Game skills
The_Potty_1
Member Posts: 436
Probably not what you think.
Baldur's gate is an example of a game which requires very little actual physical skill, no hair-trigger reflexes, no button mashing or combos required. Ability checks come from a combination of a random roll, plus the innate ability of the character you are using. So if I try to pick a lock using my L40 thief, it will probably succeed, whereas a L2 cleric with 8 DEX can only smash it with a hammer. The challenge of the game is mental rather than physical.
Modern PC games often share code with the console version of the same game, and console games delight in button mashing, so thanks for that .NET framework
(
This matters to me mainly because it seems to me that my reflexes suddenly went to hell when I turned 34. This was a decade ago, and as a result I rather grumpily stopped multiplayer unreal tournament. I still play team fortress quite a lot, but .. well I go for classes that don't really have to aim much (engineer, pyro, heavy). Yeah, laugh away, if you're lucky this will happen to you too. If you're unlucky you'll be too dead to play games.
Anyway, my recent acquisitions netted me a whole lot of games that expect ME to be able to do stuff. Specifically Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout New vegas, & Tomb raider. I'm level 40 in Skyrim, mostly because I maxed out crafting, enchanting, and potion brewing, so I have unbelievable gear and potions coming out of my ears. Fallout I'm level 34 I think 14, just took out the deathclaw camp with about 100 armor piercing .308 bullets, and then I ran into a Legion ambush and got owned. To be fair Skyrim & Fallout both have tactical mods. Tomb raider was .. a mistake. No redeeming features at all.
On the other hand, the new Deus Ex mostly gave me loads of opportunities to sneak about, scope in, and take my time. Yes I hated the first boss fight, but after that, you knew to tailor your abilities to handle them. Mass effect 1&2 .. I dunno, perhaps they coded in 'close enough, lets call it a hit' shooting. The area effect ESP abilities helped too. The Witcher 1 also seems to be pretty forgiving.
I would have classed all of the Assassin's creeds in with the 'reflexes required' group, except I somehow managed to map the controls in my head, so the lag between deciding on an action and my fingers clicking the appropriate control is pretty small. This is not a punt of the AC controls, I hated them for weeks, but eventually they clicked. The reason I took weeks on a game I hated was because the locations and parkour blew my mind.
So anyway, I'm hoping for some suggestions of modern RPG games that rely on mental rather than physical skill? Because that's probably going to go next, and then I'll have to try candy crush saga.
Baldur's gate is an example of a game which requires very little actual physical skill, no hair-trigger reflexes, no button mashing or combos required. Ability checks come from a combination of a random roll, plus the innate ability of the character you are using. So if I try to pick a lock using my L40 thief, it will probably succeed, whereas a L2 cleric with 8 DEX can only smash it with a hammer. The challenge of the game is mental rather than physical.
Modern PC games often share code with the console version of the same game, and console games delight in button mashing, so thanks for that .NET framework
(This matters to me mainly because it seems to me that my reflexes suddenly went to hell when I turned 34. This was a decade ago, and as a result I rather grumpily stopped multiplayer unreal tournament. I still play team fortress quite a lot, but .. well I go for classes that don't really have to aim much (engineer, pyro, heavy). Yeah, laugh away, if you're lucky this will happen to you too. If you're unlucky you'll be too dead to play games.
Anyway, my recent acquisitions netted me a whole lot of games that expect ME to be able to do stuff. Specifically Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout New vegas, & Tomb raider. I'm level 40 in Skyrim, mostly because I maxed out crafting, enchanting, and potion brewing, so I have unbelievable gear and potions coming out of my ears. Fallout I'm level 34 I think 14, just took out the deathclaw camp with about 100 armor piercing .308 bullets, and then I ran into a Legion ambush and got owned. To be fair Skyrim & Fallout both have tactical mods. Tomb raider was .. a mistake. No redeeming features at all.
On the other hand, the new Deus Ex mostly gave me loads of opportunities to sneak about, scope in, and take my time. Yes I hated the first boss fight, but after that, you knew to tailor your abilities to handle them. Mass effect 1&2 .. I dunno, perhaps they coded in 'close enough, lets call it a hit' shooting. The area effect ESP abilities helped too. The Witcher 1 also seems to be pretty forgiving.
I would have classed all of the Assassin's creeds in with the 'reflexes required' group, except I somehow managed to map the controls in my head, so the lag between deciding on an action and my fingers clicking the appropriate control is pretty small. This is not a punt of the AC controls, I hated them for weeks, but eventually they clicked. The reason I took weeks on a game I hated was because the locations and parkour blew my mind.
So anyway, I'm hoping for some suggestions of modern RPG games that rely on mental rather than physical skill? Because that's probably going to go next, and then I'll have to try candy crush saga.
Post edited by The_Potty_1 on
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Comments
P.S. I'm 55 and know exactly how you feel!
I see a problem brewing actually, because Myst drove me nuts
I think what I'm looking for is tactically challenging, so Baldur's gate is great, except I've played it so much over the last 15 years that I'm utterly sick of it. Well I'm importing a copy of Age of Pirates: City of abandoned ships, so when that arrives it should keep me happy for a while.
If you are looking for more of the fantasy genre there is older games like Temple of Elemental Evil, and the Age of Wonders series (espcially shadow magic)
Others are also right on the money with the XCOM games. Turn-based tactical RPG at its finest.
If you have a PSP, I highly recommend my favorite tactical RPG of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.
I would also recommend Civilization V and Sword of the Stars: The Pit.
XCOM: Enemy unknown, while an awesome game, isn't an RPG, so that may not be what the OP is after. It's still a very good game, though, and well worth checking out.
XCOM is a tactical RPG. It's right there in the name of the sub-genre.
I've been playing Civilization since 1993, 1 & 2 massively, 3 not much, 4 a fair bit, 5 probably never.
I actually have Dragon Age 1, but it needs me to make an Orion account, and my laptop has slowed down enough without installing extra bloatware.
Similarly I bought Dark souls prepare to die edition, and that needs a Microsoft live account and associated bloat. Plus GFWL no longer exists, so giving them a couple of months to sort themselves out seems sensible.
XCOM looks pretty cool, I gave it a whirl 20 years ago and was underwhelmed, but perhaps it's due a second chance
Legend of Grimrock also seems worth a look. Added to my steam wishlist.
I played Age of Wonders 2, and quite liked it. AoW3 was already on my steam wishlist.
Sword of the Stars: The Pit - Roguelikes are a bit too hard for my somewhat ADD approach to games. Nevertheless, this seems well done, and has a pretty interface that reminds me of FTL. Added to my steam wishlist.
Icewind Dale .. no-one has ever sung this games praises in my hearing before. It may be worth a whirl, because if PST is more roleplay-ey than BG, while IWD is more tactical, then perhaps I should grab IWD and steer well clear of PST (My preferences, not a slag off of PST).
I'm gonna class Temple of Elemental Evil along with IWD as a game I should grab off GOG at some point.
Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions - No PSP.
The best game ever released on the PSP.
Some other mind-focusing and not button-mashing games that popped into my mind:
- Jagged Alliance 2 (old, but great. get the unofficial patch)
- Shadowrun (new, great, cyberpunk, especially the DLC)
- Might and Magic X (new, pretty oldschool with strictly turn-based combat)
- Wizardry 8 (oldschool RPG, can get VERY hard)
- Might and Magic 7 and 8 (old games, good ones. Skip M&M 9)
+ if you don't mind digging for old gems, I present my all-time favourite hardcore RPG Albion
Definitely try Shadowrun Returns, as Southpaw suggests. Forgot about them. I don't have them yet, but my friend did a Let's Play series and I liked what I saw.
Icewind Dale is a good series. It's tough for me to play IWD1 these days, having been spoiled by BG2's extra race and kits, but IWD2 has a lot of races and the costumization of feats and a la carte multi-classing, so it's very easy to make a really unique party in the sequel. Easy there, champ. You're too late. I already called dibs on FFT being the best PSP game. =P
Better music, story, and gameplay, IMO. Objectively, it's a much deeper game with multiple storylines based on your decisions, which offers greater replay value. Add a complex but uncomplicated crafting system to the mix, and I see a better game. To each his or her own!
Crafting system? You win this round, jackjack... *letterbox glare*
has nobody said divinity original sin? i've heard good things about it and seen it on steam's top sellers list for a very long time, so I imagine I should pick it up myself. from what I understand that is a turn based combat RPG
Soul Calibur was more forgiving, most of the characters had useful combos that werent terrible, so I could do okay.
I have several games I never finished on consoles... Not terrible at most stuff, but I really am not a great button masher.
I boarded their admiral, a 'power bar' popped up, and I thought d'you know what would make this more fun? Mashing the B key. Or the F key. That would be great. This is soo boring. My troops down there are dying in glory or ignomity, and I'm up here contributing nothing at all. Perhaps I'll just mash a random key a bit in solidarity.
I eventually retried the fight with 2 frigates, and then 2 frigates and a carronade frigate, captured them all and only lost one frigate. Stupid darth mod. To be clear the mod is brilliant for land battles, but it utterly stuffs up sea battles.
Master of Orion 3 is best avoided unless you really like the reviews though, it is a very different game and I never found the 'fun'. (Second most disappointing game I ever bought, after a Sierra game that had a note in box that coding the AI of a competing player turned out to be too hard to complete in time, but they might release it after-market if sufficient copies of the (single player) game sold. In the days before internet patches were common, especially not in the UK. Last Sierra game I bought too.)
Stronghold Crusader was hellagood too, if you dont mind RTS.
Only button masher I really got into was Gladius.
Similarly with MOO2 - I played that a huge amount too. And the multiplayer option ensured that it was always challenging (although some race picks were just too strong).
As people have mentioned, MOO3 was a very different beast. I come back to it occasionally as theres something good buried deep within it, but it's very difficult to get to grips with.
I've been enjoying Divinity Original Sin over the last week or so. Tho I'd recommend a mod which increases run speed (I've got one which increases it by 30%). Doesn't affect combat at all which is turn based, but just means running around town isn't unbearably slow.
Iirc, King can usually be beaten if you use the ol' Despotism horde strategy. This is pretty idiotproof on lower levels, but you cant make any mistakes on King, or have a crummy starting location.
Caravans are the key to getting wonders built quickly. Basically build as many as you can in your cities, then as soon as you get the key advancement, rush build the wonder with caravans.
As for expansion I generally expand fairly rapidly at the start, but once I meet other civilization I stop expanding and defend what I have. Phalanxes on hills at key chokepoints or in cities are very effective. Plus a few higher attack units to pick off their biggest attackers where needed. It's important to have a reasonable number of military units, even if they are fairly cheap - this discourages the AI from attacking.
For government it's despotism for a long time (3 free military units/city is amazing) then straight to democracy. And once you become a democracy you refuse to talk to other civilizations - if you don't talk to them then you can't be forced to make peace with them!
Enjoy micromanaging 8 characters in a turn based game in one of the most complex editions of DnD, 3.5E.
Considering this , and amongst the games I recently played , I recommend you Wolfenstein : The New Order. The game in storyline may be awful , that's for you to decide , but the FPS elements in the game what I found out is too easy and as well as satisfying and I finished the game in 1 day in Über difficulty , which is the game's word for highest. I was very hungry for a FPS , so if you choose not to rush to the end , it is below okay but sufficient in length.
The game has mental challenges a little , but they are proven to be good combined with a little adrenaline , if you play the game in dark and with headset.
For the mental challenges , I strongly advise not to look to any hints , tips and walkthroughs , and try to beat the levels and bosses.
I had fun , I sure hope you would too.