majority of developers are single-mindedly focusing on "realism", ie, shades of brown and grey, and ignoring other artistic styles; framerate suffers much more than it should.

I honestly cannot remember playing any 360(I don't have a ps3, and this doesn't seem to effect the wii really) game that did not, at the very least one point or another, drop in framerate. Warriors Orochi 2, for an example, is near unplayable in large crowds with low framerate, especially in 2P mode and the other player is in a different crowd. Sometimes these graphics even have a negative impact, as I find it much harder to see or spot things in games from this generation as opposed to the last. This wouldn't be so bad if developers realised that A) Consoles, and even most modern pcs, just simply cannot handle that level of graphics without dropping framerate. Add to this that developers refuse to recognise this and, goddess forbit, add in an option to turn the graphics down(If I recall correctly, the 360 version of Oblivion didn't even give you the option of changing the gamma/brightness! Cue me with sore eyes when it was outside during the day:smallfurious:). Bioshock 2 for the 360 added it in, and I could play the whole game at 60FPS, no worries. Yes, occasionally when textures didn't fully load they looked like ps2-era graphics. No, I don't care, I'm happy with a consistant framerate.

Here's a point for PC's; they can change the graphics settings. For example, I don't have to run mount and blade at top-graphics, which would probably drop my framerate to around 20-30 if it was maybe a dozen or so soldiers. Instead, I run it at the lowest I can possibly make it. Why? Because then instead of battles with 60 soldiers, I can have battles with 600 soldiers, and still have a good framerate.(enabled with mods, of course. Something the console community really needs to dip it's toes into. >_>)

In short: Nuts to graphics, I have gameplay. Developers, stop over-estimating technology and realise that some people would at the very least prefer a choice to enable a stable framerate as opposed to slightly shinier graphics. Majority market, realise that beauty is more than pixel deep, and think about the hidden costs this beauty has. Sorry for the rant, but I needed to whaaaargaaarbl! there a bit.

And when the Hells are we going to break out of this Renaissance style of video-games and start moving towards the impressionist, post-impressionist, and subsequent styles like expressionism and such that came after?:smallannoyed:

[Flickerdart]

And when the Hells are we going to break out of this Renaissance style of video-games and start moving towards the impressionist, post-impressionist, and subsequent styles like expressionism and such that came after?:smallannoyed:
Aside from the fact that those styles all responded to social and political realities of their days, and the fact that the original Renaissance went on for quite a while...
Do you mean the visual style? Even considering that you can't lump everything before impressionism into "Renaissance", I would think that various cel-shaded, 2D, puzzle and other non-representational games are right down your alley.

[shadow_archmagi]

Dragon Age is very guilty of this.
You can be stunned, paralyzed and slowed all at the same time. One time I just left the computer to get a drink when that happened (Since the tactics for other characters work better than I do with strange abilities mismatched on the bar) And of course turn about is never possible, as stun and paralyze almost never work on the creatures you fight.

Really? Because I played a Wizard in a party of Wizards and my Dragon Age strategy was like

FROST STORM
EARTHQUAKE
LIGHTNING STORM
GREASE

END RESULT: Enemies freeze solid, take damage, get zapped, take damage, and if they unfreeze they fall over until they freeze again. No one escapes.

[Cespenar]

I never recall getting stunlocked in DA or DA 2, really. Sometimes some of the bosses can pull some abilities on you that stuns a large area for a long time (10 seconds, perhaps?), but even that is very rare. As demonstrated in above posts, the player stunlocking the enemies is a much common phenomenon.

[Arbitrarity]

Dragon age Awakening: Solo Silverite Mines bosses with a rogue.

Spend 20 seconds stunned and overwhelmed.

fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Walk into Howe's estate with stat-boosted enemies

Everyone but Alistar dies to five simultaneous Scattershots dealing around 400 damage.

fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

[Miscast_Mage]

Dragon age Awakening: Solo Silverite Mines bosses with a rogue.

Spend 20 seconds stunned and overwhelmed.

fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Walk into Howe's estate with stat-boosted enemies

Everyone but Alistar dies to five simultaneous Scattershots dealing around 400 damage.

fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

You're soloing, what do you expect?:smalltongue: Elements completely change in difficulty when they're built for a team and used on against one person.

Stat-boosted? As in you modded it to be way harder than it should be? That's like someone complaining the Touhou Ultra hack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3zZZmap8Y) is too hard(when it's not outright breaking spellcard patterns, that is.). Although I apologise in advance if I'm misunderstanding you. Besides, those archers using those 5 scattershots in turns to keep you stunned longer would be much worse.:smalltongue:


Aside from the fact that those styles all responded to social and political realities of their days, and the fact that the original Renaissance went on for quite a while...
Do you mean the visual style? Even considering that you can't lump everything before impressionism into "Renaissance", I would think that various cel-shaded, 2D, puzzle and other non-representational games are right down your alley.

Really? I thought what sparked impressionism(or at least a part of sparking it) was the invention of cameras, meaning there was less demand for portraits and artists seeing that because technology could capture realism picture perfect, they were free to experiment without the constraints of reality. Then again, this is all from my secondary school art teacher a year or two ago, so I may be wrong on some points.:smalltongue:

I do like games like that(my greatest weakness is and always shall be isometric-viewpoint games), but I meant more along the lines of an art style like, say, Planescape: Torment, or even Summoner 2. Hell, even just breaking out of the "REELIZUM!!1!" trend going on. I know Fable II(only one I've played) did and it was quite the breath of fresh air(though in my opinion that's one of the few things it did right:smallannoyed:).

[warty goblin]

I do like games like that(my greatest weakness is and always shall be isometric-viewpoint games), but I meant more along the lines of an art style like, say, Planescape: Torment, or even Summoner 2. Hell, even just breaking out of the "REELIZUM!!1!" trend going on. I know Fable II(only one I've played) did and it was quite the breath of fresh air(though in my opinion that's one of the few things it did right:smallannoyed:).

If games with unrealistic art design didn't so often end up hideous, I'd agree. All too often however the result of a non-realistic art style is something truly ugly ala the Dragon Age games; at least with realism the worst you generally get is really boring.

Don't get me wrong, there's quite a few games with non-realistic graphics that look absolutely spectacular. The Void comes to mind, as do the Disciples games, or Zeno Clash for that matter. These however require teams of talented artists, and if a studio can't pull that off, realism usually isn't as bad as a failed attempt at another style.

There's also a lot of games with realistic art styles that nevertheless can have some really stunning scenes in them. Some bits early in the Witcher have absolutely stunning atmosphere and mood, despite being fairly understated and realistic in its design. Some bits of the Crysis games pull this off as well.

[Airk]

Erm, the truth is that outside of the First/Third Person Shooter space, unrealistic graphics are the NORM. There's no need to rebel against something that isn't even dominant in your space.

If you want to talk about FPS games, well, I gather that Borderlands and Mirror's Edge both had fairly stylized art, though I haven't played either, so YMMV.

Outside of the FPS space? Dunno. What was the last "realistic" platformer you played? Fighting game? I guess the new Mortal Kombat is...kindof "realistic". RPGs? Well, okay, since the western RPG has basically become an FPS with stats and dialogue trees, it's sortof a train wreck there, but JRPGs have always been pretty stylized, and even FFXIII, which is the biggest push for "realism" the genre has ever made is still pretty firmly grounded in an artistic style.

I'd certainly argue that unrealistic games are FAR from "often" ending up "hideous". I'd argue that, instead, the peril of realistic art is not "bland" but "uncanny valley" which we've been seeing more of than I'd like, and chases me off right quick.

[Arbitrarity]

You're soloing, what do you expect?:smalltongue: Elements completely change in difficulty when they're built for a team and used on against one person.

Stat-boosted? As in you modded it to be way harder than it should be? That's like someone complaining the Touhou Ultra hack (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3zZZmap8Y) is too hard(when it's not outright breaking spellcard patterns, that is.). Although I apologise in advance if I'm misunderstanding you. Besides, those archers using those 5 scattershots in turns to keep you stunned longer would be much worse.:smalltongue:


Actually, most of that stun happens to be AOE. It's actually two seperate AOE high-difficulty mental resist checks vs 5 second stun (which are used to not overlap), and two nigh-uninterruptable overwhelms (dragons are immune to knockdown and stun). The actual problem turns out to be the lack of damage, since you can normally interrupt them from doing, well, anything with an optimized party, since they just fly away every time they take a few hundred damage, then come back.

Actually, chain-stuns don't really work in DA:O anyways. If you get tagged by two scattershots, the second overrides the first, and a 3s stun gets reduced to like half a second. It's a rather amusing interaction.

Difficulty mod is an accepted part of using Combat Tweaks, since that makes the game easier. Most of the problem is actually just Howe's estate, since it's the first area with liberal amounts of Scattershot enemies. Fights take a LOT longer than they should, and are usually more difficult, simply because you're taking automatic damage and stuns to your entire party. But, since my latest run through had f_damagescale 1.5'd enemies, I instead recall everyone dying instantly, and watching Alistar slog through remaining enemies.... really slowly.

Oh, I didn't mention spiders, did I. Web: can't be removed by anything, doesn't count as stun, so chain webs don't get reduced, no way to be immune, and used by enemies that commonly come in packs of 5-10. With overwhelm. And auto-hit ranged DoT poison.
The only saving grace is that spider AI is moronic, and uses abilities at random. I have had games where every member of my party was webbed or overwhelmed simultaneously, only to have it happen again. (now, solo run, I got annoyed, and dropped ~40 traps to instagib the Corrupted Spider Queen. She had it coming.)

Nightmare bear traps? Stun you for ~10 seconds, can't be removed, no immunity available. Only way to avoid is to detect ahead of time.
Shadow Wolves: appear exactly once, in a group of 4, stealthed, overwhelm your entire party. Oh, and they deal enough damage to gib anyone without significant amounts of armor.