I hear Lorelei and The Laser Eyes was specifically designed around the idea of the player using a physical notepad to help solve the puzzles. Recently released and reviewed strongly, you should check it out if not already on your radar.
It definitely does, and I’ll second the recommendation, but at least one set of puzzles only really requires the the notepad because they didn’t give you sufficient software tools in game, not because it couldn’t be done well in game.
Honestly it was really handy to have a pen and paper around for Elden Ring for me. There was just so much I wanted to keep track of so that I could come back or to make connections. But it’s also a very acquired taste kind of game to go through!
For the hardest dungeon you have to solve a crossword puzzle. In the game you can read a long story that contains all the answers but the puzzle is in a huge labyrinth far away from that story and it would be too tedious to change back and forth between the two.
The manuals of the games (it’s actually two games combined into one even larger game) have dedicated blank pages for notes at the end. I also had the way to the boss of the second game written down there.
Back then it was quite common for RPGs to have space for notes in the manuals.
I played that long ago (I had a MM1-5 collection on a CD-ROM).
I finished the Clouds of Xeen side without much trouble, I was even surprised when I realized I had found that part’s ending (I think, anyway). But I never could do any progress on Darkside… Not sure what I was missing.
Darkside is considerably harder. It’s easier when you finish Clouds first but you quickly reach a point where it also gets harder. I think a balanced party composition is also even more important.
When I was a child I didn’t understand that it was turn based. So whenever there was a monster I rapidly clicked the fight button without much regard to strategy. Made it even harder. Don’t think I managed to beat either game back then.
Myst was my answer even before reading your post, so I would say the rest of the series. Also Quern, in the same genre. Maybe The Talos Principle if you like puzzles, though I don’t remember reaching for my notepad while playing.
You are sacrificing power for mobility and playability with the Steam Deck. I own both a Steam Deck and a gaming PC, and I use each for different games. These days, modern AAA gaming often can’t run on Steam Deck well, including some hits like Baldurs Gate 3 (in the 3rd Act, the rest is fine). However, 75% of my overall gaming time is on the Deck these days. The ability to turn it on and just start playing on the couch or in bed is fantastic, and the support for different control schema like gyro and touchpads make it incredibly playable.
A modest PC is going to push better graphics and higher refresh rates, and will also make some games actually playable, but this becomes a decent sacrifice in mobility and convenience.
If mobility is merely a bonus and your deck would be docked the vast majority of the time, I’d go PC, but I suggest seriously considering the convenience of portable play even within your home. The OLED screen is wonderful for years-old AAA games that go for 2 dollars on Sale, indies, and more. I’m absolutely having a blast with Crosscode and intend on moving over to Another Crab’s Treasure and Nine Sols next.
I honestly haven’t considered using the steam deck in my house outside of the dock. Playing on the couch is definitely an enticing idea. The prospect of poor AAA support isn’t a huge deal. Baldurs gate 3, the new dragon age, the new Warhammer game (if that’s considered AAA), helldivers, and the new god of war games are the only recent titles that have jumped out at me. I’ve really wanted to get more into indie games, theres so many that seem interesting and innovative, and with the pace of steam deck adoption, I feel like I wouldn’t be missing out on much with it. I’m still 50/50 on the decision. Gaming around the house has definitely given me something more to consider though!
The Steam Deck is how I prefer to play the majority of indies, so if that’s your goal, it’s great. Watch performance videos though of games you are interested in.
I played through all of BG3 with no issues. It was a pleasure. The only real graphics hiccup I had was when i stacked barrel after barrel of smoke powder in Gortash’s throne room and one shotted him.
Personally my inclination would be building a PC. There are just too many small things here that make a PC seem a better fit in my mind
A PC can be upgraded over time. A PC can run Windows, and from what I understand there’s still some willingness to tinker and adjust stuff needed to get stuff working on steamdeck at times (I say this as an exclusively linux user for the past like 10 years, though I don’t have a steam deck and haven’t played with gaming on Linux). And ultimately the main selling point of the deck sounds like it would be pretty secondary for you
I’d love to tell you go with the cheaper option, but I think long term the PC just makes more sense. Even if you just wanna run linux and use a distro that replicates the steam deck’s configuration and setup, the PC will trade the portability you don’t seem particularly interested in for upgradability that I think is really worth it. If you’re looking to save money my gut says you’d be better served by getting used components, a used case, and a good power supply you can upgrade around.
Thats my 2c as someone fairly unqualified to give advice lol. Regardless, I hope you find the right path for you!
But I think the big consideration is whether to trade portability for upgradability, or vice versa.
Outside of windows, you’ve essentially described my radionale for building a PC. I was planning to build a Linux machine to 1. Save on not having to buy windows and 2. Simply because I like Linux, and (besides competitive games) gaming on Linux seems to be a pretty solid option nowadays. I wanted to buy second hand as much as I could and upgrade piecemeal to keep up with hardware demands and improve my experience.
The convenience of the steam deck is attractive because I’ve never built a machine before and graphics aren’t all that important to me. But I do like the prospect of having something that will last and be able to be iteratively improved for years to come
Yeah, that makes sense. If you have a friend that’s built a PC before that’d help a lot with it being intimidating. I think building a PC and picking used last gen parts that roughly match the performance of the deck would be my choice in your position.
I can absolutely understand it being appealing to buy something complete out of the box though. Maybe it’s worth seeing if anyone is selling complete working PCs they’re ready to replace?
Isn’t the PC the cheaper option? You act as if the only benefit you get is the upgradeability, but since a desktop doesn’t have to be as small, the components are much cheaper individually, which makes a PC cheaper than a Steam Deck simply looking at performance.
It’s not a necessity to upgrade the PC, and if you never upgrade it, then it also never costs more than the Steam Deck.
In essence upgradeability should be almost not a decision factor, since you probably can “upgrade” the Steam Deck in the future as well: you buy a new Steam Deck handheld once Steam releases a more powerful version. Yeah, you’re not swapping out components, but there’ll very likely be a way to copy over your setup/data, and then the only difference is that the upgrade is more expensive, same as the initial purchase is right now.
Price to performance and just outright price aren’t really the same thing. And isn’t a base deck like $300? I could be wrong, I sort of assumed building a PC and buying your peripherals was more expensive 🤷♂️. I mentioned to OP it might be a lot more comparable if you just aim for roughly the same specs as the deck using used last-gen parts, since super impressive specs didn’t seem important to them.
And yes, I just mean that it’s cheaper to replace just one component when you need to than buy the whole thing over again. Its also way less e-waste. To me, upgrading not being necessary seems like a very odd point to make- if you never upgrade at a certain you won’t be able to play anything newer. Which maybe doesn’t matter to op, but that seems like an odd assumption to make. Even if you just use a computer for less demanding productivity tasks, its specs will eventually start to struggle…
It just seems like most of the benefits of the deck seem like things that either aren’t as important to them (handheld functionality) or are short term benefits (no need to build anything, potentially cheaper upfront), where the PC seems like it makes more sense longer term, given they don’t especially care about having a handheld specially.
I play pretty much everything on my steamdeck. For price vs usability, it’s incredible. It’s also nice that you can get an idea of how games work on it before you buy them, so you don’t get stuck with a game that won’t run on your computer.
It’s also nice that you can get an idea of how games work on it before you buy them
Oh interesting, you mean like the “verified on deck” thing? Or are performance stats accessible easily? I don’t have one so I’m not exactly sure, but this does sound nice. I feel a lot of stress sometimes if I need to spend a long time playing with graphics options during the 2 hour refund window
So, you have deck verified vs playable vs unsupported and you have protondb scores to let you know how playable the game should be. Beyond that, developers try to hit steamdeck playable as a development goal. They won’t try to optimize for your computer, since they don’t know what you’re running, but they have the specs for the steamdeck, so they try to make it run on that!
That’s definitely an added bonus. Having been a console player for the majority of my life, learning and researching parts and compatibility has been a bit confusing for me. Especially since I was planning to build a Linux machine. I like that building a PC offers versatility and an opportunity to upgrade parts down the line for a better experience/ longer lifespan, but there’s something to be said for the convenience of knowing that something will just work out of the box
whether you go handheld or desktop PC depends on what you plan to play and how often you play “handheld” and “sitting at home”
can I throw in an odd alternative 3rd option. Not the steam deck specifically, but many of the windows gaming handhelds have USB 4 support. with that, they enable the user to use an external GPU if they wanted. So if you wanted a better “docked experience” you can get one later down the line and treat it like some middle ground from having a “desktop” pc and handheld pc on demand. down the line you can choose to upgrade one experience or the other when the time is right if you would like a middle of a choice option.
this option is not very setting friendly though, as youd constnatly have to switch back and forth if you choose this path
Whichever way I went, I was planning to use Linux for my OS, so I haven’t really considered a windows handheld until now. I might have to look into those a bit more. I’m not opposed to windows per se, but I do like how light most Linux distros are. It would free up more resources for gaming, and considering my budget, I could definitely use the extra wiggle room haha
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