Board 8 > Nintendo Direct 2/9 2PM PST

(+) Yeah! (+)

So you don't want to do optional content to access optional reward?

https://mobile.twitter.com/retroamnesiapod/status/1491591739391594496

It begins

Cant believe they didnt announce theyre adding Carby to MK8. It wouldve been such a good move.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

So you don't want to do optional content to access optional reward?

I don't know what point you think you're making using the socratic method, but it's not working

the point being made is obvious and understandable: if a game locks progression (via items, levels, skills, etc) behind bad gameplay it doesn't matter if it's optional or not.

I'd certainly say XB1 would've been a better game with half the sidequests and twice the effort put into them.

colliding posted...

I don't know what point you think you're making using the socratic method, but it's not working

the point being made is obvious and understandable: if a game locks progression (via items, levels, skills, etc) behind bad gameplay it doesn't matter if it's optional or not.

I dont know what point you think you're making, but it's not working.

The point being made is obvious and understandable: if a game locks an optional reward unnecessary to enjoying the base game behind optional content, it doesn't matter if you want to do it or not.

Imagine not playing FF7 because you couldn't unlock Vincent without doing his quest.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Imagine not playing FF7 because you couldn't unlock Vincent without doing his quest.

If the quest was really boring and time consuming, then yes, this would be a valid position to take

It's a valid reason to write off the entire game?

The metaphor would be more apt if I said "imagine not playing ffx because you can't fully unlock tidus's ultimate weapon without doing chocobo racing".

HanOfTheNekos posted...

It's a valid reason to write off the entire game?

not for me personally, but I think it's fine if someone makes that call

if you're completionist minded and the game locks a bunch of optional but interesting content behind really mind-numbing gameplay, it makes playing the game feel bad. it's honestly preferable that some of that stuff "not be there" than to know it exists but you have to waste a bunch of time to get there.

Completionism is a disease

Change my mind

The quests that have the branch unlocks have fun little stories imo, I dunno

disease is a little strong, but I'm definitely glad that I've grown out of that mindset somewhat as I've gotten older

there was a time in my life where, for example, knowing that I had missed my chance for ultimate weapons due to opening some random chests threw me into a violent rage

My sidequests tolerance has a dividing line.

If it's just to make the numbers go up then it's irrelevant to me and I don't count it against the game (unless the game is balanced in a way where not doing them is going or make it impossibly difficult).

If there's actual story content locked behind sidequests and those sidequests are bad, then I consider it an enormous detriment to the game.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

The metaphor would be more apt if I said "imagine not playing ffx because you can't fully unlock tidus's ultimate weapon without doing chocobo racing".

I would much rather have something be ridiculously hard than ridiculously long and boring. At least lightning strikes required effort. XB1's had at least 20 hours of me mindlessly watching something while my dude wailed on random monsters that couldn't scratch me

masterplum posted...

I would much rather have something be ridiculously hard than ridiculously long and boring. At least lightning strikes required effort. XB1's had at least 20 hours of me mindlessly watching something while my dude wailed on random monsters that couldn't scratch me

Again - you could have just not done the part you didn't like.

Imagine preferring FFX's sidequests

KamikazePotato posted...

Completionism is a disease

Change my mind

I'm a completionist a good percentage of the time, and you're right.

People who aren't never seem to get that it's not as simple as just saying, "Well, if completing a game isn't fun, just don't do it!" If being a completionist in some game isn't very fun, it takes away from my overall enjoyment of the game as a whole and there's just no way around that.

That doesn't mean I want to do a completionist run of every game I play, but I'd like to always have the option without feeling like I'm forced to delve into tedium.

I am very much a completionist saying not to do it.

Yeah I tend to be a completionist but if completion just seems excessively tedious then I'll pass. For a recent example, getting every task done in Legends Arceus is just... no thank you.

Xenoblade has some really nice sidequests imo! B A N A Though yes there's a ton of them total.

I don't get why there's arguments here, people are of course allowed to play games how they like, and not want to play a game for any reason they feel, regardless of how trivial that reason may seem to someone else >_>

The important thing here is that Xenoblade 3 has no Yoshi boob lady so everybody wins.

Yoshi boob lady?

KamikazePotato posted...

Completionism is a disease

Change my mind

absolutely. i've barely "completed" any game in my life. Except for the mario 3d platformers, where i get all of the stars, the closest thing would be finishing the Pre-DLC Sword and Shield pokedex, but i mostly just traded back and forth with my friends to fill it out without actually owning all of them.

I basically just beat a game and then play any post-game or sidequest content that sounds interesting, and then just put it down. forcing myself to meet arbitrary achievements set by the developers would suck all the fun out of the game for me because they're usually just tedious.

There are some games where the experience was enhanced by "completionism" (I don't include things like bestiaries in this). Persona games, for example, I absolutely revel in doing a perfect run that gets me max social stats and all social links to cap. If I didn't have that goal I wouldn't have half the drive to play the games period.

On the opposite foot is FFX, which I just finished for the first time, I had absolutely no interest in any of the side content, and would have burned out if I engaged with any of it no question.

Xenoblade 1's sidequests are about as inoffensive as side content gets imo. Minor quests auto-complete without needing you to return to the quest giver and more important quests involve unique enemies, areas, or story lines. Mind you, I never did the post-game bonus bosses because that looked pretty tedious, but I had fun with just about everything else. Off the top of my head I can't think of a JRPG that does it better.

I gotta say the only side content issue I'm having so far is that I don't know how easy it's going to be to track this affinity stuff. There's no indication on the map screen or main screen as to whether you've even talked to an NPC before or not.

Also a quest giver disappeared literally 2 feet in front of me when it change from night to day which was pretty annoying!

andylt posted...

I don't get why there's arguments here, people are of course allowed to play games how they like, and not want to play a game for any reason they feel, regardless of how trivial that reason may seem to someone else >_>

Mostly because the conversation had developed with more people piping in.

People are free to not play a game for whatever reasons they want, but if someone is saying something that has questionable veracity, to the point of turning other people off (as we have seen in this topic), then it deserves to be clarified.

I dont care that plum didn't beat the game because he chose to burn himself out on side quests that he didn't enjoy when he didn't need to. I don't care much for plum as a gamer at all - he cheats at co-op board games. But when the narrative being spun is that the game is a slog because it's only boring side quests, then I can't help but want to set the record straight.

If the point being made is "the side quests aren't particularly important to do, but some are linked to optional city builder. Ergo, if you want to complete all the stuff in the game, there will be tedium", then the conversation is different.

Awww they made a fake NES box for Earthbound Beginnings

As far as completionism goes, I think BotW is a great litmus test to see how far gone you are.

Did you feel compelled to find all 900 Koroks? You may have a problem

Jakyl25 posted...

Did you feel compelled to find all 900 Koroks? You may have a problem

Without using the Korok mask.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I gotta say the only side content issue I'm having so far is that I don't know how easy it's going to be to track this affinity stuff. There's no indication on the map screen or main screen as to whether you've even talked to an NPC before or not.

It is totally obnoxious and opaque, at least in the original Wii version. I can only hope they improved that. I only bothered raising affinity for an area or two that had pretty significant rewards for doing so (two optional Monado arts), and even then I would hesitate to say it's even worth bothering with that.

The thing about the "quests auto-complete so it's fine" excuse is that it downplays the sheer amount of busywork sidequests in the game. It's great QOL when you get to auto-complete sidequests doing things you would already do in the course of the main story, but eventually you pass that point and there are still so many sidequests to do. Especially when you factor in area affinity on top of it, it's an enormous pain.

I don't really hold it against the game, but I do have friends that have written the game off because they can't see sidequests and not complete all of them. And they'll put up with some shit - one of my friends completes the checklist in every Yakuza game. So I think when you include a bunch of stuff that in theory should cater to completionists, and then completionists think it sucks so much they won't play the game, then you have done some bad game design.

swordz9 posted...

Whats up with the Xenoblade 3 girl with the small bird wings on the back of her head? They look silly and theres no way those small things let her fly or anything. I dont think Ive ever seen anyone put wings on a characters head before.

Xenoblade 1 gives this quite a bit of an actual explanation

fun fact literally as soon as I finished first Xenoblade file 100% complete, I started my NG+ and 100% completed it again trying to pick different options this time

and then I did a 3rd hacked speedrun playthrough in 3 hours (with speed running & moon jump hacks) aww yeah

good times

HanOfTheNekos posted...

But when the narrative being spun is that the game is a slog because it's only boring side quests, then I can't help but want to set the record straight.

Yeah this is basically how I feel. X1's sidequest system has some issues, but the heart of the game is a strong narrative-driven focus. It's not like Skyrim or Majora's Mask where the side quests are the point.

The funny thing is that XC2 took all of the fetch quests from the first game and tied them into the upgrade system for blades but nobody ever really brings that up. I mean XC2 had shitty fetch quests too but you literally can't power up your blades without going to a certain area and killing 10 flopnoofs or whatever. Maybe it's not so offensive when the quest reward is giving your blade 5% more damage on an attack versus 5 potions.

Good luck for completionists if you ever decide to play XC2 though lol

Based on the number of people who quoted my statement from the direct, I think the number of people who played XB1 but not XB2 is significant enough to explain that lack of discussion, lol.

skullbone posted...

The funny thing is that XC2 took all of the fetch quests from the first game and tied them into the upgrade system for blades but nobody ever really brings that up. I mean XC2 had shitty fetch quests too but you literally can't power up your blades without going to a certain area and killing 10 flopnoofs or whatever. Maybe it's not so offensive when the quest reward is giving your blade 5% more damage on an attack versus 5 potions.

Most of the upgrades are things that happen incidentally, and you're really only using like 3 blades per character.

5 flopnoofs (never goes beyond 5 iirc) is not that big of a deal, and it typically becomes "while you're playing the game normally, have this blade be the second step when doing blade combos".

I never really found it to be an issue, since I could just level that stuff on the blades I wasn't using through the merc quests.

skullbone posted...

The funny thing is that XC2 took all of the fetch quests from the first game and tied them into the upgrade system for blades but nobody ever really brings that up. I mean XC2 had shitty fetch quests too but you literally can't power up your blades without going to a certain area and killing 10 flopnoofs or whatever. Maybe it's not so offensive when the quest reward is giving your blade 5% more damage on an attack versus 5 potions.

Good luck for completionists if you ever decide to play XC2 though lol

My guess is everyone who hated this in XC1 never played XC2.

XB2 is definitely grindier than 1 to get all the Blade stuff unlocked. The Blade quests are the best part of the game too, so it's a shame lots of people missed out on them.

once you get beyond their designs and the gacha stuff, the blade stuff in XBC2 is really strong imo. the quests, the combat, managing them, their roles in the story/setting etc.

Not only did I drop XB2 because it's not nearly as good as the first one, but I simply did not care about leveling each blade and just focused on the ones I actively used while exiling the rest to the idle game missions.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Not only did I drop XB2 because it's not nearly as good as the first one, but I simply did not care about leveling each blade and just focused on the ones I actively used while exiling the rest to the idle game missions.

You call them idle exiles, I call them Ursula's New Groove!

And we'll do what we can!

FWIW I hated the side quests in XC1 and I spent a lot of time (total playtime was 150+ hours I think) leveling up blades I never used in XC2. I'd go out of my way to hunt monsters to level up blades but I realized at one point that I was grinding toward a post game I wasn't really interested in so I just stopped.

But I also liked the plot/characters of 2 a lot more than 1 which definitely seems to be the minority opinion around here. Yes the female character designs of 2 are complete trash but everything else was better in 2 for me. And yes the blade quests are actual good side quests instead of the endless fetch quests in 1.

skullbone posted...

Yes the female character designs of 2 are complete trash

Brother do not defend this monstrosity.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/p__/images/5/57/Rex_Xenoblade2.png/revision/latest?cb=20180508123200&path-prefix=protagonist

swordz9 posted...

Yoshi boob lady?

One of the optional blades in XC2 has a bizarrely designed body which some noted resembles Yoshi

https://twitter.com/xbcellen/status/1335765213660864514

The only problem with Rex is his weird little shorts. Most characters in JRPGs look pretty stupid if you stop and analyze them so I don't really get hung up on stupid character designs honestly.

The shorts are the least of his problems, but on that note he doesn't have shorts, it's a damn bodysuit lol.

People get hung up on X2's outfits (which to be fair are also bad) when it's really the faces and bodily proportions that make them look bizarre. It's got that weeb aesthetic.

People are getting excited that changeable outfits could be back in XC3, based on how the clothes in the trailer and the clothes in the official artwork are different.