Falcon's really mad about everything. EXP Unlock Edition.

[Falconv1.0]

Link to original post: [drupal=5074]Falcon's really mad about everything. EXP Based Unlock Edition. [/drupal]


So, I don't usually write blogs, because I hate everybody and everybody hates me, but I need to get this off my chest. I'm really ****ing tired of 'exp based unlocks' in games, and quite honestly it disturbs me how widely accepted they seem to be. With the announcement of a 'persistent unlock system' in Halo 4, I got this amazing quote from one of the idiots working on this **** that made my head spin, tearing my spine in the process, so now I'm paralyzed from the neck down for life, so please do bare with me if my typing starts to getting a little messy due to me typing with my ****ing nose.

"A lot of things that worked great about Call of Duty – and don’t get me wrong, I was addicted Black Ops all of last year – they do player rewards really well. We’re not trying to do the same thing, it’s as simple as that. We’re trying to do something else, and to push our game forwards and not theirs."

So what I'm getting from this is that devs think that in order to reward players, they need to short **** them on content that's in the ****ing game so they can suffer for awhile before being slightly more on par with other players. Jesus Christ what the **** is this chicken **** mickey mouse bull****? Apparently gamers have given them this impression, I mean look how ****ing well Call of Duty has done. So, this is the standard now? I pay 60 dollars and I still don't actually have access to **** that I need to be on an equal playing field with others? This **** is just as goofy to me in games like League of Legends, where you can pay for characters, but apparently you still have to suffer through grinding so you can apply all those bull**** runes. Why can't I just pay to have that all there? Why does this game look so ****ing stupid all the sudden? Why doesn't anyone love me-GOD ****ING DAMN IT HNNNNNNNNGHHH

But seriously, this **** needs to stop. If the only way devs can attract noobs to a game is stupid ****ing experienced based unlocks, well **** ME I HAVE NO FAITH LEFT IN GAMES OR IN HUMANITY IN GENERAL.

 

[Morin0]

Well, there's always Brawl.

In all seriousness though, I agree.

 

[Arbuckle]

Link to original post: [drupal=5074]Falcon's really mad about everything. EXP Based Unlock Edition. [/drupal]"A lot of things that worked great about Call of Duty – and don’t get me wrong, I was addicted Black Ops all of last year – they do player rewards really well. We’re not trying to do the same thing, it’s as simple as that. We’re trying to do something else, and to push our game forwards and not theirs."

"We're not trying to do the same thing, we're trying to do the exact same ****ing thing because call of duty is popular and we want call of duty's audience."

More or less accurate?

 

[Jonkku]

"We want call of duty's audience."

 

[Falconv1.0]

This guy is getting it!

So I got this from this...article.....

He wants to see the old battle rifle make a return minus any reticle "bloom" causing the weapon to become inaccurate in long bursts--and that's just what 343 has promised for Halo 4."

However, Taylor can see a compromise between the battle rifle of old and Halo 4's approach to gameplay-changing unlockable items. That is to say, he wouldn't mind doing away with bloom if it meant having to unlock a certain weapon attachment first. According to Taylor, such a system "would give an introduction to the game and a reason to get good at it."

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/halo-4/previews/a-pro-gamers-halo-4-wishlist-6364360/

Seriously what the ****? So, pro players think like this now too, awesome.

Now I'm not saying the game is instantly terrible because of this exp crap it's just...so...dumb. It's such pandering to casual players for a series that I thought had at least some sense of dignity. Guuueesss noooot.

 

[Browny]

Easy solution: dont play these sorts of games

vote with your feet etc.

Its disgusting that devs can get away with doing this, but if millions of people are more than willing to bend over to them, who can blame em.

 

[Ussi]

Nintendo is putting dlc on fire emblem :|

That'll either be good or bad, depends on nintendo goes about it.. I still have faith in nintendo though..

I never understood levels in a FPS, its really dumb imo.. If i want to grind i'll go play one of the many mmos out there.

 

[Falconv1.0]

DLC is far less bull**** than xp unlocks.

And Browny is pretty much right, it's a good part of the reason why I avoid **** like this, even in games I enjoyed. I played Tribes Ascend and I'm like "Oh cool, I can pay for weapons so I don't have to grind, which is fine cuz this is free to play, good thing I don't need to grind for-THE **** DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVE TO GRIND FOR UPGRADES".

>:[

 

[RespawningJesus]

The beauty of game such as Halo and Gears of War is the fact that you all started with roughly the same equipment. You then had to make your way to various weapon spawns if you wanted a different weapon, that could easily tip the scales in your team's favor if used correctly.

Not only that, but if you weren't good with particular weapons, or didn't know where the spawns were, then that's ok. You can still use the starting equipment as it was good enough to hold your own with.

This news makes me even sader that Bungie has nothing to do with the next 3 Halos. But then again, they ARE making something new, and considering Bungie's past with making great games, I'm pretty sure they'll do fine with whatever they are making now.

 

[Teran]

I think it's truly hilarious how devs try so hard to inflate play time with really really stupid stuff like this.

It's like really? Multiplayer only requires a good gameplay structure, if that is the case, it's the spirit of competition against REAL PEOPLE that keeps people playing.

Sports are the SAME OLD **** and people will spend their entire damn lives playing them, it's not like people say "oh play tennis for 29 hours before you unlock the Wilson!", you just buy a goddamn Wilson or Head or whatever you like and smack a ball with it. Ultimately, it's still tennis, and people will play it against each other while having fun.

I know games aren't exactly sports, but if they decide to make them competitive recreation, then trying to inflate the shelf life of the product with bogus crap really irks me.

I generally just hate multiplayer games because I hate how its adoption has caused mp to get ****ed up. I remember when you were just given some guns and would run around mowing each other down, and it was way way more entertaining.

 

[TL?]

Nintendo is putting dlc on fire emblem :|

That'll either be good or bad, depends on nintendo goes about it.. I still have faith in nintendo though..

I never understood levels in a FPS, its really dumb imo.. If i want to grind i'll go play one of the many mmos out there.

Intelligent Systems is putting dlc in fire emblem. Nintendo does not develop everything they publish.

Anyways, I agree with what you're saying falcon. This is the reason I cannot get into COD or any similar games like that. First off, I'm terrible at FPS, but now I have to be handicapped furthur by only being able to use maybe 1/20th of the availible choices? I don't get it.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Sirlin made a good point in this article about how competitive games really should not have any ****ing grinding period. Honestly, I feel that competitive gamers shouldn't support this kind of **** and I kinda sorta hate LoL's community for supporting that ****ing business model, it's exploitative and stupid.

"Yes I'm aware that League of Legends has a forced grind in order to unlock materially important aspects of gameplay. That means it, too, violates the minimum standard of what competitive gamers should accept. (Sorry League of Legends, just make a way to buy a full character, full level, full mastery immediately and you're off the hook.) If we applied this kind of reasoning to Starcraft, it would just be ridiculous. Imagine if you had to grind to unlock the Lurker in Starcraft3, and that Reavers were pre-order only. I used to use that same joke with Street Fighter. "Imagine if you had to grind to unlock Chun Li and that Zangief was pre-order only." But now the joke is getting pretty real. It's scary to think competitive gamers might accept that, which will encourage game companies to go more and more in that direction. Leage of Legends has millions of dollars worth of reasons to coninue doing what it's doing because those gamers *do* accept the idea that it's ok to lock gameplay-affecting things behind a grind and still call it a competitive game. Will that be the future in fighting games as well?"-David Sirlin

Source: http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2011/10/25/banning-gems-in-street-fighter-x-tekken.html

 

[Browny]

Sad how CoD and LoL, the two biggest culprits of this 'pay more money or you have less of a game than all your friends', are the two most popular games out.

What does my head in is the insane level of delusion some people have in not realising just how much money and life they are dedicating to a game. They dont remember that it was only 1 year ago, when they werent spending $100+ on DLC or buying/grinding dozens of heroes for online games.
"If im enjoying it, I can spend my money how I like"
Yes thats a fair argument, but its just getting worse and worse. Like, if you took these people who allow devs to get away with this before they ever played the game, and showed them how much money and grinding it would take, to be where they are today, they would be like 'oh hell no, im not doing that'. But because its a steady progression, starting off small or even free and infrequent, to every few months costing more and more, people just dont see how its getting worse.

Only reason this pisses me off is when friends basically lose their life to these games, because they are so addicted to grinding just to have access to content in the game, and they have to play countless hours every day to make up for their money theyve spent.

 

[Falconv1.0]

Sad how CoD and LoL, the two biggest culprits of this 'pay more money or you have less of a game than all your friends', are the two most popular games out.

What does my head in is the insane level of delusion some people have in not realising just how much money and life they are dedicating to a game. They dont remember that it was only 1 year ago, when they werent spending $100+ on DLC or buying/grinding dozens of heroes for online games.
"If im enjoying it, I can spend my money how I like"
Yes thats a fair argument, but its just getting worse and worse. Like, if you took these people who allow devs to get away with this before they ever played the game, and showed them how much money and grinding it would take, to be where they are today, they would be like 'oh hell no, im not doing that'. But because its a steady progression, starting off small or even free and infrequent, to every few months costing more and more, people just dont see how its getting worse.

Only reason this pisses me off is when friends basically lose their life to these games, because they are so addicted to grinding just to have access to content in the game, and they have to play countless hours every day to make up for their money theyve spent.

Issue is most people don't really think, and they fall prey to "skinner box" methods of game design. It's what drives just about every mmo as well, this idea that you suffer for awhile and get some reward for it because it's much easier to make idiots feel good when their avatar's strength grows. Egoraptor got into this a bit on the single player side, where Castlevania 1 gives you a genuine sense of accomplishment while newer installments have a ****ton of numbers n **** being thrown in your face along with a bunch of unlocks, but really the difficulty isn't ramping up, just your "avatar strength" relative to everything else.

RPG elements can work well in single player games when they actually serve a ****ing purpose, but they DO NOT BELONG IN COMPETITIVE GAMES IN THE FORM OF SOME KIND OF ON GOING PROGRESSION.

>:[

 

[Laem]

Guild Wars 2 my friend. Everything is done right.
//shameless advertising

Although I'm not aware of how the latest CoDs work, in say MW1, you'd unlock weapons as you play, which was perfectly fine to me as long as the weapons were balanced enough. Which they were (heck, the last weapon you'd unlock was the MP44, among the worst in the game). So having played longer didnt mean you'd get an equipment advantage.
Pay more (or pre-order) to get an advantage over others, now that's problematic.
Grinding? Kind of. If playing the ****ing game equals grinding, then you're playing the wrong game. In a way it takes grinding to unlock Wolf (among others like Toon Link and Sonic? dont even remember) in SSBB if you ask me. And nobody really complained or cared. I don't see the problem of having to unlock Chun Li.
Weaponry in shooters aren't too comparable to units in RTS's and characters in fighters in the first place. The guns are all very comparable, especially in the MW series. It doesn't really matter which one you use except for style. They barely deepen the experience. (Note: I dont actually play MW2 and beyond, im just assuming there's a degree of balance thrown in) Now these Lurkers, even though I've no idea what they are, probably have a fundamental role in the game, as many powerful units have in RTS's. Having to unlock those would just be dumb.
So the unlock formula in shooters isn't that big a deal if you ask me. If you could pay extra to get a 1SK machinegun, now that's bad.

 

[Falconv1.0]

It violates a pretty simple competitive standard, or at least what should be a standard, how much of a pain it is really shouldn't be a factor as to whether or not it's an "ok" decision. It's a ******** way of inflating playtime, it doesn't make the game any better, the best it can do is not make it much worse than if everything was just ****ing there.

I'm not arguing this case by case, I'm against it ON PRINCIPLE.