general gaming

[mossy flume]

The feel is nice when you get the sequencing right, it makes me think of the mech fights from the Code Geass anime which I always really liked. Never really see many attempts to make that into a game even though it’s clearly ripe for it.

[random steppe]

I like that the laser swords aren't so incredibly annoying to hit with, unlike the previous ACs
There is some good boosting towards the enemy and tracking that make using them not aids

[mossy flume]

Just wish it had difficulty scaling.

[little badger]

Midnight did the CE arrive.

[mossy flume]

Nope

[little badger]

I hope it’s not gotten lost

[random steppe]

Also I like how different the tank legs vs normal legs, vs quad leg style feels to play

[mossy flume]

I think they haven’t actually sent it yet

[little badger]

Wait is that the game with the mechs?

[slim thorn]

...lol, yes

[random steppe]

Yes

[mossy flume]

Yeah, Armored Core 6

[slim thorn]

they're talking about Armored Core 6

[little badger]

Oh I thought it was hawken

[mossy flume]

“What if Dark Souls but with mechs”

[little badger]

I’ve just got up

[random steppe]

It actually has not much DS DNA in it

[slim thorn]

Hawken... 2012, ok, I did remember that right, haven't heard that name in a long time

[random steppe]

I expected more souls inspirations, it's mostly just an Armored Core game

[little badger]

What do you think of the game Genryu?

[random steppe]

So far exceptional

[mossy flume]

For good reason, the game was shut down years ago

[random steppe]

I am still very early

[mossy flume]

Although earlier this year they announced they were coming back

Which was rather sudden

And out of nowhere given it was super super dead

[little badger]

As a new game or continuing the old game.

[random steppe]

I know there is branching paths in the story and I am eager to get to the first choice

[mossy flume]

I’m not sure

[slim thorn]

I should probably mention I did try playing Armored Core: For Answer a long time ago, and instead of my usual "fun for 5-10 hours then suddenly nonstop torture" Fromsoft experience, it was "fun for 5-10 hours then I just kinda got bored and stopped"

[mossy flume]

I think a new game

But with the same name

[random steppe]

The story so far seems a bit less grounded but a lot less boring from what I remember from the previous ACs which I appreciate, those games story was never really memorable in any way

[little badger]

I’ve heard some of the bosses in armoured core are

[random steppe]

At least to me

[little badger]

If you want to get all trophies for the game you need to S rank every mission.

[random steppe]

Yeah that's debatable if I will ever do that

[mossy flume]

Oh, yeah, it’s a new game called Hawken Reborn and it’s already available. Although the top headline I see asserts it’s a disaster, so that’s not a great start.

[random steppe]

So far I would already be happy with a solid campaign with some replay value because of the branching paths

[little badger]

I mean it is a from software game so they would never add difficulties.

[random steppe]

Yeah that's fine to me, I am not obsessed with achievements that if I can't get one it'd be a problem

[slim thorn]

meanwhile I'm playing "what if Hollow Knight but with Catholicism"

[mossy flume]

How is Pentiment?

I see the reviews are strong

[random steppe]

Also my guess is that if I really want to, there are probably build broken enough to carry me in most missions at least

[little badger]

Like a weapon that can kill in one shot?

[random steppe]

Probably not that, but I guess that a couple of grenade launchers can do some work on the bosses I met so far

And that's just the gear I have access to now

At the beginning of the game

[little badger]

Ooooh

[random steppe]

I kinda want to see if there are some big fuck you railguns tho, those are always fun in AC games

Especially if shoulder mounted

[little badger]

There is a weapon you can get in NG+ but I won’t say what it is.

[random steppe]

Yeah no spoilers Pls

[slim thorn]

the setting and presentation are excellent, but I felt the writing was weaker in later acts so overall it's good but not great

[little badger]

What build are you using currently.

[random steppe]

I am switching between a initial sword and a shield for the left side, with a grenade launcher and missiles on the right

And another with a smaller gun but switching the left side for grenade launcher and more missiles

[little badger]

very nice.

[random steppe]

Overall I still have to find my comfort zone

I should also try to buy more body parts to try what works

I really like that you can sell whatever for full price

So if you don't like a build but want to try some expensive stuff you jus unlocked you can just sell everything and buy whatever

[little badger]

So yours is mostly based on attack?

[random steppe]

The game from what I have seen really wants you do dodge or parry the big attacks but you can realistically tank the chip damage from the lesser hits as long as you don't get caught in a big barrage of them that would stun you

So I assume if you go big and heavy you probably want to invest in a shield, and if you go fast you probably can do without but you will also be able to carry less weapons

Medium size which is where I ma at it really depends on what the game is throwing at me and how often they throw big attacks I really want to avoid

[little badger]

Is there a Perfect parry like a stun?

[random steppe]

It's not a stun, but there are different kind of shields, and all of them have an enhanced parry when you bring them out for a certain window

[little badger]

Ah right.

[random steppe]

By my testing with the first shield I got, it lasted about 1-2 seconds, and if a hit would unmitigated inflict 1k, it infliced around half of that if parried weakly and 1/4th with the enhanced parry

but it seems that every shield has its stats

[little badger]

I wonder if there will be one that lets you take lots of damage but at the cost of firepower.

[random steppe]

Mounting a shield is already a loss of firepower inherently

because you could have something else in that position

[little badger]

I see

[random steppe]

And the way the game works, it's a bit like sekiro that the enemy has a stagger bar, and when you break it, all the damage you do to them is amplified briefly, so during that window having one less button to push is a big deal

[little badger]

Has there been any enemies yet that have multiple Shields then a health bar

[random steppe]

Kinda

One boss ||had a shield that you had to break before you could attack his health, breaking it also resulted in a stagger so i guess it was a stagger bar with extra steps, but then after a while he'd reform the shield so you had to break it multiple times||

[little badger]

Ah that type of boss

[slim thorn]

"Palace of the Embroideries" sounded a lot less spooky before I got inside

ooooh that choice of weapon at the start wasn't a permanent class choice, just my first weapon, I get to switch on the fly now

I like that much better actually

[slim thorn]

yeah, this is clicking with me much better than Death's Gambit did

in the span of an ~hour I went from getting hit by every 2nd or 3rd attack by random enemies in this area, to a trap room throwing multiple waves of enemies and I barely got hit once or twice

[wintry canopy]

I just got to Platinum in master duel, also here's the deck I've been using.

[slim thorn]

first (non-tutorial) boss time

already died 5 times but I see how to do this

figured out her last attack, made it to final phase, guessing it's been 10-15 deaths

well if that area + boss was anything to go by this is just as good as the first game

[quiet swift]

I should try the demo of 1 again and give it more time

[slim thorn]

speaking of which, that's all my tryhard energy for the moment, soooo

I'm gonna try A Hat in Time

I like this already

and I've been called a cat already

[slim thorn]

I think the game wanted me to get the first time piece by now but I'm having too much fun just jumping all over the map collecting every shiny object

and I have 3 hats already

oh that's why my attacks weren't doing any damage, I'm supposed to have this umbrella

[slim thorn]

finally got the yarn tutorial after I have 3 hats and 5 spare yarn I can't do anything with

now I have 6 spare yarn

sir, that is highly irresponsible

[slim thorn]

as if this wasn't already the most non-Mario Mario game I've played, the boss fight inexplicably being on a stage immediately makes me think of Paper Mario

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQZJHC2AoSg

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd1VNMu0878 he even did a (sponsored) AC6 one has your experience been like this too?

[slim thorn]

"Corgi Quest 7" might just be the game of the year

[hushed onyx]

"Gods" is a pretty broad term when you get to talking about polytheisms...

[dire gate]

"Non mario Mario game" is a weirdly good phrase to explain what A Hat in Time is

I honestly wouldn't care if Kami is translated into gods, I would do the same

It is definitely not the God vibe in like Christianity

But god is a good enough term I think

[slim thorn]

yep, it's a good default translation for much of the casual usage where none of these cultural nuances are relevant

[dire gate]

If you want to be cautious I guess you can go something like uhh

Godlike figures

[slim thorn]

"deities" perhaps

[dire gate]

Sounds good yeah

One singular God being the absolute one is surprisingly not that common

[slim thorn]

I suspect because it's... less flexible? polytheisms seem to have an easier time absorbing and adapting stories and gods from other cultures they bump into

[hushed onyx]

Looks at Catholicism...hmmmmmm...

[slim thorn]

yep, they still manage it, as long as they can keep the word "god" out of it

[dire gate]

"Hey instead of accepting other gods, lets call them all demons"

[hushed onyx]

Okay, it's not really the same, but, hell, Saint Josaphat is literally the Buddha.

[slim thorn]

if it wasn't clear I meant it as a matter of degree

[dire gate]

"Oh but wait, take their holidays, we need more of those"

[slim thorn]

if one were to focus on the hundreds of semi-deified saints it becomes awfully close to polytheism in practice

[dire gate]

Patron saints being literal polytheism

[hushed onyx]

Anyway, yes, monotheism does not seem to be the "natural" approach to spirituality by humans. We seem to "default," as it were, to innumerable variations on animism, where every thing (human, animal, mineral, plant, whatever) is charged with a spirit and you can propitiate those spirits to achieve desirable outcomes.

[slim thorn]

while we're here: before the Abrahamaic faiths, the only monotheistic religions I can think of are maybe Zoroastrianism, and whatever we call the sun worshipping that one pharoah tried to do before the next pharoah said "let's pretend that never happened"

am I forgetting any?

Ice Hat getto

[rare dew]

Yeah, that's the only ones I can think of!

Akhenaten had a go at monotheism... it didn't last o.o He wanted folks to worship the sun-disk, the Aten, and nothing else

His successor Smenkhkare decided "yeah we're not doing that" and put things back the way they were

[dire gate]

The man had a famous son

The son was a Pharaoh

And pretty good at children's card game

[slim thorn]

I love that this spaceship has a roomba

[rare dew]

... Scuze me wot please elaborate

[dire gate]

It's fun to jump on the roomba

[slim thorn]

hm, a single image doesn't do this justice, let's try a gif...

well it's potato quality but you can see the space roomba bump into a wall, which is the ultimate authentic roomba experience after all

[wind stump]

YOOOO HE PLAYING HAT IN TIME

[slim thorn]

I accussed the murder victim of murdering themself

[rare dew]

Ohhhh IC o.o

[uneven epoch]

[slim thorn]

ooh, I just tricked the dive attack into diving upward by mistake

that's gotta be a speedrun trick

[wind stump]

maybe

[visual hill]

I think I have Hat in Time somewhere

should try it to make Hc happy™️ 😛

[astral steeple]

Ive never played a hat in time ngl

I do know the metro dlc has a trans flag hidden in an area

Which is based lol

[slim thorn]

so far it's just as good as SM64/Galaxy/Odyssey, and so similar to those that anyone who wants more games like that should play it

even the details of how Hat Girl controls feels nostalgically similar to 3D Mario for me (despite a very different move set of course)

[wind stump]

recommend

[slim thorn]

ok that's every time piece I can get in mafia town for now, back to the bird movie fight

incidentally, I got ridiculously close scores on the first level for each bird faction

oh wait I have to go to Subcon Forest before this next level

[fresh bane]

Ooh a hat in time

[wind stump]

The owl is voiced by the Smash Bros. announcer btw

[slim thorn]

yep, after reaching and defeating the first major boss in Blasphemous 2, I felt like starting something a little more chill

[fresh bane]

https://tenor.com/view/smug-dancing-smug-dance-off-top-hat-gif-13313049

[wind stump]

good ol' Xander Mobus

[slim thorn]

ok, fine, I'll sign the dang contract

[gaunt marten]

You can't proceed without it

[dire gate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbn-QDttWqU

I can't believe it actually hit 5M+

[gaunt marten]

I can't read this title

[dire gate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHvhps47Lmc

The original one by GfB is almost 6M too

[sage iris]

this sounds really good and very unlike a game OST song for a game OST song

[dire gate]

No one is around to help

[river veldt]

i prefer the animal crossing version
https://youtu.be/yD2FSwTy2lw?feature=shared

[fresh bane]

dancin' is what to do

[wind stump]

I maintain that more games need a "Peace and Tranquility" button

[gaunt marten]

You mean alt tab?

[wind stump]

Yes but actually
Just a button to take a break from stress

[gaunt marten]

Well alt tab is what I do.

It works for most games

[slim thorn]

lol

so one of the random cosmetic unlocks I got turns Hat Girl's outfit green

[gaunt marten]

The rift token thing is silly

[slim thorn]

and I normally run around with the brewing hat by default, so a green pointy hat was already reminding me of Link

[gaunt marten]

Just give me all the cosmetics at once

[slim thorn]

and just now I straight-up got a hookshot

[wind stump]

Did you get the DLC?

[slim thorn]

I believe the bundle included that

and there's been a Seal the Deal subtitle ever since I started this

[gaunt marten]

There's two

Seal the Deal is a DLC that you might not like as much since it focuses on challenge remixes of previous levels

Nyakuza Metro has all-new levels (and I think it might be free?)

[gaunt marten]

Actually good green

[slim thorn]

being in slightly spookier Kokiri Forest heightens the effect

[wind stump]

also in Nyakuza you can get a baseball bat reskin for your umbrella and a cute face mask for the potionbrewer hat
totally worth it for that alone

[slim thorn]

sounds about right

wait what

that's illegal

[light gate]

The DLC is wild in A Hat in Time.

[gaunt marten]

You're going too fast

At this rate you'll finish the whole game today

[wind stump]

Wait... That's illegla.

[light gate]

So many good memories of this game, but holy crap did my old computer hate playing it.

[green fulcrum]

[gaunt marten]

I hate the third emote

[slim thorn]

meanwhile, I just started the level that blows up if I don't finish it in 2 minutes

[gaunt marten]

Yes there's like two of those

[green fulcrum]

It did its job then, lol. I love it so much.

[gaunt marten]

See you later when it's no longer in my screen

[sinful raven]

To be fair a hat in time is a pretty short game in general. Though I haven't played it in a few so it could be my bad memory talking

[slim thorn]

that level was the best kind of frantic

somehow had 50 seconds left at the end

[green fulcrum]

Sorry

[unreal idol]

So how difficult/frustrating is AC6

[slim thorn]

the 2nd penguin level was harder than I expected

[gaunt marten]

Probably around AC5 levels

[unreal idol]

I haven't played an AC game

[visual hill]

you can probably mod it to make it easier if you're on PC

same advice as Soulslikes, I guess 🙂

[gaunt marten]

Me neither but my impression from before AC6 is that they're pretty niche and not that easy

Which is why I'm surprised to see the success of AC6

Then again there's this review https://i.imgur.com/CpBcW64.png

[slim thorn]

I think I trust Genryu's take more than whoever that is

Genryu — Today at 9:53 AM
It actually has not much DS DNA in it
I expected more souls inspirations, it's mostly just an Armored Core game

[visual hill]

Elden Mech

[gaunt marten]

Yeah there's a reason the review was given a clown award

[slim thorn]

oh that's what that is

[unreal idol]

I'm leaning toward getting it

[fresh bane]

Never has there been a more deserving clown award

there's a bunch of souls kids hating on armored core ever since it was announced

[fickle garnet]

Armored core 6 feels nothing like a souls game

[gaunt marten]

I do notice a bunch of reviews mention larger scale bosses, and then equating those with the souls game style

[fickle garnet]

Also its very fun

And yeah its a bit frustrating at points

[gaunt marten]

If you get it on Steam keep in mind the guaranteed refund window is two hours of gameplay within two weeks of purchase. Other than that you'll have to put up a case for why you should get a refund.

[unreal idol]

I've never played a souls game, only seen my friend Kyle play to show off and Denzy who is learning about them

[fickle garnet]

It does feel less punishing then souls games imo

Im also not very good at it

[random steppe]

I spoke earlier for the difficulty, let me get it

The bosses are really fucking hard, my perception is above average difficulty for a From Software game but it might very well be because it's been a very long time since I played an AC game so I lack both the muscle memory and the system mastery that I developed in souls games

[unreal idol]

Does it have co-op

[random steppe]

Basically I'm not especially good at action games and the main reason I do well at Souls is that I played a lot of souls games and I'm familiar with the systems and have built a decent muscle memory, both of those things aren't really there in AC and it might be making it harder for me than someone actually good at games

No co-op

[fickle garnet]

I don't do well at souls games

[random steppe]

Relatively well

[fickle garnet]

But i managed to beat elden ring

[random steppe]

As in, I finish them eventually

[fickle garnet]

Im pretty sure one of the only reasons i beat elden ring was because of the mimic tear

[quiet swift]

People who say to do it without are elitist jerks

[random steppe]

A clear is a clear

[fickle garnet]

Yeah

[random steppe]

I mean you can definitely challenge yourself to do without summoning, and it's a lot of fun but it's also not a requirment

[quiet swift]

And same, I wouldn't have killed it without the tear. That final boss in the floating island, my mimic finished it off while I was running around screaming on my last potion

[fickle garnet]

I think i did another run of the final boss without it and won iirc

[quiet swift]

(I don't mean ||elden beast|| but the animal-like guy with the black sword)

Meanwhile, me and my mimic somehow annihilated Malenia in 4 tries. I still don't know how that worked.

(Said beast guy took 20+)

[fickle garnet]

Maliketh?

I also beat Malenia fairly easily with the mimic tear

[quiet swift]

Yeah, him

[fickle garnet]

Maliketh was harder for me then Malenia

[wind stump]

Welp.

Downfall added a new character and I know Snecko straight up crashes my game so guess i'll die

[unreal idol]

How complicated is the mech customization and stuff

[quiet swift]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1uyElVbGJ0& I used this for most of the game. Super strong build (and the guy explains them really well)

[fickle garnet]

I didn't even look up a build. I just did my own thing

[gaunt marten]

Edit your save to unlock it

[fresh bane]

lol the good ol' rivers of blood build

[quiet swift]

I'd tried it without a build like a year earlier and bounced off the game. Tried again like a year later with guides I found and actually enjoyed the game when I didn't feel like everything was murdering me with a sneeze

[quiet swift]

Actually no!

[wind stump]

Seems like the character works now for some reason
It's still going to be a mess because of the whole "off-class" mechanic giving me very OP cards I shouldn't have but ehhhh

[fickle garnet]

Im not totally sure yet but im also not too far into the game

[wind stump]

i keep mistaking Armoured Core for eithe Ace Conbat or Assassins Creed

can we call it like ArCo

[gaunt marten]

No

It came first

[wind stump]

Too many games have AC

[gaunt marten]

Assassin's Creed is AsCr

[quiet swift]

Ace Combat, a series of combat flight simulator games
Animal Crossing, a series of community simulation games
Armored Core, a series of mecha-based third person shooter games
Asheron's Call, a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Assassin's Creed, a series of action-adventure games
Assetto Corsa, a racing simulator game
Astral Chain, an action-adventure hack and slash game

[slim thorn]

and not just because that spells arsenic

[gaunt marten]

Turns out Ace Combat came out two years before Armored Core

[slim thorn]

anyway I was gonna shorten it to AC:FoR

"acfor" is even pronounceable

[quiet swift]

And then you have SC... Simscity, Starcraft, Soul Calibur, Supreme Commander, and others i'm forgetting

[wind stump]

almost sounds like Arfoire/R4

[gaunt marten]

I don't know what FoR is because I stopped reading at Core

[rose rose]

Me too

[wind stump]

(that's a Neptunia reference)

[rose rose]

Though I'm pretty sure it's Fires of Rubicon or similar

[slim thorn]

it is yes

[fresh bane]

There's so many games that share acronyms like that that I really don't think it's worth writing them differently and you either pick up on what it means based on context or just say the full name

People in the dark souls community try to do it saying DS and DkS but it's just weird

[slim thorn]

Gilded Centroid 6: Metaphorically Immolated Decision

[gaunt marten]

DeS > DkS

[fresh bane]

It's the same, people use that one too but it's just weird

[rose rose]

Everyone in FFXIV land did manage to standardise on SB/ShB

[wind stump]

I mean, that's just natural

[random steppe]

It's complicated, a bit simpler than previous AC since they did merge generator and radiator in one component so there is a bit less to keep in mind but you can't definitely put together whatever.
There is a lot of depth like damage types, stagger vs normal damage, ton of variety of what the actuall weapons do and how they behave and how much ammo they carry

[wind stump]

StormBlood
ShadowBringers

at least we don't have StB instead of SB

[random steppe]

The saving grace is that when you sell parts you get back 100% of the money, so the system is pretty noob friendly.
You can't buy yourself into a corner and not be able to get something decent without farming

You can just sell the stuff you bought that doesn't work and buy something else

[rose rose]

Looking forward to DT, which I will then forever expand internally as Diamond Tiara

[fresh bane]

[wind stump]

can't wait for the doggo grind tomorrow

[random steppe]

The problem with Armored Core is that inside the game there are things called Armored Cores as you might expect, and they do shorten them into AC so it's virtually impossible for any player to shorten it any other way without completely destroying their brain

[wind stump]

Damn

[rose rose]

Why does it insist that absolutely everything needs to be exactly two letters long

I have 3,840 horizontal pixels. It won't hurt it to write an entire word

[visual hill]

Steam Deck is starting to shape how game UIs are made, probably

gotta have things nicely fitting on 1280×720, also for an eventual Switch port

[gaunt marten]

I sure hope not

[rose rose]

Its steam deck compatibility note is "this game is illegible"

So that didn't work out

My assumption is that there exist cool 1997 reasons and it's just sticking with it

[unreal idol]

Oh this is great

Lets players experiment a bit more freely too

[random steppe]

Yeah it's a good system

You can also replay previous missions at any time if you want to buy something different on top of what you have

[unreal idol]

I think I'll watch some gameplay after we get home, and make my decision then

[slim thorn]

was not expecting a horror section

[dire gate]

The game is kind enough to tell you that you can skip the horror part if you don't want it

Pretty nice game

[wind stump]

Did it actually tell you

or was there that secret route you could take to skip the segment

[dire gate]

I think it makes it obvious enough iirc

[slim thorn]

the faustian ghost gives you a few choices of "contracts" which determine which levels you have to do next for this area

at the time I hadn't interpreted it as "do you want the horror level?" but I certainly had a choice

haunted mansion sounded more interesting than doing deliveries

[dire gate]

I looked it up, it seems you actually have to do all the contracts, and the skipping horror section thing is more like a secret passage

[slim thorn]

oh

[wind stump]

That's what I was thinking

[gaunt marten]

They don't tell you about the skip

But you can sneak into the mansion through a little hole in the back

It's a good skip because it saves time

The segment is only fun the first time through

[slim thorn]

...is the cellar not the intended route?

[gaunt marten]

There's a hole hidden somewhere in the cellar that takes you back to the end

You have to crawl between the barrels

[slim thorn]

that explains it, I only walked between them

[unreal idol]

I think when I get home I will check the system requirements for AC6. Leaning towards getting it

I just hate spending money on myself

[wind stump]

Treat yoself

skeleton boi

[gaunt marten]

You should definitely remember to love yourself

[slim thorn]

25 time pieces

I like this boss fight

(blue is usually the "it's vulernable now" color)

[gaunt marten]

Have you played Undertale?

[slim thorn]

yes but it's been a long time

[gaunt marten]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyuDvD1Bj6I

[mossy flume]

A Hat in Time is such a lovely game.

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, I'm glad it's being incorporated into Archipelago

[rose rose]

Though the horror section absolutely threw me. I did not appreciate that.

[mossy flume]

Yeah that was a surprising tone shift

[wind stump]

can we talk about how much of a banger Snatcher's boss theme is tho

[rose rose]

https://youtu.be/ghAAnYooXbY?si=EAnSwTR8V-yX6Szp

[slim thorn]

lol

[mossy flume]

Accurate

[slim thorn]

oh, she never caught me

[slim thorn]

£5.89 for me

lol, the only thing Steam knows about that DLC is it might involve a cat

[gaunt marten]

Oh okay

It might be that they gave it for free to people who had the game

Yeah, ```NYAKUZA METRO + ONLINE PARTY IS 100% FREE FOR ALL KICKSTARTER BACKERS, CHECK YOUR BACKER EMAIL FOR A KEY ON THE RELEASE DATE

And it's similar because it has the cats tag

https://i.imgur.com/pbiP3UF.png

[slim thorn]

reasonable

[gaunt marten]

Compare with Stray

https://i.imgur.com/glReQfM.png

Adventure, Indie, Cute, Colorful, Cats are the tags that match

[slim thorn]

ok that's pretty hard to argue with

[wind stump]

I'd say Nyakuza is worth it if you enjoy the Alpine level, since it's another free-roam world

actually it's just worth it in general

[gaunt marten]

It has online co-op

But also it's incompatible with archipelago

[wind stump]

what is Archipelago

aside from fancy name for island

[gaunt marten]

Archipelago.gg

it's a multiworld videogame randomizer

Takes items from your games and sorts them into every player's games

And it works on a lot of different games

https://archipelago.gg/games

We play it regularly at #1119170161518334004

And Ixrec is one of the players, which is why it's relevant here

[slim thorn]

well, we've done it twice, and I was around for the first one

[mossy flume]

I’m not sure I get it. It’s a randomizer that mashes together a bunch of unrelated games?

[wind stump]

Slay the Spire

[slim thorn]

yes

[mossy flume]

Huh

How does that work?

I would imagine most combinations would be invalid

[slim thorn]

when I was playing Hollow Knight, every time I got somewhere I'd normally pick up an item, either I'd pick up a random item from my own HK world, or a random item from someone else's world

like all randomizers, there's a set of "logic" rules about which places can be reached with what items so it can constrain the randomizations to stuff that's actually completable

[gaunt marten]

It's like developing a randomizer for each game separately

but then hooking them to each other

So that you can find an item in your world that unlocks an ability in another player's world

You can read the current game's log here to see how it's been working so far

https://archipelago.gg/log/hnNyD_H_RXCPPW4GavxmHQ

[mossy flume]

That must involve an exponential amount of modding work whenever a new game gets added because you then have to go back and add support for those items to all the other games??

[gaunt marten]

No! It's structured from the start to interface with a server that handles it for you

[slim thorn]

yeah, Archipelago is the cross-game protocol; the programming effort should be linear per game instead of exponential

[wind stump]

I wonder how it compiles with Slay the Spire

[gaunt marten]

https://archipelago.gg/games/Slay the Spire/info/en

15 card packs, 10 relics, and 3 boss relics and rare card drops are shuffled into the item pool and can be found at any location that would normally give you these items, except for card packs, which are found at every other normal enemy encounter.

Every non-boss relic drop, every boss relic and rare card drop, and every other card draw is replaced with an archipelago item. In heart runs, the blue key is also disconnected from the Archipelago item, so you can gather both.

[wind stump]

So like for instance
You could find a boss relic in Zelda and you toss that over to the StS player?

[slim thorn]

https://archipelago.gg/games the "setup guide" links describe what each randomizer changes, and what randomization settings a typical player would want to know about

[gaunt marten]

Yeah

[wind stump]

and vice versa

[gaunt marten]

Or you can play Slay the Spire and send me my hookshot

[slim thorn]

exactly

[wind stump]

[slim thorn]

my Hollow Knight shops were riddled with Ocarina of Time and Dark Souls 3 items for ~3 of the other players (as well as HK items for the other HK players)

[gaunt marten]

(Slay the Spire probably doesn't work great since you might have to do more than one run)

[wind stump]

That's really cool actually
Because then that allows for this multi co-op experience for people who might not necessarily be into Zelda or Risk of Rain or whatever

[gaunt marten]

Yeah!

Right now we're running an asynchronous game that's scheduled to end by the start of September

[slim thorn]

some crazy people are even playing multiple games for their part of a single archipelago game

(which I'm seriously considering doing next time, in part because I had to miss this round)

[gaunt marten]

You can see the tracker here for it

https://archipelago.gg/tracker/ZDVHb4Y1TPCdXdjAPYMXuA

https://i.imgur.com/lrqjFmL.png

[mossy flume]

yay899
That’s a name I’ve not seen in a very long time, I thought they were long gone

[gaunt marten]

I invited her because we're friends

[slim thorn]

when that one's over and Flitter sets up a 3rd one, I'm probably going to play 2, maybe all 3 of Blasphemous, Link to the Past and A Hat In Time, depending how free I am when we get there

[quiet swift]

Y'know

[slim thorn]

(now that I know A Hat In Time is also something I like and would probably like randomized)

[quiet swift]

All this sounds like that blockchain future CEOs were raving about

[gaunt marten]

Yeah, but this actually works

[astral steeple]

Jeez

[slim thorn]

plucking a random example screenshot from the #1119170161518334004 thread:

https://i.imgur.com/t4CvM2v.png

there's often a default icon and some default text involved, but it really works

[unreal idol]

Sweet, my computer should have no problem with AC6

[gaunt marten]

Good!

[unreal idol]

I am curious what these 2 games I can't run are

[visual hill]

what specs do you have?

[unreal idol]

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor and for graphics I have NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER

the SUPER is in all caps so that's how you know it's good

[visual hill]

oh that's fine, you can run literally anything with settings tweaks

Ryzen 5 3600 will struggle in problematic games with regards to CPU usage (or when raytracing is enabled), but well-optimized games are fine

[white phoenix]

oh man the ryzen 5 3600, what a beast

[unreal idol]

I'm super out of touch with copmputer hardware

[visual hill]

the herd mentality CPU 😛

[unreal idol]

So I honestly have no idea what's good anymore and what isn't

[visual hill]

(it was a best-seller for a loong time)

[unreal idol]

I don't do a lot of heavy PC gaming though

[white phoenix]

for good reason, years ago when it was released it was like 200 for equivalent power of a current-last gen intel i7 or something insane

[unreal idol]

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/requirements/immortals-of-aveum/22756 Apparently I can't run this game at all lmao

[white phoenix]

it was the chip that really showed that intel was lagging behind amd

[slim thorn]

over halfway to crafting best hat

[wind stump]

**ZA

WURDO**

[visual hill]

yeah, it's optimized poorly to say the least

it's also not that good of a game anyway…

[wind stump]

I can't remember if I had a mod that does that or if it was a different hat entirely

[random steppe]

I have a slower pc and so far the experience has been pretty smooth with AC

Seems like they didn't do a shit job with the PC performance like the did with Elden Ring

[visual hill]

it's the first FromSoft game to support ultrawide and > 60 FPS natively

in 2023… the end is near

[unreal idol]

Okay well fuck me I guess

Trying to log into Steam and it's just non stop CLICK FOR BUSES IN THE IMAGE capchas

[visual hill]

Select all tiles with kirins when

[unreal idol]

It's amazing how I'll use Steam like once every year and every single time it's a shit experience

[slim thorn]

I wonder if that's because it's onec a year

I don't think Steam's ever given me a captcha

[random steppe]

I assume you are logging in the browser?

[unreal idol]

I don't remember my password

No it's the app

[random steppe]

The app has that kind of capcha?

TIL

[slim thorn]

ah, well, losing the password makes every app suck somewhat lol

[unreal idol]

Oh my fucking god

Just let me sign in

[slim thorn]

omg finally

that windmill was huge (but not too huge, was a lot of fun)

I'm gonna stop there for today

[unreal idol]

sigh

Guess I'm not getting AC6

[gaunt marten]

Oh all right

[mossy flume]

Steam will do that to you if you don’t sign in frequently enough

[unreal idol]

I'm like legit pissed

[slim thorn]

that's not unique to Steam though, right?

[unreal idol]

Steam has always been a trash app for me

[slim thorn]

I feel like whenever I sign into something for the first time in ages it asks for extra authorization somehow

[unreal idol]

That's the thing, I'm trying to reset my password because I don't remember it and my usuals aren't working

But the capcha is throwing a terminal hissy fit

[slim thorn]

ah

[unreal idol]

psychickid,
It looks like you are trying to log in from a new device. Here is the Steam Guard code you need to access your account:

Fuck you Steam

I literally played Master Duel on my PC like 3 days ago

Finally brute forced my way in

[unreal idol]

Game is downloading

I Also found a typo on their beginner's guide site: "You can also attack while defending or dogding."

[gaunt marten]

Dogding the ditch is wead

[unreal idol]

[rare dew]

... I missed that there was another AC out

What's the setting?

[gaunt marten]

Armored Core

[dense crypt]

The setting is SPAAAACE

[arctic fern]

the templars build robots and the brotherhood are trying to take them down with equally big robots

[rare dew]

X3

[mossy flume]

Late stage capitalism in space

[unreal idol]

Does anyone know how to change this so it's Playstation layout and button icons?

[random steppe]

I have no idea

[quiet swift]

https://whatifgaming.com/how-to-fix-the-armored-core-6-controller-issues-on-pc/

Very quick google search, might not be the fix but was first result

[gaunt marten]

Games rarely implement this. You'll have to mod it or just memorize which buttons are which

[unreal idol]

This kinda shit is why I hate PC gaming

[gaunt marten]

Apparently this one tries to automatically detect PS5 controllers if you use USB

[unreal idol]

Thanks tch but that doesn't fix my issue

[gaunt marten]

PS4 controller should also work but only via USB

[unreal idol]

The controller works, but it's displaying Xbox graphics

[gaunt marten]

Yeah what I mean is it should detect automatically that you're using a playstation controller and switch prompts

[unreal idol]

It's a PS2 controller

[gaunt marten]

Oh!

[unreal idol]

PS4 controller is trash and doesn't play nice with USB

[gaunt marten]

That's true.

[mossy flume]

Also FromSoft is particularly bad about it

[gaunt marten]

The PS4 controller uses micro USB which is incredibly unreliable

So I just do bluetooth

Bluetooth works

[mossy flume]

PS5 controllers work very well using USB

[gaunt marten]

But apparently not for this game

[rugged flax]

PS2 controller with a USB adapter?
That's going to be using XInput, which is the Xbox controller API
It'll only show PS controller graphics if it detects an actual USB connected PS controller.

[unreal idol]

My PC doesn't have bluetooth

[gaunt marten]

Mine neither. I bought a two dollar USB stick

Now it has bluetooth (as long as I don't put my chair in the way between the controller and the stick)

[unreal idol]

I'm just bamboozled that there is no way to change the graphic settings for a controller

FFXIV does this and it came out literally 10 years ago

[gaunt marten]

It is silly

[random steppe]

I did the same thing and made me wish I splurged for the 5 bucks stick

[gaunt marten]

This should be something that is standard with every game

[mossy flume]

I used a standard Xbox Series X controller wirelessly and while it did detect the input and show it in the control screen, the tutorials still showed the K&M specific inputs

[gaunt marten]

When this one breaks I'm buying a fancier one for sure.

[rose rose]

I had a cheap USB Bluetooth stick and it permanently destroyed any USB port I plugged it in to

So that was not ideal

[gaunt marten]

Oh that sucks

[random steppe]

It picks up the first input it detecs when you launch it, but you can change it in the options

[thorny loom]

https://www.pcgamer.com/factorios-giant-space-age-expansion-is-coming-in-2024/

[mossy flume]

Ah, so I would have to disconnect the wireless K&Ms to make it work correctly??

Sigh

[gaunt marten]

Yes hi we talked about this in #1032767535805902888

It's exciting

[unreal idol]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/324979268356669441/1145119661218857140/DualShock-4-Prompts-in-Armored-Core-6-1024x533.png.webp I just want this

[random steppe]

I think that if by the time it gets to the main menu you are already not touching the keyboard it should work

I didn't test it much tho

[mossy flume]

That’s what I did

[rose rose]

I imagine you just have to make the first input it picks up be a controller. You clicked buttons while fighting with its cool anti cheat that doesn't work on modern systems.

[unreal idol]

And there's no way to change it ingame

[mossy flume]

Yeah but I also restarted the game several times

[unreal idol]

Fussing with Steam settings doesn't seem to help either

[mossy flume]

Typically you wouldn’t run into this problem with PC games

It happens but usually it’s not this bad

Games will typically change their iconographic context dynamically during runtime these days

[gaunt marten]

Just give me an option to set it to whatever I want

I'm going to connect with a mug. You have no idea how to handle it

[rose rose]

Consoles and their tendency to just work continue to be cool.

[unreal idol]

I just hate having resistance every single time I try to dabble with PC games

[rugged flax]

it'll show the PS controller, but only if it detects a USB connected PS controller.
and a PS2 controller with a PS2>USB adapter is not going to show up as a DualShock/DualSense to Windows. Likely just some generic controller input.

[unreal idol]

Maybe I don't want to use a shitty Xbox controller or a shitty PS4 controller

[mossy flume]

Ever tried PS5?

[unreal idol]

Tried it with Denzy's computer, didn't work

[mossy flume]

What OS is his computer running?

[unreal idol]

10 or 11, I can't remember

Can the PS5 controller work wired or is it bluetooth only?

[mossy flume]

Should be plug and play on those unless he’s stuck on an old build of 10

It works wired

[gaunt marten]

It works wired

[mossy flume]

Wired actually enables extra features too

[gaunt marten]

And it uses the new, good USB

Not Micro USB

It's much more reliable

[mossy flume]

Yeah, it’s USB-C

Wired connection enables the haptic triggers for games that support it, along with the speaker

[visual hill]

it's not uncommon for PC games to assume that you're using a Xbox controller, and not have PS button prompts unless you mod them

[unreal idol]

Oh we don't have a cable for the PS5 controller

[gaunt marten]

Does it not come with one?

[visual hill]

DualSense is really best used in USB on PC

[unreal idol]

We borrowed one from a friend

[gaunt marten]

You can use your phone's charger

[visual hill]

otherwise, you don't get adaptive triggers for instance

[mossy flume]

It does, I’m pretty sure

[visual hill]

any USB-C cable works 🙂

[gaunt marten]

Any USB-C cable should work, including phone ones

[mossy flume]

It would be nice if Sony allowed it to work wirelessly on PC like it does for PS5

[grave tide]

Same trouble, bought Dualsense like year ago

[unreal idol]

We don't have a USB to USB C

All we have are USB-Cs

[gaunt marten]

Just use the USB C

[visual hill]

me too, it's my main controller now

I use it for Smash Bros, don't @ me

[grave tide]

But my mind doesn't have trouble with this, because before this I was playing with XBOX One controller

[unreal idol]

How? I literally can't plug it into my PC

[grave tide]

[gaunt marten]

Oh, you mean your cable has two small heads instead of one big and one small

I guess you can't then!

(Some computers come with a USB-C port)

[mossy flume]

Yeah he only has C to C and his computer only has A

So he would need an A to C cable

[unreal idol]

The only A-C cable I have is a shitty 8 inch one that came with some wireless earbuds

[visual hill]

my motherboard has USB C which is really nice for the Audeze adapter I got, as it is USB-C rather than USB-A

so plugging it directly will give you best results

[rose rose]

I would hope any modern computer would be well set on USB-C ports. It is 2023.

[gaunt marten]

My computer is ten years old and I can't afford to renew it

[rose rose]

Sure but then that's not a modern computer in 2023.

[quiet swift]

Might try exiting the game, throwing steam into Big Picture mode and launching the game through that using only your PS controller?

See if it detects it right like that

[rose rose]

I think it's somewhat unlikely that a PS2 controller will ever be recognised as a PS4 controller.

[unreal idol]

What is Big Picture mode?

[quiet swift]

Oh PS2

I think that in and of itself is the issue

[mossy flume]

Basically Steam but designed for the TV, treat it like a game console as opposed to a desktop computer

[unreal idol]

I'm trying to trick it by plugging the PS5 controller into my PC using a short cable

But that doesn't appear to be working

[mossy flume]

It would need to be a cable that supports both power and data. It’s possible that one just supports power.

[quiet swift]

Yeah as far as I know, Sony doesn't like PS controllers on PC so there's very little support?

[rose rose]

They should all support enough data for a controller.

[rugged flax]

that A-C cable is likely charge-only if it came with earbuds
manufacturers love to cheap out on things like that
(literally leaving 2 wires out of the cable)

[unreal idol]

I'm getting frustrated, because Steam's refund period is only 2 hours of gameplay

And I'm wasting it by launching and relaunching to check the menu

[gaunt marten]

Leave in your refund message that you tried to debug it for x amount of time

[visual hill]

out of curiosity, is playing with keyboard/mouse really an issue?

it seems like the kind of game where it's optimal, in fact

[unreal idol]

I'd prefer to play with a controller

I sit on a couch so using a mouse isn't ideal

[visual hill]

ah, right

[unreal idol]

Well, fuck

I found the cable to my PS4 controller, and when I press input on it, it displays PS graphics, but the second I press my PS2 controller, it switches back

I would just use the PS4 controller if the cable connection wasn't crap

[rugged flax]

the game is responding to the inputs it sees
the PS2 controller USB adapter doesn't show up as a PS controller because it doesn't have the USB ID of a PS controller, so it won't show PS graphics

tempted to just send you a cable for the PS5 controller. USB C is superior anyways.

[unreal idol]

This whole thing is baffling and why I don't do PC gaming much anymore

[visual hill]

it's pretty common for games to hotswap button prompts based on the last input

it happens when switching from controller to keyboard and vice versa too

(which can lead to funny results if using an analog keyboard)

[unreal idol]

Yikes

How do you people put up with this?

[rose rose]

In fairness to PC gaming: I think not supporting a twenty year old controller from three generations ago is probably actually justifiable.

[mossy flume]

As mentioned

[unreal idol]

Yes but you think there would be an option to simply change the GUI

XIV has this option

[mossy flume]

It’s usually the ideal method

[visual hill]

I play most games with keyboard/mouse on PC

[unreal idol]

Especially since PS3 controllers simply don't work, PS4 controllers have extremely unreliable connectors, and PS5 controllers are expensive

[visual hill]

I only really make exceptions for some racing games and emulation

[rose rose]

I think people mostly use Xbox controllers on PCs.

[visual hill]

but yeah, Xbox is leading by far on PC

DualSense users are the rebellion 😛

[unreal idol]

Xbox controllers are uncomfortable

[mossy flume]

I don’t get how people play games with 3D navigation with K&M

[rose rose]

The newest ones aren't so bad

[unreal idol]

I also struggle to use them because of the swapped AB XY layouts

[random steppe]

To be fair, your situation is pretty unusual.
Using a PS2 usb controller

[rugged flax]

Rom flies around in Elite Dangerous with a trackball mouse :P

[unreal idol]

Right, because there are no other good options

[mossy flume]

Why.

I guess it works, but also why

[rose rose]

I think that is a very personal preference you have.

[random steppe]

Also how the hell are you using that, I tried to pick up one of those but it feels fucking horrible in my hands, I feel like ergonomics made a lot of steps forwards since the PS2 without me even noticing

[unreal idol]

I'd be fine with using other PS controllers if they'd work

[mossy flume]

Yeah, to me all the PlayStation controllers prior to the PS4 are painful and unusable

[unreal idol]

[mossy flume]

And it gets worse the earlier you go

[unreal idol]

I have zero problem comfort and use-wise with the PS2 controller

[random steppe]

No judgment, to each their own, but it's really surprising to me that you find it comfortable

[unreal idol]

That's neither here nor there

A friend of mine is going to come by with some cables and/or controllers as a solution

I hope they work, I've been looking forward to this and I spent $60 on it

[static bluff]

I enjoy these music factories
https://youtu.be/vFpsuyNZBsQ

Zelda by way of DSP

[gaunt marten]

I like the PS4 controller best buy the PS2 controller is good too

[mossy flume]

When did they add musical parts?

That must be new, the game didn’t have those when I last played

[unreal idol]

We are finally up and running

A friend came by with an extra PS4 controller and a non-jank cable

[gaunt marten]

Oh have fun

[fickle garnet]

I had to quit playing AC 6 cuz i was getting pissed off

[unreal idol]

I can't seem to get multi missile lock to work

[violet steppe]

I have built a masterpiece in Ultimate Admirals

May I present to you all, USS Iowa

[slim thorn]

it should be noted that console gaming "just working" is also a personal thing

I bascially only PC game now and that almost always "just works", usually with my USB Xbox controller

and the last few times I used a console (i.e. my Switch for Dread, Odyssey, then TotK) I had to spend a ton of time on random setup stuff just like this

because all of it was outdated or expired or I'd forgotten passwords or whatever

[gaunt marten]

True. Most PC games I play just work

[slim thorn]

in fact, the dynamic switching between gamepad and k&m displays is so consistent that I always seem to end up alt+tabbing at least once when a gamepad prompt I wanted to see was on-screen, and I'm sort of in the habit of reacting to that by wiggling an analog stick to make it go back to gamepad prompts

[fresh bane]

I think the problem was moreso the fact that the game and most probably most games don't really support or recognize a PS2 controller because other than the PS buttons not showing it seemed to work correctly

which isn't really the fault of the game

[slim thorn]

there were multiple problems and I was responding to generalizations about the multitude

[fresh bane]

I only ever had to tweak emulators and games that my PCs can't run but I never had any issues with PC gaming thankfully

[slim thorn]

yep, and recently even emulation for me has gotten to the point where I only need to do setup stuff for the first game I emulate on a certain console, if that

[hasty patio]

https://www.vermintide.com/news/siennas-fourth-careerthe-necromancerreleases-october-19 Finally, the 4th class.

[unreal idol]

The game really needed an option to manually change the button displays

[fresh bane]

I mean if you think so I'm not gonna say you're wrong but at the same time I can't really say that it's an issue I've heard or complained about before and I don't usually see that as a feature in most games

It wouldn't be a bad addition but I also always just thought the game recognizing the controller was fine

[unreal idol]

I almost never game on my PC

Most of my PC gaming has been FFXIV, which does have that feature

So I just assumed it would be a common thing in other PC games

[fresh bane]

some games have it but not every game at least that I've seen

[unreal idol]

That's... insanely surprising to me

[fresh bane]

it's not a common complaint that I've noticed, I can't personally say I've seen others have this issue until now

[slim thorn]

what exactly does "manually change button display" mean?

[fresh bane]

Having control over whether the buttons are Xbox's or PS's

[rose rose]

In general either games support Xbox exclusively or they figure it out correctly

[slim thorn]

like, what do you change it to? I assume you're not giving the game a pile of tiny image files

[unreal idol]

This

[slim thorn]

oh just two sets of gamepad buttons

[gaunt marten]

This is sometimes what happens

[rose rose]

Your use case of having a long-since deprecated PlayStation controller that reports as Xbox is super niche.

[unreal idol]

Like it's insane to me that thtat's not like, a basic feature

[gaunt marten]

Usually you just choose between Xbox and Keyboard, or Xbox, PS and Keyboard

[unreal idol]

Right, but modern PS controllers always give me issues, and I don't like Xbox controllers

[slim thorn]

for the two games I'm playing today, I didn't see anything about xbox vs ps gamepads in the settings menus, only gamepads vs k&m; whether they would autodetect a (normal) PS gamepad I have no idea since I don't own one of those

[gaunt marten]

It is not really a big deal to me because I just have memorized the mappings

[slim thorn]

wait, PK's PS controller reported itself as an Xbox controller? I missed that in the backlog

[rose rose]

That doesn't stop it being an exceedingly niche issue that it is unsurprising is not accommodated.

[mossy flume]

Yeah you would think so, but controller input takes some work to set up.

[rose rose]

My understanding is that they are using a compatibility layer to make it work at all

[mossy flume]

Yeah, because it’s a PS2 game pad connected via USB. So it’ll use XInput most likely, at which point it’s safe to assume it’s an Xbox gamepad

[gaunt marten]

Controllers by default either go through xinput or directinput in order to work

[slim thorn]

oh wait this is an actual PS2 controller, not a PS gamepad designed to be plugged into a PC?

[mossy flume]

Yes

[unreal idol]

[slim thorn]

wow, yeah, no wonder nothing works out of the box

[unreal idol]

I don't think the full picture is understood here

[mossy flume]

Then can you explain it again?

[unreal idol]

I'll try

[rose rose]

I guess the complaint is that it also cannot be coerced into displaying the right buttons.

[mossy flume]

Right, AC6 does not provide any settings for that

[river veldt]

computer games are wacky

[rose rose]

(I suspect that most people in this situation just know which buttons map where)

[fresh bane]

The entire issue that I understood is that the PS2 controller is being read as an xbox controller and the game doesnt' seem to recognize it and it's displaying the xbox buttons

[gaunt marten]

DS4Windows is a program designed to make Playstation controllers go through xinput

[unreal idol]

omg

[fresh bane]

they're really not, only old ones are a pain in the ass to set up

[slim thorn]

Nire: that's already missing 1-2 layers (that I also missed) which we just recapped above

[unreal idol]

I am trying to explain it but everyone won't shut up about it

[mossy flume]

We’re just waiting for you

[unreal idol]

Hang on

[river veldt]

i didn't like how every time i opened my computer Steam would take like 5 minutes just to downlod an update

so now i just play mc :3

[gaunt marten]

Steam doesn't "download" updates anymore

[river veldt]

what the fuck is it doing then

oh that's flitter

[gaunt marten]

Starting normally

[river veldt]

i didn't recognise you

Steam did not start normally for me but whatevs

[gaunt marten]

The screen says it's updating but in reality it's checking if an update exists and then starting

[mossy flume]

if you had would you have swore at him?

[river veldt]

oh

[gaunt marten]

They got rid of that screen

[slim thorn]

I've had days where Steam wanted to install an update for a few minutes before opening but most days it only took a few seconds to open for me

[gaunt marten]

Now Steam doesn't lie anymore

[river veldt]

wha

[mossy flume]

I’m just teasing

[gaunt marten]

(DS4Windows is redundant when you have Steam because the latter has most of the former's features)

[unreal idol]

This

[river veldt]

does Discord do the same thing

[mossy flume]

Yeah, very few games do this

[slim thorn]

"Gamepad Type", huh

I don't know if I've ever seen that

[river veldt]

wiiu gamepad

[unreal idol]

This has been what I've been talking about the entire time

[fresh bane]

Very few games meaning so few that most of us didn't even know it was a thing

[mossy flume]

Right now it’s better to just assume that your input medium will do this step for you, ie Steam

[river veldt]

steamworks

[mossy flume]

But you will need to do that manually in this case

[gaunt marten]

Yes, discord does the same thing. It looks for updates instead of actually updating. If it finds updates it will show a progress bar and a "1 out of 7" number of updates to be installed.

[unreal idol]

Like, I'm not surprised that it auto detected the PS2 controller as an Xbox controller

I don't expect it to be smart enough to understand 20 year old hardware

What did surprise me was the lack of an option to change the display in the game

[river veldt]

this is fucked up i hate computers

[slim thorn]

I'd expect every modern program will look for updates separately from installing the updates. That's just required to have non-awful UX.

[unreal idol]

Like, AC6 is the first PC game I've played in like, a decade, excluding FFXIV

[slim thorn]

well no they should describe the separate steps as "downloading update" and "installing update", there's nothing fucked up about separating them

[mossy flume]

Yeah, the iconography is almost always automatically chosen under the hood. This is basically never exposed to the user because it’s an implicit setting based on the detected input device.

[unreal idol]

So I just assumed other PC games would have a similar feature

[mossy flume]

It’s unusual to give the user that choice

[rose rose]

Which, in fact, they do not for reasons already discussed at length. I think this conversation has long since run its course.

[gaunt marten]

The problem is when the application says it's updating but in reality it's just contacting the update server to see if it has anything.

[fresh bane]

99.9% of the time it's completely automatic and works pretty well actually, to the point that if you were to play a game with a controller and then used your mouse or alt tabbed the button display would change to keyboard binds

Very, very few games have an option to manually change and lock the display buttons

[unreal idol]

I think I'll stick to consoles in the future

[rugged flax]

I've never seen the option to specify a controller type except in like...advanced simulator controller configuration.
Whenever I play Farming Sim, where I use both KBM and a controller, it actively switches the input iconography on the fly based on the last one I touched.

[river veldt]

does farming simulator have pigs

[rugged flax]

yes

[gaunt marten]

Have fun

[mossy flume]

Switching iconography dynamically based on the currently used input is indeed the most common way this is done.

[river veldt]

what do you do with them

[mossy flume]

This just doesn’t work in some games, like in AC6

[slim thorn]

the important context which only got mentioned once or twice in passing is why PK's controller isn't getting autodetected in the first place: it's apparently an actual PS controller instead of a PS-style gamepad

[mossy flume]

And will never work correctly in edge cases like when you’re using translation layers or old gamepads or both

[slim thorn]

I think several of the people typing missed that last time it came up

[fresh bane]

In a game like the original port of Dark Souls, there weren't even any sort of button display changes on PC! they were aaaall labeled as Xbox buttons even if you were using a keyboard

So that was very fun

[river veldt]

xbahx

[mossy flume]

Because it’s safe to assume you’ll have relatively current hardware that can communicate correctly

[unreal idol]

Well the only reason things are working now is because my friend brought over a spare PS4 controller and a non-shit cable

[mossy flume]

I mean I literally said this many hours ago

[gaunt marten]

Final Fantasy 8, when it released on PC, predates xinput so instead the game shows numbers from 1 to 8 instead of icons

[mossy flume]

Everyone just ignored me

[rugged flax]

raise them, acquire more pigs through reproduction, and sell them

[slim thorn]

I tried reading the backlog but I missed it too

[rose rose]

Actual PS4 and PS5 controllers would also have worked properly. It's specifically the PS2 controller causing the issue.

[slim thorn]

some things are just hard to notice

[river veldt]

can you just keep them if you want

[mossy flume]

And I referenced it when it was ignored

[unreal idol]

The PS4 controller's cable is trash, and I can't get the PS5 controller to work right either

PS3 controller is rofl

[fresh bane]

https://www.nexusmods.com/darksouls/mods/840
I remember having to use a mod after a while to be able to see the game with actual keyboard bindings because the original port of DS1 was so damn shitty

[mossy flume]

#1032716748887179434 message

I said this four hours ago

[unreal idol]

And I already mentioned why I can't use Xbox controllers, so it leaves me with extremely limited optionsd

[gaunt marten]

send help

[fresh bane]

To be fair at this point I would say it's not a big deal and just kind of bear with it I suppose considering you don't like the other controllers and working around the issue would be a hassle in itself

[mossy flume]

I also said this four hours ago.

[rose rose]

I did too

[unreal idol]

Well, I was close to just getting the game refunded until my friend brought their spares over

[mossy flume]

Yes

[rose rose]

This is a pointlessly circular conversation and has been for hours.

I suggest not continuing to have it.

[hidden cypress]

This happens when plugging the controller into the pc port for ff8 right?

[unreal idol]

Like the problem is basically fixed now

The game is fun, but goddamn that was frustrating to get resolved

[gaunt marten]

Yeah

There's a mod to fix it but it requires you to open the game's executable with a hex editor

[fresh bane]

It seems like Elden Ring DOES have a setting to 'lock'/change the button interface but only for Xbox/PC buttons and not for PS buttons

https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/75

people have to use a mod to use PS buttons

I guess some things never change

[slim thorn]

since this made me curious, I googled for the games I've been playing today, and it seems like they both do support playstation button prompts when they detect a playstation controller (and there's no converter/compatibility software layer is preventing proper detection; that is apparently a standard problem with such layers)

[rose rose]

PlayStation controllers will eventually take over the world 😄

[fresh bane]

Oh I'm sure that a lot of games support PS button interface I think what I haven't seen as much if at all is the option to manually change them

But actually recognizing a PS controller and showing the PS buttons yeah that's a thing of course

Fromsoft games don't seem to for some reason

[rose rose]

It is still far from being as pervasive as Xbox controllers

[dire gate]

PS taking over a decade to decide if O is "yes" or X is "yes"

[fresh bane]

Is it really PS or just Japan?

[dire gate]

The exact explanation of wtf happened is unknown afaik

For me O as yes is more...intuitive

But I know that it doesn't work like that for everyone so

[river veldt]

X means yes O means no end of discussion

[gaunt marten]

It would be more intuitive for me, but I had "X is confirm" drilled into me by years of NTSC videogames

Triangle means no

[river veldt]

triangle means

bermuda

[fresh bane]

Yeah I think it makes more sense but I always grew up with western versions of games where Circle and Triangle are the 'cancel' or 'no' button and X is almost always yes unless it's a japanese game where they didin't bother to change it when localizing it

[slim thorn]

when I'm reading English or Japanese text then X is no and O is yes, but with games... my muscle memory has more to do with button positions than names, and I'm used to "the bottom of the four face buttons" being the select/do-the-thing button for just about every game on every console except the occasional JRPG I think?

[fresh bane]

But O as yes feels nicer, don't know how to explain it

[slim thorn]

honestly this is part of the reason why xbox inputs feel more intuitive to me than playstation even though my gaming history starts with the PS2

[gaunt marten]

X is very Kiki while O is quite Bouba

[slim thorn]

A was always the select and/or jump button, that never got muddled

[unreal idol]

O as yes and X as no makes more sense to me because that also matches how the SNES is laid out

[river veldt]

this is true actually

[unreal idol]

Which is weird, because I played a lot of PS1 growing up

[river veldt]

controllers peaked with the SNES

[unreal idol]

I don't have issues with the western control scheme, but it's stupid that it's different for no reason

[slim thorn]

I think I've only seen a SNES controller in a museum

[dire gate]

Korea was extremely fucked up in that sense

[gaunt marten]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

[dire gate]

The Korean PS2 BIOS had a X confirm scheme

[unreal idol]

The SNES controller is the main reason I can't use an Xbox controller

[dire gate]

PSP and PS3 had a O confirm scheme

[river veldt]

bouba sounds round and kiki sounds spiky

[gaunt marten]

I like my PS4 controller better than any previous one I used.

[fresh bane]

I did encounter more games where O is yes in the PSP

[gaunt marten]

Yes! This is what the article says. People inherently associate shapes and sounds

[dire gate]

I think since PS4 Sony had decided that X-confirm is the standard scheme globally

But also I find some states that since PS4 they decided to support internal O-X shift functionality for certain regions

Because their brain will go boom

[rose rose]

Wasn't it the PS5 that swapped it in Japan?

[slim thorn]

anyway time for Blasphemous boss #2

[dire gate]

The article I saw says that PS5 was when Sony officially announced that they are going for X-confirm, but later-gen PS4 SDK had X-confirm as default

[rose rose]

Fair enough.

[unreal idol]

TIL Japan switched the confirm button

[dire gate]

It's hard for them to push their control scheme to everyone else

Playstation especially has a lot of western exclusives

Meanwhile Nintendo can not care about it too much since their biggest games are by themselves

So they can just make every console and game they create as A-confirm

[fresh bane]

I will say something I really appreciate Nintendo games for doing, or maybe it's just Zelda, is that they show the whole button scheme when showing a prompt

[slim thorn]

since the Switch doesn't have its X button at the bottom arguably the whole issue doesn't apply to them

[fresh bane]

Made it so much easier for me to actually realize which button I have to press because I played BOTW for the first time in 2019 and I hadn't used a Nintendo scheme controller before so I had to get used to it for a while

But I think every game should do that

[dire gate]

Nintendo has pushed A-confirm/B-cancel for decades at this point that their fanbase would feel it way more natural

[rose rose]

Switch standardised on just showing a direction because joycons only intermittently have labels and they may be rotated ninety degrees

[slim thorn]

I think it can only get away with that by assuming it's a Switch exclusive so it knows there's only one possible button layout

[dire gate]

Yeah I guess you can use the half-joycon mode thing and then the whole control scheme changes

[rose rose]

The issue sort of applies to them because down means confirm for anything except a Nintendo game, where it means cancel.

[slim thorn]

true

[rose rose]

(or a game running on a Nintendo console; they usually conform)

[dire gate]

The best solution would be Sony making Japan(+certain regions)-exclusive dualshock controllers

[random steppe]

Maybe I can help with this one
You have to keep the bumper pressed until the yellow bar at the center of the screen fills up, it should be near instant with the base missile launcher

I think different missile launchers and different fcs influence the time

[rose rose]

The Switch has system-level button remapping that can help with this if you don't mind the controller labels or directional prompts being wrong.

[random steppe]

One of the two or both, not sure

[rose rose]

(and it falls apart if someone decides to use A/B/X/Y as directional controls)

[dire gate]

While the console companies partially have decision over control scheme, it's really developers who decided to make their games' control like that tbh

[slim thorn]

THIRD TRY

after 20-something tries on the first boss I was not expecting that at all

[fresh bane]

I do wonder if JP/asian players have the opposite 'problem' where X feels unnatural as a confirm button

[slim thorn]

lol, took me this long to fall on spikes

I remember in the original having a few death loops involving spikes very early on before any of the major bosses

[fresh bane]

https://youtu.be/2K3q-YznZCI?si=Z8WXCiZkbSmf2Zrn
2 hour video essay on the history of a TF2 class, don't mind if I do

[fresh bane]

I think i remember you posting a couple clips about a specific challenge or level involving spikes iirc when you were playing the first one

But I can't remember if it was you or not

[dire gate]

As I said O feels much more intuitive, and I do feel a bit awkward when you have to press X to confirm

But I don't own Playstation anymore so

[slim thorn]

if I hadn't played with X-confirm for years it would definitely feel weird to me now

O for yes and X for no is like Y and N over here

[fresh bane]

I guess the newer generations who will grow up on X to confirm will feel more comfortable with it, I do think it's sad that it's becoming more standard in every region just because I find the cultural difference to be interesting but hey I understand why they probably wanted to change it and make it the same everywhere

[slim thorn]

well I'd rather standardize on A to confirm

[dire gate]

Heck we even call T/F problems "OX quiz(marubatsu quiz)"

O as yes and X as no is way more inherently bound to the culture that Playstation control scheme won't change how people view it

[fresh bane]

I grew up on PS control schemes so X-▢-△-O feels natural to me but I did become more used to A-B-X-Y as I grew up after using more Xbox/Nintendo control schemes which I find interesting

[slim thorn]

I wasn't even conscious of the Switch and Xbox putting their A buttons in different places until now

[fresh bane]

Oh yeah the culture itself isn't gonna change because one gaming company is changing their control schemes but I do think it's interesting for the regions that use O as yes to have it on their control schemes just because I think it's interesting, and also of course so you guys feel more comfortable playing

[fresh bane]

Oh boy I absolutely did

Playing BOTW for the first time was confusing

[random steppe]

It's been since ps2 that I don't use a PlayStation controller and at this point, for me it's just A and B in my brain.
I am free of that conondrum

[fresh bane]

it was the first Switch game I had played

[dire gate]

The worst moment is when you play something like Project Diva

literal brain explosion trying to understand the scheme

[fresh bane]

Project Diva?

[fickle garnet]

I never have a problem switching between xbox and ps controllers

Or nintendo

[dire gate]

Well at least it comes with "show different button scheme" option iirc

[fresh bane]

Oh god

[slim thorn]

for me playing games on the Switch instead of my laptop is such a huge shift already that I don't even compare the button prompts, there's a bunch of more fundamental muscle memory to rebuild before getting to A vs B stuff

[fresh bane]

So this is what it feels like when someone who doesn't play MOBAs sees a League of Legends screenshot of a teamfight

[slim thorn]

and it's been so long since I used anything else I can't compare any more

[slim thorn]

yep, those are shapes and colors

[dire gate]

"The game is simple, you just press the button that shows up"

A

"Shit"

[fresh bane]

Yep

Stuff sure is happening there

[dire gate]

And then you see...

O

"Brother in christ"

(You can customize the button scheme)

[fresh bane]

''You must press A''
''Dear god...''
''There's more''
''No...''

[dire gate]

The key point here is that the whole premise of the game is "press the button you see at the correct timing"

But "the button" can be different which controller you use

[slim thorn]

to be clear, iiuc Project Diva is actually much simpler than MOBAs or the stuff I'm playing?

[fresh bane]

I mean....

[slim thorn]

despite making the button mapping question extra acute

[fresh bane]

I guess simpler in concept but execution wise?

Rhythm games can get intense

[slim thorn]

yeah, simple doesn't mean easy

[fresh bane]

But yeah concept is pretty simple just hit the button when it's the correct time to hit it

[slim thorn]

I tend to play metroidvanias like this as simply as possible but that doesn't mean "dodge the dodgeable attacks, jump over the others, attack when it pauses for a while" is easy in practice

[dire gate]

Most games end up being "don't die"

[fresh bane]

That actually reminds me I need to check out HOTS again now that you mentioned MOBA's and simplicity

[dire gate]

Shocking : it's still alive

[slim thorn]

I was about to ask

[dire gate]

Uhh..."alive"

[fresh bane]

It is at least from what I heard

Not top 1 MOBAs but you're gonna find games and people that still enjoy it a lot

[dire gate]

I extremely doubt it but it would be funny if MS announces "you know what we think hots is cool and we'll gonna revive it"

[fresh bane]

I wanna check it out because after abandoning League it sounds appealing to have a much simpler and quicker MOBA where playing with your team and focusing on objectives more is more important than ''Need items, need gold, gotta get a pentakill, gotta carry the game all on my own''

[dire gate]

And add Master Chief and Sole Survivor

[fresh bane]

in League it's pretty common that every summoner is gonna be playing their own game it's quite annoying

I sure hope they'd revive it honestly

I think it would work

[dire gate]

How about Pokemon Unite

[fresh bane]

I got a couple of recommended videos about that game after seeing some Pokemon speedrun stuff

I remember finding it funny that Pokemon Unite players are complaining about the exact same thing League players have been dealing with for years

[dire gate]

I heard that it's like

fine

[fresh bane]

''what the fuck this character can do so much with so little effort this is bullshit it rewards you so easily''

Yeah I'm sure its... alright

[slim thorn]

...and I just realized I haven't even tried using a Prayer in the last several hours

[fresh bane]

I can't say I've ever been interested in it

The one game I remember now that died off super quickly was Battlerite

Holy hell did that game not last

[slim thorn]

don't think I've heard of that one

[fresh bane]

It was pretty interesting

https://store.steampowered.com/app/504370/Battlerite

Steam

Battlerite

Battlerite​ ​is​ ​a​ ​PvP​ ​arena​ ​brawler​ ​and​ ​the​ ​spiritual​ ​successor​ ​to​ ​the critically​ ​acclaimed​ ​Bloodline Champions.​ ​Experience​ ​the​ ​unique​ ​combination​ of a ​​top​-down​ ​shooter​ ​meeting a ​fast​-paced fighting​ ​game and take ​part​ ​in​ ​highly​ ​competitive,​ ​adrenaline-fueled​ ​2v2​ ​and​ ​3v3​ ​battles.​ ​Enga...

Recommendations

21571

Metacritic

85

▶ Play video

It's pretty much a moba but it's not because it's an arena where 2 teams of 2 or 3 players fight as the arena gets smaller so it's kind of like a battle royale in that sense of a zone getting smaller and smaller

It was actually pretty fun but it really didn't seem to last that long I'm sure some people still play it but it didn't seem to catch on

[slim thorn]

increases block window
instantly buys

[fresh bane]

block window?

[slim thorn]

the time I have to block an enemy attack

[fresh bane]

I assumed as much but that's weird usually it's a parry window, you have to time your blocks?

I really should just play Blasphemous

[slim thorn]

oh right, there's no hold-to-block in Blasphemous, it's a block animation with frames before and after the actual blocking happens

whether a successful block leads to a special counterattack depends on current weapon and weapon upgrades (in B2 anyway)

[fresh bane]

That's weird