Captain Hygiene posted:I'm back into MGSV for the millionth time, and I'm mad at the horse. It's in the top tier of videogame horses because I'll actually use it rather than just running around everywhere on foot, but it's frustrating because it won't keep galloping without you manually spurring it on every five seconds. It feels weird because the game makes the great choice to ignore stamina meters in general. Snake can run at Olympic-level speeds across the entire map of Afghanistan, why can't his horse do the same Distracted by oats
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Apr 20, 2024 04:26
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needs to poo poo
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Apr 20, 2024 07:04
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DrBouvenstein posted:Did SotFS change the Shrine of Winter? It's really bizarre in the original. I especially like how at least in the original, with some slightly out of bounds jumping you could actually get over the knee high broken wall without collecting any souls
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Apr 20, 2024 08:09
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The thing to keep in mind about the narrative and worldbuilding of DS2, is that you very much seem to be in a sort of interdimensional collapse, traveling through space and time or little pocket dimensions. Like, the area you're talking about around Shrine of Winter is like cloudy midday; the next area, through a tunnel, is a path at midnight in pouring rain; and by the time you get to Castle Drangleic it's a clear night. When you first get to Heide, you seem to be sort of in the middle of the ocean, with Majula nowhere to be seen even though it's like a 40 second walk away. Iron Keep is in a world apparently on top of Earthen Peak, which you can clearly see the top of anyway? Similar poo poo with the transition from Aldia's Keep to the boss area (which looks like it's deep underground in Ash Lake) to the Dragon Aerie. My point being, whatever the Dark Souls Contractor built has been warped and twisted by all these times and places getting smashed together, and the pathing not making a lot of rational sense is part of the narrative and aesthetic.
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Apr 20, 2024 14:58
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Dark Souls 2 has your character going hollow and losing their memory, it makes sense that the world geography doesn't quite hold together.
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Apr 20, 2024 15:16
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Muscle Tracer posted:The thing to keep in mind about the narrative and worldbuilding of DS2, is that you very much seem to be in a sort of interdimensional collapse, traveling through space and time or little pocket dimensions. Like, the area you're talking about around Shrine of Winter is like cloudy midday; the next area, through a tunnel, is a path at midnight in pouring rain; and by the time you get to Castle Drangleic it's a clear night. When you first get to Heide, you seem to be sort of in the middle of the ocean, with Majula nowhere to be seen even though it's like a 40 second walk away. Iron Keep is in a world apparently on top of Earthen Peak, which you can clearly see the top of anyway? Similar poo poo with the transition from Aldia's Keep to the boss area (which looks like it's deep underground in Ash Lake) to the Dragon Aerie. The earthen peak thing is explicitly a miscommunication between teams, for the record. A lot of the concept art and stuff depicts the castle being carved out of a mountain, hence why it's made of stone and presumably leads straight up to a volcano. But for whatever reason, DS2 had a fairly troubled production IIRC, the in-game assets just made a dumpy little castle in the middle of a lake which gets you that magical elevator. I love it, personally, but that one, specifically, was not supposed to be like that.
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Apr 20, 2024 15:19
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Fondly remembering how rage inducing the Iron Keep elevator was at release 
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Apr 20, 2024 15:21
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Muscle Tracer posted:The thing to keep in mind about the narrative and worldbuilding of DS2, is that you very much seem to be in a sort of interdimensional collapse, traveling through space and time or little pocket dimensions. Like, the area you're talking about around Shrine of Winter is like cloudy midday; the next area, through a tunnel, is a path at midnight in pouring rain; and by the time you get to Castle Drangleic it's a clear night. When you first get to Heide, you seem to be sort of in the middle of the ocean, with Majula nowhere to be seen even though it's like a 40 second walk away. Iron Keep is in a world apparently on top of Earthen Peak, which you can clearly see the top of anyway? Similar poo poo with the transition from Aldia's Keep to the boss area (which looks like it's deep underground in Ash Lake) to the Dragon Aerie. That aspect of DS2 never really worked for me because in general games take such liberties with geography and size that something doing it in a deliberate and subtle way just didn't register.
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Apr 20, 2024 15:44
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There's a floor map in the house in Majula where candles light up when you beat bosses and it shows an entire country.
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Apr 20, 2024 15:59
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Doctor Spaceman posted:That aspect of DS2 never really worked for me because in general games take such liberties with geography and size that something doing it in a deliberate and subtle way just didn't register. Yeah, I think they needed to be way more heavy handed with a lot of the stuff in DS2, because it's really hard to tell what's deliberately disorientating, and what's unfinished and half-assed.
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Apr 20, 2024 16:13
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Muscle Tracer posted:The thing to keep in mind about the narrative and worldbuilding of DS2, is that you very much seem to be in a sort of interdimensional collapse, traveling through space and time or little pocket dimensions. Like, the area you're talking about around Shrine of Winter is like cloudy midday; the next area, through a tunnel, is a path at midnight in pouring rain; and by the time you get to Castle Drangleic it's a clear night. When you first get to Heide, you seem to be sort of in the middle of the ocean, with Majula nowhere to be seen even though it's like a 40 second walk away. Iron Keep is in a world apparently on top of Earthen Peak, which you can clearly see the top of anyway? Similar poo poo with the transition from Aldia's Keep to the boss area (which looks like it's deep underground in Ash Lake) to the Dragon Aerie. It's been a hot minute but I'm petty sure Majula is visible from Heide's; you can see the monument up on the cliff. It still looks super far away, but it's there. I think you've also got Aldia's backwards or mixed up with something. The area around the dragon cage is visibly way up in the air/mountains above a forest, nothing deep underground or much like Ash Lake at all. Nuebot posted:The earthen peak thing is explicitly a miscommunication between teams, for the record. A lot of the concept art and stuff depicts the castle being carved out of a mountain, hence why it's made of stone and presumably leads straight up to a volcano. But for whatever reason, DS2 had a fairly troubled production IIRC, the in-game assets just made a dumpy little castle in the middle of a lake which gets you that magical elevator. I love it, personally, but that one, specifically, was not supposed to be like that. Moreso than that, IIRC there's an entire area earmarked as going between the windmill and Iron Keep. It's also kind of obvious something's hinky because "Earthen Peak" is a really weird name for a giant windmill. The name pop-up even feels like it happens at a completely random and arbitrary point as you walk in to the area before Covetous Demon. My assumption is that the windmill was meant to be part of Harvest Valley (which is otherwise a tiny, nothing area with no boss at all) and Earthen Peak was the name of the cut-for-time mountain area leading to Iron Keep. There's also some additional possibilities because DS2 was originally going to feature time travel. There's some development scraps suggesting a snow capped mountain as well (which goes well with the incredibly adorable child version of the Emerald Herald being dressed in a parka), so it's possible they may have considered a snowy in the past/erupted volcano hell in the present concept. Doctor Spaceman posted:That aspect of DS2 never really worked for me because in general games take such liberties with geography and size that something doing it in a deliberate and subtle way just didn't register. Tbh I don't think it's deliberate at all and it's just a fan theory that's slowly been accepted to help explain the exaggerated geography. From uses some similar but less extreme exaggerations in DS3's map and with DS2's development problems I wouldn't read much into the weather changing between areas. Hell, did any of the other games even try to do weather before Elden Ring? What of the transition from the Depths to Blighttown in DS1 where the lighting instantly changes presets from warm orange to pallid green? People always use Drangleic Castle as an example but I also feel like that's one of the more plausible areas. YMMV on the transition from the Shrine of Winter, but the castle is supposed to be really fuckin' tall, so the rain going away as you ascend isn't completely absurd. I've also always assumed Shrine of Amana is supposed to be flooded with all that rain water. John Murdoch has a new favorite as of 23:07 on Apr 20, 2024 |
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Apr 20, 2024 23:02
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the trouble with the lighting engine alone is a pretty clear sign that DS2's development was a mess. the "dreamlike atmosphere" was just the devs spackling together whatever assets they could actually finish
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Apr 20, 2024 23:46
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goddamn some of these shrinefanes in immortals of aveum are loving impossible. i didn’t quite breeze through the endgame but I didn’t have a ton of trouble with it, either, and the shroudfanes I have left are still just kicking my rear end. the combat ones are all either a million enemies in several waves to basically gearcheck you against all three colors, often while under weird circumstances - how about when there’s no cover in the arena? how about when you’re on a balance beam and snipers are firing at you from two directions? how about a whole wall of enemies in a grid, each of which can fire a barrage of homing missiles at you and grant regeneration to themselves and their allies? even for challenges it seems ridiculous, but at least ostensibly you can upgrade your loadout and spec to deal with it some of the other poo poo though, like the timed shot challenges, can gently caress all the way off forever also gently caress any of those chests you need to shoot a limpet at to keep the lid from closing, none of them are fun or engaging. the rest of the game is genuinely fun and clever enough that the limpet chests really stand out as an 11th-hour “oh poo poo there’s no reason to use limpets in the world and players aren’t using them for combat” kind of addition, but I think a better solution there would have been to tie more combat talents to limpets or something. as it stands I think there’s a total of one talent that uses limpets and it’s nowhere near worth the two ascensions it costs unless you spec hard red/corrosion
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Apr 21, 2024 08:50
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This bit in Arc: Twilight of the Spirits is annoying as I have to grind for a key item to randomly drop.
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Apr 21, 2024 11:19
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The Mystic Spearhand vocation in Dragon's Dogma 2 has a stun ability that you unlock extras to which are supposed to let you do stuff like teleport to the enemy or spread the stun to multiple enemies. My problem is that I can't figure out the timing on it so I can never get the extra effects to happen. The timing is either too tight or the explanation for when is just wrong.
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Apr 21, 2024 17:32
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Goddamnit, Cyberpunk, if you're going to give me the option to launch myself straight up in the air from a speeding car, why can't you let me glide a little ways afterwards?
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Apr 21, 2024 17:44
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My biggest problem with Cyberpunk's movement is that there's no way to use your monowire as a grappling hook. There's lots of verticality in that game, and plenty of the roofs are detailed.
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Apr 21, 2024 18:11
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System Shock 2023: The game is a beat for beat remake of the original, which sadly means the bad ideas of yesteryear are retained. There are ten or so "cyberspace" levels. These are six-axis shooter stages where you have to destroy things in the matrix. It's completely divorced from the 95% of the game that birthed the immersive sim genre. There are no checkpoints, there is no damage feedback. You die quickly on Normal and I had to restart just to turn down the difficulty of cyberspace (You can adjust the difficulty of combat, exploration, and puzzles separately on a new game). Right now I'm stuck on one that takes ten minutes before youre forced to navigate a tunnel of mines at high speed. The game already has hacking puzzles that arent obnoxious. It would be easy to patch in an option that removes them entirely, since they are just as frivilous now as they were in 1994. Inspector Gesicht has a new favorite as of 21:46 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 21:35
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Inspector Gesicht posted:System Shock 2023: The game is a beat for beat remake of the original, which sadly means the bad ideas of yesteryear are retained. There are ten or so "cyberspace" levels. These are six-axis shooter stages where you have to destroy things in the matrix. It's completely divorced from the 95% of the game that birthed the immersive sim genre. There are no checkpoints, there is no damage feedback. You die quickly on Normal and I had to restart just to turn down the difficulty of cyberspace (You can adjust the difficulty of combat, exploration, and puzzles separately on a new game). Right now I'm stuck on one that takes ten minutes before youre forced to navigate a tunnel of mines at high speed. I'm very curious how adjusting puzzle difficulty works, do they just swap them out entirely?
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Apr 21, 2024 22:31
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Youve got randomly generated switchboards where you either connect a path between two nodes, or allocate a certain amount of energy to a bar.
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Apr 21, 2024 22:50
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Inspector Gesicht posted:System Shock 2023: The game is a beat for beat remake of the original, which sadly means the bad ideas of yesteryear are retained. There are ten or so "cyberspace" levels. These are six-axis shooter stages where you have to destroy things in the matrix. It's completely divorced from the 95% of the game that birthed the immersive sim genre. There are no checkpoints, there is no damage feedback. You die quickly on Normal and I had to restart just to turn down the difficulty of cyberspace (You can adjust the difficulty of combat, exploration, and puzzles separately on a new game). Right now I'm stuck on one that takes ten minutes before youre forced to navigate a tunnel of mines at high speed. For the one you're stuck on, you can brake and maneuver while caught in the current. But yeah that one absolutely blows and the hacking adds nothing to the game at all. You'd think you could find hacking program upgrades in meatspace or there'd be some kind of steady mechanical expansion with each one, but nah, crappy spam weapon, charge up missile, decoy. That's it! (Assuming they even give you the decoy in any given hack.) The minigame is also the peak of being so siloed off from the rest of the game and so abstract that it doesn't feel like hacking at all, not even bullshit Hollywood hacking, because the levels don't represent anything. Your goal is to knock out generic nodes and the only heads up you get as to what each one actually controls is a 2 second pop-up in the upper left corner, which you'll probably miss while dealing with enemies. I've actually seen people claim the original game's version is better, that this isn't just the remake playing too similar to the original. The original is also a wireframe nightmare but I may very well take it over needlessly frustrating, phoned-in Descent. See also: The grid-based inventory management and recycling mechanic, two elements that were invented wholesale for the remake and do nothing but waste your time.
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Apr 22, 2024 02:41
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If we're piling on the SS1 remake I'll also add that the neon glow over everything makes the game far harder to read than the OG game. It's taking me twice the time to navigate areas in the remake as it did in the OG despite having previous knowledge
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Apr 22, 2024 02:46
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Let's not forget that to unlock one of the most important upgrades, you have to win a game of chess. Not a chess themed mini-game, a full goddamn game of chess start to finish.
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Apr 22, 2024 02:52
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I haven't had a huge problem with the graphics in a general sense but I do find it kind of inexcusable how parts of the wiring/circuit puzzles are hard to actually see. In the former case, until I got hard stuck and looked it up it was not remotely obvious that different plugs have different power levels indicated by 1 or 2 glowing pips and for the latter there are tiles with an inexplicably tiny amount of path visible, which can be even harder to see depending on your angle to the board and where the tile is located because it's an actual 3D object.
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Apr 22, 2024 02:55
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Squidster posted:Let's not forget that to unlock one of the most important upgrades, you have to win a game of chess. Not a chess themed mini-game, a full goddamn game of chess start to finish. No loving way. I had seen references to a "chess puzzle" in passing and assumed it was, y'know, a puzzle. And of course, when you say one of the most important upgrades, having now looked it up to confirm, yeah that one. Why??
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Apr 22, 2024 02:57
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Squidster posted:Let's not forget that to unlock one of the most important upgrades, you have to win a game of chess. Not a chess themed mini-game, a full goddamn game of chess start to finish. Lol, goddamn. Get outta here, sliding puzzles, there's a new worst gimmick in town
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Apr 22, 2024 03:01
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I want to highlight this incredible walkthrough from IGN.quote:How to Solve the Delta Grove Chess Puzzle
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Apr 22, 2024 03:07
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Captain Hygiene posted:Lol, goddamn. Get outta here, sliding puzzles, there's a new worst gimmick in town I've brought it up before, but this is akin to having to beat the entire original arcade version of Donkey Kong in DK64 to 100% that game. Which it's not impossible, but good lord, it's frustrating as hell.
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Apr 22, 2024 03:27
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Squidster posted:Let's not forget that to unlock one of the most important upgrades, you have to win a game of chess. Not a chess themed mini-game, a full goddamn game of chess start to finish. Hell yeah, get hosed checkers peeps
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Apr 22, 2024 03:31
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youknowthatoneguy posted:I've brought it up before, but this is akin to having to beat the entire original arcade version of Donkey Kong in DK64 to 100% that game. It's actually worse than you remember - you had to beat it twice (and the second time was harder!) and it was required to finish the game at all.
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Apr 22, 2024 04:05
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I beat the chess match and couldn't find anything that it affected. seemed like it was just for fun.
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Apr 22, 2024 05:07
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Yakuza/Like A Dragon would have you learn the entire whole rear end game of Shogi and I simply refuse
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Apr 22, 2024 08:01
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Gaius Marius posted:If we're piling on the SS1 remake I'll also add that the neon glow over everything makes the game far harder to read than the OG game. It's taking me twice the time to navigate areas in the remake as it did in the OG despite having previous knowledge The specific way they light that game makes it one of exactly two games to ever give me any kind of motion sickness or anything of the like. I basically can't look at the game for too long without getting a massive headache, the same way that very specific patterns of flashing lights do - which if I wasn't medicated would likely trigger a seizure. The only other game is Bubsy 3D. My Lovely Horse posted:Yakuza/Like A Dragon would have you learn the entire whole rear end game of Shogi and I simply refuse There are a lot of yakuza mini games I'm just too stupid and or bad at to ever learn to do well.
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Apr 22, 2024 10:35
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I still don’t entirely understand mahjong, but I do understand enough to realize that I’m just really, really bad at hedging my odds sgd the other stuff mahjong asks of you if you’re trying to be competent. I think it’s only ever required twice for full substory completion in any LAD game though, and you’re expected to use a cheat item in one of those instances.
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Apr 22, 2024 11:08
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Maybe the chess puzzle is affected by the difficulty setting as well? When I did it, it was already a game in progress, and there were just a few moves needed to win.
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Apr 22, 2024 11:28
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Nuebot posted:The specific way they light that game makes it one of exactly two games to ever give me any kind of motion sickness or anything of the like. I basically can't look at the game for too long without getting a massive headache, the same way that very specific patterns of flashing lights do - which if I wasn't medicated would likely trigger a seizure. Again, not a problem in my case but I figured out that drinking booze - because it wouldn't be an immersive sim if you couldn't drink an entire bottle of booze and get instantly drunk  - makes the screen sway in a way that gets the motion sickness going.I'm not even sure if drinking it does anything beyond that.
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Apr 22, 2024 13:07
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I completely beat Dragon's Dogma 2 over the weekend. Had a lot of fun, loved the game in general but they really dropped the ball in a few places. The first being the plot - the story is so disjointed and not-there, that it makes me wonder why they included one at all. It starts out interesting, with royal intrigue and having to do tasks to get back where you belong, and then the second act begins and everything you've done kinda just...vanishes. It's never referenced again, and then the next few things you do feel so disjointed and unrelated that I had barely an idea of why I was doing what I was doing, and then the end of the game came out of nowhere. The post-game stuff was way cooler. Similarly though, they really waste its potential. Having this hosed-up world that shows you what happens when destiny and purpose is removed from the equation is really neat in concept, but then they throw a time limit at you, then a quick mission where you teleport around to talk to some people and then it's over. And then everyone's gathered around in the shrine like it's supposed to be some sort of base for you but you just end the game. And there's powerful equipment to find around the world, but it's only necessary if you can't take on the bosses without it, and if you can't defeat them, then you don't have the time to explore because killing them is what stops the timer. So exploring is pointless. It was fun enough, but could've been so much better.
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Apr 22, 2024 13:41
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Last Celebration posted:I still don’t entirely understand mahjong, but I do understand enough to realize that I’m just really, really bad at hedging my odds sgd the other stuff mahjong asks of you if you’re trying to be competent. I think it’s only ever required twice for full substory completion in any LAD game though, and you’re expected to use a cheat item in one of those instances. Yeah, I've tried getting into Mahjong on Final Fantasy 14, and my brain just doesn't.
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Apr 22, 2024 16:57
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i played the first couple days of pathologic 2 on PC several years ago and thought it was cool but got stuck tried it on ps4 and decided to stream it to show my gf while we’re both cooped up with covid by god I’ve never seen so many random people jump on my stream and start commenting, lmfao. anyway the first day or so sucks out loud and it’s rough trying to get your bearings in game and accomplish literally anything at all before the entire town starts rocking you for being a suspected murderer. just handfuls of strangers watching you lose fistfights for a couple hours.
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Apr 22, 2024 17:21
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My Lovely Horse posted:Yakuza/Like A Dragon would have you learn the entire whole rear end game of Shogi and I simply refuse Ah Shogi, teleporting super chess with somehow more insane rules, new pieces and you can steal your opponents pieces and just put pieces wherever sometimes. It's fun as gently caress when you figure it out but I will never play that against a living human ever. Yo I stole your Knight, turned it into a Queen and I think that was a bad move? TGG has a new favorite as of 18:33 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Apr 22, 2024 18:31
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