So, System Shock 2....oh the horror!

[J_C]

Seriously, the very *point* of respawns is that they prevent you from just clearing the area out and masturbating over yourself being Duke "Damn, I'm Good" Nukem, and preventing you from being Duke "Damn, I'm Good" Nukem is arguably *the point* of SS2.

And yet we hate on respawning enemies on modern games. And we hate on them for a reason.

 

[felipepepe]

And yet we hate on respawning enemies on modern games. And we hate on them for a reason.

We do?

 

[Darth Roxor]

And yet we hate on respawning enemies on modern games. And we hate on them for a reason.

We do?

YOUR SONG IS NOT OURS

 

[evdk]

And yet we hate on respawning enemies on modern games. And we hate on them for a reason.

We do?

YOUR SONG IS NOT OURS

Dohohoho.

But seriously, it's a matter of style. There's a marked difference between infinitely respawning cannon fodder, that is only in the game to artificially prolong the game while not providing any sort of actual challenge to the gamer and respawning enemies in SS2 that fit the theme of the game, force you to spend valuable resources if you attempt to confront them directly and actually make you change your approach to the game. One is a shitty mechanic used by no talent hacks and the other is an useful tool helping to bring out the game's themes.

 

[DraQ]

Can't say respawns ever annoyed me. "right behind your back"? Literally, I've never seen that in dozens of replays. I

Well, I have seen enemy respawning once or twice in plain sight and quite possibly have also seen them spawning in illogical areas.

Still, refining the respawn system != cutting it

Seriously, the very *point* of respawns is that they prevent you from just clearing the area out and masturbating over yourself being Duke "Damn, I'm Good" Nukem, and preventing you from being Duke "Damn, I'm Good" Nukem is arguably *the point* of SS2.

And yet we hate on respawning enemies on modern games. And we hate on them for a reason.

*If* being humongous, limp-dicked faggot counts as a reason.

Seriously if you make a game that focuses around threat and resource management, then allow player to bypass those by turning it into a game about efficient elimination of a finite threat, then you fail.

You fail to provide a compelling threat, and you fail to produce compelling reasons for player to pursue their objective.
Neutralizing a threat once and for good is almost always preferable to having to avoid it continuously, because the former entails finite cost.
You might be successful if you managed to make resources guarantedly insufficient to deal with the threat, but that's tricky to accomplish in terms of gameplay, is very prone to dead-ending and requires arbitrary gameplay restrictions (for example no melee capability).
In most cases (albeit not SS2 itself) putting only finite, non-respawning enemies is also unrealistic, because most games assume vast open world outside the bounds of the gameplay area, that reacts to stuff happening and, for example, sends in reinforcements.

And yet we hate on respawning enemies on modern games. And we hate on them for a reason.

We do?

YOUR SONG IS NOT OURS

SILENCE THE DISCORD

 

[valcik]

.. blood pumping, yet so frightening techno music.

Turn it off next time, you will better hear that peculiar sounds of enemies.

 

[Nael]

ITT:

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Oh, melee hit detection is shit.

Actually it's surprisingly good. Especially for such an old game.

The game is not that old. It was released in 1999, in a post Half-Life universe where game developers had already mastered the complex gaming art of reliably hitting shit with a wrench.

People saying that hit detection is awesome in this game really must not have played it for years. It works fine on the tall enemies, but is shit on short enemies. You can be standing right next to them, aiming directly at their heads, and the wrench just passes right through. You have to fiddle around and keep swinging until you hit the game's finicky sweet spot which has no logical visual analogue for what you are doing. That might not be a problem of hit detetction, per se, as much as just the fact that the designers made the hit boxes of the smaller enemies not match their bodies so well, but it's still a problem.

As to respawning being important to "depletion of resources," this game isn't exactly resource deficient in the first place unless you are an idiot. I did my first playthrough as Navy on impossible and I had more than enough ammo and nannites to beat the game comfortably. I personally didn't mind respawning as much as JC seems to, but that's only because it didn't really create enough of an impediment to bother me. All it really did was slow me down slightly for more repetitive combat. Given this, I don't think respawning properly achieves its end of creating tension/depleting resources just because by end game you are powerful enough to mow through everything anyway. And if you buy invisibility, you can just run past everything anyway, so respawning's not an issue.

Anyhow, my personal assessment of SS2 is that it's a really brilliant game in theory and totally innovative for its time, but all its great ideas are hampered by its choice of engine (the dark engine is awesome at stealth and atmosphere, but was not meant for combat) and by the fact that its combat's just not that fun. If it had implemented a thief like stealth system or given you more ways to approach certain areas rather than just straight up combat, I think the experience of playing it might have lived up to its reputation. I think its first few levels when you are just getting your bearings and you really are fragile still work pretty well, but as the game progresses it just turns into a tedious corridor shooter with stats where the same monsters jump out and say "Boo!" over and over again.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Your comments about SS2 as a corridor shooter are wee bit ott. There's never really that much combat and you can approach it in many different ways (for a game that is still an fps at its core). And I always felt that the strongest point of SS2, after the atmosphere - I find it the only genuinely scary computer game, was the level design and exploration.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't see how "fewer-but-harder" precludes what you're referring to.

Fewer, harder battles means that instead of continuously losing acceptably small amounts of resources, you lose them in large, painful chunks. This tends to incentivize save-scummy behavior. "Oh look, a really tough battle is coming up. I'll save before it and keep restoring until I can defeat it with as few resources lost as possible." Perversely, by making one element in a game too hard, you end up making the game as a whole easier.

More generally, you end up changing the focus of the game, from general survival to optimization of the player character for those fewer, harder battles. And that's not always desirable.

 

[Gurkog]

I barely get into SS2 because the combat is such shit - yes, I bought it when the game was first released and found it boring as hell then, too. I don't understand the love for the game

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I don't see how "fewer-but-harder" precludes what you're referring to.

Fewr, harder battles means that instead of continuously losing acceptably small amounts of resources, you lose them in large, painful chunks. This tends to incentivize save-scummy behavior. "Oh look, a really tough battle is coming up. I'll save before it and keep restoring until I can defeat it with as few resources lost as possible." Perversely, by making one element in a game too hard, you end up making the game as a whole easier.

More generally, you end up changing the focus of the game, from general survival to optimization of the player character for those fewer, harder battles. And that's not always desirable.

SS2 is pretty save scummy, though. Or it opens itself up to being played that way as much as any game, anyway.

Fail hack==reload
Swing At Monkey, miss, die==reload
Us 8 bullets instead of 4 killing a monster==reload
Set off an alarm==reload


Plus, it seems to me that scarcity of resources + infinitely respawning enemies is an even bigger recipe for hording than more intermittent hard enemies would be. Why use bullets if you can just run past stuff or use the wrench? Especially since enemies will respawn anyway in a few minutes, which completely removes any justification for using your valuable resources on them. This doesn't encourage doling out resources in small doses it just encourages not using them at all if you don't have to. I discovered invisibility fairly late in this game, but once I got it I rarely used bullets again.

And invisibility's actually a kind of good argument for my general thesis that this game is a case of great ideas with piss poor implementation. It's a neat idea in concept...."a skill that makes you invisibile!" but rather than using it as part of some greater stealth system, instead it just quite literally makes you invisibile. Which means not only that it's overpowered to the point of being game breaking, but also it's just not that fun to use because there's absolutely no skill involved in it. You just push a button, turn invisible, and run past enemies. If I remember correctly, you don't even have to decloak to first to become invisible again, so as long as you have enough psi juice you can just remain invisible indefinitely if you want (only decloaking to attack things). Not that I'll complain about it much, though, as quite frankly, invisibility is the only thing that made the Rickenbaker and the Womb level tolerable for me.

 

[Infinitron]

SS2 is pretty save scummy, though. Or it opens itself up to being played that way as much as any game, anyway.

Fail hack==reload
Swing At Monkey, miss, die==reload
Us 8 bullets instead of 4 killing a monster==reload
pop out from corner and take a shot at a monster, die==reload

No, not really. Compared to a massive set-piece battle, most people will not save scum for such minor actions. Instead they'll learn to get them right the first time. The only exception is hacking - I agree with you about that. But hacking isn't combat.

Plus, it seems to me that scarcity of resources + infinitely respawning enemies is an even bigger recipe for hording than more intermittent hard enemies would be. Why use bullets if you can just run past stuff or use the wrench? Especially since enemies will respawn anyway in a few minutes, which completely removes any justification for using your valuable resources on them. This doesn't encourage doling out resources in small doses it just encourages not using them at all if you don't have to. I discovered invisibility fairly late in this game, but once I got it I rarely used bullets again.

And invisibility's actually a kind of good argument for my general thesis that this game is a case of great ideas with piss poor implementation. It's a neat idea in concept...."a skill that makes you invisibile!" but rather than using it as part of some greater stealth system, instead it just quite literally makes you invisibile. Which means not only that it's overpowered to the point of being game breaking, but also it's just not that fun to use because there's absolutely no skill involved in it. You just push a button, turn invisible, and run past enemies. If I remember correctly, you don't even have to decloak to first to become invisible again, so as long as you have enough psi juice you can just remain invisible indefinitely if you want (only decloaking to attack things). Not that I'll complain about it much, though, as quite frankly, invisibility is the only thing that made the Rickenbaker and the Womb level tolerable for me.

Nobody's said the game is flawless. SS2 is definitely a poorly balanced game, which is why the ADaoB mod is so popular.

 

[Maculo]

I do not think respawns in SS2 were much of a problem. If I remember correctly, they randomly dropped credits, guns, and ammo. Assuming my memory is correct, respawns either rewarded careful players with free credits or drained resources from players. In essence, respawns were a risky resource generator.

If anything, SS2 suffered from poor balance of certain skills or abilities.

Psi-Adrenaline+Strength+Psi Blade or Wrench was worth the trouble though.

I may have to try the ADaoB mod.

 

[kenup]

So...honestly, this game is almost unenjoyable.
But it is almost entirely ruined by the constantly respawing enemies. SS2 is worst than any other modern popamole game in this regard.

Next up on the news at popamole hour, J_C: "Arcanum sucks and DA2 is better".

[...]game in this regard. And if you think otherwise, then you don't know what you are talkig about.

And people say the kodex is absolute.

 

[J_C]

So...honestly, this game is almost unenjoyable.
But it is almost entirely ruined by the constantly respawing enemies. SS2 is worst than any other modern popamole game in this regard.

Let me translate it for you. When it comes to respawning enemies, SS2 is worse than the modern popamole games. Because at least they don't have a ridiculous level of respawning like in SS2. Let me repeat, because I have a feeling you still don't understand it. THE RESPAWNING MECHANICS IS THE ONE, WHICH IS WORSE, THEN IN MODERN GAMES. Not the whole game (obviously).

 

[kenup]

I got what you mean J_C. I never said you were talking about the entire game. It's still a stupid statement.

1. From what I understand, you play the game without any difficulty mods, which at least means there shouldn't be much of a problem with re-spawns if

I did, I played stealthily all the way. I almost never triggered alarms. I know that if I did, the spawning become even worse. But even with out it, it was terrible.

you were actually stealthy. If one or two enemies per corridor are your kind of "ridiculous level of respawning" and "WORSE, THEN IN MODERN GAMES.", especially near the endgame, then you either suck at playing the game, or went for the impossible difficulty in the first playthrough.

2. The statement uses a superlative. If you can't explain why every modern popamole game has a better respawning system than SS2 and just throw words around, then don't fucking say it's the worst. Nobody says the re-spawning in SS2 is perfect.

3. The re-spawns actually add challenge- however small for an experienced player-, increase the need for resource management and add some tension, rather than just being cannon fodder for your average 'kwan bad boy protagonist.

4. Stop using fallacies and attacking others' intelligence just because you don't have arguments to support what you are saying(other than "I don't like it").

5. Take a joke for what it is.

 

[Daemongar]

Let me translate it for you. When it comes to respawning enemies, SS2 is worse than the modern popamole games. Because at least they don't have a ridiculous level of respawning like in SS2. Let me repeat, because I have a feeling you still don't understand it. THE RESPAWNING MECHANICS IS THE ONE, WHICH IS WORSE, THEN IN MODERN GAMES. Not the whole game (obviously).

What else should shitty old games like SS2 get rid of, to make it as awesome as modern games?

 

[J_C]

Let me translate it for you. When it comes to respawning enemies, SS2 is worse than the modern popamole games. Because at least they don't have a ridiculous level of respawning like in SS2. Let me repeat, because I have a feeling you still don't understand it. THE RESPAWNING MECHANICS IS THE ONE, WHICH IS WORSE, THEN IN MODERN GAMES. Not the whole game (obviously).

What else should shitty old games like SS2 get rid of, to make it as awesome as modern games?

Shitty graphics.

 

[Haba]

I spy with my little eye... something that begins with the letter "d"!

 

[mindx2]

This thread is so full of fail it's painful...

 

[Excidium]

I don't even know what to say as I don't remember any respawning. Except for the sphincter level where the game keeps throwing monsters at you

 

[Jasede]

You know you suck when a a guy without hands thinks your complaining is painful.

 

[J_C]

You know you suck when a a guy without hands thinks your complaining is painful.

What?

 

[sea]

I really don't get your claim about respawns ruining the game. It's a survival-horror RPG/shooter. The limited resources available in the game would be less meaningful if there were a finite number of enemies. With infinitely respawning enemies, you can't just sit around forever; it forces you to make progress through the game, otherwise eventually you'll have no way to fight back. The idea of not knowing when and where you're going to get attacked is also very compelling and really ratchets up the tension.

Of course, the respawn points themselves are sometimes a bit obvious and occasionally don't quite make sense (how did that enemy get here? etc.) but that can be described as largely a problem with the limited resources of the time. And I'm sure if they had more visible respawn points (like vents enemies crawl out of) you likely wouldn't complain as much because the respawns would be better justified.