Since you didn’t specify a genre I will just recommend, from my most played games which have no explicit story (as in, there probably is some lore or story but you don’t see it unless you watch for it like in Dark Souls), try to see if there is anything you are interested in.
Risk of rain 2, 3d tps roguelike where you stack items until the game breaks, the game gets more difficult each minute you spend on a stage.
Factorio and satisfactory, both are part of the factory building genre, the first one is 2d and the second 3d. I recommend starting with factorio, seriously these are pure crack despite jow unappealing the genre seems at first.
Slay the spire, a deck building roguelike.
Dirt rally 2, it is a single player game but there are leaderboard just in case ypu consider that “multiplayer”.
Crypt of the necrodanncer, rythm roguelike where you move and attack on each beat
Descenders, bike game where you usually go downhill fast.
I’m glad I didn’t specify a genre, because you wouldn’t suggest Descenders, and it’s very different from the others mentioned so definitely seems interesting to me.
So, so many. You're going to have to narrow it down a bit. Vagante is a great challenging roguelike platformer that's equal parts Spelunky and Dark Souls. There are recommendations for Factorio and Civilization here, which I wholeheartedly endorse. Mercenary Kings has minimal act break cut-scenes that are pretty short, but the gameplay loop is Mega Man crossed with Monster Hunter, and it works really well. Streets of Rogue is a highly systemic roguelike that really lets you go nuts with the sandbox, and it's got a great sense of humor at that.
As a bonus, all of those games are also fantastic to play co-op.
Is there a particular genre? I dont pay attention to most game stories. Some of these suggestions have an online mode but ive only played single player.
age of empires 4 (1v1 against ai), 7days to die, vampire survivors, valheim.
I mostly play action games of any kind really. But will try games outside of that too, for example card games, or some strategies. But generally I prefer more action oriented games.
No notepad, but an excellent explorative puzzle that had me making and remaking theories the whole time: outer wilds. Several people also mentioned obra dinn
I know it shifted from a subscription model to a paid DLC one. Do you actually need to buy some DLCs to get an enjoyable experience out of this? Do you only need the endgame stuff once you get there, like buying the latest WoW expansion? How does this model actually work for chill players?
You can do probably 60-70% of the game just with base version. You won't be hamstrung by missing meta sets or content. Even then, DLC sets that can be crafted can still be obtained by having someone else craft the for you, or by having access to tables via a guildmate (like 95% sure it works that way, if not, you just need the 3rd party crafter). You'll obviously miss the new zones, dungeons, trials, and skill lines, but you'll still get over a hundred of hours of content.
You can absolutely play this casually. The base game stuff is pretty easy in comparison to how it was, with power creep and such, but it's, at worst, a good, long introduction to the game systems to better gauge your future interest.
If you subscribe and get ESO+, you get ‘…Access to all DLC game packs available in the Crown Store for the duration of membership’. That does not include the latest chapter; right now that’s Necrom. There’s a new one each year, so you’ll be able to play Necrom next year with a membership if you don’t want to buy it outright.
They do a good job of making the membership very appealing, I have to say. Increased bank space, double the slots for furnishings in your houses, and a bottomless crafting bag, for ex. But they are not obnoxious about it like, say, Neverwinter Nights is.
My girlfriend and I played through the quest line of where we started in Morrowind (I think?) and had a blast, but once we left we were totally lost! I was really engrossed with the story but all of a sudden we’re just doing something completely different. I was quite disappointed and it left me wondering if we had done something wrong or out of order.
Yeah, the zone quests vs. the main quest are not explained very well. I started just after Elsweyr came out and was trying to play through the main quest at the same time I did the zone quest. I didn’t understand why some of the characters showed up in both with different, ah, statuses, shall we say?
Probably the easiest thing to do for continuity is to play through the quests for your faction. They will lead you to the next logical zone. With Morrowind / Vvardenfell, it’s a DLC so it’s a bit outside the main continuity lines. DLC’s can be done at any time, though with some recurring characters, it can be fun to do them after doing the main quests. You’ll sometimes get unique dialogue as the NPC’s acknowledge your previous adventures with them. Release order of the DLC’s is one option. However, the skills you get from the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests can be really helpful, so it’s OK to take a detour and pick those up early on (and they don’t cross over with the main quest).
Battlebit? I have it on Steam, but I haven’t had time to get to it so I’m not 100% sure what it’s like. I heard it’s lack of greed is the main reason it got so popular.
CSGO is also kinda like this but it has the gambling features
Kerbal Space Program crossed over with factorio/satisfactory. Basically building worldwide factories over several planets and moons and travelling between them by using the harvested materials and minerals.
It seems like that’s something that they are going for in KSP2, but the concept is vague and the game is quite delayed and the uncertainity is huge. So I am not optimistic that it will ever be close to what I want.
Dyson Sphere Program is basically this. However, space exploration is a lot simpler as the mech character can fly around in space when you have sufficient fuel. It’s a very good factory game and personally I like it more than Factorio.
Astroneer has some of that vibe, but it’s a simpler and more casual game. Really fun though, worth playing! Your character also needs oxygen to breathe and that makes exploration interesting
@hzkvskd an actually good, deep Fantasy sandbox PvP #mmo
Fans of the genre will be aware of the problems and the failures.
Mostly/specifically the existing ones don't provide structures to prevent griefing. And building some boring hut but having no meaningful interaction with others is something you can just do in Minecraft.
I actually thought about something similar a while back, specifically with a magic system where one player creates puzzles to prevent griefing, sort of like wards or charms in fantasy, and attackers have to solve them to be able to get to the loot and get damaged by the elements if they fail, in a type of Rust PvP setup. It ended up way more difficult when I tried to make a prototype, mostly because you have to allow for a wide range of possibilities while also allowing a wide range of difficulty, but this is something I think would be fun to play, it might just be really hard to implement and balance.
I don’t know if you’ve played Rust or ARK survival, but those systems fall apart pretty easily and leaves a lot of players unable to enjoy the game due to the group systems being exploited in some way or another. In a lot of cases especially because you have to join a guild for protection if you want to progress, and that leads to more realistic situations where players are exploited and end up leaving the game, because they don’t want to experience reality in a game, they want to escape it. It takes away form the PvP experience by turning it more into a clan fighting game like Last Oasis which was also a mess due to the clans basically destroying all the smaller players before they can actually progress, because groups were extremely overpowered. Last Oasis is basically dead at this point and they did have player based protection system, and it was abused. Therefore a system to equalize the playing field would be cool, and in a fantasy game something like a single player or a small group being more powerful than an entire clan would actually make sense.
From what I’ve experienced, having players protect other players is not going to work, most people are just going to find ways around it like in real life or actually make things worse for the people they’re protecting, there is no real integrity if you have enough people and corruption is always present. Your best bet is having save zones enforced by the game mechanics, but what I’m suggesting is giving players a way to protect themselves against people abusing systems without relying on other players, because trust in other people is not something you can rely on to keep things fair in a game, while theoretically allowing player owned cities, while keeping them in line with basic expectations.
Emergent altruism is not something you should expect in a game that rewards being a dick. EVE had it right with safe zones and backbiting outside of them.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne