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  1. #81
    Quote Originally Posted by Super Kami Dende View Post

    by that definition literally any game with something optional off a completely linear path is "padding"
    Well, if that was not padding, then what was? IIRC none of the caches gave anything else than loot. At least the random corpses/chests often had a small text only quest and a bit of lore, say, some merchant got killed. So what were the caches if not padding? Same as with random monster nests?
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadoowpunk View Post
    Take that haters.
    IF IM STUPID, so is Donald Trump.

  2. #82
    Quote Originally Posted by Easo View Post
    Well, if that was not padding, then what was? IIRC none of the caches gave anything else than loot. At least the random corpses/chests often had a small text only quest and a bit of lore, say, some merchant got killed. So what were the caches if not padding? Same as with random monster nests?
    Ways to encourage exploration in the open world? That's pretty standard stuff in open world games, not everyone is going to just explore for funsies so you add some rewards for exploring certain areas and folks are going to engage a lot more with the open world.

    To make a comparison: Think of most of the locations in a Fallout/Skyrim game. They're not needed for any quests/main quest, many don't add any story/lore either. They just exist, many simply to farm some enemies and get the chests of loot at the end. Yet I'd be hard pressed to find many folks who would call that "padding" rather than a big part of the game itself.

  3. #83
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Ways to encourage exploration in the open world? That's pretty standard stuff in open world games, not everyone is going to just explore for funsies so you add some rewards for exploring certain areas and folks are going to engage a lot more with the open world.

    To make a comparison: Think of most of the locations in a Fallout/Skyrim game. They're not needed for any quests/main quest, many don't add any story/lore either. They just exist, many simply to farm some enemies and get the chests of loot at the end. Yet I'd be hard pressed to find many folks who would call that "padding" rather than a big part of the game itself.
    So what IS padding then? Do note - I am not even negative about W3. I did clear all those places, too.
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadoowpunk View Post
    Take that haters.
    IF IM STUPID, so is Donald Trump.

  4. #84
    Quote Originally Posted by Easo View Post
    So what IS padding then? Do note - I am not even negative about W3. I did clear all those places, too.
    Good examples: The endless "help X" quests in FO4 that are just generated repeatedly. Lots of the standard, "Kill X" quests for a lot of inconsequential NPC's that really does nothing for the story or your character or the NPC. The "endgame" of Shadows of War with the like 40 hours grind to see the "true ending" is a fantastic example to boot.

    Edit: Also, excessive use of open world goodies like Far Cry often does with the bajillion chests on your map. You can oversaturate with that kind of stuff and really kill any actual gameplay value it could deliver.

  5. #85
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    Good examples: The endless "help X" quests in FO4 that are just generated repeatedly. Lots of the standard, "Kill X" quests for a lot of inconsequential NPC's that really does nothing for the story or your character or the NPC. The "endgame" of Shadows of War with the like 40 hours grind to see the "true ending" is a fantastic example to boot.

    Edit: Also, excessive use of open world goodies like Far Cry often does with the bajillion chests on your map. You can oversaturate with that kind of stuff and really kill any actual gameplay value it could deliver.
    Soo... Witcher 3 map clearing? :P
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadoowpunk View Post
    Take that haters.
    IF IM STUPID, so is Donald Trump.

  6. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by zetitup View Post
    How many hours would you say is worth the money from a game?
    Say you buy a AAA game for 60 EUR/USD, how much time playing the game would you say, "This was worth the money"?
    Also, do you expect less game time when paying less, say an Indie game or any cheaper game from a big company?

    EDIT: The reason i picked Time as a unit here is because it's a generic, adding gameplay, graphics etc, alot of it comes down to personal preferences. While if you measure it in time, you can see a bit more general overview. Say you read a review of a game from someone playing it for 10 minutes and saying the game sucks. Compares to someone playing it for 2 hours or more claiming it sucks. Which opinion would you trust more? Maybe the beginning is really bad, but it becomes better etc.

    Also, you are paying say 60 EUR/USD for a game, which you would have spent real hours trying to earn, so kinda wondering if you spend 6 hours getting the money, how much hours do you expect in return from a game then. Hope this answers why i picked Hours and not anything else to measure it
    I set my enjoyment/ hour to $1.00/ Hour so if a game costs $60.00 I better get 60 hours out of it or I will expect a refund.

  7. #87
    Imagine paying $60 every 10 hours. That'd be rough.
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  8. #88
    Quote Originally Posted by Easo View Post
    Soo... Witcher 3 map clearing? :P
    I don't know how many of these are in W3, but if it's like a million of them and they're largely overlapping with other points of interest/reasons to go to those locations then yeah, I'd say that's some padding.

  9. #89
    Always use the Golden Ratio.

    1.618

    Remember, a rectangle with a ratio of 1 to 1.618 is the most *pleasing* shape for a rectangle. So when it comes to pleasure, the Golden Ratio is a part of our definition of pleasure. The method of using this is to compare pleasures.

    Let's say you could spend $60 on enjoying your favorite food for 1 hour or spend $60 on a fun game that you play for 1.618 hours. If you would rather do the latter, it is a fun game.
    TO FIX WOW:1. smaller server sizes & server-only LFG awarding satchels, so elite players help others. 2. "helper builds" with loom powers - talent trees so elite players cast buffs on low level players XP gain, HP/mana, regen, damage, etc. 3. "helper ilvl" scoring how much you help others. 4. observer games like in SC to watch/chat (like twitch but with MORE DETAILS & inside the wow UI) 5. guild leagues to compete with rival guilds for progression (with observer mode).6. jackpot world mobs.

  10. #90
    Don't believe you can count hours played as "Worth the money"

    CS:GO is basically free, but its pretty common that players have 3000 hours played..
    People are still playing GTA V, after 8 years - one time payment.

    Story based games should be shorter in general though.. I always think grinding takes away from the story anyway.

  11. #91
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    I tend to buy hour sinks so I can't immediately think of any games I've bought at least the last 10 years that hasn't had a glorious hours to cost ratio.

    I guess I play too much simulators.

    I've literally scammed Kalypso Media, Paradox Interactive and Sports Interactive I guess, whereas Activision Blizzard probably has the upper hand on me.

  12. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by LordVargK View Post
    I'm a big fan of city builders, economy games and turn based strategy. I would never spend 60€ on a game that I can be "done" with. But If I have to call a number, then I would say 200-300 hours.
    Yeah, I always loved city builders too. I played the hell out of Sim City 2000 and my favorite part of playing SC1 was building the largest and most bases by draining every drop of resources from the map, even the ones held by the enemy.
    The most difficult thing to do is accept that there is nothing wrong with things you don't like and accept that people can like things you don't.

  13. #93
    Quote Originally Posted by This One Time At Bandcamp View Post
    Don't believe you can count hours played as "Worth the money"

    CS:GO is basically free, but its pretty common that players have 3000 hours played..
    People are still playing GTA V, after 8 years - one time payment.

    Story based games should be shorter in general though.. I always think grinding takes away from the story anyway.
    Gta V came out on pc 6 years ago, xb1/ps4 7years. I highly doubt people are still playing gtav on the 360/ps3 and if there is people playing on these platforms, 100% less than 100. The people that have played it 8years ago have bought it a second time either on pc or xb1/ps4. So two payments at least for the folks that payed 8 years ago.
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  14. #94
    Over 9000! zealo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kumorii View Post
    Not sure I have even mentioned Persona 5. Haven't played it so I refrain from comment on its content...
    The guy you responded to there with examples of games he thinks has excessive padding did.

    His issues with that game is a lot more fundamental than wanting to get rid of the padding it has, when he thinks it would improve it to get rid of 70% of the game, in a linear jRPG that doesn't do open world crap like clearing bandit encampments and so on.

  15. #95
    Quote Originally Posted by Kumorii View Post
    And not sure what your last argument about time is tbh. All video games are waste of time, yes... I haven't really contested that idea. I honestly have no idea what that last line is about in relation to what I said. Care to elaborate? What was your interpretation of my comment to warrant that question of yours? Because I don't know.
    Sorry, wasn't exactly directed right at you - moreso at the people who just don't like long games because they're long. You're the victim of me being too lazy to create a new post with a better fleshed out idea xD

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Easo View Post
    So what IS padding then? Do note - I am not even negative about W3. I did clear all those places, too.
    There isn't a definitive answer here, but imo for something to be padding the game requires you to do it in order to progress the story. If it's not a hard or soft (player power) requirement it's extra content rather than padding. That's my take on it, anyway.
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaleredar View Post
    Nah nah, see... I live by one simple creed: You might catch more flies with honey, but to catch honeys you gotta be fly.

  16. #96
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    I'm a little bored, so I had fun with this question.

    My total time /played is 1,058 days, or 25,392 hours.

    I've been subbed since July 2006. 179 months.

    Assuming no discounts/tokens/etc., a WoW sub in the US is $15/mo, meaning I've paid about $2,685 for the sub alone, plus the retail price of each expansion which I think is: Vanilla $50, BC $35, Wrath $40, Cata $40, MoP $40, WoD $50, Legion $50, BFA $50, and SL $40, for an "all in" total of $3,080.

    $3,080 divided by 25,392 hours is $.12 per hour.

    Has WoW been worth $.12 an hour for me?

    Yep.

  17. #97
    I don't give a shit how long a game is and never have. Not every hour is of equal entertainment. It is a worthless metric for judging a game.

  18. #98
    For a $60 game, at least 50 hours.

  19. #99
    Quote Originally Posted by Dawnseven View Post
    I'm a little bored, so I had fun with this question.

    My total time /played is 1,058 days, or 25,392 hours.

    I've been subbed since July 2006. 179 months.

    Assuming no discounts/tokens/etc., a WoW sub in the US is $15/mo, meaning I've paid about $2,685 for the sub alone, plus the retail price of each expansion which I think is: Vanilla $50, BC $35, Wrath $40, Cata $40, MoP $40, WoD $50, Legion $50, BFA $50, and SL $40, for an "all in" total of $3,080.

    $3,080 divided by 25,392 hours is $.12 per hour.

    Has WoW been worth $.12 an hour for me?

    Yep.
    Yeah, this type of math works out well if you have to make choices between forms of entertainment based upon a cost analysis, especially for subscription based games. If you math out how much money you'd spend per month on the game over the amount of hours you'd expect to play, you get a budget that you can compare to other things (like spending X amount of dollars to watch a 2hr movie). If we're talking about a game in a vacuum with no comparison, the price point gets a little subjective, but generally you get more value out of a game the cheaper it is per hour of playtime.

    I've seen people make comments like "Doesn't matter if a game is cheaper in terms of $$/hour, if it's a 100 hour game and I only liked a couple hours of it, it doesn't mean it was a good value" or something similar. Here's the thing: if a game isn't worth your time, you'll stop playing it. Even if a game is mediocre, it effectively equates to the individual valuing their time and/or money based upon how much how much time they spent on a game and how much it cost. You can have buyer's regret, as people buy things they don't want or waste their time constantly... but that gets so subjective that there's no real way to measure this beyond crafting a rubric that estimates values with subjective feelings (and that can get unreliable to a certain point). It doesn't just apply to games, it applies to anything on which you spend money.

    Again, most people will not continue playing a game if they hate it or are bored with it. If you do, you're obviously making the decision that anything else you could do with your time/money is not better than playing/buying the game you hate or are bored with. We make value judgements all the time, even outside of money... but using money and time as a metric is something that's more concrete than using subjective/ever-changing feelings. This is the basis of doing simple budgeting for your own living expenses or time management, which I've heard is a lost art (and the reason so many people are in debt nowadays). Applying this concept to games only makes sense.

    Answering the OP's question, depends on the type of game. I value games where I can get a lot of replayability, and the monetary cost factors into these decisions. It's obviously not the only factor, but excessively high cost-to-hours ratios for games is generally either a warning sign or probably not worth it in the grand scheme of things. On the flip side, a low cost-to-hours ratio for a game is never a bad thing to a consumer, and is more often than not likely worth a purchase if it's a game genre you're interested in. Heck, I think there's more of a case that a low cost-to-hours ratio would give the individual a sense of more freedom to try a game they might not typically like if the reviews are good and the base price (independent of play time) is low. People like buying things they want at the lowest prices possible, plain and simple.
    “Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”
    “It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”
    ― Alexis de Tocqueville

  20. #100
    I bought games at full price and i spent tons of time that i didn't enjoy quite that much such as WoW for example and i bought games on sales that were not long as well but i adored such as Wolf Among Us.

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