AggroChat #239 – Sticking the Ending

Featuring:  Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

aggrochat239

Tonight we have a bunch of not entirely related topics, but there is at least a minor theme of how you end something is extremely important.  Bel talks a bit about his experiences with the latest brand name beta in the form of Division 2. From there he also shares some frustrations with the way Assassin’s Creed Origins is ending which leads its way into a larger discussion about what makes a satisfying game ending.  We talk about what this means for passive media and how it might be different for interactive media. We then get into a discussion about progression systems and why fixed ones often times feel better than completely random ones. Finally we have some assorted digression about us looking forward to Anthem as a non-PVP mmo that somehow leads its way to FFXIV housing?

Topics Discussed:

  • Division 2
    • Military Fantasy Fallout but no Nukes
    • Worthy Successor to Original
  • Assassin’s Creed Origins
    • Great Game… But
    • Forced Character Swaps
    • End of Game Without “Your” Character
  • Satisfying Finales
    • Twist Endings
      • Mass Effect 3
    • Resolution Endings
      • Plot Twist Ending
      • Plot Twist at Beginning of Final Chapter
    • Fixed Length Shows
      • Anime
      • Babylon 5
      • Russian Doll
    • Revisiting Choices From Game in Ending
  • Fixed vs Random Progression Systems
    • Warframe Blueprint System
    • Destiny Random “Powerful Gear” Frustrations
    • Warframe Economy
  • Excitement over Non-PVP MMORPG
    • Anthem
    • Free PVP Gear from FFXIV Retainers
    • Lacking Money Sinks in FFXIV
    • House Reclamation

On Origin

Blaugust Post #20

The Multiplayer in Mass Effect 3 is very good. That almost makes up for the fact that Origin is intensely frustrating to deal with. We spent a larger amount of time on Thursday trying to get into the game than actually playing it, because a bug that’s been around for months is apparently not fixed, and hit me.

On Origin
Thanks, Thalen.

I understand it…

The oft-quoted number is that Steam takes a 30% cut of everything sold on their store. I’ve heard rumors that that number is no longer accurate, but even if it is, it’s understandable that companies might want a part of that slice of the pie back. EA was the first company I can think of the entirely break ties with Valve (which is kind of ironic after they published Portal 2 on consoles). Ubisoft followed with UPlay, but that seems to be less relevant as time goes on. EA actually has releases big enough that they can maintain Origin independently. They’ve actually done some things on Origin that I would say work better than Steam, as they had an actual functional return policy first, and their customer service is very good. I haven’t had to deal with Steam’s customer service, but from what I hear it’s generally pretty awful.

On Origin
If you say so.

…But I don’t have to like it

The actual origin client itself is pretty terrible. The in-game overlay had a nice UI, but it’s been broken for (apparently) several months. It’s allegedly fixed in the beta release, but not for me. (In addition, despite not working, having it enabled makes my game crash.) As mentioned, there’s also that issue with the friends list. Unfortunately, the only thing I can really do here is vote with my wallet, and while EA continues to make excellent games like this, I’m afraid I’m stuck voting for something I don’t like.

Kind of like a real election.

#Blaugust Day 21: On the Vanguard

Last night ended up being given over to Mass Effect 3; more specifically the multiplayer mode. I had never tried it before but hearing so many good things about it combined with Ash's recent foray back into the games led to me joining him, Tamrielo, and Kodra for a couple of matches.

Well, I say the night was given over to Mass Effect; most of that time was spent wrestling with the unwieldy beast that is Origin. I had to download the game, and for some reason Origin refused to acknowledge that Ashgar and Tam were friends, so they couldn't invite each other into a game. It took awhile but we finally got it straightened out and could actually play. It didn't enhance my opinion of Origin any, however.

#Blaugust Day 21: On the Vanguard
It's not just me, right? You see it too?

Once we were in I was presented with a bunch of classes. I figured Soldier would be a safe middle of the road bet and started out with that. The first mission went okay for the first waves, but then we let ourselves get a little too split up and died one by one on the sixth. I was trying to snipe, but I had trouble finding good sight lines. Still, it was fun, and I got enough experience to hit level 3.
Between missions I decided to see if I had enough credits to buy anything in the store. I didn't, but I did have some free boxes to open; presumably from DLC or something? From one I got a very nice assault rifle, and from the last I pulled a Cabal Vanguard unlock. That immediately raised my Vanguard class to 8, so I decided to try it out in the next mission. Skimming its powers gave me the impression it was meant to be a close range class, so I equipped a shotgun and my new assault rifle and off we went.

#Blaugust Day 21: On the Vanguard


The second mission went a lot more cleanly than the first. People went down a few times but got healed, and it started to look dodgy on the retrieval wave we got when two of us went down and stayed down. We made it through though and the remainder of the mission went nice and smooth. Between the Vanguard's teleport, the shotgun, and a paralyzing blade power I felt like it contributed a lot more the second time around.

Overall, it was a fun night that reminded me that multiplayer FPS games can be a lot fun with the right teammates. I'm looking forward to playing more.

On Class Selection

Blaugust Post #12

Q: You can excise one class from every future game. Which? Why?

A: Warrior. Replace with something more interesting than ‘guy who hits people with sharp objects’.

Thalen wrote the above this morning, and it inspired this post. A while back, the developers of Mass Effect revealed various statistics about how people play their games. (Some spoilers for ME3 at that link.) It turns out that a very large number of people play the game as the basic Soldier, which was somewhat disappointing to me. In a game that has 6 class options with varying unique abilities, the one that “just shoots people” struck me as utterly boring. It remains one of two classes I haven’t played a Mass Effect game as (at least single-player).

Unexpected Brilliance

Mass Effect 3 wasn’t just a single player game; it has one of the best multiplayer experiences I’ve ever played. It wasn’t quite so good at launch, but by the time I actually got into the game a year later, they’d added so much to the multiplayer that it was nearly unrecognizable. You have the same selection of classes from the main game, with a stripped down selection of abilities at the start (and honestly I don’t think I like most of the starting ability sets). What later patches brought was the ability to unlock additional characters with varied power sets. They’re still divided into Soldier, Engineer, etc., but some of them are different races with different strengths and weaknesses, and even the human unlockables tend to be pretty non-standard. The differences are pretty extreme in some cases, with the N7 Shadow infiltrator having a shadowstep and being more about murder with a sword than a sniper rifle (although it can do that too).

This brings me to my earlier point: Some of the soldiers in the multiplayer bring variety and interest to what would otherwise be the most boring class. (They’re still the class about shooting things.) There are two variations on slow, unstoppable powerhouse types in the Geth Juggernaut and the N7 Destroyer. The Juggernaut is large and slow with well above average health and shields, but comes with an immunity to instant kills and the highly damaging Siege Pulse power . The Destroyer is a mobile weapons platform, with the ability to slow its own movement in tradeoff for increased damage and accuracy, while also launching homing missiles at things that come too close. At the other end of the spectrum is the jetpack-equipped Turian Havok, capable of using its stimulant pack ability to run around the battlefield faster than any class that can’t teleport (i.e. the aforementioned Shadow and almost all of the Vanguards).

Lessons to Learn

I feel like certain other games are learning from examples like this. D&D5 comes to mind immediately, with subclass-like options for all of the base classes. Even Fighters get in on the game, with options I’m going to call “Standard”, “Battlemages are fun”, and “I liked 4e’s Warlord”. (On a semi-related note, there are a bunch of ways to make a character that can both hit things and cast spells, which one is primary mostly depends on what class you’re using to start.) I’d kind of like it if other games could use a bit of this, and make the “basics” not always so basic.