I learned about it from Civvie11’s video. I have unfortunately not played it yet, although I fully intend to. It’s stuck on a long backlog list. I really admire such an ambitious game that fully commits to a design and aesthetic which the devs surely knew would be obtuse and offputting to a wider audience. Making a game focused on a vision, without compromise is really a great thing.
That is a question where the answer is very complex. You’d have to break down different game design philosophies, think them through, and then apply them to specific games.
In general, I have two gut reactions:
If players are desiring to change the difficulty of the bosses compared to the rest of the game, the devs have to ask if there is a failure of design on their part. An example of this would be Dues Ex Human Revolution, which was an immersive sim that supported many different character builds, except the boss fights which were entirely based on combat. This created a frustrating and unfair situation to players not making a combat built character. The solution was that the boss fights were completely redesigned in the Director’s Cut release to support alternate builds. This is one example, but naturally there are many more. If a game has a “that boss”, the devs should look at it and examine if there is a problem with the design. Is a battle too comparatively difficult? Too tedious? Only suitable for certain builds (in games with builds)? Is the battle too much of a departure from standard gameplay in the rest of the game?
A popular game is going to get mods. If there is a strong desire in the player base, the mod is going to happen regardless of dev stubbornness, so devs may as well just give the people what they want. If a game is praised but has outcry for boss difficulty sliders, either put it in officially or incorporate it into the sequel.
I think this business model is likely suitable only for a few types of games:
Games with a repetitive gameplay loop. Multiplayer or single player, but something where you want to start another run/match/game when you finish.
And sandbox games where there’s no limit to the gameplay.
But for games it’s suitable for, the free marketing you get from content creators is the best publicity you could hope for, and a great way to stand out in an increasingly overcrowded and competitive market.
I bought Outer Wilds recently (my consumerism couldn’t resist the 40% sale on steam), friends recommended it and I know nothing about it, but only time will tell if I’ll play the game someday or if it’ll stay untouched for years…
I hope you do play it someday! I think it's definitely a game you have to be in the mood for, but when it clicks it's an amazing experience. But I also think it's really easy to bounce off of it too
Amazing game, and I say that as someone who generally doesn’t care for that style of game. It does take a little to get it’s feet, but when it gets it’s hooks in, it doesn’t let go. Give it a shot!
Still playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I’m about halfway through, and right now doing a small DLC side campaign. This DLC campaign runs parallel to the main story, in a neighboring barony, so it can maybe add some details and flesh out the world a bit.
Speaking of story, I think this is by far the weakest aspect of the game. Including the prologue, there have been four small story lines so far, that have been pretty much separated for the most part. While there are some small inklings here and there about some grander plot going on, there’s nothing concrete, so who knows. Act 3 was pretty good, there’s some shit going down in your kingdom, and I was really invested and felt like I was racing against time, but that just meant I blasted through the main quests in about a week or two in-game time, and then had like 200+ days of downtime until the next big thing happens. Yes, there are some (really basic) side quests, you can explore, and of course manage your kingdom, but it just doesn’t feel good. You need these long timeframes, because the kingdom management just has all these small time-skips (if you don’t use mods), but like I said last week, I don’t think the developers found the right balance here.
Finally bought myself a Playstation, so I’ve been playing a bunch of The Last of Us over the last week or so. And I got back into Hypixel Skyblock (please help the game has me trapped.)
Diablo 4 - I feel like I talk about this game every week, but I've been playing it every week, so... working on Season 2. Doing pretty good, already on Slayer chapter, and I'm happy to see a change up in the season journey objectives from last season. Feeling apprehensive but optimistic about completing all them this round, except for the PvP objective. There's like nobody in the PvP areas every time I'm there. Diablo 3 - season 29. Trying to improve my wizard for Greater Rifts. It's going... meh. I feel like I've hit a plateau in progressing, even though I'm still leveling up like crazy. Mad Max - I hadn't finished a previous playthrough of this game and was kind of having a shitty week, so I've been revisiting this favorite of mine. Ended up finishing the story while chatting with a friend, so now I'm just driving around in the Interceptor finishing up side quests and taking down camps.
Still having a blast playing Baldur’s Gate 3! I just made it to Act 3 and there have been some very unexpected events (don’t know how to do spoiler tags) ha ha! It’s been quite an adventure so far; I’m already planning another playthrough!
Also thinking of doing another run of Fire Emblem: Three Houses to complete the house I haven’t aligned with yet.
The combat is really satisfying! People keep telling me I should prefer doing Baal runs over and over in Diablo 2 but I just can’t relate to that. Yeah, the game gets boring around level 70, but it’s fun up until that point, plus I am only on my third character because I’ve done once each season. I know there’s a mentality out there that a Diablo game is a failure unless it’s the only game you ever want to play for the rest of your life, (which, btw, I don’t even feel that about Diablo 2), but it’s ok to take breaks and play different games and come back to a game when it’s updated. I guess whatever people think Diablo 4 “should” be isn’t the game for me.
I think I’ve just been irreversibly damaged by Path of Exile’s fast gameplay, D4’s combat felt pretty tedious to me in comparison. Or maybe I’ve just had the wrong builds so far. I’ve been meaning to give it another shot but there have been so many other good games recently so I guess it’ll have to wait.
I know there’s a mentality out there that a Diablo game is a failure unless it’s the only game you ever want to play for the rest of your life, (which, btw, I don’t even feel that about Diablo 2), but it’s ok to take breaks and play different games and come back to a game when it’s updated.
Yeah I don’t get that either. I have to skip leagues (seasons) in Path of Exile both because I wouldn’t have enough time to play other games if I didn’t and also because I tend to play it so much that I get tired of it and need a break afterwards.
Lies of P! I just killed the second-to-last boss, and oh boy was it tough. That game is absolutely amazing, and has surpassed pretty much every expectation I had of it.
I’ve also been playing a fair bit of Deep Rock Galactic, which is always a delight!
Ohhh yeah! I forgot to say ive been playing that too! It’s really good. I feel a bit at a loss what to do when I have all the cards unlocked, but dang if it isn’t a super satisfying game
bin.pol.social
Najnowsze