IGN - Terrible Ideas from Great Developers

[Dhruin]

Terrible Ideas from Great Developers covers five game elements from otherwise very successful games - although IGN could have developed this idea a bit further themselves. Five issues are covered, with Oblivion's level scaling and Mass Effect 2's planet scanning falling into RPG domain:

Unlike other RPGs, the NPCs of Tamriel level up alongside the player, so that the same level of difficulty is retained throughout the game. That's the theory, at least. The extent to which you can customise your character in regards to certain skills – magical, physical or otherwise – is enormous, so unless you build your character in a particular way, you're pretty much screwed by the time you reach the later story quests. Want to spend your first ten levels building a speedy, stealth oriented character with the Thieves' Guild quests? That's great, but your almost non-existent weapon skills are going to make that scaled up Clannfear seem like God on steroids, and that's only the fourth story quest. Spend your time levelling your armour and sword skills however, and you'll breeze through.

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[Zloth]

1. I liked Oblivion's scaling! I can understand where he's coming from, though. I gimped myself like that in Morrowind and it hurt enough that I remembered NOT to go bunny hopping when Oblivion came along.

2. The original Crysis graphics were QUITE good even when toned down. The problem was that people who thought they had fairly awesome machines got their ego bruised when they had to tone it down to <gasp> medium graphics level.

3. Agree, though the worst problem with FF13 for me was the item creation/enhancement system. I felt like I was just blindly trying random things to get stuff upgraded and I was always afraid that using doodad-X on my sword was going to make it hard to upgrade the staff that I might find later.

4. Agree. I'm an avid hater of most mini-games. I'm not real sure why this one is getting singled out but whatever works.

5. Interesting. Auto Assault did something like this where things you did would change parts of the world but they did not filter players the way WoW did. Instead, you would just see somebody drive right through a gate that was open in their world but still closed in your world. I guess the quest to live up to the "your actions change the world" line that all MMOs try to feed us when they are still in development will have to continue.

 

[hishadow]

Level scaling seems like a contradictory term, right? Hehe.

I just finished the Cataclysm expansion and I sort of agree that phasing is a bad idea if you're interested in retaining the MMO aspect (especially your realm). It does give a better singleplayer experience but I think in the long run it might pose problems for the genre. Instead of one big coherent world, you have the world littered with pockets of instanced bubbles spread across levels and quest-chains. If you take into consideration cross-realm instanced dungeons too, the game has diverged quite heavily from its inital release. SWTOR will also feature phasing btw.

Age of Conan had something similar where a zone spawned a new instance when too many people was present. Seemed like a great concept at launchday but I think it is just as flawed as phasing. You would get these funny moments were your friends would tell you: "I'm standing right there! Where are you!?!"

 

[DoctorNarrative]

I think I am the only person on the planet who didn't mind ME2's planet scanning. It didn't take long for me to get all the resources I needed and I liked the soothing music and cool planet designs.

 

[Zloth]

Age of Conan had something similar where a zone spawned a new instance when too many people was present. Seemed like a great concept at launchday but I think it is just as flawed as phasing. You would get these funny moments were your friends would tell you: "I'm standing right there! Where are you!?!"

LOTS of games do something like that. That isn't really in there as a feature, though. It's just a work around to keep the servers from overloading when everyone goes to the same spot.

 

[JDR13]

Even though Bethesda's epic Elder Scrolls IV was released five years ago, it still manages to hold its own as one of the best role playing games of this generation, even against top-notch newcomers like Dragon Age II and Fable III.

It's hard for me to take an article seriously when I read things like this.

 

[hishadow]

LOTS of games do something like that. That isn't really in there as a feature, though. It's just a work around to keep the servers from overloading when everyone goes to the same spot.

I know, I know. I was just commenting on things are moving towards the worse. I'm not a big fan of instanced zones you see. Mind you, the only time I've seen a WoW crashed because of too many people was during the opening of Ahn'Qiraj dungeon. Other than that I've never experience any problems population-wise ,so I'm very much a big fan of their continent solution.

 

[JemyM]

My issue with Oblivion wasn't the leveling system. That would actually have been fine in my book standalone. My problem was that there wasn't any reason to explore and no NPC's to like. A RPG that removes the mystery and depth out of both the physical and the social realm is a hollow experience to me.

 

[skavenhorde]

It's hard for me to take an article seriously when I read things like this.

Ugghh did it really say that about Dragon Age II and Fable III. You're right, after that it's very difficult to take anything else said seriously. Fable III???? I can maybe understand Dragon Age II because some people did enjoy that one quite a bit, but Fable III?

 

[elikal]

Haha... outside of FF13, which I never played, I sorta like the features.

 

[Maylander]

Oblivion level scaling
Yep, the author nailed it.

Crysis graphics
As I usually have fairly powerful PCs, I don't mind demanding games. However, gameplay should definitely come first.

Corridor
I'm getting a bit tired of corridor gaming in general. How come oldschool games like Might and Magic 6 managed to have a completely open world, when most modern games are far more restricted? It's been 13 years!

ME2 minigame
The fans generally wanted BioWare to fix the Mako planet exploration, not ditch it and replace it with a minigame that is far more tedious.

WoW phasing
I actually like phasing. It really improves storytelling.

 

[lostforever]

My issue with Oblivion wasn't the leveling system. That would actually have been fine in my book standalone. My problem was that there wasn't any reason to explore and no NPC's to like. A RPG that removes the mystery and depth out of both the physical and the social realm is a hollow experience to me.

This is exactly how I felt and still feel after trying to play it again!

 

[fungus]

It's hard for me to take an article seriously when I read things like this.

Yeah, same for me. DA2 and Fable 3 are top-notch rpg's in the guys mind? Come on!
Anyway, about the issues.

1. Agree, level scaling was a pretty bad idea. Oblivion had quite a few of those, like not exactly working NPC AI.

2. Crysis graphics were quite good even if toned down, so I see no reason to bash it. Yeah, if you had extra-turbo-powered computer it looked even better. Big deal.

3. No idea, haven't played. Sounds bad, I always preferred open world.

4. I like planet scanning, didn't spend much time there and I explored all planets anyway. I've easily most of (maybe all, don't remember now) the ship upgrades at the beginning of the game - before Horizon mission. Made me wonder why I couldn't destroy the Collectors ship then and save the colony. Anyway, scanning was a nice break in shooting things all the time.

5. Phasing is a good idea. Sure, it has it's problems - like people in group not being able to see each other, or resource nodes becoming unavailable, but that's something that can be improved. Apart from that it really improves the feeling of the game, that after you finish some world-changing quest, the world is really changed.

 

[azarhal]

I think I am the only person on the planet who didn't mind ME2's planet scanning. It didn't take long for me to get all the resources I needed and I liked the soothing music and cool planet designs.

You are not. I like it too.

 

[JemyM]

When you know exactly what to do, and it just takes time to do it, you grind. Planet Harvesting was grinding. There really wasn't any way you could fail in doing it and you knew exactly you will do for the next few hours. Of course, Planet Harvesting that way was a bit unneccessary but many players will take the most evident path first before discovering the most efficient.

Kinda reminds me about the Final Fantasy VIII spell system.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm waiting fior a "Part II" of that article.

There's imho too much missing.

 

[Scrav]

Level scaling - I hated that my character didn't feel like it had any character development or really any point in growth.

Graphics - *yawn*

Corridor - I can understand the complaints. While I don't really believe in a true open world, FF13 could have been significantly more open than it was.

Planet Mining - I actually enjoyed this (and it didn't take long to do either), far more than the implementation of Mass Effect and having to roam a planet (which was very tedious and lengthy to me).

Phasing - While could be improved, to date it has a decent implementation. I like having a story line with environmental change. Static environments are one of the bigger problems with MMO's at the moment.

 

[DoctorNarrative]

Crysis graphics
As I usually have fairly powerful PCs, I don't mind demanding games. However, gameplay should definitely come first.

Good thing Crysis had amazingly good gameplay too then.

 

[skavenhorde]

Good thing Crysis had amazingly good gameplay too then.

That's what I was thinking. Crysis was fun, but I never did finish it. The one thing I do remember is that dang AI coming at me from the sides when I thought they were in front of me. Either they were actively flanking me or I was always getting turned around in that game

I liked ME2's mining mini-game. It wasn't that tedious. It beat the hell out of jumping around all over the place and getting stuck driving uphill. I would have preferred they improved the driving portion of ME instead of getting rid of it completely, but still the mining wasn't that bad.

 

[JemyM]

I did not think Crysis had poor gameplay. I had quite alot of fun playing around with powers. The setting isn't just there for looks, the openness allows a very special gameplay not available in corridor shooters.