gusgalarnyk

@gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s totally cool by me, it’s a fun game. PoE2 is probably the best ARPG on the market, it’s just falling short of what they sold me (and the community at large) on. But for now, it’s definitely an idle game during mapping with the right build (and the wrong build will see you roadblocked progression-wise).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean to say “idol” as in… Oh fuck. Omg I’ve been misspelling idle in literally weeks worth of comments. Woooooow. Okay. Feeling a bit dumb.

  I meant idle mechanics. Hopefully that makes a bit more sense but just in case - I’m making the argument that most modern ARPGs since Diablo 2 have not innovated on the gameplay directly but have innovated on the systems of the genre. This behavior has led to what I consider to be a stale endgame game to game that often or exclusively boils down to trivializing the content such that it’s comparable to a slot machine, an idle game like Eggs Inc., or a “phone” game.

  I think PoE2 is working hard to evolve the genre to what id consider to be a “next gen” ARPG, where most or all previous games fall into a large “Diablo 2 inspired” bucket. I think No Rest for the Wicked is similarly attempting to evolve the genre. A counter example for the genre is Titans Quest 2 which seems to be falling squarely in the “Diablo 2 inspired” bucket.

  I’d like to see more “No Rest for the Wicked” level of swings regardless of if you consider that EA game a hit or miss in its current state.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you did a great job of talking about the various issues and I haven’t played noita yet but I appreciate the example. I think there is a way to create a game with a baseline power level of 1x and give the player a range of 0.8 - 1.6x power creep based on their build and 0.8 - 1.6x power creep based on their mechanical skill. Capping the possible player power range from something like 0.6 (a game twice as difficult as it was designed) to 2.5 (a game that’s a slightly more than twice as easy as it was designed) seems feasible to me - a none game dev. I believe this would allow me to have build expression from a power perspective and not reduce the game to a slot machine’s level of engagement. I think the problem is the lower range is closer to 0.1 or worse in the end game maps and the upper end is 100x+ even on the hardest content in the game. That to me is the core issues.

  I think part of the fun in ARPGs, something almost all of them do better than say Dark Souls or Hades, is that the individual abilities are way different per character or per class/weapon/etc. I can play a magma barbarian in PoE2 in a way I just couldn’t in Elden Ring in a satisfactory way. I can play a lightning Amazon and a poison archer and a frost monk and the builds are visually (and in the best cases mechanically) diverse enough to make experience a new power fantasy that in itself is super cool. There are items and powers I can’t or wouldn’t experience on one play through that I could in another, and the best games in the genre provide me a ton of variation. That to me is more important to build expression than the power of my build, at least it’s more important than the share it gets in normal conversation. A build for me becomes bland and identical the moment combat is trivialized, but ideally before it trivializes things it can feel expressive if the moment to moment gameplay is unique compared to other builds.

  So personally I’m confident to the extent “the needle has to be threaded (lol)” it’s not critically hard or critically important that it’s gotten perfectly right. I think it just has to be choice from the developers on what the power range is and how much of that is mechanical vs itemization based.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I disagree completely. I think you can have a game that is “about the builds” when engaging in meaningful combat. I think you’re right to hint that people may play these two kinds of games for two different reasons, but I think there’s a massive untapped market for the overlap.

  I want the build creation and fantasy expression of typical ARPG’s but I want to use them to do more than just idol click monsters into loot. I don’t like the phone game playstyle of modern ARPGs. It’s not compelling to me to trivialize the gameplay loop in order to get slightly more powerful gear to further trivialize another tier of difficulty.

  I think if GGG took their boss combat design philosophy and extended it out to their monsters - mimicking genres like roguelikes or action games - they’d have a lot more success than the hybrid game they’ve produced. I think they’re moving towards that but haven’t quite yet committed publicly to reworking the monsters.

  Imagine Hades or Dead Cells or Enter the Gungeon but in Raeclast. I don’t think they’re far off on the player side, a few more abilities per weapon type, especially interactive defensive options, and monsters re crafted to roles in an encounter and they could mimic the compelling gameplay of a rogue-like but give you far more expression than the four guns you have on you or the two weapons and two items or the boons you pick during a run.

  I think the genres are wholly compatible. I don’t think the idol vs engaging mindset are and that’s where all the friction seems to be coming from.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Path of Exile 2's disastrous new update reveals the core tension at the heart of its design: How do you make a game with meaningful combat when everyone just wants to blast monsters?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I do not believe “everyone” wants to zoom. I like the engaging combat they’re going for. I think the loudest people in the community like the idol game mechanics of most modern ARPGs but I think the genre is ripe for innovation.

  Everyone praises their boss design and enjoy that aspect of the game, which to me reads “we like engaging combat with balanced rewards” but when that logic is theoretically applied to monsters we get people throwing online temper tantrums which tells me they don’t know what they want except for the thing they’ve already been given.

  They’re missing the mark with the monster design, getting closer than anyone else in the genre (besides maybe No Rest for the Wicked). They need to look at roguelikes such as Hades and make each monster have a “role” when building encounters. Give each monster abilities like the bosses in the game and don’t make it about being auto-hit to death and they’ll have a truly next-gen ARPG.

  I’m positive the first team to crack the infinite loot/immense player expression of ARPGs and engaging combat loop of action games (or really all other genres besides idol click farmers) will make the next genre defining game akin to Diablo 2.

  I think PoE2 is on the road to doing that but the immense pushback they’re getting online seems to be wearing them thin. Which they asked for, for releasing an unfinished game and not having a clear line in the sand.

  I’m still having fun. Pushing T4 maps today.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨6* months away now. If you're on 10, do you plan to upgrade? Make the jump to Linux?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It wasn’t a silver bullet. I’ll keep working on this. HL-L2400DW. Freaking nightmare printers are.

  Thanks for trying.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨6* months away now. If you're on 10, do you plan to upgrade? Make the jump to Linux?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Swapped to Arch Linux! I wouldn’t say it’s been a bug free swap but it’s been extremely doable and everything I needed to work worked like a charm. Gaming was uninterrupted and nothing hasn’t worked yet.

  I need to figure out how to connect my stupid printer but I couldn’t do that on windows either, which is sad cause I thought printers were gonna be easier on Linux but I guess this brother model is a pain in the ass or something. Oh and connecting to network drives while on a VPN. That’s my list of pending problems and I’ve been on Linux for two months. Not bad really.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why dont more people live in smaller communities , appart from economic opportunity (WFH is making it possible if not prefferable too)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re misattributing things here that I think can and should be explained by wealth inequality. Big box stores don’t kill small towns because they destroy competition, they kill small towns because some percentage of money spent at a big box store leaves that small town. It’s not the lack of competition that kills small towns it’s the fact that after those small town businesses close less wealth exists in the hands of people in that small town. There’s less money moving around in that town because a portion of it is being siphoned off to big box store profits which go to shareholders and out of state C-suites and the likes.

  Yes, higher density means more taxes are raised per area which means it’s easier to spend on infrastructure in high density areas but you’re missing the point. If wealth was distributed properly we’d have enough money to build all the infrastructure we want comparatively almost regardless of the density of the population. As wealth inequality grows less taxes are being paid to the government in high density and low density scenarios. As wealth inequality grows the more the government is in debt to the wealthy and the less it can spend on vital services. There’s enough money in the system to pay for Internet and hospitals and rail and school to service every person in the US but the money isn’t held by everyone, it’s held by people who have those services covered where they are and so they don’t care if they drain the rest of the country of those things. Wealth inequality explains why small towns are dying because it explains why they can’t afford to stay open, stay profitable, stay connected, stay healthy.

  And to circle back around to your original paragraphs, I don’t care how much people like living in big cities they can’t live there on vibes alone. They have to go where the money is, and you best believe when Boeing opens up a new plant in a city they put a whole lot of money into that city (ignoring city special contracts for a moment). I like living in a big city, I want to move to an even bigger city, I’m not because I don’t have a job there right now. I live where the work is. And yes, denser cities means more jobs and more opportunities but that only gets less true and less meaningful the more wealth inequality grows. If I can’t afford to rent a flat in 10 years, the same way I can’t afford to rent a house today then what’s the point? If my job doesn’t pay me meaningfully more in 10 years because stocks have to go up (please read that as wealth inequality) then what’s the point? Cities don’t create jobs or high paying jobs because money moves fast, it’s because that’s where the wealth is. Look at any major city in the US (at least) and you can find the increasingly small list of increasingly massive companies that have offices there and you can trace the money. If Kansas city lost Garmin or Hallmark they’d feel it, if the government went further into debt and had to slash services Kansas City would feel it, if one of the massive freight companies left KC would feel it. The point is cities are built on wealth and the movement of wealth, but if it increasingly is drained out of those cities it will be harder and harder to sustain those cities. It won’t matter where people like living, they’ll have to move to where the money is.

  I really do think looking at where money comes from and where it’s going is critical to understanding why the standard of living is declining while there’s never been more wealth or productivity in history. We could all own homes, all have healthcare, have highspeed rail, higher education, if only the rich didn’t exist. We have to tax them out of existence and build a system that works for the overwhelming majority of people instead of the 1%.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why dont more people live in smaller communities , appart from economic opportunity (WFH is making it possible if not prefferable too)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “Not as consumers, no. The 1% doesn’t consume more than the 90th percentile.”

  But that’s the thing, as the wages of workers goes down their ability to consume goes down as well. Sure they’ll never stop needing food and clothes but new cars, sushi, new TVs, vacations, preventative healthcare, higher education, etc - these things become impossible. Debt will surely be the next step to keep the engine running but that will only accelerate the transfer of wealth because debt is paid to those who have assets. And quite frankly we’re already there - university (in the US), the rise of buy now and pay later programs, healthcare the moment you need to use it - these things require massive debt today. It’ll only get worse.

  As wealth gets drained from the working class into the owning class, the only meaningful consumers for the majority of goods and services will be the owning class. Services will increasingly be focused on the wealthy or on methods of serving the poor via borrowing from the rich (which only exasperates their poverty).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why dont more people live in smaller communities , appart from economic opportunity (WFH is making it possible if not prefferable too)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think I am being over dramatic, I’d love to know what specifically you think isn’t grounded or reasonable.

  Plenty of businesses do thrive off of the lower 90% of wage earners but those businesses are increasingly owned by the 0.1% and I’m talking about a slope here - a velocity. “Increasingly…” means there is a trend. When all wealth is increasingly owned by the wealthy 1% then we’ll see all possible wealth be within their immediate vicinity, within serving their needs. When there’s 50 businesses offering a service or product you can expect to see the wealth of those 50 companies spread out over many locations, but when all products and services are produced by 1 company you can expect most of their wealth to be situated in fewer places. Less competition means lower wages which means everywhere those workers are there is less wealth circulating. More wealth in fewer hands means less money flowing around to enliven cities, towns, villages.

  More restaurants in cities because there’s more money in cities because there’s more people - but small towns used to have good restaurants too, with variety. But as wealth drains from the hands of the many into the hands of the few more corners have to be cut. More quality goes away. Another restaurant closes because people have to eat out less. It’s all a matter of how much wealth is in your community and owned by your community.

  Things to do is facilitated by that same factor, but additionally by infrastructure. If the US had high speed rail connecting every major city and town, everyone would have a lot harder time justifying being within 30 minutes of city center by car when a train could take them into city center for cheaper, less hassle, and quicker from a much farther distance. We can’t build that infrastructure because… of a lot of reasons, but I’d argue most of them come back to too much money in the hands of too few people and that it’s only getting worse.

  It’s why populism is so popular right now. It’s why the US is sliding rapidly into fascism. It’s why most European countries score as better places to live in nearly every metric, and it’s why if they’re not careful they’ll be in exactly the same situation in a few years time.

  Wealth inequality is everything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why dont more people live in smaller communities , appart from economic opportunity (WFH is making it possible if not prefferable too)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The more wealth inequality grows the less important 99% of the population is as consumers and the more important the 1% becomes. As our governments go increasingly into debt to the benefit of only the rich, infrastructure will continue to suffer. As wealth inequality grows the standard of living for the 99% will continue to decline, making the ability to own assets like housing an impossibility.

  Add these factors together and you can see why people are forced to move to where the rich are, because that’s where the business is, because they’re the only people with enough money to constitute a customer, and because everyone else doesn’t have the money or infrastructure to go where they’d like to regardless of business smaller communities get choked out.

  The only way to get the life you deserve, a better life for everyone in your country regardless of where you are in the world, is to tax the rich out of existence. Remove the possibility of becoming a threat to organized society, to democracy. Remove the threat of amassing wealth beyond reason and watch as your country becomes profitable, your job pays you more, the price of goods and services go down, and the quality of life for everyone begins to rise instead of plateau or decline.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Will Box Office Rebound? Captain America, Black Bag, Mickey 17 Struggle⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Lol well that makes me happy. Count this as one strangers active contribution and keep up the good fight :D

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Will Box Office Rebound? Captain America, Black Bag, Mickey 17 Struggle⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s all income inequality. Start talking about taxing the rich. You don’t even have to do anything super active, just passively agree with and educate yourself on taxing the rich. We can fix society and go back to (or forward depending on who we’re talking about) better economic realities for the vast majority of people simply by taxing the rich.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Studio Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke" is being remastered in 4K and re-released in IMAX on March 26th⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d buy a UHD disk in a heartbeat. I’m in the market for all great to good films to come to the UHD format.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Mickey 17' Sinks at Box Office to $18.5 Million Opening Weekend⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, that’s a poor or reductive reading of what I wrote at best.

  Spoilers

  • I don’t like that the ship is shown to have tons of fanatical applicants and be a religious/corporate vessel under the donation and control of a crazed politician and yet the rebellion comes out of no where and is successful.
  • I don’t like that Mickey has a personality matrix and yet he explicitly gets cloned with two very different matrixes when they go multiple. I thought this was a hint that Mickey 18 didn’t have a soul but the serial killer they showed us seemed to have identical personalities across all three of them.
  • I didn’t like that the love interest bad ass cop whose main traits are badass, loyal, horny, druggie, and on a fanatical religious ship gives a speech at the end about colonialism. It didn’t feel foreshadowed, it didn’t feel in character, it wasn’t stylized or clever to justify the over-the-topness like the politician or his wife. It felt like a stand in for the director or audience. In fact the whole last act felt like cheap therapeutic “bad guys losing” porn you were supposed to live vicariously through because everything up to that point justified why they would lose.
  • I didn’t like that the head of the rebellion’s only other scene was when he caught the piece of shit friend dealing drugs and seemed shady. Again, the rebellion came out of no where for me.
  • I didn’t like that there was little corporate political commentary by the end of it all. It was mostly a silly over the top scenario but it didn’t feel like it said anything. Comparing this to Moon, as an example, feels horrible.
  • I didn’t like some of the retroactive explanations like the vaccine was actually now a nerve toxin. I didn’t like the translator coming out of no where for no reason.
  • I didn’t like that they kept any bi-sexual/lesbian hints entirely encapsulated and removable presumably for the Asian market. Like either commit or don’t you cowards.

  Generally, again, the story felt like its premise won me over in the first half. Out of sheer excitement for what could happen I enjoyed the first bit. The stellar acting from the main character and the political couple and the shitty friend was really nice. I also enjoy sci-fi films in general. But by the end none of the possibilities came to fruition and none of the threads felt connected or meaningful. Even in memory the sci-fi aesthetic is fading for me next to movies like Romulus or shows like Secret Level that had more enjoyable eye candy in set design and technology.

  5 or 6 / 10

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Mickey 17' Sinks at Box Office to $18.5 Million Opening Weekend⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t love the film. I enjoyed the story up until the main romantic interest gave a long shouting speech at the politician that didn’t feel fully earned or signposted. The entire last 20 mins or so was the director doing his seemingly common practice of failing to stick the landing and instead going with a disney-esque ending.

  In retrospect, as we discussed the movie for the rest of the night, the themes felt disjointed and the plot less interesting than it could have been. There was a lot of value given to the movie because it seemed like it could be interesting but when the end credits rolled and none of it came to fruition that loan came due and the movie couldn’t pay it back.

  Definitely praise worthy for Robert Patterson’s acting. I wish the film had been more focused with its themes or the world building been committed to.

  Spoilers

  Wouldn’t it have been more interesting if the religious colonization ship was actually full of fanatical red hats instead of what felt like a decent diverse group of level headed albeit corporate people? Wouldn’t it have been more interesting for the bad guys to win, and for the bugs to be killed, and for the colony to either be left in a sorry state or fast forwarded to their early demise? It could have been a message about how “if you vote for idiots and give them complete control and treat them like saviors you’re going to get idiots in power making idiot decisions.” Which I think would have been more timely and poignant.

  I think there were a lot of ways the film could have gone that would have been more cohesive and interesting but instead it felt like it had a lot of great ideas it wanted to explore and failed to explore most of them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta Censors #Democrat when searched for⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, I confirmed. I live in Germany and hashtags like democrat or berniesanders are blocked and hashtags like Republican and donaldjtrump are not blocked.

  I was only on Instagram for my friends to exchange reels and post life updates like once a year but this crosses another line. Migrating from all these monopolies is such a tax on my time but this is a small way to hurt these big giants.

  I recommend everyone do the same when they have the time. I’d like to learn about RSS feeds and go back to a bunch of individual blogs for friends and family. Decentralized power is I guess the most important characteristic to look for these days. Fuck, this correction period is going to suck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has "Self-Driving" devolved?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I appreciate these comments saying the tech hasn’t degraded and it’s been standstill, or that it was never great in the first place, all of which is true but I would like to interject my own Model 3 experience. When we first bought the Tesla in 2019 the self driving functionality on the highway felt safe and functional in nominal conditions. When we sold the Tesla 2 years ago (2022) the self driving felt noticably more finicky. It struggled to switch lanes, recognize when lanes started and ended, and had noticably more issues with maintaining proper speed and distance with other cars.

  It probably wasn’t significantly more dangerous, but it felt like it was. What was a feature we used for the first year or two without much complaint turned into something we never used and our driving time when down in that third year not up so it wasn’t exposure time I don’t think.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alien: Isolation sequel in early development, with original director returning⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I never finished it because the alien would teleport too much. I need to install the larger leash mod and give it another go. It’s also sooo long for such a tense game. I loved everything about it and I’m upset I haven’t finished it lol.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has Google Search gotten so much worse in the last couple of weeks?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve read it, I read the discussion around it, idk man. One guy’s thoughts on a company and it’s founder isn’t enough to move me off of something without better proof, better alternatives, and worse crimes than maybe having a bad long term vision.

  Hopefully every company outgrows it’s founder and becomes a system. We’ll have to see, right now I’m satisfied and that gets me off Google and signals to others I’m willing to pay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has Google Search gotten so much worse in the last couple of weeks?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I recommend Kagi, I’ve been using it for about six months now and results - especially small web results like blogs - are so much better. I also have a pretty good time image searching compared to when I was on Google.

  Yes it’s paid, but that to me is the price of resisting enshittification. Find a company that isn’t a publicly traded for-profit world-burner and pay them for their service. Is the idea of paying for email and search an alien concept to me? Yes. But I’m either paying Google whatever €120 a year in eyeballs on ads and an increasingly worse experience, or I’m paying €80 a year and getting a markedly better experience.

  Now it’s up to Kagi and Proton to not turn into shitty companies while other competitors catch up and we have a thriving ecosystem again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Path Of Exile 2 Begins Early Access Later This Year And Is Coming To PS5⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m stoked, the ARPG genre feels stale. Hopefully they keep up what seems to be engaging combat. No rest for the wicked is still in early access and D4/LE/POE1 have very unrewarding combat IMHO.

  This can’t come soon enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem ceases development, will shut down multiplayer in September⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I played it on launch with friends. It was an arpg with better combat than most and pretty great graphics. Those are ALL of the positive things I have to say about it. It was so buggy it was hard to play without crashing. We lost progression multiple times. The servers were atrocious, the first 6 hours of playtime were trying to log in and not crashing. We ended up refunding it obviously.

  Unfortunately the ARPG genre is super stale right now and we were looking to support any project we could. No rest for the wicked is the best thing to come out in ages and it’s still got a ways to go in EA before I give it a proper play through.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Helldivers 2 Players Express Frustration On Steam As It Will Soon Require A PSN Account⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Who the fuck reads the entire steam page? My friend says buy the game, the reviews say it’s great with friends, you go and buy the game not scan the steam page for predatory data hoarding policies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨**THE CREATOR Discussion Megapost** 2023-09-29 👶🔫⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Seeing this tomorrow. Watched a YouTube review or two that got me kinda hyped but you guys brought me back down to ground level. Bummer if it really turns out to be that generic.