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N'thing how disappointed people who are trying to De-VR Alyx are going to be. Virtually everything good about it is somehow related to experiencing it in VR. What you'll be left with on a flat screen is a slow, simplistic shooter. Just wait until you can find a way to play in VR, or watch a story recap if you are just curious about what happens.
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Sep 3, 2020 19:06
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Zaphod42 posted:If you can't find a friend who has a headset to borrow, just watch a Lets Play of Alyx instead. You'll get all that you would from trying to play it with a non-VR mod. To drive it home a bit more, I had a bit in Alyx where I started to open a door, saw two poison headcrabs on the other side, and slammed it shut. I had a grenade on me, so I opened the door a tad, popped the grenade, and threw it through the door before slamming it shut again. This came to me entirely naturally, they didn't stick a whole ton of grenades right before it, they didn't slap up a giant tutorial about it, and I never ran into a situation that would require it again. On a flat game, there would have to be a specific mechanic made to crack open a door, and another to prime a grenade and toss it through. And since creating these mechanics would take time and effort, the devs would cram a bunch of enemies behind doors near grenades just so that work wouldn't be seen just one time. In VR, it was an entirely organic fusion of the basic game mechanics, and took zero extra work to make, so only having to do it once or not having the player realize that it was possible isn't a waste of resources.
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Sep 3, 2020 19:08
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My favorite one of those is when I was in the rafters above some zombies with a box of grenades and I could just drop them through the gaps or over the railings, it was a minor thing but it felt really natural.
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Sep 3, 2020 19:15
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I tried out HyperDash from Sidequest. Why is movement so slow in a game called HyperDash that's supposed to be an arena shooter? I'm so disappointed. I really want to play Unreal Tournament but in VR.
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Sep 3, 2020 19:20
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:I tried out HyperDash from Sidequest. Why is movement so slow in a game called HyperDash that's supposed to be an arena shooter? I'm so disappointed. I really want to play Unreal Tournament but in VR. You're supposed to be constantly teleporting (which is zzzzz)
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Sep 3, 2020 19:32
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I also think what makes it graphically impressive wouldn't show up on a screen. a lot of why it stands out visually is going the extra mile with textures that don't need to be in screen games to look good. Not that it's the most damning thing, but all of the little things you are meant to ooh and ahh at like picking up a bottle, seeing the liquid slosh around inside behind the frosted glass, shaking it up and watching the bubbles rise to the top would be lost. Or just looking at something super close up and seeing all of the little scratches/fingerprints on it and how they reflect off the lighting. The attention to detail on stuff that is meant to be viewed from inches away is nuts. And yeah, like someone else said I hope this doesn't sound like gatekeeping. I would easily recommend it outside of VR if I thought it would hold up as a good game, but I just think it would be thoroughly mediocre without it. veni veni veni fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Sep 3, 2020 |
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Sep 3, 2020 19:36
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My wife tried the first few minutes of Alyx and lost her poo poo when that strider walked by. That bit would be neat on a monitor, but led to her reflexively trying to hide in a corner in VR. VR is goddamn cool and Alyx needs it.
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Sep 3, 2020 20:54
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Shine posted:My wife tried the first few minutes of Alyx and lost her poo poo when that strider walked by. That bit would be neat on a monitor, but led to her reflexively trying to hide in a corner in VR. VR is goddamn cool and Alyx needs it. There was a dead zombie I had to pull out of a window and I was apparently visibly disgusted while I was doing it.
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Sep 3, 2020 20:56
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Alyx flat would be like getting a steak ordered well done and then slathered in ketchup.
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Sep 3, 2020 20:56
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Leal posted:Alyx flat would be like getting a steak ordered well done and then slathered in ketchup. Please do not attempt to summon Vince McMahon to this thread.
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Sep 3, 2020 20:59
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Lemming posted:Massive disagree with the first half of that sentence and massive agree with the second. It's definitely the most polished and the world with the best environments with the most detail and heart, but I'd argue that it's extremely conservative with the way it handles most VR interactions and that keeps it from being an all around "best." It does some things incredibly well and other things thoroughly mediocrely. What would be the best VR game for you? Please don't say Beat Saber.
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Sep 3, 2020 21:05
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One of my favorite little visual touches in Alyx is when you use the first aid station and is squashes the grub. It's so visceral and disgusting and believable looking.
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Sep 3, 2020 21:08
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lunar detritus posted:What would be the best VR game for you? Please don't say Beat Saber. Echo Arena and it's not even close to being close. It's on a different tier than every other VR game.
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Sep 3, 2020 21:16
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I just tried Echo Arena for the first time and it seemed cool but I wish there was a way to practice against bots. I did the tutorial and got gun shy about actually jumping into a round because I have no idea what I'm doing.
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Sep 3, 2020 21:22
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veni veni veni posted:I just tried Echo Arena for the first time and it seemed cool but I wish there was a way to practice against bots. I did the tutorial and got gun shy about actually jumping into a round because I have no idea what I'm doing. There is! When you go to the matchmaking terminal, you can choose to play vs AI, and then difficultly level as well as if you're playing coop with other people or just by yourself
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Sep 3, 2020 21:26
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Oh, excellent!
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Sep 3, 2020 22:01
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I have yet to buy anything on the Oculus store, the facebook thing and having to have reVIVE and Oculus Home running 24/7 even when I don't need them turned me off enough. Echo Arena is the one game I do miss though. I enjoyed the free bit and I'd buy it if it was on Steam. But I don't think I want it enough to bother with reVIVE again.
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Sep 3, 2020 22:10
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veni veni veni posted:One of my favorite little visual touches in Alyx is when you use the first aid station and is squashes the grub. It's so visceral and disgusting and believable looking. And the vibrations in the Knuckles while the tiny needles prick you and if you flinch in real life you move in the game and it stops healing you  WRT exercise in VR I've gotten worn out playing Boneworks and Audica many a time. With Audica you could technically hold your hands up the entire time and shoot, but I instinctively dance to the beat and put my arms down after shooting like to show off to the cat or something. in any case it rules.
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Sep 4, 2020 04:47
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Neddy Seagoon posted:The basic stuff like see-saw ramps and counterweights (Or tossing debris to make a path across Antlion-infested beaches) were neat in the early 2000's using a mouse to simulate holding things with your hands, ("Pick up that can!
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Sep 4, 2020 05:09
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") but with VR you can actually do those things intuitively.
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For anyone that is getting hosed by Valve's ball dragging in regards to unreliable power management on the Lighthouses 2.0 on the latest Windows release, here's an Android app (not sure whether it got linked already): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jeroen1602.lighthouse_pm
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Sep 4, 2020 05:42
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lunar detritus posted:What would be the best VR game for you? Please don't say Beat Saber. While I do think HL: Alyx is the best VR game made overall, Lemming's not entirely wrong here; Half-Life Alyx is a really solidly-polished game, but it's clearly built entirely on VR design concepts from 2016-ish with teleport-centric movement and level design built around the then-looming specter of motion sickness that actually wasn't all that big a deal. They seem to have locked the design in early on in the project and built outwards from there without revising for new design concepts as time went on. Even say something along those lines in that dev video from a while back.
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Sep 4, 2020 06:12
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Combat Pretzel posted:For anyone that is getting hosed by Valve's ball dragging in regards to unreliable power management on the Lighthouses 2.0 on the latest Windows release, here's an Android app (not sure whether it got linked already): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jeroen1602.lighthouse_pm Annoyingly, neither of the apps that do this support the 1.0 Vive lighthouses, which I assume have the same problem.
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Sep 4, 2020 06:15
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BisbyWorl posted:
It's kinda funny you point out the doors specifically because one of the designers did an entire talk about them, and they spent a fair amount of time on the design and testing of those mechanics. It's actually a pretty interesting talk, a lot of thought went into the specifics of how all the doors function. I think the reason you don't see lovely, repetitive level design is that they are Valve.
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Sep 4, 2020 06:29
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I think Boneworks is a better game than Alyx and if you could put an Alyx level of polish on top of Boneworks hot drat would that just be the best
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Sep 4, 2020 06:34
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Walking Dead Sinners and Saints 
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Sep 4, 2020 07:23
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Walking dead is good. I'm going to try to find some time to play it again this weekend.
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Sep 4, 2020 08:41
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Well, buying it a second time was a bit of a hard pill to swallow but Saints and Sinners is about 5 times better on PC. If for no other reason I can actually comfortably walk around without the god awful PS move tilting. In general the controls feel wayyy better and it looks much better too though. Also loading times are a few seconds instead of minutes. A couple of things I thought the touch controllers would nail and I find just as god awful as on PSVR though. Like, driving something into a zombies head is just the worst. I get what they are tying to do, and how it's supposed to work (I think?) but getting it actually work seems like a coin flip and half the time I end up with my arms completely crossed, annoyed as hell with a knife stuck 1cm into a zombies head. Also the climbing is just as finicky and annoying. Also, not really limited to Saints and Sinners, but I am yet to play a VR game, with the exception of anything with the PS Aim controller, where 2 handed weapons don't handle like complete rear end and make me want to scream. They always gently caress the tracking up because you have to use such an awkward posture and feel really hard to wrangle. And just pretending like there is something in your hands like that always just feels stupid. I wish VR games would just ditch 2 handed guns until some sort of solid solution becomes the norm because they always suck.
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Sep 4, 2020 08:42
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Alex is the most polished VR game I've played yet but I think it only beats HL2 because it doesn't have a loving awful fanboat section that goes on forever. If HL2 didn't have the fanboat it would be a lot closer. In other news I tried Windlands for the first time since 2016 and it's actually kind of fun now that I'm used to smooth motion in VR.
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Sep 4, 2020 08:44
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Probably a real outsider opinion especially since it's Dualshock only, but even after playing Alyx I still think Astro Bot Rescue Mission might be the best VR game I have ever played.
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Sep 4, 2020 08:54
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veni veni veni posted:Also, not really limited to Saints and Sinners, but I am yet to play a VR game, with the exception of anything with the PS Aim controller, where 2 handed weapons don't handle like complete rear end and make me want to scream. They always gently caress the tracking up because you have to use such an awkward posture and feel really hard to wrangle. And just pretending like there is something in your hands like that always just feels stupid. I wish VR games would just ditch 2 handed guns until some sort of solid solution becomes the norm because they always suck. Hotdogs Horseshoes and Hand Grenades (aka H3VR) and Pavlov VR both make excellent use of a virtual stock system for comfortable and accurate two-handed weapon usage.
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Sep 4, 2020 09:00
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I can't stand 2 handed guns in h3vr. I feel like I never have my hands lined up right.
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Sep 4, 2020 11:41
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Great Beer posted:I can't stand 2 handed guns in h3vr. I feel like I never have my hands lined up right. I think the virtual stock system works reasonably well, at least for close to medium range stuff. Granted, using a physical stock immediately feels much better, but it's only really feasible if tune it for a specific gun and stick to it. Playing T&H with one doesn't really work, IMO, at least from a "competitive" point of view (you'll do worse with a stock than without). What you really have to give up with the virtual stock though is pretending to hold the gun "correctly", as in your hands actually being where the grip/foregrip is. What works best for me is completely tucking my right arm in, basically linking it to my chest for increased stability (elbow to your side, pulling your forearm in till you're squishing your bicep). Aiming at something is then done mostly by rotating your upper body, with your arms doing very little independent movement. I guess you could also try locking your muscles in your right arm for more correct positioning, but I think H3's virtual stock stabilization system works best the closer your right hand is to your face/the HMD. Doing this for a while also made instinctive point shooting come to me very naturally. It's really rewarding being able to hit something with reasonable accuracy by just looking at it. Also a bit scary sometimes when you dispatch a sneaky sosig before your brain even catches up to what was happening.
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Sep 4, 2020 12:26
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SirViver posted:I think the virtual stock system works reasonably well, at least for close to medium range stuff. Granted, using a physical stock immediately feels much better, but it's only really feasible if tune it for a specific gun and stick to it. Playing T&H with one doesn't really work, IMO, at least from a "competitive" point of view (you'll do worse with a stock than without). Have a look at the latest devlogs, because aiming with a sniper rifle's getting some love lately to prepare for the upcoming maps. SirViver posted:Doing this for a while also made instinctive point shooting come to me very naturally. It's really rewarding being able to hit something with reasonable accuracy by just looking at it. Also a bit scary sometimes when you dispatch a sneaky sosig before your brain even catches up to what was happening. Wait til you start snap-shooting Sosigs in the head with handguns  .
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Sep 4, 2020 12:34
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SirViver posted:What you really have to give up with the virtual stock though is pretending to hold the gun "correctly", as in your hands actually being where the grip/foregrip is. What works best for me is completely tucking my right arm in, basically linking it to my chest for increased stability (elbow to your side, pulling your forearm in till you're squishing your bicep).
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Sep 4, 2020 13:21
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The Walrus posted:Well if it helps I'm planning on getting back into Soundboxing for the fall once it cools down. Let me know if you have any song requests.  When you start doing soundboxing again, I've got two songs I'd love to see your take on. I would love a really frenetic beat map for Fuel by Metallica. All the current soundboxing maps for this song are too tame.e. Not sure how well this will work for a workout, but "Honey I'm Good" is a fun song that I discovered recently. With Lyrics Official video Shine posted:Hot Squats 2 I was prepared to laugh about this, but it's a real game. How does the first one (which is free) compare to the sequel? Marxalot posted:Nth-ing pistol whip. You're going to do a lot of dodging and squatting with that one. Thank you, and everyone else, for the pistol whip recommendation. I have and like Thrill of the Fight, but my problem right now is that I don't have freedom to move forward and back in roomscale anymore.
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Sep 4, 2020 16:54
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Thoom posted:Annoyingly, neither of the apps that do this support the 1.0 Vive lighthouses, which I assume have the same problem.
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Sep 4, 2020 17:17
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The 1.0 Lighthouses uses a "regular" Bluetooth dongle, right? At least the Vive one registers as such to the system. The Index stuff appears to be some SteamVR internal user driver crap that broke with the update, and Valve can't be assed to look into it, probably thanks due to their flat ADHD hierarchy.
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Sep 4, 2020 18:17
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Neddy Seagoon posted:While I do think HL: Alyx is the best VR game made overall, Lemming's not entirely wrong here; Half-Life Alyx is a really solidly-polished game, but it's clearly built entirely on VR design concepts from 2016-ish with teleport-centric movement and level design built around the then-looming specter of motion sickness that actually wasn't all that big a deal. They seem to have locked the design in early on in the project and built outwards from there without revising for new design concepts as time went on. Even say something along those lines in that dev video from a while back. This thread loves to get really echo chambery about how everybody is such a hardcore VR gamer but acting like motion sickness in VR is a "looming spectre" that doesn't actually exist and is a foolish thing for devs to worry about is insane. You need to accept that you are like, .0001% of the population. Most people have barely played a few VR games or none. Making a game that's comfortable for people who don't have 2,000 hours of VR-legs isn't a fools errand, its the way the game should have been designed. I'm sorry but this is just kinda arrogant. Teleport movement isn't strictly awful like this thread loves to pretend; I regularly still choose teleport over free movement even when I have the choice of both. Even after I've had HMDs for literally 5 years now, as long or longer than all of you. Feel free to just rag on me and act like this is all purely because I'm bad at VR or something, but that's just not reality. If I designed a VR game myself right now TODAY I would make it control exactly like HL-Alyx does. Boneworks lets you do all the things eveybody in this thread wants and who is still playing boneworks? Alyx is way more fun.
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Sep 4, 2020 18:49
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The fundamental issue is that both teleportation and smooth locomotion are riddled with tradeoffs. Neither is a really great solution that juices the game up and makes it feel great, they're only there to enable the rest of the gameplay. Like taken on their own, teleporting around or smoothly locomoting around isn't inherently fun or satisfying feeling, and they both have a different set of drawbacks. The stuff that really excels are where everything you're doing on a moment to moment basis feels great. For example, in Alyx a lot of the fun isn't coming from moving over to a set of cabinets, it's looking at the environment and taking in all the detail and world building, and then once you get to the cabinets the fun is in rummaging around and grabbing stuff and looting. The movement itself doesn't heighten or amplify that experience, it just lets you get place to place. Ultimately those two options are a matter of preference, but I think they both suck because neither is fun on their own.
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Sep 4, 2020 18:59
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Is pressing "W" to move forwards "fun" either? Its just something you do so you can play the game. The fun in a flatscreen game comes from the action, the shooting, the guns. Movement can be fun, but usually only in games like Quake 3 or Titanfall 2 that really push the limits. I think just shooting Combine or Headcrabs in Alyx is super fun though. But also like you said, exploring the world is way more compelling than like, Boneworks' levels.
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Sep 4, 2020 19:07
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