The Legend Of Zelda - General Thread

I only played Bot W for a few hours but from what I played I honestly had very little trouble with the breakable weapons. The game gives you so many of them that it's essentially a non-issue.

I can see why you'd get annoyed as you can get attached to a particular weapon and having them break is a pain

The fact it throws so many weapons at you just brings up the question why the mechanic is there in the first place, if not to waste your time in menus.

x3 Same on that front.

Plus I definitely felt a sense of natural progression through the exploration and slowly strengthening your arsenal. But I pretty thoroughly explored each area for shrines and things too.

Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay? Well, sure, weapons don't break that fast, but weapons aren't immortal the way most games treat them. Plus to discourage you from just using one overly powerful weapon all the time, and use a more diverse arsenal for stuff.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 5th 2019 at 1:23:45 AM

Or you fear wasting a good weapon too early and then meeting an enemy it would have been perfect for.

That one is always an issue with me to be honest.

I do think the Breakable weapons thing needs to go to be honest.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Feb 5th 2019 at 2:25:47 AM

To force you to use different weapons and think strategically about how you use them, I imagine.

Of course I'm not saying that they needed breakable weapons to do that. I just personally thought it wasn't a big deal.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 5th 2019 at 5:27:12 AM

Reminds me of System Shock 2 where weapons would frequently break,as a horror game it was a good way of keeping the tension up but even the devs admitted the rate of decay was too high

Blaming the lack of variation in dungeon aesthetics on non-linearity strikes me as unfair. Like, yeah, that's a problem BOTW had, but it's also a 100% fixable problem, and would be regardless of how linear the game was.

It's especially unfair when ALBW was also nonlinear and had perfectly fine dungeons aside from the difficulty being too easy for some players.

x6 Realistic =/= good for gameplay.

There are other ways to encourage the player to try out different things.

x2 I was thinking more about the samey-ness of all the shrines.

To each their own. I thought Breath of the Wild's Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay was refreshing and a nice change of pace. It made the world feel more alive and consistent, like an actual place rather than a clearly created/designed level. It rewarded thinking outside of the box and experimentation, rather than the usual one (or maybe two, but rarely) solution to each puzzle/encounter.

Except climbing in the rain. That can go screw itself. That's the only thing that tips into frustration because of the realism imo.

And I can't really think of any way of gating off overusing powerful weapons except literally taking them away from you or locking you away from using them...which breaking weapons does. Unless you were going to give enemies complete immunities to certain weapons, and you'd have to be extra careful with that to avoid making one weapon or weapon type much less useful/much less good than the others, etc. Would cause more issues with balance than the breaking system.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 5th 2019 at 4:27:28 AM

Breakable weapons had nothing to do with realism. It was a very conscious design decision to justify a constant flow of loot and ensure you could go anywhere from the beginning without then trivializing the rest of the game.

There's a quest that involves lighting a bunch of torches with blue fire, so you can take said blue fire back to a tech lab. When I was in the middle of all that, it started raining and I couldn't light any torches for about half an in game day.

Also, to get to through the Lost Woods you have to use a torch. You can't just light a wooden weapon on fire and follow the embers. It absolutely must be a torch or that effect does not work, which I did not know, thus I spent way longer than is necessary trying to get through those woods.

Edited by WillKeaton on Feb 5th 2019 at 7:47:06 AM

Regarding items in dungeons, I think a good balance between the old and new would be items that let you do things you can do already, but more easily. For example, you can already start fires with fire arrows or fire weapons or flint, but you could find a rune that just lets you start a fire for free, no consumables needed. Or a grappling hook to let you climb in the rain.

Those could be neat too.

On an unrelated note, as someone who 100%'d Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U (including DLC) but skipped the 3DS version, is it worth getting the Definitive Edition? Part of me wants to check out the new maps and content ported in from the 3DS version, but I'm dreading the idea of grinding for materials/levels again (especially without the Rupee underflow glitch) and I never wanted to see Cucco's Fury again after I finally cleared it.

Well, I didn't finish the Wii U version.

Not even close. I think I ended up playing maybe 80-100 hours?

And I kind of regret getting the Switch version, since I only ended up playing about 20 hours worth of it.

This isn't a co-op game or a game where you're competing against other players. I find it ridiculous that developers try to limit how powerful players are in single player games/campaigns. If a player wants to be overpowered, let them. It hurts nobody to let a player be overpowered if they want. Co-op and competitive games make sense to be balanced that way because you're playing with others but in single player games? The practice of gating off powerful weapons/items for balance reasons and not plot reasons needs to die.

I just hate being given a cool Gerudian scimitar, only to never use it because it might break when I truly need it.

x2 Well, it's kinda missing the point of the game to be so overpowered that you instantly breeze through any and all challenge that the game throws at you, isn't it? At that point, what's the point of playing a game at all? That's poor design, and games without challenge don't tend to have much staying power. It's a delicate balance, sure, and you can easily get games that a lot of people find too difficult to continue playing, but then there are games that are far too easy that they're just not interesting.

If you want the story, you can just look up the cutscenes or what have you online.

It's not really an experience when you just...win, with nobody and nothing putting up any resistance. Part of the fun of gaming is feeling accomplished when you adapt to a strategy, or work with limited resources, what have you. That's why things like "post your accomplishments in video games," and harder modes exist in the first place. Sure, you feel like a badass playing games that let you mow down hordes of enemies with no effort like a Warriors game, but...if games were always nothing but "you win just by existing" then...yeah, not much fun for very long at all.

I think a lot of the satisfaction in playing a game (as opposed to passively watching a film or television show or reading a book) is working to overcome the challenges set up for you. Games that make you adapt, think, and strategize meaningfully are the height of that mentality.

Isn't that what self-imposed challenges were made for?

Self Imposed Challenges are created by players to function alongside challenges designed by game developers, using mechanics and challenges already created and put in place by the developers. One can't have a game devoid of any and all challenge by design all the time, unless one is working from a completely blank slate. If that was the case, then everyone would by necessity have to be a game developer to get any sort of staying power/challenge out of any game.

edit: Now that I think about, Self-Imposed Challenges also exist because of peoples' need to feel challenged and want to overcome obstacles put in their place, to the point where they're willing to create new obstacles/change certain obstacles to feel that sense of accomplishment.

I feel like I'm rambling now but what I'm saying is that balanced design is necessary for games as a whole to have staying power and fulfill their niche as well as provide a meaningful experience to the player.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 6th 2019 at 9:00:42 AM

I can understand making games where you're playing with others balanced because if they aren't then you run the risk of the game losing its fun in co-op or competitive modes but for single player games/campaigns? Unless the game absolutely requires the player to strengthen their character for the sake of the plot or gameplay it should be the player's choice how they play. Those who want to be overpowered and play through with no effort should be able to while those who would prefer a challenge should be able to have that as well.

Like there are ways this can work. Obviously a player shouldn't just be handed the strongest weapons but if they're able to get their hands on it, let them use it. Don't make them break or limit their use. If a player is able to obtain a hard to get, powerful weapon their reward should be the ability to use that weapon as they see fit.

Just because you like poorly-designed games does not mean that developers are obligated to do a half-assed job making them fun to play for everyone else.

x2 It's all part of the genre and game style. If you're playing a survival game or even a game with survival elements, resource management is just part of the package and feel the game is going for. Of course you don't have to like it, but that's kinda what you sign up for if you're playing a survival/survival-based RPG/RPG with survival elements.

That's like complaining about spells costing resources or having cooldowns in RPGs or MOBAs. It's...sort of just the deal. The object of the game is to use your spells strategically and when they're most effective. Using things willy-nilly without thought, or missing/mistiming your abilities is punished. That's the challenge to overcome.

There are games that are for the more relaxed gaming crowd, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it would ultimately hurt games more than help by giving players the tools to trivialize the entire game without any drawbacks or restraints. If you want to be able to beat everything without trying, why don't you just hack the game and turn god mode on?

I'm fine with having strong things in games (moreso if you have to earn them rather than if they're just given to you), but when you're at the point where you're literally breezing through every obstacle, you're not really playing the game anymore. You're just...moving from setpiece to setpiece until the levels stop. I fail to see the draw or point of that other than just eating time.

Edited by ILikeRobots on Feb 6th 2019 at 10:09:59 AM

Dark Souls is not the same game if it were easy. The difficulty of Dark Souls is integral to its identity, and to take that away means taking away part of the message of Dark Souls and what it means for video game design.