Yeah, PvP gaming is a very once-in-a-while itch for me. People are just too damn serious, and playing the same maps over and over is totally not what I like about gaming. And even coop stuff makes me feel uncomfortable if I’m not “pulling my weight” or whatever.
I really like “Drivatar” system in the new Forza games, though. You race against AI versions of other real people, and it does seem to legitimately feel more like racing against real opponents, but without the weird social neurosis that online gaming tends to give me.
Use in-game NPC assistance such as “pet” classes, summoned help, etc. I played through most of most of Borderlands as Mordecai barely using Bloodwing, haven’t used any of my Golden Path assistance tokens in Far Cry 4, Mage was one of the last classes I tried in Everquest (and never got into Necromancer), etc. I don’t what puts me off of it – maybe I feel like it’s micromanaging, but even a ‘pet’ like Bloodwing is essentially just another attack button. It’s not as though I need to direct his movements. I just never like playing that way though.
Copying others here, I never care about achievements. Maybe if they lead to an in-game reward like unlocking a weapon but I’ve only ever hit 100% on a single game and that game had two achievements.
Yes, but especially since the evil path often requires you to miss quests etc. In most games the experience isn’t as rich. Second playthroughs might get evil. I especially gravitate towards chaotic good. Messing with Morte is a lot more fun than always telling the truth. But even Planescape saves the best rewards for lawful good.
I play a lot of MMOs, for PvP, I’ve never liked the warzone/battleground type of fights. Where there is a game lore that the two sides have a genocidal hatred of one another, so apparently they wish to display this hatred through a series of capture-the-flag games strictly regulated to 10 vs 10 or whatever. If I do PvP at all, it’s in some sort of open-world setting where I’m actually going after some sort of lasting objective (like fort/relic fights in DAoC or Aion).
Along with the reluctance to use potions and other one-use items, abilities that have any sort of lengthy cooldown never seem to get used. 15-minute cooldown? May as well not be on my bar.
Potions, scrolls, wands, etc: anything that has a one-time use with a temporary effect.
At a young age, I was scarred by games that made it impossible to progress if you burned through too many of your consumable items too early. So ever since those early experiences, I am the consummate miser. I’ll restart and do it again, or spend an hour grinding, before I use up something that I can’t replace. As a result, I wind up at the end of the game with potions spilling out of every backpack and pocket and never do use them. Heck, sometimes my grinding has left me so powerful I don’t even need those consumables in the last half of the game.
It’s so bad that I’m virtually incapable of playing D&D-style wizards in pen and paper RPGs as well. I’m always thinking “Yeah, but what if I need that magic missile more on the next enemy?” I actually prefer wizard types in games with some sort of spell point system, but in D&D, you’ll always find me playing the warrior.
Also, if there’s an option between creating a fight-y character and a sneaky character, I’ll get bored of playing the sneaky guy after about five minutes.
I’ve never hooked up my Xbox or Xbox 360 to the internet.
Well, that is pretty bad-ass. But of course what can you build up in Skyrim that doesn’t turn you into a nigh-unstoppable murder machine?
Maybe not Merchantile, though I don’t mean to pump that up. It end up high anyway because I can’t make a rational decision that I have way more than enough money already.
Stealth on its own won’t get you far, since unlike Fallout there are no high explosives to sneak into people’s pockets. Of course, Stealth plus just about any weapon lets you chunk everybody while they’re busy scratching their heads wondering where the gigantic swinging hammer sound could possibly be coming from and whether it might could be related to Barry lying on the floor right here while his skull is over *there *in a million pieces. Ooh, there goes Lenny’s jaw. Strong winds tonight.
Speech is helpful for creating a truly broken Dovahkiin in a couple ways - First, leveling it up gets you perk points to spend on other skills (though I tend to spend them on Speech, anyway, because there is no such thing as too much money, or being too persuasive). Second, getting your buy and sell prices low and high respectively, as well as getting the Merchant and Fence perks to make unloading crap easier, makes it much easier to buy crafting materials, so you can break the everloving hell out of the crafting skills (an Alchemy/Enchanting loop), and make truly ridiculous gear - AND Legendary Smithing and Alchemy repeatedly so as to level up for Perks to spend on combat and stealth skills. (This process is easier when you have a fully upgraded Hearthfire house and thus have easy access to lots of storage and all three crafting stations, as well as some free respawning crafting materials.) Stealth skills other than Stealth itself are really only useful for getting perks if you’re trying to build a combat monster. (Though when you’ve broken Alchemy, reverse pickpocketing certain poisons can make for easy kills.)
Skyrim is a very easy game to break (thus there’s a ton of mods to unbreak it), and I enjoy doing so. >_>
I can’t remember what post first called it out, but PVP is a no-go for me.
I remember I used to try and do StarCraft or Warcraft 2 online and I was still making ogres when my base was attacked by a dragon and I could only think how in the hell are these people doing this?!? Soured me on it REAL fast.
I don’t even play the FPS games P2P anymore…just not worth it. I love the concept of team-based multiplayer though, which was why playing Mass Effect 3 on multiplayer is so refreshing and fun for me.
As of this weekend count me in on crafting and “strategy” too. I just fired up Dragon Age origins for the first time and my strategy is basically let my warriors hack-n-slash, I’ll stay back and burn em/throw fireballs. Rinse and Repeat
It’s an odd thing to foreswear in a Massively Multiplayer game setting, but I don’t enjoy PvP. Anyone I’m good enough to beat is bad enough for me to feel bad about beating. And generally, I don’t like being defeated, by computers or by people, but computers are easier to beat. And I don’t feel bad beating NPCs.
PvP is just what happens to my characters when I’m trying to do something else I actually enjoy.
In games like StarCraft, a real person is going to squash me like a bug because first of all I care more about building my little kingdom than actually destroying the other guys’, and my strategy is quite predictable – as I said, build a massive force of the most mobile unit available before I even start thinking about fighting back. A real person would cream me.
Sort of the same here, although I’m less about building up my base as climbing up the tech tree. I mean, I could attack right now with those 40 space marines backed by 2 tanks, artillery and killer robots of doom… but in 40 seconds they’ll each have 5% more dps, which would make my attack even more efficient ! Oooh, and I could wait a little more and teleport a bunch of terminators in while I attack and hey, why don’t I wait until my psyker can cast his superspell ?..
So, yeah, I get rolled a lot, even by the computer
This. I’m such a damn boy scout. I tried playing through KOTOR via the dark side path, and I just wasn’t having fun. I generally don’t like being evil. That said, I do occasionally take the “evil” choice here and there, because sometimes pragmatic choices are tossed in the evil bin and good choices are occasionally only good in name.
For example, Mass Effect:
I let the Council die at the end because I couldn’t spare any ships in the fight against Sovereign. It sucks, but if Sovereign wins, everyone dies. If I were really there, I would allocate every last resource to stopping him at any cost. Unfortunately, the game treats it as a “you just wanted to kill the council for political reasons.”
Mass Effect 2:
I always wipe out the Geth heretics, rather than reprogram them. It’s the renegade choice I guess because it’s killing a bunch of sentient beings. However, I make the choice based on how I would want to be treated. I would rather be killed than stealthily brainwashed to fit someone else’s concept of “good” or “right.”
Another vote for collectibles, as well. Occasionally they’re sufficiently well implemented that they’re fun and functional to collect, but many games just throw useless junk in there to collect just for fun. That’s not fun for me.
I also often eschew replaying levels over and over to get the highest rating. Some games make it a lot of fun, but in most cases, I don’t like wasting my time trying to get three stars or an A+. I beat the level, that’s good enough for me.
