R* Decisions You Couldn't Understand

[Guest]

22 hours ago, CynicalMexican said:

and the Gang Hideouts were a feature in TLAD.

I believe you mean the gang warfare side activity? There aren't any gang hideouts in TLaD.

[CynicalMexican]

1 hour ago, H-G said:

I believe you mean the gang warfare side activity? There aren't any gang hideouts in TLaD.

Correct.

[RRT94]

Literally everything they've done this year

[lol232]

Another thing I gotta say is how watered down GTA V's "100% completion" was.

 

The idea of a 100% completion is to complete everything, yet you only have to beat less than half of the game. They catered it so hard to normies it's pretty f*cking stupid, GTA IV apart from the pigeons actually had a wild and fun task to complete. You had more liberty in doing a lot of sh*t in GTA IV. And in GTA V, just getting the watered down 100% is boring, let alone actually doing EVERYTHING (which I did, 3 times).

Edited September 20, 2021 by lol232

[Ivan1997GTA]

2 hours ago, lol232 said:

Another thing I gotta say is how watered down GTA V's "100% completion" was.

 

The idea of a 100% completion is to complete everything, yet you only have to beat less than half of the game. They catered it so hard to normies it's pretty f*cking stupid, GTA IV apart from the pigeons actually had a wild and fun task to complete. You had more liberty in doing a lot of sh*t in GTA IV. And in GTA V, just getting the watered down 100% is boring, let alone actually doing EVERYTHING (which I did, 3 times).

They could've added some extra percentages for doing additional tasks, Donkey Kong Country style. Instead of completing the game 100%, you'd complete the game at 104%, or something along those lines.

[Americana]

I've never done these stupid-ass collectibles in any Grand Theft Auto game. That's such a huge waste of time.

[E Revere]

Why did they have to retcon Catalina into GTA SA? In GTA III, her character design is obviously meant to be a born and raised LC local reflecting real life Latin populations of NYC, she has their accent and a Liberty Tree article says that she's of Dominican and Colombian descent, quite typical for NYC. But they screwed it up in SA by making her a honey-coloured Chicana from the West Coast countryside. Her essence no longer makes sense in III. I don't buy that she could go to LC and climb the ranks of a Colombian Cartel high enough become a co-boss.

[.Ryan.]

5 hours ago, Americana said:

I've never done these stupid-ass collectibles in any Grand Theft Auto game. That's such a huge waste of time.

The submarine parts and letter scraps in GTA V are the worst collectibles in the series, period.

 

The flying rats might be tedious, but the idea wasn’t too bad. Infact I liked they lead me to places that I might not have necessarily thought of going and I like that they utilised different mechanics like how some could only be killed with a sniper rifle, others with grenades and others that could only be accessed with certain vehicles like helicopters and climbing due to being in hard to reach nooks and crannies. All they needed was a better reward

 

When it come to the submarine parts I made the mistake of doing these in one sitting and felt like I was being trolled by the weak excuse for a reward. 
 

The letter scraps are even worse because I assumed after finding all of them we would get an intense encounter with the killer like Niko and  Eddie Low except it’s some old guy (Can’t even remember his name) who can be killed with ease. Totally worth it. Not.

Edited September 20, 2021 by MiamiViceCity1986

[Jeansowaty]

1 hour ago, E Revere said:

Why did they have to retcon Catalina into GTA SA? In GTA III, her character design is obviously meant to be a born and raised LC local reflecting real life Latin populations of NYC, she has their accent and a Liberty Tree article says that she's of Dominican and Colombian descent, quite typical for NYC. But they screwed it up in SA by making her a honey-coloured Chicana from the West Coast countryside. Her essence no longer makes sense in III. I don't buy that she could go to LC and climb the ranks of a Colombian Cartel high enough become a co-boss.

THIS! Her whole appearance and Claude's too felt so f*cking shoehorned. And that bullsh*t about "going to Liberty City", f*ck outta here. One of my least liked parts of the series.

[CynicalMexican]

5 hours ago, E Revere said:

Why did they have to retcon Catalina into GTA SA? In GTA III, her character design is obviously meant to be a born and raised LC local reflecting real life Latin populations of NYC, she has their accent and a Liberty Tree article says that she's of Dominican and Colombian descent, quite typical for NYC. But they screwed it up in SA by making her a honey-coloured Chicana from the West Coast countryside. Her essence no longer makes sense in III. I don't buy that she could go to LC and climb the ranks of a Colombian Cartel high enough become a co-boss.

 

I actually think her past was already well known by R* before GTA SA even released.

 

There are Liberty Tree from 2001 articles which detail Catalina's exploits throughout the US Southwest, and the cities of Los Santos and San Fierro are even alluded.

 

What I think happened is that more detail got added as the game's progressed. GTA 3 feels haphazard in comparison to every other entry from 2002-2007.

[LowTierDude]

16 hours ago, Americana said:

I've never done these stupid-ass collectibles in any Grand Theft Auto game. That's such a huge waste of time.

They should have at least made it fun to do like the 99 red balloons in vcs.

[NightmanCometh96]

17 hours ago, Americana said:

I've never done these stupid-ass collectibles in any Grand Theft Auto game. That's such a huge waste of time.

I think the hidden packages III/VC/LCS and the red balloons in VCS are the only good implementations of collectables in the entire series, even to this day. They can still be tedious to collect, but finding 10 of the total 100 (99 in VCS's case) still nets you a something (usually a weapon that spawns at your safehouse), thereby giving you an incentive to grab any that you stumble upon, even if you don't plan on getting them all. The 3D Era LC and VC are also smaller than other maps in the series, so packages/balloons are usually not too far away from one another.

 

SA's collectibles are more of a slog to get through, mostly because you don't get incremental rewards, so you have to complete each set (spray tags/oysters/etc.) to get the respective rewards.

 

The Annihilator that spawns after shooting all 200 pigeons in IV is a laughable "reward", it's not at all worth the amount of time (most of which is spent on evading the cops after shooting a bird) or effort that you put into it. EFLC thankfully reduces this number to "just" 50 seagulls, but that's still 300 birds in total that you have to find and kill in HD Era Liberty City. V is by far the worst of both worlds, IMO: it brings back multiple collectible sets to find a la SA, and there is a ridiculous amount to collect per set, which isn't helped by everything being spread across the game's spacious map. And that's before taking the extra stuff you can find in Remaster 1/PC into account (monkey mosaics, peyote plants and wildlife photos). I didn't think R* could make the experience worse than SA or IV, but they were somehow able to outdo themselves.

Edited September 21, 2021 by NightmanCometh96

[CynicalMexican]

19 hours ago, Americana said:

I've never done these stupid-ass collectibles in any Grand Theft Auto game. That's such a huge waste of time.

 

Sigh... this is another area where Watch Dogs does the collectibles much better. You had research points, towers, clothes items, money etc that all could be immediately used to the player's benefit (such as hacking) and it was fun. These collectibles were very well placed too so it never felt like you had to go too far to get them.

 

Watch Dogs 2 especially did this well. In GTA it feels like a pain in the ass and easy to lose track.

[.Ryan.]

2 hours ago, NightmanCometh96 said:

The Annihilator that spawns after shooting all 200 pigeons in IV is a laughable "reward", it's not at all worth the amount of time (most of which is spent on evading the cops after shooting a bird) or effort that you put into it. 

I don’t see anything wrong with the Annihilator itself. I mean it’s a helicopter with machine guns. Most collectibles don’t even reward a special vehicle. Just useless sh*t we might use one time and never again.

 

Plus the irony of killing birds gets you an assault helicopter is pretty hilarious when you think about it.

 

The only thing that makes it feel “weak” is it can already be found without killing the flying rats. If it was truly unique and that’s the only way it could be obtained it wouldn’t feel like a waste of time.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

I like the collectibles in VC and SA. Even though it's always dumb to have colllectibles where you need a guide from outside the game to realistically find all of them, at least with those ones you do stumble across a decent amount randomly, they're not annoying to get to/collect, once you have completed them with a guide you have a good chance of remembering them all by yourself in future playthroughs, and most importantly they give you excellent worthwhile rewards. They're especially good in VC where you get a reward for every 10 you get so you really feel incentivised to keep finding more. A generous selection of free weapons located conveniently at your safehouse when otherwise you'd have to wait much longer for them to be unlocked or affordable so you basically never had to worry/think about weapons once you'd completed them made them worth doing.

 

After 3D era they totally dropped the ball on collectibles. I don't know what they were thinking with them in IV and V.

Edited September 21, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[.Ryan.]

29 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

I like the collectibles in VC and SA. Even though it's always dumb to have colllectibles where you need a guide from outside the game to realistically find all of them, at least with those ones you do stumble across a decent amount randomly, they're not annoying to get to/collect, once you have completed them with a guide you have a good chance of remembering them all by yourself in future playthroughs, and most importantly they give you excellent worthwhile rewards. They're especially good in VC where you get a reward for every 10 you get so you really feel incentivised to keep finding more. A generous selection of free weapons located conveniently at your safehouse when otherwise you'd have to wait much longer for them to be unlocked or affordable so you basically never had to worry/think about weapons once you'd completed them made them worth doing.

 

After 3D era they totally dropped the ball on collectibles. I don't know what they were thinking with them in IV and V.

Getting weapons for every 10 collected is easily the best way of handling rewards.

 

It makes it feel progressive without necessarily feeling “chore” like. 
 

The 3D era is way better for this, but GTA V objectively handles it worse. GTA IV atleast had the sense to just have ONE collectible type, but in GTA V it has a bunch of sh*tty collectibles with sh*tty rewards so it snowballs out of control.

Edited September 21, 2021 by MiamiViceCity1986

[Jeansowaty]

As much as I love GTA IV, not only did it drop the ball with the Pigeons but also the rewards for the side-missions. Only money? What a waste of time. Sure there are some side-missions like LJ's Drug Deliveries that do give you a somewhat unique car but that's still kinda meh.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

Yeah and a lot of the side missions in IV only give you very small amounts of money or even no money - you get nothing at all for vigilante and most wanted for example (other than whatever cash and weapons you pick up from dead enemies), which is particularly dumb since Niko's main justification for being a hitman/killing people is supposed to be because he's doing it for the money. And V isn't much better - it even extends the sh*tty or no rewards thing to main missions! I dunno what's so hard about simply giving players rewards for completing things (whether it's money, weapons, outfits, vehicles, abilities, whatever) but apparently since HD era it's a problem. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[lol232]

3 hours ago, Jeansowaty said:

As much as I love GTA IV, not only did it drop the ball with the Pigeons but also the rewards for the side-missions. Only money? What a waste of time. Sure there are some side-missions like LJ's Drug Deliveries that do give you a somewhat unique car but that's still kinda meh.

I mentioned earlier, GTA IV side-mission rewards were sh*t and that money would only help early in the game, once you get to Bohan you'll start having loads of money with only to spend on weapons and ammo and nothing more. Only that Huntley Sport and special abilities were the only non-monetary reward you'd get. And Annihilator for pigeons that is redundant since you can get it at a police station much faster without doing anything. TLAD's were useful and creative, then TBOGT's were far more redundant. Weapons for drug wars were cool, but since they only spawn in your safehouse once you've already gotten them for free from missions it's pointless, since you'll already have a ton of money by then. Parachute for doing base jumps was a good idea at least.

 

Then the worst offender here is the reward for 50 seagulls in TBOGT, far worse than the 200 pigeons. The APC tank at the construction but it's only unlocked once you're about 3 missions before the final one regardless if you killed them before that. And when you beat the game, even if you didn't complete them Henrique can deliver one to you for free.

 

They could've made it so either Henrique only brings it of you killed the seagulls, or that the golden Buzzard is the reward instead.

I know I said it before, but that APC part still pisses me off, which idiot came up with that?

[NightmanCometh96]

On 9/21/2021 at 1:10 AM, MiamiViceCity1986 said:

The only thing that makes it feel “weak” is it can already be found without killing the flying rats. If it was truly unique and that’s the only way it could be obtained it wouldn’t feel like a waste of time.

That was my problem with it. I wouldn't have minded if the amount of pigeons you had to shoot was just 50 like in TLAD/TBoGT, but having to shoot 200 of them (not to mention dealing with the wanted attention you might get for doing so) all for a helicopter that you can find elsewhere in the game and isn't even a unique variant is what made it an underwhelming reward, IMO. I've only done it twice in the 13 years I've been playing IV: for my platinum "all SP trophies"/100% achievement playthroughs on PS3/Steam respectively, and I don't see myself having the patience to do so again.

 

EDIT: When originally making this comment, I had a brain fart and completely glossed over the fact that I never actually got the platinum in IV. (I never got around to earning the multiplayer trophies. )

Edited November 27, 2022 by NightmanCometh96

[lol232]

1 hour ago, NightmanCometh96 said:

That was my problem with it. I wouldn't have minded if the amount of pigeons you had to shoot was just 50 like in TLAD/TBoGT, but having to shoot 200 of them (not to mention dealing with the wanted attention you might get for doing so) all for a helicopter that you can find elsewhere in the game and isn't even a unique variant is what made it an underwhelming reward, IMO. I've only done it twice in the 13 years I've been playing IV: for my platinum trophy/100% achievement playthroughs on PS3/Steam respectively, and I don't see myself having the patience to do so again.

I've done it 6 times. It didn't get funner at any point, just a lot easier as time progressed.

[KingAJ032304]

On 9/20/2021 at 12:12 AM, Ivan1997GTA said:

They could've added some extra percentages for doing additional tasks, Donkey Kong Country style. Instead of completing the game 100%, you'd complete the game at 104%, or something along those lines.

This right here is a clear example why 100% either shouldn't matter or just plainly not exist.

[Guest]

On 9/20/2021 at 7:16 PM, Jeansowaty said:

THIS! Her whole appearance and Claude's too felt so f*cking shoehorned. And that bullsh*t about "going to Liberty City", f*ck outta here. One of my least liked parts of the series.

"This needs to be a popular opinion." - HG, 2019

 

I second it. As I said it in this post, SA's storyline pretty much ended for me after "The Green Sabre" to be honest, everything else beyond it feels like crappy, over-the-top and outright unbelievable crackfiction.

 

IMO R* should've limited the story to the first Los Santos arc (which also means that the game's map would include Los Santos only and nothing else) with "The Green Sabre" being the last mission and, looking at the VC-ish art style in the early pre-release promo screenshots, released the game as a short DLC for VC under the name of "GTA Los Santos" or something like that,

Spoiler

After that, they should've utilized the max potential of the RenderWare game engine in LCS and VCS instead and made them worthwhile mainstream GTA games ala IV. Down-to-earth yet awesome.

[billiejoearmstrong8]

Imo the big over the top story thing was the best thing SA had going for it. The combination of that incredibly well designed map and a story/mission structure that endlessly took you to new areas/cities/people gave this feeling of being in a genuinely huge world and on a genuinely long and epic journey that was just awesome and hasn't come close to being replicated in any other GTA game. I love a more grounded and serious GTA but they don't all have to be that, SA was all about the scale and a map like that needed a story like that. If it was just a hood story it would've been meh and not done the map and large amount of new features justice.

 

PS I don't know how anyone can't love Catalina's missions! Her ruthless dialogue was totally entertaining and going around like Bonnie and Clyde robbing small town businesses (with the order being your own choice as a nice touch) was fun as hell.

Edited September 22, 2021 by billiejoearmstrong8

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

Imo the big over the top story thing was the best thing SA had going for it. The combination of that incredibly well designed map and a story/mission structure that endlessly took you to new areas/cities/people gave this feeling of being in a genuinely huge world and on a genuinely long and epic journey that was just awesome and hasn't come close to being replicated in any other GTA game. I love a more grounded and serious GTA but they don't all have to be that, SA was all about the scale and a map like that needed a story like that. If it was just a hood story it would've been meh and not done the map and large amount of new features justice.

 

PS I don't know how anyone can't love Catalina's missions! Her ruthless dialogue was totally entertaining and going around like Bonnie and Clyde robbing small town businesses (with the order being your own choice as a nice touch) was fun as hell.

Yeah, but the over-the-top-ness kinda broke the common cohesion found in entertainment media which is quite necessary even for very simple and basic stories. Like, why would some random ghetto boy suddenly want to willfully steal a 60mil jetpack from the military on word from a hippie for no absolute reason but bitch about being forced to steal a 60mil jumpjet by a shady government agent to 'free his brother'? Tell me about it.

 

And yeah, I gotta say Catalina's missions are some pure topkek material. But TBH, she belongs in GTA3 only and nowhere else IMO.

[KingAJ032304]

32 minutes ago, H-G said:

"This needs to be a popular opinion." - HG, 2019

 

I second it. As I said it in this post, SA's storyline pretty much ended for me after "The Green Sabre" to be honest, everything else beyond it feels like crappy, over-the-top and outright unbelievable crackfiction.

 

IMO R* should've limited the story to the first Los Santos arc (which also means that the game's map would include Los Santos only and nothing else) with "The Green Sabre" being the last mission and, looking at the VC-ish art style in the early pre-release promo screenshots, released the game as a short DLC for VC under the name of "GTA Los Santos" or something like that,

  Hide contents

LCS and VCS instead and made them worthwhile mainstream GTA games ala IV. Down-to-earth yet awesome.

Outside Jetpacks/Breaking in and stealing military stuff, they REALLY are not that far off from SA.

4 minutes ago, H-G said:

Yeah, but the over-the-top-ness kinda broke the common cohesion found in entertainment media which is quite necessary even for very simple and basic stories. Like, why would some random ghetto boy suddenly want to willfully steal a 60mil jetpack from the military on word from a hippie for no absolute reason but bitch about being forced to steal a 60mil jumpjet by a shady government agent to 'free his brother'? Tell me about it.

 

And yeah, I gotta say Catalina's missions are some pure topkek material. But TBH, she belongs in GTA3 only and nowhere else IMO.

I truly think SA Catalina was a better character. All gta 3 catalina had going for her is the fact that she was female. A badass female admittedly, but if she was male then she would have been 100% forgettable. 

[KingAJ032304]

On 9/22/2021 at 1:24 PM, billiejoearmstrong8 said:

If it was just a hood story it would've been meh.

You know I never understood why game devs are so unoriginal in ways to splice up hood stories. It's almost always just normal hardcore drug dealing/gangbanging with a close friend dead by the end and either the protagonist still continuing the game or quitting. Like there are SOOOO many ways to spice up the hood or tell something interesting and they choose the same thing almost every time. The last section of SA or all of TLAD are great examples on how to do it right even if they weren't the most sensible.

 

Edit: In fact here are some things that the ending could be about. Rescuing your homie from jail, finding out who ead all the hoes on the block, trying to get up in the music industry with your record company covering up for your crimes, trying to combine enemy factions together but some rat(s) keep f*cking it up so you find they place, someone trying to make their escape to a coast s yu hunt them down on a boat/yacht, have a story about people fighting over a $100M+ powerball parady lottery ticket, maybe your homies was eyeing a super car/multimillion dollar crib and its own by a set trying to go legit into sports, maybe your tying to be an evil f*ck and get the whole place on meth and you got the "good guys" in the hood trying to stop you, maybe you wanna make the biggest hiest on everything attractive in the hood and claim monopoly, maybe you know your going to jail/getting a death sentence and your family trying to get out and go to college so you organize your loyal always down for their set homies to go gunblazing and cover up for them, maybe like EAZY E you get HIV and spend your last time pulling an Arthur Morgan and don't give a f*ck no more, etc. Seriously there's A LOT!

Edited November 29, 2021 by KingAJ032304

[CynicalMexican]

5 hours ago, KingAJ032304 said:

Outside Jetpacks/Breaking in and stealing military stuff, they REALLY are not that far off from SA.

I truly think SA Catalina was a better character. All gta 3 catalina had going for her is the fact that she was female. A badass female admittedly, but if she was male then she would have been 100% forgettable. 

 

Most of the GTA 3 characters really aren't particularly fleshed out.

 

Additionally I kind of see it in this way: after years of crazy bank robberies and settling with Claude (not known for his social skills) and moving up north to evade the heat, it wouldn't surprise me if Catalina kinda mellowed.

 

We saw Donald Love and Ken Rosenberg change significantly in a number of years, it's not too crazy.

[KingAJ032304]

4 hours ago, CynicalMexican said:

 

Most of the GTA 3 characters really aren't particularly fleshed out.

 

Additionally I kind of see it in this way: after years of crazy bank robberies and settling with Claude (not known for his social skills) and moving up north to evade the heat, it wouldn't surprise me if Catalina kinda mellowed.

 

We saw Donald Love and Ken Rosenberg change significantly in a number of years, it's not too crazy.

I wouldn't say SA Ken Rosenberg is that different from VC him. In a way it really seemed like a natural progression imo.

[sefus]

Making guns sound like a box of legos when you aim in and out in GTA 5, like wtf? It's nearly as bad as COD WW2