Casual

1 hour ago, -GD-X said:

I started playing this demo. It definitely feels grand. Pretty amazing production values. The combat feels fine, but simple. I’ll play the rest after lunch. 

There's a second demo that unlocks after completing the initial one - it's a combat focused demo that drops you into a mid game scenario with a lot more abilities, defnitely seems like the combat gets more interesting as you get into the game.

how do you navigate to the health app?

i gotta replay 0, one of the best games of last gen.

Well, Zelda is already out and proven itself as one of the best 10 games ever made, imo. It's a known quantity. Hard to imagine any of those games surpassing it. If I had to guess:

Spiderman - No chance really. Don't see this as having the potential to be anything more than a "really good" game. Just not something that's possible within the confines of what they're doing. It'll be a really polished and good one of those but honestly isn't even in the same conversation as the other 3 when it comes to the ceiling of what it can be.

FFXVI - We have a demo for this one so we at least have some actual idea of how it feels, and it feels great. Based on what I've played/seen I think this can easily come in at the 90-94 range. Again, I think some things will just naturally hold it back from reaching that ceiling of what Zelda did. I can easily see this being considered a modern JRPG masterpiece but I think it'll be held back a bit by the more action oriented and linear modern approach. Especially when compared to FF7R and with FF7R2 being on the horizon.

Starfield - I think if we're being honest this is the only one that could, in a perfect world, match or surpass what Zelda did. The direct looked great and it certainly has potential. Seems like it's Skyrim in space with much more scope, but it also doesn't seem to be doing much "new" otherwise. I think that's fine, and I've always said refinement of a great formula is just as good (usually better) than innovation. My hesitation here is that it's Bethesda (and MS by extension) and I find it hard to buy in to them delivering on something of that scope. 1000 planets also sounds good as a bullet point but what that means is a ton of procedurally generated content which is just never going to match handcrafted content.

So, if I'm a betting man, my tiers would be:

Zelda:TOTK - Landmark title and one of the best of all time - GOTY

>>

FFXVI - Modern JRPG Masterpiece, graphical powerhouse, great combat system/story. Somewhat offensive to JRPG traditionalists.

>>>>

Starfield - Great game with the freedom we've come to expect from Bethesda games but also the bugs/jank we've come to expect from Bethesda games. A bit too ambitious for its own good, uneven content in terms of quality with too many planets for its own good. Tons of potential to be unlocked by the modding community.

>>>>>>>>>

Spiderman - generic superhero game who gives a shit.

On 2023-06-15 at 8:45 AM, Sabo said:

This is actually what I'm thinking about doing. I'm just waiting for a PS5 game that I really want to play but the problem is there really isn't anything. Looking at the future line-up, the only game that fits that bill for me is Dragon's Dogma 2 and that isn't releasing anytime soon.

 

This gen is really bland. People can blame cross gen all they want but that isn't the problem. Gaming in general has slowly been declining into creative bankruptcy for years but it's really started to show how fuckin' bad it's got this gen. And it's not getting any better in the future. 

 

 

tbh if anything this is why PC is the way to go. it's where you'll find the most variety in gaming - the lower budget space is still alive and thriving as opposed to consoles where it seems to be only AAA blockbusters and specific indies. PC you get access to all that and more, the modding community is huge, indie community is bigger with less barrier of entry for self publishing, you of course have access to all types of emulators and everything that comes with that.

outside of a handful of exclusives on the PS5, I barely turn mine on. Nintendo is the only one putting out hardware that has a distinctly different use case than PC, imo.

obviously it's hard to argue with a PS5 when it comes to value that you get for the pricepoint, but that's in the context of not having a PC. it becomes pretty redundant if you do have one. I'm fine with that, my expectation has always been that I'll want the PS5 for 5-10 exclusives throughout its lifecycle. So far we have Demon's Souls, FF16, FF7:R on the horizon...it's doing the job, but PC is the daily driver.

17 hours ago, -GD-X said:

Silo is a very unusual show. the first 2 eps have one tone, then the pace dramatically switches up. it has a pretty heavy slow burn now, but it's still intriguing. i don't think it's for everyone, though. if you dug the detective aspect of season 1 of The Expanse, then this could be for you.

Yeah we’re still watching it but the wife hasn’t really been digging it after episode 2 tbh. Keeps saying it was a bait and switch. I’m still intrigued though, I like the world well enough and interested to see where it goes. 

9 hours ago, -GD-X said:

Wait, Elden Ring has co-op throughout? I’ll have to let my sister know  

Yeah it’s a mod for PC. It works great though and is easy to install, assuming you both have PCs to play it on!

https://www.nexusmods.com/eldenring/mods/510

Man SF6 is awesome! Been playing a ton of matches, winning a decent amount too, just playing super aggressive as Ken. Been able to learn a few solid combos. I’m still on classic controls, I should probably switch to modern, seems like that’s the play even for good players. 
 

other than that mostly TOTK. 
 

started a new Elden Ring run with a buddy using the seamless coop mod. Surprised how well it works, though it makes the game super trivial. Whatever though, he’s been asking me to try it with him for a while. Hoping I can convince him just to mostly mainline it - he’s the type to clear everything. 

14 minutes ago, Ike said:

Morrowind IN SPACE.  

 

Fresh coat of paint and new setting but will be the same copy and paste Bethesda formula they’ve been making for 20 years.  

Bethesda wishes they could still make a game as good as morrowind tbh

what they showed looked solid. if they can deliver on all that it will be great.

problem is im absolutely positive they won't deliver on that and there's probably 1000 bugs/bad things that weren't shown.

bethesda hasn't made a good game in a decade, not sure they'll start again now.

meh not really worth it, nothing on gamepass till at least fall.

18 hours ago, Sabo said:

You literally have no clue what artifacts I'm even talking about, do you?

 

This is also completely different from a Difficulty setting. The artifacts I'm talking about are basically endgame quality gear. They're the type of gear you would expect to be rewards from clearing a Super Dungeon or defeating a Super Boss. These artifacts are powerful as hell and you don't even have to earn that power. The game just GIVES them to you.

 

For an Action game, it's a goddamn joke these artifacts even exist. For a JRPG, its beyond stupid that I get to start the game with gear this OP. It's a failure on both fronts.

 

Why not just let players start with a fuckin' Ultimate Weapon at this point? Clearly the game doesn't give a shit about a balanced character progression. You know, one of the main cores of an RPG where the whole point is to watch your character slowly build up in power. 

 

But nah, fuck that. Just jump straight to the finish line.

I played the demo, I know exactly what artifacts you're talking about.

They're in there as fucking assists. The game literally spells that out for you. It's for people not comfortable with action game combat who want to be able to get through the story. It's not the games fault you're a fucking moron with no self control to not use them.

Why are you talking about Final Fantasy as if it's some achievement to make it through the game? These games are a joke to get through anyway.

probably stick away from a 3070, 8gb is gonna fuck you. 4070 would be the aim, 1440p you're safe for the future with that.

17 hours ago, Sabo said:

They're literally too good not to use.

 

Not using them doesn't make you "good", it just makes you stupid. A "good" player will recognize when a available tool is stronger and more effective than other tools. And these Accessories I'm talking about are way better than anything else.

 

That's my problem with them, they make everything else meaningless because why the fuck would I waste an Accessory slot on an inferior Accessory?

 

I'd rather they not exist to begin with.

the only thing stupid is this take. again, if an easy mode exists are you stupid for not choosing it? this is no different. it's meant for people with handicaps and shit.

4 hours ago, Sabo said:

Did the demo have the "Difficulty Modifier" accessories? Or at least that's what I call them. Some of the accessories the game is going to have are OP as fuck. I just want to know how OP are they because they honestly sounded game breaking.

I mean they're really just an assist mode. They're meant to break the game. They're the equivalent of an "easy mode".

So just don't use them. Would you play the game on easy? If not then why use these.

shame that Ubisoft got this license.

no, i have a pc. even if starfield ends up good, im not playing it at 30fps lol

Show was alright. Would have liked to see some more games that were coming out anytime soon.

New atlus game was the highlight.

Kinda took the weekend off TOTK, was putting a ton of time into it so nice to refresh a bit, just been grinding D4 but I'm about done with that now. I can't say I'm disappointed with it, cause my expectations were low from the beta, but it's hard to not feel letdown.

Gonna get back to TOTK today but also impulse bought SF6. I suck at fighters but always nice to have one I can jump into here and there. The tutorials are super well done and some of the new characters seem cool. Mostly been playing Ken but gonna fuck around and try to find something to main today. I still suck at charge characters.

the end game is just such a mobile level treadmill. incredibly disappointing.

the gameplay just also feels so slow at a point, only exception being whenever everything is off cooldown.

also as much as the spell effects are cool, they feel so reserved in scope. ice shards for example, the core skill of an endgame build and it feels like you're flicking miniature snowflakes at people. things like Frozen Orb/Blizzard that have direct comparables from D2 just look so much less powerful when you use them in D4.

good choice, vr sucks

2 minutes ago, Remij said:

 

Overwatch was, wasn't it?

 

But yea, point taken.

ah yeah forgot about that franchise

7 minutes ago, Remij said:

 

 

 

no wonder it's already become the fastest selling game in Blizzard's history.  

i mean tbf it's also the first game they launched on consoles and pc same day. it would be a travesty if it wasn't.

1 minute ago, Twinblade said:

Probably a noob question, but whats the point of the storage? Since you're always gaining better loot, it doesn't make sense to store stuff.

 

Unless its intended for loot not supported by your class? That way if you start over as a different character, you can make use of better items early on to give yourself an advantage? (do stored items even carry over from character to character)?

There's gonna be cases where you want to store stuff. Could be for a secondary build that you swap between. Could be because you want to use the aspect on the item but don't need to now.

and yeah, the stash is shared so you can give shit to other characters.

My thoguhts:

Level 58 now, just doing nightmare dungeons (~tier 13-15 depending on the key I have available. Pretty mixed on the game overall....the action stuff is great, the rpg stuff is not.

Good stuff:
-Moment to moment action is awesome
-Looks and sounds fantastic
-Aspects are fun to get initially from dungeons and a cool way to augment gear
-Being able to skip the campaign and having renown/lilith statues carry to alts is nice
-World itself is cool and well designed
-Decent variety of end game activities, though Nightmare dungeons do kinda feel much more optimal
-The PvP is surprisingly fun

Bad stuff:
-Itemization is awful. Most of the affixes suck and the marginal % increases you get on the ones that don't suck are barely noticeable due to the way scaling/progression is handled. There's nothing akin to hitting a breakpoint in Diablo 2 for example. You get a few extra % on the stats you want but then you just go up a key level anyway so the monsters are equally more powerful. Basically means you're doing the same content over and over again.
-The bad itemization is compounded with the way loot is distributed - need a filter/some way to see if shit is worth picking up. The names of items as they drop indicate basically nothing about their quality so you're sifting through a ton of garbage at the end of each run. Basically just scanning the ilvl and tossing everything out that's below x.
-Further compounded by the upgrade/aspect system - when you do get an upgrade it's so marginal but you also have to invest heavily into it with upgrades and aspects (especailly if you're at the point where you're not using the base aspect and instead trying to get a better, extracted version)
-The uniques so far are pretty wack
-Level scaling sucks and is lazy. It's terrible during the campaign as leveling up often makes you feel weaker - basic enemies just become sponges at certain points. Combine this with the tediously incremental item power creep and it just feels very homogenized.
-Once you've got your build you're basically locked in to most aspects and again, you start the search for the items with the good rolls on them to extract
-Basically it's an incredibly grindy end game but by the time you actually start to see those power spikes that you want out of an ARPG, there's no real reason to continue playing
-It's nice that they let you skip the campaign and stuff on alts but it's hard to imagine doing that grind several times over. Feels like a game I'll come back to every few seasons for a week
-World is cool and well designed but also pretty samey. Not many memorable areas (parts of act 5/6 come to mind, the tree area is super cool). It all just blends together.