I’ve been meaning to try it out, it’s on GamePass, but I worry that it’s the kind of game that takes a lot of brainpower to “solve” while also requiring a lot of skill. I can do one or the other but both at once stresses me out! lol
a lot of games have added “hundreds” of hours of content by large and relatively empty open worlds that are full of worthless autogenerated side quests and collectible trinkets, which is undoubtedly a worse gameplay experience.
Personally, I really like watching Nilaus play factory games. I enjoy playing the games to a point but he puts forth an amount of effort that I can never bring myself to emulate and it’s really satisfying even to just watch. Satisfactory, Tectonica, DSP, etc
Okay, I’m in. I don’t preorder games anymore, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on day 1 reviews to make sure the game isn’t broken so I can buy it right when it comes out!
Oh, obviously Wild Hearts if you haven’t tried that yet. I don’t know if it has crossplay but it’s a newer MH clone with some interesting new mechanics. I found it to be just okay but it might scratch the itch for you.
For me, I’ve been getting into souls-like games. They scratch a similar itch to MH when it comes to skill-based play. There’s a new one coming out in a few days called Remnant 2 that looks to be on the less punishing side. Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for but worth checking out to see if you haven’t heard of it.
League was the poster child for toxic communities a decade or so ago when I played. It must have gotten better (it certainly couldn’t have gotten worse!) if this isn’t the top comment by a mile.
Yeah, I have no pride about using summons for the boss fights. I figure I can be l33t and solo bosses on my New Game+ play through if I ever get that far.
I do have alt-itis bad in these kinds of games. I started with a 2h Strength build, tried dual wield, sword and board, pure int mage, pure dex sword/bow, and dex/int spellblade. So far my 2h build and my spellblade have been the most fun for me. As you mentioned, I realized that the versatility of the spellblade worked really well… the ranged magic trivialized some areas and having a melee tool let me hold my own when range wasn’t an option. I am starting to think I need a better dex sword than the Estoc/Rapier tho. The poke poke move set is really bad against groups.