What are you playing? v.11 (Knee-Deep Edition)

[WhiteMousse]

Is anyone else playing Expedition 33? Holy shit drop what you're doing right now and play it

 

[HereticBD]

Is anyone else playing Expedition 33? Holy shit drop what you're doing right now and play it

Yeah, minor quibbles aside(give me a mini-map) it's excellent. I've never had a JRPG actually feel this...natural, if that makes any sense. Everything just flows so naturally, from game to story. You don't feel like you're playing the "game" part, just to get to the story bits. Everything comes together, which is no small feat for a turn based RPG. Usually, in these types of games, the combat and RPG systems feel separate from the overall experience, where the "game" part is a means to an end. This just works as one cohesive experience, where you're not just going through the motions.

In terms of JRPG's, it's downright revolutionary. The elements they took from "Dark Souls" really smoothed everything out and knocked off all the busywork bullshit menu overload crap that the genre is known for. It's a turn based RPG that feels like an action RPG. It's totally unique, but probably won't be for long. This is a "blueprint" game, that will likely influence so many more.

It's certainly something special.

 

[rikwebb]

Got another 10 clears left on Warriors: Abyss for the last trophy then the Plats done for that.

Also got round to doing the Warlords of New York stuff on Division 2 this weekend as the PS4 version of Vampire Survivors keeps crashing after the latest update

 

[Valhoven]

Got another 10 clears left on Warriors: Abyss for the last trophy then the Plats done for that.

Also got round to doing the Warlords of New York stuff on Division 2 this weekend as the PS4 version of Vampire Survivors keeps crashing after the latest update

Warlords was cool. I also played the NY expansion long after it launched. Glad to hear agents are still playing. Keener made for the perfect villain.

I’m not sure if you were playing pre-expansion in just DC but Massive overhauled the crafting/modification system at one point after a couple yo-yoing damage balance passes the community didn’t like, ultimately screwing over launch player raid grind for the high-synergy inventories we’d built up for weapons + armor.

Their new system was admittedly better but benefitted newer agents, really. Frustrating. It was smart of them to effectively reset everyone for New York by bumping gear score cap, IMO.

Despite all that, I’m excited for the third instalment.

 

[method115]

Is anyone else playing Expedition 33? Holy shit drop what you're doing right now and play it

It's still early but yea this is my GOTY so far. It's taking a lot of will power to not drop everything I'm doing and just play the game.

 

[The Clark]

While you guys are all playing Expedition 33, I have been playing the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy 1, lol. I have a lot of thoughts on it, actually. I think it's pretty sad how Square Enix treats FF1 compared to the reverence that they have for Dragon Quest 1. They have remade FF1 tons of times now, and they've basically destroyed the original game.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but all of the "quality of life" features they have added to the game over the years have not only totally eroded its identity, but they've resulted in a game that is just flat out worse than the original, and certainly less interesting and engaging. I keep thinking about the concept of "friction" in games that @Valhoven referenced in the Marathon discussions. All friction has been removed from the design, and the game suffers greatly for it.
In the original game, party members who have died need to be taken back to a town to be revived. Or eventually with the Life spell, if you have a White Mage, buuuut there aren't ethers to refill your MP, so you need to return to town to replenish that. There are tents and such that fill your HP and MP, but they can only be used on the overworld, not in dungeons, and they are pricey. Battles are challenging and frequent, money comes in slow, and the most cost effective way to heal is sleeping in an Inn. There is an obvious, intentional flow here; a game loop. Leave town, explore, return to town when resources are low. Restock, venture out again, getting a bit further each time.
In the remaster, you can now buy phoenix downs to revive party members anytime, anywhere. And they're cheap. Actually, all of the prices are reduced, too. Not that it matters, because XP and gold rates are increased. You can now buy ethers to refill your magic anytime, anywhere. Same with Hi potions/X potions. Battles are still frequent, but easier. Due to the aforementioned reasons, yes, but also due to a drastic change.
Now, this is the really unpopular opinion, but I will die on this hill. In FF1, you select an action for each party member at the beginning of a turn, then every character and monster performs their actions. So, if a party member is set to attack a monster and that monster dies before your character's turn, their attack will simply miss. In later versions, your character instead automatically changes targets to another, living, enemy. People universally praise this as a positive QoL feature, while I contend that it nearly ruins the game single-handedly. A very large part of the strategy of the game is choosing who attacks who. You encounter a new monster. Through battling it repeatedly, you learn its approximate HP. In subsequent battles, you choose your attacks to maximize damage while minimizing damage overflow. Trying to manage each battle in the most efficient way is fun, and finding the optimal choices to deal with each enemy combination for your specific party is interesting, and it changes as your characters level up and you get new gear and spells. It's like a puzzle. That IS the gameplay. This is the source of almost all of the depth in the battle system. You actually have to think and plan, not just blindly attack.
In the new versions? You just hold the confirm button and auto attack. It practically plays itself. Will your characters attack in the most optimal way? Nope. But they made the game much easier, so it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. In the original, when a character died, that meant something. That was a huge ordeal. When you ran out of MP? That meant something. When you were low on health, that meant something. Now? There's no friction. Every rough edge has been sanded down, and the result is a game that is pretty boring to play.
I'm going to try to play through with no ethers or Phoenix Downs, with the gold rate at 50%. But I will still be yelling at that cloud.

 

[Valhoven]

While you guys are all playing Expedition 33, I have been playing the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy 1, lol. I have a lot of thoughts on it, actually. I think it's pretty sad how Square Enix treats FF1 compared to the reverence that they have for Dragon Quest 1. They have remade FF1 tons of times now, and they've basically destroyed the original game.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but all of the "quality of life" features they have added to the game over the years have not only totally eroded its identity, but they've resulted in a game that is just flat out worse than the original, and certainly less interesting and engaging. I keep thinking about the concept of "friction" in games that @Valhoven referenced in the Marathon discussions. All friction has been removed from the design, and the game suffers greatly for it.
In the original game, party members who have died need to be taken back to a town to be revived. Or eventually with the Life spell, if you have a White Mage, buuuut there aren't ethers to refill your MP, so you need to return to town to replenish that. There are tents and such that fill your HP and MP, but they can only be used on the overworld, not in dungeons, and they are pricey. Battles are challenging and frequent, money comes in slow, and the most cost effective way to heal is sleeping in an Inn. There is an obvious, intentional flow here; a game loop. Leave town, explore, return to town when resources are low. Restock, venture out again, getting a bit further each time.
In the remaster, you can now buy phoenix downs to revive party members anytime, anywhere. And they're cheap. Actually, all of the prices are reduced, too. Not that it matters, because XP and gold rates are increased. You can now buy ethers to refill your magic anytime, anywhere. Same with Hi potions/X potions. Battles are still frequent, but easier. Due to the aforementioned reasons, yes, but also due to a drastic change.
Now, this is the really unpopular opinion, but I will die on this hill. In FF1, you select an action for each party member at the beginning of a turn, then every character and monster performs their actions. So, if a party member is set to attack a monster and that monster dies before your character's turn, their attack will simply miss. In later versions, your character instead automatically changes targets to another, living, enemy. People universally praise this as a positive QoL feature, while I contend that it nearly ruins the game single-handedly. A very large part of the strategy of the game is choosing who attacks who. You encounter a new monster. Through battling it repeatedly, you learn its approximate HP. In subsequent battles, you choose your attacks to maximize damage while minimizing damage overflow. Trying to manage each battle in the most efficient way is fun, and finding the optimal choices to deal with each enemy combination for your specific party is interesting, and it changes as your characters level up and you get new gear and spells. It's like a puzzle. That IS the gameplay. This is the source of almost all of the depth in the battle system. You actually have to think and plan, not just blindly attack.
In the new versions? You just hold the confirm button and auto attack. It practically plays itself. Will your characters attack in the most optimal way? Nope. But they made the game much easier, so it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. In the original, when a character died, that meant something. That was a huge ordeal. When you ran out of MP? That meant something. When you were low on health, that meant something. Now? There's no friction. Every rough edge has been sanded down, and the result is a game that is pretty boring to play.
I'm going to try to play through with no ethers or Phoenix Downs, with the gold rate at 50%. But I will still be yelling at that cloud.

I love you bringing this up.

I no longer buy games the same way. What I do now, is ask myself one thing: How much design friction is in the game?

The more friction, the deeper the game experience will be; the lesser, the shallower. 'QoL' is now a euphemism for oversimplification. I used to have this goulash in my head of criteria I look at when sizing a game up for purchase. How's this, that... Nah, no more. All noise. Ask yourself only what friction you want and if the game offers that, then buy or bounce.

There's a reason, I think, we all hold older games so dear. It's because the friction was there – the good friction, the friction of discovery, of figuring combat, items, nav, even menus out, of experiencing all the stuff not in those physical guides we used to have, or now in-game tutorials; it all felt like secrets we were uncovering. F, and that's the real stuff right there, the magic. When you got good at something, you earned it. We're spoonfed everything in UI meters now, world markers, virtual automatic party rez et cetera. No roughed up edges, like you'd rightly said.

Nacon's upcoming Hell Is Us is promoting itself on these merits, that there are no markers, no handhelding; you figure it out. As gamers, we need get behind games like this.

 

[what-wut]

I'm late on the Vampire survivors train but my God, what an amazing fun game. I only played for an hour or so but it was incredibly fun. Very addictive.

 

[method115]

I love you bringing this up.

I no longer buy games the same way. What I do now, is ask myself one thing: How much design friction is in the game?

The more friction, the deeper the game experience will be; the lesser, the shallower. 'QoL' is now a euphemism for oversimplification. I used to have this goulash in my head of criteria I look at when sizing a game up for purchase. How's this, that... Nah, no more. All noise. Ask yourself only what friction you want and if the game offers that, then buy or bounce.

There's a reason, I think, we all hold older games so dear. It's because the friction was there – the good friction, the friction of discovery, of figuring combat, items, nav, even menus out, of experiencing all the stuff not in those physical guides we used to have, or now in-game tutorials; it all felt like secrets we were uncovering. F, and that's the real stuff right there, the magic. When you got good at something, you earned it. We're spoonfed everything in UI meters now, world markers, virtual automatic party rez et cetera. No roughed up edges, like you'd rightly said.

Nacon's upcoming Hell Is Us is promoting itself on these merits, that there are no markers, no handhelding; you figure it out. As gamers, we need get behind games like this.

I've heard Atomfall is like this. From the same devs who made the Sniper series which I know you enjoy. I want to play it one day but who knows when I'll find time to do that.

 

[Valhoven]

I've heard Atomfall is like this. From the same devs who made the Sniper series which I know you enjoy. I want to play it one day but who knows when I'll find time to do that.

O, awesome, bud. Thanks so much; checking out now.

 

[mixmastermo]

While you guys are all playing Expedition 33, I have been playing the Pixel Remaster version of Final Fantasy 1, lol. I have a lot of thoughts on it, actually. I think it's pretty sad how Square Enix treats FF1 compared to the reverence that they have for Dragon Quest 1. They have remade FF1 tons of times now, and they've basically destroyed the original game.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but all of the "quality of life" features they have added to the game over the years have not only totally eroded its identity, but they've resulted in a game that is just flat out worse than the original, and certainly less interesting and engaging. I keep thinking about the concept of "friction" in games that @Valhoven referenced in the Marathon discussions. All friction has been removed from the design, and the game suffers greatly for it.
In the original game, party members who have died need to be taken back to a town to be revived. Or eventually with the Life spell, if you have a White Mage, buuuut there aren't ethers to refill your MP, so you need to return to town to replenish that. There are tents and such that fill your HP and MP, but they can only be used on the overworld, not in dungeons, and they are pricey. Battles are challenging and frequent, money comes in slow, and the most cost effective way to heal is sleeping in an Inn. There is an obvious, intentional flow here; a game loop. Leave town, explore, return to town when resources are low. Restock, venture out again, getting a bit further each time.
In the remaster, you can now buy phoenix downs to revive party members anytime, anywhere. And they're cheap. Actually, all of the prices are reduced, too. Not that it matters, because XP and gold rates are increased. You can now buy ethers to refill your magic anytime, anywhere. Same with Hi potions/X potions. Battles are still frequent, but easier. Due to the aforementioned reasons, yes, but also due to a drastic change.
Now, this is the really unpopular opinion, but I will die on this hill. In FF1, you select an action for each party member at the beginning of a turn, then every character and monster performs their actions. So, if a party member is set to attack a monster and that monster dies before your character's turn, their attack will simply miss. In later versions, your character instead automatically changes targets to another, living, enemy. People universally praise this as a positive QoL feature, while I contend that it nearly ruins the game single-handedly. A very large part of the strategy of the game is choosing who attacks who. You encounter a new monster. Through battling it repeatedly, you learn its approximate HP. In subsequent battles, you choose your attacks to maximize damage while minimizing damage overflow. Trying to manage each battle in the most efficient way is fun, and finding the optimal choices to deal with each enemy combination for your specific party is interesting, and it changes as your characters level up and you get new gear and spells. It's like a puzzle. That IS the gameplay. This is the source of almost all of the depth in the battle system. You actually have to think and plan, not just blindly attack.
In the new versions? You just hold the confirm button and auto attack. It practically plays itself. Will your characters attack in the most optimal way? Nope. But they made the game much easier, so it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. In the original, when a character died, that meant something. That was a huge ordeal. When you ran out of MP? That meant something. When you were low on health, that meant something. Now? There's no friction. Every rough edge has been sanded down, and the result is a game that is pretty boring to play.
I'm going to try to play through with no ethers or Phoenix Downs, with the gold rate at 50%. But I will still be yelling at that cloud.

I love you bringing this up.

I no longer buy games the same way. What I do now, is ask myself one thing: How much design friction is in the game?

The more friction, the deeper the game experience will be; the lesser, the shallower. 'QoL' is now a euphemism for oversimplification. I used to have this goulash in my head of criteria I look at when sizing a game up for purchase. How's this, that... Nah, no more. All noise. Ask yourself only what friction you want and if the game offers that, then buy or bounce.

There's a reason, I think, we all hold older games so dear. It's because the friction was there – the good friction, the friction of discovery, of figuring combat, items, nav, even menus out, of experiencing all the stuff not in those physical guides we used to have, or now in-game tutorials; it all felt like secrets we were uncovering. F, and that's the real stuff right there, the magic. When you got good at something, you earned it. We're spoonfed everything in UI meters now, world markers, virtual automatic party rez et cetera. No roughed up edges, like you'd rightly said.

Nacon's upcoming Hell Is Us is promoting itself on these merits, that there are no markers, no handhelding; you figure it out. As gamers, we need get behind games like this.

I am with you guys. Apparently Elden Ring just hit 30 million sold, which was very surprising to me- great game, but it has very very very little handholding. No quest markers, secrets everywhere, etc. It's just not the type of game that is supposed to have mass appeal because of the learning curve.

For a game like that to hit 30 million sold in this day and age is proof that there is definitely an appetite for the kinds of games you guys are speaking of. Let's hope all developers pick up on this.

 

[Ashen One]

Fuck you, Windblown. Back to 100% achieves and cleaned up every collectible in the game.

 

[The Clark]

There's a reason, I think, we all hold older games so dear. It's because the friction was there – the good friction, the friction of discovery, of figuring combat, items, nav, even menus out, of experiencing all the stuff not in those physical guides we used to have, or now in-game tutorials; it all felt like secrets we were uncovering. F, and that's the real stuff right there, the magic.

We are kindred spirits. I said this, almost verbatim, to my girlfriend as I was playing the other day. People always chalk it up to nostalgia, but there is a very real element of game design that has been mostly lost. I think I am gonna start another thread about this, as I don't want to derail this one.

 

[Fury]

Played some Tokyo Jungle yesterday, first time in a while. That game needs a remake.

 

[Kiniun]

After playing chaosgate I got rogue trader on steam. I've got high hopes. So far so good.

 

[mixmastermo]

Beat Stellar Blade. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will keep my eye on this developer.

Next up I think I'll play some basic 2D or shoot em ups. I've played a lot of long detailed games recently, I need a break form that stuff for a bit.

Next purchase will probably be Doom Dark Ages, but I'd like to see what is up with the required PC specs- I have an i7 9700k that's liquid cooled and running at a stable 4.6 Ghz. Up until now I haven't had any issues running any games on my setup..

It appears an i7 10700k is the minimum required to run this game- I'd have no problem upgrading the CPU if that is all it was, but it would require me to upgrade the motherboard as well- which I really don't feel like doing for one game. I'll wait and see what happens, may end up getting on PS5 Pro

 

[TeTe]

Still playing Shadows... Just hit level 52 and I'm 73 hours in. I'm probably 2/3rds of the way through the story now.

The story is pretty bad in this game but that's pretty normal for an AC game. Too many unmemorable characters and cannot follow what's going on.

 

[NoSmilez]

I tried out Aliens Dark Descent. The game is kind of hard or I am not used to that style of game.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

I had really wanted to squeeze in full replays of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal before Doom the Dark Ages drops but I haven’t been able to find much time to game lately so i didn’t get around to it and won’t before it releases next week. Maybe I’ll just try to get in a couple of levels of each just to get the feel back so that I can compare them to TDA properly.

 

[Satur9]

I tried out Aliens Dark Descent. The game is kind of hard or I am not used to that style of game.

It gets pretty hard if you are playing at normal or above. Stick with it. It was hard for me at first too, but it’s a great game after you get used to it.