Curious how the SCP is coming along!

[67375cd67b000Kolya]

Yeah, it wouldn't be a fix, but an improvement. You see, the way I play and I know many others do, is to hoard hypos and ammo as much as possible. A life lived off chips and champagne isn't too bad. But wrenching the brains out of the sixhundredth hybrid does become oh-so-very-old. And then you kill off their main brain and suddenly realize you still have enough ammo and hypos to start a small war on terrorism.
Why did you hoard all that stuff?? you ask yourself, fantasizing about the fun you could have had. But now SHODAN's dead (She's dead, baby, see? *holds up loose wires*) and the game is over. Oh well, you say and kick over a bucket of incendiary grenades.

This outcome might be prevented by capping ammo and hypos, working against compulsive hoarders and pro fun. Not in SCP, but maybe in another universe, where hope persists and old people smell of rosemary.

[67375cd67b1d3ZylonBane]

And then you have players who can't finish the game because they arrive in the final level with 5 bullets left and no way to get more.

[67375cd67b5a5Dizzy]

Yeah, it wouldn't be a fix, but an improvement. You see, the way I play and I know many others do, is to hoard hypos and ammo as much as possible. A life lived off chips and champagne isn't too bad. But wrenching the brains out of the sixhundredth hybrid does become oh-so-very-old. And then you kill off their main brain and suddenly realize you still have enough ammo and hypos to start a small war on terrorism.
Why did you hoard all that stuff?? you ask yourself, fantasizing about the fun you could have had. But now SHODAN's dead (She's dead, baby, see? *holds up loose wires*) and the game is over. Oh well, you say and kick over a bucket of incendiary grenades.

This outcome might be prevented by capping ammo and hypos, working against compulsive hoarders and pro fun. Not in SCP, but maybe in another universe, where hope persists and old people smell of rosemary.

Not sure I agree with you on this being an "improvement".

People should be able to play whatever way they want. Even if it includes hoarding. 

[67375cd67b7f9Kolya]

And then you have players who can't finish the game because they arrive in the final level with 5 bullets left and no way to get more.

Players with low ammo wouldn't be affected because they wouldn't reach the limit.
Besides the problem you describe could happen now as well. The idea I described just has nothing to do with it, because it specifically aims at people who have more than enough ammo/hypos.

Dizzy does have a point though. It would change the world to be more player centric, which is bad.

[67375cd67bb39Join2]

it smells of console dumb downs.

Not that I don't think there is a good chance you were being sarcastic, but System Shock 2 isn't half as challenging as some console games. But you'd know that if you played them rather than just repeating words you heard elsewhere, words from people that blame a machine for the simplification of video games. The only things at fault here are people, and dumbing down is not something that is exclusive to consoles. I'm surprised irrational didn't protest when System Shock 2 went up on GOG, you'd think they'd want to spend a couple of days adding objective markers and additional ammo for increased sales. Next time "It's smells of Levine-ification", or or just dumbing down will have sufficed. Let me tell you, there were no console games I had played that threw ammo ammo at you, gave you unlimited insta-spawns, had a giant fucking insulting arrow to follow etc before this "generation" of games, they were commonly tough as nails or at least offered a fair challenge. heck even games aimed at pre-teens were tougher than today's games.
Bioshock was released in 2007, it was probably one of the first games designed intentionally dumb that sold well. Not that games were ever not dumb, it's not calculus, it's just they got dumber, simpler and easier around that time.

Anyway, unnecessary rant over, why not just have this feature exclusive to easy/normal? Or just place more hypos/medkits in the maps tagged so they only appear for easy/normal?

[67375cd67be1aMarvin]

The term is justified looking at the number of franchises which where significantly dumbed down when transitioning from PC to console (Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Unreal Tournament: Part 3, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows, System Shock: Bioshock, Dragon Age: Part 2, not to mention Bioware continuing with KotOR after BG2). The fact that this is not related to the hardware itself but its audience should be blatantly obvious anyway. Oh, and Irrational has nothing to do with SS2, anymore.

[67375cd67c11eJoin2]

The term is justified looking at the number of franchises which where significantly dumbed down when transitioning from PC to console (Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Unreal Tournament: Part 3, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Thief: Deadly Shadows, System Shock: Bioshock, Dragon Age: Part 2, not to mention Bioware continuing with KotOR after BG2). The fact that this is not related to the hardware itself but its audience should be blatantly obvious anyway. Oh, and Irrational has nothing to do with SS2, anymore.

Yes. It is that assumption that offends me. It is that assumption that PC developers had when they abandoned the PC market for console. they intentionally made everything dumb, dumber and easier than your average console game used to be at the time, but the assumption was correct because the masses ate it up. It is still a shitty stereotype but it is deserved.
And I know Irrational had no stake in SS2's re-release, I was just ranting.

[67375cd67c27fMarvin]

It is not and never was about the audience itself but its size. Five times more customers also means five times more retards. Suddenly the stakes and the financial potential quintuples, but if you want to rake in as much as possible, you have to stop focusing on a niche audience and start catering to the lowest denominator. It would have happened (or rather continued to happen) on the PC, too, but I guess the sudden market appeal of the Xbox was too large and that's why the decline appears to be so steep.

Anyway, this was once about SCP or something like that.

[67375cd67c5b3Olfred]

Not intending to offend anyone, but the average of todays console gamers are "dumber" than pc gamers or previous console gamers.

But it's not that they are less intelligent or something, it's more the "why are they playing".
For most it's just some light entertainment, like watching a movie or something like that. That's why games aren't made to be a fucking hard challenge anymore. Good developers build in something like a hard mode or something like that for people who still want a challenge. But it doesn't fully compensate for "dumped down" game mechanics/gameplay.

But why are they not doing any games for "hardcore gamers" anymore?
Simple, they don't sell that good.

[67375cd67ca74Join2]

Simple, they don't sell that good.

Dark Souls and Fallout: New Vegas proved otherwise, yet still nothing has changed. And yes FO:NV isn't exactly hardcore even on hardcore mode, but it's fairly complex and WILL confuse those of minimal intelligence and turn away those with a short attention span, yet still it was a success more than any publisher could ask for. 

Not intending to offend anyone, but the average of todays console gamers are "dumber" than pc gamers or previous console gamers.

But it's not that they are less intelligent or something, it's more the "why are they playing".

I agree somewhat, but the industry made them this way, or rather people within it did.
For them games *are* crappy barely interactive B-movies. And now I'm stereotyping

^Well, that's an insult to B movies really.

[67375cd67cb6bOlfred]

Don't know about Dark Souls, but with FO:NV you could also just shoot your way through and be done.

[67375cd67d03eJoin2]

Don't know about Dark Souls, but with FO:NV you could also just shoot your way through and be done.

What, there is an infinite ammo mode I don't know about?
There is a no crippled limb mode?
The compass requires basic knowledge to navigate with the objective marker, knowledge that some don't have. A big insulting Bioshock arrow you would perhaps not mind?
What about a no weight limit? Whilst trying to find ammo an idiot would just pick up everything and then wonder why he/she cannot move properly.

I got one of these gamers we speak of to play the game- Fallout: New Vegas owned him, dominated, mentally raped him...on easy. To us it's no sweat, but there is a lot of resource management, basic navigation skills and such required to play. Still pretty basic stuff, but some people get overwhelmed and just shooting through without managing things is not possible.

It is not and never was about the audience itself but its size. Five times more customers also means five times more retards. Suddenly the stakes and the financial potential quintuples, but if you want to rake in as much as possible, you have to stop focusing on a niche audience and start catering to the lowest denominator. It would have happened (or rather continued to happen) on the PC, too, but I guess the sudden market appeal of the Xbox was too large and that's why the decline appears to be so steep.

Yes, this is pretty much the truth.

"Elder Scrolls: Oblivion"

For what it's worth Elder Scrolls: Morrowind was an Xbox title too, and the port had no dumbing down applied whatsoever.

And yes, Sorry, I derailed the thread.

[67375cd67d1a2icemann]

Dark & Demon Souls were the exception to the rule for the most part, which is largely why they sold so damn well. That and their damn great games.

[67375cd67d37dDrone-Dragon]

Okay, let us all stop talking about OTHER THINGS and get back on topic, shall we?

Anyway, if nothing with the floating meds on impossible can be worked out, I can always limit myself to 10 health hypos and 5 medkits at a time or something.

Now THAT is a self-imposed restriction!

Going along with Kolya's idea, how about when you get 5-8 of a particular hypo, probably not counting psi hypos maybe, the percentage of a hypo spawning in a container, corpse, or enemy is lessened by a fair percentage, rather than this get more, get less, back and forth stuff. No increase of amount you get when you are lacking, just the normal amount per-difficulty and cut from the spawn percentage when you hit the 5-8 mark, until you go below 5-8, then it goes back to normal, but NEVER higher. That might work. At the very least this should be applied to hard and impossible difficulty.

I say this probably shouldn't be applied to psi hypos though, as a pure psi user is hard enough already, what with the already limited psi hypos. Ultimately that is up to you guys working on the SCP though.

[67375cd67d6bbKolya]

Okay, let us all stop talking about OTHER THINGS and get back on topic, shall we?

Don't worry, SCP is not gonna come out later because of us talking about different things.

That being said, it's the first time I heard that Morrowind was an Xbox title ported to PC. I have some serious doubts about that. Maybe it came out on Xbox as well but then it was likely the other way around.
Oh man, that must suck, to have bought MW on Xbox...haha.

[67375cd67da0eJoin2]

Don't worry, SCP is not gonna come out later because of us talking about different things.

That being said, it's the first time I heard that Morrowind was an Xbox title ported to PC. I have some serious doubts about that. Maybe it came out on Xbox as well but then it was likely the other way around.
Oh man, that must suck, to have bought MW on Xbox...haha.

Was it my wording? It was originally on PC and ported to Xbox, but it doesn't look like I implied otherwise?
I played it on Xbox first time around. Other than longer load times and lower graphics fidelity and stuff of that nature it was the same game in gameplay, story etc, the stuff that truly matters. Though it's now obviously redundant due to a plethora of mods, but the vanilla game is a classic anyway. Shame about the later entries to the series.

Original Xbox had just a few good games- Ninja Gaiden and Call of Cthulhu for their exclusivity (PC version of Cthulhu is bug-ridden. There is a community patch that fixes a couple of the dire bugs so one should still definitely grab the game on PC for it is excellent, a masterpiece, at least in it's original form), and Arx Fatalis and Morrowind as they are excellent ports from PC if you didn't have a good rig. Other than that though everything else that was decent was multiplatform.

[67375cd67db16Kolya]

Your wording was somewhat ambiguous and apparently I misunderstood.

[67375cd67dd9eJoin2]

Your wording was somewhat ambiguous

That it was. My mistake.

[67375cd67e15fDizzy]

Was it my wording? It was originally on PC and ported to Xbox, but it doesn't look like I implied otherwise?
I played it on Xbox first time around. Other than longer load times and lower graphics fidelity and stuff of that nature it was the same game in gameplay, story etc, the stuff that truly matters. Though it's now obviously redundant due to a plethora of mods, but the vanilla game is a classic anyway. Shame about the later entries to the series.

Original Xbox had just a few good games- Ninja Gaiden and Call of Cthulhu for their exclusivity (PC version of Cthulhu is bug-ridden. There is a community patch that fixes a couple of the dire bugs so one should still definitely grab the game on PC for it is excellent, a masterpiece, at least in it's original form), and Arx Fatalis and Morrowind as they are excellent ports from PC if you didn't have a good rig. Other than that though everything else that was decent was multiplatform.

Call of Cthulhu is one of my favorite games of all time!

Sad that the PC version is completely broken. Wish there had been more support for it.

[67375cd67e50eDrone-Dragon]

Call of Cthulhu is one of my favorite games of all time!

Sad that the PC version is completely broken. Wish there had been more support for it.

Didn't they release at least one patch for the PC? I could have sworn it was virtually unplayable before that. I vaguely remember waiting on that patch.

I lost interest in the game regardless because while it could have been so very good the stealth, which was the majority of the game, was way too scripted. There was no real room for error or innovation. You had to do pretty much everything a certain way or die. I don't remember all the details, it has been a while, but I do remember that disappointed me greatly about it. Though I did get through it all with the complete ending back in the day at least 1 time out of a desire to see it lol. Oh and the flying polyps are the scariest nightmare fuel in a game...ever.

[67375cd67e85exdiesp_]

If you retouch the difficulty, then it's no longer a patch: it's John's Difficulty and Balance Mod. When the project was still known as Straylight's ADaoB, the name gave away that it was both a patch and his point of view. Imho now it sounds all official and objective, it should be modeled as such.

And really, are we still debating how unbalanced is SS2? It's a cult classic, everything strange about it should be remembered kindly as a feature. Speccing assault rifle is way more effective than EMP rifle and worm launcher? You can still make it, I did in my first playthrough. Imo we wouldn't be here if this game (which all the Balance & Fixes mods out there treat like a cancer patient) wasn't solid gold to begin with.

...about difficulty, I've been tinkering with it myself as my Second Quest mod has its own RPG rules. One inevitably starts off these projects with the hardcore stuff: like the 10 hypos limit. After a while, you realize you've been burning bridges for no reason. Do we have to crucify a poor bastard who somehow needs absolutely all the hypos in the game? So I made myself a couple guidelines to decide what to do.

1. "There has to be a reason, for something to happen". Otherwise it's a gratuitous poke in the eye. There is no reason not to be able to pick a 11th hypo off the ground. However, if you weren't to *see* any 11th hypo (once you have 10) that would be logical: look dude, there is just no more hypos here... yet. Or you could add a new piece of HUD where the hypos are all lined up, with 10 allocation spaces: the player naturally assumes you can't add more than that, as there's no space.

2. "Does it capture the attention?" Is it evocative in a way, that you would buy again SS2 with the tagline "Now with no more than 10 hypos!". This is incredibly hard to achieve... I myself have spent months making and remaking my work because in the end I couldn't answer positively: no one gives a damn about your idea of hardcore, when they really need 11 hypos. But what if... the player is a cyborg who manages a single power source for a multitude of systems, including the only 10 available hypo gizmos in the game... or you have to manage a nanite economy to build everything, including hypos, and the diminishing returns make it inefficient to have more than 10.

edit
3. This I mentioned in another topic: "the player has to be kept informed of the changes". Possibly without forcing him to crawl through a tutorial on all fours, or even worse browsing through a gigantic readme (the typical moment of glory of one John's Difficulty Mod). The HUD change for the allocation space of the hypos would be descriptive enough, and the player would know what was going to happen. Bottom feeders like yours truly, might instead opt for a special pop-up text.

[67375cd67e9fcvoodoo47]

no idea what were you trying to say there, so let me just state what has already been stated a couple of times - SCP is trying to fill the role of the next official IG/LGS patch that has never arrived. official patches rebalance weapons quite often (even the 2.3 patch did this, by changing the lethal weapon OS upgrade), so changes like these are perfectly within scope.

[67375cd67eb0bxdiesp_]

Can I pass my mod as SS2's official sequel then?

edit
I'm just messing with you, I have no problems with you guy's work. But it's true that it's either an official patch with objective fixes, or a personal mod with custuomized changes. Neither of us is LGS.

[67375cd67edf3Join2]

Can I pass my mod as SS2's official sequel then?

edit
I'm just messing with you, I have no problems with you guy's work. But it's true that it's either an official patch with objective fixes, or a personal mod with custuomized changes. Neither of us is LGS.

And if you read again you'll notice that "we are LGS" or "official mod" is never stated nor implied. Right there voodoo specifically typed "trying to fill the role" and they have stated on multiple ocassions that it is a patch that they'd like to think LGS would have rolled out if they were able to maintain shock a little longer.
 
My only issue is the hybrid inventories but nobody wants to hear me rant on about that again
otherwise most the changes seem spot on and as objective as it gets (bug fixes for example).