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Zorodius posted:if anyone was interested in Enter the Gungeon, but turned off by the fact it didn't give you any ammo to use with your cool guns, you should know there was a bug that was making most ammo not drop while holding the starter weapon, and it's fixed on PC now. It makes a lot of sense. I kept seeing people say things like "If only you could actually use the guns the game gave you  " and "This game is so close to being good, but you're forced to use only the starter pistol since ammo is so rare." and I thought they were idiots since I was usually getting multiple ammo boxes per floor. Also, the desire to not run out of ammo is strong; I played with friends, and two of them said something like "I have to stop using this gun now. I'm almost out of ammo. Well, almost halfway down, anyways." And then they'd just stop using the gun until it was refilled.
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May 9, 2016 02:36
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The other difference is that in Minecraft there is no real objective, so exploring a cave system isn't getting in the way of continuing the game, it's just a fun thing to do. In Daggerfall you were on a time limit to find whatever it was you were looking for in the dungeon and this was just one of many quests to do in the game. Getting lost in a Daggerfall dungeon stalls your progress in the game. They can be awesome fun but when every little tower has a massive underground complex it can get annoying.
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May 9, 2016 02:43
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chiefnewo posted:They can be awesome fun but when every little tower has a massive underground complex it can get annoying. Hey, is there a RL that is similar to Daggerfall? Countless randomly generated cities/dungeons/quests. I can only think of Dwarf Fortress: Adventure Mode.
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May 9, 2016 07:49
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Lampsacus posted:Hey, is there a RL that is similar to Daggerfall? Countless randomly generated cities/dungeons/quests. I can only think of Dwarf Fortress: Adventure Mode. If you cobble together the right combination of Minecraft City/Dungeon generator and magic mods you can basically get this. I know this because that's exactly what I did, I even replace the normal Minecraft soundtrack with Daggerfall  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbjpdwDxFhE Rutibex fucked around with this message at 12:07 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 12:03
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Lampsacus posted:Hey, is there a RL that is similar to Daggerfall? Countless randomly generated cities/dungeons/quests. I can only think of Dwarf Fortress: Adventure Mode. I think this is what Ultima Ratio Regnum will eventually be.
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May 9, 2016 12:42
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So how do I stop dying constantly in ToME? I always feel like I get randomly waylaid by some situation where I die in one turn with no way out.
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May 9, 2016 18:17
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KaosMachina posted:So how do I stop dying constantly in ToME? The first thing you should do in every game is troll all the stores in all the towns you have access to for (in rough order of importance) better infusions, +health items, and a 4-5 radius light source. "Better" infusions means ones with low cooldowns and that scale with your primary stats -- they might not necessarily have the biggest numbers, but the ability to use them frequently means less wastage and that they're more often available on demand. Healing + Damage Shield + Physical Wild is good for most characters, although Regen is a reasonable substitute for Healing and antimagic or undead characters will be unable to use some of these. For wild infusions in particular the scaling doesn't matter, just get a physical wild with 12 cooldown, the lowest possible. Use it to remove stuns, pins, freezes, and dazes. +Health items are pretty self-explanatory, but I can't emphasize enough how important they are. There is no stat in the early game as important or that will have as much of an effect on your survivability. If possible (it usually won't be) you should have a +health item equipped in every slot except your primary weapon until tier 3 or possibly even tier 4 items start dropping. The light source will help you not get blindsided in some of the early dark dungeons, like Ruins of Kor'pul and The Maze. You might also benefit from a zone order guide, so you can take things in the most forgiving sequence: https://te4.org/wiki/Recommended_Zone_Order_Progression e: +healmod (increases the magnitude of heals) is also good, and a close second to +health. It's much rarer, though, you're only likely to see it on the Girdle of Calm Waters (which despite dropping in areas in the very beginning of the game is a god-tier artifact that can last you most if not all of the game, especially for classes with lots of healing skills.) e2: Also by all means stop by the ToME Thread if you have more questions, you might get a wider range of responses (and from better players than me) there than here. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:04 on May 9, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 18:54
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Also in terms of "having a way out" a teleportation rune is a good fourth inscription, or even a good third one if you're willing to give up your damage shield or heal. (Don't swap out the wild.) Also, like with wild, no stat scaling is necessary on teleport runes -- you want low cooldown and low range so you're more likely to land in an area you've already cleared out.
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May 9, 2016 19:08
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Unormal posted:Qud's 113.8 hour negative review: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198025786911/recommended/333640/
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May 10, 2016 01:39
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Awesome! posted:honestly this seems like a fair review to me i love the "THIS GAME IS REAL EARLY ACCESS NOT BETA", i get what's he's saying but at the same time bitch i've been playing this poo poo for 6 years and compared to what it was like back then, etc.
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May 10, 2016 02:05
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Danger - Octopus! posted:I think this is what Ultima Ratio Regnum will eventually be. I haven't been following URR much recently. Does anyone have a trip report as to where it's actually up to at this stage in terms of playability/fun?
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May 10, 2016 02:26
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andrew smash posted:i love the "THIS GAME IS REAL EARLY ACCESS NOT BETA", i get what's he's saying but at the same time bitch i've been playing this poo poo for 6 years and compared to what it was like back then, etc. The last two paragraphs are hilarious: quote:This game, overall, has a high barrier to entry. If you overcome it, though, the world beyond is rich and lovely, as a hundred other reviews will attest. THUMBS DOWN 
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May 10, 2016 02:26
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Overwined posted:The last two paragraphs are hilarious: Um, he explains that in the first couple sentences. quote:I like Caves of Qud quite a lot, and it deserves the positive ratings it has gotten. However, it is not quite ready for a consumer audience and is quirky enough that it would turn a lot of people off. I'm writing this "negative" review so that you can understand its shortcomings before buying it.
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May 10, 2016 02:54
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PotatoManJack posted:I haven't been following URR much recently. Does anyone have a trip report as to where it's actually up to at this stage in terms of playability/fun? 
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May 10, 2016 03:05
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KaosMachina posted:So how do I stop dying constantly in ToME? I'm not the greatest Tome player or anything but I have finished it many times on roguelike and one rule I had was never getting waylaid. Basically, drag hostile stacks back to friendly stacks or be fast enough to avoid them. But never get waylaid as it is a terrible risk, particularly early on (also, depending on class). They really aren't that hard to avoid if you move carefully on the world map. Very late game, if your character is a walking god feel free to casually walk into and bulldoze over worldmap orc stacks, but until then discretion is the better part of valor...
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May 10, 2016 06:47
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Unormal posted:Qud's 113.8 hour negative review: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198025786911/recommended/333640/ Toplowtech fucked around with this message at 11:31 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 11:16
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Enter the Gungeon has some kind of difficulty curve the more unlocks you get that enables bigger and tougher rooms + enemy patterns and also gives things more HP. It doesn't stop you from getting screwed for items any less, though, to the point where the game is getting really unfun. Which is a shame because it's still really slick. That said, way more ammo gets dropped now than it did before. e: Thinking about it, I never got to beat the second secret boss, so I probably have to assume I won't be good enough to now for a very long time. Stelas fucked around with this message at 13:02 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 12:41
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Toplowtech posted:That's the nicest negative review i have read in a long time on steam. Especially since Qud got 95% positive and it's probably going to be the only negative review people will end up reading. Yeah that's a well thought out and informative. I see nothing wrong with it.
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May 10, 2016 12:54
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Stelas posted:Enter the Gungeon has some kind of difficulty curve the more unlocks you get that enables bigger and tougher rooms + enemy patterns and also gives things more HP. The HP scaling is actually just based on whatever floor you are on, not how many runs you performed. Any tougher enemies that spawn earlier due to the newer rooms also have their health scaled down to match the earlier floor.
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May 10, 2016 14:19
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I want to show off something I've been working on for the last month or so: https://hbloom1783.github.io/Athanor/ I've crammed together a sort of roguelike engine in Unity. It's not done, but it's done enough to play this simple game on. The part I think is most unique about what I've built is the three versions I've put up on GitHub; To get from square to hexsquare, I toggled a single flag on my MapController from "Square" to "Hex Flats". To get from hexsquare to hexhex, I replaced the land and water sprites with hex-shaped ones. There's plenty left to do, but I'm hoping I can stick the source for the engine up on GitHub within the next month or so. I've been amazed at how easy it is to make stuff in Unity; they just don't have good native support for grid-based games!
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May 10, 2016 15:17
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General Emergency posted:Yeah that's a well thought out and informative. I see nothing wrong with it. Sure I'm not complaining about it, just think it's funny that the 100+ hour thumbs down exist, and was sharing ours. 
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May 10, 2016 15:29
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General Emergency posted:Yeah that's a well thought out and informative. I see nothing wrong with it. "I played this game for 100 hours and clearly enjoyed my time, but I want people to not buy this game and I am going to actively contribute towards reducing its rating and thus do everything in my power to ensure that Steam's algorithms show this product to less people." That's what's wrong with it.
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May 10, 2016 17:00
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madjackmcmad posted:"I played this game for 100 hours and clearly enjoyed my time, but I want people to not buy this game and I am going to actively contribute towards reducing its rating and thus do everything in my power to ensure that Steam's algorithms show this product to less people." There's no reason why a player should place the interests of developers above those of other players. (Speaking as a big Qud fan myself, even.)
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May 10, 2016 17:29
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It's a very reasonable review and the reasons for the negative are pretty clearly given.
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May 10, 2016 17:57
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Honestly, I think part of the problem is the platform itself - Steam doesn't offer much means of providing feedback for other players aside from positive or negative reviews, unless you want to publish a full-blown article about it or something. I mean, there's the Steam forums, but like hell I'm going to slog through those just to see whether people think a game is good. Genuinely informative positive reviews often get lost in the static because they're not as punchy as nonsense like EAT A BEAR and thus tend to draw less attention. A single ostensibly negative review isn't likely to catastrophically skew anything, I don't think. In fact, people debating getting the game are going to check out the negative reviews and see a lengthy, well-thought-out thumbs down that basically amounts to "this game is a bastard and is unfinished but it still rules and I love it" from someone with 100+ hours of play time. That's only likely to dissuade people who would inevitably dislike the game for the issues stated in the review, and it may convince others to take the plunge and play a fantastic diamond in the rough. But I'm no expert, I'm just a guy who likes the game 
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May 10, 2016 18:10
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steam should probably add a neutral review that mostly serves to provide info about the game in a balanced way, but since that doesn't exist people have to make do. i don't really see anything wrong with putting like...a single negative review up to make it more eye-catching amidst all the others. what, is that single review going to get the game marked as poo poo and removed from steam or something? i like the game a lot, but the person definitely does bring up good points.
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May 10, 2016 20:29
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PleasingFungus posted:There's no reason why a player should place the interests of developers above those of other players. (Speaking as a big Qud fan myself, even.) Correct, there's no reason why a player should place developer interests above anyone else's. Neutrality would have served this person just fine. A negative review is an act of aggression. The primary function of the big red thumbs down is to tell other players "DO NOT BUY THIS BAD GAME". For 99 out of 100 people looking at the page, that is all the information they will glean from the review. Nobody reads the text. The secondary function of the big red thumbs down is to help Steam show the game to less people. Steam reviews are a binary action. If you choose to make one, you have two options: I want to see this game succeed, or I want to see the game fail. It is a hostile action. And in this case it's even worse than that. It's not a warning to other players, it's masturbation. He's trying to show how deeply he thinks he understands game design and how cleverly he can arrange words. "I enjoyed myself, but I want to see the developers fail" is a completely lovely way to be, zero argument, full stop. "Someone with my refined gaming palate could enjoy this game, but I doubt the average user would be smart enough so I'm going to warn them away" ugh get hosed guy seriously Angry Diplomat posted:A single ostensibly negative review isn't likely to catastrophically skew anything, I don't think. Angry Diplomat posted:that basically amounts to "this game is a bastard and is unfinished but it still rules and I love it" Angry Diplomat posted:In fact, people debating getting the game are going to check out the negative reviews and see a lengthy, well-thought-out thumbs down that basically amounts to "this game is a bastard and is unfinished but it still rules and I love it" from someone with 100+ hours of play time. That's only likely to dissuade people who would inevitably dislike the game for the issues stated in the review, and it may convince others to take the plunge and play a fantastic diamond in the rough. My favorite negative reviews are the ones that go "Yeah I played this game for a handful of hours and I think it's bad", because that's as honest as you can get. That customer put in some time and is genuinely disappointed. But if someone spends dozens of hours challenged and engaged by the game but still strives to poo poo on it, they're a bad person. They are (to bring this back to the initial point above) working against their fellow customers as well as the developer because they're driving people away from a game they'd otherwise enjoy. I am extra salty about this, and this is absolutely a point of contention for me. If you're reading this, think about the job you have. Imagine a customer of yours being satisfied with what you do for them, coming back time after time to engage with you, but then going out and standing in front of the store telling people "Don't shop here. They did me right, but they might do you wrong because I'm special." 
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May 10, 2016 20:47
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If Steam used a 5 star rating system instead of a thumbs up/thumbs down system, would your opinion of the review change if they gave it a 2 or 3? Either number would have the same effect of dragging the game's average down and causing Steam to reduce its visibility, but it is not as visibly abrasive as the binary of "Not Recommended" as well as reflecting their actual opinion more accurately. Arguably, the bigger problem is allowing typed reviews in the first place when using a binary voting system. It just creates the dissonance like that review of someone who enjoys the game, but wants to give it the equivalent of a 3. Either they lean slightly negative and appear unreasonable like this example, or lean positive and appear contradictory ("Play this amazing game with loads of flaws! "). Unfortunately, I don't see Steam using a scaled review system solely because a binary one naturally encourages input more (since there is no mental apprehension to thinking about what specific number a game deserves), which is better for their popularity sorting algorithms than a small amount of detailed written reviews.
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May 10, 2016 21:30
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madjackmcmad posted:"Someone with my refined gaming palate could enjoy this game, but I doubt the average user would be smart enough so I'm going to warn them away" ugh get hosed guy seriously While I'm broadly on the side of "reviewers should do whatever they want," this is a sentiment I can get behind. That said I'm also the sort of person who thinks democratically-determined prominence on the Steam store is dumb even if it makes perfect sense from a business standpoint.
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May 10, 2016 21:39
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Floodkiller posted:Unfortunately, I don't see Steam using a scaled review system solely because a binary one naturally encourages input more (since there is no mental apprehension to thinking about what specific number a game deserves), which is better for their popularity sorting algorithms than a small amount of detailed written reviews. I don't think this is true. What seems to be true is that in 1-5 or 1-10 or whatever systems, most people only use 1 or 5 (or 1 or 10, etc). Like if it was really true that binary input wa sneccesary to gather input, you'd probably see Amazon switching to it, but they've stuck to 5 stars for the past 21 years.
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May 10, 2016 21:44
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Floodkiller posted:If Steam used a 5 star rating system instead of a thumbs up/thumbs down system, would your opinion of the review change if they gave it a 2 or 3? Either number would have the same effect of dragging the game's average down and causing Steam to reduce its visibility, but it is not as visibly abrasive as the binary of "Not Recommended" as well as reflecting their actual opinion more accurately. Like fishmech said, people tend to mostly use the extremes of the scale, to the extent that people who favor the middle of the scale don't really impact the overall number any. There's a good reason why YouTube switched from a 5-point scale to a simple thumbs-up/down. The option of providing a neutral review that doesn't impact the numbers could be a good idea though.
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May 10, 2016 21:56
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I can understand why a game developer would react more strongly to a negative review than I would. As a player, though, it's pretty hard for me to get all worked up about, because the review system itself seems to be more at fault. Getting mad at poo poo reviews isn't going to change anything, you cannot stop lovely reviewers from existing. Getting mad at the system they thrive in makes more sense to me, because that's something that can actually change. But any changes the Steam store makes will prioritize the well being of Steam store first, the game buyer second, and the developer third. Consider this also: the dude wanted his review to be read, and he probably picked 'negative' because it's more likely to be read. For Qud, it's a smaller pool of reviews to wade through, and if the average review reader is like me, they pick through a couple negative reviews, especially for games that garner 90%+ positive reviews. So that's a bit disingenuous. The reviews I don't need to ever see are like this one: http://steamcommunity.com/id/stuntaneous/recommended/333640/ Just give it a thumbs up, and don't say anything.
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May 10, 2016 23:04
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i always read the negative reviews. they are much more useful than 90% of the positive ones when deciding to buy a game
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May 10, 2016 23:11
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doctorfrog posted:The reviews I don't need to ever see are like this one: In fairness, reviews like that could be useful in a system that matches you to people with similar taste. e: although if the thumbs up/thumbs down system doesn't require you to write a review then yeah, it's pretty useless
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May 10, 2016 23:11
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Floodkiller posted:The HP scaling is actually just based on whatever floor you are on, not how many runs you performed. Any tougher enemies that spawn earlier due to the newer rooms also have their health scaled down to match the earlier floor. Yeah, I think you're right. Still, the first floor used to be a nice easy lead-in to the rest of the game. Now I'm getting crazy spawns from the getgo. The first room I walked into spawned an ongoing wave of several shotgun bullets, several normal bullets, a couple of books and a smattering of grenades in the mix. And it wasn't exactly a large room. I can just about handle it but then you open the two chests on the level and get poo poo Gun #1 and Why Would I Use This Item and I'm just going 'ehhhh...' The core problem with Gungeon is still that you have very little choice or control over the poo poo you get. Stelas fucked around with this message at 23:45 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 10, 2016 23:43
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madjackmcmad posted:"I played this game for 100 hours and clearly enjoyed my time, but I want people to not buy this game and I am going to actively contribute towards reducing its rating and thus do everything in my power to ensure that Steam's algorithms show this product to less people." You're right. It's much better to omit information about a game which could inform someones purchasing decision and possibly end up with a very disgruntled and unhappy customer rather than simply explaining what the game is in a reasonable and well mannered way and possibly turning away some people who wouldn't like the game anyway. Steam reviews are not about "I want to see the game succeed or fail." That might be what you use them for, but I use them to inform other people about the game. Does it run well? Are the controls good? Does it get stale quickly? Is the multiplayer community healthy? They are a binary action only if your assertation that no one ever reads the text is true. Which I don't think it is. Again; you might not read the text, but others do. Most people in this thread, for example. I think your misunderstanding is assuming reviews are there for the benefit/misfortune. I don't think that's what they were designed for, and I don't think that's what most people use them for. It doesnt seem to be what the review in question is aiming for. Most reviews are for customers. Awesome! posted:i always read the negative reviews. they are much more useful than 90% of the positive ones when deciding to buy a game Me too. The games marketing and store page are there to tell you all the positives of the game. The reviews are there to tell you the negatives. All the good stuff should be upfront and centre. Otherwise the game is failing to market itself well. But any negativity is a failing of marketing, so should rightly be avoided. Luckily we have the reviews. You just have to sort through them to find one like the one posted. A review that says "I like this game but you might not for reasons X, Y, and Z" is a thousand times more usefull than any other type of review. Someone who can see the flaws in the thing they enjoy is going to give you an honest opinion.
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May 10, 2016 23:45
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Awesome! posted:i always read the negative reviews. they are much more useful than 90% of the positive ones when deciding to buy a game yeah, basically. it's easy to pick apart whether a person is giving a fair review or if they're just being weirdly salty about something or other. i'd much rather see why people gave a thumbs down than the inevitable wide swathes of those who rated it up and said 'wow, this game is cool!!!'
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May 10, 2016 23:47
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fenrif posted:Steam reviews are not about "I want to see the game succeed or fail." That might be what you use them for, but I use them to inform other people about the game. The trouble is that, regardless of a reviewer's intention, Steam's main page and search results are weighted by how many positive or negative reviews a game has gotten. You might use them to inform other people about the game, but that doesn't change the fact that they are totally about whether the game succeeds or fails because of Steam's (pretty lovely) SEO. There's a ton of studies around how much people read on the internet, and the answer is ultimately 'not much, especially when you have a fancy icon summing it all up'. About 20% of people won't last more than 4 seconds reading an entire webpage, let alone a long review.
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May 10, 2016 23:59
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I get why people try to defend negative reviews with lengthy play times but its the scale of the commitment with games that changes things. You can spend 90 minutes with a movie or a couple hours with a book and finish it and go "you know, that was crap" but if you spend dozens and dozens of hours with a game it is pretty hard to cry about it being the worst. Spending the equivalent of many full workdays playing a thing shows that either it ain't that bad or you are crazy. Steam reviews just aren't a good place for criticism. They are Backpacker Magazine style buy this/don't buy this. There's no room for nuance and if you spend ludicrous hours with something that costs $10 it is pretty hard to judge it a poor value. There are other places better suited for armchair designer thoughts. FuzzySlippers fucked around with this message at 00:17 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 00:14
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Put another way, if even like 20% of the people who wrote reviews wrote reviews in the style of the one mentioned (an in-depth analysis that was matched with a thumbs-down), then nobody's going to click through the search results page to look at the game, because its review score won't be positive enough. It doesn't matter what your review says if nobody's going to read it. EDIT: and that's why the comment-free thumbsup/thumbsdown reviews are so important, really -- they're totally useless for why you should/shouldn't play a game, but they're practically all that determine whether your game gets that "overwhelmingly positive" rating.
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May 11, 2016 00:42
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