As someone who has been on the Internet for a long time, I have never once thought adding someone on a game platform/social as something risky. If they turn out to be bad, you just block them, no? I don’t understand why something like this needs to blow up in your face. I should say that I am someone who randomly sends invites to players I have played with online, who are strangers, but whom I enjoyed playing with for XYZ reason. I never thought I was committing some kind of crime by doing that but maybe that’s just me. I don’t mind getting random friends requests from people I’ve played yes and yes I have no friends. Go figure.
I am a bit of a worrier I guess, & overthink things too much. It’s definitely not a crime to send requests to people just after playing online together, actually I think I should probably do it more.
I also like to get friend requests from randos, it helps you get more involved in the game, especially co-op games like DRG. Plus it’s not like there’s a limit to how many friends you can add.
Before writing this post, I realised I’d given away my DOB - first by saying my age, and then when they correctly guessed my star-sign (!), I told them the day & month. That made me worry that maybe I need to be more careful and so posted this here.
RPGs in general, but esspecially Fallout. I want to like them. I love games with a heavy emphasis on detailed worlds and environmental storytelling. I love detailed character customization and building. I especially love varied and non-linear games. Despite all of that, I just can’t enjoy RPGs, because the primary loops are always so shallow. Melee is almost always either a matter of spam clicking or timing paries, firearms tend to be just holding left click on mindless enemies as they walk into a choke point, and stealth is either buggy and unreliable or completely overpowered. So much of the game is spent on these weak points, rather than the genre’s strengths, to the point where I just can’t enjoy them.
Would you mind listing some of the ones you’ve tried? Describing melee as spam clicking sounds like you’ve either only played real-time RPGs or didn’t understand the tactics that come with the trade-offs on your character sheet. Fallout itself comes in a ton of different flavors across the series.
I’ve tried a bunch of the big ones. Fallout 1&3, Skyrim, Final Fantasy 3 and 7, Pokemon, Borderlands, a couple of different MMORPGs, and a bunch of random others. My description was a bit oversimplified, but my point was more about the general lack of care towards the primary loops that you spend 99% of the game engaging with. For example, Fallout 3 has terrible gunplay which is further limitted by the need to focus on one weapon type, and uninteresting AI which doesn’t leave room for deeper tactics. Pokemon, along with a lot of other JRPGs, often boil down to finding one or two decent buffs/debuffs to use, then spamming whatever does highest damage. MMOs obviously tend to require a lot of grinding repetitive, often easy enemies.
That said, I have found some of the RPG-adjacent games better. Roguelikes are one of my favorite genres, since they tend to center around a strong gameplay loop, while still featuring the non-linearity and character builds. Same with tactics games. Honestly Dark Souls seems like it may be a good option, but I bounced off of it due to technical issues the first time and just haven’t gotten around to trying it again.
I’d argue that a game like Fallout, 1 or 3, is not 99% combat, and that’s probably where the disconnect is. They intend for you to do some detective work and even solve problems without combat plenty of times too, even when you have a combat-heavy build. Pokemon is a strange one here too, because that series is built around a rock paper scissors system such that you should be regularly be switching up which attacks you’re using. I’d love to see if your complaints hold up to Larian’s games on tactician difficulty.
If you want a few recommendations that I think are particularly great for their combat mechanics:
Etrian Odyssey - Regular encounters are no slouch, FOEs are a terror, status effects hella matter, and you always have to carefully gauge how far you can push before it's time to retreat back to town. IMO, 4 is the peak.
Bravely Default - The ability to bank your turns or take an advance on future turns adds a really cool layer to combat. As a spiritual successor to FF5, the job system gives you lots of fun toys to play with and encourages you to constantly change up your builds.
Tales of series - These games are partially inspired by fighting games, and if you squint hard enough you can see those influences in the early titles before it started to go off in more of its own direction. I think Vesperia is the most polished, though I actually want to suggest starting with Symphonia for the story/characters, because otherwise you'll find it a hard game to go back to since it doesn't have the Free Run mechanic from later games. The trick is that you won't miss it if you play Symphonia first.
CrossCode - Closest thing I can try to compare this to would be Secret of Mana, if that game was faster and significantly more technical.
The World Ends With You - If you can, play the original DS version to fully enjoy how it was built around the hardware. If you can't, the Switch version is still worth playing, and does have some cool added content to compensate for some of the sacrifices made to adapt it to a single screen.
Have you played Grandia II? IIRC you could score bigger hits from behind enemies, cancel enemies attacks etc. depending on the position and timing of your attacks.
Split fiction. It looks solid and my friend and I need more games to play together that isn’t competitive pvp, but we both vote with our dollar and refuse to give EA any more money.
On one hand, yea you’re not giving EA money, which is a win. But on another, when you don’t buy a game like Split Fiction, they make less money on that product. Money is the only thing EA cares about, and they track how much a product makes. So, if a game like Split Fiction doesn’t make as much money, they probably would be less inclined to make it in the future. Then we get stuck with shit like Fifa/Apex, since you know people are going to spend money on that regardless.
So in the end I still buy stuff like It Takes Two, because I support that work. That game was amazing. However, I tend to buy them on sale.
There’s definitely an argument to be made for either your or my way. I feel if a lot more gamers were willing to vote with their dollar and be conscious about the ethics of the games/studios I might be more inclined to agree with you as it would have an actual impact. I realize I’m in the minority though based on how well FIFA does with each new version and so I know I’m not actually moving the dial at all. I decided for me I’ll keep the clear conscience and go play one of the other amazing games out there.
I did send an email through a contact page to hazelight too to let them know EA specifically cost them a customer. Doubt that information made it anywhere, but at least I try.
I like liked the look of Subnautica but because of my thalassophobia I can’t play it. Now I wouldn’t play it anyway after the bullshit that was reported last year.
Marketshare, and you have to remember the difference between platform and store. If Epic made them exclusive to the Epic Machine™ then there would be a problem but moving from Steam to Epic doesn’t remove Windows support.
Imagine Target bought Great Value (Walmart brand) and moved it from Walmart to target. Would anyone care?
Same here. I get nauseous playing most first person games so I miss out on a lot. The only thing that sometimes helps is if the game lets you slow down the camera movement.
I’ve heard supposedly that sitting back further away from the monitor helps with motion sickness, so if you have some sort of TV screen that you could hook up the game to, that might work?
My issue was, I did not feel the expected experience of “Each loop, you learn something new.” It was more like, every 7 loops, I might get into the thing I was repeatedly trying to enter; and then it might just be a bunch of random ancient messages that don’t teach me anything. On top of that, I really hated the ship controls, especially when they veer AWAY from the autopilot path to pull me directly into the sun. If the game had been remade without any physics system, and simple direct puzzle mechanics, I might’ve enjoyed it more.
Love the game, but playing a few times a week isn’t enough investment for me to build up the necessary skill to complete it. Got to a point now where I literally spend the entire gaming session refreshing my fingers from last week, and decided to take a break until I can commit enough time to it. Maybe if I lose my kids or legs or go to prison or something.
Silksong was great, but it really has an issue with approachability.
Most of the quality of life upgrades come after challenges that prove you don’t need them. I didn’t really feel at home with what the game was asking of me until I fought the cogwork dancers. I totally understand why people bounce off the game when they encounter Last Judge.
I have a beefy gaming PC and spend way more time on retro handhelds. Nintendo 3ds, DS, GBA. Gives me a nerd hobby to collect games, and you can enjoy keeping them nice, picking them up when you want and putting them down when you’re done. Soooo many good titles too.
Ori was pretty doable for me. It helps that death has no penalty and resuming is instant. But I couldn't get through Hollow Knight and I didn't even attempt Silksong. I'm too old for that shit. Literally, I don't have the reaction time anymore.
Yeah, same. And my hands are fucked up, and my reflexes slower. Shame, I used to like that sort of game when I was younger. Ho hum, plenty of other good stuff to play.
I’m addicted to DOTA 2, but I sometimes will play other single player games. I bought and downloaded Witcher 3, Cyberpunk and RDR2, but I can’t get into them. If I’m not playing with other people, it just seems kinda… lonely? I like games where I can log on and chat/communicate with other players. I’m alone enough in my real life, so anytime I can spend with even just virtual friends is something I value.
I dunno, I started the cyberpunk game, was going the street kid route, and the guy it puts you with… The guy put a gun to you, and all of a sudden we’re friends? No. I’m from a shitty family and that shit gave me mad anxiety. I got into the tutorial level, stopped to do something else, came back, and every time i try to load the game back up to play, it crashes.
bin.pol.social
Gorące