No Mini Games please

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lyubarskiy
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No Mini Games please

Post by lyubarskiy » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 00:03

The worst thing any company does is implement mini games for repetitive tasks.

XR had the highway system and the scanning system where you had to lick the paint for it to work and some other that I don't recall.

Please don't Please don't implement any sort or type of a minigame.
If it's not a full feature it shouldn't be implemented.

PabloRSA
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Post by PabloRSA » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 00:40

Some have done it right, not many, however XR was bad. I give the example of Mass Effect Andromida. Puzzles or soduku puzzle for unlocking towers. it wasnt intrusive, hard or annoying.

It depends on the mini game and how oftern it is. The worst thing is to do a time based mini game or soemthing that relies on fps, EG XR chat mini game. Worst mini game in any game I have ever played.
I wouldnt mind for example, in XR there was unique loot crates to find, they would be a good example to have a puzzle.
Not nessecery to collect the crates but if you did there is some "THINK" involved.

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Geek
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Post by Geek » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 00:56

Minigames are the greatest evil in Rebirth.
Just say no.
Right on commander !

Skeeter
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Post by Skeeter » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 02:05

Conversation thing was boring in rebirth. Instead of a gimmick timed thing for bonus stuff just have intelligent conversations to unlock based on choices, least it's natural instead of a stupid bar to hit to do it. Imo.
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xapoc
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Post by xapoc » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 20:12

Add mini games to stations such as slot machines, poker, etc, that you can earn some extra cash from.

Requiemfang
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Post by Requiemfang » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 20:24

xapoc wrote:Add mini games to stations such as slot machines, poker, etc, that you can earn some extra cash from.
:o why though? I mean really it's easy to make credits in X-series games. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out either.

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Post by Skeeter » Thu, 1. Feb 18, 20:43

We've asked for poker or a form of it for ages and they won't add it, dunno why. Would be good if there was a pleasure station or casino station of sorts but they don't want to add that either. Starwars Kotor had pazzak which was a blackjack kinda game which u could play Vs certain NPC's which was ok, wasn't ground breaking but was somit to do if you wanted to stop for awhile and just play a quick game of somit then continue ur missions or whatnot. I guess we want it in as something to keep you intake but want to take a break from the norm.

I'd prefer a space version of a roulette game tbh tho I think.
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elexis
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Post by elexis » Fri, 2. Feb 18, 04:44

Bring back the BBS lottery?

Senar
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Post by Senar » Fri, 2. Feb 18, 08:07

elexis wrote:Bring back the BBS lottery?
Ah I remembers this from X2. Played so much, haven't not won even once.

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Retrox
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Post by Retrox » Fri, 2. Feb 18, 08:38

Just dont add any minigames.
Its the same in every game: at the beginning, they are interesting, but in sandbox games they often feel repetative, because you dont play it throught 1 times and be satisfied, but you replay it more often. Then, if feels like a timesink (that it is, if its mandatory).
Intel i7 8700, Gtx 1070, 16gb RAM. I think i'm ready for X4. Bring it on, Egosoft!

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Vandragorax
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Post by Vandragorax » Fri, 2. Feb 18, 16:03

I think if they went a bit more in depth with a minigame like for conversations or hacking it could be much more interesting and stimulating, but there is always a problem of making it too "difficult" or frustrating for some players, whilst being taxing and challenging for other players.

The password hacking minigame in Fallout was quite good fun imo:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckL1M.jpg

Or something akin to Deux Ex where they had you find a route through a bunch of gates that resembled computer circuitry without tripping the alarm:
https://altplusenter.files.wordpress.co ... king-3.jpg

These were mildly fun minigames that weren't tedious, and could be suitable in X4 if they were in-depth enough. The key thing with the Deus Ex one is that your in-game skills in hacking could increase and made the minigame easier / less frustrating / less time consuming so eventually you could be a master hacker and blast through it. That made the player feel like they had truly mastered the system, but then you'd need it on some complex hacks where the node system was absolutely huge.

I think the main issues for Rebirth which should be avoided for minigames in X4 were; the absolute simplicity of the minigame being quite boring, the fact that it was impossible to "skill up" to improve your ability to win at it (e.g. a way we could have increased the 'pink zone' area for easier 100% hits), and what someone else mentioned that it was absolutely frame-rate dependant which is a big no-no!

If it was thought about carefully, and avoiding those pitfalls above, I'd definitely be up for more minigames for certain tasks like hacks etc. :)

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Post by Killjaeden » Fri, 2. Feb 18, 21:46

BlackDemon wrote:I think if they went a bit more in depth with a minigame like for conversations or hacking it could be much more interesting and stimulating, but there is always a problem of making it too "difficult" or frustrating for some players, whilst being taxing and challenging for other players.
[...]
If it was thought about carefully, and avoiding those pitfalls above, I'd definitely be up for more minigames for certain tasks like hacks etc. :)
I agree with that, BUT, considering there are already so many interesting gameplay systems i don't think it's worth to spend considerable time on designing minigames, when the core gameplay (trading, fighting, management,...) has so many things that could be improved and added and also requires design work to make it good. Minigames are not worth it in comparison imo. I rather have some RPG player or NPC stats and RNG elements in things like conversations (ala Morrowind) and hacking than repetitive minigames. While not player skill driven, it at least allows to have notable progression and no matter what - still offer uncertainty (-> cross reference to "more ways to lose").
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Retrox
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Post by Retrox » Sat, 3. Feb 18, 13:27

Killjaeden wrote:
BlackDemon wrote:I think if they went a bit more in depth with a minigame like for conversations or hacking it could be much more interesting and stimulating, but there is always a problem of making it too "difficult" or frustrating for some players, whilst being taxing and challenging for other players.
[...]
If it was thought about carefully, and avoiding those pitfalls above, I'd definitely be up for more minigames for certain tasks like hacks etc. :)
I agree with that, BUT, considering there are already so many interesting gameplay systems i don't think it's worth to spend considerable time on designing minigames, when the core gameplay (trading, fighting, management,...) has so many things that could be improved and added and also requires design work to make it good. Minigames are not worth it in comparison imo. I rather have some RPG player or NPC stats and RNG elements in things like conversations (ala Morrowind) and hacking than repetitive minigames. While not player skill driven, it at least allows to have notable progression and no matter what - still offer uncertainty (-> cross reference to "more ways to lose").
Some kind of RPG elements would be a nice thing (if you can improve them, of course) and you're right in one additional thing: the game is so big and complex, that it doesnt need any minigames.
Intel i7 8700, Gtx 1070, 16gb RAM. I think i'm ready for X4. Bring it on, Egosoft!

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Post by Greenhorn » Sat, 3. Feb 18, 19:07

Hmmm,i don't know players,.. Minigames are a good distraction ,,too get away from it all,from basic stuff like, repetive stuff like, trading/ building/ manging fleets/fighting..i wonder what do you do this time, walking in stations, ((benard said )) on twitter.something along the line of, being on an station will have purpose, not likely to be rebirths way with nothing to do ..I would like the ,((bbs lottery )) back,((black jack)).Getting mission to find a floating crate in space.,i would kinda see this on ,pirate stations.cartell stations.A player, thinking to himself that he can be in a station to feel safe, from trouble near by, while playing games, and during that time, watch the money role in from your auto trading npcs/stations factories projects,and training marines too. doing a couple of things while your not there? maybe. just some thoughts, what do you think?, do I have a point?.players and devs.bye all. :)
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Marco Nero
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Post by Marco Nero » Sat, 3. Feb 18, 19:16

Greenhorn wrote:Hmmm,i don't know players,.. Minigames are a good distraction ,,too get away from it all,from basic stuff like, repetive stuff like, trading/ building/ manging fleets/fighting..i wonder what do you do this time, walking in stations, ((benard said )) on twitter.something along the line of, being on an station will have purpose, not likely to be rebirths way with nothing to do ..I would like the ,((bbs lottery )) back,((black jack)).Getting mission to find a floating crate in space.,i would kinda see this on ,pirate stations.cartell stations.A player, thinking to himself that he can be in a station to feel safe, from trouble near by, while playing games, and during that time, watch the money role in from your auto trading npcs/stations factories projects,and training marines too. doing a couple of things while your not there? maybe. just some thoughts, what do you think?, do I have a point?.players and devs.bye all. :)
A good distraction from Trade Build Fight Think Explore ? :D I hated walking on station and going for hack a pc, i do not have time for this, i never get bored from Trade Fight Build and so on. This is the soul of the X games! If you really want some distraction, wait to have a 1st person shooter when you want to conquer an enemy station, or boarding a capital ship with your marines, other things like stations walk, hacking etc are boaring like hell on my opinion :)

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sat, 3. Feb 18, 22:15

If they do add some mini games I hope they are something similar to Bioshock (hacking). I think that was the only mini game I liked :P
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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Lord Dakier
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Post by Lord Dakier » Sun, 4. Feb 18, 18:31

No mini-games. Little short of gambling, space racing, eliminating the most enemies in a patrol, an arena and on purpose police chases from sector to sector I wouldn't have much interest in any forced games. Ones similar to those just listed could be a nice little way of making money if you're bored or want to try something different while you pass time.

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Post by Requiemfang » Sun, 4. Feb 18, 22:14

If there are mini-games... none of the tedious BS we had to deal with in XR.

Station scanning, small talk I'm looking a you. Highway one was also annoying and served no purpose but to tick off the player. Hacking mini-game from XR I didn't mind so much but it could have been done better.

They should be engaging but not take away from the game, not make the game tedious.

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Post by Honved » Fri, 9. Feb 18, 17:07

The worst way to do a mini-game was how Oblivion implemented lock picking. Your lock picking skill had ZERO effect on the difficulty, and only served to reduce the consequences of failure. You make a Thief character, pump all sorts of points into Lock Picking, and in the end it doesn't matter one bit. If your motor skills as a player are sub-par, the character is going to fail at even simple locks. If you're good at the mini-game, your ham-fisted and totally untrained Orc barbarian will pick even difficult locks with relative ease.

The Sudoku puzzle in one X3:TC mission forced me to go online, look up the mission walk-throughs, then look up what a Sudoku puzzle was, learn how to do one, and THEN solve the puzzle. That was a lot of needless hassle just to advance the plot, because there was NO way that I'd have resolved that puzzle without recognizing it as a Sudoku puzzle and knowing how to solve one.

lyubarskiy
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Post by lyubarskiy » Fri, 9. Feb 18, 19:25

BlackDemon wrote:I think if they went a bit more in depth with a minigame like for conversations or hacking it could be much more interesting and stimulating, but there is always a problem of making it too "difficult" or frustrating for some players, whilst being taxing and challenging for other players.

The password hacking minigame in Fallout was quite good fun imo:
https://i.stack.imgur.com/ckL1M.jpg

Or something akin to Deux Ex where they had you find a route through a bunch of gates that resembled computer circuitry without tripping the alarm:
https://altplusenter.files.wordpress.co ... king-3.jpg

These were mildly fun minigames that weren't tedious, and could be suitable in X4 if they were in-depth enough. The key thing with the Deus Ex one is that your in-game skills in hacking could increase and made the minigame easier / less frustrating / less time consuming so eventually you could be a master hacker and blast through it. That made the player feel like they had truly mastered the system, but then you'd need it on some complex hacks where the node system was absolutely huge.

I think the main issues for Rebirth which should be avoided for minigames in X4 were; the absolute simplicity of the minigame being quite boring, the fact that it was impossible to "skill up" to improve your ability to win at it (e.g. a way we could have increased the 'pink zone' area for easier 100% hits), and what someone else mentioned that it was absolutely frame-rate dependant which is a big no-no!

If it was thought about carefully, and avoiding those pitfalls above, I'd definitely be up for more minigames for certain tasks like hacks etc. :)
I feel like any mini game that you are required to do indefinably will become quite boring and intrusive. No matter how fun it is, after 100th time it is just annoying. Even a small and useful one like lock picking in sky rim got annoying.

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