I like to just jump in and wing it, learn on the fly. Actually hate playing with people who expect everyone to “have done their research”. Games do build on top of knowledge of previous ones, to an extent… but it’s figuring out the rest what gives me a thrill.
As for complicated games, I think you forgot World of Warcraft… which I can repeat to you what I told someone who called it a game “for nerds”: according to their IQ, 2% of the world population are “gifted”, there are 8 billion people, WoW had slightly over 10 million players at its peak.
In an ideal world with equal opportunities for everyone, you could expect a potential audience of 160 million “nerds”… so yeah, some games are going to be more difficult that candy crush.
But see, for some people and some genres, the fiddling and trying and testing and redoing IS the actual gameplay.
BG3 is a good example, Factorio came up in this thread as well. And from a certain perspective BG3 is as much of a playground as Tears of the Kingdom. The latter hides the numbers from you, the former invites you to play with them.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I for example can’t seem to get into story driven single player games such as God of War or Farcry. The constant tutorialising drives me nuts…
You’re not understanding what I’m saying. I’m not talking about “fiddling, trying and testing”. I’m talking about spending your time browsing web forums and wikis in a browser. That is not a part of gameplay, that is external research.
Fair enough - semantics. Some people have fun doing this, some don’t. You seem to be part of the second group, no problem with that.
Your initial question was „how do people play those games?“ and „being part of the games online community and/or using the communities resources to play the game“ is one answer. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I am currently into Monster Hunter Rise. It does not exactly do the best job of explaining ingame what „30% Affinity“ on a weapon means. So I looked it up. That was fun to me.
In the end I guess it’s your imperative to research games before you buy them. If they don’t fit your play style, don’t buy them. You don’t mean to say that no one should enjoy „complex“ games, are you?!?
Absolutely. I spent years playing Destiny and eventually got tired of researching lore on the web because that’s what you had to do. The secret missions and guns and raids are next to impossible to figure out on your own.
As for OW, I played for a while but was just instantly slaughtered. My playmate explained it was because I was X character and Y character has Z ability and I needed to switch to V character when I respawn to counter their abilities and then I realized she had spent hours researching all these character traits on the internet and that’s around the time I bailed.
My playmate explained it was because I was X character and Y character has Z ability and I needed to switch to V character when I respawn to counter their abilities
With all due respect, your playmate knew jack shit. Particularly in Overwatch, the “countering” is a combination of personal skill and situational awareness: you can win with any character against any other one, by just using the right abilities at the right time from the right place.
It’s also mainly a team based game… or used to be… so which character you pick is much less important, than knowing which synergies you can get with your teammates. That one does take time to learn, on everyone’s part, but a well synergized team can only be “countered” by another well synergized team.
For reference, I’m part blind, and some of my favorite kills are Mercy vs. Widow, or Torb’s ballistic rivet headshots across half the map vs. whoever thought they were well behind cover.
Pulling off a Junkrat mine-assisted jump and destroying Pharah on a wide outdoor map is always glorious. Love(d) doing that shit.
Then just spring a trap and blast Mercy as soon as she immediately goes to res the dead Egyptian rocket lady, because that’s what she almost always does.
Yeah, Pharah’s weak spot was holding still while ulting, easy target for everyone.
But the trap for Mercy wasn’t a guaranteed hit, I used to “main Mercy”, and the trick was that Pharah’s “corpse” started where she got killed, however high above ground, and then began falling. Mercy’s rez (and heal/boost) had a minimum engage range, but the disengage range was about twice of that, so a Mercy could fly towards the corpse midair, hit rez while passing it by, then channel rez while still slowly hovering down, sometimes even rezzing pharah midair, not having to touch the ground.
The risk to that, was if Pharah’s corpse happened to land on a roof, while Mercy kept hovering down, she would get out of range and lose the cast… but that’s what made it interesting.
I also miss that one time when they made Mercy’s ult a speed boost; best Mercy games were always while keeping her in the air as long as possible, healing everyone while jumping among them, but the speed ult made for some fun “let’s see how many can I rez in a single game”.
But really destiny and overwatch complicated??? Those games are for children
Overwatch might seem that way because of the cartoon style and the low skill floor, but the skill ceiling is somewhat higher. I haven’t met many children who would be good at predicting behavior of high-level opponents and coordinating to counter it, for example.
I don’t know that I would call it complicated, either, except in the sense that there’s often a lot to keep track of all at once. I think I’d place it somewhere in the middle.
At the risk of inviting the internet’s wrath, when people talk about the difference between serious gamers and casuals, this is the sort of thing they’re talking about.
“Serious” gaming involves a particular set of skills and interests, such that the person is willing and able to just jump into some complicated new game and figure it out. And it’s not just that “serious” gamers can do that - the point is that they want to. They enjoy it. They enjoy being lost, then slowly putting the pieces together and figuring out how things work and getting better because they’ve figured it out. And they enjoy the details - learning which skills do what and which items do what, and how it all interrelates. All that stuff isn’t some chore to be avoided - it’s a lot of the point - a lot of the reason that they (we) play games.
You talk about your inventory filling up and then just selling everything, and I can’t even imagine doing that. To me, that’s not just obviously bad strategy, but entirely missing the point - like buying ingredients to make delicious food, then bringing them home and throwing them in the garbage.
You talk about your inventory filling up and then just selling everything
Uh, no, that’s not what I said at all.
My inventory is finite and at some point I have to choose what stays and what goes. Not only that but I have to sell enough things that I can continue picking up more items without leaving items on the ground in the middle of the map.
Then having to regularly stop and weigh the weapons in my inventory against the weapons on the ground and making choices I don’t even fully understand that come back to bite me in the ass later.
And what they're saying is that those elements are fun to the people who play these games.
Weighing different priorities to choose the best or preferred option for the future is flexing some very serious psychological muscles. Developing strategies to do it well is these types of people's version of practicing 3 point shots.
Reading you complain about it (which is fine, it doesn't have to be your sort of game!) is like listening to someone complain about how many times they have to throw the ball in basketball. "I just wanted to dribble and dunk, what are all of these other silly elements for? They're just getting in the way!"
If you want a really good comparison between these types of gamers and others, look at Path of Exile versus Diablo 4. Diablo took the mass-market appeal route, and de-prioritized many of the elements that more serious gamers enjoyed.
Now Path of Exile is a free to play money printing machine, and Diablo gets headlines for how poorly it's doing. There are many detailed analysis' online about why, and most of the reasons come down to removing the 'complicated' parts you're talking about.
And what they’re saying is that those elements are fun to the people who play these games.
In no way did I respond to that.
Weighing different priorities to choose the best or preferred option for the future is flexing some very serious psychological muscles. Developing strategies to do it well is these types of people’s version of practicing 3 point shots.
That’s all well and good but the game often doesn’t give you the knowledge required to make those choices thoughtfully. It feels like I’m expected to spend my days on internet forums and search engines just to figure out how to play the game.
If that’s the case, that’s fine, I will just avoid the game. But I feel like there should be some sort of disclaimer in the store.
Reading you complain about it
I haven’t complained about anything. I just asked a question.
My point though is that you talk about all of that as if it’s some sort of chore.
To me, it’s a lot of the fun.
I rarely even get to the point of having to stop and weigh choices in my inventory, since every time I come across something new, I have to stop and check it out and try to figure out what it is and what it does and what sort of advantages or disadvantages it might have. I enjoy that. So all along the way, I’m figuring out what I want to or think I should keep and what I want to or think I can get rid of, and not because a finite inventory demands it, but because that’s part of the point of playing in the first place.
Broadly, you’re asking if other people actually invest the time and energy to sort out how to play complex games. I’m saying that we not only can and do, but that that’s a lot of the point. That whole process of sorting things out is a lot of the reason that we play in the first place.
My point though is that you talk about all of that as if it’s some sort of chore.
Repetitive gameplay is not fun for me, personally but more power to you. I’m just trying to figure out what exactly I’m missing before I invest time into this game.
I rarely even get to the point of having to stop and weigh choices in my inventory
Those are not the types of games I’m talking about. Borderlands is the worst example I can think of where you have to stop every 3 minutes because the ground is constantly just littered with weapons, each with a dozen traits that is, at no time, explained to you while playing the game.
Horizon Zero Dawn is another one.
Now obviously those games are very popular, which is precisely what I’m trying to understand.
Broadly, you’re asking if other people actually invest the time and energy to sort out how to play complex games.
No it’s not. Obviously you do, or you wouldn’t play them. What I’m asking is how you sort it out.
Perhaps this conversation would be more constructive if you told us some of the games you do like, instead of the ones you don’t.
Because I’ll tell you right now, unless you prefer interactive novels which are only arguably games, every game is based on repetitive gameplay.
Specifically, building repetitive gameplay on top of repetitive gameplay is what makes games, games.
Like with chess. You have a repetitive “chess game” loop which has many “your turn” loops inside.
What I’m asking is how you sort it out
To address this specifically, this is what the community of the game is about. It’s why wikis are created and maintained. And so the answer would change based on which game you’re talking about and your goals in that game
For borderlands specifically, a few quick heuristics you can use is to ignore all weapons of not legendary color while in lower level areas, or to stop picking up lower tier items when you don’t need the cash, or to skip everything that isn’t a shotgun because that’s the only piece you need to update
I was speaking broadly but “repetitive” isn’t a binary quality, there is a spectrum.
this conversation would be more constructive if you told us some of the games you do like
Well, that would be a long list but my absolute favorite games are of a very specific nature. I don’t know if there’s a name for them. All the Devil May Crys (but especially DMC), God of War, Control, Jed: Fallen Order, etc. Basically third-person fighter games with combo attacks, a relatively clear direction (even when there are multiple available), and an easy-to-understand progressive skill tree. Anything with characteristics like “strength, charisma, durability” etc. tends to lose me very quickly because while those words have very clear and obvious meanings in the real world, it never explains what those things actually mean in the game and I find myself just upgrading them almost totally randomly.
It’s why wikis are created and maintained.
When I’m relaxing I don’t want to spend my time reading documents, personally. I never see any mention of “pick up and play-ability” in reviews and no one ever seems to complain about the complexity so I inevitably end up buying these games because gamers rave about them, playing for a few hours, and then getting bored/confused and dropping them, which ends up being a giant waste of time and money because I got zero enjoyment out of them.
You said BG3 was a gift, so it’s not costing you anything to not play something you don’t like.
Given what you’ve said, I would suggest avoiding anything with an RPG label anywhere.
For BG3, if you want to keep playing, you can skip the character creator. They have a dozen prebuilt options you can play without doing the detail work.
For inventory, you can ask your brother to handle it and send everything to camp.
But even with those, you’ll likely not enjoy BG3 because even the fighting mechanics are based around that type of complex decision making, making you pause all the time so that you can make those decisions.
It’s ok to tell your brother you don’t enjoy the gameplay. You don’t have to like it just because other people do.
Tinyfolks is a little indie turn-based roguelike you can compete a run of in a few hours. It’s like Darkest Dungeon except with the opposite amount of stress, and it actually only supports mouse/touchscreen!
That´s quite a list! Thank you :-) I even have a few on that list and will try them out. I did not think about The Witness, but it´s worth a try. I did not finis it on PC, but it has some really hard puzzles in it that keep you occupied for a while at the same place without the need to move around a lot.
The Hexcells series is awesome, played through all of them (of course not through all the random ones in Infinite ;-)), but might be worth to try again on the tablet. I tried Tametsi (also a puzzler), but it did not scale with the High DPI screen and was super tiny.
I had a good laugh looking at the Video on Steam. I am not sure if this will help me to wind-down, more something I might rage-quit in the middle of the night and then need a coffee to calm down again :-> But it does look pretty fun. Thanks for the suggestion :-)
Not op. I saw the good reviews and so I thought I’d give it a try. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but I am very bad at that game and die all the time. I looked up other negative reviews and some people seem to agree with me that I just need more armor or something. I don’t understand all of the positive reviews and how difficult I find the game to be. I loved MW one and two and three, but I guess this one isn’t for me anymore.
You… you do realize MW5 is single-player and definitely not a “gatcha game” right? And has a pretty robust modding scene? And has a clan-based sequel coming up in a new engine?
Hmm… While it’s nothing like Outer Wilds and infamous for probably being the most obtuse video game ever created, I wonder if you’d like La Mulana? Metroidvania about being an archeologist where you sort of need to actually peice together the culture and history of the civilization you’re studying to move forward sometimes. It’s style of storytelling is closer to FromSoft (hence the obtuseness) but still.
I beat Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines for the first time on Deck. KBM controls bound to the system really did it for me and since it was a low spec game it ran flawlessly. And the game’s reputation holds up (well written and engaging but janky lol)
I can understand wanting mods, but at the same time, it’s not like you can open your iPhone without damaging it in the process. I guess I want to say that I can get why people would want to add stuff to their thing, but I don’t see why someone would expect Valve to have accounted for that.
When I get my new OLED the first thing I will do is crack it open and swap the SSDs. Partly because the other one has all my data on it and it be an eternity to move it over and partly because the old one has already been swapped for a 1TB.
You’re missing the point of this post… They specifically made a change to make it easier to open and put back together without damage, which is not the norm in most related industries these days. That’s a good thing that we have been conditioned not to expect because of companies like Apple that fully do not want you to open your device ever for any reason.
Your comment sounds like “well you can’t open an iPhone without damaging it, why should you be able to open a steam deck without damaging it”… Very much corporate overlord shill vibes.
Tried Hollow Knight for the first time on the Deck, it works so well!
I’m not even specially good at gaming but I thought Hornet (a Hollow Knight boss) was quite enjoyable and not that hard and I wonder if it has to do with the Deck controls, since everyone has mentioned how difficult that one is (I did find all other bosses very difficult so this is not a boast).
Edit to mention that Horizon: Zero Dawn is another one that I only tried with the Deck and it also works really well, though this one consumes a lot more battery compared to HK.
I am going to sound like an unpopular opinion but some games are just easier without keyboard and mouse. I personally have a controller for these games.
just want to say, if you have the choice to buy either the Xbox One or the newer Xbox Series controllers, it’s worth it to go for the newer one. Some of the buttons (the bumpers in particular) are way better on the newer controller.
Disagree on HZD unless there were significant updates. I was around halfway through the game when I bought my deck, loaded it up on there to see how it ran, and uninstalled after about 15 minutes of never being able to make it over 15 FPS on lowest settings.
It's playable, if stuttery, in town and in cutscenes. When you start combat it becomes a PowerPoint. Which is a shame, because I really really liked that game, but I finished it on PC instead.
Monster Hunter Rise has been scratching that particular genre itch for me on the Deck though. Rise was built for the Switch so it plays on the Deck like it was born there. Smooth as butter.
Now that I think about it, I had to tweak some settings for HZD according to some guide, but I don’t remember exactly what I did. After that, it worked quite well. Perhaps it wasn’t 60 fps but 40? For me that was good enough.
It could still depend on standards. For example people seem to say Rimworld is great on the Deck but I absolutely disagree.
bin.pol.social
Ważne