Silent Hill Heaven

^Maybe if you die and have to start twenty minutes earlier (which would be slightly rediculous, save points should be about every ten minutes, or at least avaliable every ten minutes, i typically go back to save points many times) then you have to fight enemies again but the puzzles will already be done as you have done them, which would be a good idea because there's only annoyance to doing puzzles twice, not challange, and you can't exactly do it better the second time and have more health items. Also, I think you can skip scenes in any Silent Hill game. It was always so annoying in Final Fantasy when you couldn't skip scenes. Part of the reason I stopped playing the first Kingdom Hearts was because of that.

You can't skip scenes in Homecoming if they involve optional dialogues. I had to replay the whole scene before Scarlet a hundred times. I was so annoyed to hear it all over again that I muted the sound eventually and didn't turn it on until I beat that bi*ch. I never had any problem with saving the games or replaying scenes before Homecoming really.

KiramidHead wrote:and the limited inventory made collecting ink ribbons a real bitch.

That's an excellent point. I'm not always a fan of being slavish to realism, but sometimes realism enhances the gameplay... when you have a limited inventory, letting small items like ink ribbons take up no space makes a lot of sense. I'm really hoping this is something Vatra will be aware of when they design the inventory in Downpour.

alone in the town wrote:The easy answer is "anything that isn't making players repeat the last twenty minutes of puzzles and cutscenes". Or, if we can't get past that classic videogame trope, make it so that enemy placement, or even the solution of puzzles, are randomized. At least that way you're getting something new out of the experience of repeating everything and it doesn't bore you.

You make a great point. In fact I would say that the #1 thing the Silent Hill series needs is more randomization. The problem with death is that there has to be some sort of penalty or no one will take the enemies seriously, but if the penalty is annoying the player will just be frustrated. But if your play-through is different every time, then playing sections over isn't nearly so bad, and might even be fun. Seems like the best possible solution to me.

Doctor Eggnog wrote:then you have to fight enemies again but the puzzles will already be done as you have done them, which would be a good idea because there's only annoyance to doing puzzles twice, not challange, and you can't exactly do it better the second time and have more health items.

That's true, but maybe they could just design the game so that there's an opportunity to save after every major puzzle. I don't like the idea of auto-saving in a non-linear game, but maybe they could just place save points after every major puzzle, or give you the opportunity to save by having a prompt come up "save yes/no?" Auto-saves are annoying because you might not always want to save, but nothing wrong with save prompts.

The ability to skip scenes seems pretty ubiquitous now. I think most developers have learned their lessons... I don't see Downpour having that problem.

^With any luck the dynamic weather system will go some way towards creating the randomisation you're hoping for, at least outdoors anyway.

I can imagine lightning striking Murphy... Hehehe

^ I can imagine that happening leading up to the UFO ending, I want 2 joke endings like SH2 had, and about 6 endings all together,

stopped_clock wrote:^With any luck the dynamic weather system will go some way towards creating the randomisation you're hoping for, at least outdoors anyway.

Sounds like it. I want them to go further with it, and have lots of different monster types and rare monsters, but we'll see how it goes.

there was an interview with Tomm in which he stated that the harder it rains defines how many monsters you'll see in the general area....so if it's rainy very hard, you'll end up fighting like 3 or 4 monsters like what was seen in those earlier "combat" vids.

So i guess if it's just drizzling or slightly raining you'll run into either one monster or none at all...so idk...it all comes back to balance....will the raining be srcipted in a way that when there is 3 or 4 tough enemies on screen, you can run away without risking leaving important items behind? I like to search an area completely before i move on to the next section, so i hope they at least have that gameplay element sorted out, so that we don't miss any important iformation during those scenarios...

I would love it to have randomized rainfall, with a sprinkling of scripted ones. Perhaps similar to Tillerman's (awesome) solution to fixing SM. If it were truly random, you'd have to be on your toes all the time.
If they had that, & balanced it in a way that would prevent it from storming too often (Having too many monsters/too much combat), I would be set.

^ Random Rain Encounter! Level up Rain Resistance! Rain Grinding! (lol)

I think it's great that more rain means more combat because that's exactly how I would've done it! I'm glad there are multiple difficulties because it sounds like the game would be much easier on replays otherwise once you know where everything is you would go through a lot less random battles (because that's basically what they are it sounds like, and I doubt there's any reward for fighting more battles, so people would try to avoid them, and get better at that on replays, which again is why I'm happy that there are multiple difficulties).

Anyway, this has been the most exciting news for the game so far for me. This is the first time I've actually wanted to buy it! ...

the whole rain idea is actually very interesting and i look forward to it

I hope the game is like SH1 where you're forced to go up a difficulty level each new fear.

^ Blaeh, never liked that. Closest I liked to that was how the Extreme modes in SH3 worked, because that was gradual. But difficulty choices are kinda pointless if they aren't, you know, choices.

KiramidHead wrote:I think part of the problem with Resident Evil (Code Veronica in particular) is that they would only put two type writers in a fairly large area, and the limited inventory made collecting ink ribbons a real bitch. Code Veronica was especially mean about inventory managing and item conservation. You had to play through a fairly lengthy section of gameplay (at least on a first time playthrough) before you got to the first item box. It gets worse when you play through more of the game only to discover you were literally inches away from item box that you couldn't reach because the game just had to force you to go through the obnoxious metal detector hurdle. This is on top of the fact the game would spawn groups of seven zombies in areas you had already cleared- nope, I'm ending the rant here before my head explodes from the anger.

Once you go through the metal detector, you will set off it.