What makes the end game feel boring?

[Curiousfellow]

There have been multiple posts about chapters 2 and 3 being boring. While I agree that these chapters feel a bit empty, I also find it weird that I didn't have this feeling with the original punch club.

In the original punch club, there was a middle where you could only train and fight and an end game where you could decide between training and building fame/respect to progress through the fight roster. These stages of the game weren't exactly packed with content(there was an endurance mode that you could partake in to boost your fame/respect progression in the third stage, but that's it), but they didn't feel like as much as a slog as the end game of punch club 2. So why is that?

I can think of two reasons. First of all, even though the second stage of punch club 2 didn't have much for the player to do, it also didn't overstay its welcome. There were 4 or so fights that you could partake in in intervals, and that was it. Comparatively, the second and third leagues have larger rosters, in addition to having you do repeat fights on weaker opponents to earn money. This drags out the stage.

The second reason is that once you get access to the endurance fights and fame/respect progression, that part of the game is fresh. The same goes for the second part: While the second part of punch club is uncomplicated, being at a stage of the game where you can dedicate your time to pure training without having to worry about earning money or food is fresh. Compare this to punch club 2, where the police and trainer jobs show up in the tail end of act 1 and stay the same except for some efficiency gains throughout the entire rest of the game, even becoming your only source of income eventually.

I think this is the source of the pacing issues in punch club 2: It's not that there aren't enough sidequests, it's that fighting weaker opponents is unexciting and the police and trainer jobs overstay their welcomes.

[Yo]

It's because there's 3 days between each fight, and all u have to do is train and work. There's nothing else to do. The few quests there are are completed within 15 secs u just travel to another area and it's done. So the majority of time in chapter 3 and 2 is spent on doing jobs (repairing mike office, studying law, police duty, training students), working to earn money, and training, which is the exact same thing each time. Chapter 1 has you unlocking stuff almost non-stop, but chapter 2 and 3 has little quests and they get completed very fast, which makes it very boring since you just repeat the same things over and over again. They should take example from graveyard keeper, in that game you always have something fun and interesting to do, at least until the late game where you've unlocked most stuff and you're just grinding. In Punch Club 2, grinding with not much else to do begins much earlier.

[Curiousfellow]

Originally posted by Yo:

It's because there's 3 days between each fight, and all u have to do is train and work.

This is also the case in the original punch club, and that did not feel as boring to me.

As for graveyard keeper, I heard that game is incredibly tedious and grindy. I'd be hesitant to take it as an example of good progression.

[Yo]

Originally posted by Curiousfellow:

Originally posted by Yo:

It's because there's 3 days between each fight, and all u have to do is train and work.

This is also the case in the original punch club, and that did not feel as boring to me.

As for graveyard keeper, I heard that game is incredibly tedious and grindy. I'd be hesitant to take it as an example of good progression.

I don't really think so. I've got around 25 hours and not one time did i feel like i'm just doing the same thing over and over. I've got about half of all technologies unlocked right now. Ofc just like most games after 2-3 hrs of playing i get bored, then i take a break at least 4-5 hours and i can play a few hours again.

[Nailkaiser]

The removal of underground fights was what did it for me. Having only one set of fights with lots of clicks between just isn't fun. I also remember sleeping and running around town more, whereas Punch Club 2 is mainly about riding around to Bobo and the noodle shop to refill your meters. Just a little too much to keep up when it's so boring and one dimensional.

I guess it's also the fact that you could beat Punch Club 1 in something like 30 days, whereas you could never pull off such a thing in Punch Club 2 due to how drawn out and linear it is.

[Yo]

Yeah i do wish we had underground fights

[Antiga]

Not enough smoking going on in the later chapters. There should be cigarettes, cigars, joints, pipes, blunts, bongs and shishas displayed being used throughout the scenes you enter in later chapters, all uncensored of course. Each fighter in the first division should also be visibly smoking through one of these methods in order to add more diversity. It's good to raise awareness.

[Yo]

Originally posted by Antiga:

Not enough smoking going on in the later chapters. There should be cigarettes, cigars, joints, pipes, blunts, bongs and shishas displayed being used throughout the scenes you enter in later chapters, all uncensored of course. Each fighter in the first division should also be visibly smoking through one of these methods in order to add more diversity. It's good to raise awareness.

Awareness of what?

[Curiousfellow]

Originally posted by Nailkaiser:

The removal of underground fights was what did it for me. Having only one set of fights with lots of clicks between just isn't fun. I also remember sleeping and running around town more, whereas Punch Club 2 is mainly about riding around to Bobo and the noodle shop to refill your meters. Just a little too much to keep up when it's so boring and one dimensional.

I guess it's also the fact that you could beat Punch Club 1 in something like 30 days, whereas you could never pull off such a thing in Punch Club 2 due to how drawn out and linear it is.

One thing that made doing side quests in the original punch more enjoyable was the skill progression system. Basically every time you did a fight, you'd make progress towards a new skill. So every time you found a new fight, that was an extra two juicy skill points on top of whatever story progression or other rewards you'd get. Here, fights are a drain on all resources except happiness.

[Yo]

Originally posted by Curiousfellow:

Originally posted by Nailkaiser:

The removal of underground fights was what did it for me. Having only one set of fights with lots of clicks between just isn't fun. I also remember sleeping and running around town more, whereas Punch Club 2 is mainly about riding around to Bobo and the noodle shop to refill your meters. Just a little too much to keep up when it's so boring and one dimensional.

I guess it's also the fact that you could beat Punch Club 1 in something like 30 days, whereas you could never pull off such a thing in Punch Club 2 due to how drawn out and linear it is.

One thing that made doing side quests in the original punch more enjoyable was the skill progression system. Basically every time you did a fight, you'd make progress towards a new skill. So every time you found a new fight, that was an extra two juicy skill points on top of whatever story progression or other rewards you'd get. Here, fights are a drain on all resources except happiness.

Fights don't even give much GPP if they're not league fights. And u don't need the mood boost cuz u already got training with silver and daily mood booster joke that should keep ur mood at green level at all times

[Curiousfellow]

Originally posted by Yo:

Fights don't even give much GPP if they're not league fights. And u don't need the mood boost cuz u already got training with silver and daily mood booster joke that should keep ur mood at green level at all times

Yeah exactly, in the first punch club every fight you won got you a precious resource. In this one, you get a happiness boost that isn't all that necessary.

[jason]

It's hideously grindy, plain and simple. You can increase a stat or two or maybe learn a new skill, but nothing makes a big difference in how you actually fight.

[Smurky Turkey]

I think it comes down to the amount of side activities and how rewarding the grinding is. Lazybear Games make grindy games, it is as simple as that. Depending on how it is implemented though it can either feel like a pleasant grind with plenty of surprises to break things up and seeing all that grinding make progress, or it will feel like wasting time/boredom.

Graveyard Keeper is a very grindy game, yet due to there being so much to do you are rarely ever stuck on one thing. You also see all of that grinding lead to something. In chapter 2 and 3 of PC2 there is almost no meaningful side content and besides a few numbers going up you do not get rewarded that much.

[Yo]

Considering how long it took em to develop the game, i definitely expected a lot more skills. They're already such simple skills, not like yugioh where a card is like super mega long, would have been cool if we had like 2-3x as many skills to pick from

[Yo]

Also most skills are the same just different damage and energy cost, so they all feel like the same skill