The official trailer hasn't been uploaded to either https://www.youtube.com/user/D3Publisher/videos or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCndSrwJd7nAT5vz9hqK8LTA/videos, so I'll post the upload from the Gematsu article that was sent to it and other press outlets:
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Earth Defense Force 5 is coming to PC via Steam on July 11th
- Thread starter JB2448
- Start date
The official trailer hasn't been uploaded to either https://www.youtube.com/user/D3Publisher/videos or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCndSrwJd7nAT5vz9hqK8LTA/videos, so I'll post the upload from the Gematsu article that was sent to it and other press outlets:
That generic dubstep beat that sounds like an Excision knock-off from 2010 is oddly fitting for a game that looks about as dated (if not more).
This game is amazing. Got to mission 45 on ps4 and still very addictive with wing diver. What makes this better than the previous instalments and less of a slog/grind is you level up and find weapons for the other classes even if you're not currently playing as them.
So when to do decide to play them you won't be starting out from scratch and will already have some beefy weapons and HP.
If you like achievements and trophies this is VERY useful as the game involves going through it multiple times on different difficulties with all classes if you want them.
So when to do decide to play them you won't be starting out from scratch and will already have some beefy weapons and HP.
If you like achievements and trophies this is VERY useful as the game involves going through it multiple times on different difficulties with all classes if you want them.
Why is this not as good? Just curious on your thoughts. I love all the EDF game's and looking to play 4.1 after this but I think it did pretty much everything better personally. Especially when it comes to grinding it made things a bit more streamlined but still time consuming.
i got an urge to play this. on ps4.
anyways, anyone remember if this is odd in that single player and multiplayer progress are separate? like if i beat stage 1 to 20 on single player, then try to play multi, i gotta start at stage 1 again?
anyways, anyone remember if this is odd in that single player and multiplayer progress are separate? like if i beat stage 1 to 20 on single player, then try to play multi, i gotta start at stage 1 again?
This sounds like a godsend. I loved 2017 and did everything in it, but 4.1 was practically a full-time job. Having the extra classes was a lot of fun but the armour/weapon grind was already horrid with just one, and many of the levels being the same recycled scenarios didn't help. I might have to give 5 a try.
I don't like grinding and one of the reasons I think this is poorer, is due to them focusing more on grinding. You gain weapons and health from failing missions, which means a completion will happen eventually, whether or not you learn the game and improve your skill. It's not as terrible as something like Rogue Legacy, but I would still consider it poor design. The same goes for not letting you select harder difficulty levels on your first save playthrough. You're forced to do an easy (the upper half of the difficulties) completion first, before being able to dip in and out of levels on hardest or inferno, perhaps getting away with a nice weapon drop or just choosing to challenge yourself. Again, if fits very well with the grinding philosophy, but if you like challenge, it's annoying being forced to play something for hours where it's difficult to fail.
I don't do grinding in EDF and think grinding is one of the biggest mistakes/failures in modern game design - though I concede in very rare cases it can be done well - so seeing one of my favorite series making it mandatory, forcing me to waste time or rewarding me for failure, is disappointing.
It has the most content of any game in the series, but I also think it's affected the quality. There's a few too many throwaway missions, where the idea or concept defining the mission structure, seems to be lacking. I also liked some smaller details around how the character's control in 4.1 and preferred the metallic aesthetic of that game (including enemies), but that's minor complaints compared to the other stuff.
Don't get me wrong, it's still a really good game and better than practically every AAA shooting focused game, you could mention. I just think 4.1 was better and that the flaws in that should have been fixed in different ways, instead of the direction 5 went in.
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Buy it you fools, it's the Gotg!
Bede-x: Some of the things you're saying are not true at all. When you start EDF5 you can choose to play the game on either Easy, Normal or Hard. Hardest and Inferno are then unlocked by finishing the campaign on one of the difficulties, if I remember correctly.
All the stuff you're mentioning are great QoL improvements and you don't get shit for failing missions on Inferno and only 25% of the crates on Hardest. No one will go thorugh Easy, Normal and Hard. It's enough to do all missions starting with Normal then switching to Hard and so on. There's also a great incentive to grind even if you've cheesed some high level weapons by upgrading the stats.
EDF4.1 was great, but 5 shits on it in every aspect: greater mobility, Qol, Frogs and Cosmonauts>>>Hectors, GORE, Fencer dash-hop is the best TPS mechanic ever and dethrones Vanquish in that regard..it's not even funny.
Bede-x: Some of the things you're saying are not true at all. When you start EDF5 you can choose to play the game on either Easy, Normal or Hard. Hardest and Inferno are then unlocked by finishing the campaign on one of the difficulties, if I remember correctly.
All the stuff you're mentioning are great QoL improvements and you don't get shit for failing missions on Inferno and only 25% of the crates on Hardest. No one will go thorugh Easy, Normal and Hard. It's enough to do all missions starting with Normal then switching to Hard and so on. There's also a great incentive to grind even if you've cheesed some high level weapons by upgrading the stats.
EDF4.1 was great, but 5 shits on it in every aspect: greater mobility, Qol, Frogs and Cosmonauts>>>Hectors, GORE, Fencer dash-hop is the best TPS mechanic ever and dethrones Vanquish in that regard..it's not even funny.
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EDF!! EDF!!
EDIT:
You're right that you have to finish either easy, normal or hard before you can play the hardest or inferno missions, but there is no way that one can go into inferno from the get go and progress through the game like that. After a few missions, even the easier enemies will one shot you. You need to get those good weapons and health, which requires grinding. So either you can finish the game on easy, normal or hard to build up some health, otherwise you'd have to start grinding if you want to start on inferno.
How was EDF4 less grindy by the way? I never played EDF4, so i'm honestly wondering (at the time, i already had my EDF fill from EDF 2017 Portable and EDF2 on Vita, so i skipped EDF4). Although from my previous experience with the serie, grinding was always a big part of it. I remember grinding for tens of hours just to get the few final weapons in EDF 2017 Portable, so i could get the 100% completion trophy :) In EDF5, luckily theres no 100% weapon trophy, which also means less grinding. It still took me like 400 hours to get 100% level completion though, so its still a long game.
I do agree that the number of missions in EDF5 might be a bit long. I mean, its not a big deal to me personally, but i wouldnt mind if the game had maybe 20 missions less in total.
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Since you get weapons and health even from failing missions, that should mean less grinding, no? And as someone else mentioned above here, you get nothing for failing the inferno missions in EDF5, and if you're going for that 100% completion, you'd spend a lot of time playing on inferno (afterall, certain weapons only drops within their respective difficulty levels, so you have to play on all difficulty levels if you want to go for a completion).
You're right that you have to finish either easy, normal or hard before you can play the hardest or inferno missions, but there is no way that one can go into inferno from the get go and progress through the game like that. After a few missions, even the easier enemies will one shot you. You need to get those good weapons and health, which requires grinding. So either you can finish the game on easy, normal or hard to build up some health, otherwise you'd have to start grinding if you want to start on inferno.
How was EDF4 less grindy by the way? I never played EDF4, so i'm honestly wondering (at the time, i already had my EDF fill from EDF 2017 Portable and EDF2 on Vita, so i skipped EDF4). Although from my previous experience with the serie, grinding was always a big part of it. I remember grinding for tens of hours just to get the few final weapons in EDF 2017 Portable, so i could get the 100% completion trophy :) In EDF5, luckily theres no 100% weapon trophy, which also means less grinding. It still took me like 400 hours to get 100% level completion though, so its still a long game.
I do agree that the number of missions in EDF5 might be a bit long. I mean, its not a big deal to me personally, but i wouldnt mind if the game had maybe 20 missions less in total.
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No, it's you that's not reading what I'm writing. I specifically call the upper half of the difficulties that are selectable from the start easy (a subjective statement) and say you can't dip into hardest and inferno from the beginning.
All of that is only important if you like grinding. I was asked why I didn't like 5 as much as 4.1 and one of my main criticisms is how grinding is more of a focus. Then you say there's all of these improvements or incentives to grinding, but not a single one of those matter to me, because I hate grinding. I don't care if picking up boxes has been made easier or weapons can be upgraded by grinding for even more boxes, since that was never the appeal to me.
Anyone who has this on console could please confirm if you can combine splitscreen + online? Meaning 2 players on the same machine + another person online, totalling 3 players. Is that a thing? Because I want to do that with my gf + a friend who lives far away.
They just changed the release date on the store page from 'July 11' to just 'July' so it might hit a slight delay.
I've played older EDF games, it was always about grinding. It's literally the game. You grind out levels repeatedly to earn better loot and level up.
I think that was an attempt to fix the balancing of the game. TBH it was way to easy to get high-tier weapons in 1-2 missions on Inferno in 4.1 which made the whole amount of weapons kind of pointless. EDF5 hasn't solved that problem but improved it a little. I really don't think 4.1's system was superior.
What I am hoping for the future (EDF6) is that armor can be increased at a faster rate while missions have a weapon lvl restriction as they do in EDF5 online until you can remove it when you reach 70% completion. But yeah, this game is all about grinding and I think it's one of the games that does it best. If you don't like the griding, well finish the game on Easy and Normal with one class and move on, I really don't see the issue here.
Sadly no...at least on PS4
No, it's the other way around, depending on how you understand the expression. When people say they're grinding in a game, they usually mean, they're repeating some task again and again in order to improve some number. If you complete a mission once, without improving or changing anything, I wouldn't consider it grinding. If you do, we're misunderstanding each other or at least what I meant, when I said it.
When you're failing, but still improving your health and weapons, you will eventually succeed. You're (potentially) grinding your way to success. That's how the majority of difficulty levels now work.
I don't want to go for completion. I'm not there to grind everything until I gotten every weapon drop and have 10000+ health. I enjoy the weapon variety, the ridiculousness of the set-up, the differences between classes, the absurdly large scale battles, the challenge and so on. Going for "completion" or 100% is not why I play EDF.
Not true at all. I enjoy playing in co-op with clean saves, doing each mission once, living with the weapons you get and all difficulties can be beat that way, but they've taken that option away and it's one amongst several reasons I prefer 4.1.
EDF4.1 let you start right from the beginning on hardest or inferno and play through the game, with no grinding at all, doing each mission once, if you wanted to. If you failed on hardest, they didn't reward you for it. You just failed.
And classes you didn't play, didn't get stronger, so when you finally got around to trying the next class, it would feel like playing from the beginning. Not feeling like a class, somebody had already spent time grinding stronger.
Nah, don't agree that that says anything about whether grinding is a bigger focus or not, of if it has become mandatory. That just says something about the amount of time you'll have to put in, if you care about trophies.
That isn't correct. Grinding was an option, not mandatory. You could start directly on hardest or inferno, doing each mission once and complete the game. And you wouldn't be rewarded for failure, adding health and weapons when you failed the missions on hardest.
I'm almost the complete opposite of the sentiments expressed :)
It's not that I would mind if it was an option to increase things faster, for those that like grinding and want to cut down on the time they spend on the game (as paradoxal as that is to me), but I want Sandlot to have at least a way to play it in a challenging mode right of the bat. I'd prefer if they did away with the box collecting and I would love to see a mode, where you didn't grind health and weapons, but earned them in different ways (like Perfect Dark/Goldeneye did with their cheats or just by completing missions), since the box collecting is fundamentally boring. At least to me.
Run around collecting boxes, repeating missions again and again, until you're so powerful, you can complete the game, is both boring and exceedingly poor design in my book. It doesn't get more inane and was never part of the appeal. I realise I'm in the minority here and the modern industry is obsessed with grinding, so it'll probably be an even bigger focus next time.
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I just bought 4.1 the other day because it was the latest game on PC so I assumed it was the one I saw on Giant Bomb sometime last year. I'm glad to see the one from that quick look is coming to PC now. That back and forth singing and the dumb emotes and quips really sold me on the series.
Yeah, you are definitely in the minority. I can't even fathom playing EDF without grinding. I still don't even get where you're coming from. The game drops loot as you grind. It's a loot and grind game. Changing it to allow you to keep loot even if you fail the mission isn't a fundamental change.
The way you are describing playing the game sounds like speedrunning to me.
Yeah, thats what grinding means indeed, but usually people mean when something is done with the specific intent to gain something in the game. For example, playing the same mission(s) over and over again only to get new weapons or more health. When playing "normally" (for the lack of a better term), the main intend is to complete the mission, not mainly to boost the health a lot or get any specific weapons. Like you mentioned yourself, if you complete a mission once (or in other words, play the game "normally"), thats not considering grinding, i agree. No one is failing a mission in EDF5 on purpose because they want to get more health and weapons, so they're not griding by doing that. Its basically just a bonus to make it easier and faster to progress in the game, and this means that you have to do less specific grinding later on to increase your health and weapons.
That said, seeing your explanation now, i understand what you mean, but i wouldnt say that this is really related to grinding in that regards. Like you say, "(potentially)", so its not specific griding in that regards. We can rather say that it makes the next try a bit easier since you gained some health regardless :)
Thats fair enough. I also enjoy those things, but i also enjoy trying to reach that 100% goal because that gives me an extra challenge :) But grinding is a big part of EDF's design, even if people dont want to go for 100% or not. The game is designed in a way that you have to play the same mission multiple of times if you want to see all the content/weapons. Otherwise they would just give you all weapons as standard unlocks as you progress though the game.
But i just mentioned that because you said that a completion will happend in the end anyway because you get items even if you fail a mission, so i just wanted to point out that you need to complete inferno to get the best weapons. You cant fail and still get those weapons. When you said "completion", i understood that you were referring to get all weapons, reading your post again, maybe you ment just to complete the mission that was failed?
If you can go fresh into an EDF game and complete all inferno difficulty levels with just one completion for each level (which means that you get minimal of extra health progressing through the game), i think you have to be the best EDF player in the world to be honest :) Even if you play with co-op partners that do the exact same thing (have minimal of health). I mean that seriously and as a compliment. So maybe its not impossible for literally every person, but i will say that for 99.9% of the players its basically impossible to complete all inferno levels with a minimum amount of health, so i would say that what i said is pretty much the truth.
I'd honestly love to see how people would complete levels like for example
107 and 110
I'd also say that its impossible to complete some of these levels solo with certain classes unless you have a very high amount of health.
I understand. This means that theres more need for grinding later on if you're stuck at a level that you can complete though.
About not dividing health between the classes, yeah thats true. For me personally, i like this change. It means that i dont have to grind every single class to go for the 100% completion. But this is subjective thing, so fair enough if you dont like it.
By the way, you can limit your armor if you want that. You can lower it to basically any amount that you want. You're also free to choose between any weapons, so you can just start using the weakest weapons as well. ED5 also has 4 save slots, so if you want to start a class from scratch, you can just use a fresh save file :) So we can argue that its not a mandatory thing, because you're free to choose between those things.
Within the (small) EDF community i'm in, going for 100% is usually a bigger part of the EDF games. I mean, its not like everyone does that, but i do think that ultimately a goal if its feasable to do so. That naturally means completing all levels on inferno and/or getting every weapon, which no one i know can do on their first playthrough, so they all have to grind to be able to complete those levels and get all weapons. This has been true for every EDF game i know, thats why i wondered how EDF4 was any different.
But again, i see what you mean in regards to griding. I think we just had a different opinion about what grinding means, no problem with that. Thanks for the detailed answer :)
This isnt a modern thing though. The EDF serie has been built around the random weapon drops since its first game released in 2003. It has had the same core design for nearly 17 years now. Its only the two spinoff games (Insect Armageddon and Iron Rain) that has changed up this forumla in a more significant way when it comes to how weapons are unlocking, and both of those games also ended up selling less compared to the EDF games from Sandlot. Theres probably several different reasons for that however, but i think one part of it is that it doesnt have random weapon drops, so i'd say that random weapon drops definitely is a part of the appeal (or do you mean for you personally? If so, then thats fair enough of course).
EDIT: I added some text.
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My favourite game of 2018, and my second most played PS4 game after Destiny. If you've played EDF4/4.1, it's a significant improvement in almost every respect. Finally a killer app for the PC platform - maybe now people will take the system seriously.
Whether we call it grinding or not, it's the result I have a problem with: Rewarding the player for failure, meaning you can basically grind through the levels, completing them eventually even if you don't improve as a player. And that's how the majority of difficulty levels work.
That's why I used the word potentially. You can try to ignore it, but that doesn't change the fact that you'll keep improving when you fail.
No, you talked about it being necessary to play all difficulty levels if you wanted to go for "completion" and I just wanted to point out, that I don't want to do that. And forcing me to play through 100+ missions, before getting to the good part where you can actually fail a mission, is one of the reasons, why I don't like it as much as 4.1. Remember, this discussion (opinion rather) is about why I don't like the game as much as the previous one.
We can go fresh into inferno on every EDF that allows it, doing each mission once and complete it, but remember the point is not just inferno. People that want to play on any difficulty below that and relish an even challenge, will have their playthrough ruined, because the game keeps upgrading them when they fail. So what you say isn't true, because it affects more than just inferno.
We haven't done a lot of recording on 5 yet - only a few playthroughs - because I only have one PS4, forcing us to play in splitscreen, where it isn't worth recording. It's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the PC version, because I have two PCs, making full screen online recording a possiblility.
This is from our first playthrough of 107 and 110 (each mission done once, so we don't have all weapons and they aren't fully upgraded):
We haven't, but it is the same as my Era name.
I know that, but you'll have to keep track of where you are to get the exact amount and that's a hassle. And weapons, while not 100% similar, poses the same hassles.
And the last part you talk about is mandatory. When I buy the game on Steam, I will have to do 100+ missions to be allowed to play on the higher difficulties. I can't just switch to a new save slot, before I've done that (or I can, but if I do it before, the new slot will still require going through those missions). It almost takes away my will to play it, knowing I'll have to do those missions, before getting to anything resempling a challenge.
They are similar in most ways, but in a lot of crucial smaller ways, EDF 4.1 is better, but if you like grinding, that part specifically has been made easier in 5. And that's usually what people talk about, when they call it an improvement. How it's easier to collect boxes, how classes get some drops when you don't play them, how you're often rewarded for failure etc. All those things make grinding easier and if that's why you play it, it's a better game.
Grinding just isn't the appeal to me, so those "improvements" are worthless and in some cases detract from the experience.
You too :)
I'm aware that I stand almost alone here, but I think grinding is one of worst and most damaging trends of the modern gaming industry, perhaps next (and often connected) to the atrocious monetization models. Sometimes people post that FPS design meme on Era, that compares old school labyrinthine FPS games to their linear modern equivalent, but I think it should be updated to a completely sprawling open world, with slot machines placed everywhere to enable grind, looting and levels.
IMO people mistake grinding with actual good game design :)
Both of those games play fundamentally differently and are worse off in most ways, so I don't think they're fair to compare to. I do have the entire EDF series and I love them (well, only the mainline Sandlot games), but it was never because of the box collecting. I've always felt that needed to be changed, even if they don't have to give up all randomness, if they switched to a new system.
All of this is for me personally. A user asked why I preferred 4.1 over 5, so obviously the reasons are mine :)
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Yeah, i understand what you mean. I think you have to fail quite a few times to get a substantial amount of extra health though, and if people retry that many times, i think they improve regardless if they get a reward or not.
The game do also put a limit on how much health and how high weapon level you can have, so its not like you can grind to an "unlimited" amount of health and eventually complete the mission this way (thats only possible if you've completed 70% of the entire game, and then its optional to turn the limits off).
Sure, i know. I'm just saying that when i thought of grinding, i was thinking about playing a mission over and over again with the specific intent to get more health and new weapons, and i asked the question to begin with because i thought you ment this type of specific grinding :) But i understand what you mean, so its not really that important if we call it grinding or not.
Yeah, but the reason why i talked about completion to begin with is because you said that a completion would happen eventually. I thought you ment completion as in getting every weapon, but reading your post again, i see that you mean just to complete the mission. I was just misunderstanding what you ment with completion, sorry about that :)
Sure, no problem, i know that its just a matter of opinion :)
I think maybe we're talking about two different things heres, because what i say is true for a really big part of the EDF players :) I'm not talking about how getting reward for failing affects the other difficulty levels (i see what you mean, but i just pointing out that this wasnt my point :)). I'm only talking about the players who are able to go straight into the inferno missions and complete the game by only playing each mission one time. I might have been too adamant in my initial post when i said "no one", because someone can probably do it, but i do think that something like 99.9% of all EDF players arent able to do this. Completing the game like this will maybe give you maybe around 1500 - 2000 health when you reach the final level.
Having such low health throughout the whole game means that its very easy to die, and some enemies will kill you in one hit (like Golden Ants. I must admit that i initially thought that UFOs did more damage on inferno, so i was wrong about that) and i think 99.9% of all EDF players arent good enough to complete the levels with so little health. So even if people have the option to go straight to inferno, this isnt something that many EDF players can finish in that way, so what i said is true for most EDF players :)
And also, since weapons are randomized, you might be unlucky and not get good weapons if you only play each mission one time, which makes the game even harder. If you can complete it with such low health, your definitely one of the best EDF players out there.
With that said, i think that Sandlot should allow people to go straight into hardest and inferno from the start. I dont see any reason for them to have this limitation. Maybe they're afraid that newer players will start with inferno and quit the game fast because its too difficult hehe, i dont know.
I dont think many people feel that getting more health and weapon ruins the EDF experience for them. As i mentioned, the developers do put a health a weapon limit on you (expect when you reach 70%), and i think most people are fine with this. I havnt seen anyone complain about getting more health and weapons before at least. I did meet one player online that wanted to play with limits on even after reaching 70%, but other than that, most people i've played with wants more health and weapons. And as i mentioned, i think you have to fail quite a few times for the extra health to make a big difference. But like you said, its only a matter of opinion, so its no right or wrong answer to it :) I can respect your opinion on it.
I understand, no problem. Thanks for the videos! :) Although it seems maybe theres a difference between the japanese and the english version of EDF5. In the english version, level 107 is called "Scorched Earth" (its the one where the pylons come down in the end) and mission 110 is the one with the mothership. The levels you showed me are 106 and 111 in the english version. These levels can also be quite difficult with low health though, but i think level 107 and 110 (in the english version) are the most difficult ones in the game :) You seem to be a very good player!
Understood. Yeah, i cant remember your name, so we probably havnt played together, indeed.
Thats true. I just wanted to say that there is a way to lower the health if you feel that it will be too easy with higher health, and if this makes the game less fun for you. Just increase the health with maybe 15 points for each new mission, and if you played the game first on hard, i'm not sure that too many of those weapons are being used on inferno anyway because you get better weapons there quickly. It might be a bit of a hassle, thats true, but at least its an option :)
How did you do it in the videos that you posted above here by the way? I see that you have less than 1500 health when playing the final mission on inferno. Shouldnt you have more health if you already beaten the game on either easy, normal or hard first?
You're also right that you have to complete the game on easy, normal or hard first to be able to select a new save file and play on inferno from the start. I was just thinking that you can start a new character from scratch with 200 health and no weapons by switching to a different save file :)
I understand. We'll see what they do with EDF6, but i suspect that they will keep the same system as in EDF5. I think they mainly did this to make it more friendly (or what i shall say) for newer players.
Thanks :)
Well, its a matter of opinion. Theres really no right or wrong answer to what good game design is. There could of course be a general consenus about whats good or bad design, but in the end, its a matter of opinion and taste. To me, good game design in a broader term is when a game is designed in a way that people will enjoy the game. How do you mean that people mistake those things? Personally, i know what i like and dont like, so i'm not mistaking anything :) Its the same thing with you, you know what you like and dont like as well, and you're not mistaken anything about that :)
For me personally, having randomized weapon drops in EDF makes the game more exciting. This means that the game can still give me something new even after i've finished all levels. If they just gave away all weapons through the first playthrough, and if the game didnt have any 100% completion system, i would likely finish the game one time, maybe play a bit more and then probably never play it again, and move on to another game. It could still be an excellent game, but i would not have played it for hundreds of hours. EDF Iron Rain isnt like this, and to me, that didnt make the game just as fun, and its my least played EDF game (it took me about 90 hours to get the platinum trophy). Dont get me wrong, i still liked Iron Rain, but i liked the other EDF games more. And since i've got the platinum trophy in Iron Rain, i feel that i'm pretty much done with the game.
There has to be a good balance here though. I mean, grinding like 50 hours to get one weapon isnt fun. And i dont need every game to have some grinding mechanics in them. I think a good variation is the best:) But for me in games in general, i feel that one important element for longer playtime is to have stuff to work towards. If i feel that theres nothing more to improve, like that i've leveled up everything and collected everything, then i usually feel that i'm finished with the game, and i move on to something else. This doesnt have to be anything negative of course, but it does usually limit my total game time with a game, for better or worse. But if a game still have new things to work towards, then its possible that i enjoy that and continue playing the game. Dont you feel that its important to have something to work towards in a game?
Theres a few expections for me however. I used to play Medal of Honor Allied Assault online for PC for many years, eventhough that there was nothing to level up. Same thing with Counter Strike. But these are more of the expection than the rule.
And that said, this can variate a bit depending on the game. I gave up on getting 100% in EDF2 Vita because i knew that there might be 100+ hours of grinding in front of me, and i didnt think that would be fun.
As for FPS and slot machines, most of those things are for cosmetics only. Sometimes its for new weapons too, but the games i've played are usually well balanced, so the new weapons doesnt give a big advantage :)
Do you mean to compare EDF1 to EDF5? If so, i didnt really mean to do that. I just wanted to compare the core game design behind the EDF games when it comes to randomized weapon drops and health pickups. This has been a thing in every Sandlot EDF games. I just wanted to say that this part isnt a modern thing :)
Fair enough. I was just wondering because sometimes people talk about a point like its the opinion of the majority of players, so i just wanted to ask if you only ment for you or for people in general :)
EDIT: Just to do a quick summary. I understand what you mean. I understand that you dont want rewards for failing a mission. For me personally, i see this change as something positive, but i respect your opinion on it. Even if Sandlot removed rewards for failing a mission, i wouldnt really care about it. I've played EDF2017 Portable and EDF2 Vita with no rewards for failing, and that was also fine.
I also agree that Sandlot should just let people play every difficulty level from the start. I really dont see many reasons for them to put this limitation. Maybe they change this with EDF6. My points were just that i dont think many EDF players can start on inferno and finish the game with such low health. I'm sure that most players need to build up more health to finish inferno, and since failing missions on the easy to hardest difficulty levels give you some rewards, it means that you build up health and weapons quicker, which most people need to be able to complete inferno anyway. This is why i like this change :)
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Maybe. Or maybe the upgrades are just enough to get through the mission. What ever the case I'm against rewards for failure in EDF.
Maybe, if you only look at inferno, but since the criticism I have affects more than just inferno, I still think you're wrong. And even with inferno, there should still be a way to challenge players that want to try it that way, which the series understood previously.
Exactly. That's what's fun. There's hundreds of weapons, but if you only use the same 10-20 fully upgraded of them all the time, they feel wasted. When you only do each mission once, you'll need to learn more of them and suprisingly enough, many of them are quite useful, even if only in specific instances.
I enjoy that way of playing and the older EDF games allowed that. This one doesn't, when it upgrades me if I fail or if it forces me to play through 100+ levels upgrading the characters in the process or just upgrading when I'm not even playing them. And as I explained it's quite the hassle to keep track of where you are, so manually adjusting is not a solution.
That is exactly the reason, I'd guess. They're afraid of scaring people away and making them grind through an easy (upper half of the difficulties) playthrough will buff the characters. It's an increased grinding focus, which is evident in every aspect of the game and that isn't the draw of EDF to me. It's what pushes me away from games.
It's probably this one you're thinking of then:
Those hard weapons are too much of an advantage and you'll have to keep track of which weapons you've earned after every mission. It's not an option. Too much hassle in practice.
It's a new save slot started directly on inferno, each mission done once. Once you've beaten the game in a save slot, starting in slot two for instance, will allow you to begin on hardest and inferno right from the beginning. The completion carries across save slots (and thank god, because if we had to do 100+ levels every time we start a new slot, we'd give up on the game).
I expect it to be easier and even more grinding focused, like moving from 4.1 to 5. That's the trend of the industry and the direction the series is going.
I don't agree with that. I don't have a relativistic attitude towards game design and believe it is possible to identify connections between elements we'd consider "good" or "bad". That's not to say, you can't play with conventions (like 1001 Spikes do by having a template built around good unfair design, where general consensus would normally be that unfair design is bad, which says more about player preference than the design itself) or even use loose connections to ones advantage. The point is there are different "right" ways to introduce mechanics to players or do a set-up/iteration on something, just as there're wrong ways to do it. When I say the modern industry oftentimes mistake loot, grinding, levels and similar for good design, I'm painting with a very broad brush, not really commenting on any individual levels of specifics titles. And with many games or sections in games today, the individual connections between elements don't demonstrate sufficient understanding of how to connect or gradually build on what they've introduced. Instead they throw in the slot machine as a clutch and let players have loot to find, levels to raise and then let players grind the same pitiful sections over and over again. It's a compulsive loop, but in an addictive, more than a mechanically interesting way.
if we were gonna discuss it further, it would take it's own thread and I'm too time limited atm to be interested in that - and would also prefer to do it in Danish - so let me try and boil it down to the essence of how I view many modern games, instead of demontrating by going through the time consuming process of examining games individually.
On a very broad level when you play a grinding game, try asking yourself if you would still be playing it, if we removed the slot machine (the loot, grinding, levels and similar)? If that's the case, the game probably has some interesting elements, but if you're only there to see numbers go up, there's also a chance you're playing a glorified slot machine. If you love that design, great, but if you're like me, it's mostly (there are exceptions) not what I would call interesting design, and potentially damaging these days, where many companies are consumed by service plans, in which players are meant to dedicate their lives to any given game. And basically you can only do long running games in a couple of ways: Grinding or versus. Real content is expensive (in terms of how many hours a player can spend on it versus what it cost to make), but new loot is "free" (again, in terms of how many hours a player can spend on it. A relative cost, not actually free). So with companies aggressively targeting the service model, you get a ton of games, where slot machines have replaced actual good design.
And that's not a direction I want EDF to go in.
I don't consider randomization a flaw in itself. It's the way you collect boxes and the difficulty being wittled down gradually, by raising stats that bother me. When you do that in an action game, if feels like I'm getting through by just spending time. I want to overcome a challenge because I got better, not grind my way through it.
There are exceptions, where design of that type can work, but EDF is not one of them, and it comes with the unfortunate addition of having to collect boxes, which isn't stimulating.
That's because you're there for the slot machine :p
And that's why we view this so differently.
Like I said it's a worse game in most regards, so it's not worth comparing to. They don't have to do away with randomization, but what I would like to see, would be more fixed challenges. Stuff you can't grind your way through. I don't mind if it's there for those that like it, but allow people that enjoy the challenge to ignore it, like EDF games before 5.
That might also say something about how we look at games differently or maybe I'm reading too much into it, but trophies don't really mark an end point for me, if I like the game.
Same here and grinding can be done well. It's just when you have companies interested in getting player's hooked for as long as possible, you get... The modern industry, where the majority of AAA games suddenly have loot and grinding and crafting, with a few (mostly first party) exceptions.
Mostly, yes. I just feel like numbers going up have become too dominant in what there is to work towards, often to the detriment of the rest of the design, that oftentimes isn't interesting enough - boring even - if you remove the numbers. It didn't use to be like that. Try playing games that are older and notice how grinding numbers is mostly used in RPGs. What changed? Well, when companies are trying to maximize retention factor, it's no wonder it's started poisoning everything (not litterally).
Me neither.
Same to you :)
It's just my opinion of things and I know I'm in the minority here, but when someone asked why I preferred 4.1 to 5, that was one of the reasons. It's been interesting to discuss and sometimes it also helps me put my thoughts in order, when you go through a process of answering specific questions. It's also time consuming, so if I answer again it'll be much shorter, but that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the discussion :)
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I really enjoyed what I played of 4.1 but stopped when I realized the incredible amount of time it would take to make significant progress with multiple classes. I didn't know this about 5 so this is great news. Way more hyped to try 5 now.
I'll start with replying to your last paragraph.
Yeah, it can indeed be some time consuming to write longer posts like this :) I also think that we both have gotten to say much of our opinion on this subject (do you agree?), so no problem with a shorter reply. I also appreciate the discussion :) If we had this conversation face to face in real life, it would probably just take 10-15 minutes hehe. I was hoping to keep my reply on the shorter end now, but looking at it, it probably looks really long. I just had a lot that i wanted to say :)
The way i replied to your post now is that i read through it once, then i went and answered one quote at the time, reading each qoute more carefully and replied after this. This means that there can maybe be some repetition in the answers.
Hopefully it doesnt take too long to go through it. Otherwise, i have also written a shorter summary at the end of my post. It doesnt cover everything, but it covers some of the main points.
Yeah, thats fair enough. As i mentioned in my previous post, if Sandlot doesnt give rewards for failing mission in EDF6 (and future titles), i'm also fine with that. So i dont really have any strong opinion on that subject, so its basically the same to me :)
Yeah, i understand your point regarding getting rewards for failing a mission, and based on your point, i would be wrong. But as i mentioned, i think we're talking about kinda two different things right here. I'm just saying that a lot of EDF players need more health and better weapons to progress through the game, especially on inferno difficulty level. Dont you think so too? If there were no rewards for failing a mission, and those players reach a level they think is too hard, those players would likely just replay some of the easier missions and grind for more health there, then progress on to the missions that they've failed. This will of course variate from person to person, depending on how many times he/she wants to replay a mission or not. Not everyone has the interest or patient to play through the same mission e.g 20 times before progressing further, and then maybe facing the same situation for many of the other levels as well. While other might not mind doing this.
I specifically mentioned inferno earlier, but i think this apply to all the other difficulty levels as well to some degree, depending on the player's skill. For a skilled player like yourself, how many times did you fail when you first played through EDF5 on hard (or normal or easy, depending on what you played first)? Did you fail many times or did you beat the game pretty easily? Another player that isnt so skilled might have problems even beating the game on hard, so they might manually grind (playing the same level over and over again) just to be able to progress further on.
I dont think that there are that many people who feel that having to play through easy, normal or hard to begin with in EDF, and getting rewards from failing the missions, that this makes the game so much easier that it removes some of the fun from the game in a noticeable way. Thats basically all i'm saying, and i dont think i'm wrong about that. Do you see what i mean? But as i mentioned, i do understand your viewpoint on this, so you're right that some people could feel different about this as well. Sandlot should at least let people select inferno from the very start of the game :)
Fair enough. Theres different way to enjoy the game for sure.
Yeah, i can understand it being a bit of a hassle. I just wanted to mention a solution that would make the game "remove" the rewards for failing, by limiting the health yourself. I dont think its necessary to keep an exact track of the progress, you likely know aproximately how much health you earn for each mission, and it can be ajusted based on that. That said, its not possible to limit upgraded weapons though, so its not exactly the best solution that you'd want :) If they just give the option to start fresh on any difficulty level and have an option to turn off rewards for failing a mission, then that would be a solution for everyone.
Yeah, thats the one, thanks! Thats pretty amazing, you're a really great player! I had big problems completing that mission on inferno. I never tried it offline however, i only tried it online with 2-3 other people, and i failed probably 50+ times before finally finding a group of people who had a good strategy.
Also, just wondering, how did you find another player near you who is equally as good? :)
How do you mean with too much of an advantage? When you start playing on inferno and get weapons early on, arent those weapons already better than what you recieve for playing on hard? So basically, you wont use the weapons you get on hard difficulty when playing on inferno (unless that you want that of course).
Ok, i understand :)
I'm not sure that they will increase the reward for failed missions even more. I think the current drop is a good balance. It would surprise me if they increase this number even further (like you get 50% for failing a hard mission, i cant see them increasing this). But i think they will keep giving rewards for failed missions (excet for on inferno). I think most people prefer it to be like this. I'm not sure if many have complained to Sandlot about it either for the to acknowledge it, but who knows. We'll see sooner or later :) I expect EDF6 to be out in 2020.
I also expect that EDF6 will put of a pretty good challenge like the previous EDF games. But of course, this is subjective, as some players are better than others. For me, all EDF games i've played have had some pretty challenging levels, even if i've had higher health.
Yeah, this is a big subject indeed, so i will also try to keep it somewhat short.
I do agree that there are certain norms within game design that people can agree upon what makes a good game or not, definitely. Some design choices are almost unanimous agreed upon that will make a game more enjoyable. I could have been more clear on that in my previous reply. So i agree with that sentiment.
The only thing i was getting at was that its subjective when it comes to if someone enjoys a game mechanic or not. If someone wants to include a game mechanic in their game, its not like people can say "hey, thats an objectively wrong (or right) way to design a game, and thats an objective fact". Theres so many different tastes in gaming, so everybody is just as much right and wrong when it comes to what they like or not :) Do you see what i mean?
The reason why i said this in my previous reply is because you said "IMO people mistake grinding with actual good game design :)". Maybe i'm misunderstanding your point here, so please correct me if i'm wrong, and i do realize that you said "IMO", but i read this as you're saying that people are basically wrong for liking grinding mechanics, based on that you're not a big fan of that yourself (from what i understand at least). And that they only think that they enjoy it, but are mistaken, and that they actually dont like it after all. If people like this, or dont like it, its no right or wrong answer to that.
If the only goal is to see a number go up, then that would be boring very fast, at least for me personally. So i can agree with that. For me, there has to be other elemets to the game that also makes it fun. This means that if a game doesnt have other interesting factors to it, then the grinding element also becomes boring.
Grinding as an isolated mechanic is usually boring, so the game has to offer other interesting elements as well. This is why i think grinding as an added mechanic can enhance a game and make it more fun. There has to be a good balance and the combination of everything.
I know you're talking more broadly, but are there any specific gaming mechanics you wish to see more of that you personally would find to be more interesting? Just wondering, mostly in regards to what you said about that slots machines have replaced actual good design. Or do you think its basically impossible to do long term games without that mechanic? Because like you say, having to create brand new content "all the time" (like new maps, missions, coming up with new mechanics) takes a lot of effort. Some developers are pretty efficient with coming up with new cosmetics and things like that though. I guess it can be debated how much of those things goes as 'real content' however, but i think it can add more long term enjoyment to the games at least (as long as the game in itself is fun to play to begin with).
I dont think theres many service based games that are really ment people to have their lives dedicated to them. I know you're talking more broadly about the subject, but do you have any examples of games that are like this? From what i've seen, basically all of these games can be played in your own pace. The only case i've heard of more dedication are stuff like World of Warcraft where people play in a clan/guild, and kinda feel dedicated to that cause, so to speak.
I understand, but i dont think we have to worry too much about the direct EDF is taking. I mean, maybe the rewards for failing a mission will still be there, but overall, i think the game will continue to be much of the same. I expect EDF6 to have those ~100 different missions, maybe adding or replacing a class with a new class, have some new weapons and vehicles, new enemies etc.. And i'm fine with that :) I just mean that i dont think EDF will start including payed lootboxes, or take a direction like that, if that is the direction you mean. They could have easily have done that with EDF5 and Iron Rain, but they didnt. But we'll see :)
I understand. Thats fair enough.
Well, both yes and no. If the game didnt have the randomized drops, i'd still play it. I played Iron Rain for about 90 hours after all :) Its not like i find the EDF games themself to be very boring, but i want to have some progression to work towards and make it to "the end", so to speak. As i mentioned above here, its more about having an extra element to the game that makes the game as a whole more interesting. To me, its no different that you say that you enjoy EDF games for the ridiculousness. If they removed that from the EDF games, would you still play them as much?
Speaking of ridiculousness, another thing i felt was missing from Iron Rain were all the voice commands. I love to throw out some voice commands while playing online like "EDF!! EDF!!" and "Wooooooah!", stuff like that, haha :)
I understand, fair enough. They could perhaps add an option to turn rewards for failed missions on and off, i wouldnt mind that at least.
It really depends on the game itself for me. Its not like i necessarily completely stop playing a game simply because i've 100% it (or gotten the platinum trophy). I could have been more clear on that in my previous post. I've probably spend 20-30 hours in EDF5 after getting to 100% because i wanted to help other players, and it also gave me a chance to upgrade some of my weapons, just for fun. I've also played games like Soul Sacrfice Delta (PS Vita game) for quite a bit after getting the platinum trophy (was trying to unlock all the power arms in the game just for fun, eventhough they are not tied to any trophy).
I just mean that once i reached 100%, i've usually seen most what the game has to offer, and i'm happy with that :) Its not too much different from beating a retro game on the harderst difficulty level for examples, feeling that you've completed everything the game has of content.
Or to take another example, God of War is one of my favorite games series in the past 15 years or so, but i have not played any of the remasters. The reason for this is because i've already played and beaten the original games, so i feel that i've already seen what the games have to offer. Even if the remasters added trophies as an insentive to replay the games, that doesnt make me want to replay the games. I usually like trophies, but its not like they're an absolute must for me. It falls back on what i said earlier about that there needs to be a good combination of mechanics. One good mechanic might not be enough for me to enjoy a game :)
What marks the end point in a game for you? For example, you said that you dont go for 100% in the EDF games, do you keep playing the inferno missions many times over again after you've finished the game? Or do you usually quit the game after beating it once?
For me, trophies are just a bunch of challenges that the developers have added to the game. I often enjoy doing such challenges. Same reasons why some people like to do speedruns etc.. They want to see if they can complete certain challenges. Its not something that have to be done, but many people find these things/goals to be enjoyable.
I've also been playing games in general since the late 1980's, and i own probably more than 600-700 physical retro games. Its not really to brag, but i just mention that to show that i dont absolutely have to have some randomized or lootboxes type of mechanic, or trophies, to enjoy a game.
I understand what you mean. For me personally, i havnt really been bothered by this. I cant recall ever spending a single cent on any of these lootboxes, yet i've enjoyed many games with these mechanics. You're right that it can be an addictive thing, but its also possible to enjoy it without being addicted to it, or it being harmful (as people getting addicted, so that they spend tons of money on it for example, and they cant really control the spending habit). So i dont think its all bad, but i also think its important to focus on the cases were people can be addicted (which can be said about a lot of things however. but still).
I've played a mobile game for well over a year now, which has random drops to it, and i still havnt spend any money. I usually feel that the lootbox fees are too high of price, so i just play the game regularly. And just to take a specific example, Call of Duty. Those games have added lootboxes, but i dont feel that the game has any less content compared to the previous CoD games because of that. So i havnt felt that the lootboxes takes anything away from the games, but rather just adds something to it, which is optional.
Fair enough, and you're right that it is a mechanic that has been used more and more. Personally however, i dont feel that its that bad. I dont think there are that many games that basically just have number increasing for "no reason". Theres usually some goal with doing that, like unlocking some content for example. And often being optional. Or do you have any specific examples of these games that you're thinking about? I know that you speak more in general about this, but i'm just wondering. But, it comes down to what one enjoy to play, so its just a matter of opinion :)
And yeah, your right that RPGs (and action RPGS like Diablo) were usually the games that had these random drops and grinding indeed. But since people enjoyed (and still does) those game mechanics, this can also be a reason why more games started using them. Like you mentioned, you dont see the randomization mechanic as a flaw in itself. That said, i dont think its a secret that the randomizing is a good way to monitize things as well, so i dont argue against that :)
Just wondering, which game did you mean that shouldnt be compared in that case?
Thanks :)
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Summary:
I know i've mentioned this a few times already, but just to repeat myself, i understand that you dont want to get the rewards for failing a mission. If they remove that from EDF6, i would be fine with it :) Or maybe even give an option to turn it on or off. And i wouldnt mind if they let you start fresh on every difficulty levels.
When it comes to whats good or bad gaming design, i'm not sure how i could shorten it down too much based on what i said above here. But basically, i first read your earlier point as some type of criticism towards people for liking random drop mechanics and stuff like that. Reading your follow up reply, i guess that maybe that wasnt really what you were trying to do, so please correct me if i'm wrong. But that is why i mentioned that its a matter of opinion, because in the end, what matters is if people enjoy playing a game or not :)
For me, the random loot drops is there to enhance a game. The grinding mechanic alone is not enough to keep me interested in a game. It has to be an addition to an already interesting game, otherwise it wont do much good. I wont play through a game that i find to be really boring just to see a number go up or anything like that.
When it comes to the future of EDF, i expect it to be much of the same going forward (new levels, new weapons, vehicles and enemies, maybe a new class etc.). They might keep the rewards for failing a mission, but i dont think they will include lootboxes or anything like that. They could easily have done that with EDF5 and Iron Rain, but they didnt.
EDIT: I added and edited some of the text.
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This game is releasing literally tomorrow, and got announced while the summer sale was still active. I don't understand why they didn't put it up for preorder before the sale ended. They would have gotten a lot of extra sales by putting the game up for preorder while the $5 coupons could still be used. I wanted to use my coupon on this but I saw that the game wasn't available for preorder yet so I bought Celeste instead right before the sale ended since the coupon expires at the same time. Weird.
Is the DLC worth it?
edit: PSA: if you want all DLC be aware that the bundle is cheaper by another 20% compared to if you buy it individually.
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Downloading now! EDF 4.1 was my first experience with EDF, and it far exceeded any expectations that I had for it. I can probably count on my hands the number of games that have destructible environments.
Purchased!
Why are Japanese devs so awful at supporting unlocked frame rates and ultrawide monitors?
Why are Japanese devs so awful at supporting unlocked frame rates and ultrawide monitors?
$38 on humble if you're a monthly subscriber. Can't wait to jump in
Might finally give fencer a go, I've always stuck with ranger in the series but dash cancelling looks fun.
Might finally give fencer a go, I've always stuck with ranger in the series but dash cancelling looks fun.