I guess this is kind of a troll comment, but Moonlight off a gaming PC or a cloud node with a GPU is actually a pretty perfect companion for the MBP’s 120Hz screen.
Dude, I remember people going OFF on Returnal not offering any saves and people having to keep their consoles in rest mode for days at an end because they wouldn’t want their runs to end. I kept arguing with people on rexxit that any respectable rogue-lite/-like has a save function - STS, Hades, Dead Cells - yet they still kept arguing that implenting saves would “ruin the vision of the game” and “make it too easy”.
Guess what Housemarque did: they added a save on exit option. You can now suspend your run and finish it whenever. Not having to potentially brick your console just because you can’t save mid-game sure is a boon lol. The game sure got a lot easier with this implemented. /s
STS does allow you to cheese the game with its save system, which is why most roguelikes also delete the save file after they load it, only saving the game when you need to put a bookmark in it to come back later.
It certainly helped me during my first Slay the Spire runs, when I’d often mess up the order of the cards (the most common being applying vulnerable AFTER doing all of my attacks).
It's a problem when cheating changes people's opinions on how fun the game is. If the game forces you to use a certain mechanic that you otherwise would have ignored, that often gives you a better appreciation for the game. In the case of a roguelike, if you can cheese the save system, you're no longer required to actually get good at the game systems and can instead keep reloading until the memorize the solution, which is the entire problem the genre is out to solve.
I mean, if you're knowingly turning on cheat codes in a game, you know you're deviating from the intended experience, but if you're doing something the software lets you do, that's something the designer is trying to tune to steer you toward having a better time. Often times you can take a dominant strategy and think less of the game for it being too easy or one-note, which can and does happen when you can exploit a save system like this. I got through the first Witcher game mostly by save scumming, and I didn't think particularly highly of it, but the sequels did a much better job of introducing me to the potions, oils, and monster hunting mechanics that would have made the game easier and more solvable without save scumming. Had I known for the first game what I knew of the sequels, I might have enjoyed the game more, but that first game especially didn't force me into learning those systems.
You’re viewing games as perfect and the designers’ vision as always correct. That’s not always true. Take XCom 2. Many people may tell you that ironman mode (prevents save scumming) is the only real way to play but the game is buggy as hell. Not only do things not always work right sometimes the game just crashes. A buddy of mine has lost multiple save files because of it. The game doesn’t force you to use ironman mode so it’s not a counterargument to what you’re saying but it is illustrative of the point I’m making about games not being perfect.
Also, why do you view save scumming as the dominant strategy? In reality, many difficult and unforgiving games all but force players to use specific strategies to win. Everything you’re saying about gamers avoiding fun choices for optimum ones is not unique to save scumming. Many games already force players to do this and things like save scumming can actually allow players to try different builds that are less optimal.
It’s like someone saying the only true way to enjoy a book is by physically reading a physical copy and that audiobooks are more optimal and therefore less fun. No. Different people just want different things.
Many of the B side challenges in Celeste I played with the 90% speed accessibility option. Trying for 30 minutes to try and get a single damn strawberry was just too much for me. I still had a blast playing it.
I'm neither assuming that a game is perfect or that the designer's vision is always correct, but the designer is intending for you to experience a game a certain way, and it's often most fun that way. If certain strategies are dominant such that they invalidate large portions of the game that are there, it usually results in that game being boring. Your mileage may vary, of course, but that's how these things tend to go. The Witcher is a much more interesting game for me when you utilize potions, oils, and monster manuals, and I found the combat to be quite boring when I didn't know how to interact with those systems and instead just reloaded saves for better dice rolls. By forcing you to play a certain way, like by omitting certain save systems, they're making sure you play the way they intended, and if the game is as good as they hoped to have made it, it will result in the most people having the best time.
Here's another example. Batman: Arkham combat is an amazing replication of what Batman is in video game form. It's one man taking on dozens of others, usually more lethally armed than he is, with some athleticism and a bunch of gadgets. You're incentivized via the scoring/XP system to never button mash, use every move in your arsenal at least once, never get hit, and to take out every enemy in the room in a single flowing combo. However, it didn't steer most players into playing that way very effectively (at least on normal difficulty), and many leave the combat system disappointed that they can beat it just by attacking with X and countering with Y.
Yesterday finally bought Remnant: From the Ashes on sale after seeing the new one all over Twitch. Played 6h of coop with my brother and hell was it a lot of fun. There seem to be less and less good coop games, but this one does a good job. Of course there are many small issues though (e.g. a memory leak crashing the game every few hours on Xbox lol). Glad there is a second one already waiting after we’re done.
XCOM 2: long war of the chosen (lwotc). Have heard about long war every now and again and finally decided to try it out. Gotta say it’s pretty hard but I am starting to get the hang of it
I play Dragons Dogma DA for weeks now and I still love how fresh the combat feels everytime you change vocation. Right now I am a magic archer and I pretty much spend all the weight I can carry on blast arrows. This plus the skill where I can double zoom in on enemies from far away and do A TON of damage makes me the biggest danger in all of gransys at the moment. I can’t stress this enough: the combat in this game is just so good and varied it’s absolutely insane!
But!
I just can’t stop thinking about how great it would be if Dragon’s Dogma had lore and quests like the third Witcher! I feel like Capcom tried with a handful of quests like the one with the dude from the village who constantly gets lost and you have to rescue him. Or some main storyline quests also can be exciting. And yet, most quests are kill quests with just a little textbox explaining who wants what killed.
Dragons Dogma made me realize how much of Witcher 3 is actually carried by the writing, the lore, the world and the interesting characters interacting in it and how bland, almost bad the combat is.
So now I wish CD Red would hire the people responsible for the combat in Dragons Dogma for the next Witcher! Sounds like a perfect game in my book!
So… this is going to come across as a weird suggestion, given that the company providing it is actually evil, but… I’m actually getting good usage from Google Play Pass at the moment. A £5/month subscription gives access to a wide range of Android games with absolutely no in app purchases and no adverts. I’m not sure if any MMOs are included in the catalogue: there’s like a thousand games in the program and I’ve tried out 4 so far. Because that’s the thing I’ve really noticed. With no in app purchases, I play a game for longer as I don’t run up against demands for money, adverts, or difficulty walls that are intended to get you to pay. So I just keep playing until I’ve done everything I wanted to do.
If you can tolerate the evil that is Google, it might be worth getting the free trial month and see if there are any MMOs.
Stop tempting me! 😂 Seriously though, I keep looking at the Play Pass and considering it. The game I previously played I was playing for three years and the developers just got greedier as time went on. But because it was the only game I was playing, I didn’t need it. Now I’m looking for something new, I may end up there.
The offerings are usually a mix of premium or semi-premium games as well as your typical predatory games. They all have had every bit of monetization stripped out of them (no dlc, no ads, no paid currency). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mmorpg on play pass but there are many high quality games. If you setup family sharing you can share the subscription at no extra cost. Good discount for annual renewal too.
So how does that work for the games that had monetization stripped out? Do you just get the reward for free since you’re paying for the subscription? Or do you just not have the option for that “purchase”?
most of the f2p offerings are games with energy systems limit play. And in those cases you simply have unlimited energy, or the entire energy system is removed. For other types you have ever jigsaw puzzle etc that was ever available for the game. Sometimes you need to go in and claim the dlc and it’ll then be active for you for as long as you are subbed (and as long as the game in question is part of the program) Usually the games that have heavy p2w and FoMo built into the core gameplay loop and mechanics don’t show up. I assume it’s because it would be way too much work to make the game fun to play and that they don’t want to give people a way to avoid the monetization.
2 examples I can remember easily: The Battle for Polytopia has every single faction unlocked from the start. Titan Quest is based on the earlier version that only had the first expansion, so the 2 more recent expansions are for sale in the ingame menu, but since you have play pass you just hit “download” on them and get them.
I wouldn’t expect to see a lot of clash of clans or raid shadow legends -types of game there, because “real money” is an important and significant resource in those games.
The amount of effort spent to convert the game to play pass varies, but in almost every game it’s not a detractor.
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