Disco Elysium Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[vota DC]

It was known that check were so soft, wasn't this game already labeled as a missing link between rpg and graphic adventure?
Anyway people will surely reload if their 99% check will fail even if the consequences are meaningless.

 

[Prime Junta]

Define "soft fail state" in die reliant dialogue heavy game.

(1) Retry rules. Possibility to try again under the right conditions.
(2) Interesting consequences for failure. It’s not ”nothing happens,” it’s ”something happens, just not what you intended.”

Some of those somethings have been described in various previews of the game.

 

[Tigranes]

In fact, I described precisely those two things in the most recent preview. Fantadomat may not like it, but it's a thing.

Personally, I don't know yet how it will pan out. I liked the all or nothing thresholds of AOD checks, but it's obvious that it also frustrated a lot of players. But I wonder if rolling for skill checks in dialogues/interactions, as you do in DE, won't just have the same effect.

One thing I agree with ZA/UM: who gives a shit about people who quickload every 5 seconds to succeed on everything they want to succeed in? They are dumbasses who play in a shit way but it's none of my business & developers shouldn't cater to them either.

 

[Fenix]

One thing I agree with ZA/UM: who gives a shit about people who quickload every 5 seconds to succeed on everything they want to succeed in? They are dumbasses who play in a shit way but it's none of my business & developers shouldn't cater to them either.

It's not that simple if use it as rule, e.g. if devs do items that randomly rolls when you open container and NOT when game generatet, it promoutes save-loading fest like in was in Echalon Book, for which I immediately hated the game, gdevs should think about gamers and avoid situations when gamer tempted to use save-load to get better results. Gamer should play the game and enjoy it instea of resisting the urge and training his willpower.

 

[fantadomat]

In fact, I described precisely those two things in the most recent preview. Fantadomat may not like it, but it's a thing.

Personally, I don't know yet how it will pan out. I liked the all or nothing thresholds of AOD checks, but it's obvious that it also frustrated a lot of players. But I wonder if rolling for skill checks in dialogues/interactions, as you do in DE, won't just have the same effect.

One thing I agree with ZA/UM: who gives a shit about people who quickload every 5 seconds to succeed on everything they want to succeed in? They are dumbasses who play in a shit way but it's none of my business & developers shouldn't cater to them either.

Dialogue dice checks are pretty retarded thing. You either can charm somebody or not. The last game that did such a stupid shit was Fallout3. The things you do could need a roll,like picklocking,pickpocketing,sneaking etc etc. As long as you get the option retry them a few times before getting boned. I still remember that shit wasteland 2 and its stupid picklocking shit. Half the game was a quickloading.

Well 90% of RPG gamers are some type of authists,and do that shit,quickloading when fail. Who the fuck would like to loose on content because,he wasn't lucky enough???

 

[Tigranes]

In fact, I described precisely those two things in the most recent preview. Fantadomat may not like it, but it's a thing.

Personally, I don't know yet how it will pan out. I liked the all or nothing thresholds of AOD checks, but it's obvious that it also frustrated a lot of players. But I wonder if rolling for skill checks in dialogues/interactions, as you do in DE, won't just have the same effect.

One thing I agree with ZA/UM: who gives a shit about people who quickload every 5 seconds to succeed on everything they want to succeed in? They are dumbasses who play in a shit way but it's none of my business & developers shouldn't cater to them either.

Dialogue dice checks are pretty retarded thing. You either can charm somebody or not. The last game that did such a stupid shit was Fallout3. The things you do could need a roll,like picklocking,pickpocketing,sneaking etc etc. As long as you get the option retry them a few times before getting boned. I still remember that shit wasteland 2 and its stupid picklocking shit. Half the game was a quickloading.

Well 90% of RPG gamers are some type of authists,and do that shit,quickloading when fail. Who the fuck would like to loose on content because,he wasn't lucky enough???

I don't know if it's 90%. I used to play like that, and then I realised it's not very fun to sit there reloading until you get your superpower munchkin Oblivion Master of Everything dude who succeeds in everything he wants.

The issue for me in AOD is that sometimes, because you didn't know that, say, you need 4 Streetwise for late Teron / early Maadoran rather than 3, you might be hard-fucked out of a whole questline or something (rather than making a fairly informed choice to be not-very-good at streetwise). I don't know how DE will solve this problem, but if I can make an informed choice, then I'm fine with failing something by luck, and then seeing what kind of failure states they have prepared. Of course a guy who is good at persuasion might sometimes fail at an easy task, and that's fine as long as that leads to somewhere interesting.

Also keep in mind that in DE, what you'd consider 'dialogue checks' - e.g. persuading someone - happens mechanically in the same way as lockpicking, and sometimes both are happening at the same time.

 

[fantadomat]

AOD

Why are you giving it as an example? It is the most linear game i have ever played,you either have the build or you restart. IT is not a fun mechanic and a game for special people.

 

[Tigranes]

I literally said "The issue in AOD", wow

With those reading skills no wonder you savescum dialogue checks

 

[Zombra]

Well if you're going to hit on my hot topic of save-scumming, I'll repeat my age-old truth: it's stupid for any developer to make a game that gives huge rewards for save-scumming (or, to put it another way, penalizes not save-scumming). Games don't have to be designed such that save-scumming is convenient or profitable. ZA/UM has done the right thing here: failing a white check isn't unprofitable because you can simply come back to it later, and failing a red check isn't unprofitable because red failures provide just as much content as red successes. Under these circumstances there's no reason to save scum unless you only want to tell the story of a character who never has interesting failures, in which case you shouldn't be playing this game anyway.

 

[fantadomat]

I literally said "The issue in AOD", wow

With those reading skills no wonder you savescum dialogue checks

Don't try to be a smartars. You gave it as an example,even tho a negative one,for hard checks. And you gave it a few times. Nobody is arguing that they should be as linear and hardplaced as AOD. NV,Pillars,Kingmaer even fucking Baldur's gate had a non die checks.

Well if you're going to hit on my hot topic of save-scumming, I'll repeat my age-old truth: it's stupid for any developer to make a game that gives huge rewards for save-scumming (or, to put it another way, penalizes not save-scumming). Games don't have to be designed such that save-scumming is convenient and profitable. ZA/UM has done the right thing here: failing a white check isn't unprofitable because you can simply come back to it later, and failing a red check isn't unprofitable because red failures provide just as much content as red successes. Under these circumstances there's no reason to save scum unless you only want to tell the story of a character who never has interesting failures, in which case you shouldn't be playing this game anyway.

I agree with you,still different people different kinks in gaming. Some want to be perfect the whole game,others want to experience different things. I haven't played the game or read previews,don't want to spoiled it for when it comes out. But from what i have read here the game will be heaving on the replayability part. So i see no reason to not be able to do it perfect. Anyway,my point was that dice focused dialogue checks are stupid and annoying.

 

[Zombra]

I agree with you,still different people different kinks in gaming. Some want to be perfect the whole game,others want to experience different things. I haven't played the game or read previews,don't want to spoiled it for when it comes out. But from what i have read here the game will be heaving on the replayability part. So i see no reason to not be able to do it perfect. Anyway,my point was that dice focused dialogue checks are stupid and annoying.

What you don't get is that the game is predicated on the foundation that failing can be fun. If you don't want to play that way, this game is straight up not for you, exactly the same as if you wanted to play Fallout 1 as a first-person shooter with regenerating health.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Hard checks like in AoD doesn't matter in the end because what people ended up doing while playing the Diplomacy route is just hold skill points, increase related skills little by little to efficiently pass each check (and see whether there are significant rewards from the check).

In New Vegas where skill points are readily available I just need to pump a lot of number to Diplomacy related skills.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hard checks like in AoD doesn't matter in the end because what people ended up doing while playing the Diplomacy route is just hold skill points, increase related skills little by little to efficiently pass each check (and see whether there are significant rewards from the check).

In New Vegas where skill points are readily available I just need to pump a lot of number to Diplomacy related skills.

being able to hold onto skill points until they're needed is bad game design

 

[Prime Junta]

being able to hold onto skill points until they're needed is bad game design

Why can’t holding on to skill points to spend them strategically in order to pass specific checks be good game design?

 

[fantadomat]

being able to hold onto skill points until they're needed is bad game design

Why can’t holding on to skill points to spend them strategically in order to pass specific checks be good game design?

Well it is neither good or bad design,it is more of unrealistic one. Tho i too like to keep a few points for unexpected checks,especially in Shadowrun.

 

[agris]

being able to hold onto skill points until they're needed is bad game design

Why can’t holding on to skill points to spend them strategically in order to pass specific checks be good game design?

It can be, and is. Not just to pass checks either, but to dynamically respond to what the game throws at you in terms of combat, enemies, weapons etc.

Investing heavily in a skill set before being aware of how that translates to gameplay is pretty silly, but has been reinforced in this millenium’s “no wrong choices” culture of game design.

 

[Butter]

I like the idea of allowing the player to hoard skill points/XP for a rainy day, but with a trade-off. Hypothetically, skill points/XP invested immediately is worth double, so players are tempted to invest without full knowledge of what challenges await them down the line. However this might cause trouble on repeat playthroughs, since you'd know ahead of time what investments to make.

 

[Prime Junta]

Cool idea but I think you pointed out the main problem with it.

I think the red/white check system is pretty good. You only ever get one shot at red checks so it pays to have a high skill when you try them, OTOH you can spend a point to retry a white check. So there is a benefit both to spending them up-front and to hoarding them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

being able to hold onto skill points until they're needed is bad game design

Why can’t holding on to skill points to spend them strategically in order to pass specific checks be good game design?

It can be, and is. Not just to pass checks either, but to dynamically respond to what the game throws at you in terms of combat, enemies, weapons etc.

Investing heavily in a skill set before being aware of how that translates to gameplay is pretty silly, but has been reinforced in this millenium’s “no wrong choices” culture of game design.

Why even have skill checks at all if you can get around all of them by simply sitting on points?

 

[agris]

Is that logical reduction operative in any game? Even AoD had a limit on how much one could horde before you were simply too underpowered to advance and thus forced to develop your character.

Most things are bad ideas when taken to an extreme, I’m not sure of the utility in viewing this discussion through that lens.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Is that logical reduction operative in any game? Even AoD had a limit on how much one could horde before you were simply too underpowered to advance and thus forced to develop your character.

Most things are bad ideas when taken to an extreme, I’m not sure of the utility in viewing this discussion through that lens.

Good point. Generally speaking, I’d regard it as good design when the game makes me want/need to spend my points rather than hoarding them.

 

[Kasparov]

I’d regard it as good design when the game makes me want/need to spend my points rather than hoarding them.

This.

I think in general it is a good idea to start by asking a "why?" question: "Why am I playing this video game?" Is it really so you can spend points? Is the meta-game the whole game? Or is it so that you can get - among other things - a fulfilling experience? Coming up with alternative ways to hoard/spend any kind of points...

I like the idea of allowing the player to hoard skill points/XP for a rainy day, but with a trade-off. Hypothetically, skill points/XP invested immediately is worth double, so players are tempted to invest without full knowledge of what challenges await them down the line. However this might cause trouble on repeat playthroughs, since you'd know ahead of time what investments to make.

...that is working on a symptom of a core problem that might not be mechanical. The core problem might be story related/story presentation/pacing/information feedback/shitty GUI/any number of things. More likely than not there won't be a single supersolution to solve that problem if there are a multitude of issues when you try answering "Why am I playing this game?".

What I find interesting about gamedev is that you can try and plan out shit on paper all day long, but if you don't play test it you won't know that it is going to work for sure. With DE we've tried to keep our eye on the ball throughout the process: everything that's going on on the screen while you're contemplating a challenge - the menus, the animations, the sounds. Then if you do decide to go for it - and click to roll on the check - there's more animations, both in the game and the GUIs, there are accompanying sounds to everything, the right delays before feedback and resolution, right timing for said sounds. All of these things get tweaked in relation to each other, all of these things tie in with your desire to reload, because if the experience of rolling or not rolling takes you out of the game - it's a shit and unintended experience.

Of course then there's personal preferences and subjective aspects to all of this, the purest rocket fuel for the Codex

 

[ArchAngel]

being able to hold onto skill points until they're needed is bad game design

Why can’t holding on to skill points to spend them strategically in order to pass specific checks be good game design?

Because you are supposed to play a character in the game, not the game itself. Being able to hoard skill points makes it so metagaming is main way to play the game.
It would be like playing PnP and letting all players know all stats of every monster you run into and then designing the game and encounters. It is a very different game.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Molina]

They decided to swith into photorealism ?