Some critique about the new direction

[Acds]

To start off I can say I enjoyed the game more than any other Amnesia, and it felt a lot more like Penumbra (which is good in my eyes, having loved that series since the tech demo in 2006). I also played The Bunker on hard (felt it was a good idea to point it out, especially when I mention resource abundance later on).

No Stakes

The main issue I found was that I was never really worried about dying. Most runs last 5-10 minutes and there's no penalty for death (or reloading), to the point where it's easier to just reload if you end up wasting too many resources. This kills tension because even if the monster gets me, so what? I lose 5 minutes of progress, probably less (since I now know where to go and what to do), and regain any resource I may have used. I understand that making players lose 30 minutes of progress is not a good idea, but there need to be stakes for me to actually fear the monster. Impossible to say exactly what those stakes would be since it's deeply tied with the specific game in question, whatever Frictional's next one may be, however something like different paths based on the number of deaths comes to mind (I say paths rather than endings because most people will not be very motivated if it's just a small difference in a cutscene at the end, but if the last 20% of the game was locked behind not having too many deaths things would be different).

The monster is just a resource cost

You don't really fight the monster, you're never asking yourself if you can fight him where you are now with the tools you have (I can imagine such cases, but it never happened to me and they'd be pretty rare). You know you have a certain amount of bullets and barring a very rare miss, that means you have that many get out of jail free cards against him. Grenades and other tools may vary but they are generally a guaranteed escape as well once you know their timing and function (not that I ever needed them since bullets were plentiful). So when the monster shows up, there's no fear-creating doubt in my mind, I know it's just a matter of if I prefer to use one bullet and save time, or save a bullet and reload/die to start from the last save. If the monster had to be hit in a specific spot, or if there were any other uncertainties when fighting him, things would have been a lot more tense. As it stands I felt more like the monster was at my mercy than anything else, a bit like I did when fighting the dogs in Penumbra Overture after learning how to use the pickaxe properly, but even then it was easier to mess up and get mauled by 2 of them than to miss the hulking monster in The Bunker with the pistol at basically point-blank.

Too many resources

This is minor and mostly a matter of balance, but even on hard I had way too many resources. Fuel was plentiful and so were bullets. I'm a bit of a hoarder in games, but I still felt like it was too generous with those two key resources, especially bullets since using them is pretty rare.

All in all I much prefer this new direction over the old one and I hope Frictional evolves this formula in their next game.

[Gdudism]

What with the same gameplay? Not sure if thats advisable for any game company.

[JocularJosh]

I think a good amount of these issues, especially the last one, could be dealt with by adding limited saves to the game. On hard mode at least.
Save-scumming is something most people do in these kinda games, even Resident Evil for example.
My first playthrough took me as long as it did because I never did that. I never reloaded because I wasted resources so at the end of my playthrough I barely had anything left. The only thing I did have were bandages and fuel. I had zero bullets, zero shotgun shells, zero grenades.
But that only happened because I limited myself.

They could also add more stakes that way. Or just make it so that when you die you lose resources and either have to get them back by going to the chapel or have the monster lose them all around the bunker. Idk, just a few ideas to play around with.

[Magos Flibble]

Originally posted by JocularJosh:

I think a good amount of these issues, especially the last one, could be dealt with by adding limited saves to the game....

... just make it so that when you die you lose resources and either have to get them back by going to the chapel or have the monster lose them all around the bunker....

I love these.

Find and use matches to light the lamp. Having the beastie steal ur ♥♥♥♥ is a hilarious thought.

[Iggy Wolf]

I mean, to be honest, Frictional has always made it a point that you should play their game to be immersed, NOT to win. How much the monster scares you really depends on you. You could make the decision to go out and search for resources with the generator off. Or you could have it on but leave the gun behind in the toolbox so you won't have any means to protect yourself.

Really, how much of the experience is scary is up to you. I mean, people have compared this game to Alien Isolation, and anyone who's played that game will tell you, that having a gun or the flamethrower just to scare off the Xenomorph did little to actually reduce their fear of him.

Granted, after a while, it gets more annoying than scary, but that's only because of how long that game is. Point is, you could "save scum" in that one too if you constantly ran back to a save point. I don't think any game can make people continue to be scared once they've been exposed enough times or the tension broken up.

In fact, this is why I feel like what TDD did better than the future Amnesia games was the focus on the environment. It wasn't so much the monsters that scared you, but the darkness and ambient noises and sounds that made it SEEM like there was a threat just around the corner, but wasn't really there. You let the gamer's imagination run wild, and they'll scare themselves better than any actual monster could.

[Gdudism]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

I mean, to be honest, Frictional has always made it a point that you should play their game to be immersed, NOT to win. How much the monster scares you really depends on you. You could make the decision to go out and search for resources with the generator off. Or you could have it on but leave the gun behind in the toolbox so you won't have any means to protect yourself.

Really, how much of the experience is scary is up to you. I mean, people have compared this game to Alien Isolation, and anyone who's played that game will tell you, that having a gun or the flamethrower just to scare off the Xenomorph did little to actually reduce their fear of him.

Granted, after a while, it gets more annoying than scary, but that's only because of how long that game is. Point is, you could "save scum" in that one too if you constantly ran back to a save point. I don't think any game can make people continue to be scared once they've been exposed enough times or the tension broken up.

In fact, this is why I feel like what TDD did better than the future Amnesia games was the focus on the environment. It wasn't so much the monsters that scared you, but the darkness and ambient noises and sounds that made it SEEM like there was a threat just around the corner, but wasn't really there. You let the gamer's imagination run wild, and they'll scare themselves better than any actual monster could.

Yeah, but TDD dragged on for just a bit too long though, in my opinion.

[JocularJosh]

Originally posted by Iggy Wolf:

In fact, this is why I feel like what TDD did better than the future Amnesia games was the focus on the environment. It wasn't so much the monsters that scared you, but the darkness and ambient noises and sounds that made it SEEM like there was a threat just around the corner, but wasn't really there. You let the gamer's imagination run wild, and they'll scare themselves better than any actual monster could.

While that is true even that gets old rather quickly once you realise that there never is anyhing behind those noises.
You can clearly tell when something scripted is happening and that enemies have a set path they follow before they, mostly, despawn anyway.

Don't get me wrong, TDD was amazing and it is one of the best horror games in my opinion but it stopped being truly scary fairly early on. This one got the length down even though at the end I actively wanted more and the monster had no set path. There were no scripted encounters (except for the final one of course). I died quite a lot (on hard) and I always did something different when I reloaded. Sometimes it rarely showed up, sometimes it stalked my ass all around the bunker, sometimes it crawled around right next to me all the time, sometimes it was just dead silent.

TDD was very predictable and replaying it is more of a hasstle since all the magic is gone.
I can already see myself replaying this one at least twice.

[SpooglyWoogly]

Originally posted by JocularJosh:

I think a good amount of these issues, especially the last one, could be dealt with by adding limited saves to the game. On hard mode at least.
Save-scumming is something most people do in these kinda games, even Resident Evil for example.
My first playthrough took me as long as it did because I never did that. I never reloaded because I wasted resources so at the end of my playthrough I barely had anything left. The only thing I did have were bandages and fuel. I had zero bullets, zero shotgun shells, zero grenades.
But that only happened because I limited myself.

They could also add more stakes that way. Or just make it so that when you die you lose resources and either have to get them back by going to the chapel or have the monster lose them all around the bunker. Idk, just a few ideas to play around with.

Limited saves make no sense, when there are unlimited rats. You can't ever clear them meaning ever time you want to walk from Point a to point B you have to use a bullet, a nade, a health kit or a bandage so you have a finite amount of times you can walk from point a to point b.

[JocularJosh]

Originally posted by SpooglyWoogly:

Originally posted by JocularJosh:

I think a good amount of these issues, especially the last one, could be dealt with by adding limited saves to the game. On hard mode at least.
Save-scumming is something most people do in these kinda games, even Resident Evil for example.
My first playthrough took me as long as it did because I never did that. I never reloaded because I wasted resources so at the end of my playthrough I barely had anything left. The only thing I did have were bandages and fuel. I had zero bullets, zero shotgun shells, zero grenades.
But that only happened because I limited myself.

They could also add more stakes that way. Or just make it so that when you die you lose resources and either have to get them back by going to the chapel or have the monster lose them all around the bunker. Idk, just a few ideas to play around with.

Limited saves make no sense, when there are unlimited rats. You can't ever clear them meaning ever time you want to walk from Point a to point B you have to use a bullet, a nade, a health kit or a bandage so you have a finite amount of times you can walk from point a to point b.

Well, you don't have to infinitely walk through rats in this game.
It's like the old resident evil games. If you don't manage your resources well enough you are ♥♥♥♥♥♥. Since this game isn't all that long it's not that big of a deal.

[Magos Flibble]

Originally posted by SpooglyWoogly:

Limited saves make no sense, when there are unlimited rats. You can't ever clear them meaning ever time you want to walk from Point a to point B you have to use a bullet, a nade, a health kit or a bandage so you have a finite amount of times you can walk from point a to point b.

Burning corpses = No Rats

[SpooglyWoogly]

Originally posted by Magos Flibble:

Originally posted by SpooglyWoogly:

Limited saves make no sense, when there are unlimited rats. You can't ever clear them meaning ever time you want to walk from Point a to point B you have to use a bullet, a nade, a health kit or a bandage so you have a finite amount of times you can walk from point a to point b.

Burning corpses = No Rats

Not true, even after burning a corpse the rats come back.

[Magos Flibble]

Originally posted by SpooglyWoogly:

Originally posted by Magos Flibble:

Burning corpses = No Rats

Not true, even after burning a corpse the rats come back.

Unless you are mistaken and somehow missed the corpse, sounds to me like a bug.

In my play throughs I haven't experienced that. Burnt corpse = No rats.