What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Rodin]

There's a sort of stigma associated with using hexes. When I was growing up, hexes were only used by the hardest of hardcore wargamers. The type that would write a game with no animations but which accurately tracks the number of bullets a Vickers machine gun could fire. A level of hardcore even deeper than Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings.

Hexes were considered inaccessible. Hard for people to learn. Something that would instantly turn a casual gamer off and prevent them from trying out a game.

I'm not making an argument either way for the actual benefits of hexes vs squares. But that stigma has been there for well over 20 years, and game designers are going to be very conscious of that. Civilization is designed to be accessible, ergo it uses squares. I'm not sure what changed to make them decide to give hexes a try. Possibly it's down to more modern games deciding to use hexes, meaning that people are more likely to be familiar with them. Or maybe the Civ fanbase has gotten more focused in their demographic and it's better to appeal to that fanbase than to try and attract newcomers.

[deuterio12]

Well - while this is all true, many advanced things happen to be quite complex, and when advances make things simpler, they usually do so by hiding the complexity in clever ways. It's still there, if you check the stuffing.

It really isn't most of the time. Like primitive math was really hard to learn precisely because even basic sums and multiplications had really complex processes, until people came up with algebra that made said sums and multiplications much, much easier to do.

Or how guns and gunpowder are easier to make than a crossbow and bolts, once people just figured out the right chemical ratios and to put the explodey powder inside a tube that's sealed in one side.

Or how paper used to demand the rare payrus plant or carefully treating animals skins, until one dude watched wasps closely and figured out you can get paper just out of pulping tree bark.

Or how a car is much simpler than a horse. After all we can build a car from inert metal bits and rubber, but we can't make a horse out of carbon and water.

The key factor is that more complex=more expensive, but resources are always limited. You can only get more out of said limited resources if you simplify things.

And I don't think the fact that some game decided to go from hexes to squares disproves anything. Chess is a real game, and uses squares, and that doesn't mean that hexes aren't better.

Also, please note that I don't really pursue this discussion for anything other than entertainment value.

Well, it is entertaining for me how the big tactical classics, FFT, Fire Emblem, X-Com, Advance Wars, etc just ended up all being square-based.

[halfeye]

There's a sort of stigma associated with using hexes. When I was growing up, hexes were only used by the hardest of hardcore wargamers. The type that would write a game with no animations but which accurately tracks the number of bullets a Vickers machine gun could fire. A level of hardcore even deeper than Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings.

Hexes were considered inaccessible. Hard for people to learn. Something that would instantly turn a casual gamer off and prevent them from trying out a game.

I'm not making an argument either way for the actual benefits of hexes vs squares. But that stigma has been there for well over 20 years, and game designers are going to be very conscious of that. Civilization is designed to be accessible, ergo it uses squares. I'm not sure what changed to make them decide to give hexes a try. Possibly it's down to more modern games deciding to use hexes, meaning that people are more likely to be familiar with them. Or maybe the Civ fanbase has gotten more focused in their demographic and it's better to appeal to that fanbase than to try and attract newcomers.

There are squares, there are squares skewed on their tips, and there are hexes; I thought Alpha Centauri (was that Civ 2.5 or 3.5?) was hexes, but looking at the box it's probably skewed squares.

[Zombimode]

Well, it is entertaining for me how the big tactical classics, FFT, Fire Emblem, X-Com, Advance Wars, etc just ended up all being square-based.

On the other hand pretty much all the classic turn-based strategy games (on the PC) like the Battle Isle und Panzer General series have used hexes from the get-go.

On the programming complexity of squares vs. hexes: just thought about it a little bit, you can map a square grid with a simple 2 dimensional matrix - you can use the same matrix to map a hex grid because you can transform any square grid into a hex grid with one additional rule: if the topmost row extends to the left or to the right (to create the zigzag border).

For each hex you need to link up to 6 adjacent tiles instead of 8 for a square tile, but you can treat all adjacent tiles the same (instead of differentiating between orthogonal and diagonal adjacent tiles for squares). It doesn't seem that they are all that different.


Personally I think prefer hexes but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

[halfeye]

Personally I think prefer hexes but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Oh yes it does matter, once you get to the grander scales. You can tesselate a sphere with hexes, you more or less can't with squares.

[tonberrian]

Oh yes it does matter, once you get to the grander scales. You can tesselate a sphere with hexes, you more or less can't with squares.

You can't, really, even with hexes. It's gotta squish the hexagons somehow, possibly including other shapes like pentagons. There's only a handful of shapes that will make absolutely perfect polyhedrons - notably, those are the shapes of the D4, D6, D8, D12, and D20.

[halfeye]

You can't, really, even with hexes. It's gotta squish the hexagons somehow, possibly including other shapes like pentagons. There's only a handful of shapes that will make absolutely perfect polyhedrons - notably, those are the shapes of the D4, D6, D8, D12, and D20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truncated_icosahedron

That's hexes and pentagons. If we divide the hexagons and pentagons into triangles, and the triangles into smaller triangles, then we can make hexagons out of the small triangles, except at the exact centre of the pentagons, there are only 12 of those on the whole sphere. There's a bit of messing about in that the triangles in the pentagons aren't absolutely equilateral though they are quite close, but graphics cards naturally deal with that sort of thing.

On the other hand, why not go back to the d20, that's equilateral triangles all over and you can make hexes out of triangles very easily, inflate it so the points lie flat and it's almost perfect. You'd still get pentagons at the points, but still only 12 per sphere, and all the triangles are equilateral, so all the hexagons would be regular. Actually, thinking further, that must fail. The truncated icosahedron seems to work, in that the hexes still work across large triangle boundaries, but that can't be true of the untruncated version I think, a pity, it was a wonderful vision while it lasted.

[deuterio12]

On the other hand pretty much all the classic turn-based strategy games (on the PC) like the Battle Isle und Panzer General series have used hexes from the get-go.

X-Com is also PC and quite a lot more popular than any of those.

Baldur's gate? Squares.

Planescape Torment? Squares.

Banner Saga? Squares.

Or good old Dominions uses squares for tactical battle (and yololo grid for the strategic map in that each province can be whatever).

On the programming complexity of squares vs. hexes: just thought about it a little bit, you can map a square grid with a simple 2 dimensional matrix - you can use the same matrix to map a hex grid because you can transform any square grid into a hex grid with one additional rule: if the topmost row extends to the left or to the right (to create the zigzag border).

For each hex you need to link up to 6 adjacent tiles instead of 8 for a square tile, but you can treat all adjacent tiles the same (instead of differentiating between orthogonal and diagonal adjacent tiles for squares). It doesn't seem that they are all that different.


Personally I think prefer hexes but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, but it does. Even a small difference can go a long way when it needs to be applied a lot of times.

The main advantage of squares is that it just fits more naturally with the human mind. Up/down and left/right, North/South and East/West, Bow/Stern and Port/ Starboard. The positive/negative X and Y axis in a 2D plane. There's a reason why people always prefered 4-direction based coordinates for pretty much everything. Diagonals simply naturally flow out of the combination of those 4 basic directions. Northeast, upleft, etc.

But with an hex you need the human mind to grasp 6 directions minimum. That's 50% as more directions than anything square-based. And that's terrible just wasteful all around.

[Gnoman]

The primary disadvantage of a square grid is that the shortcuts needed to make diagonals "fair" are cumbersome to deal with in paper play - a computer can handle these behind the scenes easily. Easily enough, in fact, that it just works the way you intuitively expect.

[Zombimode]

Baldur's gate? Squares.

Planescape Torment? Squares.

Eh, it's a bit disingenuous to say that the Infinity Engine games use "squares". It is true in the sense that the maps have whole number x and y coordinates, but these "squares" do not conform to any D&D rules squares.

Also, while the games have a strict internal turn structure, the action unfolds in real time and the internal turn structure (a very close implementation of AD&Ds individual initiative model) is not what people usually mean when they say "turn based game".

So calling the IE games turn-based on a square grid may be technically correct, but that only means that you are not fun at parties.


As for squares being more intuitively than hexes: ok, then I must be a very strange human
I find hex grids more intuitive.

When I said "it doesn't matter" I meant that a game using hexes or square is pretty low on the list of criteria if I would enjoy it or not. Which was my way of saying that its fun to debate about the differences between squares and hexes but I don't care all that much

[Wookieetank]

We got a switch as our family present this year and have been playing it most days. Mario Kart 8 has been the most popular, but we also picked up Harvest Moon: Mad Dash and its a delightfully chaotic cooperative puzzle game. Also been poking at FFXII:TZA which has some rather nice qol updates over the original, and Omega Labyrinth Life, which is a delightfully inappropriate dungeon crawler/roguelike. Also nabbed Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, but haven't had a chance to play it yet.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Game 4: I dialled the difficulty up to 3 because 2 was just too easy.

Immediately started running into money, food, and happiness issues. I had negative income for a few turns, which was scary. Maybe my settling spot was bad.

Admittedly shooting for a military victory on a Large Map might have been a little ambitious.

Made a ton of mistakes. Had to redirect my research a few times because I skipped the Science-boosting tech and fell behind significantly.

As I struggled to catch up Ethiopia swallowed up two capitals and then allied with almost all the city-states.

Waging war at a tech disadvantage is no walk in the park, but it looks like I have a numbers advantage. I might actually lose, which would be embarrassing.

[Anonymouswizard]

So after a lot of work finding the mods that I like to use and getting one of them to work I started another attempt to finish Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines: Unofficial Patch: Additional Content as a Brujah who is going to try to keep out of combat as much as possible (because nothing says Brujah like computer hacker with a high Persuasion skill). Honestly Potence is good, and Presence became worth maybe investing points in once I modded out the Vitae requirement, so at least in the early game avoiding having to beat people up is legitimately a bigger challenge here than taking folks down with my fists (which, with Strength 2, Brawling 2, and Potence 2 are more damaging than any weapons I've picked up).

Now one of the rules I've had for RPGs and other games with character creation over the last few years is that if there's the ability to play a female PC, I play a female PC. I'm happy that Bloodlines seems to be one of the games that deals with it better, I don't get quite so many 'all players are men with no interest in roleplaying as a woman' moments as in a lot of games.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Is there a setting in Civ 5 to stop the camera “snapping” each time I finish with a unit? Sometimes I want to move a bunch of units in an army that are near to each other and the POV just leaps halfway across the map to some random worker which is jarring.

[Anteros]

Well, I just finished up They are Billions on 800% difficulty. It only took me about a year of on and off playing. That was frustrating, but satisfying. The campaign definitely needs a lot of polish, but I enjoyed it overall. Probably going to start on Iceborne in MHW soon.

[Morty]

I've been idly thinking about giving Witcher 3 another go, this time with a heavy armor build. But it turns out it's very difficult to actually wear heavy armor before crafting the Ursine gear at level 20. Which is quite a lot of hours into the game. I don't know why a game this meticulous and well-polished has such a terrible inventory.

[Lord Raziere]

Been playing more Bug Fables. its lore is a really interesting post-apocalypse setting when you get into it with a surprising amount of bug cultures having technological advancements nearing the tech of modern day.

Spoiler

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its implied that humans are dead, as the closest bugs ever mention of them is "giants" but not in any detail as anything other than a giants lair they don't go to. a lot of the bugs building structures are re-purposed junk from humanity such as cardboard buildings or a teacup or whatever, the desert area is basically a sandbox, the setting actually has deep lore behind it that you find books to read more into and it describes how bugs had a day of awakening where some bugs became sapient and sentient and started walking upright and living longer and thus starting building societies as a result. the water area is implied to be a puddle or pond next to the sandbox, and the sky high view of the setting from the bee hive seems to reveal that the entire setting takes place in someone's former backyard.

the roaches, a dead civilization in this setting, discovered this Everlasting Sapling which obtaining is the macguffin and goal of this game, so its implied that humans made some sort of incredibly powerful plant as an experiment, but somehow something went wrong and all thats left are sapient bugs, and the roaches definitely died from trying to use the Everlasting Sapling themselves.

I'm in the final stretches of the game so....going into the Giant's Lair, there seems to giants of a sort, but they're not human at all, even if they look human-like, as whatever they are, they are big eyeballs that act like searchlights, is completely shadowy aside from the eyes and send out these weird crab-spiders to fight when they spot you, along with other mutant bug-like things that inhabit the lair that are tougher than anything else in the game and its the creepiest part of the game because its emulating so many cthulhu vibes and "your walking into a world where your the smallest life form amid giants and predators who can all kill you easily" kind of feel because these normal enemies of this area have the health of minibosses and when you get spotted, a specific type can just be dropped you multiple times if your not fast enough.
its easily the creepiest most ominous part of the game in a game already full of creepy parts like the bee's storage warehouse, or the roach's secret lab, or the Forsaken Lands, leaving the feeling that even though this is a happy paper-mario world, something seriously wrong happened at some point that I don't exactly know and probably never will, because if humans still existed, wouldn't they have checked the backyard to fix things by now?

the characters are good in this, particularly Leif whose story is real sad when you find out the truth of him, and only adds to the settings sense of creepiness underneath the cheeriness.

like given all that has happened, I wouldn't be surprised if the Everlasting Sapling turned out to be some vile parasite plant that sucks the life out of things around it to keep itself going or something given that a civilization died trying to use it. and that all the legends about it giving you immortality come at the horrible price of draining life from stuff or something like that, so its not worth it. it is THAT kind of setting.

like I'm honestly surprised by all this creepy stuff and implied adult feelings in this happy game, because you get things like an innkeeper who is depressed his wife died and the only clues you get is a sign and his attitude without ever being said outright, or Leif's entire character arc dealing with being a person cast adrift out of time, or Kabbu having survivor's guilt and an ahab-like vengeance towards the lesser bug that killed his previous friends, or the Queen Elizant II being an actual real politician who has to deal with not being as great at it as her predecessor and how it affects her and her relations with other kingdoms. its a lot of nuances and interesting stuff that make it memorable.

Bug Fables just really good, much deeper and with more artistic variety than I expected it to have. it doesn't just ape paper mario, it surpassed it. its an indie game I'd definitely recommend for how much charm, warmth and love was put into it, because you can tell everything was well thought out from its setting to its mechanics to make it all work.

[LibraryOgre]

"Finished" Mass Effect: Andromeda. I have the quotes because the game sort of felt like it petered out, rather than had a grand finished, even with the fight against the Archon.

I've moved on to Fallout 4, and really trying not to look things up, for reasons I'm not sure of.

[Resileaf]

"Finished" Mass Effect: Andromeda. I have the quotes because the game sort of felt like it petered out, rather than had a grand finished, even with the fight against the Archon.

Yeah, the game was clearly unfinished because Bioware were forced to get it released too early.

[LibraryOgre]

Yeah, the game was clearly unfinished because Bioware were forced to get it released too early.

A DLC that involved the Quarian Ark would've been a great addition. But, alas, it is unlikely to be.

[Hagashager]

Currently playing Witcher III, and have just finished the Crones of Crookback Bog. It was really awesome to refresh in mind that storyline!

Never liked the name "Crookback Bog" always sounded too much like a Banjo-Kazooie level which is...not an association you want for the Witcher.

On topic I'm currently playing Baldur's Gate with the Sword Coast Strategems mod. I enjoy the challenge when things come out right but I'm increasingly getting tired of the arbitrarily low THAC0 bias against the player.

A level 4 fighter should miss a Kobold once in a blue-moon, not several times each combat. I GM an actual 2nd edition group and even when they were all level 1-5 no one missed as much as BG has you missing.

[Anonymouswizard]

"Finished" Mass Effect: Andromeda. I have the quotes because the game sort of felt like it petered out, rather than had a grand finished, even with the fight against the Archon.

Don't worry, maybe they'll release a better ending as DLC.


Anyway, playing Bloodlines and am just before going to find Dr Grout, doing sidequests and trying to find where my ghoul has got to (she's not in either haven) In some ways I'm tempted to turn god mode on, this game is like Planescape: Torment in that the combat is by far the least interesting part of the game, and gun wielding enemies are a pain in the backside once they get automatic weapons (yes I do want three of you to stand far back from the melee and take off a fifth of my health every few seconds). I'm half tempted to put some points into Firearms so I can fight them on their terms, but my Ranged Combat is at 1 while my Unarmed is at 7, it would be s big investment to even them out.

[Lord Raziere]

Beat Bug Fables

Spoiler: Bug Fables Ending

Show

Turns out, that Everlasting Sapling's power wasn't so infinite after all. oh and some roaches still live. the final boss battle against Everlasting King was cool and had a puzzle element to it that bosses like Mega Bowser and Shadow Queen didn't.

like, sometimes the king would recover health and use plant attacks to drain health from me and sometimes they wouldn't. It took my second try (which I only had to do because I did a stupid by using an item that I shouldn't have that deals a lot of damage to everyone which killed my own party) to realize: he can only do that health regeneration on the ground. when he is flying his attacks are weaker and he can't use anything to suck health from me or drain health from the ground, so second time around the battle went much smoother because I realized there was a logic to fighting him and thus it was a constant juggle to whack him down then slap him back up into the air before my turn my turn can pass, thus keeping him from recovering. once I trapped him in that kind of loop I was able to beat him while conserving much more of my TP in the process.

and this battle showcases one of the best things about this game: it has so many boss battles and so many different tactical situations for you to use your three characters to win with and it all makes sense if you observe and apply the needed logic, and none of it feels forced or guided since to get this advice you often have to make a habit of checking the foe's info yourself. like, the game really makes you do tactics other than just hit the foe a lot, because unlike in Paper Mario your attack stat is set, you don't get as much health, and random enemies can be dangerous to you, so it really pushed me to think outside the box, to spend tp and I got really good at using frigid coffin, and ability that I probably would not have used as often in paper mario because of how complicated it is but here mastering its use became this vital skill to shut down enemies so I can control the battlefield. and more than once I did some unusual outside the box tactics to defeat a boss, with one of the party being made into a berserker to deal all the damage, one to be the support and one to do some other thing.

all the main characters in the game develop as people to some degree, and there is a substantial postgame to this, whether its facing a boss rush mode, its version of the pit of trials, finding all the lorebooks, playing the termacade, finishing all the sidequests, playing its card games, filling this or that out, lots to do, as well as a little epilogue sort of quest for Kabbu. maybe someday I'll come back to it play that, but for now I'm satisfied with beating the main story.

again, if your a paper mario fan, get it, its real good, and if your not, I'd still recommend this for its charm, its smart combat gameplay and various puzzles, a cheery happy world that while it has its dark spots doesn't overshadow its bright ones, and is filled with characters that feel like real people with lives and goals all around you. you won't be disappointed.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

I’m probably not the first person to delay a certain victory just so I can stomp enemy cities with nuclear powered death robots.

Somehow I managed a diplomatic victory even with both Mongols and Venetians in the game. I dunno, making nice with city-states is just something I do instinctively. Maybe it’s the quest system.

[Wookieetank]

I’m probably not the first person to delay a certain victory just so I can stomp enemy cities with nuclear powered death robots.

For added hilarity, grab a GoTs map and use those to conquer Westeros (am I the only one who auto corrects that to WesterOS?). Or really any fantasy land of interest to you.

[warty goblin]

Yeah, the game was clearly unfinished because Bioware were forced to get it released too early.

I mean they'd only been working on the thing for five years at that point, it's not exactly crazy for EA to decide they weren't going to keep pouring money into that particular pit for another who knows how long. And while another couple of months probably would have ironed out a lot of the animation messiness etc, dealing with the deep mediocrity at the core of Andromeda would probably have required ditching a lot of what they had. Like the main character, the utter boringness of the aliens, about 80% of the plot, literally everything to do with SAM. I'm not saying the game was bad - the combat was actually pretty good! - but pretty much everything else was just sort of there in a generally bland but occasionally annoying way.


Been taking another go at Witcher 3, which is holy cow how did they pull this off good. Pretty much everything about the game just works. Except for the interface and RPG mechanics, but I find I honestly don't care about that. What I care about is methodically Witching my way across various pieces of exquisitely rendered countryside. I think it's maybe the only game I've played where the rural spaces actually feel rural, between the fantastic use of microbiomes, the sheer density of plant and non-hostile animal life, and general feel of partially human-occupied landscapes.

[tonberrian]

What I'm NOT playing is my 2DS XL. Apparently the top screen flap is thin enough that my phone in my pocket broke the screen when I stuffed them in weird. So now I have to wait until february to get back to SMT IV. I am NOT happy.

[factotum]

I mean they'd only been working on the thing for five years at that point, it's not exactly crazy for EA to decide they weren't going to keep pouring money into that particular pit for another who knows how long. And while another couple of months probably would have ironed out a lot of the animation messiness etc, dealing with the deep mediocrity at the core of Andromeda would probably have required ditching a lot of what they had.

The problem they had is that they *did* ditch a lot of what they had, several times. The actual final game probably only got 12-18 months of development out of that five years.

[Morty]

Been taking another go at Witcher 3, which is holy cow how did they pull this off good. Pretty much everything about the game just works. Except for the interface and RPG mechanics, but I find I honestly don't care about that. What I care about is methodically Witching my way across various pieces of exquisitely rendered countryside. I think it's maybe the only game I've played where the rural spaces actually feel rural, between the fantastic use of microbiomes, the sheer density of plant and non-hostile animal life, and general feel of partially human-occupied landscapes.

I'm considering installing a gameplay overhaul/tweaks mod myself, since while the mechanics are pleasantly inoffensive, I could use something new on another playthrough. But it's always a risk to install those, as good ideas tend to be mixed with poor ones and the authors' personal windmills to tilt at.

I've also resigned myself to the fact that if I want to specialize in heavy armor, I won't be able to do it until level 20 and reaching Skellige. Because the gear system is as embarrassingly sloppy as the game is otherwise well-polished.

[factotum]

I really need to reinstall Witcher 3. I didn't have any of the DLC when I did my first playthrough, whereas now I do, so definitely need to play through all that because it's supposed to be awesome.