Playing Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and just finished Act 2 today. Kinda not sure about this one.
The prologue was a complete slog. Just stuck at level 2, basically no options to do anything, fights taking hours because the enemy and you constantly miss each other.
Act 1 was a lot better, you gain levels at a decent pace and grow a lot more powerful (compared to the prologue). There were a few challenging fights, I think most or all of them optional, so it wasn’t too bad. Except when you’re “stuck” in a tiny room with no space to maneuver, and enemies that use AoE attacks. Also, permanent debuffs, that you don’t have the tools to remove yet, unless you buy expensive items from a vendor. Fantastic, just like Kingmaker.
Then Act 2 started alright, still had a couple of “trap areas”, that you probably shouldn’t visit as soon as you find them. Then in the later half it got a lot slower, nothing really to explore, and you’re mostly waiting and slowly building your Crusader Army to clear the way. Kingmaker was similar, but only in the later Acts, when you’ve basically done everything, and you just need to wait for the next big event. While this wasn’t as extreme (not by a long shot), it’s a bit worrying that this stuff is already starting this early into the game.
Anyway, Act 2 didn’t end badly, it was actually fun, since you get a lot of power, relatively quickly, so I’ll keep playing. If there’s another one of these super slow periods though, where you’re just waiting around, I’ll either cheat/mod to make it more bearable or drop the game, depending on how I feel at the time.
Apart from that, the game is still extremely buggy, even after all these years of patches. It’s probably even worse than Kingmaker. I’m playing in Turn-Based mode and I regularly just lose turns with characters, which is just frustrating. The enemy aggro system/mechanic is also kind of terrible and possibly also broken. It’s really surprising just how much better Rogue Trader is in that regard. It still has a bunch of bugs, but they are relatively minor.
All the talk of games ownership and preservation overlooks the fact that I can play my first steam game today, while so many of my disks have been lost to time.
And let’s not forget how much bullshit came with those disks. DRM schemes up to and including root-kits. Serial # and activation codes. And don’t forget, though you had physical media, what you actually owned was a licence.
Games get updates far more often than they did back in the 90s and 00s. If your game is installed, it’s pushed to you automatically. If it’s not installed, the next time you install it, you’ll be on the latest version.
Installing a game is passive compared to inserting the next disc, fishing out the serial key, etc. You just click download and walk away for 5 minutes. Likewise, as games are very large these days, you can easily uninstall and reinstall games on limited drive space very easily from the same UI.
Cloud saves. They’re always nice to have. You can rig up something like it if you’ve got the networking and scripting know-how, but once again, it’s just passive through a launcher like Steam.
There’s a lot to be said about the longevity of network multiplayer games that allow you to self host and port forward, but Steam and its ilk mean that the average person never has to learn how to do that ever, and it’s more secure for the end users for Steam to take on the burden of facilitating the connection.
With things like Steam’s Big Picture Mode, you can navigate an entire library and jump from game to game with nothing but a controller.
Launching a game via Proton, whether in Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, or Steam, is just easier and more automatic than not using a launcher.
All that said, there’s a lot of value to GOG for never requiring the launcher (but they make an annoying exception for network multiplayer games).
One reason is Achievements. You need software to track it, and it is better to let the platform do it and consolidate all the common code and related UI, but that means there would be a platform process (e.g. Steam launcher / GOG Galaxy) running in the background to process them.
Out of all the features Steam offers, the most useful is probably just automatic updates. Much better than having to go check for an update myself and maybe even redownload the whole game every time instead of just the changes.
Also Steam Workshop, multiplayer (if it goes through Steamworks), controller fixes, screenshot and recording functions, chat, forums, etc.
It can be convenient. You’re going to launch the games somehow, whether that’s clicking files in a folder or running a command. If you have a bunch of games it’s nice to see them neatly organized in one place with nice visual representation. Non-launcher options tend to either get unwieldy or require more customization work.
The Steam launcher does a whole bunch of other useful things, like managing saves, setting up Proton, tracking play time and achievements, connecting to friends, integrating the store. It’s not hard to see why people like the convenience.
It is annoying when it goes too far… like individual games that insist on having their own launcher.
Heroic is a nice middle ground. GoG gives you simple downloads, that you can then choose to access through Heroic.
I dont really need it but good launchers make things easier, especially on linux where sometimes a specific patch or version of something like proton is needed and i dont want to spend hours figuring it out by trial and error.
Im not a fan of launchers being required though, thats just DRM. But projects like Heroic launcher and Lutris are incredibly nice to have. Steam is alright, its hard to hate on a company that has done as much for linux gaming as valve has, but they do have their problems.
Updating all of my games is a huge boost. I also enjoy the sync feature as I may play the same game on my desktop, HTPC, and Steam Deck. I like GOG allowing installing without their launcher, but I still just install games through Heroic Games Launcher for the same reasons as above.
Depending on how you make the game some launchers can make sense. You can set display options before launching the game. Back in ye olden times some games would launch by default in a set resolution which often made changing that in-game difficult as it would be off screen. Also makes your first time launching it a better experience than some low-res garbage. Also, without a platform like steam they can handle updates.
That being said, I don’t think most modern games need those functions. Graphics engines are pretty good at getting screen resolution from your os (not perfect). And platforms handle patches and updates.
Now they’re mostly there to gather metrics and shove ads in your face, and enforce drm.
I use steam for the ability to plug in any controller I want and instantly be able to use it. I can download controller maps from the community on the fly.
I can stream straight to my TV and play in any room with a TV in it with zero effort. I can join my friends games with two clicks. Remote play allows you to play games you don’t even own with your friends. Works on linux. Integrated workshop. Easy modding.
I use gog for older games not on steam. Works on linux. (Heroic at least)
I could go on with steam, but those are the key points stands alone games don’t offer.
If you want a bit more depth to the lamb check out the games social media pages - they have a lot of fully voiced clips of lore, shenanigans and shitposts.
I’m also not usually a fan of roguelite games but this one hooked me back in 2022 or whenever it released. Been replaying it recently due to the dlc that was just released and it’s still really enjoyable.
I think it’s partly because of normally in roguelite games when you start out you always lose runs until you unlock enough meta upgrades to become stronger. In this game you have a chance from the very start to finish runs which feels way more satisfying to me.
I think you summed it up perfectly, there’s not an awful lot of grinding (if that’s the right word) to beat a level. I’m sure there’s other roguelikes like that, but this is the first one I had a brush with
Say goodbye to whatever in-game morals you think you have. CotL is wildly addicting in an amusing way.
You’re pretty much right on the money that the lamb is kind of a “blank slate” for a player self-insert. Freedom of choice (for you, not your followers, ofc) is the name of the game.
When I had noticed that I could sacrifice one of my followers in a skill tree, I figured I might have to sacrifice some of my own morals. It does make me tempted to try to keep as many morals as possible though just for the challenge
I really had fun with it though the city building aspect starts to feel too loading bar heavy. I wish they had a more clever way to disguise that aspect of it.
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Aktywne