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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, the character design is genuinely a masterclass in converting a character's personality to the mechanics. I don't know about the DLC characters (Was waiting until they were all out to do any kind of replay) but they just nail it. The downside is you have to listen to Laura Bailey’s best attempt at a Russian accent for hours. Honestly should have seen it coming after War of the Chosen. It feels like Firaxis’ style is to write a metric ton of lines for every character, and then just record/include everything instead of going through and narrowing it down to the best stuff. I did read that they cut 30+ convos from the full game. Can’t imagine how terrible they must have been to not make the cut.
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May 8, 2023 17:59
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itskage posted:No I don't like it. It feels like an extra layer I have to go through to do things. XCOM I just build my characters with what I want and do it. Balanced by ammo, cool down, or resource generation. I don't have to build decks and worry about how many copies of types are in there and if it comes up and redraws and even if x character even gets to move this turn or next turn. It's a game but it's not nearly as "gamey". It is exactly as gamey. Building your deck is not meaningfully different from equipping gear. Also characters get free movement actions. Likewise you absolutely build your character how you want and they do it in MS. Unless you are building badly you generally are either building or spending resources and if you somehow keep getting dud cards that is a sign you should be replacing them with something better.
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May 8, 2023 18:18
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What deck building does is not a analogous to gear, come on now. Unless you reduce both concepts to mean just access to abilities.
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May 8, 2023 18:30
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Honest Thief posted:What deck building does is not a analogous to gear, come on now. Unless you reduce both concepts to mean just access to abilities. Deck builders are, at their heart, you just building available actions for your characters and trimming excess fat wherever possible. Like it isn't meaningfully different to the point you have action based deck builders where your cards are literally equipment. They also tend to be a lot more 'hard' in terms of numbers with greater predictability whereas something like XCOM (by nature) is about dealing with RNG until you are so OP you can shut it off.
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May 8, 2023 18:44
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What’s your point here? If someone explains why they dislike a game, you can’t just tell them how the thing they dislike is actually the same as the thing they like and expect them to change their mind.
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May 8, 2023 19:13
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Gerblyn posted:What’s your point here? If someone explains why they dislike a game, you can’t just tell them how the thing they dislike is actually the same as the thing they like and expect them to change their mind. I mean saying 'I refuse to play any game with the dreaded CARDS' is silly and reductive because cards in games just represent a different kind of abstraction. It is like saying 'I'll never play XCOM because it has to hit chances like Final Fantasy' I think it is fair to ask 'do you actually hate the gameplay or just the aesthetic of that abstraction' but cards as an abstraction can apply to everything from Slay The Spire to Neon White and dismissing a fame because it has a square thing representing an ability is kind of silly. (Neon White owns BTW) ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 19:25 on May 8, 2023 |
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May 8, 2023 19:23
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/\ likes and dislikes don't have to be rational. I don't like card based games. I won't play them, this game is an exception. I don't like first person games, I won't play them, but there are exceptions. Vengarr posted:The downside is you have to listen to Laura Bailey’s best attempt at a Russian accent for hours. See the soap opera is why I loved the game. The cards are dumb af, but I got used to them. It was the drama that brought me in when I was going to pass on this game. Soonmot fucked around with this message at 19:31 on May 8, 2023 |
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May 8, 2023 19:29
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ImpAtom posted:Deck builders are, at their heart, you just building available actions for your characters and trimming excess fat wherever possible. Like it isn't meaningfully different to the point you have action based deck builders where your cards are literally equipment. They also tend to be a lot more 'hard' in terms of numbers with greater predictability whereas something like XCOM (by nature) is about dealing with RNG until you are so OP you can shut it off. You're missing the point about deck builders "trimming the excess fat" which is about engaging with the rng, normalizing your draws to play the character how you want it. If you don't have something like that then it's not a deck builder, like Neon White is not a deck builder because it is literally equipment as cards, they're just visual representations for pickups. Honest Thief fucked around with this message at 19:38 on May 8, 2023 |
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May 8, 2023 19:35
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Soonmot posted:/\ likes and dislikes don't have to be rational. I don't like card based games. I won't play them, this game is an exception. I don't like first person games, I won't play them, but there are exceptions. I guess I don't get it because if I dislike something I usually try to understand why, which has lead me to me finding things I wouldn't have otherwise. Like I admit I won't play gatcha games but that is because they are designed to be predatory and I have the kind of personality that gets easily addicted to certain stuff.
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May 8, 2023 20:19
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ImpAtom posted:It is exactly as gamey. Building your deck is not meaningfully different from equipping gear. Also characters get free movement actions. I've never once, when playing any X-Com, equipped a character with a utility item, then, when I needed to use it, hoped that it happened to be available in my 'to hand' inventory.
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May 8, 2023 20:43
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TheCenturion posted:I've never once, when playing any X-Com, equipped a character with a utility item, then, when I needed to use it, hoped that it happened to be available in my 'to hand' inventory. While that is undoubtedly true, it only really matters if MS's mechanics were based around you always having what you need to hand. I never felt restricted in Midnight Sons, and found that the gameplay and theming of superheroes thinking on their feet meshed well.
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May 8, 2023 20:46
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Disco Pope posted:While that is undoubtedly true, it only really matters if MS's mechanics were based around you always having what you need to hand. I never felt restricted in Midnight Sons, and found that the gameplay and theming of superheroes thinking on their feet meshed well. I felt restricted by bad draws quite frequently. Weird that.
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May 8, 2023 21:05
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There are two separate issues with cards. The first is that for games that actually use them as cards (so decks, shuffling, draws, etc.), it often switches a lot of the game decisions to the deck building phase, which makes for a drier game experience. Manage your card list and theorycraft your combos, then go through the actual execution on autopilot. And drier execution when you're managing draws/cycling/discards instead of what the game is thematically about. The second is with cards as aesthetic (for example, Neon White, Titanfall 1). It is probably the laziest, most basic possible representation of a game token. A boardgame has cards because you need a physical object with rules text on it. You can just make it an item instead of an item card in a videogame. I don't actually care about the second, but the first is somewhat offputting to me. Especially when MS seemed more on the ccg side where you optimize over an evergrowing collection (as opposed to deckbuilders like StS, where modifying the deck part of a run/match). Though the reason I haven't gotten around to this game is that everything about the abbey side of things looks absolutely miserable to me. Which is the ultimate point of every time this conversation repeats on the internet, MS is a collection of many things for any potential buyer to hate, all of them big enough chunks of the game to be hard to ignore. The writing in their XCOMs started kinda bad and got much worse with every iteration imo, but it was easy to ignore.
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May 8, 2023 21:19
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TheCenturion posted:I've never once, when playing any X-Com, equipped a character with a utility item, then, when I needed to use it, hoped that it happened to be available in my 'to hand' inventory. No, but you've had bad luck kill a soldier or lose an objective. Likewise in MS in particular that only happens if you make a crap deck and that is akin to playing poorly and wondering why you are losing countries left and right. Like if anything I'd argue MS is *too* forgiving. It is relatively easy to pull wombo combos regularly and thr game can take away your best party members for the hardest fight and you still wreck poo poo. KNR posted:There are two separate issues with cards. The first is that for games that actually use them as cards (so decks, shuffling, draws, etc.), it often switches a lot of the game decisions to the deck building phase, which makes for a drier game experience. Manage your card list and theorycraft your combos, then go through the actual execution on autopilot. And drier execution when you're managing draws/cycling/discards instead of what the game is thematically about. I mean the first is factually untrue. Building a strong deck gives you the tools but learning when and where to use them is key. You don't 'just on on autopilot.' In something like Slay the Spire knowing when to take hits and use resources is important. MS is fairly forgiving as far as these things go!. At worst you lose a unit for a bit and decks are so small you don't need to take anything but good cards. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:38 on May 8, 2023 |
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May 8, 2023 21:33
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No, you’re not allowed to dislike this game! Look I’ll prove it, firstly…
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May 8, 2023 21:44
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Gerblyn posted:I felt restricted by bad draws quite frequently. Weird that. Of course, but restrictions that are perfectly within the mechanics of the game. That's different to the example of having your utility item in XCom randomly disable. The moments where I had to go "hmmm, so what do I do now?!" are where the moments of enjoyable frission happened.
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May 8, 2023 21:47
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I've beaten ascension 20 in StS and some decks you need to plan every turn carefully throughout, some you do just dump mindlessly once assembled. Which can be fine in a deckbuilder where the assembly process took up most of the run anyway.
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May 8, 2023 21:47
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Fundamentally all games are just reskins of pacman
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May 8, 2023 21:48
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KNR posted:I've beaten ascension 20 in StS and some decks you need to plan every turn carefully throughout, some you do just dump mindlessly once assembled. Which can be fine in a deckbuilder where the assembly process took up most of the run anyway. Oh yeah I mean there are fall asleep and win decks in StS but you can't really depend on them outside of seeded runs.
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May 8, 2023 21:54
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Disco Pope posted:Of course, but restrictions that are perfectly within the mechanics of the game. That's different to the example of having your utility item in XCom randomly disable. The moments where I had to go "hmmm, so what do I do now?!" are where the moments of enjoyable frission happened. Yeah, that’s true. MS frequently surprised me by making me always feel like I was on the edge of losing, but (almost) always having a path to victory somehow if you played right.
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May 8, 2023 21:55
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ImpAtom posted:It is exactly as gamey. Building your deck is not meaningfully different from equipping gear. Also characters get free movement actions. No I mean like IRL I take two guns and two grenades. I get in a shoot out. I can choose what gun to shoot back with or I can throw one of my two grenades. My accuracy is gonna be based on some kind of skill level I have and other factors. In xcom like video game I am effectively doing the same thing. Maybe I have 6 guns and some unrealistic amount of rockets but the gameplay is an analog to reality along some gradient depending on the game. In the card game version I'm trying to draw grenade cards, or the gun card I need to play my shoot action to discard and redraw, or shuffle, or remove permanently, or look at my first 5 csrds and place on on the top, or discard my hand... and I think this is exactly the problem I and (I assume) other people have with card based games. I don't like this extra layer of abstraction.
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May 8, 2023 22:34
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It’s not so much the case since I turned up the difficulty and can’t wipe the board on turn one any more, but some of my most satisfying battles in this game have been one-turn board wipes that come down to the last bit of heroism used to kill the last enemy with an environmental attack and an empty hand. It’s like a puzzle game, figuring out the correct sequence of actions and resource management to win as efficiently as possible in addition to really making your characters seem like the superheroes they are.
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May 8, 2023 22:36
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Gerblyn posted:Yeah, that’s true. MS frequently surprised me by making me always feel like I was on the edge of losing, but (almost) always having a path to victory somehow if you played right. In that way and several others (3 characters, small maps, telegraphed enemy actions, forced movement being key) this game feels like it is more inspired by Into The Breach than Slay The Spire.
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May 9, 2023 00:01
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TheCenturion posted:I've never once, when playing any X-Com, equipped a character with a utility item, then, when I needed to use it, hoped that it happened to be available in my 'to hand' inventory. And you put up with a bunch of mechanics built to balance out the ability to use every single ability at all times, ranging from timers to prevent overwatch creep to the pod reveal mechanics to the Alien Ruler BS mechanics. Even with that, modern X-Com suffers from the problem that if you're familiar with the game, it is fairly easy to run through the whole thing without losing soldiers, even on the highest difficulties. By introducing limitations, Midnight Suns leads to a tighter tactical game where you have to figure out a way around your limitations, where the modern X-Coms give you so much control over the tactical situation that it's rare you have much in the way of limitations at all. That doesn't mean X-Com isn't fun, or that Midnight Suns will be fun for everyone, or even that Midnight Suns doesn't allow for approaches that "break" the game. But your comment is roughly the equivalent of a Midnight Suns player saying "I never spent a turn attacking a target only to do nothing to that target." Different games have different limiting mechanisms and tactical considerations, and strategy games would not be better if we did away with those differences. Gerblyn posted:No, you’re not allowed to dislike this game! Look I’ll prove it, firstly… There are plenty of games I don't like. I don't go to that game thread here on Something Awful and post about not liking the game, because why should that matter to anyone? Either the initial post was trolling, meaningless, or an attempt to start a conversation. Mocking people for treating it like an invitation to discuss is like showing up to Book Club and mocking people for reading too much into books. We don't even serve punch here! Narsham fucked around with this message at 00:21 on May 9, 2023 |
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May 9, 2023 00:11
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I personally like that every turn in midnight suns is an efficiency puzzle using what you have on hand.
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May 9, 2023 00:16
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itskage posted:In the card game version I'm trying to draw grenade cards, or the gun card I need to play my shoot action to discard and redraw, or shuffle, or remove permanently, or look at my first 5 csrds and place on on the top, or discard my hand... and I think this is exactly the problem I and (I assume) other people have with card based games. I don't like this extra layer of abstraction. The non-card game version equivalent would be the random behavior of the enemies, whether they are in an area you can use grenades against them, what weapons they're using, whether they take cover or dodge your fire etc. In the case of XCOM its directly translatable to the much hated chance to hit mechanic.
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May 9, 2023 01:54
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cards or not cards are just an interface paradigm. you can make good or bad gameplay out of almost any interface like, i would look real strange at someone who says "yah i would rather play phoenix point than midnight suns; the former has a more XCOM-like UX and that's what i want" that said the deck building in midnight suns does kinda suck, not because it's where you make all your complex decisions (between the card type guardrails and there just not being that many available cards for non-hunter characters, it's just not that big of a decision space compared to the tactical map), but because the menus for it are inefficient as all hell and require running between multiple stations on the overworld
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May 9, 2023 03:24
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This game is more fun than XCOM e: w/o any DLC
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May 9, 2023 04:00
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Finally got my hands on this game and have been playing through the early bits and enjoying it a lot, despite having seen basically the entire story through watching an LP of it on YouTube. Still a fun game so far. Planning to do a Light-side run first, since I've already seen a Dark-side run.
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May 9, 2023 04:09
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Away all Goats posted:The non-card game version equivalent would be the random behavior of the enemies, whether they are in an area you can use grenades against them, what weapons they're using, whether they take cover or dodge your fire etc. In the case of XCOM its directly translatable to the much hated chance to hit mechanic. Yeah I get that, but that's more grounded in reality than drawing cards to determine my available actions. I mean midnight suns does a good job blending them, but to zoom out here a bit I'm originally responding to someone saying it's nonsense to not like card mechanics because you can correlate the gameplay mechanics. But I'm saying no, even if you correlate, it's still a layer of abstraction from reality that's not as enjoyable for some (or possibly a lot) of us.
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May 9, 2023 05:50
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Narsham posted:
I get that, I just think there's a difference between discussing why someone dislikes a game and actively arguing against it as if someone's reasons for disliking things can be removed by debate. Like, if I say "I dislike this thing because X" and someone else goes "I like X because Y" then cool, we acknowledge each other's points and I see different side of X that maybe means I'll change my attitude towards the game. But if I say "I dislike this because of X" and someone says "You're wrong, X is good and therefore your point is invalid" then that's just dismissive. Instead of acknowledging a difference of opinion, it's becomes an intellectual challenge with a correct side and an incorrect side, which feels like a pretty bad way to approach a discussion of personal preferences. I guess I was being a bit of a dick about tho, it's not a big deal really.
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May 9, 2023 09:44
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Narsham posted:There are plenty of games I don't like. I don't go to that game thread here on Something Awful and post about not liking the game, because why should that matter to anyone? Either the initial post was trolling, meaningless, or an attempt to start a conversation. Mocking people for treating it like an invitation to discuss is like showing up to Book Club and mocking people for reading too much into books. We don't even serve punch here! I don't believe that's always the case in this thread. There's a lot of discussion about why the game flopped commercially, and there's a lot of aspects to this game that could contribute to that. I think when we try to discuss those criticisms, people start trying to defend the game from those explanations. Then through those arguments the criticisms are mistaken for thread making GBS threads. E: or it is actual thread making GBS threads stemming from responding to arguments.
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May 9, 2023 13:02
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The game sold poorly because Marvel fans don't like things that are good, they like things that are poo poo.
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May 9, 2023 13:07
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In a way this is almost a game likers game. Its extremely game in each field, whether RPG heart meters or card combat. Its the sort of game that along with XCOM sells me on whatever Jake Solomon is going to try even though he has said whats next will be different. But its also a Cape game in the Tactics genre. The fans of both are extremely... discerning and specific in their tastes. They like their things more than Games. So, maybe this marriage of setting and game design might have been a flawed one, in a commercial sense. I think it was a great attempt though that maybe could have used a little more QA prior to release? Otherwise, for me this game was mostly good, and often great.
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May 9, 2023 13:29
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itskage posted:I don't believe that's always the case in this thread. There's a lot of discussion about why the game flopped commercially, and there's a lot of aspects to this game that could contribute to that. I think when we try to discuss those criticisms, people start trying to defend the game from those explanations. Then through those arguments the criticisms are mistaken for thread making GBS threads. The problem is that people like to go back to 'cards' despite the fact there is no evidence anywhere that people despise cards and to be honest I never heard the 'I refuse to play any game with, ugh, cards in them' until it became the rallying cry for XCOM fans angry XCOM3 wasn't next on the docket. Like it is much easier to point to the Marvel burnout and weird release date or bad marketing or the mistaken impression it was Microtransaction City or the blunt fact that ' Midnight Suns' is a name that means jack poo poo even to most Marvel fans. Edit: And since this sounded kinda lovely, not trying to say anyone is obligated to like cards or whatever, just that I don't believe it is particularly widespread that cards = neverplay. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 14:10 on May 9, 2023 |
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May 9, 2023 13:39
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Have many people needed to make that complaint? I'm struggling to think of many games with both card mechanics and tactical battles/longform strategic campaigns. They're related genres for sure but they don't cross over that much. There have been a few with this kind of thing but they're all smaller indie things with limited expectations on them, not things that would generate a huge amount of chatter even if they were disappointing. I'd be genuinely interested if there are comparables that I'm missing, because I enjoy this game and would be interested in other stuff like it. Setting aside whether it's actually a good system, it's a licenced game with less recognisable characters from a franchise that has a very mixed reputation with gamers, without many direct comparables for what it might be like to play, and a frankly pretty lacking marketing push. All at a AAA (or nearby, not sure what it goes for elsewhere) price point, out of the realm of buying on a whim for a lot of people, and not showing it's best in the first couple of hours where people might use the refund period for a demo. I can't say I'm surprised a lot of people passed on it, whether or not they really looked into it. I'm pretty well in the centre of the target market venn diagram and even then I only picked it up because of the free weekend.
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May 9, 2023 15:27
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To be honest, I thought the marvel stuff was going to keep me going through the card game stuff that I usually don’t like. It ended up the opposite though and I loved the card game. My biggest issue is that there is like 0 replayability and the difference between light and dark is barely noticeable in the story. You can just grind out both sets of points too in one play through. I still wouldn’t put this above any of the x-com’s though and that is mostly due to replayability. Edit: this game would have been much better without the marvel IP and would let them have much better interactions during the social part.
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May 9, 2023 15:30
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ImpAtom posted:The problem is that people like to go back to 'cards' despite the fact there is no evidence anywhere that people despise cards and to be honest I never heard the 'I refuse to play any game with, ugh, cards in them' until it became the rallying cry for XCOM fans angry XCOM3 wasn't next on the docket. My only real evidence for that is comment sections under ads for it. And yeah, those are never great spaces, but comments like "looks like a phone game" and "don't buy this it's turn-based, not a real game" were common. I've only seen the views of other XCom fans when I've gone looking for them, or discussed them in "real-life" with the handful of people I know who even know what X-Com is. Frankly, the one XCom mega fan I know likes the permadeath and high stakes and has no affection for comics or narrative games at all, so don't blame him for bowing out. And the ads all really hid what the game actually is, so it possibly alienated people who were up for a turn-based strategy game and saw... what exactly? The Super combos from Marvel vs Capcom? If I didn't know who Firaxis are, I likely would have ignored it too if not for Robbie Reyes showing up scratching my comics itch. EDIT: I guess what I mean is, there are people who were incredibly negative about this because its not Arkham City or Miles Morales: Spider-Man, especially at £54.99 on release. Disco Pope fucked around with this message at 15:35 on May 9, 2023 |
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May 9, 2023 15:30
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Irony.or.Death posted:why the card hate? i can invent a few semi-plausible explanations but none of them really make sense to me I'd rather have a guaranteed set of tools than something random (I know,  , but it's the difference between shooting and missing and not being able to shoot at all to me), and I don't like deckbuildersAgain, I have zero clue if this is even applicable to MS lol, I just saw em and decided no thanks RBA Starblade fucked around with this message at 15:48 on May 9, 2023 |
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May 9, 2023 15:42
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For me, there's a difference between 'you get to pick your own actions in the game, but the game itself is trying to win' and 'here's your randomized list of actions for this turn, figure out the smartest thing to do with them.' I like the first one, I don't like the second one. Other people have their own preferences. It's all good. But they're very different approaches to player engagement.
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May 9, 2023 16:14
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