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catlord posted:I don't necessarily mind seeing raytracing applied to older games, but I find it tend to fall into three camps where either it looks garish and bad, pretty good, or most damningly looks pretty much just like it did originally. shoehorning in any tech never works well, whether HDR or ray tracing or even haptics (or loving bloom and motion blur) but when they're made for it, they look loving incredible (or feel and look incredible, sup Returnal)
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May 11, 2024 21:37
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victrix posted:shoehorning in any tech never works well, whether HDR or ray tracing or even haptics (or loving bloom and motion blur) I mostly agree, to be fair, but I thought the interior lighting (not the very pink exterior lighting!) in that Half-Life RTX video a while ago was pretty good, and I feel like Left 4 Dead is at the right point in time and right style to make it work. I think for playing around with ray tracing, that the late 6th gen/7th gen games are probably one of the better eras to try, since the level geometry isn't as basic as it was earlier, while lighting was getting more realistic but hadn't gotten to the more modern heights. I find looking at comparisons of like, Cyberpunk 2077, that the ray tracing is nicer, but not that much nicer, honestly. Developers have gotten really good at making things looks good without it, so I find that unless I'm really looking close at the reflections in puddles it's harder to notice. But I guess that's the thing with lighting (and all tech, really), isn't it? Bad lighting stands out, but good lighting meshes with the rest of the experience.
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May 11, 2024 22:06
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victrix posted:shoehorning in any tech never works well, whether HDR or ray tracing or even haptics (or loving bloom and motion blur) With the right settings, RTX HDR looks really great in some games, I tried it with Thief on an OLED and it's magical. Same with all those games with stencil shadows, Doom 3, Condemned, Riddick etcetcetc. SpecialK's HDR can have some decent results too. It all takes a bit of tinkering on a per game basis but you can keep a pretty consistent image to the originals without clipping, but RTX HDR is pretty good at doing that automatically too
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May 11, 2024 23:02
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I finally started playing ADACA, and after one hour, I'm not convinced by it. It was one hours playing the campaign, not the Stalker-lite mode it had. Some of the weapons (like the shotgun!) feel pretty meh. Grenades are a joke. The weapons models is a bit weird, like the fov is higher than it is (fov 90). The whole game is inspired by Halo and Half Life, but it is lacking in important features that those games had, like the AI. It does the whole radio chatter and pings but it's all auditive smoke and mirrors, the AI is pretty bad, and the body hits aren't good either. I also don't like how it has some beats of generic scifi plot clearly riffing on the mentioned games, but just enough to ape superficially those games, it doesn't really have a proper setup and plot like those games. It's also a bit janky, in things like physics not well adjusted, or climbing up stairs being horrible. I know it's all made by one dev and in a way that's impressive how one guy could make his own Hal Life-clone, but it doesn't seem to totally coalesce in a fun playing FPS like Dusk, Cultic or Total Overkill, other one-man projects. Turin Turambar fucked around with this message at 23:42 on May 11, 2024 |
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May 11, 2024 23:38
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HolyKrap posted:With the right settings, RTX HDR looks really great in some games, I tried it with Thief on an OLED and it's magical. Same with all those games with stencil shadows, Doom 3, Condemned, Riddick etcetcetc. SpecialK's HDR can have some decent results too. It all takes a bit of tinkering on a per game basis but you can keep a pretty consistent image to the originals without clipping, but RTX HDR is pretty good at doing that automatically too Yeah, the RTX HDR stuff with the new Nvidia app is great and I generally have it on by default now and needs little tweaking. The System Shock remake looks great with it.
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May 12, 2024 00:54
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Did they finally remove the Selaco demo? I was playing it last night but now, it just asks me to purchase it, which I can't even do since the store page doesn't have that option yet. The only thing I can think of is that I'm on the preview channel for SteamOS, and got that new update, but I swear I did that before I started playing the demo last night.
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May 12, 2024 02:14
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Did they finally remove the Selaco demo? I was playing it last night but now, it just asks me to purchase it, which I can't even do since the store page doesn't have that option yet. "We have made the decision to delist the demo from our Steam Page, but we will preserve it to keep it accessible!" tl;dr it's on archive dot org now
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May 12, 2024 04:00
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Let's hope they drop it early!
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May 12, 2024 04:05
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Selaco? More like, "A sell: NO!"
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May 12, 2024 05:07
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I’m between games at the minute and remembered I’d never played Interlude, which was all the motivation I needed to fire up Cultic. This thing continues to be an extraordinarily good time.
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May 12, 2024 20:14
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Still no word on ch 2 release, but I don't use twitter which is where I imagine it'd be. I heard Fallen ACes was supposed to drop soon, but that's also up in the air it seems
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May 12, 2024 22:00
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Yeah I don’t think there’s anything concrete on Cultic chapter 2 yet. Interlude is short but tons of fun. Finishing that lead me to some Survival rounds, and I bet I take chapter 1 for another full spin from here as well.
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May 13, 2024 00:12
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I haven't heard anything but also I don't use nazibirdsite so I would miss it if Jason posts something of value there.
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May 13, 2024 00:51
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It does feel like the fount slowed down for a while but everything feels like it could drop sooner than you'd think so you can't just check out and be patient like a noob
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May 13, 2024 02:01
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Spent my weekend playing through Marathon 1 on Normal for the first time in a while, then pistol-started back through my favorite levels on TC. People tend to bury this game under M2 a bit because M2 is so good and has less gently caress-you puzzles. It makes a better introduction in some ways, especially if you’re trying to sell people on installing a 30 year old game. And there are definite pain points in Marathon 1, but I can see why it was a success for Bungie. Yes, many of the maps are weird rear end mazes that date from before Doom clones had developed orthodoxies about playability, decoration or good taste. Youre probably going to get lost and need to look stuff up. But as a shooter it passes the acid test of being really fun to run around and shoot stuff. They’re missing a shotgun and an enemy with the beef/threat level combo of a tank guy—there’s a big gap between like, major hunter and juggernaut. I guess the hulks are supposed to fit in there but…they’re barely in the game and don’t shoot back. Apart from that and the puzzle madness, I think they got the difficulty right. There’s a very deliberate power curve, in TC you end up on the sharp end of it. It doesn’t gently caress around, this game feels heavier on fighters for the sequels and they are out to get you. Conversely troopers and enforcers feel a bit less threatening than the sequels. Hunters, compilers and juggs about the same. The worst enemy in the game is wasps, which are EVERYWHERE, fly around, make incredibly annoying sounds and rapid fire poo poo all over you constantly. Awful! The one thing they’re good for is causing infighting. Honorable mention to Durandal’s green drones, which are only on one level thank god. Fist and pistols are stop gap/strictly for vid masters, both feel slower than in the sequels and on TC I rarely have the space to make use of either. Assault rifle/grenade launcher will be your mainstay for most of the game up to alien ship, with fusion pistol as the main backup. Unlike grenades, fusion doesn’t make hunters explode in this one and as a result is crazy good, you can just run face first into a hunter while shooting and use them as a stunlocked meat shield with no consequences. Badass. It also one shots wasps which is a godsend. Towards the end of the game you start picking up flamethrower, alien weapons and rockets. all of which are tremendous with caveats. flamethrower melts non-armored enemies almost instantly but makes it hard to see and doesn’t work on the rest. alien weapons do huge damage in many hitscan shots (kind of reminds me of the Infinity flechette) but they run out quick and you discard the gun instead of reloading. rockets…it’s basically the same old rocket launcher right through to Halo, big rear end gun containing two shots of blow everything (including you) to kingdom come. You will want them all for the end of the game which is a real blast! I was on fire by the end  I made sure to do the deprivation chamber this time and I’ve discovered I’m bad at grenade flying. The M2/Infinity campaigns mostly stay away from it iirc—even for secrets, you’re not usually expected to do more than one jump. I can see why! There are no shield cans in this game which leaves you nastily dependent on rechargers…the way you loop back to some of these in this game I feel like Bungie would have been better off with a Descent-style energy corridor you can pass through to get recharged. Hall of heal! I like the alien designs and textures in this game better than the sequels, especially the hunters. They’re slightly less cartoony and more amateurish and nasty. They have a bit more menace about them and there’s more of a stress on how creepy and weird they are in this one, particularly the alien ship levels which are a ufo abduction nightmare (in a good way) with their darkness, pulsing slime that fucks up your vision just by going over it, twisty disorienting layouts, bobs in holding pens with simulacrums, bobs on autopsy slabs, bobs in stasis tanks, cyborg on his throne in the slime pool, egg on an oscillating column in the slime pit/wasp hive. It’s simple but all quite creepy and evocative—the game stops giving you terminals to read there which is an interesting touch. it leaves you with no trace of the evil work email buffoon persona of the Pfhor as seen in 2/Inf. They remain fully creepy aliens with no attempt to humanize them even to the level of bureaucrats. On that note, kind of funny how little they do with Tycho. poor guy gets like one line, no wonder he was upset 
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May 13, 2024 02:45
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Historical low -90% discount on the Steam Heretic + Hexen bundle. https://store.steampowered.com/sub/439/ There are rumblings of something coming down at QuakeCon 2024. A new Doom game? Or a Heretic + Hexen remaster?
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May 13, 2024 06:02
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Finally the time has come, Herexentic
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May 13, 2024 06:19
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Milo and POTUS posted:Still no word on ch 2 release, but I don't use twitter which is where I imagine it'd be. I heard Fallen ACes was supposed to drop soon, but that's also up in the air it seems Cultic Chapter 2 has no release date yet, but Jason semi-regularly posts clips on Twitter when he’s not getting into arguments with YouTubers about Phantom Fury, so progress at least seems consistent. Based on those, I can authoritatively hypothesise that it will have escalators, ladders and a level set in and/or near a mall.
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May 13, 2024 06:43
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The new update fixed the problems I was complaining about with Dark Forces so good job ND.
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May 13, 2024 06:53
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cuc posted:Historical low -90% discount on the Steam Heretic + Hexen bundle. I'm a big doom lover, WAD enjoyer + creator. Is heretic good? Would I like it? Is hexen good??
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May 13, 2024 07:17
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In Training posted:I'm a big doom lover, WAD enjoyer + creator. Is heretic good? Would I like it? Is hexen good?? Heretic is great. The inventory system is neat, and while it's obviously a DOOM clone, that's never a bad thing. Hexen has a good concept (3 classes, 4 different weapons each, hub layout instead of sequential maps, etc), but kinda lacks depth after killing your billionth enemy. Way too many mazes / switch-hunting. A Heretic remaster would be pretty awesome Hexen would probably need something more in-depth to be successful. New weapons, bigger class differences, better maps (or at least some kind of hint system) I need to play Hexen 2 / xpac again KajiTheMelonMan fucked around with this message at 07:49 on May 13, 2024 |
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May 13, 2024 07:46
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In Training posted:I'm a big doom lover, WAD enjoyer + creator. Is heretic good? Would I like it? Is hexen good?? Hexen is... ambitious, with multiple player classes that each have their own four-weapon arsenal, and switch hunts that span multiple maps in Metroidvania-esque "hubs" tying maps together. You'll either love it passionately or hate it intensely. I tend to sit on the latter side. (Also like half the mapping features in the ZDoom-family ports are descended from those two games, so you'll know who to blame for them now!) Deathkings is a Hexen expansion. No new enemies or textures, just a Raven-authored game-length megawad. I think the Steam version is an old patch version, so it might not have music out of the box? Anyway, it's just More Hexen. Hexen 2 takes the basic ideas of Hexen and jumps to the Quake 1 engine with them, with nice low-poly 3D graphics and the absolute worst puzzle in FPS history. If you like Hexen, you'll probably like Hexen 2, but you'll also probably noclip past that puzzle without any guilt in your heart. The Steam version doesn't have the expansion pack because Id Software (who have the digital publishing rights) didn't have the rights to it, and I guess nobody's sorted that out since Activision was bought under the same roof.
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May 13, 2024 08:02
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I think I'll check out heretic, hexen sounds a little rough and not really what I like (I like whenever you push a switch you are already looking at what the switch does, like a toddler) Thanks for the notes
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May 13, 2024 08:08
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In Training posted:I'm a big doom lover, WAD enjoyer + creator. Is heretic good? Would I like it? Is hexen good?? Others have already covered Heretic pretty well, all I can really say it's it's Doom With Magic. I'll be honest and say it didn't really add enough to the formula to really grab me all that much, and I got pretty bored after a handful of levels. I played through Hexen for the first time not too long ago, and while I didn't hate my time with it I sure did come away with some complaints: - 3 classes with 4 weapons each kinda sucks. It means that you'll mostly be using the same tiny selection of weapons for most of the game, and the game doesn't change enough for the classes to really warrant playing it again with a different class. Really would've preferred if they just had one class with a whole bunch of weapons, or at least had some more interesting differentiation between the classes. - The enemy variety is kinda crap. There's actually a fair number of them, but they really, really overrely on two or three enemy types throughout the whole game and, along with the really limited weapons per class, it makes combat feel incredibly samey throughout the campaign. - This is some of the most frustrating switch-hunting I've ever seen in a game. Like sometimes they kinda make sense, or you have an idea of where you need to explore next, but othertimes you need to press 12 different hidden switches at all ends of the map and if you've missed one, you need to check the whole map over and over again with little to no idea of where it could be. Although I will say that most of the weapons feel great, and man they really managed to get some amazing atmosphere out of what's very close to the stock Doom engine. [edit]: Also, I have really fond memories of playing the demo of Hexen 2. They really ramped up the puzzle elements of it, and even though 90% of it is some interpretation of 'Find item to put in thing', it felt super novel in an FPS game of the time and gave it almost an adventure-game-like quality. The environments were also ridiculously destructible; once you learn your weapons make different sounds on destructible things, you'll find just how much of the world can be pulverized and it feels awesome. Although when I finally managed to play the full version years later, I realized that the first main hub that was in the demo (Barbican, I think it was?) was VASTLY superior to the rest of the game. The post-demo levels didn't seem nearly as detailed (And had next to no destructibility), the new enemies were just spongy and infusting to deal with, and all the inventive I still love to play through the first hub even these days, and then just quit when I get to the second one. AntiPseudonym fucked around with this message at 08:24 on May 13, 2024 |
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May 13, 2024 08:16
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If you're considering doing a Hexen run I highly recommend you pair it with High Noon Drifter, it makes fighting the monsters fun. https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/95149-gameplay-mod-high-noon-drifter-v12-between-god-the-devil-and-a-500/
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May 13, 2024 10:03
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I bought the Hexen pack on steam to play on Steam Deck and tbh, you're better off just throwing the roms into a source port, the OGs don't run very well
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May 13, 2024 10:06
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I'd honestly avoid getting a weapons pack for Hexen on a first run, the weapons are one of the best things about it. Some of them have hidden functions and the high-end ones feel (mostly) appropriately powerful.
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May 13, 2024 10:11
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Very highly recommend playing Heretic with Wayfarer's Tome: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top...-november-2021/ even as a first time playthrough and also playing through The Wayfarer itself.
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May 13, 2024 13:30
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I can't imagine at all the mindset that would make someone want to play a brand new game they've never played before and then mod it before actually playing the game. It's like I'm gonna play Doom for the first time should I use Demonsteele and instead play a completely different game wearing Doom's skin?
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May 13, 2024 13:41
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I've encountered people recommending a newcomer to A Link to the Past to play the randomizer instead of the vanilla game. Some people are just out to lunch with their niches.
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May 13, 2024 13:44
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Glagha posted:I can't imagine at all the mindset that would make someone want to play a brand new game they've never played before and then mod it before actually playing the game. It's like I'm gonna play Doom for the first time should I use Demonsteele and instead play a completely different game wearing Doom's skin? I could see it if it's QOL for stuff that's aged poorly, especially if it was seen as clunky even in the original release. Not so sure about rebalancing though.
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May 13, 2024 13:48
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spongeh posted:Very highly recommend playing Heretic with Wayfarer's Tome: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/top...-november-2021/ even as a first time playthrough I haven't done a playthrough of Heretic yet but I'll be using this when I do.
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May 13, 2024 14:00
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Glagha posted:I can't imagine at all the mindset that would make someone want to play a brand new game they've never played before and then mod it before actually playing the game. It's like I'm gonna play Doom for the first time should I use Demonsteele and instead play a completely different game wearing Doom's skin? I only really only do this when games lack basic QOL features. ie: All Bethesda games and most CRPGs.
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May 13, 2024 14:15
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It really is wild that there aren't more fps games with magic arsenals, the sky actually feels the limit and AE proved you could do so pretty easily this side of the millennium. 3 classes with 4 weapons, no, 3 classes with 7, 8, 8+ weapons hell yeah.
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May 13, 2024 14:19
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Milo and POTUS posted:It really is wild that there aren't more fps games with magic arsenals, the sky actually feels the limit and AE proved you could do so pretty easily this side of the millennium. 3 classes with 4 weapons, no, 3 classes with 7, 8, 8+ weapons hell yeah. wish someone would make oblivion with guns................
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May 13, 2024 14:21
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Milo and POTUS posted:It really is wild that there aren't more fps games with magic arsenals, the sky actually feels the limit and AE proved you could do so pretty easily this side of the millennium. 3 classes with 4 weapons, no, 3 classes with 7, 8, 8+ weapons hell yeah. Immortals of Aveum or whatever it was called was a recent magic FPS but it flopped hard. I loved that Dark Messiah source engine game, the spells in that were great.
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May 13, 2024 14:31
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The ice spells that make enemies slip in Dark Messiah are comedy gold. I can’t remember any of the others, I think there were fire spells too and maybe lightning? But I played basically exclusively with ice and the strongest school of magic, kick. Hedon’s “bearzerk” mode lets you play with a different arsenal which is all melee weapons, and the stronger ones are magical. Some really fun stuff in there, like a fire hammer that you can throw like a reusable grenade, or a spear that yoinks distant enemies towards you, possibly causing them to explode from fall damage.
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May 13, 2024 14:34
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Using the randomizer for a first time LTTP playthrough is utter madness, especially since LTTP is an all time great game. Heretic and Hexen aren't even close to that level. If you're more interested in having the historical perspective of how rough Heretic was, then sure play the base game and spend most of your time chipping away at enemies that have way too much health for your ineffective guns, but if you're looking for something that's a flat upgrade to how fun it is to play, Wayfarer's Tome is a bunch of sensible balance changes that you'd more likely see in the patch notes for a game nowadays.
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May 13, 2024 14:37
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That still seems insane to be because like the one thing Hexen has going for it is the cool weapons and class system even as flawed as that is and if you replace that what are you even coming here for. The lovely hub wide puzzles?
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May 13, 2024 14:50
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spongeh posted:a bunch of sensible balance changes that you'd more likely see in the patch notes for a game nowadays. Yeah this is something I like to keep in mind for 90s shooters (the real ones, not deliberately retro stuff). Hard to make & distribute changes once the game released. Post release support was not to be depended on, if you want to tweak stuff you probably just put it in next year’s game instead. Bigger publishers could maybe snail-mail you a patch on floppy, but for a lot of these devs, what you shipped was what everyone got.
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May 13, 2024 14:53
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