GH1 Spontaneous Missions

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: peridot

I think the question is not "how fast do people leave Hogye?" but "how do new players deal with the time limit?"

Good point.

Quoting: xpace

See, I'm of the opinion that if out-of-character knowledge is required to complete something or even survive, then something is not designed right.

Agreed. However, that doesn't apply in this case- no out of character knowledge is required to do the smuggling quest.

[Daemonward]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

no out of character knowledge is required to do the smuggling quest.

Well, it isn't made clear in-game that the player hanging around Hogye long enough to become the Mecha Sporch champion(which is a reasonable course of action, given the tutorial), will cost them the opportunity to do the Smuggling Ring quest.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Daemonward

Well, it isn't made clear in-game that the player hanging around Hogye long enough to become the Mecha Sporch champion(which is a reasonable course of action, given the tutorial), will cost them the opportunity to do the Smuggling Ring quest.

It would never occur to me that that was a reasonable course of action. Do people actually do that? Is that even possible?

Edit- I may have come out harsh there; I'm still kind of flummoxed by the idea that people can spend more than a day in Hogye at the beginning of the campaign.

[magic.coding.fairy.peridot]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Edit- I may have come out harsh there; I'm still kind of flummoxed by the idea that people can spend more than a day in Hogye at the beginning of the campaign.

Well, I tend to play this sort of game quite slowly - rather than be tactically clever and take risks, I'd rather take longer exploring the easy areas and improving my character. Then when I get to some battle, I'm well enough prepared it's not too difficult.

(Digression: In a way I'd almost rather be playing old "King's Quest"-style graphical adventure games, in which combat is not a factor. For me, the combat in cRPGs exists mostly so that side quests can have meaningful rewards but still be optional. Well, and it puts a constraint on the kind of characters I can make; in a well-designed game this constraint makes it interesting: "hmm, how do I create a classic combat-wimpy wizard in Morrowind?" (Unfortunately you kind of can't.) In any case, it's exploring the world and the character development that draws me into cRPGs - and GearHead. A small amount of grinding, particularly if it actually involves exploration, is a small price to pay for keeping all those troublesome combats from interfering with my exploration. End digression.)

In any case, some people like to play a very slow careful game. My impulse when entering the Hogye dungeon was to stick around on each level until I'd wiped out all the monsters. When it became clear that the initial rush of monsters was in fact the spawning rate, I bailed out and decided to concentrate on mecha combat. If I'd stayed to fight in the dungeons, not knowing about the mech at the bottom, I would have hung around on each level until I could comfortably fight off the monsters indefinitely. As it was, in the mecha combat, I left Hogye very cautiously, assuming that the rest of the world would be much more dangerous, but since I didn't know about the Z key I wasn't willing to wait for the next mecha combat. (If I'd realized how lucrative mecha repair was, I might have stuck around fixing my mech for a day or more, if I'd taken damage during that first arena fight.)

As it is, in GH2, I'm role-playing a mechanic - she fixes all her mecha herself. So salvage is great - sure, it's worth a few dollars, but more importantly, it's worth loads of experience fixing it. (General Repair is useless in this respect.) The effect of this, though, is that after every battle I spend a few hours fixing up my mecha, so progress is very slow in game time. I do time out a few quests, but failing quests is actually not really a bad thing for me, since I'm happier fighting wimpy mecha - they need just as many repairs as more powerful mecha, so I get just as much experience, and the money's not bad either.

So, yes, some people play very slowly.

[Joseph Hewitt]

You're right. I'm blinded by my own play style, I guess. Instead of removing the time limit, I think I'll add a mention of it to Hogye- possibly a traveller who's been accosted by the smugglers. I don't really want to fiddle around with the time limit much because GH1 plot files are terrible spagetti monsters.

[EarthquakeDamage]

I'm right there in the slow camp.  I have a fair amount of patience for grinding, especially in games where it's unnecessary but helpful (and thus it doesn't take nearly as long to benefit from it as in, say, your average MMO).

I also enjoy exploration.  Finding everything, experiencing as many subplots as possible, and so forth.  The log entry deep in the Ziggurat was a fun find, though I never would've bothered delving so deep if I hadn't been tipped off about a certain something by the wiki (or maybe just these forums?  I forget).

Beyond that, I think I stayed in Hogye my first time around until I'd won several Mecha Sporch matches.  Hard to remember at this point, though.  I'm pretty sure I didn't set foot in Snake Lake for a long time since IIRC you're told to go there to advance the plot.  I'm too used to jRPGs and the like where various subplots are only available during certain chapters/segments of the main plot, so I tend to do everything except what I'm supposed to do.

[xpace]

Quoting: EarthquakeDamage

I'm right there in the slow camp.  I have a fair amount of patience for grinding, especially in games where it's unnecessary but helpful (and thus it doesn't take nearly as long to benefit from it as in, say, your average MMO).

I also enjoy exploration.  Finding everything, experiencing as many subplots as possible, and so forth...

Ditto

[E Albright]

FWIW, I was never even aware there was a time limit on that quest. In all the times I played GH1, I never once missed it, despite almost always clearing the mines or otherwise lingering.

(That I'd oft as not work for the doctor instead of doing the tutorial sped my arrival in Snake Lake many times, but far from all.)