I just use the unique named backpacks I find. Like I have a “backpack,” “Bewildered Adventurer’s Backpack,” “Old backpack,” “Rotting backpack,” etc.
I keep my potions in the bewildered bag, scrolls in the old bag, and throwables in the rotting bag. All the quest items (except the damn artifact) into the backpack I started with, along with my alchemy and supply pouches, gold and keyring.
If you pick up container items like satchels and backpacks, you can use them as nesting storage in your inventory (perfect for all the letters and notes you pick up for example). But you can’t name the container, it’s just “pouch”
Oh shit, I didn’t even think of picking those up. I only just discovered I can pick up the books that default to reading on click. Didn’t even think to use that on backpacks.
I think Satisfactory hits a few of these targets, if you haven’t already tried it. The amount of resources is determined by a map that is not procedurally generated, so there is a hard cap to your resources per minute, though the resources never run out. So end game focuses more on playing efficiently rather than brute expansion.
Indies really are the way to go for both customers and developers if they want a better, more ethical and respectful environment. It is a risky career path, but given how many major publishers treat the developers under them, it's not like sticking with mainstream would lead to a comfortable stable livelihood either.
Baldur's Gate 3 really put me in a dilemma, but I think I'll ultimately buy it because I want to support Larian Studios more than I want to avoid Wizards of the Coast. I wouldn't trust Wizards enough to get One D&D and the likely tabletop lootbox hell they are scheming, but BG 3 is delivering a good product that deserves support. Though buying the Divinity games is an alternative if you don't want WotC to get any money.
On the other side of the spectrum: Older games that I own on CD-ROMs are much faster to pirate, download, and install than it would be to find the CD in the attic and then hunt for the USB CD Drive ;)
limited inventories are kind of abused currently and that unlimited inventory systems would give more player choices.
In some sense that’s correct. You’d have more options, but you wouldn’t take them. Having a limited inventory forces you to make choices. Yes, you can use that scroll/potion/whatever, because you’re gonna run out of room, so feel free. On the other hand, I think that many devs don’t consider inventory management enough! I think that it’s often an afterthought and could use more dev attention.
What game mechanics do you love and hate?
Hate: instakills. Diablo 4 and Risk of Rain 2 are my current games that have this. ROR2 is not as bad, you can prevent this by getting enough defensive items. D4 is worse about this. You can be chewing thru trash mobs just fine but get to a boss and immediately die. There’s no ramp up to this.
Inventory management is one aspect of Diablo 1 that I liked a lot. If you played MP, you could either transfer your gear to mules… But if you wanted to play “as the game is intended”, you had very limited space to carry between games and had to choose which items you want to carry with you to the next game. I did a playthrough through the 3 difficulties with Warrior a few years ago and I loved having to make these choices.
On the topic of instakills, I always mod them out of Fallout 4 and Skyrim, because it’s annoying as hell that I can be instakilled from full HP, when it would otherwise take several hits to even endanger me.
If you play RoR2 on PC, you owe it to yourself to install some Quality of Life mods, like one that fixes or improves the game’s built in one shot protection. Also, auto sprint.
There are certainly many games that shouldn’t have limited inventories that have them, but I also think there are many games for which a limited inventory enhance the game. I do enjoy games that make me make decisions about what I want to take with me and budget my inventory space when it makes sense.
Slow grounded movement in open world games is so dumb. Why the fuck do you think I want to spend 5minutes walking across a plain or on a path I can’t that forces me to move slowly. I do appreciate how some games like this actively just take control for you so you can do a chore (Final Fantasy XIV autodrive, RDR2 lets you automatically move on a path while riding a horse) butIf your open world is that boring, can you just add a mode that brings me to my destination?
I’d much rather a more densely populated world on a smaller scale (Yakuza) some fun extreme forms of movement (Gravity Rush, Tears of the Kingdom). Heck even just have a faster option for mobility on basic terrain is better (Elden Ring). If there was a big desert and you gave me a dune buggy that goes 100mph, that feels way better then having to walk/trod around a hilly or mountainous landscape dotted with areas you have to move around or carefully move through.
Obviously if you lean into that mechanic as being intentionally frustrating, feel free.
In a similar vein for me, I really dislike cutscenes in a lot of first person games where you still have control of your character, but the only thing you can do is sloooowly move forward or move your camera slightly to the side. Just make it an actual cinematic so I can just sit back and watch instead of pretending it’s gameplay.
Death Stranding is a game completely about grounded movement, but it makes it enjoyable. Usually traveling in games is mostly about turning your brain off and moving forward. DS you need to pay attention to your environment and character and plan a path forward. It’s actually engaging. I don’t expect other games to do as well as a game where that’s 99% of what they were trying, but I’d hope they learn from it at least. I haven’t seen much, if any, of that yet though.
Death Stranding 100% gets this right, although it’s a bit weird in the end-game when your optimal choice is typically some combination of vehicles and ziplines.
Paying attention to the elevation, pathing around rocks and trying to stay level is a lot more fun than it sounds. Some of the best moments in that game it just lets some chill music play while you carefully walk from A-B and it’s a ton of fun the whole time.
Then you finally reach your destination and the story feels almost entirely detached from the walking experience and characters with the dumbest names imaginable explain some made up bullshit to you for 45 minutes.
This is one big reason why I liked Fenyx way better than Breath of the Wild. The Fenyx world is far smaller, but also more dense with actually interesting things to do. You have a horse in both, but the distances in BotW are still just pointlessly big, esp. when 90% of the things you can find are just the same two things: shrines and koroks.
Genuine question: how much of the marketing material did you see? I thought it was always clear that it was gonna be an exploration/puzzle game in a cyberpunk world with a baddie.
I had the opposite reaction, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed the small things, like scratching a carpet!
I do hope you find something more like what you’re wishing for, though 🙂
Yeah if OP went into stray expecting an open world survival game, that’s on them. It’s kind of silly to be disappointed that a game does not meet expectations fabricated entirely within your own head.
It’s barely recognisable from the below average game that released in 2016. There used to be nothing to do in it, now there’s so much to do that it’s overwhelming. It’s a very good game now, and you have to give credit to Hello Games for what they’ve done to make it what it was always supposed to be.
Still some things I don’t love about it, but on the whole it’s well worth playing if you’re into that type of game.
The way the game launched makes me never want to buy a game from them again. It’s nice it’s better now, but now the game is almost 10 years old. They straight up lied about what was going to be in the game a release.
Now they are working on a new game and I’ll read things about how ambitious it is and fans hope they can deliver.
Lol no. They will do the same thing and lie about what’s in it to get people’s money. They may eventually make the game better, but they should be doing that before releasing pure lies.
As someone who bought it at launch, I give them credit for it. Hats off to them…
Still am never buying Hello Games games, or anything by Sean Murray, ever again.
$60 for an early access tech demo where they lied about dozens of features. It is still missing promised features after all of their work - which speaks more to the amount of bullshit they spew than the feature set because the features checklist is as shallow as a puddle.
Reading the language off of system locale only AND not giving players option to change in settings on a AAA game that has been out for a year is unacceptable.
Not an Epic exclusive on PC, yay! I'm sad that the masterpiece Alan Wake 2 was fucked over so much by not releasing on Steam, glad they aren't repeating that
Epic was actually the publisher (So no Steam) and gave Remedy free hands in development and funding. It took some time but the game is now making profit. Epic takes 50%.
Yeah, which means it will probably never be released on Steam, which is even worse than the timed Epic exclusives where they pay to keep games out of other store fronts for a year or whatever. Even Microsoft and Sony are rarely doing full exclusive releases like this anymore.
You'd think a developer as well known as Remedy would be able to find funding from a less restrictive publisher. Fucking Epic
I always hear about Dwarf Fortress being the spiritual progenitor of Rimworld; “It walked so Rimworld could Run” kind of thing. But honestly everything I’m reading in the comments makes it sound even MORE fucked up than Rimworld (in the best kind of way).
There was another bug where dwarfs would sometimes go blind after a fight. The problem was that they got blood in their eyes and had no way to get it out. This led to the addition of eyelids so they could blink away blood.
Starting with 2 cats would mean the extinction of local wildlife because they would breed and hunt everything until there are only cats.
Dwarf Fortress is so complicated that the bugs tend to be hilarious.
EDIT: Okay clearly the cat alcohol story is already infamous and is recounted much better about a dozen times in this very thread. XD
Also don’t forget players discovering tons of dead cats, apparently from alcohol poisoning.
If I recall correctly, their fur absorbed liquids. The cats walked in booze. Each paw counted erroneously as a full mug of beer absorbed. When the cats cleaned themselves, they drunk themselves to death.
Game is absolutely bonkers wild and a gem of emergent mechanics.
In Rimworld leather in leathercraft also does not care whats the origin of it. But it’s named appropriately. So you can be chilling on a leather couch made from your grandmother while admiring your new leather art piece you made from your son.
You should look up mermaid bone farming if you want to be horrified. It was so bad. Toady actually stepped in and made mermaid bones worthless so that we would stop the atrocities. Normally he’s all dwarves will be dwarves and blood for the blood God but this was the first recorded instance of him nerfing the game to change the way players played the game.
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