EoFF's Top Games of the Generation: Revelations

[Slothy]

I'm kinda miffed Dota 2 didn't make it, it's very rare that we get games with this extreme depth of game mechanics and skill but I understand why it wouldn't fit into our forum's niche. It also just officially released a few months ago and it's best days are certainly still ahead of it.

Also it isn't the best game at what it does.

Point the first: Denying is an actively bad game mechanic. It forces players to do things that aren't fun, because they have to, because it's the only way to compete. Games that are GOOD games make players do the things that they actually like doing; the things that are fun.

Point the second: The game is based on DotA (obviously) but it doesn't fix the things that were wrong with DotA. It doesn't change the fact that there's not enough to do for the first few minutes. It doesn't change even the mechanical choices that were literally nothing but limitations of the Warcraft 3 engine - for instance, Axe's Counter Helix triggers at the beginning of an animation, rather than when he's actually hit. Why? Because that was a coding limitation in WC3. So they copied it and kept it exactly in Dota 2, rather than fixing it. There are many, many more. I don't feel the need to enumerate them.

I loved DotA, I played thousands upon thousands of games of it; but League of Legends is simply a better game, and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't picked to be on this list. Arguably, it's the game that should be at the very top of the list; certainly would be in terms of real world popularity.

Dota 2 isn't something you play through and finish; you're always choosing between it and LoL, unlike a type of game like an RPG where you play one, then play the next one. You could reasonably have 2 RPGs in a personal list; I find it harder to make the case for 2 MOBAs (or 2 MMOs of the same style, or 2 deathmatch-based FPSes, etc), and so the better one gets on the list.

Even if LOL is mechanically better (and honestly, I couldn't get into it and haven't played enough to say one way or the other), it's hampered by falling into all of the same free to play traps a lot of games fall into. I'm sorry, but I can't take a competitive game where the full meta game is locked behind endless grind and pay barriers seriously. There's no good reason for it and it saddens me that the most popular MOBA is the one that forces people to put up with that kind of uncompetitive silly bulltrout.

[Aulayna]

Well when Riot was a fledgling company they didn't really have the existing financial support or an audience the size of Valve's to profiteer off of by drawing in resources from stuff completely unrelated to DOTA2. (Didn't most of the prize money for the International this year come from sales of completely unrelated games?)

The F2P model worked for Riot. LoL is pretty much the most played PC game in the world right now (complete dwarfing the likes of StarCraft in Korea, the place where SC was king for nearly 15 years) and is effectively a license to print money every time they release a new champion. Considering how much money some players have invested into this game, this is a very tricky thing to suddenly change the payment model and game structure of - and Riot, with all due respect, have gone out of their way to refund players when they've re-released limited edition skins etc if players happened to have purchased them when they first went on sale.

And really, to get involved in ranked - where the meta is actually a big deal, you actually have to play it for about 2 months straight to get to max level to unlock ranked. By which point if you're seriously considering taking part in ranked you'll have been able to purchase 2 champions with the RP they give you for free, and will probably have earned enough IP to purchase a 3rd champion and make a full runeset. You also get 7 free champions each week which means even if you never pay a penny, you can still try out a variety of roles.

Whether or not LoL is better than DOTA2 or vice versa, is a different strokes for different folks thing, really.

[Slothy]

Whether the model worked for them or not doesn't make it a good model. Honestly, their free to play model is outdated at best and definitely bad for a competitive game. Whether someone can buy a champion or three by the time they start playing ranked doesn't really matter. Giving people a few free ones every week and letting them buy a few by grinding is a terrible way to try out over 100 heroes to figure out what you like, and if your tastes or abilities change as you keep playing, well, tough trout. Pay or grind or gtfo.

And the idea of having to play for months before you can play ranked is also ridiculous. If you want to have a tutorial mode for people to learn the ins and outs, do it. But no matter how bad a player is, there's never a reason to lock them out of ranked play unless you're too incompetent to create a decent matchmaking system. And considering player ranking systems were pretty well figured out decades ago, there's really no excuse.

LOL could be the best competitive game in the world. Too bad it's all locked behind some really bad game design and business decisions and is now completely hamstrung by it now.

Arguing that any of these things aren't that bad would be like arguing that it'd be okay if StarCraft only let you play Terran unless you grinded for months or paid a few hundred dollars, and if the only way to play ranked games was to play through the single player on the hardest difficulty, unlock every achievement, and then play unranked until you've got enough games to unlock all of the portraits for each race.

If they'd been serious about creating a great competitive game from the beginning, they might have tried other pay models like selling character skins instead of characters. But their entire business model feels more like they wanted to make money by any means necessary, then kind of realized after the fact that they had a popular competitive game.

[Loony BoB]

PS: BoB's stupid.

I didn't even nominate it!

[Aulayna]

Okay Vivi, you're making a lot of assumptions, and in the interests of not derailing this thread from it's actual purpose I'm just going to agree to disagree with you on this one.

[Bolivar]

The only thing new I have to add about FFXIII is that playing FFVII lately, I see where the origins of this game design came from. VII had so many cinematic sequences in unique environments that are all about getting to the end for a plot revelation. It's part of what separated VII from RPGs that came before it, but in making an entire game based on this concept, they lost the faux-exploration of the world map, the town investigating, the puzzle solving, and the story-based mini-games. Still a good game, though and I don't have a problem with it being on this list.

Point the first: Denying is an actively bad game mechanic. It forces players to do things that aren't fun, because they have to, because it's the only way to compete. Games that are GOOD games make players do the things that they actually like doing; the things that are fun.

I apologize, but I get off on denying creeps just before my opponent's attack animation would otherwise have gotten them the gold for the last hit. Exploiting your advantage in skill and mechanics knowledge is what competitive games are all about, and it's incredibly rewarding when you win 45-minute to 1-hour games based on exploiting this throughout. Likewise, the first few minutes of the game didn't need to be fixed - the laning phase can be the most intense part of the game, where you and your opponent lay bare just how good each of you really are at Dota 2.

Vivi summed up how arbitrarily greedy the pay-to-play model is but I'm also turned off as a player. We can go try out any of Dota 2's 106 playable heroes right now if we wanted to; they are all unique to the extent that many of them seem like they belong in other games! This variety is what keeps the game fresh, and there are entire game modes where the beginning consists of each team picking and counter-picking heroes, and the meta game of understanding how to compose and counter a good team is a fascinating aspect all on its own. This is something League players just don't have, not just picking a team with balanced roles, but how one hero pick could completely change the dynamic and outcome of the game. Dota 2 also has a group of heroes which are incredibly difficult to play and learn, and being able to master Storm Spirit, Invoker, and Meepo, regardless of which free heroes I have that day, is such an unbelievably rewarding part of the experience, not only because of how far it shows you've come as a player, but because everyone in the game will understand what you did and why they're losing to you. I'm sure League capitalizes on this same emotion, but Dota 2 just takes it higher IMO.

And not only are your heroes limited in League, but they all share similar qualities - everyone has a heal, a tp, a summon, a skill shot. From what I understand Dota 2 has a much steeper learning curve with more intensity and variety and I would never be willing to give these things up, even if League was a better designed game.

No offence to Aulayna (maybe to Spuuky (SPOILER)jk! :P).

[Shauna]

All this discussion about a game not even on the list. xD

[SirPrizes]

Kind of surprised this one made it. I found it to be thoroughly mediocre, and there were plenty of better RPGs this generation. The music was good and it looked pretty, but other than that I found it to be pretty lacking. Interesting.

[Slothy]

Okay Vivi, you're making a lot of assumptions, and in the interests of not derailing this thread from it's actual purpose I'm just going to agree to disagree with you on this one.

I'm curious what assumptions I'm making. You can feel free to take it to PM's if you do want to discuss it though.

[Ayen]

Kind of surprised this one made it. I found it to be thoroughly mediocre, and there were plenty of better RPGs this generation. The music was good and it looked pretty, but other than that I found it to be pretty lacking.

Not to mention it has the slowest start you could imagine for any game ever, so melodramatic you could barf and the battle system was terrible. When it's turn base you should be able to control your allies.

[Slothy]

Kind of surprised this one made it. I found it to be thoroughly mediocre, and there were plenty of better RPGs this generation. The music was good and it looked pretty, but other than that I found it to be pretty lacking.

Not to mention it has the slowest start you could imagine for any game ever, so melodramatic you could barf and the battle system was terrible. When it's turn base you should be able to control your allies.

20-25 hours really is a slow start. What were they thinking?

[Shauna]

As someone who enjoyed FFXIII, I didn't hugely mind the "slow" start, and did not find it as much of a gruelling experience as others did. It is probably because I enjoyed the battle system as much as I did, and I enjoyed the character interactions.

[Aulayna]

The best part of Final Fantasy XIII was when I traded it in for Wii Fit. : pokerface:

[Slothy]

As someone who enjoyed FFXIII, I didn't hugely mind the "slow" start, and did not find it as much of a gruelling experience as others did. It is probably because I enjoyed the battle system as much as I did, and I enjoyed the character interactions.

I could see not minding the opening as much as I did if you actually enjoyed the battle system, but even then, it didn't really start to open up until about the five hour mark. That's a really long time to go with not much to do other than select auto-battle.

The best part of Final Fantasy XIII was when I traded it in for Wii Fit. : pokerface:

My favourite part was when my PS3 died and I no longer felt compelled to finish it.

[Shauna]

Eh. I played through FF7 only using the Attack function, it's not that different - Mash X to Win.

The worst section was playing as Sazh and Vanille. Two Ravagers should never be your only option. ._.