For Steam in general: If you are not in a major hurry to get a game wait for sales. There are major sales a few times a year and smaller ones all the time. Add games to your Steam wishlist to get notified when it’s on sale. Check steamdb for price trends.
Good recommendations so I’ll just add some specifics.
For whatever emulation route you choose, I recommend using a separate SD card just for emulation. Makes it really easy to just get it set up on an SD card, the games appear and they are ready. No SD card, no emulation finagling. Keeps your ROMs off main deck storage which even 512gb fills up fast.
I like emudeck, some don’t, ymmv.
I don’t think I saw SSH recommended. I use FileZilla to transfer files between my PC and steam deck - handy for emulation files, small-medium sized games. It makes the process of transferring and setup so much easier. I like FZ cause once it’s set up there’s a quick connect so you don’t have to remember the details.
Hardware accessory: I highly recommend the Deckmate, it’s basically a VESA mount for the Deck. I attached a battery pack, mini dock, and have mounted the Deck to VESA stands. Seriously, it’s worth it.
The suggestion on keeping a separate SD card just for emulation is great! I have an extra SD card, ready to do this. Do I just need to install EmuDeck (on the SD card itself) and then add ROMs to it and it’s that easy?
Also, as a follow-up question: do you know if using FileZilla/SSH is possible to transfer files between a Macbook and Steam Deck? I have a PC, but it is admin-locked via my work. But I’m trying to figure out the best way to use my personal Macbook to do file management with Steam Deck.
Indeed it’s that easy! Pop in the blank SD card, run emudeck setup and just make sure you select the SD card and not internal storage (it has a clear popup, hard to miss).
I believe FileZilla does have a Mac client, so it should work just fine for you! I just remembered though, don’t get confused with FileZilla Server, I think that’s unrelated for our needs.
FWIW, regular old SSH can to FTP/SFTP (internet file transfer, I just like having a good GUI.
For Epic Games, I’d also recommend Heroic. You can download it from the Discover Software Center in Desktop Mode.
Some quick tips:
If you need to bring up a keyboard for whatever reason, you can hold the STEAM button, and press X.
Expect to tinker and play around with things, I think the software is still a bit new and rough around the edges.
Search the Discover Software Center for software in general; it’s a good place to download things like browsers and applications.
If you want to know if a game runs or not, you can check www.protondb.com , it’s a crowdsourced version of Valve’s “Steam Deck Verified”, where people say how well games work.
Some game recommendations, based on ones I’ve played. Not had a chance to try them all on the Steam deck, but they should work:
Stardew Valley
Baba is You
Celeste
Cuphead
Dicey Dungeons
Slay the Spire (Think you have to use the touch screen though)
Been pretty happy with my month old Radeon RX 7800XT. 16GB VRAM, holds its own in Starfield and Cyberpunk (ooh the raytracing…), and haven’t had any issues with it.
I feel like I can speak a little about this as I’ve been studying how CIG is implementing server meshing for the past, well a while, but in depth since the demo. For reference until they post the panel: youtu.be/xKWa4WoTkV4?t=4500
What CIG’s way of dynamic server meshing is the revolutionary thing. Currently, AFAIK, all games performing server meshing is built on a static zone mapping. Whereas CIG is using dynamic server meshing zones that will actually map to the interior limits of a room of a capital ship as an example. And this can scale out to planetary objects if only one player is on that planet. If no one is on that planet then it will only run in their tool Quantum, a non rendering backend game simulation.
Along the dynamic zone mapping is the authoritative way of transferring object containers. During the demo you can see the entity graph of the parent object (zone) and child object containers under an authoritative container (player). When a player transfers servers, you can see the movement of child objects from local to replication, and vice versa. This is a needed step as there are millions, and eventually billions of objects to be tracked of throughout the shard.
And last, CIG is building this as a global scale since they have servers in multiple regions where AWS is hosted. From the article and demo I believe this was all done locally with no latency. I do acknowledge that CIG’s demo was local as well so we will see how the net coding is affected when it goes to the EPTU,PTU and PU.
Me and group of nerds are trying to figure out how they are going to eliminate or minimize the latency and error correction or validating the transferring of the auth between the zones.
What I’ve got full respect for is the multi region problem. I didn’t know that Star Citizen aims to have one global world instead of American, European, Asian, etc. worlds with the ability to travel between them with a latency penalty. I’m curious how they plan to solve that without god-tier peering and an artificial minimum latency to balance combat between distant players.
But I’m struggling to understand static and dynamic zones, maybe you can shed a light on where my understanding went downhill. Static and dynamic zones feel like an implementation detail to me. Do I care whether the replication layer(?) changes the boundaries of a zone, or discards the zone and creates a new zone with the appropriate state? No, only the process is different.
Since static and dynamic zones feel identical to me, I don’t get why a static zone can’t be an authoritative way of transferring object containers. What prevents servers assigned to a static zone from exchanging object information with the replication layer? Nothing, I assume WorldQL also does that.
Okay, so why use dynamic zones? Perhaps the implementation is easier than static zones? Everything else is identical to me, so nothing but the implementation difficulty feels important to me. Or is there a difference between static and dynamic zones about server assignment/scheduling? I don’t know.
What I do know is that my understanding is flawed.
Dynamic zones help balance the processing of a particular zone across multiple servers based on usage.
In a static setup, an unlimited number of players could end up on the same server causing performance issues in a particular zone. While dynamic will cap the number of players on a server and split the single zone into many to preserve performance.
I really hate FromSoft for the utter lack of a difficulty slider in all of the Souls games.
I don’t have the time to grind their games to “git gud” like they want. Just let me enjoy the game instead of wanting to pull my hair out as I play.
I’ve essentially wasted $120 on Dark Souls 3 and Elden Ring because I hear nothing but utter praise for them. Then I realized I didn’t have the time or patience to grind out those boss fights, so I get <10 hours of play time out of them before I have to stop.
If you’re on PC you could try looking for some mods to help alleviate the things you don’t like. But yes, it would be nice to have more options right out of the box.
Saying dark souls/elden ring is not easy enought is like saying schindlers list isnt funny enought. You are missing the point of the whole thing.
Besides. There are always ways to make something easier in from games. A spell, a item, some armor. And that is by design.
Best example is the taurus deamon in dsk1. You find an item before the boss room. Use the item and the thing is done in two seconds. Of course it is also posdible to brute force it with dodge skills.
I think the one thing people dont get about from games ist that they are as much detective games as they are action rpgs.
I feel like you’ve missed the point of the post. Not everyone likes that style of game or has time to put in being savaged by an overly difficult game. If the devs don’t want those people playing, that’s fine, but those people are still allowed to hate the games over it.
“no, you’re supposed to hate playing it. That’s what makes it fun” some people like to get choked, but if your try that shit on someone that hates it, expect a bad time…
Some people like getting choked, but if you don’t then maybe you shouldn’t do things where you might get choked. Maybe don’t go into Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and be like “bro, WTF you choked me out” when you get choked. Nobody is forcing you to play Fromsoft games. You want to play them and you know they’re hard. You’re putting yourself in that metaphorical chokehold and then complain when you get choked.
If that sounded stupid, then that’s because it is. Don’t be a child and expect the world to cater to your needs. Not everything is for you and if you don’t enjoy it then maybe you shouldn’t play. I don’t like Battle royales so I don’t play them. I don’t start up Warzone and then complain how I don’t enjoy it, because I understand when I’m not the demographic and I don’t expect the game to cater to my needs.
The problem is that, using this analogy, when someone who hates getting choked says they don’t want to try Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, a bunch of bjj fans come around telling them how awesome it is… And when the person says “that’s cool, but I just don’t like getting choked” they get told that’s the point of bjj, it’s awesome to get choked out…
Again, it’s fine if the devs want to make the game not have those options, but they also have to understand there are people that will not buy them or play them because of it. Fans of those games also need to understand that there will be people that hate those games only because of that reason. No amount of telling them “but that’s what makes it great though” is going to change their opinion.
Everytime someone says “I stay away from souls-like games because I just don’t like to play a game that is so difficult”, there will be someone replying either telling them off or trying to convince them they are wrong. We literally aren’t buying the game then complaining about it, we are explaining why we won’t buy those games.
You do realize that your “problem” is entirely irrelevant in the context of this thread? The comment first mentioning Souls games literally says they’ve bought the game and they want it to be easier. That is not an explanation why they wouldn’t buy the game, it’s a complaint that the game they’ve bought doesn’t cater to their needs. The problem you’ve described doesn’t exist here so there’s no problem with the analogy either.
The comment is the shittiest bad faith reply I’ve seen in a minute. Your caricaturized version of what the previous person said is not a good way to drive your point home.
Not all games are made for everyone. I’m not out here buying games that are relaxing/requiring little thought and complaining that they don’t require enough planning/patience/skill, I just play those games when I want something relaxing.
No one here is saying that you’re not allowed to like a game, what you can’t do is buy a game like this, that is notoriously advertised in this way (one of them has a godamn global death counter in it,)then complain that it is exactly what you knew it would be and expect people to sympathise.
If you are on PC you can download cheat engine and a table for the game. This will allow you to turn on invincibility if you just wish to explore at your leisure.
You could just do more research before buying a game at full price and being mad that the game isn’t for you. If you want a story those games aren’t for you. There’s more story in YouTube videos about the game than what’s actually upfront in the game. I understand being upset at a bad purchase but adding a difficulty slider is counter to the developers intent and thus not made for you.
Absolutely adored robocop and cobalt core. Definitely picking up both of them. Robocop nailed everything that made the movie great, cobalt core oozed charm and had fun gameplay.
I had meant to try the thaumaturge but by the time I got around to it, next fest was over and I couldn’t play the demo anymore. These time limited demos are a really stupid idea. I’m way less likely to buy it now because those sorts of games are hit or miss for me.
I agree on the annoying timed out demo, I thought the same thing when I missed out on a demo during the last steam next fest. Crazy how even demos are impacted by the ethereal nature of digital storefronts and their sometimes inconsistent access.
It took a lot out of me making time for these demos when I work a full-time job, but I just knew something like that was going to happen if I didn’t get around to them.
Price per unit time suggests that the only value of a game is in how much time it consumes.
The value calculus is going to be different for everyone but for me, I tend to look for:
A game which is a game first and foremost rather than an entertainment experience. That is to say: something that demands decision making of me in which I can either increase or decrease the payoffs of those decisions. Games which focus heavily on cinematic scenes, heavy QTEs, or long dialogs disinterest me.
I am often willing to take a punt on a game that tries to do something creative and interesting.
I tend to not like games that demand a high degree of memorization and/or dexterity.
Games which perform well. A recent example of a regretful purchase I made was with Shin Megami Tensei V. I adore the series but the framerate on the Switch really brought my experience down to a level where I just didn't want to play anymore.
The weights of these things will change from game to game and other elements may enter or exit the equation from time to time, of course.
I definitely agree that you shouldn’t (just) measure a game’s value by playtime. I prefer a shorter game that’s an interesting and exciting experience all the way through over one that is longer, but feels drawn out.
Larger and/or gamey games 1€/h. Here I put games such as the Tomb Raiders, cRPGs etc.
Narrative experiences 5€/h. Stray Gods and other high quality intense experiences. Often short and with limited replayability. Like seeing a movie a second time.
The best time I had in Warcraft was forming a new guild that had splintered off of an existing one (leadership was unpleasant). It was pretty scary at first, not knowing how it was going to turn out, but we had enough of the guild come with us that we managed top 50 raid progression on the realm the following year. It was super validating to have that kind of success in a casual raiding guild after all the turmoil.
I stayed in contact with our GM, and she and I still play on and off (we’re playing Baldur’s Gate 3 lately).
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