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Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Diablo 3 - Weapons are often cosmetically irrelevant to the actual attacks, especially for wizards and witch doctors.
"Cool, a flaming sword!" *Throws a jar of spiders*

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Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

My real-life tabletop RPG story is that my brother tried running a Call of Cthulhu game using a scenario from the book (the game was new at the time) and one dick in the group looked up the scenario ahead of time and so always knew what the surprises or dangers were, but would pretend he was just really good at figuring things out.

For video games, I tried Path of Exile but was severely turned off by the convoluted skill systems, lack of money, tons of jargon-filled tiny descriptions on every item, piles of gear that's hard to decipher, and a tiny inventory. I'm sure it makes sense over time, but it's seems an example of a system that kept adding more and more for veterans with little concern for new players. I liked feeling fairly powerful early on, and combat seemed okay, but it's so drat obtuse and unfriendly, and I just don't have time for that kind of nonsense at my age.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

New Leaf posted:

stable duty, air patrol, and weed pulling.
group bonding activities are food
revolving door of dinner dates.
Have like a group fishing outing, or a sparring activity, or horseback riding, or seasonal activities,

Still, an absolutely stellar game.

I dunno, that sounds awful. In a tactics game with relatively shallow combat, they really decided what it needed was tedious between-mission fetchquests and dating sims?
I mean, drat. I thought previous FE games were dull already. That just sounds tedious.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

moosecow333 posted:

I don’t really like games where you have to choose between leveling up two stats that tend to do the same thing. If I’m given the choice between upgrading my defense vs my max HP I feel like either one choice would be objectively better but have no way to know which, or the choice doesn’t matter and I waste time trying to figure it out.

This is me in Diablo 3 with paragon points. Health vs Armor vs Resist All... easiest to just spread the points evenly and not try and figure it out

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Dr Christmas posted:

Also demon lord Humongolax the Godfucker in Outland could get one-shot by a Kobold Leghumper a few zones into the next expansion. He drops a soul-consuming greatsword powered by a collapsing star, which will eventually be replaced by a board with a nail in it.

Yeah, this bothers me too. In a high enough level in Diablo 3, even a simple swarm of bugs has literally billions of HP. Judging by how little damage the NPC soldiers do to it, it could kill every human on the planet and they wouldn't even be able to stop it.

Also, why the hell don't your followers keep any sort of pace with enemy scaling? Their attacks are worthless late game.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

I like D3.

Speaking of loot games, I'm playing Borderlands 3 and it's driving me crazy because they hide little chests EVERYWHERE so I spend more time trying to climb to the top of every building and cliff in sight, rather than playing the actual game. Too scared I might miss another tiny little safe!

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Add me to those who felt let down by MW5. I'm such a huge Battletech fan that I even like MWO simply because it's Battletech. I own over 200 mechs for the tabletop game! I played thousands of hours on MegaMek servers. Getting to pilot dozens of those mechs in a game is absolutely my jam and I will put up with a lot of crap to do so.

What gets me in MW5 isn't the mind-numbing story, the clunky repair system, lack of customization, traveling among systems, or the bad AI. I can gladly live with those.

The part I can't get past is the respawning enemies. It just runs SO MANY facets of combat. It's like they couldn't find the right number of enemy mechs for a challenge X mission so they just have endless waves of mechs and vehicles. Every mission just becomes "run in, kill the objective, run to extract ASAP." At least pay me more for killing stuff. Nope, it's a net loss every hit you take if it's not completing the primary goal. Specialty mechs, lance composition, splitting up, flanking, using terrain, scouting - all fairly worthless because there's a surprise Griffin up your rear end who spawned right behind you. And it guarantees I'll never see an actual cool mission design, like "you have to take down a trio of badass King Crabs using only mediums. Formulate a plan and figure it out!" That actually sounds like a fun challenge. But that's too much work, so nah, go check these 5 empty locations again and get picked apart by lights and vehicles that are too annoying to fight but too damaging to ignore.

Just such a bad idea. I'm so pissed.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Something that might help with Diablo and its clones would be finding ways to make junk or repeat items become valuable. And not just as "break it down so I can reroll with a 1% to get something better." What if once you reached max level, every item you collect that's already in your stash can be used to give a small boost to that item.

For example, you have a level 60 rare mace in your stash. Each new mace you find of any rarity can be used to boost its base stats by a tiny amount. The better the found item, the bigger the boost. So even common/magic items become worth grabbing as, over time, they may make a previously useless item competitive with good legendaries, especially since the drop rate is higher

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

BioEnchanted posted:

Dark Cloud had that kind of system. You could turn a crap weapon into a core and put it into a better weapon to boost it's stats faster.

Haven't played that game since it first released... didn't remember that. You would certainly be the person who knows, though.

But then, yes, more games should do that. Let everything level up. EVERYTHING.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Tunicate posted:

that works until the game has a poo poo comparison mechanic and now you have to fake out the computer to manipulate it into dropping the good stuff

That, and something about consistently seeing something drop is important to keep players going. It's like playing a slot machine. Even if you don't win, you need some type of response to let you know to try again. I saw some developer interview a long time ago that expounded on the importance of dropping Common items even late in the game when nobody would ever, ever want one. A consistent flow of items tells the player that items ARE dropping and if they're patient, eventually they'll get what they want.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Also, in games like Diablo 3, it can be hard to quantify "better." A certain weapon has unarguably lower stats, but it will boost my buffs for this particular build more than simply a higher damage stat could.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

What's dragging down Bloodstained is that of course all the women, protagonist included, have to be wank-material for no reason at all. As a dude, I have no problem with playing as a woman, but this poo poo's embarrassing. I hate having to pick between playing a well-regarded game and not wanting to be a character who runs around in fetish wear.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

This new armor gives me +3 Tiddy Strength and extra damage when I'm using AssAssAss Sword Stance.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Well, call it whatever term you like, but it's still pretty :rolleyes:

I dunno, I guess I just get tired of unnecessarily skimpy clothes.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Like, I know on the scale of Embarrassing Anime Girls it's pretty tame, but that's not saying much. Even the church lady shop owner is dressed more modestly but still has huge boobs.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

As a kid, I was frustrated by games that "promised" a certain type of gameplay when in fact you spent most of your time doing otherwise. Two notable examples are Battletoads on NES and Earthworm Jim.

In Battletoads, the first level is a beat-em-up with fun mechanics and good controls. But that's the only one. You then have to race hover bikes, race against a rat, race against a gear, race on snakes, races against an orb, ugh. Oh, and these parts are all instant-death situations where the combat is minimal if present at all. Even the other very few more traditional platformer levels are more puzzle-like than brawling. And it wouldn't be that big of a deal if the opening stage didn't set a completely different expectation.

Same for Earthworm Jim. Sprawling sidescroller, sure, with fun guns and gags. But then you're racing a crow, escorting a dog, navigating a horrendous water maze, and so on. The game has boatloads of charm, and in limited amounts those change-ups can be fun, but mostly they're just frustrating.

I'm all for games having variety and experimentation, but not when it isn't fun.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

wafflemoose posted:

Check out the arcade game sometime, it's pretty much a pure beat-em-up without none of the gameplay roulette horseshit the other games in the series had.

I vaguely remember seeing that arcade game as a kid and, shockingly, that it had a ton of blood and gore. But yes, that's what I was looking for instead in what the NES offered

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Replaying Doom 2016 and I'm annoyed at how important the secrets are. It really slows down the otherwise frenetic pace. Sure, the original games had secrets, but they weren't as crucial to find since once you had the full load of weapons you couldn't miss anything permanent, so that just left extra armor and health. But the remake ties secrets into upgrades, so I'm constantly grinding to a halt to backtrack. Sometimes they're even missable where after a certain part you can't reach them anymore and have to replay the level to pick it up. Such a shame.

Oh, and this is doubly so for the challenges of "Kill X monsters in this contrived way." Those are even worse.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Pretty sure on Steam you can choose not to download MP now. Could be wrong.


Cleretic posted:

Once I realized that Doom 2016 was a Metroid Prime game and not a Doom game, I started enjoying it a lot more.

Will say, Iooooove the lore.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Why is the monk in Final Fantasy 1 so drat complicated? Use weapons, except your fists are stronger than weapons, so never mind, don't. And wear this armor only, but not after this point, in which case you should wear no armor at all, unless you DO use this armor, but also, maybe don't wear that armor, but do put on that ring. No, not that one.

Meanwhile Warrior = You get a million HP and your armor cuts any attack down to 1 damage. Go hit poo poo with a sword. Any sword.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Doom Eternal stuff:
Good
-Amazing visual design to levels. Sure, they aren't as cohesive, but it's also not merely facility/Hell and nothing in between
- Runs super smooth. I have an old GTX 970 and it defaults to high settings and I can't recall ever getting slowdown
- The dash and double jump DO give you a ton of mobility and the platforming is very fun
- Still better than cover/regen shooters
-High expectations of players. This game is not going to hold your hand through the first 2/3s like some games
-I like the map
-It's fun

Bad
-I feel totally overwhelmed by combat choices. Flamer to add armor, melee for health, chainsaw for ammo, plus grenades, weapon mods, blood punch, weak points... it's too much. Combat moves so fast that I can't even take a moment to see whether I have armor left or my chainsaw has refilled, so sometimes I feel like I'm flailing. Whenever I get the hang of it, they introduce a new element and then it starts over again. I'll go several major encounters and then remember, oh yeah, I totally forgot about grenades. So then I'm TRYING to use them, but that's just getting me hurt in the process
-Having to farm weak enemies for ammo/armor every time you see them between major encounters gets old
-I seriously can't keep track of my buttons anymore, even after rebinding. I have four attacks mapped to mouse and still need my keyboard for several more. Often I forget in the middle of a fight and alt-fire when I meant to flame belch. Ugh.
-As mentioned before, you feel REALLY vulnerable. I can absolutely wreck Doom 2 on hard and rarely felt in danger in Doom 2016, but I constantly feel I'm scrambling to survive on the normal difficulty. These demons are supposed to be scared of ME. But low health, super accurate attacks against you, stupidly low ammo, and spongy enemies take away that badass feeling of 2016. Again, I'm sure I'll get better, but...
I know what they're going for: don't run. They'll catch and kill you. Engage. Use whatever attack is needed in context to keep your ammo, armor, and health filled. It's very ambitious. But I don't think they have the balance right. I can be vaulting through the air, dashing, and still getting hit, and when I land there aren't enough hard-hitting weapons to just gib a few guys to get some breathing room. Half tempted to drop to easy :(
- The story (so far) is a huge letdown. Ruining the Doom Slayer mystique, adding new species with complex histories. The Slayer no longer feels "special." It should never have aspired beyond "Evil company opens portal to Hell, and Hell is bad, so murder everything." No shades of grey. I absolutely adored the simplicity of the backstory in 2016. You are a rampaging nightmare of demons who got so pissed that you literally can't be stopped and you could slay Hell's strongest titans. They are hopeless against you. But now I'm looking at dead 200 foot tall versions of me, wearing my same armor, locked in death blows with equally large demons (and they do visually look awesome) but they don't make me feel like a unique rear end-kicker anomaly, but a small cog in a bigger war of beings beyond my ability. Boooo.
-The runes are lame compared to 2016 and are mainly based around using the clunky new powers. 2016=infinite ammo at 100 armor! Eternal=Enemies burn longer if you remember to use flame belch and can hit something with it without taking more damage than you lose in the process of trying to capitalize on it

Despite all that, I'm going to keep playing because
1. It IS fun
2. I love Doom in all forms
3. I appreciate they didn't just copy 2016 (even in they should have)
4. Visually, it's amazing. The first level had me stopping to just take it in multiple times
5. The moments when you do complete an assault and feel badass are so satisfying

Eclipse12 has a new favorite as of 02:50 on Mar 22, 2020

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Ugly In The Morning posted:


Also change weapons a lot,

The slowdown effect in the weapon wheel feels waaay less, um, slow. That's bad. You don't have time to really examine and think about your weapons when you open the wheel anymore. So that's just one more thing you have to try and multitask under immense pressure.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Well, right at the end of Doom 2016 is when I spent the most time going, "Wait, what? Who? Why?"

But you could fill in the blanks yourself, and it was okay in a "Well, I guess it makes sense there's an entire hidden history I may never know..."

But then Eternal shows up and it feels like fanfiction with OCs and here's what the REAL story is.

Doom 2016 is Mad Max Fury Road: Lore that mainly serves to build atmosphere but it's mostly show, don't tell. You can ignore the codex entries and not feel too confused.

Doom Eternal is the Star Wars Prequel trilogy where everything needs backstories and more powers and a million lightsabers and watch Yoda do backflips I promise it totally doesn't ruin his character guys

To repeat, I like Doom Eternal. But it has some dumb ideas that I wish were left out.

Oh, and I went down to easy mode (which I haven't done in an FPS since probably 10 years old) and I feel shame for that but it finally feels fun instead of stressful to be in combat.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

I wish it wasn't so darn tempting to only win the special-make races by just maxing out points and just being flat-out faster.

I love close races, but they're hard to get. Usually I'm either way faster or without a prayer. Getting that nail-biter close finish is pretty rare.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Duke Nukem 3D. Enemy RPG an inch from the back of my head. One save file.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Why can't I have a modern tactical turn-based combat game with tons of cool guns and environmental destruction?

Why can't I have a modern Silent Storm is what I mean. Why has nobody tried to duplicate it yet?

Oh poo poo, there's a house full of bad guys. I'm gonna lay prone with a heavy machine gun and spray bullets until the walls are swiss cheese. Meanwhile, my 2nd man is throwing a grenade into the basement to collapse the floor underneath the enemy. My sniper is cracking shots at anyone poking their head out. My fourth man is sneaking below windows and popping up to spray his SMG point blank at fools inside. Hell yeah, that house is literally falling apart around them! Bad-rear end!

It's too bad a lot of little decisions make the game a lot more frustrating and slow than it should be...

This is the time when you can tell me about X game that was recently released and is a spiritual successor. Please?

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

gohuskies posted:

XCOM scratches this itch for me. The first one gave you a ton of fun tools to play with but still got a little formulaic at times once you figured out the best way to handle situations, the expansion pack and the sequel made you do some different stuff and some of it worked really well. I liked them a lot although I will admit to save scumming out of frustration several times. Have you tried those?

Yeah, but they're not really what I'm looking for. They're fun, but not the same. The sci-fi isn't as much my taste either, and in general XCOM is a lot less complex with fewer options for any scenario. Again, I wouldn't call them bad games, but they're far from Silent Storm outside of the most basic elements. Same for Fallout Tactics, which could have been very good, but is it's own worst enemy with some frustrating choices and super slow pacing.

Eclipse12 has a new favorite as of 21:59 on Apr 9, 2020

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Retro Futurist posted:

It's last Gen and fps but that sounds a lot like Bad Company if you didn't try that one.
Also Mutant has some destructable cover, but it's hard as hell

Was a big fan of the Bad Company games!

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

I know there are a million valid complaints against Fallout 76, but I personally have a lot of serious problems with the mind boggling keybinds when using a keyboard. Want to leave the game? Open the map and hit Z. Navigate your base-building options with Z and C. When crafting, tab to leave, but only sometimes. Or go back. Maybe. R to scrap, or maybe T? Sometimes the button changes between looking at the crafting options before activating the bench and during. Hit S to start crafting, and then it says press Enter to craft, but Space works easier.
Alt throws grenades. And Alt does a melee attack. That's a fun one to mix up.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

I'm a HUGE Battletech fanboy, to the point where I have hundreds of metal minis. So Mechwarrior Online is something I've been playing for years, despite its free-to-play flaws.

My gripe with it? Custom designs. Everything is min-maxed to hell to the point where it doesn't even make sense. I love that canon mechs (usually) had realistic quirks or weapon distributions with a lot of variety. For example a common Thunderbolt mech would likely have a large laser, machine guns, missiles, and medium lasers. It made sense. Certain mechs were designed in-universe to always have certain weapon focuses. Any Marauder will pack two large energy weapons in its arms and a strong support weapon in its right torso.

But players online just pack in as many of one weapon that will fit. So you end up with dumb designs like a Direwolf with 8 tiny cannons or a Mad Cat with 2 giant auto cannons and nothing else. A Battlemaster with two gauss rifles and one particle cannon. Take the Thunderbolt and give it four large lasers and nothing else that makes it have any of its original personality.

Getting mad about mechs here.

I just wish there was a mode that encouraged people to play a larger variety of mechs. To their credit, developers have tried to limit "___ boats" but it hasn't really worked.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Because now it's just got 8 medium pulse lasers, no other weapons, and ton of heat sinks.

Blegh.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

I forgot about Legends...

Glad other people agree. And I love the people in the MWO thread here, but even there people will say things like "Take out that SRM so you reduce your armor in your left side and then add 4 more ER Small Lasers and two more heat sinks. You're not optimized." Laaame.

At least in standard matches you can still have a decent time in most stock/canon mechs if you don't expect too much from yourself and you really play carefully, but you're always outmatched due to imperfect optimization. Solaris 7 (one-on-one duels) cranked the optimization problem up to 11. In that format, all mechs you face will have been tweaked to the nth degree. And since the time to start and wait between matches takes forever, it really discourages anything but perfect builds.

And some mechs that, in tabletop, are total badasses just become absolutely mediocre. The Phoenix Hawk 3PL is a badass in Battletech because it can jump around like crazy but with pulse weapons and a targeting computer, you're still hitting your shots while they're whiffing against you. In MWO, jumping is usually pointless in close combat and if anything is MORE likely to get you killed. And the PHX model is weirdly big.

And then I got my hopes up for MW5...

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Your island's bad and you should feel bad

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

My biggest gripe about Aminal Crossing:

Shut up shut up shut up stop talking please just stop you've said this a hundred times every day every single day please just stop talking

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Eclipse12 posted:

My biggest gripe about Aminal Crossing:

Shut up shut up shut up stop talking please just stop you've said this a hundred times every day every single day please just stop talking

To clarify, this was aimed at the villagers in AC, not the people discussing the game here


Nuebot posted:

I was terraforming my village. Realized I'd made a mistake and had to undo my work, then redo it all from the ground up, over the course of several hours because I wanted it to look good. It still looks like poo poo, but at least it looks the way I wanted it to I guess. But to get back on track; the whole time one of my villagers was sitting on a cliff watching me do all of this while eating a hot dog.

Lol

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

I love Project High Rise as a modern SimTower. It's got so many little touches and a very intuitive UI. There are lots of demands, but it always makes sense. So yes, if you build hotel rooms, you need to build a housekeeping room. And it's logical to need broom closets on floors that use custodians.

The problem is how easy it is to build yourself into a corner because you didn't know ahead about these things. I'm putting all my client services (courier, storage, IT dept) in the basement and the game encourages this. I recently got the hotel expansion so I add some hotel rooms. Cool. They need housekeeping. No problem, build it in the basement. Wait, what's this? Housekeeping needs its own wide elevators. Which are wider than the elevators I currently have. And there isn't room to replace my current ones with larger unless I move out the adjacent businesses. So I spend a ton of money to do that, have to screw around with building/removing elevators and stairs to keep everything accessible to maintenance, and am pissing off a lot of tenants while I endlessly shuffle things around. Finally, get a bunch of my elevators replaced with the new service elevators.

But for some reason, everyone above ground floor is pissed. Why? Because it turns out regular tenants CAN'T USE the new elevators at all. Only hotel staff. So everybody is trapped on or off their current floors. I don't have the room to build a second elevator shaft and I sure as hell don't have the money. I don't even have the ability to put in stairs at this point! I can wait until midnight to get some more money, but by that point dozens of tenants will be moved out and I still won't have enough money to fix this mess. Basically, I "lost."

This has happened a few times before on smaller scales (needing room for trash bins, closets, vending machines, etc), but fixing that usually isn't too bad. But this wrecked my entire economy.

Just weird how much empty space you have to leave yourself for things you might need later. It's still a fantastic game, but when you're learning it and don't know what's coming in the next tier of unlocks, you can really screw yourself.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

What's dragging down Terraria has always been seeing the amazing housing creations people build and knowing I'll never have the time or talent to do so myself.

Guess I'll just go back to cactus shack, wood shack, ice shack, slime shack, etc forever.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

muscles like this! posted:

Glad I'm not the only one super annoyed by captcha fever.

I'm always struggling to decide what counts. Select all the traffic lights. Fine. But does that mean just the light, or the assembly, or the pole too? And this one square has a tiiiiny sliver showing that a lot of people wouldn't notice. Do I click it? Who knows! Oh, click the bus, well, your picture has lovely resolution and I can tell if that grey blob in the background is a bus, an SUV, or a house.

Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

Doom Eternal story stuff
I rolled my eyes so hard at the "heaven/angels are super-aliens and they're the REAL bad guys." Not only does it poo poo on the existing story and mythos, but it's just lame seeing yet another developer who thinks they're edgy.

Like, you know what would actually be edgy at this point? Having any representation of religion that's actually true to the beliefs of the followers. Hell, just have a character who is devout without
a) making that their only trait
b) making them have to face some gruesome demise or poetic justice or whatever
c) find out that all their beliefs are wrong nooooooooo

I'm just saying, it's not clever or edgy at this point to say "God it's real but he's evil." Try something new.

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Eclipse12
Feb 20, 2008

muscles like this! posted:

Messing around with Mafia 3 since the whole "Definitive Edition" gives you all the DLC for free, if you already own the game, even if you owning it is just through PS+. Thing that's kind of annoying is that on the start screen they added a big obnoxious ad for the Trilogy package.

I dunno. It sounds like you got the game free with PS+ and got all the DLC free too. A single ad seems pretty fair.

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