Project Zomboid. That’s the most recent game I can think of where I reduced the difficulty (and that’s coming from someone that has nearly 400 hours into Elden Ring). It’s not that the game is tougher than ER or anything like that. It has a ton of cool mechanics and detail that are really enjoyable if you’re into zombie survival games, but the zombies can really swarm you in that game and you won’t live long.
It also has sandbox mode where there’s no zombies and you can focus on farming, building, etc.
I think easy game modes take away what a great game makes a great game. I’m not sure if I can explain this with words, but if you are going to play on easy, then it means you don’t want to play. At that point, its probably not a game for you. I’m talking across all kind of genres and type of games. However, if a game is unfair or badly designed, that is the moment when I would recommend using easy mode. And it depends on how the difficulty scaling is implemented. Some easy modes are really dumb and take away the core principles of the game, while others are very intelligently realized.
Your example is a great example of what I meant by that. You are not interested into the combat, therefore made it easy so it does not get in your way. You didn’t turn it down because its unfair. What happens is, you are actively playing a game, which you don’t want to. I don’t know what exactly scales in that game, so maybe its not a bad easy mode at all, but can’t judge the game.
I’m currently playing Metal Gear Solid 5 for the first time (just played a few hours on launch and now I’m back to it) on normal difficulty. The game can be brutal at times and there were multiple moments when I almost quit the game. Yet I did not turn easy mode, and now I’m happy that I overcome the challenge naturally. And that’s what I mean. I you turn the game to easy mode, then you get into these habits of not solving the challenges.
I think easy game modes take away what a great game makes a great game.
But a lot of people are coming to gaming from traditional media where there is no interaction. A lot of those people like the narratives in games, but don’t love beating a challenge. A lot of those people are tired from long days at work and do not get joy from eking out a win. To them, it feels like a chore, and they didn’t get into this to do chores. They got into it to get away from the stress of the world.
(EDIT: Forgot to mention, this is also why Let’s Play youtubes are popular. I know a guy who doesn’t game at all but has watched full playthroughs of things like Firewatch.)
If you get enjoyment from great game mechanics, more power to you. However, that doesn’t mean those game mechanics are less impactful in story driven games where the gaming is “easier.”
My partner didn’t play games at all until those old Walking Dead games by Telltale came out. They were like a TV show, and she started playing them… because it was like “playing” one of her favorite shows at the time. I literally chose them to introduce her to gaming because it was more like a TV show than a game.
She recently finished Baldur’s Gate 3 on normal and its her favorite game now. So games with easy difficulty levels can also help people who have never gamed before be able to get into it and eventually love the more difficult challenge.
But a lot of people are coming to gaming from traditional media where there is no interaction. A lot of those people like the narratives in games, but don’t love beating a challenge. A lot of those people are tired from long days at work and do not get joy from eking out a win. To them, it feels like a chore, and they didn’t get into this to do chores. They got into it to get away from the stress of the world.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. People like you describe don’t want to play the game. There is nothing wrong with that, i just explained when easy mode makes sense or when I recommend it. In this case, people who don’t want to play the game (as intended), can use easy mode.
If you get enjoyment from great game mechanics, more power to you. However, that doesn’t mean those game mechanics are less impactful in story driven games where the gaming is “easier.”
As I said, it depends on the implementation of an easy mode. Some easy modes are bad and ruin the actual gaming experience. In some other cases its actually very well thought out and the game mechanics are supportive in such an easy mode.
In general a situation like with your partner to introduce into gaming is a special case. There are lot of games designed to be easy or adaptive. But the OP here isn’t new to gaming, its a different situation. I was looking from a perspective who plays games.
People like you describe don’t want to play the game
I think this is part of the problem I have.
Are they still pressing buttons and making input? Yes.
Thus, they’re still playing the game.
If you want to sound less judgmental, stop saying they’re not “playing” it or that “they don’t want to play it” just because they’re not “playing it the way I think is right.”
If you really think its okay, accept that when they are still pressing buttons and interacting with the game, they are still functionally playing the game. Not playing the game is watching a Let’s Play.
It’s a pointless distinction rooted in treating people who want an easy mode as “lesser” because “they don’t want to actually play the game.” Sorry, sick of hearing it worded this way.
Playing on easy doesn't mean you don't want to play. Or at least, that's not my personal experience when I put games on easy, which is not always.
I'll throw out two examples. Age of Empires 2. I suck ass at real time strategy, so I put the bots on easiest. What this gives me is the experience and feeling of building up my faction, gathering resources, making upgrades, feeling later like those upgrades were smart (which I wouldn't get on harder difficulties as my actual poor choices would backfire and punish me), and then I get to conquer my enemies with my large army.
I still got to build something up from nothing, create a satisfying army, utilize what I made to conquer. I got something out of it that I wouldn't have if I played on normal. I would've struggled and likely lost. I might've just as likely actually risen above the challenge and came away with a more satisfying, but hard fought win, but I have challenging and hard fought wins at work every day. I don't need that in a genre I'm only a tourist in at home. I have Monster Hunter for that.
I put Gundam Breaker 4 on easy, the combat is satisfying on a surface level, but too precise and finicky as the challenge rises. I enjoy the combat still, on a smaller scale, but I moreso enjoy acquiring gear and making a Gundam that looks a certain way. The things I enjoy more about the game are facilitated by easier combat, I can get to those parts more easily, but still enjoy the combat.
Or maybe they just don't have fast reflexes so easy is... easier. My wife almost never plays on normal because she can't.
If she plays on normal, she will never finish the game and be so frustrated that it will cause her not to enjoy her evening. She works a lot and needs to de-stress when she gets home, so playing on easy is the best way for her.
Stop judging people. Just play your game and enjoy it.
Personally, I am playing Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 on easy. They come from an era where if you aren’t suffering through it then you must really suck. Personally, I don’t have time to fight the same boss for an hour only to die when he gets down to the last 5% and start over again, I only get a few hours after work to game. However, the story is honestly pretty good, and I recommend them - if you play on easy.
It’s a decent game but a terrible one if you are comparing it to the original Overwatch.
I’m just genuinely curious why/how it’s still getting updates and people are playing it with the way it’s talked about, they make it sound like the worst game ever
That’s honestly not that good, when games like CS2 are regularly pulling 2million+.
According to 3rd party websites (that may not have accurate estimates), Overwatch 1 had between 600k-1mil peak concurrent players through a lot of 2020/2021. One of those same websites now says that OW2 had about 140k peak players today when combining all players on all platforms. So it would seem there’s been a huge drop in players.
In my opinion, anyone saying OW2 is worse than the original is saying this for personal reasons and not trying to be objective. OW2 is, in my experience, much more balanced than OW1. Many of the more frustrating aspects of the game have been fixed or removed, and most of the characters added since OW1 seem fun to play and not frustrating to play against.
There are very many valid criticisms one can make of Blizzard. The history of being a shitty workplace, the objectively awful decision to make OW2 a sequel, the treatment of Jeff Kaplan by execs, the monetization, and probably more. None of those criticisms (except monetization to a limited degree) have anything to do with whether or not OW2 is a bad game or not.
But I’m speculating since the person you responded to has not elaborated on any of their views.
I agree with you. Even though they’re still not the kind of game so would play regularly, Overwatch 1 was extremely annoying to play with all the stuns, freezes and more. Overwatch 2 toned down and removed most of these which made it actually somewhat enjoyable.
Ehh I disagree, I played consistently ow1 for years and ow2 just wasn’t as good.
I mainly missed tank synergies. Without it the game just wasn’t the same. The other tank changes were just insane too. And I preferred the full 6v6 experience.
Then they had to go an monetize the shit out of it, when I already paid for the game! The last straw was either paying for new characters or grinding like hell.
The tank and 6v6/5v5 has been heavily discussed, recently devs made a long devblog about it. I can kinda see where you’re coming from, I think, but between balance/queue times/the average player (of which there tends to be more of when you’re with 5 others instead of just 4) it seems to me like 1 tank works better in practice even though it struggles when compared to the ideal world+nostalgia goggles.
I was very pleasently surprised not disappointed by the monetization, like uncompleted weekly (battle pass -primary method of profression) challenges carry over, so in theory you can do all weekliesduring the last week if a battle pass. also aren’t the new heroes available if you play just a few matches?
I honestly though I would get used to it, like the forced 2-2-2 comps which I initially disliked, but I never did. It just made the game feel like too much more like a pure fps. And it not feeling like that was what made it unique.
In my experience all the que times were fine as 2-2-2 even when queued as duo dps
I don’t mean to be a dick but without giving actual reasons all you’re saying is “I preferred ow1”, which is kind of what my original comment was referring to. Tank synergies is definitely something that was lost with ow1, rein/zarya and dive comps were very fun and definitely something I miss. But it was also a major source of balance issues and player frustration.
Two tank team composition was a consistent balance issue and severely restricted the design of tank heroes. Sigma is a really fun and interesting hero, but when he was added overwatch entered a prolonged two shield meta which was incredibly boring. The devs added a cool hero, and he made the game worse. Not only did he make the game worse, but there was no obvious or easy solution, because sigma wasn’t the problem, two shields was the problem. In my opinion that exemplifies how bad of an issue the game was facing and justifies the changes made.
There’s nothing wrong with preferring ow1 but the person I responded to called it “a terrible game compared to the original” which is just blatantly incorrect in my opinion.
Why? I played OW from beta, stopped playing after all the shitty workplace accusations came out, then played again for 10 or so hours last month.
I didn’t play much competitive (in my recent sessions) but the game seemed like it was in a pretty solid place. The only “major” issue I can think of is that the tank role is incredibly important, which creates a bit of a toxic environment where people are scared to play tank because they get flamed if the team gets rolled. But I think the downsides are worth the benefits, with tank being so important it’s become the core that the rest of the game balances around. Healers have more agency and dealing damage/contributing to elims is a vital part of the role. A lot of the frustrating/cheesy aspects of the game have been removed, scattershot, damage-doomfist, mercy 5-man-res, goats, double shield.
Again, I took a long break from the game, but before that I clocked a lot of hours in competitive. Personally the game feels about as balanced and enjoyable as it’s ever been.
Obviously the monetization is gross and that entire side of the game sucks now but that’s an entirely different conversation.
Yup. Last game I bought from them was Phoenix rising or something on the switch. Actually pretty fun. Until I learned I had to work around the forced login and online bullshit by throwing it in airplane mode at a specific time then suspending and resuming or some goofy ass shit. It’s a single player game. No I will not create and connect a useless account.
HAHAHA, man You maybe right somehow, but I was too young at that, I didn’t pay attention to the story, even I thought why this game is just about sailing, our character is just on ship all the time… But yeah, I was a kid, and also yeah, I’m older than before ;)
I recall someone who build some automated system to measure input latency on gamepads, who gathered data for a bunch over different interfaces, which is a subset of that. They had some sort of automated testing system, moved the controls automatically with a microcontroller-driven system.
looks
Neither of them are what I’m remembering, but it looks like multiple people have built input latency databases.
That’s some good data! I’m mostly interested in filtering by Linux support and latency/accuracy measurements. Some of them are very helpful, thank you!
O rety – zważywszy, że większość sprzętu konsumenckiego jest jakoś dziurawa – lousy engineering, designed to break lub kontrola nad światem, zależnie od poziomu stresu – jakieś marginalne zagrożenie istnieje. Ale z biblioteki?
Pewnie niewyczerpująca i może nieaktualna już na dziś lista zagrożeń + mitygacji malware’u na optyku:
a) prosty – rozsiewałby się przez jakiś mechanizm autorun; pod Windowsami: plik autorun.inf – wyłączyć autoodtwarzanie/Windę :-),
b) lepszy – przez atak na system plików lub może codec audio/wideo/DVD – odpalać w wirtualce,
c) najlepszy – przez atak na firmware napędu(/kontroler szyny?) – odpalać na dedykowanym/spisanym na straty kompie.
Ubisoft also announced both The Crew 2 and The Crew Motorfest will have an offline mode (twitter post, screenshot). Looks like the Stop Killing Games campaign is working.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne