The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

OrangeRKN wrote:Apart from that fact that such a damage difference is highly exaggerated, it's fine to save your best weapon for when you need it. You could completely reverse that statement by pointing out it's encouraging experimentation with your other weapons rather than you just sticking to the flaming spear.

I think there is something to say for the player needing to break the mentality of not wanting to use their best stuff though (the classic RPG consumable item trap). Everything in BOTW is there to be consumed and you need to not worry about losing weapons because you're always going to get more.

It's not exaggerated as that was happening to me for a while, I wrote a post asking if it was because I was wearing low level armour and people said that your armour doesn't influence the enemy types. Again I don't want to make it out as being a massive problem but at the same time it don't understand why it's considered revaltionary when one minute the game is amazing because of player choice and tackling things how you want but when taking about the weapon degradation you're forced to play a certain way.

Tafdolphin wrote:The best thing about him is the way I found him: someone told me. It didn't mark anything on the map, I didn't get a new quest, someone gave me a location in a conversation which I screenshotted. I then followed the directions and voila, there he was.

I'll agree that it is rewarding when this happens and having to take a screenshot maybe makes it feel more personal but this is akin to people saying that you should take notes in Hollow Knight. It's it really that bad for the game to acknowledge and record something about the conversation. Just telling the player nothing seems a really easy way to get praise on the internet these days. I wonder if people would have preferred Doom or Batman AA if you had to find all the secrets rather than being helped by a map?

Hime wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:The best thing about him is the way I found him: someone told me. It didn't mark anything on the map, I didn't get a new quest, someone gave me a location in a conversation which I screenshotted. I then followed the directions and voila, there he was.

I'll agree that it is rewarding when this happens and having to take a screenshot maybe makes it feel more personal but this is akin to people saying that you should take notes in Hollow Knight. It's it really that bad for the game to acknowledge and record something about the conversation. Just telling the player nothing seems a really easy way to get praise on the internet these days. I wonder if people would have preferred Doom or Batman AA if you had to find all the secrets rather than being helped by a map?

Well no because taking X mechanic from Y system and melding it into game Z makes no sense. Zelda was built around this sort of emergent encounter and therefore they work within that framework. For example, each and every inn has a recipe on the wall. Does the game let you store them anywhere or notice that you've read them? No. Does it really matter? No, it's just another little addition to a system that works perfectly well without it. These little moments are the equivalent of easter eggs in other games (which are rarely added to ingame maps) but they're easter eggs that, rather than being an in-joke or a reference, enhance the experience of being in that world.

I'll be the first to admit I found Hollow Night annoying with its tendency to do something similar, but that related to actually progressing the game. Here, every piece of information that emerges naturally through chance encounters is a bonus, something to aid you, or a place of interest... almost always something utterly delightful and surprising. You don't need to happen upon the correct random NPC to figure out where the next Great Beast is as they're labelled from the start.

Similarly, I do understand it's not everyone bag. My brother in law hates it, thinks it's boring and instead immersed himself in the more guided world of Xenoblade. I understand. Also, the game is by no means perfect...it does tend to rain too often in certain areas and strangely enough I do sort of wish there was a recipe book. But the various systems it employs and the ways they interact with each other mean I still find it almost unbelievably rewarding to play.

Different strokes.

Hime wrote:Again I don't want to make it out as being a massive problem but at the same time it don't understand why it's considered revaltionary when one minute the game is amazing because of player choice and tackling things how you want but when taking about the weapon degradation you're forced to play a certain way.

I don't agree with the assertion that these things are contradictory or that weapon degradation is anti player choice. The game absolutely does let you tackle things in a multitude of ways, and is obviously designed that way. Practically the entire world is free to be explored in any order, almost all of the content is optional (including the divine beasts which again can be tackled in any order), and the player is left to experiment with the various systems and use them (or not) as they please. What the player can't choose are the underlying mechanics of the game itself - which seems obvious. I don't get the argument at all. It's the same as saying that the game lacks player choice because you can't turn the temperature system off, or even because you can't just give yourself 20 hearts or makes yourself no longer take damage. The game presents you with its mechanics and then leaves you free to do what you want with them - you just can't change them.

On the giant horse only being referenced in dialogue and not having a big quest marker or waypoint associated with it, that's good because it doesn't /need/ those things. If you pay attention to the dialogue then you will find the horse, and it is more rewarding for it because it is natural, more immersive, and respects the player to actually be self-motivated and go exploring.

On the other hand I think a recipe book would have been great because remembering all the recipes is not a reasonable expectation of the player, and the game's record would only come /after/ the player has already discovered the recipe. It becomes a ux problem at that point where you just want to easily make more of the same things.

It's kind of weird to reference new Doom because in the original Doom half the appeal was tonnes of secrets weren't mapped anywhere at all and it's common to "complete" a level with 0-6% of "secrets found" encouraging replayability. It was one of the first FPS games that encouraged exploration with non-linear maps and the key system to enter certain doors, not all of which were necessary to complete the level. Who wants secrets marked on a map? You can buy a guide or get one for free on the Internet for that.

That strikes me as "check off all the Pokemon-ism" which is about the dullest thing I can think of in a game. The only thing worse would be Animal Crossing with a list of progression through every item in the game. If that were something I wanted I would understand I don't enjoy games anymore I play them to waste time deliberately and receive no sense of discovery.

Just telling the player nothing seems a really easy way to get praise on the internet these days.

BotW is a remake of the original NES game which did exactly the same thing and was a large part of why it was successful.

There's a difference between on-screen prompts and icons telling you what to do explicitly and literally and actually using game design to develop the player's understanding of the mechanics, and then providing the player with a choice of how to use them.

For example, the vast majority of enemies I dispatch with arrows. There's no limit to how many arrows you can purchase unlike previous games and you can collect up the ones that don't hit the target. There's unlimited bombs as well. Every other enemy carries a bow that will shoot what 10, 20 arrows at a bare minimum (I'm talking the worst bows in the game like a boko bow).

If there is one specific way to play this game (which isn't true) then there certainly are specific ways to play other games such as RPGs built up over many decades which I find stale, claustrophobic, and mechanically boring. They provide you with hardly any options in for example combat, and many open world games are assimilating elements of that. Yes you can know what to expect but what's the fun in that?

If I did not want to play BotW because I felt forced to play in a particular way, I wouldn't play any games because most of them could make that impression with the most elementary engagement with its mechanics. I'd be better off with a cardbox box and marker pens which, well, by limitation that's sort of what BotW is.

But you can't stick with the weapon you have chosen and are literally forced to use to something you might not like. Other games give the player the option to pick the weapons they want to use and play in any style they like. I don't understand how you can't see that having the weapon degradation system fly's in the face of player choice as you are forced to change weapons, saying you can do what you want within the confines of the games mechanics is true of every game. Again, I'm not saying that it ruined my experience or anything, just that I cannot understand how it can be viewed as a genre changing mechanic.

I think that's a little unfair as the original NES game was made with massive limitations and is largely regarded as unplayable today. I do understand how much more rewarding it is playing a game and making these discoveries on your own but why can't these games respect the players time a bit more, games like Doom might tell you where something is located but it's still up to the player to figure out how to get there which for me is the sweet spot between guidance and player discovery. Not that Zelda is doing the 'don't tell a player anything' for maximum internet kudos thing as Taf pretty much nailed it by saying the horse thing is a nice Easter egg. I'm occasionally guilty of not paying attention to NPC dialogue in games like this that have almost no story so there is a reasonable chance that I would miss it. So with regards to Zelda I'll admit this isn't the same thing I have an issue with games like Hollow Knight that a corner of the internet has wanked itself dry over just because the game doesn't tell the player anything.

As for the combat options being so diverse, in Assassin's Creed Odyssey you can snipe enemies, open animal cages, sneak in and take everyone out, poison people to turn them against your enemies, ride in horse back like a maniac, set fire to people, etc. There's more combat options I can't remember and loads of other games with just as many so I'm not sure what games you're playing that Zelda's options of ranged weapon, melee weapon, item and the occasional environment option make it seem head and shoulders above other third person action games. I realise that this is being a bit reductive and you can't just break down the different mechanics of a game to say why they are good or bad, open world games especially. I just can't understand how you can say the combat options in Zelda are so much better than other games when it's more or less on par with the industry standard.

You're final comment about the game essentially being an empty palette for the player to create and why that is a good thing probably shows our different tastes, I know that you're a very creative person and would make something cool where as I would a colour by numbers guide to even make a start. The only thing that makes me think I'm not totally against this style is that I loved A Link Between Worlds which had the freedom of choice while remaining very much a Zelda game. That game gave me the feels and for me is very much a 10/10. BOTW is a game liked a lot, at times loved but I go between it being an 8 or a 9.

There are a couple of conflations there that I didn't say, for example I don't think Zelda has more combat options than assassins creed (only one of the games of which I've barely played) I don't even agree that it's a particularly revolutionary game and think the weapon degredation certainly isn't, it's clearly been one of the most divisive elements in the series history (other than the swathes of people that just don't get Zelda games and don't say anything); it looks like you're banding some of posters here that don't mind some aspects of the game together. Apologies if it seems like an onslaught; there's obviously something very endearing about this game that comes largely down to how it is connecting with the player.

About the favourite weapon thing, I like how the game challenges you to use different things but I frequently have 3 or more of my favourite weapon, my go to is the Royal broadsword. As you progress through the game all the enemies tend to have stronger weapons at encampments so it stays challenging (black and silver bokoblins and red, yellow, purple, silver etc lizalfos) and you can replenish most things.

I have about 3 or 4 weapons I use about 90% of the time. I found this to be the case about 30 or 40 hours into the game at least, perhaps I have been playing for so long I've lost track but it never made me sad at all. And I also went the distance I probably shouldn't have and collected higher end weapons than probably intended.

It's also kind of funny brer came into the thread to vent because both being fans of dark souls he probably could have just gone straight to hyrule castle after a few hours, beasted all the enemies with dodging and a few good weapons picked up from the castle or surrounding fields, defeated Ganon and then turned off the game.

Guardians are such twats Took me about fifteen minutes to get up the Central tower because there's like three patrolling around it who kept knocking me off with their silly lasers.

Tried to eat some of the 5 Ironshroom meal that hikes up your defense and they still did exactly the same amount of damage to me. Do the lasers get around the defense bonuses?

Got to the top just as it started raining, too. Would have been furious if it started raining before I'd managed to get up there

Frank wrote:Guardians are such twats Took me about fifteen minutes to get up the Central tower because there's like three patrolling around it who kept knocking me off with their silly lasers.

Tried to eat some of the 5 Ironshroom meal that hikes up your defense and they still did exactly the same amount of damage to me. Do the lasers get around the defense bonuses?

Got to the top just as it started raining, too. Would have been furious if it started raining before I'd managed to get up there

They are just really strawberry floating powerful, however there are ways you can deal with them that when done feels proper badass.

But with or without the defense booster it still took four hearts off me. I still don't quite understand how the whole damage/defense system works.

Frank wrote:But with or without the defense booster it still took four hearts off me. I still don't quite understand how the whole damage/defense system works.

The game will protect against you getting one shotted if you're at full health (usually at least, there might be exceptions).

Frank wrote:But with or without the defense booster it still took four hearts off me. I still don't quite understand how the whole damage/defense system works.

Best I worked out is most stuff won't one shot you but some stuff will, especially if they are using certain types of weapons.

Guardians are very hard and are meant to be, however there is a very good way to attack them that will beat them pretty quickly all he it with some risk.

It was sort of covered in the tutorial shrines (I think) with a mini guardian robot fella and a sword, using your shield.

OldSoulCyborg wrote:

Frank wrote:But with or without the defense booster it still took four hearts off me. I still don't quite understand how the whole damage/defense system works.

The game will protect against you getting one shotted if you're at full health (usually at least, there might be exceptions).

That might be it! I'd forgotten about that.

I'm okay with the mini guardians in the shrines but the big ones with their like 1500HP can chuff right off. At least for now.

Find a way to use your shield against them.

Done right a pot lid is dangerous to them.

Use cover or anything for that matter to break line of sight, take those ones on one at a time, either parry the laser (hard) or stun them with an arrow to the eye.

twitter.com/itsagh/status/998112720183422977

It's hard to find cover (or use your shield) when you're climbing up a tower

Thanks for the tactics chat though Will be brave and try and take one out soon enough

Youre not supposed to climb that with them around. Take one out at least and then you've got a face of the tower to cover you from the others at least.

Ad7 wrote:Use cover or anything for that matter to break line of sight, take those ones on one at a time, either parry the laser (hard) or stun them with an arrow to the eye.

twitter.com/itsagh/status/998112720183422977

I had no idea there was a parry mechanic in this game

Yup, climbing with them there is a very good way to die.

I didn't bother taking on the Guardians until relatively late on in the game at a point in which I had several Guardian Shields.

Errkal wrote:Yup, climbing with them there is a very good way to die.

As we discovered the other day though, there's no wrong way to play.

I leapt my way up there eventually.