Happened with me in FFVII back in the day… Doing well, had to take a 2 week business trip, got back… “Wait, did I just GET to this town or was I LEAVING this town?” No clue what I was doing, I may have just started over…
I’ve also seen volume settings not kick in until you loaded a save file. Also, PS1 era Final Fantasy games that don’t acknowledge your button mappings until the save has been loaded, so that B is select and A is cancel on the main menu, but the other way in-game.
So many games have like ~10-15 seconds of unskippable logos whenever you open the game and it pisses me off every single time. I don’t understand why they still do this.
Money changed hands, so they have to show them. It’s advertising for the other companies that they worked with, or building up brand recognition for the publisher, etc. In the best case scenario, they mask a load screen, but I’ve found plenty where they don’t even start loading until after the unskippable logos.
They’re almost always .bik files somewhere in the game directory. I have no clue why so many games still insist on using this specific format in particular even today, but at least it makes them easy to find. I have determined that quite a few games will barf if you delete the files outright, but if you just replace them with an empty text file with the same name it will still allow the game to launch.
I’d really like to see a set of publishers/creators that take a hard line stance on this, and reject contracts with, eg, Speedtree, if they insist on a dedicated startup video.
Kudos to Arc Raiders. When I boot it up, aside from an EAC launcher logo, it goes straight to Speranza.
Point no. 2 is why I couldn’t get through Witcher 1. There’s only so many times I can fight 3-5 sewer monsters to get enough XP to not die in chapter…4? 5?
I hate RNG so much 😂 I don’t get it. Life has too much RNG, I play video games because it’s a predominantly skill-based controlled environment.
It’s like picking up a piano and there’s a 35% chance F# is just F every time you play the damn note 😂
I guess it makes sense if you’re role playing and want your experience to mimic real life, which is why they’re mostly used in RPGs, but I also feel so immersed playing skill-based games without RNG, so I can’t assess its actual value.
The reason they’re in RPGs is the same reason they’re in any other genre. In a war game, you could be a tactical genius, but the RNG is there to simulate dumb luck, so the game is about forcing you to play the odds, because victory is almost never guaranteed. When the result is deterministic, there can often be a single 100% correct answer, and RNG throws a wrench in that. Something similar can be applied to loot games, where you’re rolling with the punches based on what you’ve found.
I mean, character action games and score chasers do tend to fall in that optimal answer bucket. You’re free to freestyle and get a lower score, but without RNG, there will be one way to play that always works. If that counts as infinitely replayable, then so does any other game you enjoy. And for fighting games, that RNG is just substituted for your opponents’ decision making.
You’re free to freestyle and get a lower score, but without RNG, there will be one way to play that always works.
Most score you on style as well, not just efficiency. And massive breadth and depth of combat interactions yield more than one way that works, not just one. Even for shmups, routing can vary depending on the player, their skill, and understanding of the game. It’s not a timid sandbox wherein only one way works.
If that counts as infinitely replayable, then so does any other game you enjoy.
Keyword is enjoy. I don’t see myself replaying DMC5 for as long as I’ve been playing some of my favorite games because I enjoy it less.
And for fighting games, that RNG is just substituted for your opponents’ decision making.
Hmm… how does that work? I hit my opponent, they take damage, no Xcom bullshit. I don’t see any RNG-like behavior in this interaction.
Most score you on style as well, not just efficiency.
Right, but the style has point values assigned to you. If they’re unchanging, there is a way that will always work best, every time. At a high level (correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m somewhat new to this genre), rewarding style is similar to rewarding variety, juggles, and getting multiple enemies in the same attack. If you go down the checklist of your arsenal, you can always hit the variety. If you know exactly how the enemies behave, you can reliably get multiple enemies in the same aerial combo that the scoring system rewards most. The same actions give you the same output, and one of those score values will be the highest out of all other possible options. One set of actions will reliably always handle the same mob if it’s deterministic.
Hmm… how does that work? I hit my opponent, they take damage, no Xcom bullshit. I don’t see any RNG-like behavior in this interaction.
That’s just damage. The rest of the fighting game is rock paper scissors. A beats B beats C beats A. At round start, what button do you press? There’s always some option that beats your option, and that’s before we’ve even calculated the resulting damage. Some of what they’re doing is responding to what you’ve been doing, but the rest of what they’re doing is trying to be unpredictable; AKA random. (And that’s before we even talk about characters like Faust.)
Keyword is enjoy. I don’t see myself replaying DMC5 for as long as I’ve been playing some of my favorite games because I enjoy it less.
That’s interesting. As I said, I’m somewhat new to this genre. The short version is that Hi-Fi Rush got me interested in checking out all of the DMC games (minus the reboot), and 5 ended up being my favorite of that series (but still not as good as Hi-Fi Rush).
In action games, scoring the highest is typically not the priority as much as getting the rank, which happens once you pass a certain threshold predefined by the game. For example, if you need to score >5000 style points to get S in style, scoring >7000 won’t change the outcome because S is the highest rank. The result is: how you score higher than >5000 style points does not really matter, it is up to you. In a good action game, there typically is multiple tools you could use to get there depending on many factors, one of them is preference. How you start a combo, how you end it, or what you do in the middle, is up to you as long as the finally tally of the battle adds up to >5000 style points, and you stay under the time and damage taken ceiling.
What you end up getting is multiple people fighting the same boss, getting an S rank, even though they have different strategies/play styles.
Even if you choose to shoot for the highest combo score, attacks are typically assigned categories, and each category is assigned a score value. Kind of like damage level in fighting games. So, in theory, you could chain together a combo with different attacks and get the same score as long as they all fall in the same category.
Now, this is one way to approach those games, which is different from what you hinted at earlier: playing to create style showcases, or “COMBO MAD”, which can also be endlessly fun because the player actively chooses to throw away the rules of the game and make up their arbitrary rules for their own enjoyment. The games typically give you the tools to play them both ways, up to you.
In shmups, where grading is literal score chasing and more deterministic, flavor is typically added through (a) ship variety, (b) exploiting the game’s scoring mechanics when planning a route, and (3) player skill. This is why scores with different ships are often listed separately because, even though you’re playing the same game, using a different ship can heavily alter routing, including how the player exploits the game’s mechanics to get higher scores. It is the main reason people are still breaking records for games that came out decades ago: if everyone is playing exactly the same way, this wouldn’t be possible.
In theory, there may be only one optimal route for every shmup out there, but we’ll never know what that route is for as long as people are still playing the games and breaking records. Same goes for action games: there may be one optimal combo for every enemy in every game, but in reality people typically only pursue this kind of knowledge when they’re playing some kind of challenge run, or looking for tips to cheese the game if they’re achievement hunting.
I see what you mean with fighting games. My issue is: I whiff a -9 attack, you’re within range, you hit me with an attack that comes out in 5 frames, I am at 25% health, and I have no meter for a Roman Cancel: not only will your attack hit and do damage every time, it will be the same damage value, given I’m playing with the same character and you’re not A.B.A. going super sayian or you have some other damage modifier on.
To approach this from another angle, I get hit in a fighting game, it’s on me. I misread a play, or did something silly like not hit-confirming a -9 attack. I find this different from “dumb luck” when I tactically maneuver myself into a superior position, I have 99% hit chance, I miss, and they get a critical hit next killing my character off. That to me is… not ideal, haha.
I leave Faust to ElvenShadow, I’m not touching that crazy man.
I like DMC5 a lot, it’s just too much of a combo simulator to make it into my list of favorites. I like weaving in and out of defense and offense like in Bayonetta, Ninja Gaiden, and God Hand. I too prefer Hi-Fi Rush to DMC5, TBH. Such an awesome game! And mechanically deeper than most action game fans think, I have found. I watched some of my favorite action game YouTubers review it (Combat Overview and TheGamingBritShow) without covering some fun mechanics like parrying shields or dodge counters. Many people seem to think it’s all about the music beat gimmick, but it has a little more going for it than that. A replayable game, for sure.
I don’t mind RNG, I mind games that rely on it over proper design. Xcom has tons of RNG, but it’s generally still possible to win most maps with proper strategy. Most roguelikes have this problem where any given run is impossible to win regardless of play.
Games that offer stealth as an option over combat, but have mandatory combat bosses.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a great game, but this was a serious issue. The game has a (notoriously buggy) achievement for finishing the game without killing anyone, but every boss requires a loadout of lethal weapons to take down, leaving a minimum of slots for non-lethal alternatives. Very annoying.
Getting lost. I like exploring until I’m done exploring, and then I have a low tolerance for wandering aimlessly. I don’t need an indicator and a map to tell me where to go, but I appreciate a sign post or NPC to nudge me in the right direction if I need it. Sometimes level/world design does not help in areas that look samey, so landmarks or some sort of unique feature are appreciated.
I wish more games did better sign posting too. I’m not a fan of following the dotted line, but I see too many games where there’s no other way to do it. The NPC tells you to go somewhere, and doesn’t actually give you directions.
Absolutely, especially with handheld PC gaming becoming more popular. Drives me nuts having to fiddle with settings just to get it functional only to realize I missed something that was critical for a game play mechanic
I have the same issue with any of those long games that I’ve stepped away from for a while. I usually go back in, wander around aimlessly, accidentally mess up what I was working on before, and then realize why I quit playing it way back when.
I have many pet peeves when it comes to games, but the biggest that I can think of off the top of my head is the boss fights in games that don’t let you use the weapons & skills/techniques that you’d used to get to that point. It just pisses me off when they let you develop a character with particular skills and weapons only to force a particular combat style that’s contrary to what you’d used up till that point.
Deus Ex Human Revolution’s initial release was the worst about this. A bunch of people who took the skills and inventory for non-lethal/stralth/hacking gameplay found themselves at boss fights that were straight-up gunfights. If you were kitted out and skilled properly to face-tank while using explosives and big guns, you were just screwed and couldn’t progress.
In subsequent releases, they added additional options in the arenas that allowed you to kill them using stealth and hacking skills.
RPGs are absolutely terrible about giving you the ability to inflict status effects on enemies, but not giving random encounter enemies enough HP to justify inflicting statuses, and then also making the bosses immune to them.
Cyberpunk 2077 one of the quests in the expansion drops you into basically Alien: Isolation when up until that point you can beat the shit out of or hack the brains out of any other NPC you’ve come across. You go from being a cybered out demigod to basically a rat in a maze being chased by a giant metal invincible doberman.
That was mine too. I hated it. I was playing to feel like a badass in Night City, not to scamper around and hide like a rat until the invincible robot catches me and drills into my face again. I was so happy to finally get out of there. Not because i beat it, but because it was finally OVER.
I’ve been losing my mind seeing the flood of terrible events going on but I finally made it to here. I love your posts they’re one of the highlights of Lemmy, a beacon of joy, thank you as always
I completely get that. With everything going on today it’s just nice too have something like these too look at. Putting these together for an hour or so everyday provides the same relief for me
I haven’t had any problems, except for fighting that Goliath alien. I managed to take one down solo, but only by jumping across a chasm and then taking pot shots at him while he stared at me from the other side. I could not get clean shots off at him while running away. I actually killed him by throwing a grenade behind him, and when he turned around to shield from the blast, I shot him in his soft unprotected backside until he collapsed.
I personally have yet to die in the game, but two of my friends who joined me just ran off without any introduction to the game and proceeded to get themselves killed over and over again. So if you pay attention to the training at the beginning, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
The farther you wander from your starting area, the more difficult the aliens get. So stay closer to home until you’ve leveled up your weapons and base defenses and you’ll be fine, even solo. Of the 7 bases I currently have set up, only one has been attacked by aliens so far, and they were easy to clean up by myself.
As far as factory automation, it can sometimes be a chore as a single player, but it’s not too hard. As long as you have the patience to plot out resource production lines, it’s not too bad. The hardest thing right now is that there’s no transportation between bases besides walking there yourself, so it can be time-consuming going back and forth to check on various bases. Especially since most of the resource nodes are scattered. And you can’t just build anywhere like Satisfactory, so you need to drop Base Cores here and there so you can run rails between bases for resources.
I still don’t know how large the game’s map is, but what I’ve uncovered so far is massive. It takes me maybe 10 minutes to walk across my currently-explored area, and there’s still a lot of black undiscovered areas on my map in all directions!
That’s looks like the part of the game where you chase the mob guy with the squeaky voice. I recall having to redo the part several times, if the random goons didn’t kill me, the “boss” sure did.
But then again most scenes in the game were like that, the difficulty felt hella swingy all the time.
when rainbow six first came out, I realized if was very easy to take my phone out and watch something while a person turned their back at me. i dont really know why but at the very peak of my addiction, i would try to be as sneaky as possible, walk across a room, take my phone camera out, take a picture, then continue walking forward like nothing happened lmfao.
parents should have gotten me tested for the tism but idk maybe 18yr old was too late x_x
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