general gaming

[mossy flume]

How evil.

[grave tide]

But sadly 90% of gamers doesn't remember Anthem

Do you remember Anthem?

I do

[mossy flume]

I do remember Anthem.

[slim thorn]

I don't because I never played multiplayer shooters

[mossy flume]

I'm still sad about it.

[slim thorn]

but the trends you refer to predate it by many years and many other releases

[mossy flume]

BioWare deserves better.

[slim thorn]

like, before Steam was the norm even

[light gate]

Btw, apparently System Shock remake is freakin good.

[mossy flume]

Yeah that's what I hear

And indeed the alpha builds I've played were pretty cool

[slim thorn]

to be clear, I bought Jedi Survivor some time after its launch in part because of the performance reports

and also the reports that patches had largely fixed those issues

due process was followed

[mossy flume]

I preorder everything because I know I'm going to buy it anyway and I want to support devs. And if it's particularly egregious I will refund it. This almost never happens, though. Redfall was the one refund I've requested in the past few years on the basis of it being broken.

Besides, debugging things is a fun adventure for me anyway.

And yeah, more often than not things get fixed within a week.

The reactionary Reddit take is something I can't take seriously.

[light gate]

I might be preordering Marathon, but this will depend on the gameplay reveal.

[slim thorn]

which take are we calling the "reactionary reddit" one

[mossy flume]

I'm quite fascinated by Marathon. It could just be a revival in name only, but who knows.

[light gate]

If I don't like the gameplay, then I probably don't want it.

Apparently takes place before the events of the first one.

So that's cool.

[mossy flume]

The "preorders are fundamentally evil and nobody should ever do them and if you do preorder anything, ever, at any point, you yourself are evil" hot take.

[grave tide]

Marathon is being developed by Bungie

[slim thorn]

tbh everything I remember being cool about Marathon's lore/setting eventually made it into Halo so I have no strong feelings about bringing that name back

[grave tide]

There is no chance to be a good game

I can't believe that studio which killed Destiny 2 can kill a good shooter

[slim thorn]

oh, sure, not that far

[light gate]

I mean... I like Destiny 2...

[mossy flume]

Destiny 2 is great if you're into looter shooters

[slim thorn]

I would say preordering is irresponsible if you're not familiar with the dev/publisher track record enough to have genuine trust in them to deliver

[grave tide]

I liked Destiny 2, then I saw patch which deleted 80% of content

[slim thorn]

in the "can you really afford to throw away that much money" sense of irresponsible

[mossy flume]

Yeah, the vaulting thing is rather silly.

[quiet swift]

got jedi survivor free anyway, so lol~

(some perks are nice)

[slim thorn]

I almost never need to play a game on day one so I had little reason to preorder anyway

[light gate]

If you expected Destiny 2 to always exist with all the content, then I dunno what you were expecting.

[mossy flume]

I can. And refunds are trivial to get, so...

[slim thorn]

back when games were on discs it made more sense

[grave tide]

Especially I opened the game like year ago and saw that a bunch of exotic guns you MUST BUY

[light gate]

I don't like FOMO but I also do find these games fun.

[grave tide]

That's like the bottom of looter shooters

[light gate]

So I just don't think about it much.

[mossy flume]

I just don't do looter shooters anymore, though.

I'm super tired of games that operate on fomo or just the looter shooter gameplay loop. It's rather stale.

[light gate]

Sucks that Marathon will do FOMO.

[mossy flume]

We don't know if it will

[light gate]

It's an extraction shooter.

[mossy flume]

What does that mean?

[light gate]

With game changing narrative.

So things can change if certain players do things.

"Several people are typing..." oh boy

[quiet swift]

Hmm. I think the only thing i've been getting day 1 that wasn't free is actually D4. And that's been doing stress tests anyway so there's hope the launch isn't too agonizing

[mossy flume]

Oh that's actually pretty good

[slim thorn]

I feel like I'm missing the FOMO gene because all of these alleged incentives and market forces people talk about have never been even the slightest temptation for me, I just don't see the appeal at all

[mossy flume]

I do like community driven narratives when done right (rarely done right)

[quiet swift]

ixrec: same. Most of these FOMO type things seem to be shooters as well and i've long since tired of multiplayer in that. Gimme story stuff dangit

[grave tide]

And especially from late Destiny 2 things. Bungie resurкected Cayde. WHY???? Like you killed Cayde, everyone cried because of this

And after like 3 years

HELLO, your tears didn't cost anything!

[minor gorge]

I have experienced it before but it does not apply to video games for me.

[slim thorn]

I think I've just never played a "looter shooter" because the moment those started existing they gave me the impression of "shooter with too many RPG elements", and then no one I talk to ever recommended any of them

[light gate]

I didn't like Borderlands that much.

[minor gorge]

Digital products do not really lend themselves to it outside of things like cosmetic items.

[quiet swift]

Borderlands kinda worked because it was heavily story

[light gate]

Story is nice but the gameplay was super repetitive, more repetitive than Destiny somehow.

[mossy flume]

Somehow, Cayde has returned.

[slim thorn]

maximum irony: I never played Borderlands, but I did play Telltale's "Tales From The Borderlands"

wow that was 2016, no wonder I forgot all the details

[mossy flume]

It looks like it'll be some level of fakeout. Given his design appears to be held together by some energy, so maybe he's a "ghost" or something.

But yeah

[quiet swift]

gasp

[mossy flume]

Feels like Destiny lost its own plot

[light gate]

It did.

[mossy flume]

Ages ago

[light gate]

Destiny suffered for too much vague and revealing little.

[mossy flume]

Yep

"I have no time to explain why I have no time to explain"

[light gate]

Destiny 2 improved but then suffered again because anything that was "game changing" ended up being a massive update that could break older things.

[mossy flume]

That line made me quite angry.

While cool in theory, Destiny had been going on for a while by then

[light gate]

"I have no time to explain because we ran out of time."

[mossy flume]

And they needed answers

[slim thorn]

speaking of preordering being irresponsible by default

[mossy flume]

But the entire story is still too vague

[slim thorn]

"episodic" games sounded cool when they were new but IIRC those also quickly proved to be mostly a bad investment

[light gate]

Yeah, Valve had many issues with it.

But that's Valve.

[mossy flume]

For the most part. It works for things like MMOs, but episodic games are hard to pull off right in other contexts.

[grave tide]

Half Life 2 Episode 3

[slim thorn]

I feel like that business model basically got replaced by early access

if you wanna spend money on an incomplete product, that's fine, it's just better for everyone if it's clearly categorized as incomplete

[light gate]

Yeah...

About that...

[grave tide]

And now we have 70$ eAAAArly AAAAcsess

[light gate]

Every game that is shipped is incomplete technically.

[grave tide]

[mossy flume]

Aye. Early access has certainly been bastardized as a concept.

[light gate]

You see left overs that didn't make the cut, code that was rushed to make it in at the last second, and of course the infamous low performance that some games launch.

[slim thorn]

it was all downhill after Broken Age

[light gate]

It is extraordinarily hard to create a game.

[slim thorn]

except of course not really, lots of games I've loved came out of crowdfunding and early access and I just don't realize it until I see the credits

[light gate]

The fact that there is a term for TRIPLE A games is insanity, most of these devs CRUNCH to make such a game.

[slim thorn]

but at least now it feels like people are largely aware of the risk level

[mossy flume]

This is one thing that a lot of reactionaries have either forgotten or willfully ignore, mind.

[light gate]

Oh definitely.

I am glad Bungie kept Marathon under wraps.

[slim thorn]

the best thing about modern gaming is how much easier it's gotten to make games

[light gate]

Until that thing is ready.

[slim thorn]

now the only hard parts of game making are the parts that should be hard, like writing, art, music, designing that core gameplay loop, etc

[mossy flume]

Yep

Unfortunately, it's hard to get a good creative team on board. Especially if a publisher isn't compensating them sufficiently well.

[light gate]

I feel like Activision hurt Bungie a lot.

[mossy flume]

On the other hand, the demands for bigger and more complex games continues to increase while allocation for development time seems to never really change.

Yeah and that was predictable.

It seems like Bungie should self-publish. Same with BioWare.

[light gate]

They did.

And then they were acquired by Sony.

I hope that Sony is being patient, which seems to be the case since most Sony games do release properly.

[slim thorn]

while it's undeniable that AAA releases have been doing this, I'm skeptical that there's still any real demand from consumers for it at this point

[mossy flume]

Not always. But they do seem to be reliably stable.

[light gate]

They do have enough cash flow.

So that will satisfy Bungie for sure.

[slim thorn]

like, when was the last time you heard someone say that Witcher 3 was too short

[mossy flume]

Heh

[light gate]

I couldn't even finish that game.

[slim thorn]

it's the only game I know of that I have >100 hours in on Steam

[light gate]

It took forever for me to get out of the first area, and the second area bored me to death.

[mossy flume]

I still see people regularly claim that visuals on modern games are terrible, as if todays visuals weren't just utter scifi fifteen, twenty years ago.

[slim thorn]

but Witcher 2 is the one I'll always recommend because its story is so much more focused (and does meaningful choice far better)

[light gate]

Also, GTA 6.

Holy crap.

What a shame it got leaked.

[slim thorn]

yeah that claim feels like a really lazy rephrasing of "I can tell it's a video game, therefore it's not photorealistic enough" which is just not a good metric

[mossy flume]

What, did they finally announce something?

It got leaked?

[light gate]

No, but previous year people saw the game running.

[mossy flume]

Oh, right, yeah that early prototype

[light gate]

People were like "why is game look bad?"

"it looks like a ps2 game"

[grave tide]

Bungie did all the worst things with Destiny 2 after Bungie left Activision

[mossy flume]

....because that's a prototype.

[slim thorn]

tbf there are some aspects of modern game "graphics" that are still kinda weak (e.g. objects clipping through other objects), but in practice I never hear anyone specifically complain about those

[mossy flume]

Sigh.

[grave tide]

And best years of Destiny 2 were under Activision, and immediately after leaving Activision

[light gate]

When you have no income, you gonna have to start making some farms.

[mossy flume]

I don't really expect people to get how game dev works, but I guess expecting people to not assume that a game always looks like the way it does on release may be giving too much credit.

[light gate]

Its hard.

[slim thorn]

we need to force more people to sit through The Stanley Parable

best use of placeholder textures

[mossy flume]

Indeed.

[slim thorn]

"What do you want from me!? SKILL TREES?"

[rugged flax]

broom closet

[mossy flume]

There are some other games out there that specifically use unfinished game worlds as part of their narrative.

The Beginner's Guide comes to mind.

[slim thorn]

it's definitely not the only one but I've yet to see another that comes close to TSP and... yeah, TBG

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ8po6EsOUA even if only to make them listen to this.

(Relevant Pony! ✅ )

[mossy flume]

But wake me up when a completed game uses straight programmer art in a scene or two.

[light gate]

So yeah, game dev hard, dev companies experiment endlessly, publishers demand profits immediately.

[mossy flume]

"Here's the triangle and the cube that eventually became the player character and a later iteration of this one basic enemy"

[light gate]

And if that dev company is independent, then see them as a publisher and a dev company together.

[mossy flume]

"Also here's this flat single color level"

[light gate]

You mean FEZ?

[slim thorn]

preorder at your own risk, friends don't let friends play gacha, support your locally-sourced indie studios, etc

[mossy flume]

Phil Fish had talent.

[slim thorn]

Fez was okay

[grave tide]

We need to pin this

[light gate]

I really love Fez but its not for everyone.

[grave tide]

Absolutely based

[slim thorn]

I wanted to love Fez but it had far too many BS "puzzles" on top of all the good ones

[light gate]

If Phil Fish didn't become the laugh stock of the gaming world because of their opinions, and was not constantly bugged by 4channers, Fez II coulda happened.

I'm still pissed about this.

[mossy flume]

But like, we need a game that's as beautiful as Ori and the Blind Forest that does some sort of meta narrative and at some point drop into an early (though admittedly mildly polished) prototype like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OouOhIJL1i4

[light gate]

I will admit though, he was funny with his tweets.

[mossy flume]

And maybe people will start to get how gamedev works

[slim thorn]

fortunately there's like a thousand other good indie puzzle platformers these days so we don't need to settle for merely okay lol

[mossy flume]

I love the Golbats though

[light gate]

Tunic is a masterpiece.

[slim thorn]

I'm still mad at myself for not solving the golden path

[mossy flume]

Tunic is way too hard for me, sadly

I want to play it so much

But I can't

[light gate]

There are assists?

[mossy flume]

...are there?

[slim thorn]

Tunic's too hard?

[mossy flume]

Last time I checked there weren't any difficulty modes or anything

[mossy flume]

It's quite hard, yes

[slim thorn]

I feel like you play way more hard games more often than me but I guess now I can't actually name any for sure

[mossy flume]

Hmmm, I might need to use the stamina removal mode or no fail mode, whatever that does.

[mossy flume]

I can't get anywhere in that darn game

There's a fucking difficulty option????

When was that addded?

[slim thorn]

how far did you get?

[light gate]

a few months ago

The dev is cool as heck

[mossy flume]

I got the stick and... that's basically it.

I'm in the first 30 minutes

[slim thorn]

did you at least find the route to the forest?

[mossy flume]

I found the signs pointing to the hero shrine and I'm attempting to follow them

That's as far as I got

[light gate]

You also don't need to fight every enemy.

[slim thorn]

huh

[light gate]

Fleeing is okay.

[slim thorn]

yeah at that point it's arguably the easiest because the game expects you to mostly avoid the fights

[mossy flume]

Well yeah, but there are enemies blockignt he path that make running from them impossible

[slim thorn]

the mandatory fights later on are proper hard

[mossy flume]

Or proceeding

[light gate]

This game will make you backtrack subtly.

So don't stress too much about missing a place.

[mossy flume]

I expect backtracking in games like that, yeah

I'm not even on side paths, I avoid those

[slim thorn]

right, but this is before there's even a track to back up on

[mossy flume]

I'm literally on the golden path that the game is laying out and I can't do it

[light gate]

Wait what do you mean by that?

You only have the stick?

[mossy flume]

YES

As I said

[light gate]

And you are at the golden path?

[slim thorn]

I think he was using "golden path" metaphorically

[mossy flume]

....there's a liteal golden path? No I mean I'm doing the expected route through the game

[slim thorn]

it's impossible to know that phrase has a special meaning until FAR later in the game

NO SPOILERS ANYONE

[mossy flume]

Golden Path is the formal term for the main route through a game

As designed by the dev

[light gate]

Okay okay, just focus on progressing.

[mossy flume]

Yes that's what I mean

I'm avoiding side quests

[light gate]

If you are stuck in something, do something else.

[mossy flume]

I... can't.

[slim thorn]

he's too early for there to be a something else

[mossy flume]

There are no other options.

Like you don't understand how early I am in the game

[slim thorn]

anyway, unless you feel like streaming it we obviously can't give you any real help here, since this part is not supposed to be a challenge

[light gate]

I'm trying to help without being spoilerino.

lmfao

[slim thorn]

well if MA's Tunic experience is this similar to my Dark Souls experience perhaps it is reasonable to call Tunic a soulslike after all

[mossy flume]

yes. It is literally a soulslike

Anyway I'm streaming? I don't know how Discord works in that regard

[slim thorn]

derp I've been muted the whole time so you heard nothing I said

well that means you figured it out on your own!

[light gate]

[mossy flume]

Not really "figured out" so much as randomly stumbled upon it

[light gate]

That's how I played.

[mossy flume]

I spent months trying to beat that guy

[light gate]

You do need to time your attacks.

[slim thorn]

I mean, there's literally only one possible way to go this early in the game (with normal first-timer knowledge)

[light gate]

I can not stress that enough, timing is everything.

[mossy flume]

But since you suggested saying fuck it even though they chase you endlessly I tried it randomly

I know that timing is everything

[slim thorn]

yeah you definitely are not meant to fight the sword guy before you get the sword

[mossy flume]

I know how soulslike games work

[slim thorn]

I remember trying that and quickly concluding it was a bad idea

all the other little enemies I could carefully take down with my stick but not the sword guy

[mossy flume]

Yeah I concluded that was the wrong direction after the 30th or so attempt

[light gate]

ah I see the disconnect now

[slim thorn]

...

[light gate]

yeah that was a weird way of phrasing it.

[mossy flume]

I explained that term already.

[slim thorn]

[mossy flume]

...it's the FORMAL TERM

[light gate]

Lxrec calm

lol

[mossy flume]

Like literally every game dev should know that

Or fans, really

[light gate]

Yeah I know what you mean, don't worry about it.

[mossy flume]

It's casually used all the time

[slim thorn]

the bigger concern was us explaining it 2-3 times above

[light gate]

It was quite hard than to show a screenshot.

lol

[mossy flume]

But yeah, this save file has 29 minutes on it

[slim thorn]

anyway

[mossy flume]

Which is interesting because Steam has only recorded 22 minutes of gameplay

[slim thorn]

I don't remember how long it took me to get to the sword; now that I've seen that I believe I was moving a lot more cautiously than you so perhaps I ended up with a similar total time despite fewer deaths

[light gate]

I died so many times to get the sword

but then I got better with each death

[mossy flume]

I was moving a LOT more cautiously before then. This was literally the first time I tried "fuck it I'll see if just rushing it randomly works"

[light gate]

I think we all learned something today.

[mossy flume]

I prefer being much more methodical in soulslike or soulslite games.

Because the fundamental design of such games specifically punishes being reckless.

[slim thorn]

I mean it's only the one enemy you need to run past

[light gate]

Any hoo

[mossy flume]

It's weird. The last time I looked into this I was trying to get up a ladder where there were two sword guys

And they were camping the ladder

[light gate]

Well keep going, I think you can do it without assists.

[mossy flume]

Yeahhhhh and this game just gave me a giga fuck you

You say as I immediately get steamrolled

[slim thorn]

what other soulslikes have you played

[mossy flume]

According to Steam's generous definition... Dark Souls 1 & 2, Elden Ring, Jedi Fallen Order, Jedi Survivor, Hollow Knight, Little Witch Nobeta, Ori and the Will of the Wisps (really??), Returnal (actually really loved this one), Sekiro, Rain World, Death's Door, Dead Cells, and (hilariously wrong categorization...) Baba Is You

[slim thorn]

man

I am so baffled by this

[mossy flume]

Steam is extremely generous with the tag

[quiet swift]

isnt some of the tagging user-run?

[light gate]

I want to see what Rain World is about, but I do not have a single device that can play it lmao.

[slim thorn]

well that too but I meant your Tunic experience when you've finished multiple soulslikes that I still can't understand how anyone could genuinely enjoy

assuming you finished those and that's not just random stuff you installed

[mossy flume]

But Dark Souls 1 & 2 I couldn't get more than 20 minutes in
Bloodborne I gave up after 20 minutes, again
Sekiro I gave up after an hour or two.
Jedi Survivor and Jedi Fallen Order are the only proper soulslikes that I've actually gotten close to completing.
Hollow Knight I have a few hours in but it is actually intending to be a soulslike/soullite as per the dev's own words and intent, so take that for what you will. But it's quite punishing to me.

Returnal I would rather label as a roguelike.
Rain World is frustrating but for different reasons. I don't know how to categorize that one.

[slim thorn]

ah, ok, that's making a bit more sense now

[mossy flume]

It took me a ton of struggling to be able to get anywhere in Jedi Fallen Order, though.

[slim thorn]

Dark Souls 1, Sekiro and Rain World are the three games I've played that for me had a pretty great start, and then after 2-10 hours both the legitimate difficulty and the straight-up sadism cranked up to eleven so sharply that they became literally unplayable without a walkthrough (and thus no fun any more)

[mossy flume]

And like... a couple years of poking away at it.

[quiet swift]

Fallen order was pretty much me there. I'd actually almost recommend Elden ring, as long as you go in with prior knowledge (like some 'take this path to get plenty of power/xp early on" type of things). By doing that and following a build guide, I actually had a great time

[mossy flume]

Fallen Order was my limit for sure

And the soulslike fanbase considers them "baby's first soulslike"

Or just possibly too easy to be considered a soulslike

[slim thorn]

Fallen Order/Jedi Survivor are still the only 3D "soulslikes" in which the "learn from every death" thing everyone talks about was actually true for me

god I hope we don't start defining "soulslike" as sadistically unplayable difficulty un-balance

well, Hollow Knight is more of a narrative soulslike than a gameplay one, except insofar as it's not easy (but "not easy" was of course never unique to soulslikes); the core combat mechanics have almost no overlap

[mossy flume]

Nobody can agree on what soulslike means, apparently. But I take it as "heavy movement, timing-sensitive, punishing combat"

a-la Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor

[slim thorn]

this is why I always talk about "soulslike narrative" and "deliberate combat" and "parry button" and "stamina bar"; those words mean things

[mossy flume]

Also "staggering is next to nonexistent" apparently

Also parry, yeah

And also also "movement telegraphing is obscure/hard to divine from enemy to enemy"

[slim thorn]

and J:FO/JS just objectively have parry, stamina, deliberate/un-cancelable swings

[mossy flume]

Yep

[slim thorn]

I don't know what you mean about telegraphing, I wasn't aware anything souls-related made an innovation there (unless that's just a dig at specific games not doing it well)

[mossy flume]

As I understand it, being able to decipher and understand what your enemy is about to do next is important for figuring out how you the player are going to respond and getting it wrong is likely going to result in a game over.

That's how it has historically been explained to me

[slim thorn]

the stagger comment also confuses me since that's the other half of having a stamina system; stagger is just what happens when stamina hits zero

yes I know what "telegraphing" means

but of course that concept goes all the way back to enemies having attack animations at all

[mossy flume]

Sure, but as I understand it, the telegraphing in soulslikes is supposedly meant to be difficult to figure out by design, as opposed to leaning on tropes or being able to understand a movement on the first observation.

[slim thorn]

huh

[mossy flume]

Meant to be confusing

[slim thorn]

ok that's a new one on me

[mossy flume]

And indeed soulslikes do move in ways that confuse me

[slim thorn]

and fwiw I wouldn't describe any of the 2D games with arguably soulslike combat that way, or even Tunic

tbh I think this has less to do with being a soulslike and more to do with just being a competent game

like, JFO/JS have clear attack telegraphing

that doesn't prevent them from mixing it up with feints and different attack speeds and so on so things remain a challenge

[fresh bane]

I've never heard of anyone say the telegraphing in soulslikes is meant to be confusing

[mossy flume]

This is weird that this is news to anyone, as I've heard this regularly.

[fresh bane]

Only in the later games have I heard players notice that the telegraphing is a bit harder to figure out because enemies and bosses mostly will wind up their attacks for a little bit longer than you'd initially think

and this throws you off because it messes up your timing

[mossy flume]

And indeed this is how Dark Souls was described to me when it was relatively new by fans of the series.

[light gate]

I mean I'm confused as well

[mossy flume]

???????

[fresh bane]

I would even go so far as to say this isn't even a thing in Dark Souls with maybe Dark Souls 3 or 3's DLCs being the exception

it really started being a thing with other games like Sekiro

and Elden Ring

[slim thorn]

huh, back when it was that new I never heard anything this specific about the combat (granted there was no "soulslike" genre yet so of course no one was picking out which mechanics it'd popularized)

[mossy flume]

Really? To me they had confusing telegraphing

[slim thorn]

at the time the entire rhetoric around the DS gameplay was "hard but fair"

which of course was a complete and utter lie but that's separate

[mossy flume]

It's clear in a lot of cases, but the boss movements are regularly baffling

It's very rare for me to be able to defeat a boss on the first encounter entirely based on me not understanding how their movement works

[slim thorn]

huh

[mossy flume]

And indeed as I understand it you're generally not expected to be able to defeat bosses in soulslike games like Dark Souls on the first try

[light gate]

Well I hope you do finish Tunic.

[slim thorn]

in JS so far I've beaten nearly every boss on the first try, but I still take a lot of hits while I'm learning their combos and timings and such (simply holding block is a good start but of course doesn't guarantee anything)

which feels similar to my JFO experience

[mossy flume]

In JS I've been doing much better than JFO, largely because I eventually got better at JFO and a lot of the swordplay in JS is more forgiving IMO

[slim thorn]

both on the default difficulty to be clear, other people in this channel play them on actually hard difficulties

[mossy flume]

But JS has indeed fucked me over in a couple of spots already

[slim thorn]

it's more forgiving? I feel like I'm doing much worse at JS

(maybe I'm just overwhelmed by the total number of mechanics since Cal didn't forget everything from JFO?)

[mossy flume]

I feel like I can parry much more easily in JS

[slim thorn]

oh I still suck at parrying in JFO/JS as much as every other game with a parry button lol

[rancid herald]

JS definitely felt like a more balanced approach to the game

[mossy flume]

And the un-cancelable attacks aren't as... quick? Wide? I dunno

But I feel like I can dodge the un-cancelable attacks better too

[rancid herald]

you start to see how the original game was when you fight rancors or that frog

[slim thorn]

well that depends on stance

oh you meant the boss' attacks

when I say "un-cancelable" is a soulslike thing I meant your attacks; once you press the attack button you are committed to not blocking anything for a second or two

[mossy flume]

Ah, yeah, then in that case I mean the attacks that you can't parry

[slim thorn]

(one reason dual is a great stance for me on some bosses is that it reduces that time by a lot)

ok the unblockable attacks that make them glow red

[mossy flume]

Although JS is quite happy to give you attacks you can parry but it still beats you to the ground anyway

[slim thorn]

well I'm just as bad/inconsistent dodging the red attacks as I am at parrying the regular attacks

[mossy flume]

The trick with JS is that you can now press & hold the parry button a bit early and the parry will work

[slim thorn]

the bedlam guys with hammers in particular I still haven't figured out how to dodge without somehow getting hit anyway

[mossy flume]

As with JFO it had to be exact timing

[mossy flume]

Yeah, I've kinda learned to just force push some enemies like that away instead

[slim thorn]

if you say so, I never have a clue if I've pressed the button early or late or what

[mossy flume]

It's still narrow timing, yeah

But I feel like the window was extended by like half a second

Or maybe my understanding of how JFO worked was never right.

I never did finish the final fight in that game

Just couldn't do it despite like 50 attempts

Got fairly close

[slim thorn]

were you playing FO and JS on the default difficulty?

[mossy flume]

Yes

And I'm only like half done with JS

I think

[slim thorn]

I think I'm over halfway through the main plot of JS but I don't really know

[mossy flume]

I might still be in act I, I don't know

[quiet swift]

I've gone mostly goblin mode in JS, i sometimes parry if i remember to or it's a hard boss, otherwise it's just double bladed KILL BEFORE THEY HURT/KILL ME mindset

[mossy flume]

Gradually making progress, but I'm kinda spending my time in TotK

[slim thorn]

though I'm definitely not getting the "must 100%" vibe, unsure if I'm just not in the mood or that's because sequels always have more filler stuff

[mossy flume]

I've given up on 100%ing games at this point.

[slim thorn]

I thought the whole point of these stamina/parry/uncancelable combat systems was so you can't do that?

[mossy flume]

I have too many gigantic games to play and just not enough motivation.

[quiet swift]

Well yes, the bosses do need me to do the parries

[rancid herald]

you just use ultra hand to build-- wait, wrong game

[quiet swift]

But everything else

[mossy flume]

I used to 100% every game I touched, partly on obsession and partly on principle.

[slim thorn]

Metroidvanias I like enough to finish at all usually make me want to 100% them by some definition, including all the Soulslike Metroidvanias I've played and I think JFO?

[mossy flume]

But now I just can't be fucked

[quiet swift]

I'm not 100% but i've been going around doing some of the rumor stuff that NPCs give you. Not gonna go in every nook and cranny looking for treasures though

[slim thorn]

but mostly because that's like the one genre that actually tries to make 100%ing fun

[fickle garnet]

Im on my second playthrough of Jedi survivor

[mossy flume]

Yeah, Metroidvanias are basically the one I might try

[slim thorn]

ok I definitely didn't fully 100% JFO

[mossy flume]

But really, mostly just actual Metroid games these days (I say, not having 100%'d Dread or Samus Returns yet...)

[slim thorn]

"by some definition" is doing a lot of work there

most AAA games have a big pile of stuff that's unrelated to what the game's actually good at which I just ignore completely

e.g. I will not be making any effort to fill out the rooftop garden

[mossy flume]

Yeah

Like all the Assassin's Creed collectibles? Screw that noise.

[slim thorn]

but now that I stumbled onto a map upgrade that puts every chest on BD-1's map? yeah, I might try for 100% chests

[mossy flume]

Oh hecc, that's a thing? I should hunt that down.

I decided that I should hunt down the stim upgrades

I only have 4 stims right now

[slim thorn]

indeed

where are you in the main quest?

[mossy flume]

I have... no idea XD

[slim thorn]

just tell me what's happened so far lol

I think we're the only ones who haven't finished the game yet

[mossy flume]

Uh, I just finished... fuck I don't remember any names for anything

[quiet swift]

Nah me too

[slim thorn]

did you fight one-arm guy

surely you can answer that

[mossy flume]

Yeah

[slim thorn]

just one time?

[mossy flume]

The first time, yep

Haven't seen him again yet

[slim thorn]

have you been to the moon

[quiet swift]

for ixrec's eyes only: ||i am heading back to koboh to find the compass||

[mossy flume]

Then I went to the broken moon

Finsihed that and I just today/yesterday finished the planet with the weird flammable rock

[slim thorn]

oh ok I'm ahead of Tchern

[quiet swift]

Yeah i haven't fought one arm a second time

[slim thorn]

[mossy flume]

So I did both of the planets that happen after fighting Dagan the first time

Or whatever his name is

[slim thorn]

Dagan Gera yes

[mossy flume]

So right now I'm supposed to leave that planet and that's where I saved

[quiet swift]

Speaking of, Ixrec: ||is the upgrade of the line/rope thing that allows you to hook on balloons ahead of me, or did i miss it?||

[mossy flume]

I guess I'm going to trigger the next story beat

[slim thorn]

it's ahead of you, you're good

I just got that myself

[quiet swift]

Ahh, right

Those damn ||balloons are taunting me||

[slim thorn]

if you want to know, you get that upgrade ||on your 2nd moon visit when pursuing Rayvis||

[mossy flume]

I did appreciate the Not A Chocobo™️ mounts, though.

[quiet swift]

||that's what I figured||

[slim thorn]

"Nekko" keeps making me do double-takes because neko means cat

[mossy flume]

Exactly, haha

But yeah, I just finished the planet with the Nekko

[mossy flume]

So I guess I'm going to back to the good guy base. I haven't actually checked where my next destination is.

[slim thorn]

I guess we should complete the comparisons from earlier

how many tries did you two need for Dagan 1?

[fickle garnet]

Slight jedi spoilers ||Damn the perk that remixes encounters for ng+ in Jedi survivor makes it quite a bit harder||

[mossy flume]

Despite being surprised by the fight I think I got it first time

Although narrowly

[slim thorn]

I think I was expecting the fight but it was still narrow

[mossy flume]

IIRC I was one hit away from game over

[slim thorn]

I suspect I now have more stims than the game expects me to so later bosses were less of a close call

[mossy flume]

Oh, no, it was the second attempt

[quiet swift]

I'm playing on standard and I think only the first example of the... snarky combat bot type from Rogue One got me, everything else i've one shot. WHat's killed me is some extra bosses like rumor stuff

[river veldt]

have you guys seen Gido and his boyfriend

[slim thorn]

I think they call those just "security droids"?

yes

[fickle garnet]

||ive already fought one of the big security droids on coruscaunt||

[slim thorn]

I believe I've fought three optional rumor bosses and one of them (Mire Terror) killed me once and almost twice (I still don't understand how to dodge them reliably)

[fickle garnet]

||or they're actually called DT sentry droids||

[quiet swift]

||no, DT are the ultramarine looking ones||

Ah, KX security droid

[slim thorn]

although Rancor #2 got a really cheap quick kill on me as I mentioned earlier because I didn't understand that its stomps are unblockable

[quiet swift]

||did you find/fight the golden sand crawling thingy||

[river veldt]

OMG

[fickle garnet]

||im on ng+ with a perk that remixes all the combat encounters||

[slim thorn]

y'all gotta put context labels on your spoiler tags lol

there's a pretty huge gap between main quest 1/3rd into the story and encounters unique to NG+ with specific perks

[fickle garnet]

Yeah i should probably do that

[mossy flume]

There’s a NG+?

[fickle garnet]

Yes

[slim thorn]

these days I just assume every game has an NG+ or post-game content of some kind

even indies seem to almost universally have something

[gaunt marten]

Super Auto Pets NG+!

[slim thorn]

I don't remember what JFO had though

I think I ran around the map a bit after I finished and just left it at thatt

[mossy flume]

I think I only did one optional boss in JFO and that was by accident

Before I realized it had optional context

[slim thorn]

Oggdo Bogdo?

[mossy flume]

Yep

[slim thorn]

we all made that mistake

[mossy flume]

He’s right in the main path, yeah

[slim thorn]

in retrospect he technically isn't but he's like one inch off it

I'm pretty sure I thought I was on the main path when I found him

[mossy flume]

Well he’s in the main path, but just literally immediately underneath it

[slim thorn]

yeah

[mossy flume]

Yeah, same

And I thought the game was pointing me that way

[slim thorn]

for me that was another example of "this boss is doing way too much damage to me, I must not be meant to be here yet"

[mossy flume]

That didn’t occur to me. I just assumed I wasn’t grinding enough.

[slim thorn]

iirc I insisted on poking him to get my experience back

[mossy flume]

Or “ugh, fucking souls games”

[slim thorn]

ah, well, see, this is a perfect example of why I don't like RPGs

basically any other genre you can trust to scale late-game difficulty with your late-game character progression

[mossy flume]

It was one of those. JFO had difficulty spikes so it took me a long time to realize that the frog was optional.

[slim thorn]

but almost no RPG I've played tells you what the recommended levels for certain areas are, so every time you die you have no way of knowing if it's a lack of grinding or if you did the encounter wrong

(I think Kingdom Hearts of all games is the one exception which actually did tell me?)

[gaunt marten]

(Death's Gambit tells you what level to do some things at ||and it's wrong||)

[slim thorn]

oh right, someday I'll get back to that

why did I even start DG I'm completely not in the mood for it now

stupid brain

[gaunt marten]

I am in the mood for Hollow Knight though

[slim thorn]

[mossy flume]

I'd love to play Hollow Knight more, but it doesn't have difficulty options either.

The whole concept of Hollow Knight is right up my alley, but it again is too hard to me to deal with.

[slim thorn]

considering how much I like all these soulslike metroidvanias I am super lucky I am just average enough that I can actually enjoy them all even if they lack a proper easy/story mode

HK and Blasphemous are sooooo much harder than JFO/JS omg

[mossy flume]

It's weird though. I used to play some games on their maximum difficulty modes and still think they're too easy.

Either I just got old and fundamentally became incapable of dealing with games today or the relative difficulty of video games has gone way up.

I honestly cannot tell which.

[slim thorn]

I think there are also a lot of different kinds of "difficulty", even within the same genre

which games do you remember playing on hard?

[mossy flume]

All of Mass Effect on Insanity NG+, KotOR I & II, Halo on Legendary, Metroid Prime series on hard/hypermode, um...

The Last of Us, the difficulty step below Grounded

[gaunt marten]

Hollow Knight Randomizer has quality of life options that can make it easier. I bet you can do a no randomization run with them

[mossy flume]

The Jedi Knight games

[slim thorn]

I've played some Halos on Legendary recently enough that I feel confident saying that's significantly harder than a standard playthrough of JFO, JS, HK, Blasphemous, Ender Lilies, or Tunic

[mossy flume]

I'd have to disagree, tbh, unless you meant like Legendary LASO

[slim thorn]

in particular, every Halo I've done on Legendary has some parts which are totally unbalanced BS , and most of those games are fair from start to finish (at least on my one normal playthrough)

[mossy flume]

Although Halo 2 is an oddball in that regard

[slim thorn]

Halo 2 is the one I've played the least by far

[mossy flume]

It's disproportionately harder than the rest of the series.

[mossy flume]

Yeah. And that's how I feel about a ton of today's games.

[light gate]

That's because Halo 2 was completely different, it was supposed to tie to Marathon at one specific breakpoint.

It would also had introduce the forerunners.

[mossy flume]

Like fucking Tears of the Kingdom, even. Enemies in the tutorial zone will one-shot you and somehow this is an okay thing to do for a game aimed towards kids or people new to video games. BotW didn't do that.

[slim thorn]

like, I'm almost certain a Legendary Halo playthrough requires making more precise movements (3D vs 2D aiming) and faster snap decisions based on less information (first person and all) than all the other games I mentioned, not to mention far shorter time to get killed

[thorny loom]

legendary halo 2 is BS

jackel snipers

[mossy flume]

There's also the part where they completely redid how health works and they actually had very little playtesting available to them during H2s development.

[thorny loom]

i should know i did LASO on the MCC collection

[mossy flume]

I half completed LASO in H3, but that's the best I could do

Also ODST did a few

[slim thorn]

I've never played any LASO

[mossy flume]

The rest of them though? Nah

[slim thorn]

it sounds like a horrible idea lol

[mossy flume]

it is basically somethign you should do with friends.

Not by yourself.

MCC does have a LASO playlist though

[slim thorn]

oh, sure, Legendary with friends is basically a completely different difficulty

[mossy flume]

And it was frustrating because Bungie, the tryhards that they always are, locked some stuff behind LASO back in the day.

Unlocked it all when they bailed from Microsoft, mind, but still a pretty crazy thing to do.

Less than 1% of players can do LASO

[light gate]

https://youtu.be/bcUIKap8ur4

Halo 2 was one of those games that clearly was stuck in development limbo.

[mossy flume]

A sequel to Halo wasn't planned

[slim thorn]

I feel like I probably could do a LASO but it'd just be a horribly painful experience

most of the skulls are the opposite of fun (or don't affect gameplay)

[mossy flume]

But then it was an explosive success and Microsoft demanded a sequel and also gave them a hard deadline.

They were crunching from day 1 to the moment they had to get the golden master to Microsoft.

[thorny loom]

If you do LASO do ODST

[light gate]

And then again with Halo 3, and then ODST, and then their last game Halo Reach.

[slim thorn]

I keep forgetting ODST exists

[mossy flume]

They cut several hours from the game at the last minute

[thorny loom]

the levels are short enough that its not as bad if you die

[light gate]

Also ODST wasn't even ODST, it was called Halo Recon lmfao.

[mossy flume]

ODST was my favorite Halo, tbh

[river veldt]

i can beat Doom Eternal on Nightmare fairly easily but that's only because i have a billion trillion hours in it

and no i haven't beat Ultra Nightmare yet

[mossy flume]

The gunplay felt best out of all of them

[slim thorn]

everyone says that but it made no impression on me

I can't even remember if I played it or watched my sibling play it

[mossy flume]

I can't deal with Doom, personally.

Not because of difficulty, but because the constant rush and the super ultra hyper twitchy nature of it is just exhausting

[slim thorn]

I couldn't even do Doom 2016 on Ultra-Violence; I'd never get anywhere with Eternal on a higher-than-default difficulty

[minor gorge]

My reflexes are not good enough for those sorts of games.

[quiet swift]

I think the hardest thing I've done in recent memory, game wise, was heat 32 in Hades

[river veldt]

honestly i only feel tired after one or 2 combat encounters at this point, the rest of the game is just another day for me

[mossy flume]

Doom is the sort of thing I would play if I was still taking 30mg of adderall daily.

[river veldt]

it pleases the adhd brain

[minor gorge]

Jedi: Fallen Order is already pushing it for me in terms of reflexes.

[slim thorn]

I think Doom 2016 and Hollow Knight are maybe the only games where I clearly hit a hard skill ceiling strictly in terms of reflexes, rather than the game not being fun any more

[river veldt]

2016 is still so hard for me to go back to

[light gate]

Someone get me out of this hell.

[river veldt]

no dash makes me feel so slow

[light gate]

Its always connected to Marathon.

[slim thorn]

one nice thing about "soulslike" slower, more deliberate melee combat is that they effectively put a cap on how much the game can depend on raw twitch reflexes for difficulty

[river veldt]

yeah i guess i prefer twitchy combat over slow and deliberate, Zelda is kind of a nice middle ground in between the two i think

er

at least BotW and TotK

[slim thorn]

they can still make the snap judgements complicated enough that I'm too slow to be good at it but that can still be fun, unlike the "my brain literally cannot process inputs this fast" level of nyoom

[fickle garnet]

I beat the first boss in survivor again

It was way easier the second time

[minor gorge]

I think the other part is that split-second decisions are not something I like having to do, so that also weighs on me.

[slim thorn]

ah, for me that's a core part of the fun of action games

[mossy flume]

I've never liked twitchy, but could deal with it. Doom is a whole other level of "LOL I HOPE YOU HAVE ZOOMER REFLEXES AND YOU'RE HIGH ON STIMS" level of insane.

I don't get how it's so popular

[fickle garnet]

I wanna play doom again

[minor gorge]

You can see why I like my simulator games. I can take all the time I need to plan what to do and how to do it.

[minor plover]

I find twitchy combat to be boring

I like the type of combat that requires planning and deliberate maneuvers that take time to pull off, not like "jerk the mouse over, 180 noscope" stuff

[river veldt]

i guess i am a Zoomer hehe

[mossy flume]

God, and the twitchy game culture has always been a special level of elitism too.

[slim thorn]

since half of you are programmers I can say this out loud: the way I observe myself playing most action games is like my hands are one of those programmable circuit boards and I'm thinking through what algorithm to put in them based on how well my last engagement went; e.g. that last attack whiffed so I wanna do more walking towards the boss after the parry, and then I "wait" and see how the execution of that fares

[river veldt]

but like "i don't know how it got so popular" is a weird thing to say ngl

[mossy flume]

As demonstrated.

[minor gorge]

That is a neat perspective.

[slim thorn]

if any of you ever watch one of my streams I'll basically say the conscious "debugging" stuff out loud, and that's why half of it is me insulting myself

[minor gorge]

I do that stuff too, but I do not work quickly enough.

[slim thorn]

of course my reflexes are still bad so in the metaphor this is like an FPGA with 10 flops (not 10k, just 10 )

[mossy flume]

Yeah, I can get that. I do something similar, but instead of using the gamepad a medium it's processed in my head as the 3D space that it is while applying the established physical rules to that space and analyzing how to optimize navigating or otherwise engaging in that space.

So it's more of an analysis of the rules that govern it

[slim thorn]

whether it operates on 3D space for me depends on the game

Bayonetta's probably the clearest case where I'm 90% sure that where I am in the game world has almost nothing to do with whether a dodge succeeds, if I press the button at the right time she'll just magically pass through everything

but yeah in most games I need to at least track where the walls are

[mossy flume]

Incidentally this is a large part of why I can't deal with bullet hell games.

[river veldt]

yeah i don't really do this kind of analysis while playing games

[mossy flume]

Too many variables at any given point in time

[slim thorn]

the trick with most bullet hells is to mentally reduce them to a pattern rather than thinking about individual bullets

[mossy flume]

Although while playing Returnal I simplified my mental model by reducing it to a pattern, yeah

It just required a lot of samples to get an idea of what the patterns actually are.

[slim thorn]

like when I'm doing Touhou I'll think about this pattern having a safe path over there, or that when these two patterns combine weaving becomes impossible so I must get to the other half of the screen before that one comes down

[quiet swift]

[river veldt]

i mean i guess when im fighting Hush in BoI or something (which is the closest thing to a bullet hell ive played) i'll do more thinking than i normally do, but none of this stuff you guys are describing

[minor gorge]

You should have heard me when I was playing Dyson Sphere Program on Friday. I rambled (mentally and out loud) a lot about what inputs I needed and how many machines I needed to fully use up my inputs. Plus the whole "I am running out of <insert raw product here>, how do I fix that everything is shutting down production is going to hell in a hand-basket" situation.

[river veldt]

does Dyson Sphere Program have funny little guys like Kerbal Space Program

[mossy flume]

Just robots

[sour hill]

maybe it has funny little spheres ⚪

[river veldt]

oh

[minor gorge]

They are adding an (optional) enemy faction sometime in the future. They might have a face.

The player character is a neat-looking mecha robot, though.

[mossy flume]

Oh, welp. The hidden base on Jedah still causes a crash when RTX is on.

In Jedi Survivor

[light gate]

Holy hell. https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/13rwr53/new_clip_discovered_through_the_arg_featuring/?

This was four days ago.

[proud warren]

this for the new bungie game?

[toxic seal]

I had a dream there was a Fallout 5 trailer

[fresh bane]

what a horrible nightmare /s

[visual hill]

regarding screenshots of HDR content: Steam, ShareX and most other apps will make washed out screenshots if you're currently in HDR. You need to use a correctly configured OBS to take properly tonemapped screenshots

https://youtu.be/Hei0r0RvE94

[quiet swift]

[slim thorn]

I guess I'll stick to mismapped screenshots since installing and configuring OBS sounds like way too much work for just posting what I did in a game today

[slim thorn]

these guys are not nearly as well-camouflaged as they think they are

[slim thorn]

I almost feel bad about collecting priorite chunks when the game keeps presenting them with dead bodies like this

almost

[rancid herald]

survivor really goes overboard with collectibles

[wind stump]

Me spending like 15 minutes in one of these goddamn puzzle rooms: "God I hope the next one is easier."
The room:

[static bluff]

ooohhh that took me forever AND they don't give you a decent save point

[wind stump]

Finished it though.

At least there's a save point before the boss

[quiet swift]

Ah nice, finally found the area to unlock those blue electricity thingies in Jedi survivor

[static bluff]

yeah

[slim thorn]

are you ahead of me

[quiet swift]

Nah, just explored a rumor

[slim thorn]

oh wait I just got the electricity thingy on my end

[quiet swift]

[wind stump]

This was worth waiting hours for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ9ZEW7xG-U|

(YT link for the actual song to listen too, lol)

I did not expect such a... Oddly jazzy mix.

[static bluff]

ugh you're making me want to play again

This was very good, thanks for sharing. I hadn't gotten to this point yet.

[wind stump]

oh, apologies
it was just a sidequest but I didn't mean to spoil it,

[static bluff]

no it's fine!

I'd get there eventually

[wind stump]

those lizard tails were a bitch to find, though

[static bluff]

hahaha

[wind stump]

guides online suggest to go to the nothern plains but i had more success heading to the split route thing to the east

i had to go back after breaking yet another package

[static bluff]

hahaha

yepppp

"Ohhh.. that didn't sound good"

[quartz pawn]

https://vxtwitter.com/RawFury/status/1663545221739847696?t=F-FclUB52bDKXyud83inOQ&s=19

[slim thorn]

"Talk to Stormtrooper" is not a prompt you expect to see in these games

suuuure buddy

[fresh bane]

I guess jedis kind of are sorcerers/wizards

[slim thorn]

uh...

well now I feel bad

[fresh bane]

The mastermind behind all of this

[river veldt]

yeah, Uncle Owen even calls Obi Wan a "crazy old wizard" in New Hope iirc

that's why Star Wars is cool

it's a bunch of wizards in space with laser swords

[slim thorn]

it is sci-fantasy after all

[river veldt]

oops i misqouted

Uncle Owen actually says "That wizard's just a crazy old man"

[fresh bane]

there's something special about the original trilogy that really gets lost after the prequels or after more extended material comes out, sometimes I kinda wish only the original trilogy existed even though that would be impossible

If you never knew Star Wars or seen Obi Wan before you'd think oh yeah he's like a wizard from old fairy tales that lives in the forest or the mountains and he's a hermit or something, except now it's in SPACE WITH LAZORS

it's super different knowing he's a retired jedi general and knowing the ins and outs of the force and how all that works

[arctic fern]

but without the prequels we wouldnt have

whch is one the best moments in cinema

[fresh bane]

it's not bad really but you can't deny that it feels super different

[river veldt]

i agree Nire

the original trilogy really is something special

[river veldt]

i mean, we did know that Ben had fought with Anakin in the Clone Wars, but we didn't really know what the Clone Wars even were

[fresh bane]

Well it's not so much knowing in that sense rather knowing in the sense that you've seen him in action before, you know how he was before, you know how the force, the jedi order, all this stuff works etc etc

On the original trilogy it really does seem, and of course it's like this because it was the first movie, that you're learning all this stuff from square one and it's all super mystical and fascinating

after experiencing the extended material it's like yeah of course I can lift a boulder with my mind watch this too

https://tenor.com/view/starkiller-star-wars-force-repulsion-disintegration-gif-22186852

you know?

[arctic fern]

yeah i understand

sometimes the mystery is more fun than the answers

[river veldt]

yeee

sidenote i do not like Starkiller very much some of those force powers are a little overboard for my liking

[grave tide]

The easiest boss in Jedi Survivor

Blade + gun and double swords are imbalance against bosses

[river veldt]

Cal Kestis is real cool

[quiet swift]

Isn't there an easier one later?

scrolls up

Ah, yep

[slim thorn]

aside from Rick, which one is easiest really depends on the player

some bosses "click" for me and I intuitively get exactly when to block and dodge and attack

and others I defeat while still not being sure how I was supposed to do the fight

[river veldt]

...

Rick?

[slim thorn]

scroll up

[fresh bane]

I've seen a lot more people in recent times complain about Starkiller and in retrospect I can't deny that he's extremely overpowered but I still wouldn't say that I don't like him, for me, Starkiller was my Luke/Cal Kestis

he was the Jedi I knew growing up

[grave tide]

I still can't understand why Respawn didn't make the selector

[river veldt]

RICK NO!

[thorny loom]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1895880/Ratchet__Clank_Rift_Apart/

Steam

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

The intergalactic adventurers are back with a bang in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart!Go dimension-hopping with Ratchet and Clank as they venture onto a PC near you for the very first time. Help them take on an evil emperor from another reality as you jump between action-packed worlds and beyond.With their own universe next in the firing line, dust ...

Release Date

Jul 26, 2023

▶ Play video

[slim thorn]

when I first saw him I was expecting him to summon a horde of other troopers so I switched to double blade

but nope, just him

[grave tide]

Because I love Blaster and Dual Wield stances, but without Double-Bladed you can't fight in massive fights

Even GoW Ragnarok found 3rd button for 3rd stance

[slim thorn]

yeah, I've settled on running around with single/double normally and dual/cross when I suspect a boss fight; haven't come up with a situation where I'd want blaster over any of the other stances

they could also just let you hold left/right to bring up a menu; I doubt this was a "we ran out of buttons" decision

[grave tide]

Because in 1x1 fights Blaster and Dual Wield is literally imbalance

You can spend force as Dual Wield

And restore force and shoot as Blaster

[slim thorn]

oh you're doing that kind of trickery

[grave tide]

Like I started with spending almost all force for unique dual wield parry

[slim thorn]

my brain is 100% occupied with figuring out the block/dodge/attack timing so I have nothing to spare for any of the special force-using attacks

[grave tide]

After swtiched to Blaster, shoot to kill enemies' stamina

Restore force and repeat

[slim thorn]

every action game I play gives me a pile of alternate weapons and moves I just can't use without distracting myself from the fundamentals so badly it's not worth it

[slim thorn]

all right, I'm done pretending to work, let's do whatever boss fight is at the top of this mountain now

(more seriously, half of today was watching a big presentation from some other teams, so I didn't need to do work after that started)

ok this place looks cool

[visual hill]

omg, I certainly didn't saw this coming

[fresh bane]

Silent Hill Ascension trailer is out

Looks generic and mid as I expected

[sage iris]

wait rafo how did you get jedi survivor?

[slim thorn]

dangit, I left my controller partially on my laptop and now it's extremely warm

[fresh bane]

https://fxtwitter.com/DiscussingFilm/status/1663532900896198662

[dense crypt]

interactive streaming series

What the FUCK

[fresh bane]

as everybody knows of course kids these days love their interactive streaming series games

[slim thorn]

I feel like I should try one of those but I keep forgetting they exist

[thorny loom]

Eh. It might be cool

More than anything weve gotten in past decade for silent hill

[fresh bane]

if this is the caliber of content I'm supposed to expect I'd rather it stayed dead

Silent Hill isn't the type of franchise where I should say ''well, I guess I should at least give it a try'', especially not after that rough trailer

I only hope Townfall and F won't be anything like this, because asides from it looking very mid it feels nothing like a Silent Hill

[slim thorn]

speaking of horror game series where the reception varied wildly by installment

whatever happened to The Dark Pictures Anthology

oh, apparently there was another game in 2022 that I simply never heard about anywhere

[grave tide]

I just took account with Jedi Survivor and forced it to autonomous mode

Forever

[sage iris]

What how

Can you teach me this power

(and how much did you pay for it in total?)

[slim thorn]

oh frick they gave me a boss version of a bedlam smasher

"Barely got me" he says after I land a heavy attack in crossguard stance after his stamina is depleted

woo only used 2 stims

[thorny loom]

Looks like the live service models pretty bad in it https://www.pcgamer.com/diablo-4-review-in-progress/?

[slim thorn]

"This is the army that ended the mighty Jedi Order?"

well, to be fair, the Empire's pivoted to cost-cutting measures since the Clone Wars...

[fresh bane]

funny you say that because people have been saying that this is pretty much dark píctures anthology rather than silent hill

when it comes to those games I've heard the general reception is that each game got worse I think, Until Dawn is I think still the best one that studio made

and when it comes to the games inside the anthology most are kinda mixed and the first one is generally received positively

they're.... kinda not that different from what I saw of those games

[thorny loom]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/south-korea-is-the-latest-country-to-approve-microsofts-activision-blizzard-acquisition/

[young creek]

Does Activison only have one game

[gaunt marten]

Yes

[young creek]

They should make another one

maybe a platformer

[gaunt marten]

That's why it's been a huge surprise to see them buying Blizzard instead of the other way around

[young creek]

that was very long ago

so it sounded weird when you said "its been"

[grave tide]

School of Imperial Stormtroopers. We always miss

[gaunt marten]

That was only 2008

[slim thorn]

I watched LPs of the first three, so imo House of Ashes is a bit better than Man of Medan but yeah so far nothing that's quite as good as Until Dawn was

granted the formula was still new-ish back then

[fresh bane]

It's not a bad formula it's just unfortunate they haven't really done anything too interesting with it since Until Dawn

House of Ashes was cool yeah

Little Hope was.... okay

[slim thorn]

that one set up a lot of stuff that kinda went nowhere

[fresh bane]

the devil in me was a snoozefest imo

[slim thorn]

ah ok

[fresh bane]

The Quarry was another alright one, that somehow isn't part of the anthology series?

It's kinda like Until Dawn's spiritual successor except not that different and not that much better but its entertaining enough in the same way an alright slasher film is entertaining

[slim thorn]

huh, never heard of it

ooooh Dagan 3 time

1st try, used 4 stims

[quiet swift]

[dire gate]

I skipped this news because the logic was "Xbox is so unpopular in Korea and ABK's console games are not significant enough in the Korean market, so this merger means basically nothing in Korea"

It's very local

lol

[grave tide]

Did Respawn play DMC5???

[heady bridge]

https://metro.co.uk/2023/05/30/ratchet-clank-rift-apart-due-on-pc-this-july-with-extra-ray-tracing-18870019/

[rancid herald]

I am hype

I guess I should buy a controller for my computer

[slim thorn]

it's been sooooo long since I played R&C

iirc not since Up Your Arsenal was new

[dire gate]

I only played Going Commando but I loved itr

And Rift Apart has Rivet

That's enough reason to play

cyoot

[rancid herald]

games like R&C feel like they're from a different, better era of games

now it's all battlefield this, call of duty that

[dire gate]

Mandatory

[rancid herald]

god I remember that meme

I can't believe it's been 3 years already

[green fulcrum]

Jesus, stop reminding me of how I am rapidly growing old...

[quiet swift]

[thorny loom]

Wish they would port the originals to pc like gow

Sucks only way to play the classics is to buy a playstation 3 and the games or use the ps2/ps3 emulator

[slim thorn]

I feel it's more of an era where AAA devs were still exploring and iterating on what was possible with fully 3D gameplay, because there was not yet a bunch of well-understood optimal rules for making games in each genre

in particular this was when the typical successful game series had a first game with some neat ideas but lots of rough edges, and the second game was usually where they really nailed it (like R&C:GC)

[rancid herald]

a more civilized age of games

[thorny loom]

Yeah. Were at a point most triple a games are no better than early access games on steam

Some exceptions obviously

[slim thorn]

the upside is that a lot of those "optimal rules" are rules for a good reason

a lot of these older games feel clunky by comparison, and that's part of why we often play them in emulators where save state abuse can work around much of it

(even R&C1 felt clunky after R&C:GC)

[gaunt marten]

I still want save states for modern games

[slim thorn]

same

[wind stump]

I know that Shadows of Doubt and Teardown have quicksaves

[slim thorn]

quick saves feel like a retro FPS feature

I don't think I've done that since... Half-Life 1? Call of Duty 1?

in fact back when I tried Sekiro, I spent some time looking for a quicksave mod, but AFAICT no one's made one of those

[quiet swift]

Triple A cost so much these days that the C suite essentially make studios launch at the minimum viable product stage to try to recoup any money in time for their earnings calls

[slim thorn]

and that's crash #2

...which appears to have somehow left my gamepad rumbling indefinitely

[gaunt marten]

That happens sometimes. Unplugging it should be fine

[slim thorn]

did they really not put a maximum on that

I figured that would do it, I'm just really curious now if it'll ever stop

it stopped

perhaps the upper limit is 1 minute of jiggling

...oh

oh boy

[fresh bane]

they want to turn me into a goddamn furry

[fresh bane]

quicksaves should've never gone out of fashion

I wish more games had quicksave functions

[dire gate]

You watched it, you're already a furry

[slim thorn]

#JediSurvivor: so I figured out ||there'd be a dramatic speeder chase with Imps invading the Jedha base, because I bumped into the speeder bike hanger earlier||, and although I didn't really bother to predict it per se I'm not terribly surprised by ||Bode turning on us; presumably they have his daughter||

but I did NOT expect ||Bode to be a force user||

[visual hill]

yes, gotta create a new generation of furries on PC

[slim thorn]

oh no no no stop death flagging <character> I will be very unhappy if you off her now

welp, the game finally decided to require me to not suck at parrying and now I've died twice

...three times

well this completely killed the story momentum they were going for

[gaunt marten]

That's unfortunate. It's never good when a game presents a situation with only one solution unless that solution is basically impossible to fuck up

[slim thorn]

5 deaths

yeah it looks like if I ever take a hit in the final phase of the fight I'm just stun locked until death

that cannot be what they intended

[sour hill]

Dark Souls wouldn't do that to you
(You would get stunlocked by bonewheel skeletons before the fight)

[gaunt marten]

Well in Dark Souls you could simply go somewhere else

Any boss can be beaten in many different ways, too.

[sour hill]

There isn't really any avoiding the bonewheel skeletons, though

They must be faced

[slim thorn]

nah this is the only thing Dark Souls ever did to me lol, no matter where I went

this is the one part of JS where suddenly it's balanced like a Fromsoft game unlike everything else in JFO/JS

anyway 9th time's the charm, with a slight cheese from the internet

[sour hill]

Tbf you should pretty much never die in one hit in fromsoft games

[slim thorn]

everyone says that

[quiet swift]

[sour hill]

Because it is true

[gaunt marten]

There is 100% avoiding the bonewheel skeletons

They're hard to dodge, but you can develop strategies to deal with them.

[sour hill]

I meant avoiding as in not encountering them

[slim thorn]

so, I get that people can have wildly different experiences playing the same game, but let's at least not lie about the basic facts

[gaunt marten]

There are no lies about the basic facts here

[slim thorn]

even the tiny part of Dark Souls 1 I did play (along with Sekiro) had a lot of one-hit kills, especially if you include all of the "technically it wasn't one hit but after the first hit connects you can't do anything about the rest" cases

[gaunt marten]

Hmm, I wonder if you could path through the game to never go through the bonewheel pit

[sour hill]

I think you're misremembering because I've beaten all three games without leveling, and I didn't start getting oneshot until the dlc bosses in dark souls

[gaunt marten]

Well

[slim thorn]

[gaunt marten]

The black knights can definitely one shot you

So can the dragon

[slim thorn]

not to mention the- yeah the dragon

[sour hill]

Can they??

[gaunt marten]

Yep!

(Unless you start as knight)

But in general any situation where you can die in one hit can be trivially avoided (after you learn where it exists.)

[sour hill]

I feel like those are exceptions that prove the rule though, since the first black knights are totally optional

[slim thorn]

that it's an RPG with a million different loadouts complicates the issue

[gaunt marten]

The inverse of this is true

For almost every situation (aside from asylum demon) for any enemy you can beat there exists a build that can beat it in one hit

[sour hill]

Well in my anecdote, I was playing at level 1 so the only variable here is weapons and armor (the latter doesn't matter much in this case)

[slim thorn]

that's... not how the game actually works though

[gaunt marten]

Well yes. For you specifically, you're gonna run into a lot of problems, and be forced to experiment and look around

[slim thorn]

anyway I dunno wtf happened to JS's balance in this one fight but I'm past it now

[gaunt marten]

That's good!

[slim thorn]

although I guess that does wipe out any chance of me playing this on a higher difficulty

[sour hill]

Yeah, the point was just that a boss essentially one-shotting you with a true combo would be considered very excessive even for fromsoft

[gaunt marten]

In a practical scenario if you're a new player and picked a class that starts at the lowest health possible, I can see you dying in one hit as soon as Taurus Demon

[sour hill]

Try it and report back?

[gaunt marten]

Other points where you might die in one hit if you tried to avoid the Taurus Demon: Havel, Pinwheel, Capra Demon, Gaping Dragon

[sour hill]

Those all need asterisks, lol

[gaunt marten]

The asterisk is you start as necromancer so your health is as low as possible

If you pick a class that starts with some health and good armor, only Havel kills you in one hit

[sour hill]

You also need to start with the master key, and be good at the game (except to get to havel)

[gaunt marten]

You can get to pinwheel easily by fumbling around, provided you do your best to go through the cemetery area in firelink shrine

Everything past the cemetery area just involves running blindly and falling down pits

[sour hill]

I would not describe getting to pinwheel at level 1 as easy, lol. But it's true it is much easier if you don't try to fight anything

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, it's easiest if you keep running because your weapons are useless

For Capra Demon you can get to him through a very circuitous route even if you don't have the master key

[sour hill]

I didn't know that

Still though, if you can get to Capra Demon at level 1, you can beat him at level 1

[minor plover]

my wife is very close to finally beating Dark Souls

[gaunt marten]

That sounds fun. What's her build?

[sour hill]

Cool, that's when John darksouls gives you the dark soul

[minor plover]

conceptually a paladin. Big Club (dropped by infested barbarians), I think she's got 4 spell slots for things like lightning spear, various healing spells, and combustion/fireball stuff, mostly Giant Armor or Paladin Armor.

she's down to just the painted world boss fight, the Four Kings, and the final boss. She did the Oolacile stuff last night.

[gaunt marten]

We all love it when the great great club club gets new members

[sour hill]

I love the great club

It's so great

[minor plover]

she's not using the Great Club, but the Big Club. They're similar but not identical.

[sour hill]

Oh. Boo. Hiss

[gaunt marten]

They're basically the same except the big club club is not as big as the great great club club

[chilly mural]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bq0dytzQC4 @fresh bane new castle super beast title drop

[fresh bane]

That is definitely a title

[grave tide]

1st try

XDDD

[wind stump]

lmao https://twitter.com/richard_effendi/status/1663529075737264128

IceFairy (@richard_effendi)

ZUN : I wasn't planning to add online VS to UDALG at first. But Mario kept asking for it during last month's concert.
BeatMARIO : I just can't imagine a game like that not having netplay.
https://t.co/zOrg6uQRWw

Likes

115

Twitter · May 30, 2023, 12:53 PM

For context, BeatMARIO is one of the bigger Touhou remixers and apparently managed to bug ZUN (the creator of Touhou) to add online functionality to the upcoming Touhou 19

(Which is basically bullet hell PvP)

Given the fuckery I've done in the past to play Netplay Touhou, this is a big W

[slim thorn]

this achievement popped right after I bonked my mount into a random door, so I thought it was for something much sillier

[slim thorn]

this architecture feels like if the Halo Forerunners used stone instead of metal

(this late in the game I'm just gonna assume everything is a potential spoiler)

[robust spear]

Is Steam down for anyone else?

[river veldt]

lol

[robust spear]

https://twitter.com/SteamStatus/status/1663669675580948487

Steam Status (Unofficial) (@SteamStatus)

🛠 Steam Maintenance
15:12 PDT Major @Steam connection manager servers downtime (100% down). https://t.co/m0NlDb8Z4P

Twitter · May 30, 2023, 10:12 PM

Looks like Steam is broken right now

[random steppe]

It usually don't last very long

[thorny loom]

Its tuesday. Its maintenece day

[slim thorn]

I think that death loop earlier permanently threw off my rhythm and now I'm just as bad at the game as if I started playing five minutes ago

this boss feels like it should not be killing me but it is

pheeeeeeeeeew, that was the tensest I've been all day but 3rd time's the charm

[thorny loom]

Its over anakin. I have the high ground

[gaunt marten]

Store is up for me

#travle #168 (9/13) (0 hints)
✅🟧✅✅✅🟧✅✅✅
https://imois.in/games/travle

Denmark to Egypt today. This one's fun

[fickle garnet]

I beat the spawn of oggdo in jedi survivor

I now have the poncho

[fickle garnet]

Also holy hell my game is not performing well

Theres constant stutters

[novel pine]

i have 2 sides

[thorny loom]

Then theres the third side

joshua graham

[dire gate]

???????

[fickle garnet]

My favorite soulslike Bloons TD 6

[minor plover]

lol wife got to the Four Kings fight in DS, as the last boss fight before the actual end boss, and she just bonked the shit out of it in her first try

also I was wrong, she's using a "Large Club" which is pretty great

[minor plover]

end boss took her 2 tries and that's just because she watched his moves a lot for the first one and didn't really try to win, just to learn. It's been weird watching her struggle with parts of the game and then just crush the end game.

[fresh bane]

https://twitter.com/nonbatnary/status/1663459720437415937?t=t-GTS1d-RxmohoP1Bt05nQ&s=19

ba tgirl swag 🦇 (@nonbatnary)

i feel like people don't talk enough abt how creepy the sims 1 is just for being the sims 1. the dark, unsaturated lighting at both day and night, the grey void surrounding your lot, the complete silence and empty surroundings, no wonder project zomboid was based on this game

Likes

37290

Retweets

3445

Twitter · May 30, 2023, 8:17 AM

The Sims, truly the greatest psychological horror game of all time /s

The most unlikely game you'd consider a horror game but it makes so much sense

[dire gate]

Also known for being inspired from Will Wright losing his home from fire

[light gate]

The Sims 1: The Backrooms: The Game

[arctic fern]

i... did not know this

[wintry canopy]

https://youtu.be/UMVUFC1qDvc

[static bluff]

The Sims 1 and 2 were just so great

and 3 but it felt a little too real

[gaunt marten]

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/chucklefish2023

Chucklefish has a publisher sale! Grab Wargroove

Their bug bundle has a 15% sale on top of individual ones

[sage iris]

I've been eyeing up eastward for a long time now, but it always has terrible sales

[gaunt marten]

Unfortunately Wildfrost is only 10% off and not included in the bundle

[wind stump]

Yup, that sounds about right, lol (for context, Commander willingly downloaded malware)

[gaunt marten]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1089980/The_Henry_Stickmin_Collection/ 50% off

Steam

The Henry Stickmin Collection

The Henry Stickmin Collection is a Newgrounds choose-your-own-path classic, reborn and revitalized. This 6-game epic culminates in multiple entirely canon, extremely different endings. Each step of the journey has you choose from options such as a Teleporter or calling in your buddy Charles to help you out. Correct choices will move the story fo...

Price

$7.49

Recommendations

34830

▶ Play video

Oh, https://steamcommunity.com/games/8340/announcements/detail/3674419898842965391

It looks like Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is going to be delisted soon since Telltale lost the license

[arctic fern]

Oh man the Henry stickman games! They're so good, this is a great deal

[gaunt marten]

Yeah!