New Tomb Raider confirmed

[Neuromancer]

Is there anything even worth playing in this series besides I-III? Lmao.

Lara Croft GO

Why do you have the troll pic? It's a good puzzle game with minimalist story and liberating isolation that should be used throughout the series and best Lara outfit. It's just not the old school but modern Tomb Raider game that we are hungering for.

Because it doesn't fit into the series at all - even much less so than the Guardian Of Light spinoff.

On it's own, it maybe a nice puzzle game for mobile devices, but it doesn't belong into the Tomb Raider/Lara Croft series IMHO.

 

[JarlFrank]

Not a single game made after Core Design was kicked off TR belongs in the series, mate.

 

[Semiurge]

Not a single game made after Core Design was kicked off TR belongs in the series, mate.

Did you know that of the classic series only TRII features Lara's bare feet?

Who am I kidding, of course you do.

 

[JarlFrank]

Not a single game made after Core Design was kicked off TR belongs in the series, mate.

Did you know that of the classic series only TRII features Lara's bare feet?

Who am I kidding, of course you do.

I know exactly how many outfits in which Tomb Raider games show Lara's feet... and you are wrong!

TR1's home outfit also has barefoot Lara.

 

[Ash]

Losing your inventory isn't that big of a deal, the game isn't a 3rd person shooter.

You're objectively wrong, have it backwards, and I will explain why. If the game were a shooter (first or third) it wouldn't be a big deal.

Doom, Quake, RTCW and many more classics in episodic structure all steal your inventory multiple times throughout the singleplayer. But it matters not. You chew through inventory fast, get to use all your arsenal constantly, and finding secrets is immediately rewarding. Ammo capacity limits are strict so you are constantly juggling weapons and using them all in satisfying frequency. Not Tomb Raider. TR is a slow-paced, exploration-heavy game with less than half the enemy count. Its secrets can take a lot of effort and time to discover, oftentimes hidden behind instant death traps that result in significant loss of progress if you fail, and furthermore the rewards can be miniscule in quantity (one shotgun box = 2 shells). Ammo is in short supply in TR, a lot of the time you are using weak-ass pistols, especially at the beginning, and the game encourages it further by many combat encounters vs melee enemies where attaining high ground and spamming infinite pistols on them is a dominant strategy (=no health or ammo lost). Enemies are also tanky, so when you do decide to go ham with the big guns, it is refreshing. The player's inventory has a lot of significance even though it is quite simple. A lot of time, skill and effort goes into building it up.

There is only one context in which it is "not a big deal", and that is if you the player do not play and think in a gameplay mindframe (e.g resource management, exploring every nook and cranny for secrets, being skillful in combat encounters to come out on top of the game of attrition etc). Which you obviously don't.

You could misguidedly counter with "just use the resources then!", but first playthrough wherein you do not know this happens, that doesn't apply. Core Design turn up in their thug mobile, pull the rug from under you and mugs you of all your worth in typical English fashion.
Furthermore, there is always going to be some resource saving happening in the case of boss fights/tougher encounters. This shit straight undermines the game they created. They rob your guns in TR2 at the oil rig but not the rest of your inventory including ammo, that was the much smarter approach.

 

[Semiurge]

Not a single game made after Core Design was kicked off TR belongs in the series, mate.

Did you know that of the classic series only TRII features Lara's bare feet?

Who am I kidding, of course you do.

I know exactly how many outfits in which Tomb Raider games show Lara's feet... and you are wrong!

TR1's home outfit also has barefoot Lara.

D'oh. Well you're right, of course. As the expert. On feet.

 

[Semiurge]

Losing your inventory isn't that big of a deal, the game isn't a 3rd person shooter.

You're objectively wrong, have it backwards, and I will explain why. If the game were a shooter (first or third) it wouldn't be a big deal.

Doom, Quake, RTCW and many more classics in episodic structure all steal your inventory multiple times throughout the singleplayer. But it matters not. You chew through inventory fast, get to use all your arsenal constantly, and finding secrets is immediately rewarding. Ammo capacity limits are strict so you are constantly juggling weapons and using them all in satisfying frequency. Not Tomb Raider. TR is a slow-paced, exploration-heavy game with less than half the enemy count. Its secrets can take a lot of effort and time to discover, oftentimes hidden behind instant death traps that result in significant loss of progress if you fail, and furthermore the rewards can be miniscule in quantity (one shotgun box = 2 shells). Ammo is in short supply in TR, a lot of the time you are using weak-ass pistols, especially at the beginning, and the game encourages it further by many combat encounters vs melee enemies where attaining high ground and spamming infinite pistols on them is a dominant strategy (=no health or ammo lost). Enemies are also tanky, so when you do decide to go ham with the big guns, it is refreshing. The player's inventory has a lot of significance even though it is quite simple. A lot of time, skill and effort goes into building it up.

There is only one context in which it is "not a big deal", and that is if you the player do not play and think in a gameplay mindframe (e.g resource management, being skillful in combat encounters to come out on top of the game of attrition etc). Which you obviously don't.

You could misguidedly counter with "just use the resources then!", but first playthrough wherein you do not know this happens, that doesn't apply. Core Design turn up in their thug mobile, pull the rug from under you and mugs you of all your worth in typical English fashion.
Furthermore, there is always going to be some resource saving happening in the case of boss fights/tougher encounters. This shit straight undermines the game they created. They rob your guns in TR2 at the oil rig but not the rest of your inventory, that was the much smarter approach.

Dude, I resource manage, I love micromanaging even when it's unnecessary. It's just that I don't find inventory loss to be a big deal in TRIII, in terms of practical gameplay. Just as I know to expect starting a new episode of Quake with just a melee weapon and the shotgun (even when it doesn't make any sense), I know to anticipate losing inventory in Nevada. All games suffer due to things you've learned about them through the first playthrough, and nothing's stopping you from playing Nevada last even if this anticipated thing happens. You can allow it to become a difficulty adjuster - you'll have somewhat less ammo when you begin Antarctica after Nevada. But in my experience even that's not true, you re-accumulate weapons and ammo very fast after losing them, and gain some new ones immediately. The only basis for critique is philosophical - can this loss be a case of bad design? The answer is obviously highly subjective.

And in terms of lore and realism, wouldn't it make more sense for you to lose your ammo as well?

 

[JarlFrank]

TR3 inventory loss is significant if you play Nevada last. You should play it first out of the three chooseable areas, otherwise you can lose the grenade launcher forever.

 

[Ash]

Dude, I resource manage, I love micromanaging even when it's unnecessary. It's just that I don't find inventory loss to be a big deal in TRIII, in terms of practical gameplay. Just as I know to expect starting a new episode of Quake with just a melee weapon and the shotgun, I know to anticipate losing inventory in Nevada.

I just explained in great detail how the objective significance of inventory theft in Quake VS Tomb Raider is vastly different. Just because you got mugged and it didn't ruin your day because you only play TR for the story or Lara's different costumes perhaps, doesn't mean it didn't ruin 90% of other player's day.

And in terms of lore and realism, wouldn't it make more sense that you lose your ammo as well?

This is not how you design games, nor how Core Design typically designed their games. There would be no secret uzis and grenade launcher ammo hidden in ancient unexplored tombs if that were the case. Gameplay should often (but not always) come before realism.
Furthermore, it has a very simple alternate approach to maintain both realism and gameplay: make lara able to recover her confiscated bag from some lockup in the facility.

All games suffer due to things you've learned about them through the first playthrough

No, they don't. No more defending terrible game design. This is not the same as other games. Imagine an RPG permanently stealing all character building choices, inventory etc, half way through the game. After you spend a lot of time effort and skill building it all up, and there is no way to avoid it. That is the next extreme after this.

TR3 inventory loss is significant if you play Nevada last. You should play it first out of the three chooseable areas, otherwise you can lose the grenade launcher forever.

Yup. Even if you play Nevada first (which is a must), it renders all resource management, secret hunting and skillful play of India + first Nevada level moot. May as well not bother exploring, conserving ammo etc and just play those maps as if there were no secrets.

 

[Ezekiel]

Long wanted a sneaky girl protagonist game with bare feet for me to stare at. I don't know why it took until A Quiet Place for someone to realize. Alien Isolation could have had bare feet, considering how clean the space station is. But it wouldn't have been in third person, so wouldn't have satisfied me. Would only see bare feet when you look down.

 

[Semiurge]

Imagine an RPG stealing all character building choices, inventory etc, half way through the game. After you spend a lot of time effort and skill building it all up. That is the next extreme after this.

Bad example. The guns are not as important to Tomb Raider as the things you listed are to RPGs, they are some of the things that are integral to RPGs in fact. But Tomb Raiders are about exploration and literally what the title says. This is why complaining about losing guns & ammo sounds so autistic.

 

[Ash]

Not a bad example at all. I said it was the next extreme. Meaning the only possible way in which it could be worse, that's how dumb this shit design is.

Yup, TR is about exploration, a notable portion of that being finding secrets, which is optional and usually demanding to do. Lets just rob the player of all that optional effort! It's also about dealing with tanky as hell enemies in between, which I damn well want to use all the ammo I worked my ass off to get on.

Stop defending this shit, you have to be out of your goddamn mind. TR3 is a good game despite this fact, but it was a MAJOR blunder of game design.

 

[JarlFrank]

make lara able to recover her confiscated bag from some lockup in the facility.

This would have made the equipment loss in Nevada a lot more bearable.

As is, it's a terrible game design decision, but it's not surprising considering TR 3 was rushed (just like TR2), they had many new hires in the team who weren't yet familiar with TR level design, and they were a bit too ambitious with trying to do new things.

 

[JarlFrank]

Long wanted a sneaky girl protagonist game with bare feet for me to stare at. I don't know why it took until A Quiet Place for someone to realize. Alien Isolation could have had bare feet, considering how clean the space station is. But it wouldn't have been in third person, so wouldn't have satisfied me. Would only see bare feet when you look down.

I got you fam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/433170/Die_Young/

 

[Semiurge]

Yup, TR is about exploration, a notable portion of that being finding secrets, which is optional and usually demanding to do. Lets just rob the player of all that optional effort! It's also about dealing with tanky as hell enemies in between, which I damn well want to use all the ammo I worked my ass off to get on.

Finding the secrets is its own reward, not the items you receive. The additional weapons can help in making the combat with bosses shorter, and maybe sweeter because of the gun variety, but that's all. They are piss easy to beat with just the pistols and some patience. The enemies aren't even the deadliest threat in this, that's the exploration itself. No inventory is going to help you with that except for the health packs and maybe flares, and in TRIII you have healing crystals also if you haven't modded them away.

 

[Ash]

Your brain is faulty. That's unfortunate, sincerely. The world would be a better place with more logical thinkers in it.

Just admit you are wrong, I would respect you more.

It's virtual theft of all your hard work that you (potentially painfully*) grinded for hours to obtain, and barely got to use. You have a self-mugging fetish? It's not the end of the world, no, but it is bad game design.

*as mentioned, some of these secrets require serious effort to obtain, especially if you died and lost progress, potentially multiple times. And multiple long loading screens to boot. I damn well want that virtual reward. this isn't some philosophical subjective bullshit.
I use the shitty pistols, which I hate (unsurprisingly as they are super weak and boring, and often require standing there waiting for enemies to walk in and out of view repeatedly like retards), to conserve better ammo, specifically with intent for later game tougher encounters or boss fights, which this design undermined when it robbed me. This isn't some philosophical subjective bullshit. It's just you being wrong. The game encourages these behaviors. Especially when weapons have no ammo carry capacity limits to encourage/set the pace of actually using them like every other game in existence, and only give micro pickups like 2 shells per shotgun box, which means every pickup is therefore that much more valuable and demanding to be conserved to a degree.

 

[Semiurge]

Your brain is faulty. That's unfortunate, sincerely. The world would be a better place with more logical thinkers in it.

Just admit you are wrong, I would respect you more.

It's virtual theft of all your hard work that you (potentially painfully*) grinded for hours to obtain, and barely got to use. You have a self-mugging fetish? It's not the end of the world, no, but it is bad game design.

*as mentioned, some of these secrets require serious effort to obtain, especially if you died and lost progress, potentially multiple times. And multiple loading screens. I damn well want that virtual reward. this isn't some philosophical subjective bullshit.
I use the shitty pistols, which I hate (unsurprisingly as they are super weak and boring), to conserve better ammo, specifically with intent for later game tougher encounters or boss fights, which this design undermined when it robbed me. This isn't some philosophical subjective bullshit. It's just you being wrong. The game encourages these behaviors. Especially when weapons have no ammo carry capacity limits to encourage actually using them like every other game in existence, and only give micro pickups like 2 shells per shotgun box, which means every pickup is therefore that much more valuable and demanding to be conserved.

Have you considered the fact that maybe you're just not gud enough, and that makes you rely on the other guns so much? I ration the ammo before Nevada despite knowing that it's pointless, just because it seems fitting from Lara's perspective. I don't shoot down every bird and baton wielding mook with a grenade launcher, but I do use the shotgun on human enemies just for fun. Maybe you could do the opposite, just use the additional weapons while you can. They're meant to be used, and you might as well since Lara isn't supposed to know what you do. Unless you're doing some kind of timed challenges of the levels and need to finish them in some optimal way? Or are the inventory management and bossfights the only enjoyment you get from these games?

"Barely got to use"? Just use them then, damn it. If you leave Nevada last or as the middle area, there's plenty of time, and after you'll have even more motivation to collect what you can. But nevertheless, the game is piss easy even if you don't. Or rather, the combat is. The exploration not so much.

 

[Ash]

It saddens me that despite all my clear explanation you still don't get it. Especially when it really doesn't take a genius to understand why this design is shit.

Ah, now I understand you:

I ration the ammo before Nevada despite knowing that it's pointless, just because it seems fitting from Lara's perspective.

So basically you're just an autist. You do know that Lara isn't real, right, and that her perspective is irrelevant? She is largely a self-insert/virtual avatar for the player. You perform painful resource management (using the shitty pistols), do the sometimes brutal challenges required to obtain secrets that come with risk of great progress loss, all because it seems fitting to do to the character you are playing? OK moving on. You can't help who you are I guess.

 

[Semiurge]

It saddens me that despite all my clear explanation you still don't get it. Especially when it really doesn't take a genius to understand why this design is shit.

Ah, now I understand you:

I ration the ammo before Nevada despite knowing that it's pointless, just because it seems fitting from Lara's perspective.

So basically you're just an autist. You do know that Lara isn't real, right, and that her perspective is irrelevant? She is largely a self-insert/virtual avatar for the player. You perform painful resource management (using the shitty pistols), do the sometimes brutal challenges required to obtain secrets that come with risk of great progress loss, all because it seems fitting to do to the character you are playing? OK moving on. You can't help who you are I guess.

Not an autist. Well, I am but that's beside the point. It could be said that I apply some roleplaying to more than just RPGs. I've already admitted to being a storyfag, that's somewhat related. Playing games through the eyes of their protagonists makes them better. It's a conscious, deliberate choice of not breaking the illusion of that world the game is trying to present. That's also why I never use cheats except when it's the only way to make progress (game breaking bugs).

 

[Ash]

Now it all makes sense, a filthy storyfag, and a roleplay dweeb applying roleplay to where it does not belong. But at the same time doesn't make sense, because I will never understand how such people's brains came to form and (mal)function. Well, it's been an interesting chat. Respect to a fellow classic gaming fan nonetheless. Also respect for use of the word "admitted". Hahaha beautiful wording and made my day This means you know, whether consciously or subconsciously, that something is wrong.

That's also why I never use cheats except when it's the only way to make progress (game breaking bugs).

The logical reason to not use cheats is because they break gameplay balance and this in turn undermines the entire game experience (including potentially things like atmosphere and immersion), similar to how robbing player inventory does here. But hey, any reason to get you to not do exactly that is a good thing.

 

[Semiurge]

The logical reason to not use cheats is because they break gameplay balance and this in turn undermines the entire game experience, similar to how robbing player inventory does here. But hey, any reason to get you to not do exactly that is a good thing.

Entirely subjective and case-dependant. The inventory robbing (theoretically) increases difficulty, and only undermines the game experience and balance if the game experience revolves around inventory management, like in your case.

What a non-issue, blown out of proportion!

 

[Ash]

Yeah yeah, "non-issue", and in other news water is wet, there are only two genders and more are now subjective matter open to debate too.

It was you that made this dumbfuck design decision back in 1998, wasn't it?

 

[Ash]

The inventory robbing (theoretically) increases difficulty

Why is everything theoretical or subjective with you? Use logic goddamn it! Games are mostly comprised of logic and math. 1 + 1 = 2, gonna deny or say that is subjective next? It DOES increase difficulty as opposed to not robbing inventory, objectively. Losing access to all those powerful guns and potentially plenty ammo saved is for sure a game changer. However, if more difficulty is desired, it didn't have to be executed that way. Instead they could have kept player inventory, but given less overall. had tougher enemies. More enemies. Less secrets. Less resources found per pickup. Perhaps most sensible of all possible options: had less ammo to be found in later levels, especially Antartica. Why? Because as is there is no doubt MORE ammo given in later levels than there otherwise should be to make up for the fact that they rob you half way through the game (I barely remember Antarctica though). There's endless ways to go about doing things, some more logical than others.

Basically, they should have just done things like almost every other game in existence, including all the other Tomb Raider games.

 

[Semiurge]

Yeah yeah, "non-issue", and in other news water is wet, there are only two genders and more are now subjective matter open to debate too.

It was you that made this dumbfuck design decision back in 1998, wasn't it?

Funny that the hardcore TR fans at Tomb Raider Forums don't complain about this terrible inventory robbery like you do. They must play these just for the Lara outfits or something. Whatever the reason, they seem to love TRIII.

 

[Semiurge]

The inventory robbing (theoretically) increases difficulty

Why is everything theoretical or subjective with you? Use logic goddamn it! It DOES increase difficulty as opposed to not robbing inventory, objectively. Losing access to all those powerful guns and potentially plenty ammo saved is for sure a game changer. However, if more difficulty is desired, it didn't have to be executed that way. Instead they could have kept player inventory, but given less overall. had tougher enemies. More enemies. Less secrets. Less resources found per pickup. Perhaps most sensible of all possible options: had less ammo to be found in later levels. Why? Because as is there is no doubt MORE ammo given in later levels than there otherwise should be to make up for the fact that they rob you half way through the game. There's endless ways to go about doing things, some more logical than others.

Why do you need to hoard ammo anyway, on principle, or because you are fixated on some specific way of handling the combat? I know why I do it, but let's hear your excuse. If the inventory wasn't taken away, what would you do then? Use every special ammo type on the final boss, or just one of them? Even in its current state the game gives you plenty special ammo to finish the final boss off, but if you do Nevada last you might have to use the pistols too, a little. Horrifying, I know. You can't use the grenades on the final boss very well because of the crater in the middle, so those can be used againts mooks freely. So rockets and everything else then? With their cumulated ammo combined, there's still enough to take most of its health no matter when you do Nevada. The catch is that you need to use the pistols more against mooks when you finish Nevada last.