EDITED: I should play The Witness again. I’ve played it once, mostly completed and loved it. I’m in the middle of the Talos Principle 2 now and want to finish it first. Come to my community and talk about what you didn’t like, OP.
I can say I was put off at first glance by the “realistic” aesthetic, with props like jammers and minigun turrets that have an unnecessarily detailed, grounded look when as a puzzle game, graphics should not be the focus of the experience. A stylised, or minimal, graphical style would put the focus firmly where it belongs - on the puzzles themselves.
Huh, OK. That never crossed my mind while playing TTP / TTP2 but I can see how that would be distracting from the puzzle solving.
Funny thing is, after I finished Witness, I went back to play Braid, the earlier game by the same creator and its look & feel just never worked for me at all. So yeah
Let me add one thing more, that a realistic aesthetic brings with it certain expectations. For example, I don’t question how Security Bots in Bioshock refuel themselves, or fly, or recognise intruders. I don’t ask how come the turrets in Portal never run out of bullets (though it’s answered as a gag in one of the videos). They’re not presented as realistic, and I don’t expect them to be. But when you make the choice to use realistic miniguns in Talos, those questions are going to bubble up to the surface, like “Where’s the ammo box on that thing?” and “Who’s maintaining these on islands in the middle of nowhere?” and “Scratch that, who’s making them?” and “If Elohim (yeah real subtle name there) did all this then why bother with a machine that requires maintenance in the first place instead of a magic pillar of fire or smth?”
Basically I was disappointed by the lack of star variety and the very predictable story. The environments were pretty but I also disliked that the devs put more effort into preventing alternate solutions, those were some of my favorite aspects of the first game.
The stars were 100% the biggest issue though. They were some of the most fun parts of the first game, but in 2 once you solved some of them you pretty much knew how to do the rest, and they became a major chore instead of a puzzle.
In the vein of multiplayer games with singleplay bot matches like Battlefield 1942 being mentioned, try the standalone mod for for Battlefield 2 called Forgotten Hope 2. Many maps have single player bot support (by launching coop server on your lan). Battlgroup 42 mod for bf1942 has a tons of singleplayer maps too. You can also get bots via third party plugins for the og Day of Defeat (sturmbot or shrikebot) and as mentioned Day of Infamy has built-in bot support. Worth mentioning are the Arma 3 WW2 mods and dlc.
waaaay out of the timeframe you have specified (it is a 2020 game that is still actively updated) but still with the same vibes, I'd check out Easy Red 2, as it scratches that specific itch of a WW2 shooter with scale. It is maybe too open at times for my taste but it is one of the very few modern games covering that niche. It does have optional squad management gameplay elements but you can ignore those in favor of playing a simple soldier, and the AI will do those jobs for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ziR73NhHjY
Sebil Engineering has a really fun mechanic I’ve never seen before. Its like those Hot Wheels tracks you always wanted as a kid but your parents never got you, but even better. I guess its a traffic control game? Anyone have other examples of these?
True, its not the best description of it. I was trying to land on something that would resonate with the type of person i thought it might appeal to, without fully explaining the thing. Maybe I failed lol.
Yeah there’s no track building. Each stage is a physics puzzle where you’re at some section of road, and there’s an infinite stream of cars. You’re allowed to make crude adjustments to verts on the road, in attempt to get the stream of cars to drive to some goal. The puzzles are very satisfying, and even when you’re not at a solution, its just fun watching the wagons fly into whatever direction your road positioning happens to take them.
Also its truly independent in the strict sense of the term. Solo dev, no publisher. Not that I have anything against small publishers.
Shadows of doubt is a sandbox detective game. You are a detective and you have to solve crimes, which are totally randomized. What makes this interesting is that the world does not stop:
the NPCs actually have daily routines
the murderer might not stop killing
you can talk with anyone
and so much more
It is truly a sandbox! I havent played it too much yet, but i feel if i really start playing it, then i will skip going to bed!
I mean, if Josh from Let’s Game it Out fucked around nonstop in almost every possible way and still “solved” a case, I doubt you could be playing the game wrong 😆
The PS4 allowed people to choose between frame rate and graphical prowess. The PS4 Pro basically eliminated the necessity to choose. We’re seeing games on PS5 that give you similar options, so I assume a PS5 Pro will also render those preferences unnecessary.
Is having ray tracing at 60FPS important enough for you to wait? Furthermore, do you have patience if PS5 pros are hard to come by for the first 3-6 months of availability?
Phoenotopia: Awakening – an amazing metroidvania-related game. Relatively more popular than the other games I list, but is honestly one of my favorite games of all time.
Vision: Soft Reset – a metroidvania, but you can travel backwards and forwards in time and this really matters for gameplay.
Bombe – Minesweeper, but instead of solving the puzzles manually, you create rules (“if there is a cell with the number N and there are N empty cells around it, mark them all as mines”) which the game applies automatically.
SOLAS 128 – a puzzle game where you redirect signals in a huge machine, just a great experience if you like puzzle games.
Obviously it depends on the deck, but in general you want a large number of item cards and less pokemon and energy.
Item/trainer cards provide a lot of ways to draw/recycle and support your pokemon/energy and you’ll likely want to see a bigger ratio of them in your opening hand. Especially since you’re not going to go through too many more pokemon than you have prize cards and you can only have 1 active pokemon at a time with 6 total in play.
So the exact ratio depends on the deck and the pokemon you are trying to support, but essentially you shouldn’t be running more the 15 pokemon and 15 energy on a high end. 12 pokemon is pretty standard. Most of the rest of your deck should be search and draw cards which there should be plenty of.
That's right. It's preferable to go for 10-15 pokémon, 30-40 trainer and supporters, and 10-15 energies. As long as you can guarantee a basic pokémon in your starting hand, many trainer cards let you get the other basics and evolutions that you need. 15/30/15 is a more casual friendly mix, the tighter ones are used by people with optimized strategies.
It's also good to have 4 copies of whatever basic pokémon you want to focus on, as well as anything else that's necessary for your main strategy.
I play it casually but I held myself against the utterly savage folks on the TCG app's ranked mode to have some idea of the basics.
I was rebuilding my decks and in my water deck i have a lot of stage 1s and basics to make it easier to build them up so in that deck I’d probably want more trainer cards
As for my psychic grass deck for example It still has a couple evolutions but it’s nothing I can’t go without so then I’d probably want slightly more energies since I thought that was a problem area
I always struggle with starting (no matter the task) so would a good general be start with 10 pokemon then build items (like if im going for evolutions or something) around them. Then build the energies based on what pokemon I want to pull and how their energy demand is. Then in occasionally see if I’m lacking damage or don’t have enough support
I mean that’s what I’m thinking but like I said starting is hard for me
Figuring out decks can be a lot of work but some cards are pretty much always useful. Professor's Research can save you from a bad hand and Ultra Balls can get you evolutions if they aren't showing up. For mixed color decks you might want Energy Search or maybe some variety of Rainbow Energy cards (but you can only have up to 4 of each special energy).
Ok so pretty much start with the few pokemon I really want then item cards to get them. Then just kinda fill in the gaps with other pokemon and items that have synergies as I go
I don’t remember if I said it here but this is just for fun between friends nothing serious
Dota and League of Legends. The moba format simply doesn’t click with me. Them being hyper competitive doesn’t help, and I’m someone who played plenty of UT2004 during my late teens
Its like Genshin. It has a very specific audience (weebs). It just happens to be a niche that is very active online. Most people who that doesn’t appeal too just don’t think about it rather than posting about something they dislike.
Andor’s Trail is a foss roguelike with a twist that it’s story based, something quite rare in this genre.
Immortal Life is a farming game but with a Wuxia twist where you can use chinese magic to help you do your chores and there’s a twin stick combat inside the dungeon. What surprised me was seeing the game selling well on steam, but never seeing a single article about it, strangely common with chinese indies over here.
I would imagine that most articles about Chinese Indie Games are written in Mandarin, so it’s unlikely you’d see them without the ability to read Chinese.
I haven't played Honkai: Star Rail, but there are plenty of great mobile games and plenty of great free to play games. You sound like you just have an extremely narrow mind.
Unciv for Android. It’s basically Civilization 5, but FOSS.
Shoutout to Iji, too. Amazing soundtrack and lots of replayability. It’s an old game by now, but it’s also free. Sidescrolling platformer, killing is optional.
Assault Android Cactus. Dunno how well known the game is, but it’s one of the best twin stick shooters/bullet hell I’ve played, with the android girls full of charm.
I was going to say Iji. Such an amazing game, it’s like the 2D version of an immersive sim. I wish there was a remake only so the dev could make the money they rightfully deserve.
In multiple posts you mentioned how you expected people on fediverse to be “more principled” and how they can only support the smaller option or just give up and accept everything corps throw at them which is why you’re surprised some play gacha games.
Does that expectation also extend to “normal” F2P games like Apex, Fortnite etc? Does it include people playing full-price AAA games? Titles like GTA, Diablo, Halo, majority of MMOs and more - games that not only are paid but also include season passes and micro transactions.
Should people also avoid those?
Just so we’re clear, it’s a genuine question. I have no skin in the game as I don’t really play HSR, AAA games or really care what people expect from me but I’m curious about your perspective on things.
I avoid those games. But I don’t expect others to have the same tastes as me. I’m certainly not demanding people don’t like those kind of games like OP seems to be doing about Honkai
Which is totally fair - I feel like most (conjecture?) people who dislike such things will simply avoid these games and play other stuff.
OP focused on gacha games but didn’t mention paid ones despite the fact many of them implement similar monetization schemes which is why I’m curious about their point of view on this.
My main problem is with F2P mobile games that have any kind of gambling mechanics associated with them, or any games that are set up to get you to pay endlessly for the privilege of playing the game, even though it’s not marketed as a subscription service game.
World of Warships, World of Tanks, and War Thunder are the big non-mobile offenders, in this regard.
Games like Fortnite and Apex are just on the acceptable side of things, because they’re mainly selling cosmetics. They’re not claiming to be free, then blocking off large sections of the game behind grind-fests, which you can then get rid of with paywalls. As far as I know, you can play all the Apex and Fortnite you want, and the only temptation to spend money is based on “oooh, I want that cool-looking thing.”
Resisting the impulse to buy a cool-looking thing is everyone’s own responsibility. Therefore, selling cool-looking things isn’t unethical. Getting someone addicted to gambling and/or using Skinnerian conditioning to slowly acclimatize them to paying for a “free” game is NOT okay.
Alright, that cleared up some things, thanks. I assume FIFA’s (well, EA’s FC) Ultimate Team also falls under that umbrella since it’s straight up rolling for power?
Since you’re fine with cosmetics what about mobile/gacha games that are primarily that?
For example, I play a game called Girls Frontline - I didn’t pay anything yet have all bar 3 characters (the missing ones can be farmed on stages I haven’t played yet) with most of them leveled up and equipped for pretty much any available content. There’s no stamina that needs to be refilled and events have 3 difficulty levels to allow even new(ish) players to complete the story. The main monetary incentive here comes from skins (which can also be obtained using saved up resources). Would a game like this be alright according to your perspective?
While majority of gacha can absolutely be predatory there are more titles like that within the “genre” which is why I’m interested in your focus on mobile titles. Sorry if it sounds like I’m trying to look for a “gotcha” or something like that - that’s not my intention.
The Girls Frontline game seems to occupy basically the same space as Fortnite, from what you’re saying. Also, I really appreciate the fact that you’re questioning my position in a constructive way, unlike a lot of the people here, who basically jumped at me, automatically taking a de facto position of defending all gacha games, no matter how predatory.
Being asked these questions in a constructive manner isn’t just more polite, it IS actually constructive. It’s helping me to refine and understand my own position. I strive to be consistent and logic-driven, in my opinions, but nobody’s perfect. I can admit that some of my views may be somewhat emotion-based, and can be specified and sharpened based on discussion.
I think the most important thing to avoid, if you don’t want to be playing a game that’s unethical (and maybe even dangerous) is anything that combines a stamina refilling, gameplay limiting mechanic AND a pay-to-roll gacha mechanic. The worst of those being the kind where the common characters (or weapons, mechs, cars, etc) are super-duper weak, compared to the rare and overpowered characters.
Either one of those mechanics can be bad, especially if it’s tied to spending money. Combining them together is extra bad. It’s even worse if the game continually markets itself as “free.”
If a game has no stamina-based playtime-limiting mechanic AND the unlockable characters/skins are entirely (or almost entirely) cosmetic, I figure it’s basically fine.
I’m glad I could give you a chance to expand on your view in a more neutral manner. I like discussing things and learning other people’s points of view so I try to approach online discussion in a positive and open-minded way. It’s not always easy but I try.
I think the main reason people jumped on you so easily was the tone of your OP and some of the more heated comments - they come off like you aren’t really interested in an explanation but rather looking for affirmation in shit talking other people’s interest in those games. Feeling strongly about a topic can be a detriment at times and it’s an easy way to derail a decent topic for a conversation.
That said, seems like we’re pretty much on the same page even if I don’t feel as strongly towards the disliked parts of the industry as you do. I simply stick to titles that don’t punish me for not spending ever increasing amounts of money.
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