Hobo Phase

Morrowind has the greatest progression system ever. Only newfags and retards go through the hobo phase in Mwind.

Literally how often is this actually true? Most of the time the most important items (the "Master Swords") are given to the player towards the middle of the game. Because they serve as a goal to motivate the player to grind through the tedious "tutorial" part of the game while leaving enough story after acquiring to maximize the given items effectiveness

I think I preferred later-game Terraria but I know what you mean. In a lot of games it's simply that it's that any gains you can make are both inherently large and unique, since you'll typically be going from "no sword" to "a sword" which is fundamentally different change from "good sword" to "better sword".

In action games there's also the feeling of figuring out how the trick to beating a boss mid-fight when you're almost out of health items, and actually beating him in the end.

Maybe I didn't explain correctly. It's kinda like said. In OoT for example you get your most game changing items when you're young Link. Probably the most important items you get as an adult is the hookshot. Sure you get some items like the Mirror Shield or the Megaton Hammer, but they don't change the gameplay that much, they're just items made for specific puzzles. It doesn't change the gameplay as much as having your first sword/shield, your first projectile weapon (Slingshot), your first throwable weapon (Bombs/Deku Nuts). The Master Sword doesn't even introduce different gameplay mechanics (It's just a Kokiri Sword with more range and damage).

I think he meant important, as in, important to the gameplay aspect of the game, rather than the in-game importance to the actual story of the game, so in the case of Zelda he'd be referring to the first sword you get. The first sword you get is the one that teaches you one of the most important parts of the game: combat, and you get it at the beginning. When you finally get the master sword, you've already got experience with swords, and the master sword is the same thing but it does more damage.

In Terraria's case it has to do with the major shift in priorities when the game transitions to hardmode. Pre hardmode is freeform. While there is an ideal progression path in reality you can tackle things in what ever order you wan't or even not at all. Once you reach HM though you have to jump through a series of hoops in sequence. You HAVE to fight all 3 mechs. You HAVE to mine for chlorophyte, mind you that chlorophyte is the only ore in the entire game that you are forced to mine. You HAVE to beat Plantera. You HAVE to beat the Golem. You HAVE to beat the Cultist and then the Towers.
Also effectively 100% of the exploration is pre HM, the jungle temple is so much nothing that it practically doesn't even count.
The other thing is that HM focuses way to much on escalation and DPS. Pre HM is a comfy town building and exploration survival simulator with occasional boss fights. HM is "grind until you become a 2hu".
The only thing in Terraria that has a nice fluid progression curve in Terraria throughout the game is building parts.

Early game Terraria is the comfiest part.

Because the less you have to more you can get

I guess Thorium might fix this to some extent since the extra bosses kind of "hide" the ones needed to progress but I feel you're right about Hardmode overall. It becomes too linear and you're compelled to deal with the bosses whereas you can deal with them at your leisure in pre-hardmode for the most part.

What I find interesting about the differences between pre HM and HM is that it not that the developer has changed their mind about the design and progression of their game over the years and that's why the two modes are different. They have continually reinforced the freeform nature of pre HM even as they have closed up any sequence breaking loopholes in HM. I mean they added fishing which is the biggest sequence break in the entire game and then they make it mandatory to beat all 3 mechs in order to craft the next tier pick that is REQUIRED to progress. It just seems odd to me.

SoC is a pretty cheap example when you look at the lifecycle of development. Pripyat and ChNPP were pretty shamelessly butchered and rushed out the door.
Terraria and Factorio have the opposite situation, they're dogshit before you really get things going. But Terraria is dogshit either way so what do I know.

I'm gonna use Metroid as a classical example of item-based progression done right.
Basically, you don't want items to only increase your attack and resistance prowess. Instead, if a new item introduces a new game mechanic, then hte game manages to keep itself fresh along the entire way.
Zelda used to do this, but Ocarina of Time was probably the last game that took the rule to heart, and Twilight Princess was the first to drop it entirely. That rule being:
TP is a pretty good game, but once you find a new item, it has close to zero functionality in the overworld, only ever being called again in the last dungeon.

Modern games' idea of progression is usually "deal more damage", "take less damage", "add a handful of new mechanics like a double jump, but sadly nothing new or innovative"

I just realized one of the reasons why I love Dragon Quest builders so much. You effectively stay in the hobo phase through out the entire game. By the point you are about to transition out of it you save the current region and then it's off to the next region and you are back at the beginning of the hobo phase.

You feel like it's more "fun" because you're a casual that doesn't enjoy the increase in complexity and difficulty that comes along with leaving the early game. Things are simple, manageable, and retard proof in the "hobo phase". It's in your comfort zone, it doesn't stress you out, it doesn't demand anything from you but brainless sloppy play.

>always come back with the expectation of a new, vibrant SS13 serb
I've nearly got my fill of vidya. Once I load up on new music, I'll set out for a new adventure and come back again. I hope you guys enjoy your video and enjoy your family while they're still here.

Lol, every fucking RPG gets piss easy eventually because you drown in money and have so many resources that you don't feel threatened by anything. Meanwhile in the beginning when you got no extra health items and will run out of bullets easily, the game actually has some challenge and makes you think whether it's smart to do something or not.

Hobo phase is fun because it's challenging. Stalker COC is probably the best example of that. You start with nothing but a random shitty weapon, usually a pistol, and with barely any ammunition. Even a dog can kill you easily. Compare that to the late game when you got the best armour, unlimited ammunition, tons of medic kits and bandages, sniper+shotgun+rifle as weapon. You can even beat a platoon of monolith men equipped with gauss rifles and rocket launchers on your own.

I don't think I've ever played an RPG that gets progressively harder, but most games with an RPG style inventory and items only get easier the more you play them. Sure they get more "complex" but in practice it just gives you more options to solve the same problem making everything easier rather than harder.

...

MGSV might be a disappointing mess, but it has one of the best hobo phases I've played, even though it's a bit too short for my liking.

Why does it look like a weeb Minecraft?

This is why I played Terraria’s Expert Mode once through and then never again.
It just gets insanely metagamey at that point.

THAT'S WHAT IT IS

Bad game design, these Games are basically Survival Games without the Survival part, because of this the Player is collecting resources he never needs to use.

I think Castlevania Symphony of the night did it right with the massive power gains that the mobs had between the later parts of the normal castle in comparison to the inverted castle, it made you feel like you were starting over again.
Doom kinda does this at the beginning of each episode by removing all your inventory, but in this case it feels bad and annoying since it's everything you had.

I think it's more about keeping the game fresh. As other said, most games will teach you most of the main mechanics at the start and/or you'll feel the biggest leaps of power at the start of the game. It's hard to keep that feeling without going into full power creep mode like World of Wacraft.
I'd say a way of keeping the game interesting is by selectively removing some of the players gained abilities/items temporarily and force them to complete challenges with his remaining stuff. Or just try your best to not make progression a simple "this new item B is better than your old item A in every way", and instead make new items and abilities that are different and useful.

...

You're a better autist than I if you can enjoy autohotkey tier first three hours of gameplay.

It actually more like weeb 3D Terraria that just so happens to look like weeb Minecraft.

You have to either keep the game fresh by introducing new game mechanics as you go along the game, stop the game before it starts to get repetitive, or both. Someone mentioned horror games as an example, and usually they end right before you start to get tired of the game since they don't have a lot of variety.

Good games can drag this out almost indefinetly, and feel like they have a very calculated point where the average player will get tired and wants something new. One example is Bayonetta, even if it's not a proper murderhobo game. Once I was getting tired of the game, at that exact moment it gave me new enemies and new challenges. It happened again once I had progressed the game some more. It got to the point I was so good at the game I wanted to beat it on the hardest difficulty, and I eventually did. The same thing can be seen with Zone of the Enders, Devil May Cry, etc.
Which leads me to the point that a good game should feel like it is implicitly teaching you and constantly testing your skills. It has to lead you on and make it seem like whatever stuff you figured out was because of your own doing and it also needs to give you challenges so you can learn something new from them.
It seems like there is a lot of psychology to know when making a good game. By this logic I would say the reason the hobo phase is the best phase in games like STALKER is because it is the only point in the game where you majorly learn something new, and after that it is just going on auto-pilot with very little learning taking place.

Wrong.
Early game:
Late game:

I don't think the "introduce mechanics slowly" idea is really the root of this. SoC/CoP are fun on multiple playthroughs, as are sandbox games with no story like M&B.

hobo phase terraria bores me, but im a turbo autist who wants to build a damn city wherever he goes.

Portable Zeldas still has this.

Also, Breath of the Wild had that island where you were back into Hobo phase and that was great.

it's worse in games with randomised loot such as Borderlands and Dying Light

Cataclysm DDA has a great hobo phase with the option of starting as an actual hobo.

For all it's flaws, I actually like the fact that all the items are used regularly in BotW. Even if you get them within 30 minutes at the beginning. Felt a lot better than
Haven't played portable zeldas since minish cap, with the exception of Link Between Worlds, which doesn't really go back to the norm I wanted, but was very good regardless.

Mount & Blade does this really well, you start as an actual hobo whose only possessions are clothes and shitty weapons, you have to start wondering around and working yourself up from where you are by slaughtering other hobos until you amass enough money, gear and soldiers to become a merc/lord. Early game is the most enjoyable phase of a campaign since everything that comes after acquiring lordship is quite repetitive and can get boring, though I still enjoy it.

Yeah, and that's the only passable part of the game because the rest is a series of endless repetitive battles and grinding like mad for a goal that requires hundreds of hours despite you having achieved near maximum power and rarely ever getting challenged.

I've always wondered about this myself too. The first time I remember feeling this was in Diablo 2, I think it is a combination of many things.
The change in mechanics become more apparent when you go from nothing to something. You also usually discover/rediscover more mechanics early in the game.
Early game is always more memorable than the rest of the game. I think this is a big factor with games you like the most.
After a couple hours into the game you already got your fix, you played/replayed the game you wanted, so there is no need for that anymore. The game may also become repetitive at this point.

The later two are relevant to any game, but when bundled with the first one it becomes a package of boringness.

It's an uphill battle on a hill made of grease, user. Appreciate the few games that do try something different for what they try to do, but don't expect them to be perfect.

It's SHIT!

Official Terraria game stage power rankings
1. Mid-early game
POWER GAP
2.Mid-game
3.Late-early game
POWER GAP
4.Late mid-game
4.Start of hardmode
MASSIVE POWER GAP
5.Start of early game
UNREACHABLE POWER GAP
6. Late game
7. Post game

I disagree. DA:O is only fun at all when you're a high-level Mage with a massive kit of spells to just fuck anything that looks at you funny. Dropping a Mana Burst on a room full of boss-level Mages and cucking them out of their magic is the toppest shit you can do in a game.

Morrowind manages it well enough, as long as you're fine with how OP you'll eventually become.

MMOs are generally a good example of how not to do it. The games are fundamentally the same regardless of how far along you go. Maye with the exception of GW, since the game puts a hard cap to your power level much earlier than any other game, and just lets you go after more difficult shit. Also, PvP.

Difficulty that adapts to the player's performance is actually better if players don't notice it. Most people don't know that Resident Evil 4 has adaptive difficulty.

What games throw you in and out of hobo phases but without compleately clean slating it like a rogue like?
I think planescape did this right?

Yeah I know what you mean. Expert exacerbates the hardmode balance problem even more and it even further narrows your armor and weapon choices. You pretty much HAVE to use beetle armor against Cultist, Towers, and Moon Man. And you have to have every buff available to you active at all times during an event or boss fight. That increased drop rate and special boss bag items are not worth it at all.

The problem with most RPG's is that these games are made around the progression system and are't really fun otherwise. There's a heap of shit to unlock, but when each new unlock cancels the previous and makes it meaningless, it also removes the fun factor for the low level areas, making people skim through them without thinking. When progression slows down or is halted, the fun factor also dissipates.

However sidegrades aren't really the answer, since there's only so many you can think of untill they start becoming repetitive as well.

I think the best way to avoid this is to have branching mutually exclusive upgrade paths that become more and more unique in the way they play to keep the player entertained in the lategame instead having everything unlockable in a single playthrough. The story should work this way as well. Way of the samurai did a great job in the way it strutured it's story and progression.

L4D2 had that system where some routes would unlock/block based on how much/little you get your shit kicked in. I liked that about it.

Strange, I don't remember that.

Boy am I glad I dropped that game quickly, then.

If you have money, life ends up being the same no matter where you go. All problems have the same solution. Money. However, if you don't have money, you learn to live your life according to where you are. You are constantly adapting to new circumstances, and that adaptation brings novelty and a sense of accomplishment even when meeting small goals.

Did she ever fuck the shota?

Hell no. She never even threw her wife Tanda a pity fuck.

Been meaning to read the books, so maybe they get together there. But the nips love their tragic stories, so chances are they'll just stay miserable as some kind of poignant reflection on modern life or some shit

Disappointing, maybe sadpanda can remedy the situation.

I can't stand early game terraria either, everything is super slow and on expert mode enemies are just bullshit hp sponges unless you min max early out.

In other words, the problem with video games is that as the player gathers resources with a fixed rate, they pile up and make everything in the game a trivial matter. Because resources don't degrade and are not wasted, their total value keeps growing exponentially. It's a problem with pretty much every game, even mmo's which are designed to be as grindy as possible.

Take EVE for example, after launch everyone was a poorfag and even medim sized ships were a luxury few could easily afford to waste. Now when the ammount of resources gathered by the players has reached critical mass, every large corp/alliance/whatever can afford to lose however many titans, which are the end-game god ships, and not even care, because the value of in-game assets has deflated this much. In fact said titans aren't even "meta" because of this, and are only used for the utility they provide as mobile warp points.

>>>/tumblr/

t. someone without money

It's implied that they got together at the end of the anime. I think the last line of the entire anime was her saying "Tanda's food would taste good right about now"

That's literally the show, though. It's not even political, they're not propped up as role models and it's made pretty clear that women make shit warriors and Tanda has a woman's job - the characters don't even deny this - but that's just the circumstances these characters find themselves in. Balsa plays the male role of defending the home, while Tanda is a healer and herbalist who cooks and mends Balsa's wounds while nagging her about settling down and starting a family.

How the fuck else would you describe it?

Because you have to think more when all you have is a shitty, barely functioning handgun than if you become destruction incarnate.

Only hobos would like BotW and that is if they would be blackout drunk. Zelda is dead and has been so for over a decade.

Reminds me of why I live Megaman X, Megaman Zero and Megaman ZX

Todd pls go

Are they legitimately married or are they not legitimately married?

Minecraft is just shitty 3D terraria.

my reploid loving nigga

I just looked it up because it sounded like something the director would do and it was
left4dead.wikia.com/wiki/The_Director#Dynamic_Maps
The Director would also would put extra medkids based on your actions and other things

...

They're not even really a couple, but he's a childhood friend and presented as the love interest.

A fascinating possibility.. poorly executed, but potentially interested if that was their actual intent.

Was about to make this thread. Playing pick related. Start out the game with basically nothing. One thing that got me super excited was how rudimentary items where all useful. You can use a fishingrod to fish for food, or you could use a knife to cut the rope off the fishing rod if you needed a rope (also saving inventory space since rope took up a ton). Sticks can be used to repair levers or make stakes for killing zombies, although I hear it's more useful to keep them and collect as many as you can find. Bottles are re-usable. You can hold water (to make bread and pies with) or make potions. Every time you find one it's like a small upgrade. Rolling pins also can be carried to make pies or apple pie with Your inventory is really small so you have to juggle what you need, and sometimes decisions are tough.

Then you get 2 backpacks tripling the size of your inventory. There's like 10-15 bottles grouped together consecutively so you end up with 70 or so. Food is fucking everywhere to, so why do you need a fishing rod, rolling pin, or even water? You can teleport around the map so even if you run low on supplies you can just go back to your stash and stock up.

I'm thinking about dropping this game now.

...

...

Hobo phase in sandbox games is interesting because you often have to take on challenges which you are not properly suited for, forcing you to improvise and get around your weaknesses. This makes for a much more varied gameplay and higher degree of player involvement.

Armored Core games sort of had this. You'd normally start the game off with an AC decked out with the cheapest parts and weapons. Mission rewards were deducted based on the amount of damage taken and ammo expended so a trigger-happy maniac who constantly took damage could actually lose money. Part of the hobo-phase is doing well enough in missions to keep rewards high and profitable with crappy parts until you can save up and get good weapons and parts.

Eventually money stops becoming an issue and now the player has to worry about what kind of AC is needed for certain missions. I think this was mostly evident in AC2:AA since there were so many different types of missions in the game that you'll find yourself switching parts or buying a part you thought would never use to make certain missions easier/less frustrating.

Yeah. At the start of a game the world is unknown, and the unknown is a requirement to adventure. The more you see, the more world is defined, the more your limits are made clear and your imagination disappointed. Kind of like real life.>>14245239

Is this why commies love it?

Tarkov has a pretty good hobo phase since you can lose all your gear if you die, granted you can probably just buy it all back later on, but still.

literally only game where that happens is rim world

how is escape from tarkov anyway?

It's a result of a poor story. The gameplay involved in gaining whatever is needed to complete the goals of the game becomes more fun than actually facing the reason you needed to grow in the first place.

The only thing about early game terraria I really don't like is how slow you start off. slogging around trying to find those fucking boots just isn't fun. Soon as you get the boots and hook though things get a lot better tbh.

Great when the servers arent desynced as fuck and sounds work right

Any 4X game in general. And I've never heard someone try to mask inability to handle late game 4X as "oh man I miss the hobo phase" the "hobo phase" idea is unique to RPGs and the like.

If you actually think this is the case you're a dipshit. Typical late game - nothing matters except the next incremental gear upgrades, most shit you find you just haul back to a shop to turn into money. The game goes from being cerebral "oh fuck that thing can kill me in 3 hits, how can I game the combat system to beat it" to brainlessly turning mobs into mince with Dildo Sword of Magma +7 and looting everything in a rather uninterested fashion since most stuff you find is garbage.

I always dread the slog through early game Factorio. Especially since I play with a load of autistic mods like bob's and angel's. Getting decent iron and copper production, the first tier of circuits is a real drag. After that things pick up significantly.

This really applies to all games. Learning is the fun part, then it just becomes repetition.

Zelda went to complete shit with Windwaker, haven't cared about Nintendo at all since. 3 dungeons, shit stealth one, entire world end game fetch quest. The new zelda managed to go even further and have 0 dungeons. A dungeon crawler with no dungeons. This is the point we are at.

Game devs just do not understand RPG fundamentals at all now since they are no longer people who play games. RPGs are balanced by the player, they do things at a level of difficulty they choose by how they level. Scaling enemies with the player totally fucks this and defeats the entire purpose of being an RPG.

Yes, having limitations and building up your character is fun, starting with everything you need is boring it isnt that complicated

the real issue is novelty
if there were at least plot progression or a variety in missions it would be more novel and thus more enjoyable

I base this on those studies they did about porn and different mates, I think they used goats

I know its tedx but its worth a watch

Imageboard browsing feels like it's the same, I'm not really that big on porn and have found it pretty uninteresting for the past year or two. But any time I have a lot of free time I find myself burning time here.

sometimes I feel like becoming a hobo adventurer, but that's just me reading too much on adventures

Pretty much every GTA post-VC has this phenomenon in full effect too. From what I gather it's mostly because you have enough to fall back on and as a result can take more risks that you wouldn't have dared to take in the earlier part of the game. You lose the degree of consequence that would befall your lesser self, so to speak.

Indeed user, that's a part of it
but to the point on vidia, when the novelty wears off that is usually when the game becomes less fun.
The other problem I would mention is how some developers attempt to address this, at this moment I can think of 3 examples where they make mistakes.
They add more content but it's exactly the same so there is no new novelty
The developer adds more content but at the same time adds a sense of urgency or other plot related point that pushes you to burn past the new novel content unless you remove yourself from the immersion enough to ignore it
They add a bunch of useless content that doesn't go anywhere and has no value

I think I had a different thing in mind for the third one when I started writing this post but my mind shifted a bit, you get the point though

OH YEAH, CONTENT BEHIND PAY WALLS

Also I like to think that the original Fable maintained Novelty the entire way through.

I am pretty strong-willed when I put my mind to something. I can tell myself I'm going to do something and end up doing it. I really wish I could give up imageboards and browse an hour or two, though, but it's the only way I can talk to other people. I always end up fucking up whenever I'm talking to someone, so imageboards let me get that social stimulation without that awkwardness.

git gud, you're not supposed to roam the overworld at night and there's starting good weapons like boreal bow + frostburn arrows that can get you through the hobo phase

The tools in in BotW are shit and the bombs are the only ones you use constantly.

Challenge Mode is best Hobo game.

This post got it pretty right. Essentially every bit of character progression is a paradigm shift in how you play the game. For most games, once you reach roughly the midpoint of character progression, all the fundamentally different new abilities turn into upgrades of previous onces that simply do more damage, cover more area, provide more shielding, etc. The allure of many early RPGs is the rapid succession of gameplay complexity-enhancing advancements.

Gee wilikers will we ever know why m