I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I really love Dragon Age: Inquisition. It has huge flaws, yes. Chiefly having way too much generic filler sidequesting.
Do note that you’ll need the DLC to get the most important part of the story. (Thanks EA.)
To be fair, I am not the model series fan. I gave up on Origins in the 12 hours of identical dungeon corridors underneath the dwarf city. Never played DA2. Love KotOR, Jade Empire (still holds up surprisingly well!), and Mass Effect, though.
If you want to save, you gotta be able to take the current state of everything and serialize it, then read what you’ve serialized and put it back. If you only do checkpoints, you can make assumptions about game state and serialize less.
Generally, it is much easier to develop AI and such when you never have to pull it’s state out and then restore it, because if that is done improperly you get bugs like the bandits in STALKER forgetting they were chasing you after a quicksave-quickload because their state machine is reset.
With checkpoints, you can usually say “right, enemies before here? Dead or dealt with. Enemies after here? they’re in their default state. Player is at this position in space. Just write down the stats and ignore the rest.”
And autosaves just make it one less menu to fiddle with.
lack of class or profession decision (one character can do all sucks),
random generated weapon/gear stats
coop where process isn’t shared to every player. Requires a multiple saves system to allow single player, as well as coop play, saves.
enemy level scaling with player level,
fully breaking weapon without being able to repair them
bound items. Seriously, this needs to stop. I’d like to share my gear with guild mates or my other characters. I want to be able to sell a good item again if I don’t need it. But so far only Ragnarok Online managed to do this well, that I know of.
MMORPG with fixed marketplace, like fixed prices, build in price statistics etc. ruining a possible economy focused gameplay in favor of the lazy and dumb players, who complain… because they are not skilled enough.
non MMORPGS with NPC that don’t move or have daily activities. Gothic did this so we’ll decades ago, I thought this would be standard by now
any pay2win element
any pay2skip grind purchases
any quality of life wallet gated
Battle-pass, season-pass, fomo bullshit
What I love
weather and seasons
music instruments, music class or weapons
hidden treasures you need to dig for or find treasure maps
NPC that have activities and are not glued to their vending table
animal follower
jumpsuit/glider
destroyable environment/footsteps
weapon degradation and maintenance
professions and weapon/gear crafting
alchemy like in Kingdom Come Deliverance
NPC that tell you where to go, instead of a questmarker and path showing you where to go,
able to respec my stat points only
verticality in Level Design, like Dark Souls 1
fishing with a bit of a challenge other than just pushing a button in time
character customization, hair, skin, body size, height, voice
fashion slots, like Terraria and now also Cyberpunk2077
changing cities through actions I did in the game. NPC got killed, house destroyed/build etc.
I just watched a video that covered this in part. You want to keep the player immersed in the game experience. The more interfaces you give them, the more they’re taken out of the experience.
So autosaves are a great way to keep the user interacting with the game and feeling immersed.
Autosaves are great and all… I just want to be able to quit whenever. There’s usually a confirmation when you’re trying to quit anyway. Just save and quit then. :P
I’m glad at least some games still allow you to do that.
The easiest way to break immersion is frustration. Not adding options to take color blindness into account does not add immersion for colorblind people because it’s more like the real world or has less UI. It adds frustration and ruins any chance of them being immersed. What frustrates us is not a universal and static list of concepts, so neither is immersion.
I love fast travel, warp gates, teleporting and anything that makes it easier and faster for me to get from Point A to Point B.
“Scenery is pretty.” Don’t care.
“Look at the extra content.” I’ll look if I want to. Don’t force it.
While I enjoy casual and relaxed games, taking forever to walk to where I want to go is neither casual nor relaxed. I wanna be where I wanna be in game and don’t pad on the gameplay hours with slow transport options.
A lot of things can cause “the mind to wander” and, frankly, I’m not a health professional but as a person who sometimes has trouble focusing I somewhat sympathize. There are times when I simply can’t sit down and enjoy myself, and there’s nothing that can be done about that. Usually times of high stress and anxiety.
But outside of those extreme cases, there’s generally a few things here and there that can help alleviate. The first, and maybe almost stupidly obvious one, is to do some of those tasks beforehand. I don’t have to stress about doing the dishes or paying the bills or returning a call if I just do it beforehand. Logging into the bank app is just 5 minutes, why worry about it otherwise.
Another is to get comfortable and shut yourself off. Leave your phone in a place you can’t reach from wherever you’re gaming (or watching a movie, or reading or studying. Your phone should actually be in a different room every time you don’t immediately need it) as well as any other electronic devices. Close the windows and doors, turn off your PC. Make it a bother to stop enjoying yourself.
Take a bathroom break (or if its in the evening, a shower+grooming) and maybe have a snack or a full meal. Have a bottle of water nearby. That crosses out basic biologic annoyances (until you need a pee break but that’s at least a healthy obstacle).
Exercise a bit. Sounds out there, but exhausting yourself physically isn’t only healthy, it also takes your mind off a lot of things. Since that’s a relatively boring activity that can also have your mind wander, have some podcasts handy, but something light and preferably with 2+ hosts so you can have several voices in your head that aren’t yours but also don’t need to follow a story or anything heavy. Going on a walk while listening to a 1 hour episode should be good enough (and something we all should do regardless of attention issues)
On the subject of podcasts, I’ve found that some games aren’t gripping enough to draw my attention or are repetitive enough that I don’t need to dedicate all of my attention to them, so I’ve dubbed them Podcast Games and do both at the same time. Roguelikes do very well in this regard, as well as management games, or anything that isn’t story heavy (or if the story blows) and where the sound isn’t exactly necessary.
And sometimes, ultimately, maybe you just aren’t really in the mood for a game. There are hobbies of mine that I enjoy, but don’t do much because I’m not “in the zone” as often, like reading or watching a TV series. So if gaming is like that for you, swap around and enjoy yourself, time spent doing something you like isn’t time wasted.
Optional: I’ve found that I’m much better at sitting down and watching a movie or a show when I have someone alongside me to chat up. Maybe having someone along to play/watch together, or simply streaming through Discord for a friend might be a solution. You’d be surprised at how many other people are also bored and would accept an invite to watch you play while chatting about their day.
Me and my spouse are getting back into Elden Ring. Created a new character and chosen a build that’s enjoyable for both of us, so we sit on a couch, passing the controller back and forth, exploring, doing quests, reading lore and praising the Erdtree. Good Times!
I would consider them a few different genres, but they are easily my favourite types of games these days. I cateogrize them in my steam list as below.
-Colony Builders: Games about building well, a colony, often from little to nothing. Often lots of You vs Environment friction, with the natural world. Tends to have a bit more focus on the individuals that comprise the colony. Examples: Rimworld (my favourite game of all time), Dwarf Fortress, Oxygen Not Included, Stranded Alien Dawn, Space Haven.
-City Builders: A bit broader in scope than a colony builder, working more on the macro level. Friction is often economic, sometimes adjusted with the natural world. Cities Skylines is kind of the prime exampe of this, but also games like Timberborn or Anno.
-Automation: Games about building a factory that…builds things automatically. Challenge tends to be logistical complexity but some games do feature combat as well. Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program (my personal favourite), Satisfactory, and Captain of Industry are the Four Horsemen of this genre to me. Techtonica is very early still but seems to have some promise as well.
For many of these games, there is a whole world of content to explore if you are interested in mods. Rimworld players regularly run hundreds of mods, my current game has about 350. Factorio has extensive overhaul mods that can take literally thousands of hours to finish in some cases (Py’s). Satisfactory has a surprisingly robust mod scene for an early access game too.
I see a pattern of games mentioned here! What do you call games like theme hospital? I’d love to skim a few recommendations for these kind of games that let you hire different employees to run parts of your business.
Polecam poszwendac sie po ciuchach, jak ma sie chwile. Od krótkich spodenek, przez spodnie, koszule, marynarkę po kapelusz lniany udało mi sie wyhaczyć. Oczywiście nie jest to jednorazowy szybki zakup, tylko loteria:) No i za całość pewnie wyszło 5 dyszek. No i może olxy i allegro?
Poproś ludzi, którzy chodzą często po lumpach (a są tacy, którzy to po prostu lubią i traktują jako hobby. Niektórzy nawet wpisują to sobie w opisie na tinderze :D), żeby Ci kupili to, czego potrzebujesz. :)
Totally agree, I don’t want to have to do research before or during playing and have to consult a build guide for every level up, just so I don’t mess up my character.
Just let me fuck around, find out and do it better all over again in my own time.
Having a character of one main class and a secondary class that could be switched at any time between any of the 9 classes.
8-slot skillbar with one heroic skill that could only come from your main class.
400+ total skills in the game.
Plenty of room for you to make your own homebrew builds, and some classic builds that were outside the box:
The assassin that used a staff (assacaster), the ranger that used necro skills to touch people to death (touch ranger), and the 55 monk, which had almost no hp but so much healing it was hard to kill.
It will always be my MMORPG because of the character design.
If "Secret World Legends" isn't already on your radar, it might be up your alley.
Haven't played GW1, but SWL has a moveset similar to what you described.
It's set in modern day, with the premise that all myths, conspiracy theories, urban legends etc are all true - and frequently need to be contained. There are three factions: STRONGLY recommend you choose Illuminati (best faction story line by a long shot).
The investigative missions will make you feel like a moron, but in a weirdly good way. SUPER satisfying to figure them out without looking up hints online.
Not a game I hear mentioned much, but man Secret World had so many great things going for it. The best quest design in a MMO* I have ever seen, and a really unique setting too. Shame it was managed so badly, in an alternate world where TSW took off and was still getting content updates, I would be thrilled.
I just bought Sun Haven to play with my girlfriend. I’m enjoying it so far, we kinda lost track of time playing lol. Though it seems like whatever job the host has, the players that join will have that job too which kinda sucks. Maybe I messed something up though. It doesn’t seem to matter much because you can kinda just ignore your job and do other things.
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