As others have said, you’re in that pocket of time where the game wants more than DOS, but less than modern windows, which isn’t well catered to. Your best option is a windows 98 or 95 virtual machine, which is doable, but not trivial or quick to set up.
There’s a subreddit and discord called Summoners school. Going to drop the discord link below as a lot of us are on lemmy to avoid Reddit.
Mobas are hard because of fundamentals people know and you don’t. Learning some of the basics is a huge step up. Tons of YouTube and guides on summoners school will help with that. Don’t worry though too much about picking the best champion. Below emerald ELO (probably even after that), knowing fundamentals and really knowing “your” champion is a bigger deal. Pick a role you like. Then pick a champion that appeals to you playstyle wise within that role.
Finally don’t let failure get you in a negative headspace. It’s really easy and happens often where you are playing against champions you’ve never dealt with before. If the opponent knows the matchup, odds are you get spanked. That’s okay. Review each death and just note what you could have done different and the next time you play that matchup it will go a lot better. League is a game of who has the most experience in a particular scenario.
Take your time. Push your limits and don’t be afraid to die. People get stuck with this “play safe” mentality and you end up in a lot of games where people miss opportunities because they don’t want to risk a death.
The MOBA genre is based off a mod for Warcraft 3 called Defense of the Ancients. DotA, being a mod, had lots of “quirks” (aka bugs) in the game play that kind of just became part of the flavor of the game. LoL was the first standalone MOBA, based off DotA and (iirc) developed by some of the people who worked on the original mod. LoL was designed as a standalone game but it recreated all the quirks of the mod because they were believed to be so important to the game.
Blizzard, when they made HotS, looked at some of the wonky, quirky things and said “This is dumb, let’s strip that out and make it simpler.” The result is a MOBA that’s just as fun but less complex. I really enjoyed it a lot for that reason.
MOBA as a genre didn’t come from WC3. There were quite a lot of predecessors to DotA, both in WC3 itself and in first StarCraft, namely Aeon of Strife is believed to be the first popular MOBA custom map out there.
Blizzard didn’t decide that quirks of WC3 engine are dumb. Yes, they wanted to make a simpler MOBA, but the main reason for lack of funny stuff from WC3 is that they used Galaxy engine for the game, the same one StarCraft 2 was built upon.
And HotS feels less complex not because of Galaxy’s vs WC3’s quirks (the former has plenty, too), but because of lack of gold and shop, shared experience and an actual tutorial at the beginning of the game.
That’s actually where I started my moba journey. Was huge HotS player. Mained tanks like Mura, Etc and Garosh. Then Blizzard killed that esports scene 2 weeks after saying they were doubling down on it at blizzcon. Never have a been that mad at a company. I quit blizzard games after that.
Going to League of Legends was a tough switch. Really helped that the League esports scene is a ton of fun. Though it seems having the esports tied money is starting to make that scene die a slow death too.
It Takes Two is probably the best jumping off point (as you’ve already been informed). It has enough variety that you can discuss what parts they liked and maybe find the games in that kind of genre.
My partner isn’t big on games, but loves The Binding of Isaac for coop. The latest DLC adds a better coop mode, but the original coop mode with coop babies works well too (and there’s advantages like them being able to fly so they don’t need to worry about floor hazards). I think the fact that they grew up in a catholic household but aren’t religious helped them get into it lol.
My partner was never really into games growing up, and especially had trouble with the spatial aspect and controllers.
The tipping point came when we played Minecraft together and they got to use a keyboard and mouse rather than a controller. Since then, they’ve done tons gaming on their own with hundreds of hours in Stardew Valley and a more recently a deep dive into Fallout 4.
Destiny 2 played a big part in learning shooting mechanics, sense of space, and especially precision platforming.
Thrilled to see that you’ve found and enjoyed It Takes Two because that’s our all-time favorite co-op game and we recommend it to everybody.
Since yours is into puzzling, I want to second the recommendation for the We Were Here series. The first one is free and each is better than the next. It’s an asymmetrical puzzler that requires two computers with each player unable to see the other’s screen. Communication is critical to solve each of the puzzles.
Lego games like Lego Starwars has already been mentioned and I will second those (especially the newer ones that have split screen).
Divinity Original Sin is also great.
Honestly most games I can think of have already been mentioned and those who have not seem like they might not be that great of an option since it seems your partner isn’t normally into gaming. (RTS in particular might be too hard)
But I will suggest some anyway just in case
Starcraft 2 has free online multiplayer which includes a COOP vs AI mode.
There’s also a 2 player campaign adaption of Warcraft 3’s normally single player campaign. Although it might only be available for pre-Reforged.
Also I didn’t know about it before now, I googled it just in case, but apparently SC2 also has COOP mods for its campaigns.
You mentioned having a Switch so I will recommend Advance Wars Reboot and Wargroove 1 & 2, although there are no COOP campaigns but you can play multiplayer maps.
Besides Advance Wars Reboot Camp on Switch (or the originals for Gameboy, which you could play with emulator), there’s also an online fan site called Advance Wars By Web where you can play advance wars in the web browser, although there’s no single player.
Wargroove is also on Steam and besides the campaign and regular game itself there are puzzles.
And speaking of Puzzles, card games tend to have Puzzles. I haven’t actually played Magic, Yu Gi Oh, etc. so I can’t say for sure whether they have any, but there’s puzzles in Faeria. (I would’ve recommended Might and Magic Duel of Champions, it had some great puzzles, but Ubisoft shut that game down many years ago)
Also StarCraft 2 can be modded with MassRecall so you can go through the SC1 campaigns, more than just SC and Broodwars, in the SC2 engine, which makes them a bit easier and more satisfying. I think that would allow you to do co-op on the original single player campaigns.
I started playing it again recently and it's as good and fun as ever. If they start up the development again I hope they don't make it worse, I don't want hots2 with the same 'blizzard overwatch 2' mindset.
Well funny thing is, HOTS used to work like Overwatch 2, but they changed it to work more like OW1 in an update called “HOTS 2.0”, which was very well received.
Personally I get you though, Battle Passes and other FOMO nonsense are cancer and I don’t want it in games
Oh yeah I played both before and after hots 2.0, I just don't want battle passes and overpriced skins. I always thought the gold, gem and shard prices were pretty fair and accessible in hots, which made me actually spend money on it more than any other game at the time... but apparently it wasn't designed in a way to draw the whales in so it didn't make as much money off them.
Oh it definitely drew the whales in (I used to whale for it, bought Blizzcon tickets just for the HOTS mounts and flags), but Bobby Kotick had the mindset of “If we can’t build an eSport brand around it, it’s useless!”
That’s why Overwatch PVE and HOTS went out the window
I have a Wii U in storage at my parent’s house, I might see about us checking some games out when we visit for the holidays in a couple weeks. I don’t want to overwhelm them too much though.
Turning off the HUD makes you look up at the environment to help you plan where to go. You start to remember landscape shapes and areas that way. Plus it’s just nice.
Your hearts and stuff will show up if they need to, but otherwise it’s totally blank. And since pulling up the map is quick it’s really not that jarring to not have it in the corner.
Well, you mentioned Battlefield 1 already, but yes.
No HUD, good sound system, only standard issue rifles… Honestly an experience like no other.
I mention good sound because no HUD means you get a lot more focused on what you’re hearing, and the sound in this game is fantastic. So many great audio clues to work with.
Holy crap I’ve played so much AC and never thought to try those without the HUD! I feel like unity and syndicate in particular would be great to wander around with no screen clutter!
Tangentially is 2023 chock full of great games because the pandemic held up the development of so many studios?
I know, they all announced that, but as a software dev, I really don’t see why this should be the case. We largely just moved into home-office and continued working, often even at increased efficiency. I guess, building games might require somewhat more creative sessions, which are generally more productive in person, but I don’t see that making a huge difference.
My impression was rather that they had the usual delays, with maybe a few hickups at the start of the pandemic, and then they just declared the pandemic the whole reason for the delays.
As for 2023 being so full, the pandemic meant lots of people were at home, consuming digital goods. It caused a massive boom in the gaming industry. I imagine, lots of studios were able to secure (bigger) budgets during that time, which are now coming to fruition.
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