sundin13 said:
C. I've gone into detail a few times about how amazing that first encounter with the Lycan could be. The first meeting with an enemy is the most important, because you don't know how to react. Just imagine for a second, that the players actually kept control in that segment. You turn a corner and there is a guy tearing into the flesh of another. "What do I do?" rushed through your head and all your options are laid out in front of you. Do I turn around and look for another route (If yes, you turn around, explore a bit and you don't find another route bringing you back to square one)? Do I go in guns blazing and try to kill the thing (if yes, you pump a few bullets into it, drawing its attention, at which point, it transforms and starts coming at you)? Do I try to sneak past it (if yes, you move quietly, putting a row of boxes between you and it but all of the sudden, the sound of rending flesh ceases and you hear something sniffing at the air. You press on a few more steps when the monster jumps out at you and blocks your path, forcing you to go the other way)? In each of these cases, you are funneled into the same area, but you get to feel like it was your decision that triggered these events. You learn something about the monster (near impervious to normal bullets or amazing sense of smell) through your own actions and you are left wondering "what if I did this another way". All of these decisions fall on you, and you have to live (or die) with the consequences. Instead, the game stops you when you get close and says "this is how your character is going to deal with the monster, this is the info you will learn, but don't worry, you get to do all of this from the safety of a cutscene". Games are capable of so much more. E. See above... Or even for something more simple, during that super boring gunfight from earlier, have the player in a more open position, with enemies coming from either side. This forces the player to pick one side to defend (maybe even put a friendly NPC on each side, to make the player subconsiously think "who am i going to help") or they can try to defend both sides. This leads to the consequence of getting overwhelmed from one side or the other or both if they choose to multitask, forcing them to retreat at which point their comrade gets shot. This gives the player the choice of how to handle this encounter, makes them feel like "maybe if I just did better, or made a different decision, this outcome could have been prevented" and provides a more fun encounter than just playing whack a mole... Did I ruin the game enough for you or would it be better if I just made the whole game into a movie...because you know, who wants to play a video game...pshhh |
Call it whatever you want, it's still not a QTE and it never will be.
C. What is the goddamn point? None of what you just described is better in any way. It's worse. If there's effectively no choice, then don't freaking bother with the ilusion that you seem to like so much. Don't insult the player, just get on with it. Don't hide or mask the game's limitations. "Games are capable of so much more", yet you just described not doing more, so which is it? Are they or are they not? Give choice or don't give choice. Don't give illusion of choice, that's the worse thing a developer can do. It's cheating. And it makes you feel cheated. It is similar to how some games let you choose dialogues or make actual decisions and then they don't influence anything in any way (like some things in Telltale games). Don't freaking do that.
E. Read the edit. Have a player on a more open position? Move into a more open position. The game doesn't force you to stay where that player did. The guy playing chose to do that. You're not criticizing the game, you're criticizing the player. And that's normal cause most people playing at these events are bad. The game has melee, stun ammo, cover destruction, blacksight (slow mo), there's several ways of approaching fights. If a dumb player choses to play whack a mole behind cover, blame him. Unless you want the game to force him out of that cover..but then..i'll start to get confused cause I no longer understand if you're in favor of choice or not..
The most ironic thing here is that you're trying to advocate for choice yet you're advocating against it. Choice also applies to what types of games we get to choose to play. You're displaying the same kind of narrow minded view of "what all games must be" that some critics have been so guilty of lately (DC and Forza 6 not being open world, among other things). It is elitism, it is snobism.
The game doesn't seem to be for you, so forget about it? I don't go into topics of all the Nintendo games that mean nothing to me describing how i wish they were more like X or Y or more like The Order or Uncharted or any other game. You get them, good for you. Let the rest of us get this instead. We prefer it.
The best thing the industry can have is variety and that can't happen when people act the way they do towards certain games. The Order included.
To conclude, I might add that I feel like gaming has never progress past the original Deus Ex...that pretty much nailed it and sealed it. After reaching that "level", it became a point of, as I say above, simply experiencing different things. No game has ever accomplished more than it and I doubt any ever will. So I want a lot of these devs to stop trying because the end result usually isn't very good. All these open games are getting really boring. There's no point in having choice OR illusion of choice if when you execute it you feel bored or like you have done it a million times (Shadow of mordor is specially guilty of this). Linear story driven games at least can more easily escape this because they are more cohesive and as such, as long as it's well done, it doesn't really feel too much like something before it. They have a stronger sense of identity.
