Landing on the boring planets wasn’t my problem with the boring game.
The ground combat was terrible. The space flight was terrible. The space combat was terrible. And it was wedged into every activity for no reason other than lazy design to pad things.
And then there was the UI…
You can’t “feel small” when the game makes you a fiddly murder hobo in the tutorial.
Being limited by the DnD system makes sense. DOS2 had a lot of cool mechanics not present in BG3. I do hope we see another DnD game from them eventually.
Yeah the DnD mevhanics are weird for me coming from DOS2..
I really miss elements mixing and having to focus on elements in general. And those weird 'Long Rest' things.. kinda annoying for me.
Yeah I felt like DOS2 had really improved on the already good formula that was DOS, and BG3 using the DnD system felt like a big step back. It’s still a great game, but I feel like it is in spite of the DND systems (not the setting), not because of it. DND doesn’t feel suited for the computer, it really fits better on the tabletop.
As someone who’s played their fair share of assorted DnD systems, 5E has a number of issues that really hold it back. For instance, you’re not really supposed to long rest between every fight, but how do you tell players that without a proper DM? It’s a very weak mechanic that’s apparently too iconic to have just axed.
Don’t get me wrong, 5E works better at what it’s supposed to - easily accessible and relatively low math tabletop roleplay. But a computer can do so much more.
Lots of RPGs allow rest cheesing. Even if you don’t let players rest in random locations like BG3 does, the players can always hoof it back to town to rest. Attempts to prevent this kind of cheesing often end up feeling unduly punishing and un-fun. It’s not a tabletop vs computer issue.
D&D 5e is kind of bad system. It’s “good” in that it’s hard to make a bad character, and it’s popular, but that’s most of what it has going for it. It’s missing a lot of rules you’d want for a general purpose RPG. Centering it on rests only works in rather specific kinds of games. The magic system is very bespoke and thus clunky. The dice math if 1d20+stuff gives you a flat probability, which is often unsatisfying.
Pathfinder 2e is widely considered better than 5e in every way, unless you actually specifically want the simple+shallowness of 5e. Which is a fine thing to want, but that is a pretty big trade off. If you were just playing with friends, you’d probably be better off with Fate or maybe a PbtA game if you want simple narrative stuff, or Gloomhaven if you just want a board game.
I find Pathfinder 2e (and D&D 3e before it) way clunkier. Maintaining a level-appropriate power level requires stacking buffs like the Overlord meme, and if you decline to do so, you’re just crippling your character. It’s bad enough that auto-buffing mods are considered mandatory for the Pathfinder CRPGs.
I don’t like of the dices but BG3 sucked my way more in than DOS2 so I how they really manage to combine the best of both in their next game. Let’s hope the expectations don’t get too high.
I think making something on par with BG3 will be incredibly tough. Wouldn’t mind seeing them branch out and try something new again. Larian has done a bunch of different stuff before. A modern take on Ego Draconis would be really cool.
I won’t fight you over that, I think they were good too. I’d love a modern third-person ARPG in the Divinity universe. The “build your own ghoul” mechanic was really fun, and obviously turning into a fucking dragon was epic too.
DOS2 fights felt much more like a slog than BG3. Especially in higher difficulties, every battlefield ended up a nightmarish soup of elemental surfaces, which got old after awhile. I also found whittling down enemy toughness bars un-fun.
Personally, I liked both the BG3 and DOS1 systems better than DOS2.
Well yeah, but the surfaces were DOS2 “thing”. They are present in BG3 too, just not as important to the overall gameplay. It doesn’t reflect badly on any future Divinity games, since they have proven they can use surfaces and have it not be overwhelming.
I actually want them to step away from 5e/DnD in general. I loved DOS2, but I agree with another commenter that the vast swaths of elements made things challenging in a frustrating way at times. Not that that shouldn’t be a tactic to be used, but it definitely was egregious in DOS2.
5E is just… A fuckin mess when it comes to balancing the game - said as a long time DM and player. There are so many things that just irritate the heck out of me with the system that can’t necessarily be balanced with a video game slapped overtop of it. (Not to say Larian didn’t do a good job with what they were given, but still)
That being said, I am a total fanboy of Pathfinder 2e and the way things are balanced there, and I would love love love to see a CRPG under those rules. Especially if it was Larian-levels.
I don’t know why everyone is so angry at this comment. The question was about what will it take for subscriptions to increase and become dominant in industry, the guy answered that. The interview was with the guy about Ubisoft’s subscription service, what else people expected?
If anyone talks to the guy in-charge of Gamepass, and they ask them how will gamepass increase, they wont’ say, well, if everyone keeps buying physical, that will be great for us.
I think the Ubisoft guy is pushing for subscriptions when a lot of people are not keen. See any of the recent articles about NatGeo pulling videos from Sony, etc etc.
As gamers grow comfortable in that aspect… you don’t lose your progress. If you resume your game at another time, your progress file is still there. That’s not been deleted. You don’t lose what you’ve built in the game or your engagement with the game. So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.
First of all, not here to defend Ubisoft, I completely agree about not trusting them to do what’s good for gamers.
So, my point was, everything said in this interview, is pretty much same thing you will hear from any “head of subscription” of any company. I think MS is currently the most aggressive one, with their Gamepass. Keep in mind this interview is specifically about their subscription service, and the changes they made it isn’t about anything else. Sony is currently (or well last I read about it) most defensive with subscription, often talking about how it’s bad for the industry, but if you ask whoever is incharge of PS+, and ask them, what needs to happen before subscription will really take off, he would probably say the same thing.
As for closing down of online servers, it’s always sad when that happens. That’s a valid reason to blame a company, but pretty much all companies do that. As a patient gamer, I don’t even remember how many times I have come across a game where I would find out you can’t get all trophies because online servers have shut down. So, all companies should be blamed for this.
So many people framed Activision as the bad guy, when we are seeing that they actually staved off some idiotic decisions on Bungie’s part. I have a feeling that while the layoffs are awful, I look at other studios run by Sony and can’t help but wonder if the real issue was just at the local management level, and Sony’s intervention is maybe needed to save Bungie from itself. Pete Parsons is a piece of shit fuckhead.
Do they have any other option than to stick to their guns on this one? That’s sold the XBox Series S as having feature parity with the Series X. If they go against that now, then they’ve engaged in false advertising and will immediately get slapped with a huge lawsuit and/or fine, plus all the negative PR that comes from it.
They’re stuck until the next console generation, which is a long way out. And I wonder if PS5 will continue to gain ground against XBox for the rest of the generation as a result.
It will be interesting to see if they continue with their two-model tiering next gen, but I’m guessing they won’t.
Having just looked up the equivalent PC specs, it really doesn’t seem like a lot of power.
I imagine the game can run “fine”, but they probably need to do a fair bit of optimisation or people will complain about the way it looks and frame rate.
One of the benefits consoles used to have was everyone running the same hardware, but they’ve lost that now and I don’t imagine console players will be as accepting of lower quality as PC players with low end GPUs.
The main issue, and what’s keeping Baldur’s Gate off it, is a RAM issue. It’s got less RAM that the One, and things like dual screen need more RAM than the S has.
Most of time, it’s the juggle of time and resource available to you, but there is still a hard limit otherwise how about demand BG3 to also run on my antique knockoff NES? Cause they are too lazy to accommodate the hardware limitation? How about my smart watch? Or someone else’s smart fridge?
Don’t get me wrong, what you said in some cases but most likely the devs are told to push it out instead of make the game run better(on the target platforms.) There are no secret sauce to otherwise fit a game like BG3 to previous gen consoles.
Last, if you are really good at this optimization thing the whole industry will pay good money for your skill set.
From what they’ve said the game can run fine, but the issue is getting local split screen on the S working because it has such a small amount of RAM available
It’s just a business decision. Enough players have strong enough hardware that the invest into optimizing for weaker hardware isn’t likely to pay off.
If there is a weaker platform with lots of players, like the Switch, that can make optimizing financially viable, but obviously, it depends on how much optimizing you would have to do…
If they go against that now, then they’ve engaged in false advertising and will immediately get slapped with a huge lawsuit and/or fine,
No they won’t. Companies aren’t beholden to their commitments from advertisements in perpetuity. In the first place, someone would need to sue, or begin a class action. That’d drag out for years, and almost certainly lose.
I’d be furious with any company if they pulled that sort of shit with a product I owned.
On the other hand, feature parity means that the full potential of the X because everything also has to run on the S. So all the things that the X can do that the S can’t will, probably, not be used much, if at all, going forward, just to avoid this kind of hassle.
Great deal for people who bought the S, but sucks shit for people who paid a couple hundred bucks more for the X, for features that simply won’t be utilized.
Since these Xbox consoles came out, maybe even since Xbox One X, they've been talking about being "beyond generations". I figured that would result in more periodic updates, probably with two simultaneous lines of Xboxes, X and S, but it hasn't turned out that way. So far, it's just seemed to mean that you don't have to deal with Sony's BS around PS4 and PS5 versions of the same game.
They should’ve figured out a way to communicate that the Series S will last until next gen, but the Series X would get more cross-gen games when next gen launches
Or they should’ve known that RAM is hard to scale on and they could’ve included an extra 2GB or so in the Series S lol
But I’m actually a believer that BG3 could be made to run on XSS even with split screen, it’s just gonna take more work and reduced graphics maybe audio quality too, and smarter data streaming from the SSD
Or they should’ve known that RAM is hard to scale on and they could’ve included an extra 2GB or so in the Series S lol
They really should have. It’s got 2Gb less than the One, which is where all these problems are coming from.
And as for getting BG3 running on the S, well, Microsoft has had to send out some of their engineers to help Larian figure out how to do it, so I doubt it’s going to be an easy job.
Wasn’t the general idea that direct storage means data moves from the SDD to the GPU skipping RAM, hence the need for less. It’s possible Larian aren’t used to dealing with direct storage since the PC doesn’t have it in most systems even now and so just brute forced things the old way on PS5? That’s why MS engineers have to go and show them how to use the new architecture.
On PC, the point is that you can skip RAM and go straight to VRAM. You still need the assets in memory while you use them. It's faster but it's not that much faster. With unified memory there isn't that distinction. That's one of the ways consoles can be better optimized than a general PC build.
The Series S will become an ever bigger anchor going forward. Eventually, there will be 3rd party games that just choose not to bother with the Xbox at all because of the Series S.
We’re only a few years into the new console generation and problems are also starting. It’s definitely going to get worse as more demanding games start coming out. Microsoft is really going to have to loosen their parity policy, or it’s going to hold either the entire generation back or them back.
Given that there’s plenty of PCs out there with lower spec than the S they still need to scale their game for, I doubt it will be as big an issue as people make out. BG3 is an odd outlier as they’ve put a splitscreenode in the console game that the PC version doesn’t have and that’s what’s holding things up.
Given that there’s plenty of PCs out there with lower spec than the S
Not when it comes to memory. The Xbox SS only has 10GB combined system memory and VRAM. The PC version of BG3 requires 8GB system memory plus 4GB of VRAM, so the SS is a couple gigabytes short in total.
Going by the Steam hardware survey, 95% of PCs have at least 8GB of system memory, with 16GB being easily the most common amount. 80% have at least 4GB of VRAM, with 8GB being the most common amount.
For obvious reasons I can’t post it publicly before MS discloses it. They are currently migrating more and more GDK docs to the public site, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the link became publicly available soon, but currently one still needs to register a dev account to access it.
Yeah the studio put out nothing but nice games. Sure, Ghostwire in particular wasn’t stellar, but it was also enjoyable and pretty well done. Evil Within was dorky, but in just the right way. Hi-Fi was phenomenal, and that alone should have seen them physically behead every single higher manager at Bethesda before they tough anyone at Tango.
But alas, apparently if it ain’t Fallout: Ghostwire or Fallout: Hi-Fi, then it doesn’t matter. Manager bonuses ain’t going to pay themselves (hrm… come to think of it, they do?), line has to go up!
Very few third-party games remain exclusive to one platform forever, so in those cases I’m usually content to just wait it out until the exclusivity deal is over then pick the game up on a platform I own. Sometimes the wait can be pretty long but I really don’t have much of a sense of FOMO most of the time.
You let companies review your game when you want fans outside your bubble to hear how good your game is. You don’t let companies review your game when you don’t want fans inside your bubble to fund out how bad your game is.
It’s fucking ridiculous that CEO’s make decisions that make players dislike a game or product yet the workers are the ones getting laid off. I doubt any of the regular employees had a say in the shitty DLC decisions.
basically nintendo and sony are dubious with digital,. since they dont host their own CDN, so the store is more prone to being shut down earlier than virtually all other competitors.
I’m old and buy physical whenever possible so I can trade them in when I’m done. It will suck when console online stores have the monopoly - I might have to go PC Master Race when that happens (complete with eyepatch).
As someone who’s been PC only for some time over a decade, I love digital. Having to store disks and search for them when I wanted them sucked. It’s a shame used isn’t an option, but that was never a great value to consumers anyway. It saved some money, but it was mostly sucked up as profit by whoever was reselling them.
I don’t even have a disk drive on my computer. I have several fairly large drives so I can keep a good number of games installed at a time, and load times are faster than from a disk too. I couldn’t imagine going back. There is the risk of losing it all when a storefront goes down, but that’s already the case with modern physical games which have always online components or DRM locked to a network.
Are people in this article really suggesting that the 100% emoji is racist? You can never get a perfect score or agree with anything again because a small number of people have used that number to mean something else and now somebody will interpret it as a hate crime.
At first they were arguing that somebody writing “shit” in an exaggerated way, and the occurrence of two other numbers and an elongated asterisk were Nazi symbols, and they could be, but the only evidence is that somebody said they thought it was too many coincidences. I don’t know enough about the circumstances to say it is or isn’t intended that way. Management apparently thinks it isn’t. But saying multiple people reacting “100%” to a message they agree with means they’re all using the number 100 as a sign of white supremacist solidarity is ridiculous. What else are they going to do? React with the “OK” hand? No, the ADL also decided that one is racist. React with thumbs up? No, younger people have decided that one is rude.
I took the “100” part to be that someone was mocking the people who were happy the Nazi/racist symbolism was being addressed by management.
Obviously we only have the article to go off of, but the symbols/ numbers mentioned are definitely Nazi symbols, so if there were a bunch of those symbols (all on one single room I might add) that absolutely seems suspect
if there were a bunch of those symbols (all on one single room I might add) that absolutely seems suspect
Technically, I could understand that… IF the in-game character living in that room, were supposed to be a Nazi sympathizer. Otherwise, it’s a clear dog whistle.
Otherwise, rules have changed, and that symbology would no longer get the game insta-banned in Germany… as long as it was only used “in an artistic way”:
As someone who has played through that game 3.5 times (I’m in the middle of another playthrough right now) I can say with high degree of confidence that I have never noticed any nazi memes 😳
I’ll look for them specifically??? But I’m already pretty aware of that sort of thing because I’m in a group that nazis hate. I think I would have noticed and quiet literally would have been like “what the hell is this shit?” OR I would have attributed that kind of writing too an actual perhaps racist character in the town, but I haven’t felt that way either. I just don’t know what they’re talking about, again as somebody who’s played the game three times.
Hmm 😒 well if that’s so, it’s possible. But yeah, not in True Colors. I feel like I would have noticed. I will keep a watchful eye as I finish this next playthrough
But I wanted to point a tangent, from the article you linked:
outstretched middle, ring, and pinky fingers to represent a Roman numeral “3.”
Coincidentally, the Romans would count like 👍👉👌… instead of “thumb, index, middle” for the numeral “3”, because that resembled the letters “IV”, which were the first two letters of “IVPITER”, or “Jupiter”, formerly known as “Zeus”, the God of Gods, and making the “IV” sign in vain was considered a blasphemy… similar to how Jewish people wouldn’t “use the name of God in vain”, which lead to the expression “hallelujah” from “hallelu-Yah***”, meaning “praise Yah***”… in order to also not say the whole name of God. Curiously, Muslim people have no problem with saying “Allah” or writing “ﷲ”, just with depictions of their prophet, go figure.
These sign shenanigans have been going on for thousands of years, only difference is now a “meme” with 10 comments on 4chan, can become a hate sign used by thousands or millions in less than a decade.
PS: another curious one, is the ✋ “Hi!” vs. the Greek 🖐 “I smear 💩 on your face”… best not to confuse them 😉 (“oops, got something in my eye” /s)
The other numbers and Hagel rune are very explicit white supremacist symbols, so trying to downplay them is suspect. As Chloyster pointed out, it seemed like the person saying that the 100% is racist was trying to mock people saying bringing up the other symbols. Even the ADL says you need to look at the context for the 100%. Bringing up the OK is also suspect, since, again, even the ADL says the context matters.
Also, nobody is saying they are hate crimes, but hate symbols which you should absolutely be aware of and not include in your game, even if by accident.
The 100% emoji is the only thing I thought was weird. I can understand why they might think that way given that the developers went through weeks dealing with what seemed like internal sabotage. Given the context, it makes sense, but it might also be an overreaction.
I use the 100% emoji to show agreement sometimes. I certainly hope people don’t think I’m trying to use it as a dog whistle. Kinda sucks because we’re running out of agreement emojis at this point lol.
Not sure the ADL is really a reputable organisation worth looking to as and authority on what is and is not hate. They’re an explicitly zionist organisation with a history of defending genocide.
That said, this particular article seems completely fair. They don’t say the ok gesture is a symbol of hate, only that it is sometimes used that way. Which is accurate.
But also:
Since the early 1800s, the gesture increasingly became associated with the word “okay” and its abbreviation “ok.”
Whoops guys, got that one wrong. OK is the , and okay is a lengthened form of that.
Yeah, ADL used to be my go to for looking up hate symbols, but then I learned about the zionism. That being said, AFAIK, the info in their hate symbol database is pretty accurate. Something about a stopped clock…
I did find this database recently and it seems to be pretty good too, though not as well laid out:
I mean, no. There is a huge history of slavery in Europe. Who do you think was involved in the Atlantic slave trade?
And it is not about sensitivity. It is a hateful word to use. You clearly knew there was an issue using it based on context, but you decided to do it anyhow. We could have got the same context by just saying, " you won’t name your dog a racial slur ike your grandpa did etc."
ADL make a list that explains what obscure symbols a very small number of people use, possibly ironically, and promote it via their website to turn it into a more powerful hate symbol.
The Roman salute used by Italy and Germany and the Bellamy salute used by Americans were similar but not exactly the same. Americans possibly created the Nazi salute’s use as a hate symbol by changing their own salute to be different and then showing people using either of the original salutes as Nazis in propaganda.
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