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2020-09-04, 05:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
That kind of depends on whether the challenge is fun, though. In XCOM, I'd say the answer is only "sometimes." Sometimes the challenge comes from the combination of the enemies you're facing, the terrain, and your soldiers' abilities, creating a sort of puzzle for you to figure out how best to win/survive. Other times the challenge comes from the RNG just going "lol no" to everything you try to do. Other times it comes from the game's system where enemy groups are triggered to act as soon as you get line-of-sight to them. The first of those can be fun. The other two, not so much, they're mostly frustrating.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2020-09-04, 05:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2020-09-04, 06:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Because X-Com is the kind of game where losing certain missions means losing the game: 3 hours after you lost that one mission. You can enter a death spiral state where things become impossible to win fairly easily, and it's sometimes not apparent that it's impossible to win until way later.
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2020-09-04, 08:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Yes, but the potential to lose the game is what makes it fun for me. The type of game where you can only win or there is very little consequence to messing up is incredibly boring to me. That's why roguelikes and games like dark souls have made such a surge in popularity lately.
Fair enough. Like I said, people will enjoy games in different ways. To me, replaying a tactical map knowing what to expect and what the enemy will do feels cheap. Kinda invalidates the win. I can certainly see the other perspective of viewing it as a puzzle to solve though.
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2020-09-04, 10:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
The difference is that roguelikes are typically fairly short and you...can't lose Dark Souls, at all unless you stop playing forever.
If I'm playing a game with a 20-30 hour campaign (which X-Com games have) I'm not going to be pleased when the game becomes unwinnable after 15 hours of playtime. I'll just stop playing.
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2020-09-04, 10:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
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2020-09-05, 01:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
My general rule is to use a "soft Ironman" system.
Your favorite soldier gets shot in the head? Suck it up, buttercup. Losing characters is part of the game.
Your entire squad goes down in a hail of gunfire? Reload from start of mission, because the campaign is effectively over otherwise.
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2020-09-05, 02:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
So are you arguing that it should be impossible to lose games you invest a lot of time in? I'm not sure I understand the appeal of that. The threat of losing is what makes it interesting. I'm certainly not playing something like Xcom for the story or exploration. If you lose a campaign then you suck it up, learn from it, and win the next one. It's not like you're losing your whole campaign due to a few bad RNG rolls.
I mean, sure with something sandboxy like Skyrim you expect to be able to save and load and not face consequences, but with a strategy campaign the expectation is that the computer will try to beat you. I had to restart the They are Billions campaign after 15 hours when it turned out I made bad tech choices and couldn't continue without lowering the difficulty and it just made the eventual success sweeter.Last edited by Anteros; 2020-09-05 at 02:26 AM.
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2020-09-05, 03:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Very quickly, because I'm off out away for a week in about twenty minutes:
I don't play games to be frustrated. If a game wastes my time, forces me to start over again and again fo whatever reason, I will simply stop and lay something else. Not remotely interested (which is why I will never play a game on ironman).
I don't play for "challenge" anymore than I read a book for "challenge." Hell, the one and ONLY thing I ever do for "challenge" is play table-top wargames. Other than that I simple don't see the appeal. (Granted there is a certain point where things can become too easy, but that it usually only when the puzzle element is not stroing enough.) I simply do not, nor have I ever, gotten any satisfaction over "Doing A Hard Thing." All I ever get at best is relief that I can progess to something actually FUN. I explictly play games (and I ONLY play single-player games on computer) as an escape. I don't drink, smoke, drugs or Significant Others, so games are my equivilent.
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2020-09-05, 03:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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2020-09-05, 03:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
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2020-09-05, 03:45 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Last edited by Lord Raziere; 2020-09-05 at 03:45 AM.
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2020-09-05, 03:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
It is the only useful definition of loss in this context. Otherwise the only alternative is that Anteros is holding the stance that reloading a save when you die in a single player game is somehow undesirable behavior. I do not think that is remotely their intent.
Potentially there is also disagreement on whether strategy games are an exception from this general practice, but that does not mean my definition of loss isn't useful in this context regardless; it just establishes that we disagree on strategy games sharing the same...morals(?) as any other single player game.
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2020-09-05, 07:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2010
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Nice! I came to like Deepnest after a while.
I really want to replay HK at some point. Not that I completely completed it the first time (some of the “bosses” are just too hard for me). But I want to redo it because... some people died. So to speak.
Anyway. I just started Feudal Alloy. Fun. Platformer.
Also picked up Cattails again. Reminds me of my late kitty. Mixed feelings.
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2020-09-05, 09:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Having to restart an entire campaign is certainly something I don't understand the appeal of. The existence of save files obsoleted that problem decades ago, eliminating the need to start over from the beginning any time you lose.
A game throwing a hard challenge at me that I need to attempt many times to pass can certainly be fun. I lost count of how many times I had to attempt the fight with Genichiro in Sekiro before I overcame him, but learning to do it and then ultimately triumphing over such a difficult fight was thrilling and fun, and I was ultimately a lot better at the game after doing so. A game forcing me to throw away my progress and start over from the beginning after I've already spent a lot of time getting far into it sounds like something that would just make me go "well screw this game, then," and find something more fun to play that isn't going to waste my time like that. (A modern game, anyway - a very old one that didn't have save files at the time it was made I might deal with if it were otherwise fun. But those are also all going to be much shorter than a game like XCOM.)
In XCOM, it sure seems like that's entirely possible, if those bad RNG rolls come early enough in the game. You only start with eight soldiers, so two missions where you full wipe means game over at the most extreme end of things. More likely three, since you'll almost surely recruit some more troops if something as bad as a full squad wipeout occurs once, but still quite possible. The early game is also when the RNG is the most volatile in XCOM, since your characters have minimal stats and as few options in combat as they ever will, yet enemies are still plenty lethal, frequently capable of killing a soldier in a single successful shot.Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2020-09-05, 10:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
This is so scarily close to my attitude I had to double-check to make sure I hadn't written it. The one thing that has always been true about me is that if I'm playing a game with an actual *story* (e.g. not just random maps like Civ6 or Stellaris) then I like to finish it, and anything that stops my progress in that regard is just irritating.
I don't have a problem with a hard challenge if I feel that I'm actually improving at it. If I don't improve after several attempts, that's when I'll be giving up. Yakuza 0 is a case in point--I got to the first boss fight and could not defeat him no matter what I tried; I even dropped the difficulty to Easy and he still killed me when he had the merest smidgeon of health left. I was never the best game-player in the world and my reactions aren't the same now I'm topping 50 that they were when I was 20, but why should that mean I'm denied the ability to finish a game I've paid good money for? Developers really need to start taking older gamers into consideration, IMHO, the hobby's been going for 40+ years now and a lot of people who were there near the beginning are distinctly chronologically challenged these days.
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2020-09-05, 11:22 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Not to my point of view.
It seem more like your trying to force a definition of loss he doesn't agree with and assuming thats the only valid way to define it. People don't view the game itself as the opponent, the game is the setting for the opponents and every boss is a single challenge with which I can win or lose at, and Dark souls follows this definition where loss is defined as losing against an opponent, and I lose something if that happens: souls. Therefore loss is when I lose against an opponent within the game and the game being deleted because you lose against an entire game is just infuriating stupidity. your definition is not useful because it assumes a binary of 100% run or complete loss when much of gamer culture is figuring out how define your own conditions of winning and losing which may or may not involve the entire game. people can play games in different ways and therefore define what is loss to them. I doubt you'll convince a speedrunner who lost a lot of time on a part of their run will say they've won even if they finish a game.
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2020-09-05, 04:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Kuze is designed for you to also fight him in Rush style, if that helps. "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" because Kuze floats like a blimp and stings like a Mack truck in that first fight with him.
I got my ass whooped twice trying to fight him in the Brawler style, and did still die once in Rush, but got a feel for the pattern and beat it on the 4th try.
Yakuza 0 (as my initial entry into the series as well) seems to suffer a bit from it being the 7th game in the series, at least in terms of difficulty for a new player. Having gotten a feel for the same basic mechanics across 6 other games now over the last couple of years, I don't think I'd find Y0 very challenging anymore, but it feels punishing to start because, ironically, it IS made for older gamers: the people who've been playing the Yakuza series since 2005.
In neither case are you losing the game, though, it's losing a challenge. A speedrun is a distinct challenge that can be lost, a Nuzlocke is a distinct challenge that can be lost, a boss fight is a distinct challenge that can be lost, yes. But I feel like most people would agree with me that single player games cannot truly be "lost" in most senses (I actually did think of one as I was writing this: games with bad endings that double as a distinct failure state for the game as a whole). The prevalence of the joke phrase "Are ya winnin' son?" seems to imply it if nothing else; implying that you can win or lose a single player video game is kind of laughable at an abstract level, and makes you seem out of touch.Last edited by Rynjin; 2020-09-05 at 04:32 PM.
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2020-09-05, 05:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
I've actually seen the memes the phrase is from Rynjin, its often to imply that they aren't winning.
also your feeling that people agree with you is not evidence. and just because people play the game in certain ways doesn't mean they're not playing the game. who died and made you the king of videogames? you don't get to define what is or isn't winning the game for other people. Especially not just because you feel something. Please stop that, its rude.
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2020-09-05, 05:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
You can feel free to use a different definition (so long as you actually clearly define what that is, so we both know what the other is talking about), I'm just saying what I use and have seen most people I've interact with use. Before this conversation I have never heard someone refer to dying in a single player game as "losing the game". Neither in a colloquial sense or an academic one (in classes or game design theory videos).
Last edited by Rynjin; 2020-09-05 at 05:53 PM.
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2020-09-05, 06:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
By that logic restarting your xcom campaign isn't losing either then, so your whole point is moot.
Different games have different losing states. Losing in Mario happens when you run out of lives. Losing in a strategy game happens when your mistakes mount up and make winning impossible. It's slower and more insidious, but that's the nature of the slower paced gameplay. There has to be some sort of stakes to make the game interesting, whether it's story progression or ability to lose. The whole "it's completely impossible for the player to actually lose" is a fairly new phenomenon that came about due to games being much longer and more story based, and I personally don't like it carrying over to other genres.
I would daresay that if I got my squad wiped in 3 consecutive missions that I deserve to lose the campaign, yes. The odds of that happening due to bad rng rather than poor tactics or decisions on my part seem rather incredibly low. It's not Fire Emblem where one bad roll can kill your Lord and give a game over.Last edited by Anteros; 2020-09-05 at 06:29 PM.
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2020-09-05, 06:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
The new X-Com games are story based games though. It has an actual plot that plays out the exact same way in every playthrough, the events leading up are just different.
It's not like playing Stellaris or even something like Total War: Warhammer (which does have individual "plots" of a sort per character). I think calling it a strategy game isn't quite accurate to begin with. "Tactics game" maybe fits more (especially since a lot of X-Com-alikes call their games "[Franchise Name] Tactics").
It's real hard to account for the Sniper Chosen dropping into the map randomly and oneshotting your strongest unit from out of your LoS, as a quick example of how a single bad roll could lose you the entire campaign.Last edited by Rynjin; 2020-09-05 at 06:56 PM.
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2020-09-05, 07:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
Been trying to get into Morrowind, having finished Daggerfall. I think I need to find an easy leveling mod... I just can't get into going back into this, again, trying to make it all work.
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2020-09-05, 07:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
When I lose a game of League of Legends or Starcraft II or Magic: Arena, those games don't uninstall themselves and then permanently backlist me. But we still all agree that I've lost in some meaningful sense of the term. Certainly there are some games where you can't really "lose" so much as "give up", but there are definitely single player games where you can lose in pretty much the exact same sense you lose a multiplayer game. Most obviously, most variations of card solitaire. Arguably things like Starcraft II Co-op count as well, since while there's another player, you're on the same side.
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2020-09-05, 07:46 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2016
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2020-09-05, 08:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
How about the campaign mode of any game with a campaign mode? I don't see any fundamental difference between "you lost this match of Starcraft II, would you like to play another" and "you lost the All In campaign mission, would you like to play it again". In both cases, you failed in a clear and obvious way, but you could still eventually achieve whatever your personal goal is, be that reaching some rank on the ladder, or clearing the campaign.
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2020-09-05, 09:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
But is a game where early on your soldiers will often die in one shot (or get hit and live but panic, making them useless for a turn, and consequently putting themselves and the rest of the party in great danger) and are taking shots at enemies with success rates that are typically between 50%-70%, cover and range depending, and enemies are doing the same. I wound up losing three of those starting eight troops, and had close calls with a number of others, due to the kind of RNG that started this conversation. And that's on the normal difficulty, where the RNG is apparently still partially rigged in your favor. I could definitely see a pure RNG loss happening.
Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
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2020-09-05, 10:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jul 2015
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
The odds of having 5 individual 50% rolls go against you in a row are 1/32, or roughly 3%. Since in X-COM such a sequence, say two misses by your troops, three hits by the enemy, can easily turn a mission into a wipe early on, such a loss is very possible. A not insignificant percentage of all players who play X-COM for any meaningful amount of time will experience something along those lines.
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2020-09-05, 11:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2019
Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
If you're relying on 50/50s going your way in XCOM, that's generally a sign you're making tactical mistakes. You can and should be relying on guaranteed damage from rockets/swords/grenades, cover destruction, or just flanking to get shots that are much better than that. Five 50/50s in a row is 3%, but five 80%s in a row is .03%. To the degree that you can lose to pure RNG, it only really happens in the first couple missions, which means that the overall impact is fairly low.
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2020-09-05, 11:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale
The 50/50s are shots against enemies in low cover - which you very much do have to take sometimes. The 70%s are the ones against enemies you've flanked or blown up their cover with grenades. Typical shot against an enemy with no cover in early XCOM2 seemed to be 70-75% chance to hit, unless you were particularly close, which is generally inadvisable at that point in the game. Still quite missable with bad RNG, as I found out on numerous occasions.
Also, sword attacks? Early in the game, bad idea. They need some upgrades before they're potent enough to warrant use, and getting in close puts you at greater risk of death from other enemies.Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis