Decline Biggest waste of potential in video games

[markec]

Half Life 2. gravity gun was the best part of the game and you get it only for the ending.

I don't know what version of HL2 you played, but you get the gravity gun fairly early in the game, in Chapter 5 (there are 13 chapters in total).

I meant the supercharged version of gravity gun you get at the end of the game where you could use it kill people.

You mean the one that's actually logically consistent with how it grabs onto pieces of matter instead of just grabbing inanimate objects for some reason

The real logic of course resides in game balance. The end game gravity gun is overpowered as fuck, even the swarms of enemies they throw at you is no match. It's pretty boring once the novelty of throwing people about wears off (in two minutes).
If the Gravity Gun was like that from the moment you get it early in the game, it would be a legit broke experience.

I dont think anyone is arguing that entire game you should have the exact version of the end game gravity gun that instantly kills every enemy, but that the gravity gun had potential to be utilized far better then being just a gimmick for occasional puzzle.

 

[Ash]

What? The Grav. Gun is a useful and fun offensive weapon quite often throughout the game. I definitely remember Ravenholm and Highway 17 anyway. You can't really use it in some locations (and that's good. It is infinite ammo/usage after all), but overall I found it saw a fair amount of usage. Okay another playground dedicated to the gravity gun like Ravenholm wouldn't have hurt, but it didn't scream "wasted potential!" to me. That was Half Life 2 in general :D

 

[markec]

What? The Grav. Gun is a useful and fun offensive weapon quite often throughout the game. I definitely remember Ravenholm and Highway 17 anyway. You can't really use it in some locations (and that's good. It is infinite ammo/usage after all), but overall I found it saw a fair amount of usage. Okay another playground dedicated to the gravity gun like Ravenholm wouldn't have hurt, but it didn't scream "wasted potential!" to me. That was Half Life 2 in general :D

Grav is essential to overcome certain obstacles in the game but as a weapon is pretty useless beside Ravenholm and thats because of lack of ammo and abundance of saw blades. You might have been satisfied by it but to me it was a interesting concept but waste of potential.

 

[Phanax]

I saw the gravity gun as more of a tool rather than a weapon. I mean they give you a chapter straight afterwards to demonstrate its capability, but once that's done the levels go back to being kinda normal and not optimized for grav gun use as much as Ravenholm was. So as far as being a tool for moving obstacles or grabbing items from hard to access areas, it's fine. So long as you don't think of it primarily as a weapon.

 

[mbv123]

Blue grav gun was awesome

 

[Alienman]

greenies

Wait, Martians are real?

Yes.

 

[Beastro]

PvP MMO game players want to make their own arena. The notion of restricting PvP to certain designated areas and times goes against the whole point of playing an MMO in the first place. Might as well boot up a regular multiplayer game at that point.

Take WoW for example. Vanilla, even though it was grossly imbalanced, was its golden age of pvp. You could find players in almost any zone, if you wanted a larger scale conflict you could always go to Hillsbrad and if you wanted something regulated and fair you could queue for a battleground. I haven't played WoW in years, but when I quit world pvp was all but dead, leveling zones largely empty and battlegrounds were more about avoiding the enemy team and camping objectives rather than fighting over them.

I guess there's always the arena, but I always felt a format like that beats the point of playing an MMO, if you want to 5v5 there's better ways to do it.

Modern MMO PvP is turning opposing players in smart NPCs and channeling players into doing things the way the developers want.

I can see why they do that though given my history with PvP servers. Open free for alls have no longevity, they are wars where no one is able to die, so after the initial war for dominance and then attempts to dethrone the top guild on the server the population dies out once it's clear who has won even though no real "end" happened, just it being clear who was the clear dominant power when the server and it's population numbers were relevant.

That was ok back in the days of Classic EQ and such, but today meta-gaming is so crucial to MMOs and PvPers resort to it all the more, especially the core hyper competitive ones that are the most eager and ruthless to PvP. Those don't even look on servers and winning as the entire game, but demanding server wipes, cheating and getting into creepy forum warrior territory to get as much of an edge as they can trying to "win" a war that never ends.

Final Fantasy 4: The After Years. They had an opportunity to come up with a brand new story, instead they decide to rehash most of the story of Final Fantasy 4, with only a couple of differences.

This and the fact the game was episodic. The game should have released all at once in one single package.

As a kid I wished Square would have had sequels to their FFs games, but I realize the strength of the series is in making original stories with repetitive themes and motifs because anything like a sequel is fan fiction level bad due to the their seeming inability to make something in a game world that doesn't completely revolve around what happened in the original game.

 

[Cael]

That was ok back in the days of Classic EQ and such, but today meta-gaming is so crucial to MMOs and PvPers resort to it all the more, especially the core hyper competitive ones that are the most eager and ruthless to PvP. Those don't even look on servers and winning as the entire game, but demanding server wipes, cheating and getting into creepy forum warrior territory to get as much of an edge as they can trying to "win" a war that never ends.

I have seen that in action, with those crazies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars (US dollars; and they come from supposedly impoverished nations like Indonesia) on lootboxes and other advantages to "win", create multiple accounts to infiltrate enemy groups, and all sorts of such things. A lot of MMOs pander to them as they are the big spenders. Grepolis, Travian, War2Glory, to name a few. They have periodic wipes and everyone starts again, encouraging the idiots to spend again. And the amount of deceit and so-called espionage that goes on is hilarious. No one plays the game for fun, and if you do, you soon won't be playing the game from a combination of trolls, hardcore players who hate casuals and the like.

I have also seen some hardcore Call of Duty type players who scream and shout obscenities and hate into their mikes when playing. One of them live next door to me, and recording his screams and sending it to the apartment management team was something I had to do to get some peace and quiet.

MMOs like that are a cancer on the face of online gaming.

 

[Beastro]

I have most of my experience of them from EQ emu servers and how the PvP servers attracted the distilled toxic elements of the old servers into one concentrated group.

The initial war for control of the server happened on one server. One guild won and maintained control. The competing guilds slowly were broken and folded into the second most powerful guild that eventually fractured once it became clear they were weaker being together than apart due to the personalities of many.

That server then abruptly ended and when it's successor was launched most went into it with a mind to continue the original war while fewer casuals came with them. That server then died when it became clear the original dominant guild was still dominant and the competing guild broke out hacks I didn't even knew existed for EQ, like blacking out selective player screens at will that was used against the dominant guild in the servers last battle and resulted in the admins shutting it down to improve it's anti-cheating protection.

A third server was launched, and again, the dominant guild dominated. The competing guild gave up with many quitting demanding the admins wipe the server so they could another shot at dethroning the dominant guild and grief them off (when everyone knew they'd win again and more called for "wipe it clean" would happen). By that time the remainder of the player base outside of these types was driven off and what remained was soon driven off when most of the dominant guild quit realizing they'd won for good. What remained of them and their competition then came together to farm the servers loot to their hearts, and then continue to do it to deny it to what little population was left on the server. By the end they only logged on to kill raid targets and maraud around as a pack griefing anyone still left playing until the server was dead.

By then Red99 was about to launch, so everyone came back and relaunched the old war, which was again lost with more cries of "wipe it clean" within weeks of it's launch. Once it became clear the P99 staff didn't listen to the player base at all like the old servers did sometimes, most again quit no matter who they are leaving Red99 as the barren husk it's been since then.

These are not PvPers in the old, EQ Live sense that I once knew. They are bullies that only play to get a dominant position on a server and then grief others off while whining and jeering that everyone leaves all the while keeping a look out for the next MMO game to migrate to to ruin.

Even without them PvP doesn't last long given the warfare-like nature of combat and the way online culture has grown into since circa 2000. About the closest PvP got to what everyone wants is UO and Classic EQ where PKs were bandits, small in number and pariahs against a majority player base that, while they weren't PKs, took an Anti-PK stance to be a counter to their wild ravaging who loved PvP just as much as their opposition, but being a side that allowed the server to not be burned down as the struggle was fought.

I don't think that can ever be replicated. Too many look on it as a war wanting to prey upon others rather than a true RPG environment where people did a whole bunch of things as they dicked around in the game that also included PvP instead of the "rush to max level and finish top current content ASAP" that is the norm for every MMO now.

 

[Cael]

I don't think that can ever be replicated. Too many look on it as a war wanting to prey upon others rather than a true RPG environment where people did a whole bunch of things as they dicked around in the game that also included PvP instead of the "rush to max level and finish top current content ASAP" that is the norm for every MMO now.

One game that did it well was an old MUD. It no longer exists, but what happened was that the PKers were given a PK label, and ANYONE who wanted to can attack, kill them and loot their stuff with impunity. You could even go to the bounty office afterwards to turn in their ears for a gold payment. The PKers were only allowed to attack, kill and loot other PKers.

To get the PK label is a conscious choice by the player who has to type in a command to enable it. This can be done at any time during the game. The few times someone decided to go PK after being the most powerful toon in the game and start bullying ended up with most of the non-PKers going after him in a battle royale where it was him vs 30-40 others. The combat log was... insane, to say the least.

 

[Beastro]

I don't think that can ever be replicated. Too many look on it as a war wanting to prey upon others rather than a true RPG environment where people did a whole bunch of things as they dicked around in the game that also included PvP instead of the "rush to max level and finish top current content ASAP" that is the norm for every MMO now.

One game that did it well was an old MUD. It no longer exists, but what happened was that the PKers were given a PK label, and ANYONE who wanted to can attack, kill them and loot their stuff with impunity. You could even go to the bounty office afterwards to turn in their ears for a gold payment. The PKers were only allowed to attack, kill and loot other PKers.

To get the PK label is a conscious choice by the player who has to type in a command to enable it. This can be done at any time during the game. The few times someone decided to go PK after being the most powerful toon in the game and start bullying ended up with most of the non-PKers going after him in a battle royale where it was him vs 30-40 others. The combat log was... insane, to say the least.

Naw, too punishing for PKs.

Rallos did it well with 4 level range limit, 4 lvs above and below you without any label, everyone could attack one another.

What was interesting with that was the emergent gameplay: reputation was VERY important on early Rallos Zek and to be labelled as a known PK was to be a pariah where many wouldn't deal with you or help you in anyway, forcing you find those that would for things like resurrections if you weren't in a PK guild that could help each other out in ways.

It also made it very interesting for the rank and file players to run into PKs or see them run by busy with other things. Was close to running across a comic book supervillain and how larger than life some were in the game.

 

[Cael]

Naw, too punishing for PKs.

That was the whole point. If you were a nice guy as a PKer, no one would want to attack you. If you were an arrogant bully, you get ganged up on once people get sick of your shit. It was self-regulating, in many ways, and no one is forced to be a PKer. You had to choose to be one.

 

[Beastro]

Naw, too punishing for PKs.

That was the whole point. If you were a nice guy as a PKer, no one would want to attack you. If you were an arrogant bully, you get ganged up on once people get sick of your shit. It was self-regulating, in many ways, and no one is forced to be a PKer. You had to choose to be one.

I guess I have more in mind MMOs like Lineage 2 where once you became a PK you were screwed since not even vendors traded with you.

 

[Cael]

Naw, too punishing for PKs.

That was the whole point. If you were a nice guy as a PKer, no one would want to attack you. If you were an arrogant bully, you get ganged up on once people get sick of your shit. It was self-regulating, in many ways, and no one is forced to be a PKer. You had to choose to be one.

I guess I have more in mind MMOs like Lineage 2 where once you became a PK you were screwed since not even vendors traded with you.

It usually ended up with the PKers screwed anyway because it takes a certain mentality to be a PKer in a game that gave you the choice of becoming one. In old style MUDs, your equipment comes from things you kill 99.99% of the time, and you are HEAVILY dependent on your gear, regardless of what class you play. An ultra high level guy who is stripped of all his gear (say getting killed by a mob of angry players and having all his stuff taken away or destroyed) will take a significant amount of time revisiting all the lower level zones to build back up to the gear he had (you had to go back to whichever zone your buck nekkid guy can reasonably take on, get equipment from that zone, then move to the next zone that your not so buck nekkid guy can take on, and so on). All the while, you are likely to be taunted, attacked and killed by people you previously tormented but who now outpower your nekkid ass.

Most guys who reach that state leave the game.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Assassins Creed Black Flag. There's a really great pirate game in there, but the Assassin's Creed game kept getting in its way. While playing it I just kept wishing they're taken shit from Sid Meier's Pirates and left also all the Assassin's Creed crap out. Was also left wishing that the trade route missions had just went all the way with its influence and played like Grandia (like they would later do in Child of Light) as opposed to the simple version they went with for Kenways Fleet. It's the same thing with the harpooning minigame; its roots are clearly the Del Lago lake monster boss fight of RE4, but they stripped out actually needing to move your boat around, which in turn strips it of being fun like it is in RE4.

 

[Abhay]

- All the modern GTA's (4 and 5)
- Kingdome Come Deliverance. As much as I love this game, I think the game had a lot of potential in making the use of the open world than what it currently has to offer like various side missions, and more interactivity and living, breathing feel to the map. The story also drags a lot in the second half that it becomes annoying to continue playing. I think it would have benefitted from a slightly shorter tale and more focus being given to the extras in making the world a lot more interesting.
- Max Payne 3. Absolute garbage. I have no words to express the way Rockstar ruined this series for me. This video sums up my feelings a lot better:
http://youtu.be/VfMF0x_xYss

- Arx Fatalis. So much hidden potential to expand upon the core game and lengthening the single player experience.
- Mafia 2. What an absolute trash! Looking at the amount of cut content makes my blood boil to think of the amount of wasted potential.
- NOLF 2. Great game but I was still very much disappointed with the lack of certain portions in the game that should have been given more attention in adding more missions compared to those that were absolutely forgettable. I loved the Indian missions so much. Nicely detailed map. Would have loved to spend more time in Calcutta. The Siberia portions were just ..meh. Including those short mission scenarios like the ninja guards storming the house and then you need to fight those ninja attackers, then the joker portions, and a couple of other instances that I can't recall exactly since it's been a long time that I last played this game, bit I do remember the game having many such disappointing parts scattered throughout the campaign that were just not so fun and completely forgettable, and very linear - not much open ended. This game was pretty much a mixed bag in terms of memorable missions compared to the amazing amount of mission variety with good amount of freedom in those scenarios from the first NOLF. The sequel felt more like an expansion than a proper game of its own.

 

[MicoSelva]

Far Cry: Primal. The concept is awesome, but the game is the usual Ubisoft open world crap focused on busywork and craft-grinding. I agree with Super Bunnyhop when he said Far Cry series has become a place where good ideas go to die.

I guess Assassin's Creed games also qualify.

---

And regarding CRPGs, I would probably vote for Numenera, but I need to finish it before I make a final jugdment.

 

[Phanax]

- Max Payne 3. Absolute garbage. I have no words to express the way Rockstar ruined this series for me. This video sums up my feelings a lot better:
http://youtu.be/VfMF0x_xYss

Your example of Max Payne 3 is I think noteworthy because it's a game that I've played and finished, yet will never go back to despite having replayed the first two games multiple times. It's just not a Max Payne game - the style is too different, the presentation is garbage. Does anyone really enjoy those distortion camera effects and random subtitles every 2 fucking minutes, or the cutscenes that appear way too frequently and most of the time cannot be skipped? But most of all, MP3 was to me a good demonstration of how I'm wrong. How not liking the game makes me wrong. Everyone else LOVES this fucking game. It's almost always fondly looked at by most people, hell that linked video has a near 50/50 like to dislike split (though that may be due to the video itself, I haven't seen it all yet).

But a comment on the vid basically demonstrates why I fucking hate the gaming community. You can't have an opinion that goes against the majority:

Max Payne 3 was a great game. People who hate this game are not real fans of The franchise. Max have to move on with his life. Killing mobsters and thugs in New York City those days are over.

Well shit. I guess my love for the first two games but my indifference to the last doesn't make me a fan of "The franchise". Fucking gatekeeping dickcheeses.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Max Payne 3 always surprised me in how hard they ripped off Tony Scott's Man on Fire but didn't use the double exposure and undercranking to give Max new powers. Max Payne as a series is built around the idea of taking a film technique found in John Woo movies, and turning it into a power the player can control; but in Max Payne 3 they do nothing gameplaywise with filmmaking techniques found in the new thing they're pulling from. And they're some cool shit that could've been done with super speed and the ability to have two of you on screen at the same time.

Was kind of surprised how terribly Rockstar implement all that undercranking and stuff in the cutscenes too.

 

[Santander02]

MP 3 was actually fun if played on the old school difficulty, retarded move from R* that you have to unlock it by playing trough the whole game on hard first (which somehow was more frustrating than the former mode).

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Despite my admiration for Quake 3 Arena, I was was pretty disappointed it hadn't have proper single player campaing. DAT '99 Id Software doing their last great SP effort... As far as I understand they started to make first mission pack for Q2 then convert its content into Q3 then dropped single player idea (source: Bluesnews, mid 1998).

 

[sullynathan]

Devil May Cry 4

A great example of having great combat doesn't make a great game even when said game is in a genre where combat takes priority over everything. How do you fuck up so bad with the best hack & slash combat ever?

 

[Plisken]

- Max Payne 3. Absolute garbage. I have no words to express the way Rockstar ruined this series for me. This video sums up my feelings a lot better:
http://youtu.be/VfMF0x_xYss

Your example of Max Payne 3 is I think noteworthy because it's a game that I've played and finished, yet will never go back to despite having replayed the first two games multiple times. It's just not a Max Payne game - the style is too different, the presentation is garbage. Does anyone really enjoy those distortion camera effects and random subtitles every 2 fucking minutes, or the cutscenes that appear way too frequently and most of the time cannot be skipped? But most of all, MP3 was to me a good demonstration of how I'm wrong. How not liking the game makes me wrong. Everyone else LOVES this fucking game. It's almost always fondly looked at by most people, hell that linked video has a near 50/50 like to dislike split (though that may be due to the video itself, I haven't seen it all yet).

But a comment on the vid basically demonstrates why I fucking hate the gaming community. You can't have an opinion that goes against the majority:

Max Payne 3 was a great game. People who hate this game are not real fans of The franchise. Max have to move on with his life. Killing mobsters and thugs in New York City those days are over.

Well shit. I guess my love for the first two games but my indifference to the last doesn't make me a fan of "The franchise". Fucking gatekeeping dickcheeses.

I enjoyed the aesthetic because it reminded me of "Man on Fire" the denzel washington film. In fact I'm almost sure that's what they took inspiration from.

But yes, the gameplay:cutscene ratio is infuriating. Its possibly worse than the notorious MGS4 in this regard. Made all the more infuriating by the fact the gunplay and attention to detail otherwise is some of the best in gaming to date. Theres just too little of it.

 

[Cael]

Star Wars: Rebellion. A Star Wars themed grand strategy game! Sounds awesome right? Well get ready for crap space battles, and a slow grindy campaign. Just making the epic space battle less of a chore would do so much to improve this game.

Lol! I didn't see this one. The secret to that game on the Rebels' side is basically get to Corellian Gunships and mass produce them. There is nothing 100 Gunships can't take down, not even Super Star Destroyers, and they cost a fraction of the time required to build one. I played it on MP with a friend and the look on his face when he ran into that had me on the ground in stitches. He was happily building the Death Star and all the usual Imperial big, bad stuff and I came at him with a ton of the real life equivalent of torpedo boats to his battleships. And since Gunship were built to kill fighters, his mosquito swarm... didn't make it... with extreme prejudice :D:D:D