I’m so tired of games making me engage with systems that boil down to:

• do you want +15% something
• or do you want +10% something else
• or do you want +20% of a third thing, but only under certain conditions?
• etc.

I was going to type up a whole analysis of the item system in Deadlock but this is really what it boils down to. they:

• are such small buffs that they are barely perceptible on their own, so they don’t feel good to get
• increase my cognitive load in a game that I already find overwhelming
• are overwhelming to new players, and will definitely scare a lot of folks away from the game
• make the gameplay feel offputtingly inconsistent because some of the buffs are only active some of the time (why does Vindicta have a much higher max ammo while flying in the air? because of some item, probably. which fucks with my intuition for when to reload)
• add seemingly no value other than for heavily optimization-minded players?

don’t get me wrong - I really really like Deadlock. I think (or at least hope) it’s going to change how both MOBAs and hero shooters work from now on

but the item system feels like Valve prioritizing the sweaty hyper-competitive players over everyone else, and sabotaging the new player experience in the process. I’m sure it raises the skill ceiling but it also raises the skill floor and I think it’s much more worthwhile to have a low skill floor than a high skill ceiling

I think a big part of why I don’t like RPGs is because these marginal improvements don’t feel good to me, and the RPG genre seems to give rewards almost exclusively in the form of marginal improvements like this (or in the form of some kind of currency that can be exchanged for a marginal improvement, but that’s basically the same thing)

@kasdeya Yeah, as much as I generally enjoy OWRPGs (JRPGs much less so), too many of them fall into this trap. The Assassin's Creed games are the absolute worst for this, as you can end up with literally hundreds of skill points. Shadows improved this a bit since the nightmare that was Valhalla, but it still had a bunch of filler % boost skills, as you mentioned in your OP.

The original Horizon: Zero Dawn had a pretty decent skill tree. It had the same number of major points as the AC games (40-50), but most of them followed a much simpler theme: instead of % boosts, most unlocked slightly more advanced and useful skills. Nock two arrows instead of one, and then three. Aim and fire while on slack lines. Critical hit larger machines.

But ... then Horizon: Forbidden West came along and threw away all that simplicity. Not only did they explode the skill tree into the hundreds, but the actual utility skills were fewer. Most became just % boost "line go up" skills.

Hover to show content

Hover to show content

Hover to show content

@kasdeya I miss games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced where you earned entirely new ways to play as classes and abilities are unlocked.