On 12.9.2017 at 9:04 PM, Brain said:

Well, I find that it's harder to play games once you start creating them.

 

I've become a critic and enjoy creation more than playing now. I can't play a game without pausing and asking myself "how was that effect done?" or "how did the AI know to do that?"...

Besides trouble with "suspension of disbelief" when you know where to look for the strings that move the puppets... shouldn't that make it more enjoyable to play (good) games when you know how damn hard it is to create a game of that quality?

There is a ton of things wrong with Horizon Zero Dawn which I am still playing (slipped back into my old compleetionist ways) on the graphics side once you see it in motion... I mean, the PS4 Pro powering it struggles to keep up with my old GTX 670 in my HTPC when it comes to raw power AFAIK.

But boy, is it impressive what Guerrilla games got out of that weak little box when you glance over the occasional artefacts and problems. Buttery smooth framerate, gorgeous visuals to an unbelievable far away draw distance and all that. Yes I know most of it is smoke and mirrors given the measly 4 TFlops of AMD graphics powering it. But that makes the feat even more impressive in my mind. And sometimes I just forget to think about how they might have achieved it and just take in the grand vistas like a normal player would.

Now I would really be interested to see how HZD looks on the PS4 Old with its even weaker 1.8 TFlops of power. I guess there is more stuttering, and some effects might be toned down. I guess I would be even more impressed when it looks almost as good because I know how damn hard it must have been to get the game running like this on this hardware.

I think there ARE Problems with things like this... some things loose their magic when you overanalyze it. Happened to me as soon as I saw through the weapon generation system of Borderlands 2... which in my mind was a big step back from Borderlands 1. Before "getting it" it looked fine and all, besides the weapons you get for a specific manufacturer being very samey, and the difference in power between rarities being quite steep... after "you got it", the whole thing looked no longer like "2 billion of guns"... rather like 1 optimum per manufacturer and the rest being just crap you throw away as soon as something better comes up.

That ruined Borderlands 2 for me... well, that and the fact Gearbox had to go and "mainstreamify" a raw diamond, loosing much of its charm in the process. Still, analyzing the weapon system and realizing just how limiting it was broke the camels back for me.

The difference for me in this 2 examples is this:

Guerilla games ticks all the boxes by getting the most out of the console hardware... I can appreciate their achievement even more because I have SOME ideas on how it was achieved. I can then try to forget about the strings and try to enjoy the puppet play.

Gearbox messed up the system IMO when they changed the most important part of what made borderlands such a hit with fans. I even read an interview with Gearbox lately where they explained how and why they changed the gun generation system and how boy, it gave me solid proof they got it all wrong.

They complained about lack of control over the original system. They thought it to be a problem when every enemy would use the weapon they later would drop, giving a chance of a random bandit in the world shooting you with the most awesome orange weapon, and giving you a hard time... when random things like this actually made it EXCITING to come face to face with yet another random goon somewhere out in the woods. Instead of a pointless grind you try to avoid once you found out they have no loot you are interested in, and you can smash them like a fly thanks to your level and gear now.

They saw an issue in some a very strong green weapon being better than a very weak purple. When I guess most players would have found that actually exciting, because now you cannot just throw away a weapon "because its just a green", you have to actually look at it. Most probably they also saw an issue with random hidden effects, because weapons in Borderlands 2 no longer have them. Which made you want to actually equip and use the weapon instead of just stat-comparing it to your existing weapon and throw it away without testing it because its all in the stats.

They wanted to give players a safe and authored entertainment when the main draw of the game was the wild and wacky random nature of procgen results.

The weapon generation system in Borderlands 2 was fundamentally evolved in the wrong direction in my eyes. Analyzing just made it clearer that Gearbox F***ed it up, something I already had a supsicion from just playing it and never getting really interesting gear once I had the needed purples for my level to keep up. Which ironically you could get from the "Vendor One armed bandit" with save-reload-"cheating", after Gearbox completly neutered new-haven-runs in Borderlands 1 years earlier because people could farm good weapons and epic oranges just from save-reload-"cheating" and farming chests in the new haven town for some hours.

Analying the games just emphasizes the good, and the bad. Good games become more enjoyable because you can appreciate the quality more... bad or broken games become worse because you see where the dev messed up exactly... and probably you also can make educated guesses why.

EDIT: To be fair, there is plenty wrong with HZD on a gameplay level.

Now, that most probably will make sure I will NOT endgame the shit out of this game once the story is over. The setting is compelling enough for me to glance over what I perceive as design issues, and the system is open enough that I can play the game in a way these issues are not constantly rubbed in my face (avoiding close combat for example is entirely possible).