Yes, another list of improvements.

[Seltzer]

Yes, another list of improvements.

Sorry to all those naysayers on this one, but mine is a more complete, article-like list of complaints and my suggestions on changing them, with some amount of support for them. It was posted as a comment on the site itself, but more people would read it here.

1. The hero should be able to die. I mean, what challenge would the game be without death? Would you bother playing Mario Bros. or Pacman if you knew that you'd just pick back up from the exact point that you 'died' with unlimited lives? Scarring was the only nice feature of that; a permanent anything in a game would be nice to see, but that was ruined too, when the first batch of downloadable content provided a potion to remove them.

2. The job systems were a bit lacking, all "push one button when the proper time comes" nonsense. I mean, that might work with the bartender job, but the other two are more extensive lines of work to that. A blacksmith doesn't just hammer a blade, he has to collect the materials, work with them, and a lot of other processes before it's time to hammer.

3. I also think there should be a limit other than an amount of time on how long you can perform a job. If a town has a one star economy, how the hell did they afford the iron for me to forge thousands of swords? It kind of messes with the reality of the economic system, even with it's intended simplicity.

4. Armor, or armor-like clothing. Maybe it would be a bit archaic in the game's progression of time to see a man or woman walking around in a full suit of armor, but why does that not mean that your clothing has defensive qualities?

5. I'd be okay with the possibility of split screen when two players work together. The current system gets annoying, the achievement in which expressions must by synchronized was very hard to do, because it required you to make some guesswork on something that one player couldn't see. It would also get rid of the odd way the camera behaves in two player mode.

6. The co-op mode should either be with a game save, or not at all. Even if it had to make one that the gamer profile would use if they didn't have a hero of their own, it would prevent you from gaining their experience.

7. The animal thing was a nice direction to move in, but there should be more variance in the types of animals to chose from, or at least, more dogs that you don't have to spend money on to acquire.

8. I hate to say it, but Fable II just wasn't as enchanting as its predecessor, the quests were too one sided for an 'open' type of game, and you always hit one of three results in the end, regardless of your game play leading up to that. That means that I could spare myself the pain of leveling up at all because I would never die, and I could play through only the quests that I had to, and still end up with the same choices in the end of game that everyone who played it the long way gets.

9. On top of that, the after-game quests seem to be more fun than the main storyline itself, and the downloadable content was way too short. That's just opinion though, so it's not my say.

Any comments?

 

[Necromancer]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

1. I agree for the most part, but in defense of Fable 2's "death" system, loosing experience whenever you get knocked out gave me quite an incentive to not let it happen.

2. I hadn't thought of that, but I'd support improvements to the job system.

3. Same as 2.

4. I would like to see armor-like clothing as well, like the ranger coat in Fable 2. I don't want armor ratings, though. That would once again ensure that you would end up with the same outfit every time.

5. I agree that co-op should be fixed. I think everybody does. However, I've never been a huge fan of split screen, especially since the TV in my room that is hooked up to my Xbox is relatively small. They should figure out another way to do co-op. (And for the achievement you mentioned, just grab both of your controllers and do it by yourself. It's very easy.)

6. I got the first sentence, but I'm not completely sure what you were talking about after that.

7. I agree with that as well, but if I'm not mistaken, you have the ability to change your dog's breed in the See the Future DLC. I realize that there's not a huge selection of breeds, though, and I think there should be in Fable 3. However, any animal besides a dog and a horse would be ridiculous and stupid.

8. I don't understand how that's any different from TLC. The end results of Fable 2 were actually an improvement in quantity. In the original Fable, your choices were to keep the Sword of Aeons, or destroy it. In TLC, your choices were to keep Jack's mask, or destroy it. In both cases, only two options are available. In Fable 2, as you've just said, there are three options. Not to mention that the side quests don't affect the end of the game in TLC either.

9. I haven't played the DLC because I don't have XBL quite yet, so I'll leave that part alone. I do agree that the post-story quests were too short and not plentiful enough, but it was the first time in Fable that there were post-story quests. I think Lionhead was just dipping their fingers into that aspect of Fable, and didn't quite know exactly how to do them. I think post-story quests in Fable 3 will be much better.

 

[Purple Nurple]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

I agree with everything but no.7 - as Necromancer said, any other animals would be ill-fitting in Fable.

 

[cheezMcNASTY]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

1. The hero should be able to die. I mean, what challenge would the game be without death? Would you bother playing Mario Bros. or Pacman if you knew that you'd just pick back up from the exact point that you 'died' with unlimited lives? Scarring was the only nice feature of that; a permanent anything in a game would be nice to see, but that was ruined too, when the first batch of downloadable content provided a potion to remove them.

agreed, somewhat. they really just need a punishment system that people will fear. because in the end, it doesn't matter how many scars you have with enough fame.

2. The job systems were a bit lacking, all "push one button when the proper time comes" nonsense. I mean, that might work with the bartender job, but the other two are more extensive lines of work to that. A blacksmith doesn't just hammer a blade, he has to collect the materials, work with them, and a lot of other processes before it's time to hammer.

jobs were a good idea. but i think getting money for questing was a better system. a little less realistic, sure, but then again how realistic is a troll?

3. I also think there should be a limit other than an amount of time on how long you can perform a job. If a town has a one star economy, how the hell did they afford the iron for me to forge thousands of swords? It kind of messes with the reality of the economic system, even with it's intended simplicity.

oh come on, now you're just nitpicking
but fine, we'll do it your way. the economy doesn't pay for the steel, the shop does. and what are you doing? making swords for the shop to profit on.

4. Armor, or armor-like clothing. Maybe it would be a bit archaic in the game's progression of time to see a man or woman walking around in a full suit of armor, but why does that not mean that your clothing has defensive qualities?

fortunately, lionhead decided that doing so would encourage all characters to look the same by wearing the best suit of armor. so, they made it all clothing to encourage customization...which imo failed because there was a pretty limited clothing selection ironically :lol:

5. I'd be okay with the possibility of split screen when two players work together. The current system gets annoying, the achievement in which expressions must by synchronized was very hard to do, because it required you to make some guesswork on something that one player couldn't see. It would also get rid of the odd way the camera behaves in two player mode.

split screen would be interesting...cause i don't see how it could work. camera angles aside, sharing a screen wasn't that bad!

6. The co-op mode should either be with a game save, or not at all. Even if it had to make one that the gamer profile would use if they didn't have a hero of their own, it would prevent you from gaining their experience.

they tried that in borderlands and i don't think it worked. if you didn't have a hero all leveled up you were forced to run around with a level 1 with everything tuned to the weaker player. i like the way it is now, but if additionally they could let you bring in other heroes, i would be happy with that.

7. The animal thing was a nice direction to move in, but there should be more variance in the types of animals to chose from, or at least, more dogs that you don't have to spend money on to acquire.

i can agree with this. i wanted my evil hero to have a giant hawk or a vulture or something. the dog works well enough by its self though.

8. I hate to say it, but Fable II just wasn't as enchanting as its predecessor, the quests were too one sided for an 'open' type of game, and you always hit one of three results in the end, regardless of your game play leading up to that. That means that I could spare myself the pain of leveling up at all because I would never die, and I could play through only the quests that I had to, and still end up with the same choices in the end of game that everyone who played it the long way gets.

that all depends on how much you put into the game. it's pretty much the same with every game. you will enjoy it less if you don't take it seriously.

9. On top of that, the after-game quests seem to be more fun than the main storyline itself, and the downloadable content was way too short. That's just opinion though, so it's not my say.

the story is what was too short. short and anti-climatic. more, and more interesting side quests would be nice too. the game felt extremely linear to me :S

Any comments?

yes

 

[Devil Keyz]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

to many people expect TO MUCH outta a fable game, i know that Peter dude says alotta stuff that doesn't happen, but damn give him a break. i think fable was good and fable II was excellent.

oh and downloadable content is short because its only DLC, NOT, i repeat NOT and expansion..

 

[Seltzer]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

Interesting input, everyone.

I do sort of understand how there could be limits to what a game could offer, and yeah, the economy thing was really an afterthought.

What I want to see is a more open world to play in with a wider range of decisions to make.

I guess multi-disk is sort of archaic, and would probably get annoying if disk space ever became an issue, but what about doing something like packaging one disk that's just content, which would download to the hard drive upon insertion, then the game disk could contain more content-wise. I know a game isn't supposed to be that drawn out, but it would be interesting to see a lengthy Fable game at one point in the future.

 

[Devil Keyz]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

^^ they wouldn't cause not everyone has a harddrive. I had to live with a damn 60MB memory card for a year before i got my hardrive fixxed

 

[Zjuggernaut]

Re: Yes, another list of improvements.

Spoiler

1. The hero should be able to die. I mean, what challenge would the game be without death? Would you bother playing Mario Bros. or Pacman if you knew that you'd just pick back up from the exact point that you 'died' with unlimited lives? Scarring was the only nice feature of that; a permanent anything in a game would be nice to see, but that was ruined too, when the first batch of downloadable content provided a potion to remove them.

Agreed. The whole "knocked out" system wasn't much of a challenge. Scarring was just something for the younger kids to look cool with, when I got them from being knocked out, It didn't really bother me to much and the comments from the villagers didn't bother me.

2. The job systems were a bit lacking, all "push one button when the proper time comes" nonsense. I mean, that might work with the bartender job, but the other two are more extensive lines of work to that. A blacksmith doesn't just hammer a blade, he has to collect the materials, work with them, and a lot of other processes before it's time to hammer.

The jobs were boring. Since money wasn't a concern in Fable 2, I only did the Blacksmith job is Bowerstone for the 5* achievement. Woodcutting was s**t.

3. I also think there should be a limit other than an amount of time on how long you can perform a job. If a town has a one star economy, how the hell did they afford the iron for me to forge thousands of swords? It kind of messes with the reality of the economic system, even with it's intended simplicity.

Agreed. Can't really add more to this.

4. Armor, or armor-like clothing. Maybe it would be a bit archaic in the game's progression of time to see a man or woman walking around in a full suit of armor, but why does that not mean that your clothing has defensive qualities?

I like the whole armour thing people want. The reality is though, it would be a fashion accessory and wouldn't serve a purpose since guns were around at the time.

5. I'd be okay with the possibility of split screen when two players work together. The current system gets annoying, the achievement in which expressions must by synchronized was very hard to do, because it required you to make some guesswork on something that one player couldn't see. It would also get rid of the odd way the camera behaves in two player mode.

Co-Op was terrible. It was annoying and caused a few disruptions on where we were going to go next. PLUS - even over XBL, it still had the same annoying system. Free roam, LionHead?

6. The co-op mode should either be with a game save, or not at all. Even if it had to make one that the gamer profile would use if they didn't have a hero of their own, it would prevent you from gaining their experience.

Yeah. The henchmen weren't a good touch to the game. Using your own hero would have been much better.

7. The animal thing was a nice direction to move in, but there should be more variance in the types of animals to chose from, or at least, more dogs that you don't have to spend money on to acquire.

My dog annoyed me. I think you should have the option to purchase a dog several times during the main storyline. Yes, it served a treasure hunting purpose but I'd rather buy a map.

8. I hate to say it, but Fable II just wasn't as enchanting as its predecessor, the quests were too one sided for an 'open' type of game, and you always hit one of three results in the end, regardless of your game play leading up to that. That means that I could spare myself the pain of leveling up at all because I would never die, and I could play through only the quests that I had to, and still end up with the same choices in the end of game that everyone who played it the long way gets.

I think you shouldn't get choices at the end. You should get an ending, depending on what you lived like. Like BioShock. Whether you harvested all the Little Sisters or you didn't.

9. On top of that, the after-game quests seem to be more fun than the main storyline itself, and the downloadable content was way too short. That's just opinion though, so it's not my say.

That's all true. I wanted a lot more quests. Like... Oblivions amount of quests.

I do like the amount of thought you've put into this.

Rep for you, sir. +rep