What Makes Games Wank - Gaming Contradictions

[KK1001]

Hm don't you know that having charismatic bad guys whose ideology makes sense, at least prima facie, and leaving it up to the player to examine if it is actually good or not is bad actually?

 

[thesecret1]

Are contradictions such as these one of the main reasons it's so easy to hate so many games now?

Usually not really one of the main reasons, no, but a bad case of ludonarrative dissonance like this certainly can ruin the game's entire narration for me. I especially hate it when the game portrays me as village bumpkin shitter who never held a weapon, the proceeds to have me slaughter twenty trained soldiers and similar shit – I just can't take the rest of the writing seriously after that. "I'm just an innocent peasant " Yeah, right, you're a murder machine, boy, so stop playing coy.

On a side note, I experienced a case of this with fucking worldbuilding a couple times. Classic example: small village with like 10 inhabitants tops who beg you to save them from the brigands that rob them. You agree, go fight brigands, and find out there's literally over a hundred of them. I'm sorry, but my suspesion of disbelief has its limits, and my brain just won't accept the story that a hundred men are making a living off of robbing a dozen poor peasants.

 

[DraQ]

ludonarrative dissonance

TL;DR of this thread neatly compressed to just two word phrase.

As usual abstractfags and gamistfags tend to be at fault.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's caused by revolving the game's story around an epic mcguffin rather than slowly building up to it. Compare Fallout's "bro we need a water chip" and Deadfire's "STOP THE GIANT GOD STATUE AT ALL COSTS!!!11 or do sidequests whatever"
Fallout's story could have been just as bad as Deadfire's if it started off with "STOP THE GIANT MUTANT MASTER AT ALL COSTS!!!11 or do sidequests whatever" instead of building up to it.

The waterchip time limit even helps Fallout in this regard because it makes you realize that you have some buffer room to do tasks that seem more important right now.

 

[KK1001]

It's a lazy conceit, but you need to sell braindead journalists on something. "hey, check out this world, there's cool stuff to see. maybe hang out?" is harder than "HOLLLLY FUCK BRO ALL THIS CRAZY SHIT PEW PEW WOAH STOP THE STATUE, RESCUE CIRI, BLOOD MAGES, CHIP IN YOUR HEAD"

 

[Ol' Willy]

Speaking of Sonic, it's another case: it's called bad implementation of dynamics. What is dynamics in general? In simpler terms, it's contrast: loud - quiet, fast - slow, suspenseful - peaceful, etc. Everything needs dynamics - music, movies, books, and games are not exception; if it's on the one side of the spectrum all the time it becomes boring and monotonous in no time, so you had to constantly shuffle contrasting sections. Some people are able to pull of their stuff without dynamics, but it's way harder than with them.

Now, what about Sonic? It was ages since I played any Sonic games, and I didn't play any at all past Sega MD games, but I remember something: these slow sections are just too long. They overstay their welcome. The key is to have shorter sections of every intensity; the second important part is not to make the shift between them so glaring: it shouldn't go from supersonic dash to a complete halt, shift should be more gradual - fastest sections, moderate speed and then some slow platforming.

 

[Jaedar]

The waterchip time limit even helps Fallout in this regard because it makes you realize that you have some buffer room to do tasks that seem more important right now.

It also helps in fallout that after you fail to find a waterchip in vault 15, you don't actually know where another one might be. So it makes sense to do sidequests to gather power/allies since there is nowhere for you to sprint towards.

And as you say, the timelimit helps. It takes approximately 0 hours from the timer to do a sidequest in the town you are already in, and several days to move to the next town.

 

[Alphons]

Every town, settlement and key encounter you make for around the first 1/4 of the game is NCR bias

Goodsprings: A bunch of armed NCR convicts murdered almost an entire caravan and are now preparing to murder the locals for sheltering the sole survivor of the attack. Where's the NCR?

Sloan: NCR workers look for an indenpendent mercenary to clean up NCR quarry, currently overrun by deathclaws because NCR convicts have stolen NCR dynamite.

NCR CF: NCR convicts occupy NCR prison after murdering every member of the prison staff.

Primm: City overrun by NCR convicts, NCR soldiers are holding their positions across the road because they don't have manpower to clean up the city.

Mojave Outpost: They don't have the manpower to clean up ants on the major caravan route or check up on the smoke coming from the nearby city.

Nipton: NCR didn't know about Nipton harboring eacaped convicts. Legion managed to kill a dozen of their soldiers, Powder Gangers and an entire city.

Novac: The only NCR soldier around here is a cripple. Legion takes out an entire Ranger Station, booby traps the place and takes a prisoner.

Camp Searchlight: Entire base destroyed and contaminated by 2 Legion saboteurs.

Nelson: NCR soldiers killed in their sleep by the Legion. NCR can't get close enough to mercy kill their crucified troopers.

Camp Forlorn Hope: Supply lines cut by the Legion, morale way down.

Bitter Springs: NCR accidentally massacred a bunch of non-combatants, currently they can't deal with a lone Khan sniper or get supplies for their troopers and refugees.

Camp McCarran: quartermaster steals supplies, Legion spy has an access to their top secret documents and plans to blow up monorail, they can't deal with a bunch of crazy junkies

 

[Falksi]

Every town, settlement and key encounter you make for around the first 1/4 of the game is NCR bias

Goodsprings: A bunch of armed NCR convicts murdered almost an entire caravan and are now preparing to murder the locals for sheltering the sole survivor of the attack. Where's the NCR?

Sloan: NCR workers look for an indenpendent mercenary to clean up NCR quarry, currently overrun by deathclaws because NCR convicts have stolen NCR dynamite.

NCR CF: NCR convicts occupy NCR prison after murdering every member of the prison staff.

Primm: City overrun by NCR convicts, NCR soldiers are holding their positions across the road because they don't have manpower to clean up the city.

Mojave Outpost: They don't have the manpower to clean up ants on the major caravan route or check up on the smoke coming from the nearby city.

Nipton: NCR didn't know about Nipton harboring eacaped convicts. Legion managed to kill a dozen of their soldiers, Powder Gangers and an entire city.

Novac: The only NCR soldier around here is a cripple. Legion takes out an entire Ranger Station, booby traps the place and takes a prisoner.

Camp Searchlight: Entire base destroyed and contaminated by 2 Legion saboteurs.

Nelson: NCR soldiers killed in their sleep by the Legion. NCR can't get close enough to mercy kill their crucified troopers.

Camp Forlorn Hope: Supply lines cut by the Legion, morale way down.

Bitter Springs: NCR accidentally massacred a bunch of non-combatants, currently they can't deal with a lone Khan sniper or get supplies for their troopers and refugees.

Camp McCarran: quartermaster steals supplies, Legion spy has an access to their top secret documents and plans to blow up monorail, they can't deal with a bunch of crazy junkies

They're the ones.

 

[Okagron]

Survive the wastelands in a game about choice, freedom, and multiple routes for multiple playthroughs.

Well that's the promise here. The trouble is that to give yourself said best chance of survival, and avoid making things as deliberately hard as possible, it makes absolutely no sense at all to side with the Legion.

Every town, settlement and key encounter you make for around the first 1/4 of the game is NCR bias, and getting to join the Legion takes a committed, dedicated mindset & drive. You can't just drop into it naturally, and there's no real dilemma or choice on that front. The game is so heavily weighted in favour of the NCR that there really isn't any choice on offer at all if you're trying to roleplay that survival mindset.

I am going on my own experience of the game here though (I don't read walkthroughs etc.) so if that's wrong, feel free to correct me.

I don't get this argument in slightest. It makes more sense for the game to have more NCR content given that it's set on the West Coast and the NCR has been in it for several decades. The Legion just arrived some years ago, so it wouldn't make much sense to have the content evenly split with the NCR, or at least the Legion having a prevalent presence on the Mojave. The only thing missing with the Legion is a town of people (on the very end of the borders of the map, or maybe you can just fast travel there) to give a perspective on how it is to live in Legion territory.

Survival in the Wasteland is also no longer as harsh as it used to be. New Vegas shows that the world is moving on from that by having more and more civilization, so it's no longer a constant need for survival. Politics and fighting for territory more and more are becoming prevalent.

The Legion is the more underdeveloped main faction in the game and it was because of time constraints. I brough up needing a Legion town to see how their citizens live, but it also needed a Legion aligned companion. Which was meant to be Ulysses, but unfortunately he was used in DLC instead.

 

[Falksi]

Survive the wastelands in a game about choice, freedom, and multiple routes for multiple playthroughs.

Well that's the promise here. The trouble is that to give yourself said best chance of survival, and avoid making things as deliberately hard as possible, it makes absolutely no sense at all to side with the Legion.

Every town, settlement and key encounter you make for around the first 1/4 of the game is NCR bias, and getting to join the Legion takes a committed, dedicated mindset & drive. You can't just drop into it naturally, and there's no real dilemma or choice on that front. The game is so heavily weighted in favour of the NCR that there really isn't any choice on offer at all if you're trying to roleplay that survival mindset.

I am going on my own experience of the game here though (I don't read walkthroughs etc.) so if that's wrong, feel free to correct me.

I don't get this argument in slightest. It makes more sense for the game to have more NCR content given that it's set on the West Coast and the NCR has been in it for several decades. The Legion just arrived some years ago, so it wouldn't make much sense to have the content evenly split with the NCR, or at least the Legion having a prevalent presence on the Mojave. The only thing missing with the Legion is a town of people (on the very end of the borders of the map, or maybe you can just fast travel there) to give a perspective on how it is to live in Legion territory.

Survival in the Wasteland is also no longer as harsh as it used to be. New Vegas shows that the world is moving on from that by having more and more civilization, so it's no longer a constant need for survival. Politics and fighting for territory more and more are becoming prevalent.

The Legion is the more underdeveloped main faction in the game and it was because of time constraints. I brough up needing a Legion town to see how their citizens live, but it also needed a Legion aligned companion. Which was meant to be Ulysses, but unfortunately he was used in DLC instead.

Sense or no sense, ultimately it requires a committed effort to join the Legion, and feels far less natural than joining the NCR.

For a game all about freedom of choice, making one option far more effort is a bad move which sours the experience IMO.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It was a game about being able to make the correct choice.


Which was House.

 

[Okagron]

Sense or no sense, ultimately it requires a committed effort to join the Legion, and feels far less natural than joining the NCR.

How is it less natural to join the Legion? Yes, they have a higher requirement for anyone to be able to join them, because in contrast the NCR just accepts anyone, while the Legion don't just accept any schmuck. But how is that less natural?

And with that said, it's not even that much harder to join the Legion. If anything, it's quite easy.

For a game all about freedom of choice, making one option far more effort is a bad move which sours the experience IMO.

There's always gonna be a faction or factions that are harder to join, that's just the nature of factions having different standards. If anything, all factions having the same requirement to join would make no logical sense.


Also, the entire point of New Vegas is to choose which faction you believe will best lead the Mojave to a better future. It's not about which one is the easiest to join.

 

[Falksi]

Sense or no sense, ultimately it requires a committed effort to join the Legion, and feels far less natural than joining the NCR.

How is it less natural to join the Legion? Yes, they have a higher requirement for anyone to be able to join them, because in contrast the NCR just accepts anyone, while the Legion don't just accept any schmuck. But how is that less natural?

And with that said, it's not even that much harder to join the Legion. If anything, it's quite easy.

For a game all about freedom of choice, making one option far more effort is a bad move which sours the experience IMO.

There's always gonna be a faction or factions that are harder to join, that's just the nature of factions having different standards. If anything, all factions having the same requirement to join would make no logical sense.


Also, the entire point of New Vegas is to choose which faction you believe will best lead the Mojave to a better future. It's not about which one is the easiest to join.

Because the initial game has very little contact with the legion, and if you're looking to survive & make allies they don't figure as an option until you've moseyed on through a significant amount of places.

Everything felt very heavily weighted in favour of the NCR to me.

 

[CappenVarra]

if you play Twitcher 3 after playing Twitcher 2, i'm sorry john but you are the wank

 

[rusty_shackleford]

your first encounter with the legion is them burning a town to the ground and threatening to nail you to a cross
the game clearly doesn't want you to ally with them

 

[Funkified Chicken]

Oblivion and Skyrim suffer from this as well. The story explicitly demands a sense of urgency and immediate action. In practice, there are no gameplay constraints or negative repercussions to enforce it. Fallout 1 had a restraint at least, even if it was very lax. With the water merchant supply, I could do all the side content and get BoS stat boosters with about four weeks to spare by the time I handed in the water purification chip.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Goodsprings: A bunch of armed NCR convicts murdered almost an entire caravan and are now preparing to murder the locals for sheltering the sole survivor of the attack. Where's the NCR?

Sloan: NCR workers look for an indenpendent mercenary to clean up NCR quarry, currently overrun by deathclaws because NCR convicts have stolen NCR dynamite.

NCR CF: NCR convicts occupy NCR prison after murdering every member of the prison staff.

Primm: City overrun by NCR convicts, NCR soldiers are holding their positions across the road because they don't have manpower to clean up the city.

Mojave Outpost: They don't have the manpower to clean up ants on the major caravan route or check up on the smoke coming from the nearby city.

Nipton: NCR didn't know about Nipton harboring eacaped convicts. Legion managed to kill a dozen of their soldiers, Powder Gangers and an entire city.

Novac: The only NCR soldier around here is a cripple. Legion takes out an entire Ranger Station, booby traps the place and takes a prisoner.

Camp Searchlight: Entire base destroyed and contaminated by 2 Legion saboteurs.

Nelson: NCR soldiers killed in their sleep by the Legion. NCR can't get close enough to mercy kill their crucified troopers.

Camp Forlorn Hope: Supply lines cut by the Legion, morale way down.

Bitter Springs: NCR accidentally massacred a bunch of non-combatants, currently they can't deal with a lone Khan sniper or get supplies for their troopers and refugees.

Camp McCarran: quartermaster steals supplies, Legion spy has an access to their top secret documents and plans to blow up monorail, they can't deal with a bunch of crazy junkies

And all of these are set-ups for the Courier to do his thing and help NCR, thus, being allowed to join as a hero. What would the player do if NCR is doing fine and doesn't need any help?

 

[mondblut]

If the story is getting in the way of exploring the game at whatever pace you feel like it, fuck the story.

"Urgency" my ass. The only urgency permitted while playing a good game is the urgency to get to the toilet while being unable to take a break from playing.