Oh I know, I’ve played it, I like it, but I’m a chronic shitpost enjoyer. I suppose you can’t beat the price, but I think I’d hesitate to call it a puzzle game, exactly?
Nier Automata on the Switch, it is the only version I have played so far I think it is a great port… The anime motivated me to get around this title BTW (I think it is usually the other way around) so far I like it, even if it is the same genre that seems to reign the gaming market nowadays, open world action RPG…
Ex game dev here who jumped ship and is now doing VR training stuff for a big medical company.
I don’t regret it one bit. You definitely lose some of the spirit and excitement of working with people who are super excited to make the fun games they grew up playing, but on the flip side, if you’ve been in the industry long enough to have 18 years under your belt, you’ve probably had enough of that excitement to see the bad sides of it.
By far the nicest thing about being in an industry that isn’t entertainment is that the success of the “product” you’re making is so much easier to define than “is this fun” or “will this help playing retention”. I can’t describe how nice it is to have actual users instead of players, and UX’ers who to come tell me what people want. Sure, it might not be as fun as games, but to be honest, I’m OK with that. I get vastly better pay, better work life balance, and most importantly, a complete lack of any kind of game director whose vision I must try to make real.
I'm playing Apollo Justice on my N3DS after playing Phoenix Wright 2 and 3. So far I find it less interesting, I played it for a bit way back in the DS days but can't remember much. Strangely enough, Maya Fei is my favourite character of the franchise, with her half a brain cell and all.
I'm also trying to get through Persona 5 Royal, I've tried 4 times between the original on PS3 and this one. I can't get engaged enough and it's so frustrating. I loved Persona 3 and 4 and have played them a few times since I discovered them in 2011 or so and was really hyped for 5 for years. But 5 feels like a worse Persona 4, despite all the enhancements. I just finished the third palace (the farthest I ever got was the fourth palace a few years ago) and I haven't touched it in a couple of days because I can't find the will to go on. Maybe it's me who has changed, although I still find 3 and 4 very enjoyable.
Maya is a genius compared to Pearl. Poor girl was introduced as a little kid and they decided she’d stay a toddler in a grown-up body for the rest her life.
P5R was my first introduction to the series, but I’ve heard the characters in P4 are much more fleshed out. Is that your issue, or would you say it’s the game mechanics that are bugging you?
I'd say it's a bit of both. I have the impression that they wanted to do a better Persona 4 but for me the characters feel more artificial and the game feels bloated in comparison. By wanting to expand on everything that made P4 so good, they expanded everything a bit too much for me. And reading the game lasts some 100-120 hours reinforces this feeling and makes me uncomfortable, which shouldn't be the case with such a beloved franchise.
I can’t really compare too much to P4G, since I never got very far in it (I missed the QoL improvements).
I think being able to save in safe rooms let them expand the Palaces/Dungeons, which I could see making the game drag for some. Personally, I enjoyed the safe room mechanic since it meant that I could play for short times if necessary, which let me “pick up and play” much easier.
The sleep function is pretty nice, but I like to swap games relatively frequently; so being able to save frequently is still critical for me. Plus at the time, I was just playing on my personal computer, so I couldn’t leave it running, even if I wanted to.
For P5R, I suggest only playing for an hour or a two at a time; I think it helps keep the game from dragging. For me, it helped keep the exploration aspect fun since I didn’t have to rush to the end since I was probably not getting there in this sitting anyways.
That’s pretty cool. Does it let you pause games indefinitely while playing other games, or does it just initiate a pause while you’re on the home screen, etc?
A Steam Deck plugin for the Decky Plugin Loader that makes it possible to pause and resume games even for those that don't have an immediate pause option.
Useful for when you wish to temporarily suspend an application in order to redirect the cpu and gpu ressources to another without having to close it.
I intend to replay Apollo Justice for the same reasons as you lol, I wish I didn’t forget the plot of the Ace Attorney games so I could keep with the main story.
You have very strong opinions for a game you clearly have never played. If you boldly claim a game is "trash", but haven't actually played a minute of it yourself, then your opinion is invalid, and should be ridiculed and dismissed.
That said, if you're actually looking for a real answer and not just shouting "look at me and my superior, sophisticated taste in video games," it may come as a shock to learn that the answer isn't as profound as you may think: Different people like different things.
I don’t have to play any mobile F2P gacha games, in order to know that they’re trash. That whole category of “games” is morally and ethically unacceptable.
Individuals can like whatever they want, but that doesn’t change the moral and ethical implications. It is never okay to associate with gacha games, on any level.
I’m prejudiced against gacha games in the same way that I’m prejudiced against slavery, murder, kidnapping, rape, etc. These are all things that are unethical and immoral. We SHOULD be prejudiced against things that are unethical and immoral. That’s how being a good person works.
I don’t have to play any mobile F2P gacha games, in order to know that they’re trash.
You do, actually. That's kinda the entire point of what I just said.
It is never okay to associate with gacha games, on any level.
Another strange confusion between "opinion" and "fact". Maybe you don't like gacha games; that's fine, but other people love them, and some of them probably think whatever indie arthouse gamejam game or whatever you find superior is actually trash.
People can spend their time and money however they want to. The fact that it seems to bother you is something that perhaps you may want to reflect upon, maybe isolate whatever insecurity you have that's causing this sort of disproportional reaction from you.
What other blatantly unethical shit are you into? Slavery? Dumping radioactive and chemical waste into nature preserves? Do you have to see all examples of that shit on a case-by-case basis, to see if you’re cool with it?
You've yet to articulate what's unethical. You can't just say "it's bad because I say so" and expect anybody to be onboard. Use your words and show us that you actually understand the things you're talking about. Because so far, it really seems more like you're just trying to show off how enlightened you are for not liking a popular thing, and less like something you actually fully comprehend or actually care about in the first place.
I mean, are you fucking serious? I had to spell that shit out for you, word for fucking word? I can’t even figure out the degree to which you’re fucking gaslighting me. Which is the point, I suppose. Congratulations.
So, you may have known this if you played the game or perhaps even spent two minutes researching the thing you're pretending to be an expert on, but you don't have to spend money on the game. Like, at all. And other people spending money on the game doesn't impact you, as a player, because there is no multiplayer.
Anyway, thanks for the live demonstration of my point about informed opinions and such. This concludes the "ridicule" portion, now begins "dismiss".
other people spending money on the game doesn’t impact you
So you’re just confirming that you’re a psychopath/sociopath.
I care about other people, EVEN IF THEIR SUFFERING DOESN’T DIRECTLY AFFECT ME.
I realize this is a completely foreign concept to you, so I’ll try to explain it in very simple terms, one final time:
I am not going to support a game with a gambling-based structure, because I care about other humans. I refuse to support unethical developers who are exploiting gambling addicts. That’s completely separate from whether I’m going to spend money on the game myself, or whether I’m theoretically able to get everything I want from the game, without the gambling ever affecting me.
Again, I realize that your neurology isn’t correctly configured to experience empathy. You can’t be fixed.
So you’re just confirming that you’re a psychopath/sociopath.
I like how you had to use both terms because you don't actually know which one is accurate for the absolute fivehead accusations you're making. Another amazing conclusion from the World's Smartest Man.
FYI, psychopathy and sociopathy aren't remotely the same thing. Please, quit taking about things you don't understand, it's becoming a bad habit at this point. Literally nobody here is fooled by it and you're only embarrassing yourself.
Oh, so I’m supposed to know EXACTLY which kind of reptilian monster you are?
Doesn’t matter to me. You’re not a human. You’re an unfeeling beast, without the emotional capacity to care for other people. You’ve admitted that much, and that’s all I need to know. Everything else you’ve said makes total sense, now.
Your points would carry more weight if you weren’t so obnoxiously condescending. You write like a high schooler who is baselessly confident that they’re smarter than everyone they talk to because they read a few headlines.
Take it down a notch, buddy boy. Your hyperbole just makes you look like an idiot
No one you’re arguing with has been as wrong as comparing playing mobile games to supporting slavery. You’re definitely on the cartoonish end of being wrong
I see what you’re saying. It just gets to me, the fact that their starting point was basically “morals and ethics don’t exist. Everything is just personal preference.”
At that point, it’s like I’m compelled to give SOME KIND OF EXAMPLE of what a morally wrong thing might be.
Morals aren’t relevant when you’re talking about if a game is fun or not, though. And the game being fun (if it is - I’ve never even heard of it) is why people play. Your first post was a whole lot of high horsin that made your question seem rhetorical. Like you just wanted to rant and didn’t actually care that people find the game fun to play
So a guy registered on lemmynsfw, an instance whose users have been known to post exploitative pictures, is bitching about... gacha games. Oh wow. Wow.
Funny story, my partner sent me a gacha game and I have yet to spend a dime. I play for maybe 20 minutes a week. If someone is unable to control their spending on make-believe prizes, then they have underlying issues they need to work out.
Your assertion that gacha = slavery is about the most ridiculous thing I've read all day, and I had to open Twitter.
Why even waste your time making this post if you don’t actually want anyone to debate you? In your post, and in a couple comments, you say you can’t/won’t be dissuaded from your opinion; so literally why waste your energy making this post (or any of your other bullshit ones, for that matter)?
I actually got my answer. Apparently, there really are elements in the game that would have been valid, if they were in an actual game, instead of a money-sucking, immoral racketeering enterprise.
I wanted to know if that was the case, or if it was just about anime perverts getting off on anime tiddys.
Ain’t no “whatever” about it, my dude. Have I not explained my reasons enough for you to have a basic understanding of them?
And I literally was curious. I was wondering if this game had any nuggets of actual unique (wasted) potential, or if it’s just particularly successful at playing the psychological trickery of: ANIME TITS --> SLOT MACHINE ELEMENTS --> MORE ANIME TITS --> A TINY SLICE OF GAMELIKE ACTIVITY --> MORE TITS --> MORE GAMBLING --> MORE TITS, etc.
Hey, I didn’t mean to make it exclusively about anime titties. There are completely non-anime-related games that use exploitative gacha mechanics.
I’m referring to games that exploit gambling addicts. Do you understand that situation? The harm that is being caused by games openly exploiting people who can’t control themselves?
It’s exactly the same as serving alcohol to an alcoholic. If you do that shit, you’re an asshole.
And gacha games are even worse than actual casinos, for two reasons:
First, because they don’t involve the players winning money, the racketeers aren’t even putting any of their own cash at risk. Even with the house advantage, there’s always SOME chance that a real casino will lose money, every time someone pulls a slot machine lever. Gacha games, though, they don’t lose any money when you win a character, or a skin, or a weapon, or some fake gold pieces.
Secondly, because there’s no real money being won, gacha games evade existing laws against gambling. People are free to LOSE their money, all the way to zero, but they can’t win a cent, so it’s all nice and legal.
That shit is fucked up. Gacha games are built on savage exploitation. I’ll hasten to add that not all F2P games are based on the most awful version of this metric. Some games don’t encourage the gambling mentality nearly as much, and I should have given them credit, sooner. If you’re just able to buy skins or gold or whatever, it’s not as bad. As long as the game doesn’t come back in some other direction and get you by limiting your ability to play the game with artificial “stamina” mechanics, or whatever else, and pry exploitative amounts of money out of you, that way.
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.
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
Real time strategy games are not my cup of tea. Nothing against anyone who enjoys them, understand, but they're basically exercises in who can do the clicky clicky faster. Give me a turn-based game any day... where you actually have to out-think versus out-click your opponents.
Oh, and any game that pits console players against PC players. Yes, let's put the 'stock controllers only' console players up against the PC players with $8,675,309.00 of custom equipment and every cheat they can get away with. Sounds like a reasonable plan. Overwatch, I'm looking at you.
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.
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.
I played the Witness for… maybe 5 hours? when it came out. A friend got all the beacons and it took forever! I was amazed at how much variation this game had in its puzzles.
I should really pick it up again, maybe I’ll get my partner to try it. Is it on ps5?
I can't comment on this title in particular but if you load it on your PS5 and receive a toast which reads something to the effect of "when playing on PS5, this game may exhibit errors or unexpected behavior" then it means some part of the game is absolutely fucked up but still "playable."
For example, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time messes up very late in to the game on the PS5 where a space ship environment zooms very far out, the controls become locked in such a way where camera control doesn't work, and directional movement controls seem arbitrarily mapped. While someone more patient and talented than I may have been able to navigate through that issue, I couldn't proceed until I continued the game on my PS4 via cloud save transfer.
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
bin.pol.social
Aktywne