Scarlet Gaming

Despite that title up there, I’m not going to be talking about art style today. No no, we’re going to be looking at combat and how it affects the players, using various games. The art of combat is a delicate one; if the combat is too samey, then no one will want to play because of a grind. If it’s too different, you run the risk of alienating people because of the overall systems are just too unfamiliar. Now, there are more than a few ways around this problem…

World of Warcraft has a combat system driven entirely by numbers. No matter what, there are just somethings you can not affect in combat, and player skill required drops. Dodges and traps become harder to do because of it, but by giving a massive variety of skills, you can simulate a more real-time combat system. Player skill required starts sliding back up because of the niche use of skills in PvP and PvE, giving the combat a bit more life. The original problem remains though, that there will always be a mathematically superior way, and for some of those classes it will just involved mashing a couple of buttons forever.

On the other side of the spectrum we find games like Monster Hunter, where combat is almost entirely driven by player skill rather than numbers of ‘hit chance’ or gear benefits. Weapons have a set amount of moves that the player can do, and it becomes the players job to learn the most effective way to chain those skills on whatever monster they happen to be facing to maximize damage. Downside is, without the ability to ever do more, some players can become bored. Monster Hunter mitigates this by having every weapon be different forcing players to adapt and change styles once switching over.
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So, I’m back and not dead. Or undead, sadly. Either makes a terrifying contribution to the world. Anyways, this weekend was the annual Anime Weekend Atlanta convention that my friend and I always go to. The plan was, leave early Thursday and enjoy all three days of the weekend at the con, while I write up a nice little intro to TERA Online on Thursday night.

As you probably noticed, there was no post Thursday.

Turns out, my friend forgot to get us a room with wifi.

So yeah… sorry about that one. Without it we couldn’t really do much (besides write an article so poorly written I’d have to start over again and double-fact-check), and the con kept us going until we came back to the hotel and passed out day after day. So, this week I’m hoping to get into TERA finally. If you don’t know what it is, you’re about to find out. If you do, goody, you know whats coming. Until then, I think I’m going to crash and burn for a short while, letting me regain a little of what the con took from me. As a trade, I bring ponies back for you.

(Warning: Language)

Hey people! DDdreamer back again! This time I’m gonna rant a little about one aspect of game design that keeps nagging me: the outright stupid armour designs that seems to plague every game with even the slightest hint of fantasy in it. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Well, feast your eyes on this:

Armour made to unprotect. How counterintuitive is that?

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So, if you’re a gamer that has lived anywhere but under a rock these past six months, you know of the latest addition to the ever-popular Elder Scrolls series: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. With Skyrim, Bethesda made some changes to the main mechanics from Oblivion, removing some things, combining some things, changing some things…all in the name of ”streamlining”.

Now, streamlining is mostly a good thing since it involves getting rid of unecessary extras. However, many Elder Scroll fans have
expressed disappointment at the Skyrim mechanics, saying that Bethesda’s streamlining went too far. So now I’m gonna have a look at the new stuff and share my opinions on them.

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