#forbiddenwest — Public Fediverse posts

Last Monday I finished Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition after only 237 hours.

You can rush through it in 40 hours. But then you miss out on a beautiful open world and the rich story.

#Horizon #ForbiddenWest #BurningShores #gaming

Last Monday I finished Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition after only 237 hours.

You can rush through it in 40 hours. But then you miss out on a beautiful open world and the rich story.

#Horizon #ForbiddenWest #BurningShores #gaming

Last Monday I finished Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition after only 237 hours.

You can rush through it in 40 hours. But then you miss out on a beautiful open world and the rich story.

#Horizon #ForbiddenWest #BurningShores #gaming

Last Monday I finished Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition after only 237 hours.

You can rush through it in 40 hours. But then you miss out on a beautiful open world and the rich story.

#Horizon #ForbiddenWest #BurningShores #gaming

Horizon Forbidden West - GMV - Aloy - Unstoppable

Fan tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBFwfO-ZQEU

#gaming #horizon #ForbiddenWest

Horizon Forbidden West - GMV - Aloy - Unstoppable

Fan tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBFwfO-ZQEU

#gaming #horizon #ForbiddenWest

Horizon Forbidden West - GMV - Aloy - Unstoppable

Fan tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBFwfO-ZQEU

#gaming #horizon #ForbiddenWest

Horizon Forbidden West - GMV - Aloy - Unstoppable

Fan tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBFwfO-ZQEU

#gaming #horizon #ForbiddenWest

#ZeroDawn: Topaktuelle, spannende Mystery um Weltuntergang durch Killer-KI von muskmäßigem Milliardär, bei der sich die ganze Dramatik der unausweichlichen Auslöschung der Menschheit bei den handelnden Personen sogar noch rückwirkend entfaltet #ForbiddenWest: Immortal Billionaires from Outer Space

I mean Aloy als Social Outcast hat am Ende von #ZeroDawn endlich eine Chosen Family, aber haut in #ForbiddenWest erstmal jedem davon bedeutungsschwanger um die Ohren, dass sie alle Probleme der Welt alleine lösen muss because reasons (⁠눈⁠‸⁠눈⁠)

Ich habe in meinem Blog gestern noch meinen Ersteindruck zu #ForbiddenWest geteilt (dem Western Ableger von #ForbiddenPsalm ): https://blog.pnpde.social/bohemiaspielkunst/ersteindruck-forbidden-west - #TableTop #Wargaming

Ich habe in meinem Blog gestern noch meinen Ersteindruck zu #ForbiddenWest geteilt (dem Western Ableger von #ForbiddenPsalm ): https://blog.pnpde.social/bohemiaspielkunst/ersteindruck-forbidden-west - #TableTop #Wargaming

Ich habe in meinem Blog gestern noch meinen Ersteindruck zu #ForbiddenWest geteilt (dem Western Ableger von #ForbiddenPsalm ): https://blog.pnpde.social/bohemiaspielkunst/ersteindruck-forbidden-west - #TableTop #Wargaming

speaking of "options to move"...

#ForbiddenWest

speaking of "options to move"...

#ForbiddenWest

speaking of "options to move"...

#ForbiddenWest

#Gaming #HorizonZeroDawn #ForbiddenWest #YoutubeShort

Moin.
Heute mal n kurzes Posting zu nem Thema, über das ich viel zu wenig poste :-)
Ich spiele ja seit einiger Zeit Horizon Zero Dawn und ja, ich spiele es langsam und lange nach dem es raus kam, weil ich noch nicht so lange eine PS4Pro habe. ABER, das Game hat mich sooo mega gehooked! 😍
Ich hab angefangen zu gamen, weil ich damals unbedingt Hogwarts Legacy spielen wollte. Danach hab ich direkt Horizon Zero Dawn angefangen und auch wenn ich mittlerweile einige andere Games spiele, ist dieses grafisch bisher das schönste Game, einfach weil die Open World so schön gestaltet ist und die Story so gut ist. Zudem finde ich Aloy als Charakter so toll gestaltet, dass ich mich als Frau gut identifizieren kann damit.
Mittlerweile bin ich ca. bei 80 % Spielfortschritt und mir fehlen nur noch ein paar Sidequests bis ich mich an den Endkampf und somit an das Ende der Story wage.
Zum Nachfolger, Horizon Forbidden West, hab ich dann gestern ein schön zusammengeschnittenes Short auf Youtube gesehen, das mich direkt auch wieder angefixt hat. Werde das also direkt im Nachgang anfangen, auch weil es direkt an die Story von HZD anknüpt und es ein Recap gibt am Anfang.

Das schöne Youtube-Short hier:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/15b-gFam_M0

#Gaming #HorizonZeroDawn #ForbiddenWest #YoutubeShort

Moin.
Heute mal n kurzes Posting zu nem Thema, über das ich viel zu wenig poste :-)
Ich spiele ja seit einiger Zeit Horizon Zero Dawn und ja, ich spiele es langsam und lange nach dem es raus kam, weil ich noch nicht so lange eine PS4Pro habe. ABER, das Game hat mich sooo mega gehooked! 😍
Ich hab angefangen zu gamen, weil ich damals unbedingt Hogwarts Legacy spielen wollte. Danach hab ich direkt Horizon Zero Dawn angefangen und auch wenn ich mittlerweile einige andere Games spiele, ist dieses grafisch bisher das schönste Game, einfach weil die Open World so schön gestaltet ist und die Story so gut ist. Zudem finde ich Aloy als Charakter so toll gestaltet, dass ich mich als Frau gut identifizieren kann damit.
Mittlerweile bin ich ca. bei 80 % Spielfortschritt und mir fehlen nur noch ein paar Sidequests bis ich mich an den Endkampf und somit an das Ende der Story wage.
Zum Nachfolger, Horizon Forbidden West, hab ich dann gestern ein schön zusammengeschnittenes Short auf Youtube gesehen, das mich direkt auch wieder angefixt hat. Werde das also direkt im Nachgang anfangen, auch weil es direkt an die Story von HZD anknüpt und es ein Recap gibt am Anfang.

Das schöne Youtube-Short hier:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/15b-gFam_M0

#Gaming #HorizonZeroDawn #ForbiddenWest #YoutubeShort

Moin.
Heute mal n kurzes Posting zu nem Thema, über das ich viel zu wenig poste :-)
Ich spiele ja seit einiger Zeit Horizon Zero Dawn und ja, ich spiele es langsam und lange nach dem es raus kam, weil ich noch nicht so lange eine PS4Pro habe. ABER, das Game hat mich sooo mega gehooked! 😍
Ich hab angefangen zu gamen, weil ich damals unbedingt Hogwarts Legacy spielen wollte. Danach hab ich direkt Horizon Zero Dawn angefangen und auch wenn ich mittlerweile einige andere Games spiele, ist dieses grafisch bisher das schönste Game, einfach weil die Open World so schön gestaltet ist und die Story so gut ist. Zudem finde ich Aloy als Charakter so toll gestaltet, dass ich mich als Frau gut identifizieren kann damit.
Mittlerweile bin ich ca. bei 80 % Spielfortschritt und mir fehlen nur noch ein paar Sidequests bis ich mich an den Endkampf und somit an das Ende der Story wage.
Zum Nachfolger, Horizon Forbidden West, hab ich dann gestern ein schön zusammengeschnittenes Short auf Youtube gesehen, das mich direkt auch wieder angefixt hat. Werde das also direkt im Nachgang anfangen, auch weil es direkt an die Story von HZD anknüpt und es ein Recap gibt am Anfang.

Das schöne Youtube-Short hier:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/15b-gFam_M0

#Gaming #HorizonZeroDawn #ForbiddenWest #YoutubeShort

Moin.
Heute mal n kurzes Posting zu nem Thema, über das ich viel zu wenig poste :-)
Ich spiele ja seit einiger Zeit Horizon Zero Dawn und ja, ich spiele es langsam und lange nach dem es raus kam, weil ich noch nicht so lange eine PS4Pro habe. ABER, das Game hat mich sooo mega gehooked! 😍
Ich hab angefangen zu gamen, weil ich damals unbedingt Hogwarts Legacy spielen wollte. Danach hab ich direkt Horizon Zero Dawn angefangen und auch wenn ich mittlerweile einige andere Games spiele, ist dieses grafisch bisher das schönste Game, einfach weil die Open World so schön gestaltet ist und die Story so gut ist. Zudem finde ich Aloy als Charakter so toll gestaltet, dass ich mich als Frau gut identifizieren kann damit.
Mittlerweile bin ich ca. bei 80 % Spielfortschritt und mir fehlen nur noch ein paar Sidequests bis ich mich an den Endkampf und somit an das Ende der Story wage.
Zum Nachfolger, Horizon Forbidden West, hab ich dann gestern ein schön zusammengeschnittenes Short auf Youtube gesehen, das mich direkt auch wieder angefixt hat. Werde das also direkt im Nachgang anfangen, auch weil es direkt an die Story von HZD anknüpt und es ein Recap gibt am Anfang.

Das schöne Youtube-Short hier:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/15b-gFam_M0

#Gaming #HorizonZeroDawn #ForbiddenWest #YoutubeShort

Moin.
Heute mal n kurzes Posting zu nem Thema, über das ich viel zu wenig poste :-)
Ich spiele ja seit einiger Zeit Horizon Zero Dawn und ja, ich spiele es langsam und lange nach dem es raus kam, weil ich noch nicht so lange eine PS4Pro habe. ABER, das Game hat mich sooo mega gehooked! 😍
Ich hab angefangen zu gamen, weil ich damals unbedingt Hogwarts Legacy spielen wollte. Danach hab ich direkt Horizon Zero Dawn angefangen und auch wenn ich mittlerweile einige andere Games spiele, ist dieses grafisch bisher das schönste Game, einfach weil die Open World so schön gestaltet ist und die Story so gut ist. Zudem finde ich Aloy als Charakter so toll gestaltet, dass ich mich als Frau gut identifizieren kann damit.
Mittlerweile bin ich ca. bei 80 % Spielfortschritt und mir fehlen nur noch ein paar Sidequests bis ich mich an den Endkampf und somit an das Ende der Story wage.
Zum Nachfolger, Horizon Forbidden West, hab ich dann gestern ein schön zusammengeschnittenes Short auf Youtube gesehen, das mich direkt auch wieder angefixt hat. Werde das also direkt im Nachgang anfangen, auch weil es direkt an die Story von HZD anknüpt und es ein Recap gibt am Anfang.

Das schöne Youtube-Short hier:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/15b-gFam_M0

I like how Horizon #ForbiddenWest stepped up the options to move. The new machines are gorgeous and the possibility to glide through the air and at the most the expansion to underwater environments are fun. And i like how everything doesn't "just happen" but is based in the lore.

I like how Horizon #ForbiddenWest stepped up the options to move. The new machines are gorgeous and the possibility to glide through the air and at the most the expansion to underwater environments are fun. And i like how everything doesn't "just happen" but is based in the lore.

I like how Horizon #ForbiddenWest stepped up the options to move. The new machines are gorgeous and the possibility to glide through the air and at the most the expansion to underwater environments are fun. And i like how everything doesn't "just happen" but is based in the lore.

I like how Horizon #ForbiddenWest stepped up the options to move. The new machines are gorgeous and the possibility to glide through the air and at the most the expansion to underwater environments are fun. And i like how everything doesn't "just happen" but is based in the lore.

I like how Horizon #ForbiddenWest stepped up the options to move. The new machines are gorgeous and the possibility to glide through the air and at the most the expansion to underwater environments are fun. And i like how everything doesn't "just happen" but is based in the lore.

I didn't even realize my Sunwing _could_ die! We went on so many adventures together. RIP

#Horizon #ForbiddenWest

I've been talking quite a bit lately about #game #design and using #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest as a bad example.

Does this mean that I think H:FW is a bad game?

No. It has great gameplay, involving characters, and a fantastic story. But it does mean that it can be an incredibly frustrating one to play, because it collects just SO MANY bad design metaphors into one place.

For one thing, it suffers from #second-#system syndrome. This is an old-time software hacker's term for when you start out to improve an existing clean, elegant system, but by the time you get done shoveling clever new "features" into it, it's a bloated, elephantine mess.

There are SO MANY "clever" new combat mechanisms shoveled into H:FW that a careful attack plan can be derailed by accidentally triggering a special ability you didn't want to use. Given that it's a basically-dumb PC port of a console game, that means that sometimes the difference between one special attack and another is a difference in timing between click-click-click-click-G and click-click-click-click-G.

No, that wasn't a typo. It's a direct example. There's slightly longer intervals between some of those clicks. Hope you can remember which has the brief pause where. I freely admit I can't. I have over a hundred unused skill points because the game fails to properly explain the extra abilities I could spend them on, of which I have too many already.

What did I mean above by "a dumb PC port"? It means that console-controller actions were just translated directly into PC keyboard actions without any thought to whether that actually works on PC. H:FW introduces a shield-glider; the Burning Shores expansion adds a feature to gain elevation using your shield-glider by using thermal updrafts. Except that on PC, you can't stay in an updraft, because the dumb control translation turns what's a simple twirl of the left joystick on a console controller into an unreasonable fandango-on-keyboard on PC.

And that's a problem, because the developers are really proud of that thermal-updraft feature and want you to use it at every opportunity.


H:FW would be a better game if about 90% of the "clever" new combat abilities were just ripped out entirely. Or at the very least, if the mechanisms for activating them on PC were redesigned with PC keyboard-and-mouse in mind.

The take-home point for today? Think about your audience. If you're porting a game, don't just choose a 1:1 mapping of controller actions to keys and call it good. Think about your control mappings and whether they make sense on PC. Play-test and verify that they're actually usable. And don't make your players memorize several dozen new sequences of as many as five actions at a time for new mechanisms. Especially differently timed sequences of the same set of keys.

Don't build the torment nexus. And don't build the second system.

I've been talking quite a bit lately about #game #design and using #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest as a bad example.

Does this mean that I think H:FW is a bad game?

No. It has great gameplay, involving characters, and a fantastic story. But it does mean that it can be an incredibly frustrating one to play, because it collects just SO MANY bad design metaphors into one place.

For one thing, it suffers from #second-#system syndrome. This is an old-time software hacker's term for when you start out to improve an existing clean, elegant system, but by the time you get done shoveling clever new "features" into it, it's a bloated, elephantine mess.

There are SO MANY "clever" new combat mechanisms shoveled into H:FW that a careful attack plan can be derailed by accidentally triggering a special ability you didn't want to use. Given that it's a basically-dumb PC port of a console game, that means that sometimes the difference between one special attack and another is a difference in timing between click-click-click-click-G and click-click-click-click-G.

No, that wasn't a typo. It's a direct example. There's slightly longer intervals between some of those clicks. Hope you can remember which has the brief pause where. I freely admit I can't. I have over a hundred unused skill points because the game fails to properly explain the extra abilities I could spend them on, of which I have too many already.

What did I mean above by "a dumb PC port"? It means that console-controller actions were just translated directly into PC keyboard actions without any thought to whether that actually works on PC. H:FW introduces a shield-glider; the Burning Shores expansion adds a feature to gain elevation using your shield-glider by using thermal updrafts. Except that on PC, you can't stay in an updraft, because the dumb control translation turns what's a simple twirl of the left joystick on a console controller into an unreasonable fandango-on-keyboard on PC.

And that's a problem, because the developers are really proud of that thermal-updraft feature and want you to use it at every opportunity.


H:FW would be a better game if about 90% of the "clever" new combat abilities were just ripped out entirely. Or at the very least, if the mechanisms for activating them on PC were redesigned with PC keyboard-and-mouse in mind.

The take-home point for today? Think about your audience. If you're porting a game, don't just choose a 1:1 mapping of controller actions to keys and call it good. Think about your control mappings and whether they make sense on PC. Play-test and verify that they're actually usable. And don't make your players memorize several dozen new sequences of as many as five actions at a time for new mechanisms. Especially differently timed sequences of the same set of keys.

Don't build the torment nexus. And don't build the second system.

I've been talking quite a bit lately about #game #design and using #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest as a bad example.

Does this mean that I think H:FW is a bad game?

No. It has great gameplay, involving characters, and a fantastic story. But it does mean that it can be an incredibly frustrating one to play, because it collects just SO MANY bad design metaphors into one place.

For one thing, it suffers from #second-#system syndrome. This is an old-time software hacker's term for when you start out to improve an existing clean, elegant system, but by the time you get done shoveling clever new "features" into it, it's a bloated, elephantine mess.

There are SO MANY "clever" new combat mechanisms shoveled into H:FW that a careful attack plan can be derailed by accidentally triggering a special ability you didn't want to use. Given that it's a basically-dumb PC port of a console game, that means that sometimes the difference between one special attack and another is a difference in timing between click-click-click-click-G and click-click-click-click-G.

No, that wasn't a typo. It's a direct example. There's slightly longer intervals between some of those clicks. Hope you can remember which has the brief pause where. I freely admit I can't. I have over a hundred unused skill points because the game fails to properly explain the extra abilities I could spend them on, of which I have too many already.

What did I mean above by "a dumb PC port"? It means that console-controller actions were just translated directly into PC keyboard actions without any thought to whether that actually works on PC. H:FW introduces a shield-glider; the Burning Shores expansion adds a feature to gain elevation using your shield-glider by using thermal updrafts. Except that on PC, you can't stay in an updraft, because the dumb control translation turns what's a simple twirl of the left joystick on a console controller into an unreasonable fandango-on-keyboard on PC.

And that's a problem, because the developers are really proud of that thermal-updraft feature and want you to use it at every opportunity.


H:FW would be a better game if about 90% of the "clever" new combat abilities were just ripped out entirely. Or at the very least, if the mechanisms for activating them on PC were redesigned with PC keyboard-and-mouse in mind.

The take-home point for today? Think about your audience. If you're porting a game, don't just choose a 1:1 mapping of controller actions to keys and call it good. Think about your control mappings and whether they make sense on PC. Play-test and verify that they're actually usable. And don't make your players memorize several dozen new sequences of as many as five actions at a time for new mechanisms. Especially differently timed sequences of the same set of keys.

Don't build the torment nexus. And don't build the second system.

I've been talking quite a bit lately about #game #design and using #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest as a bad example.

Does this mean that I think H:FW is a bad game?

No. It has great gameplay, involving characters, and a fantastic story. But it does mean that it can be an incredibly frustrating one to play, because it collects just SO MANY bad design metaphors into one place.

For one thing, it suffers from #second-#system syndrome. This is an old-time software hacker's term for when you start out to improve an existing clean, elegant system, but by the time you get done shoveling clever new "features" into it, it's a bloated, elephantine mess.

There are SO MANY "clever" new combat mechanisms shoveled into H:FW that a careful attack plan can be derailed by accidentally triggering a special ability you didn't want to use. Given that it's a basically-dumb PC port of a console game, that means that sometimes the difference between one special attack and another is a difference in timing between click-click-click-click-G and click-click-click-click-G.

No, that wasn't a typo. It's a direct example. There's slightly longer intervals between some of those clicks. Hope you can remember which has the brief pause where. I freely admit I can't. I have over a hundred unused skill points because the game fails to properly explain the extra abilities I could spend them on, of which I have too many already.

What did I mean above by "a dumb PC port"? It means that console-controller actions were just translated directly into PC keyboard actions without any thought to whether that actually works on PC. H:FW introduces a shield-glider; the Burning Shores expansion adds a feature to gain elevation using your shield-glider by using thermal updrafts. Except that on PC, you can't stay in an updraft, because the dumb control translation turns what's a simple twirl of the left joystick on a console controller into an unreasonable fandango-on-keyboard on PC.

And that's a problem, because the developers are really proud of that thermal-updraft feature and want you to use it at every opportunity.


H:FW would be a better game if about 90% of the "clever" new combat abilities were just ripped out entirely. Or at the very least, if the mechanisms for activating them on PC were redesigned with PC keyboard-and-mouse in mind.

The take-home point for today? Think about your audience. If you're porting a game, don't just choose a 1:1 mapping of controller actions to keys and call it good. Think about your control mappings and whether they make sense on PC. Play-test and verify that they're actually usable. And don't make your players memorize several dozen new sequences of as many as five actions at a time for new mechanisms. Especially differently timed sequences of the same set of keys.

Don't build the torment nexus. And don't build the second system.

I've been talking quite a bit lately about #game #design and using #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest as a bad example.

Does this mean that I think H:FW is a bad game?

No. It has great gameplay, involving characters, and a fantastic story. But it does mean that it can be an incredibly frustrating one to play, because it collects just SO MANY bad design metaphors into one place.

For one thing, it suffers from #second-#system syndrome. This is an old-time software hacker's term for when you start out to improve an existing clean, elegant system, but by the time you get done shoveling clever new "features" into it, it's a bloated, elephantine mess.

There are SO MANY "clever" new combat mechanisms shoveled into H:FW that a careful attack plan can be derailed by accidentally triggering a special ability you didn't want to use. Given that it's a basically-dumb PC port of a console game, that means that sometimes the difference between one special attack and another is a difference in timing between click-click-click-click-G and click-click-click-click-G.

No, that wasn't a typo. It's a direct example. There's slightly longer intervals between some of those clicks. Hope you can remember which has the brief pause where. I freely admit I can't. I have over a hundred unused skill points because the game fails to properly explain the extra abilities I could spend them on, of which I have too many already.

What did I mean above by "a dumb PC port"? It means that console-controller actions were just translated directly into PC keyboard actions without any thought to whether that actually works on PC. H:FW introduces a shield-glider; the Burning Shores expansion adds a feature to gain elevation using your shield-glider by using thermal updrafts. Except that on PC, you can't stay in an updraft, because the dumb control translation turns what's a simple twirl of the left joystick on a console controller into an unreasonable fandango-on-keyboard on PC.

And that's a problem, because the developers are really proud of that thermal-updraft feature and want you to use it at every opportunity.


H:FW would be a better game if about 90% of the "clever" new combat abilities were just ripped out entirely. Or at the very least, if the mechanisms for activating them on PC were redesigned with PC keyboard-and-mouse in mind.

The take-home point for today? Think about your audience. If you're porting a game, don't just choose a 1:1 mapping of controller actions to keys and call it good. Think about your control mappings and whether they make sense on PC. Play-test and verify that they're actually usable. And don't make your players memorize several dozen new sequences of as many as five actions at a time for new mechanisms. Especially differently timed sequences of the same set of keys.

Don't build the torment nexus. And don't build the second system.

More #gaming/#gamedesign ruminations
(1/2)

There's a saying in the software industry that all software sucks; some software merely sucks less. There was once an unofficial release shirt for MacOS (that's old style, classic MacOS, not OSX) 7.5. The shirt read simply: System 7.5: Sucks Less

If some software sucks less, then it follows that some software sucks more.

Games tend to suck more. You want evidence, just go and look at the file size of the unofficial community patches for any Bethesda games. Skyrim SE's, for example, is 161MB. And that's not adding or improving any content, it's just bug fixes.

As those of you who have been following along know, I've been working through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest for the past week or two. And H:FW is a great example of Sucking More.

Today we're going to talk about gear acquisition and upgrades.

Like most games, H:FW features tiered equipment. (Except, for some reason, your spear. Your spear never gets any better throughout the game, except once right at the beginning — at the end of the prologue — you're given a slightly better tier-2. Horizon has four tiers: green items are common, blue rare, purple "very rare", gold legendary. All of these (except the spear) are upgradable. Weapons and armor may have anywhere from three to five tiers of upgrades. Higher tiers of upgrades require more and rarer materials, as do upgrades of higher-tier weapons. You're most likely almost at the endgame before you get your first Legendary (tier 4) item, and you're going to find that right from the second upgrade tier they require some of the rarest items in the entire game to upgrade.

This is already quite bad enough from a game design standpoint, because it means that you're on track for the endgame, it's right in front of you, it's urgent, the game's story is telling you that you need to get right on it, but the games mechanics are making you hurry-up-and-wait, potentially days of grinding high-level materials to fully upgrade the one or two legendary items you finally just got before you go into the end battle.

Seriously, game developers, don't do this. It SUCKS. It destroys the flow of your story and it frustrates players.

(1/2, contd in comments)

More #gaming/#gamedesign ruminations
(1/2)

There's a saying in the software industry that all software sucks; some software merely sucks less. There was once an unofficial release shirt for MacOS (that's old style, classic MacOS, not OSX) 7.5. The shirt read simply: System 7.5: Sucks Less

If some software sucks less, then it follows that some software sucks more.

Games tend to suck more. You want evidence, just go and look at the file size of the unofficial community patches for any Bethesda games. Skyrim SE's, for example, is 161MB. And that's not adding or improving any content, it's just bug fixes.

As those of you who have been following along know, I've been working through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest for the past week or two. And H:FW is a great example of Sucking More.

Today we're going to talk about gear acquisition and upgrades.

Like most games, H:FW features tiered equipment. (Except, for some reason, your spear. Your spear never gets any better throughout the game, except once right at the beginning — at the end of the prologue — you're given a slightly better tier-2. Horizon has four tiers: green items are common, blue rare, purple "very rare", gold legendary. All of these (except the spear) are upgradable. Weapons and armor may have anywhere from three to five tiers of upgrades. Higher tiers of upgrades require more and rarer materials, as do upgrades of higher-tier weapons. You're most likely almost at the endgame before you get your first Legendary (tier 4) item, and you're going to find that right from the second upgrade tier they require some of the rarest items in the entire game to upgrade.

This is already quite bad enough from a game design standpoint, because it means that you're on track for the endgame, it's right in front of you, it's urgent, the game's story is telling you that you need to get right on it, but the games mechanics are making you hurry-up-and-wait, potentially days of grinding high-level materials to fully upgrade the one or two legendary items you finally just got before you go into the end battle.

Seriously, game developers, don't do this. It SUCKS. It destroys the flow of your story and it frustrates players.

(1/2, contd in comments)

More #gaming/#gamedesign ruminations
(1/2)

There's a saying in the software industry that all software sucks; some software merely sucks less. There was once an unofficial release shirt for MacOS (that's old style, classic MacOS, not OSX) 7.5. The shirt read simply: System 7.5: Sucks Less

If some software sucks less, then it follows that some software sucks more.

Games tend to suck more. You want evidence, just go and look at the file size of the unofficial community patches for any Bethesda games. Skyrim SE's, for example, is 161MB. And that's not adding or improving any content, it's just bug fixes.

As those of you who have been following along know, I've been working through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest for the past week or two. And H:FW is a great example of Sucking More.

Today we're going to talk about gear acquisition and upgrades.

Like most games, H:FW features tiered equipment. (Except, for some reason, your spear. Your spear never gets any better throughout the game, except once right at the beginning — at the end of the prologue — you're given a slightly better tier-2. Horizon has four tiers: green items are common, blue rare, purple "very rare", gold legendary. All of these (except the spear) are upgradable. Weapons and armor may have anywhere from three to five tiers of upgrades. Higher tiers of upgrades require more and rarer materials, as do upgrades of higher-tier weapons. You're most likely almost at the endgame before you get your first Legendary (tier 4) item, and you're going to find that right from the second upgrade tier they require some of the rarest items in the entire game to upgrade.

This is already quite bad enough from a game design standpoint, because it means that you're on track for the endgame, it's right in front of you, it's urgent, the game's story is telling you that you need to get right on it, but the games mechanics are making you hurry-up-and-wait, potentially days of grinding high-level materials to fully upgrade the one or two legendary items you finally just got before you go into the end battle.

Seriously, game developers, don't do this. It SUCKS. It destroys the flow of your story and it frustrates players.

(1/2, contd in comments)

More #gaming/#gamedesign ruminations
(1/2)

There's a saying in the software industry that all software sucks; some software merely sucks less. There was once an unofficial release shirt for MacOS (that's old style, classic MacOS, not OSX) 7.5. The shirt read simply: System 7.5: Sucks Less

If some software sucks less, then it follows that some software sucks more.

Games tend to suck more. You want evidence, just go and look at the file size of the unofficial community patches for any Bethesda games. Skyrim SE's, for example, is 161MB. And that's not adding or improving any content, it's just bug fixes.

As those of you who have been following along know, I've been working through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest for the past week or two. And H:FW is a great example of Sucking More.

Today we're going to talk about gear acquisition and upgrades.

Like most games, H:FW features tiered equipment. (Except, for some reason, your spear. Your spear never gets any better throughout the game, except once right at the beginning — at the end of the prologue — you're given a slightly better tier-2. Horizon has four tiers: green items are common, blue rare, purple "very rare", gold legendary. All of these (except the spear) are upgradable. Weapons and armor may have anywhere from three to five tiers of upgrades. Higher tiers of upgrades require more and rarer materials, as do upgrades of higher-tier weapons. You're most likely almost at the endgame before you get your first Legendary (tier 4) item, and you're going to find that right from the second upgrade tier they require some of the rarest items in the entire game to upgrade.

This is already quite bad enough from a game design standpoint, because it means that you're on track for the endgame, it's right in front of you, it's urgent, the game's story is telling you that you need to get right on it, but the games mechanics are making you hurry-up-and-wait, potentially days of grinding high-level materials to fully upgrade the one or two legendary items you finally just got before you go into the end battle.

Seriously, game developers, don't do this. It SUCKS. It destroys the flow of your story and it frustrates players.

(1/2, contd in comments)

More #gaming/#gamedesign ruminations
(1/2)

There's a saying in the software industry that all software sucks; some software merely sucks less. There was once an unofficial release shirt for MacOS (that's old style, classic MacOS, not OSX) 7.5. The shirt read simply: System 7.5: Sucks Less

If some software sucks less, then it follows that some software sucks more.

Games tend to suck more. You want evidence, just go and look at the file size of the unofficial community patches for any Bethesda games. Skyrim SE's, for example, is 161MB. And that's not adding or improving any content, it's just bug fixes.

As those of you who have been following along know, I've been working through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest for the past week or two. And H:FW is a great example of Sucking More.

Today we're going to talk about gear acquisition and upgrades.

Like most games, H:FW features tiered equipment. (Except, for some reason, your spear. Your spear never gets any better throughout the game, except once right at the beginning — at the end of the prologue — you're given a slightly better tier-2. Horizon has four tiers: green items are common, blue rare, purple "very rare", gold legendary. All of these (except the spear) are upgradable. Weapons and armor may have anywhere from three to five tiers of upgrades. Higher tiers of upgrades require more and rarer materials, as do upgrades of higher-tier weapons. You're most likely almost at the endgame before you get your first Legendary (tier 4) item, and you're going to find that right from the second upgrade tier they require some of the rarest items in the entire game to upgrade.

This is already quite bad enough from a game design standpoint, because it means that you're on track for the endgame, it's right in front of you, it's urgent, the game's story is telling you that you need to get right on it, but the games mechanics are making you hurry-up-and-wait, potentially days of grinding high-level materials to fully upgrade the one or two legendary items you finally just got before you go into the end battle.

Seriously, game developers, don't do this. It SUCKS. It destroys the flow of your story and it frustrates players.

(1/2, contd in comments)

#Gaming commentary: Horizon—Forbidden West (1/2)

So for the past week or two I've been working my way through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest in my spare time.

It certainly does follow on in all the important ways from Zero Dawn. Aloy remains a strong, clever, smart, likable female protagonist. Silens remains a complete and utter asshole (possibly even a bigger asshole than Ted Faro, and that's a high bar to pass). Several of the tribal leaderships are still stupidly self-interested. (Nothing new there.) There's new settings, new machines, some clever machine designs.

Unfortunately, most of what's new about the actual gameplay is that they totally changed many of the key mappings from Zero Dawn, provide no mechanism for setting them back to what they were, and liberally litter the game with a bewildering array of complex new combat mechanisms with almost-identical invocations and dubious value, complexity for the sake of complexity, and SO MANY DAMN WEAPONS, and at least half of the new weapon "innovations" are stupid. I think I'm carrying something like thirty weapons. Talk about immersion-breaking.

And then there's the special tools. The various things that are gated behind different kinds of obstacles that require a special tool to breach, seemingly solely in order to make you figure out where to get the Sooper Sekrit Speshul Tool.

The worst of these is the vine cutter.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST it's a PERFECTLY ORDINARY LOOKING VINE, you have edged weapons, you have high explosives, you have incendiaries, you have super-acids, you have freaking plasma weapons, what more can it possibly take to get past a damn VINE? Does it contain Ringworld shadow-square wire or something?

It's artificial fake difficulty, and even worse than that, it's stupid artificial fake difficulty. That's not challenging, it's just annoying.

I obtained the Firegleam igniter because it's a main storyline item, and the rebreather which is also main storyline, but is it worth the trouble of going back for all the blow-up walls and deep dives I had to bypass because I didn't have them?

...No. It isn't. Fundamentally NONE of them contain anything worth going back for. And fuck only knows where or when I get the vine cutter. Or whatever mystery tool opens the metal flowers that in H:ZD you just had to walk up to and collect. And to hell with all the hovering drones that you have to somehow jump onto, which don't do a thing anyway except change the decor of one room in your base (when you get it).

The developers couldn't even be bothered to make the metal flowers show up on the map as something other than "blocked paths". They managed to take a previously working feature and phone it in.

(1/2, contd. in comment)

#Gaming commentary: Horizon—Forbidden West (1/2)

So for the past week or two I've been working my way through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest in my spare time.

It certainly does follow on in all the important ways from Zero Dawn. Aloy remains a strong, clever, smart, likable female protagonist. Silens remains a complete and utter asshole (possibly even a bigger asshole than Ted Faro, and that's a high bar to pass). Several of the tribal leaderships are still stupidly self-interested. (Nothing new there.) There's new settings, new machines, some clever machine designs.

Unfortunately, most of what's new about the actual gameplay is that they totally changed many of the key mappings from Zero Dawn, provide no mechanism for setting them back to what they were, and liberally litter the game with a bewildering array of complex new combat mechanisms with almost-identical invocations and dubious value, complexity for the sake of complexity, and SO MANY DAMN WEAPONS, and at least half of the new weapon "innovations" are stupid. I think I'm carrying something like thirty weapons. Talk about immersion-breaking.

And then there's the special tools. The various things that are gated behind different kinds of obstacles that require a special tool to breach, seemingly solely in order to make you figure out where to get the Sooper Sekrit Speshul Tool.

The worst of these is the vine cutter.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST it's a PERFECTLY ORDINARY LOOKING VINE, you have edged weapons, you have high explosives, you have incendiaries, you have super-acids, you have freaking plasma weapons, what more can it possibly take to get past a damn VINE? Does it contain Ringworld shadow-square wire or something?

It's artificial fake difficulty, and even worse than that, it's stupid artificial fake difficulty. That's not challenging, it's just annoying.

I obtained the Firegleam igniter because it's a main storyline item, and the rebreather which is also main storyline, but is it worth the trouble of going back for all the blow-up walls and deep dives I had to bypass because I didn't have them?

...No. It isn't. Fundamentally NONE of them contain anything worth going back for. And fuck only knows where or when I get the vine cutter. Or whatever mystery tool opens the metal flowers that in H:ZD you just had to walk up to and collect. And to hell with all the hovering drones that you have to somehow jump onto, which don't do a thing anyway except change the decor of one room in your base (when you get it).

The developers couldn't even be bothered to make the metal flowers show up on the map as something other than "blocked paths". They managed to take a previously working feature and phone it in.

(1/2, contd. in comment)

#Gaming commentary: Horizon—Forbidden West (1/2)

So for the past week or two I've been working my way through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest in my spare time.

It certainly does follow on in all the important ways from Zero Dawn. Aloy remains a strong, clever, smart, likable female protagonist. Silens remains a complete and utter asshole (possibly even a bigger asshole than Ted Faro, and that's a high bar to pass). Several of the tribal leaderships are still stupidly self-interested. (Nothing new there.) There's new settings, new machines, some clever machine designs.

Unfortunately, most of what's new about the actual gameplay is that they totally changed many of the key mappings from Zero Dawn, provide no mechanism for setting them back to what they were, and liberally litter the game with a bewildering array of complex new combat mechanisms with almost-identical invocations and dubious value, complexity for the sake of complexity, and SO MANY DAMN WEAPONS, and at least half of the new weapon "innovations" are stupid. I think I'm carrying something like thirty weapons. Talk about immersion-breaking.

And then there's the special tools. The various things that are gated behind different kinds of obstacles that require a special tool to breach, seemingly solely in order to make you figure out where to get the Sooper Sekrit Speshul Tool.

The worst of these is the vine cutter.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST it's a PERFECTLY ORDINARY LOOKING VINE, you have edged weapons, you have high explosives, you have incendiaries, you have super-acids, you have freaking plasma weapons, what more can it possibly take to get past a damn VINE? Does it contain Ringworld shadow-square wire or something?

It's artificial fake difficulty, and even worse than that, it's stupid artificial fake difficulty. That's not challenging, it's just annoying.

I obtained the Firegleam igniter because it's a main storyline item, and the rebreather which is also main storyline, but is it worth the trouble of going back for all the blow-up walls and deep dives I had to bypass because I didn't have them?

...No. It isn't. Fundamentally NONE of them contain anything worth going back for. And fuck only knows where or when I get the vine cutter. Or whatever mystery tool opens the metal flowers that in H:ZD you just had to walk up to and collect. And to hell with all the hovering drones that you have to somehow jump onto, which don't do a thing anyway except change the decor of one room in your base (when you get it).

The developers couldn't even be bothered to make the metal flowers show up on the map as something other than "blocked paths". They managed to take a previously working feature and phone it in.

(1/2, contd. in comment)

#Gaming commentary: Horizon—Forbidden West (1/2)

So for the past week or two I've been working my way through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest in my spare time.

It certainly does follow on in all the important ways from Zero Dawn. Aloy remains a strong, clever, smart, likable female protagonist. Silens remains a complete and utter asshole (possibly even a bigger asshole than Ted Faro, and that's a high bar to pass). Several of the tribal leaderships are still stupidly self-interested. (Nothing new there.) There's new settings, new machines, some clever machine designs.

Unfortunately, most of what's new about the actual gameplay is that they totally changed many of the key mappings from Zero Dawn, provide no mechanism for setting them back to what they were, and liberally litter the game with a bewildering array of complex new combat mechanisms with almost-identical invocations and dubious value, complexity for the sake of complexity, and SO MANY DAMN WEAPONS, and at least half of the new weapon "innovations" are stupid. I think I'm carrying something like thirty weapons. Talk about immersion-breaking.

And then there's the special tools. The various things that are gated behind different kinds of obstacles that require a special tool to breach, seemingly solely in order to make you figure out where to get the Sooper Sekrit Speshul Tool.

The worst of these is the vine cutter.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST it's a PERFECTLY ORDINARY LOOKING VINE, you have edged weapons, you have high explosives, you have incendiaries, you have super-acids, you have freaking plasma weapons, what more can it possibly take to get past a damn VINE? Does it contain Ringworld shadow-square wire or something?

It's artificial fake difficulty, and even worse than that, it's stupid artificial fake difficulty. That's not challenging, it's just annoying.

I obtained the Firegleam igniter because it's a main storyline item, and the rebreather which is also main storyline, but is it worth the trouble of going back for all the blow-up walls and deep dives I had to bypass because I didn't have them?

...No. It isn't. Fundamentally NONE of them contain anything worth going back for. And fuck only knows where or when I get the vine cutter. Or whatever mystery tool opens the metal flowers that in H:ZD you just had to walk up to and collect. And to hell with all the hovering drones that you have to somehow jump onto, which don't do a thing anyway except change the decor of one room in your base (when you get it).

The developers couldn't even be bothered to make the metal flowers show up on the map as something other than "blocked paths". They managed to take a previously working feature and phone it in.

(1/2, contd. in comment)

#Gaming commentary: Horizon—Forbidden West (1/2)

So for the past week or two I've been working my way through #Horizon: #ForbiddenWest in my spare time.

It certainly does follow on in all the important ways from Zero Dawn. Aloy remains a strong, clever, smart, likable female protagonist. Silens remains a complete and utter asshole (possibly even a bigger asshole than Ted Faro, and that's a high bar to pass). Several of the tribal leaderships are still stupidly self-interested. (Nothing new there.) There's new settings, new machines, some clever machine designs.

Unfortunately, most of what's new about the actual gameplay is that they totally changed many of the key mappings from Zero Dawn, provide no mechanism for setting them back to what they were, and liberally litter the game with a bewildering array of complex new combat mechanisms with almost-identical invocations and dubious value, complexity for the sake of complexity, and SO MANY DAMN WEAPONS, and at least half of the new weapon "innovations" are stupid. I think I'm carrying something like thirty weapons. Talk about immersion-breaking.

And then there's the special tools. The various things that are gated behind different kinds of obstacles that require a special tool to breach, seemingly solely in order to make you figure out where to get the Sooper Sekrit Speshul Tool.

The worst of these is the vine cutter.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST it's a PERFECTLY ORDINARY LOOKING VINE, you have edged weapons, you have high explosives, you have incendiaries, you have super-acids, you have freaking plasma weapons, what more can it possibly take to get past a damn VINE? Does it contain Ringworld shadow-square wire or something?

It's artificial fake difficulty, and even worse than that, it's stupid artificial fake difficulty. That's not challenging, it's just annoying.

I obtained the Firegleam igniter because it's a main storyline item, and the rebreather which is also main storyline, but is it worth the trouble of going back for all the blow-up walls and deep dives I had to bypass because I didn't have them?

...No. It isn't. Fundamentally NONE of them contain anything worth going back for. And fuck only knows where or when I get the vine cutter. Or whatever mystery tool opens the metal flowers that in H:ZD you just had to walk up to and collect. And to hell with all the hovering drones that you have to somehow jump onto, which don't do a thing anyway except change the decor of one room in your base (when you get it).

The developers couldn't even be bothered to make the metal flowers show up on the map as something other than "blocked paths". They managed to take a previously working feature and phone it in.

(1/2, contd. in comment)

Not sure exactly what part of Las Vegas this is supposed to be. #ForbiddenWest

Morgen zusammen, auf in einen sonnigen Tag im verbotenen Westen :D
http://einfachspike.de
#EinfachSpike #ClanGalskap #TeamCuriosity #ForbiddenWest #HorizonForbiddenWest

Found some nice facepaint for Aloy in Horizon #ForbiddenWest
And had to try it out .^
It's called "Mark of #pride