gusgalarnyk

@gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ARC Raiders | Launch Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve played it twice now (tech test 2 and server slam) and I’m absolutely pumped for launch day. This game is fantastic and I think it’s exactly what the genre needed, a great entry innovating in the space instead of trying to copy Tarkov (like most of them) or veering a bit too far away from the bits that make extraction games unique (like hunt showdown, which to be clear is a fantastic game).

  I haven’t seen a single review that was mediocre. I know the algo can really silo people, but everyone who’s touched this game seems to give it glowing reviews minus some early third person perspective gripes.

  Having had hands on time with the game, I wouldn’t sleep on it if you like fps games or PvE extraction games. My flatmate who hasn’t really played a single pvp game has really had a blast with this one too, starting out “not getting it” and then by the end of a two hour session saying they were going to buy on launch day. I think this game will convert people who give it a chance.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: “Working from home makes us thrive”⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  As someone who currently sleeps, works, and relaxes in the same room these absolutes you’re throwing out come off as hilarious. I’ve literally always lived in a room with both my bed and my computer, always worked and gamed from my computer, always slept within a couple of meters of my desk chair and computer.

  You absolutely can work, relax, and sleep in the same space.

  Does that mean I prefer that? Could I gain some meaningful benefits from having more spaces to dedicate to certain tasks? Absolutely. And the moment we tax the ultra-wealthy out of existence and therefore make housing affordable again, I’ll make those rooms.

  But working from home is not reliant on a square ft/m metric that the home must pass, nor how those spaces are organized or themed. I think saying it does only hurts my ability to stay at home, which is better for the environment, the economy, my productivity, and most importantly my life and mental health.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people using the "þ" character?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Read the fuckin thread you’re responding to dude. I make a case for why to do it and why it’s interesting. That’s what I’m saying, you’re going in guns blazing on such a simple, minor concept that you appear to be not thinking rationally.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people using the "þ" character?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t feel like you’re engaging with the concept as a whole, and are far more interested in either the specific reason a single person is doing this OR more likely just taking the opportunity to call someone dumb to make yourself feel good.

  The reality is it’s probably not doing anything meaningful to AI data, but it is still an interesting concept from a language perspective. There’s no reason to get this worked up about something so trivial as combining the “th” sound into one character.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people using the "þ" character?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Why? Is there a history there or is this a you thing?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people using the "þ" character?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Dang, I just get a 5. Lol. I should look for new keyboards - I think that’s a thing phones can do? Which do you have? Is that a thing a person knows or can find out lol? Never once thought about my keyboard on my phone. Really big blind spot I got here I’m realizing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people using the "þ" character?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I get that it’s one person, I get that it’s an earnest but unsuccessful attempt to counter-AI, but also isn’t it kinda cool to advance the human language in a personal way. I’m surprised Lemmy is so upset by it, maybe that’s just the boomer mentality or maybe it’s the mentality of hating change, but like everyone can admit the English language is obtuse and hard to master and that’s partially because we have less letters than we have phonetic sounds (look at phonetic, it’s actually fOnetik). Couldn’t we use some advancement in that area of our life? And wouldn’t a grass roots movement on Lemmy symbolize the kind of simple, systemic changes we need more of this world? I mean isnt it kinda punk to improve the world in whatever way you can?

  Idk, just reading the comments in this thread people seem more antagonistic than I would expect. It’s not like we’re/he’s jumping to the shavian alphabet. It’s just a single change that anyone can immediately solve after reading a sentence or two with it present.

  Point is I like it. And I have no idea how to type it on my phone lol

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think this was is sufficiently different, if you like any kind of shooter I’d say give this one a shot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes. I’ve liked how the Finals has been handled and supported for the most part. It’s currently my fps of choice at the moment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Very jealous, I’m excited for that game. I just hope they nail the fun aspect. Hunt showdown is so much fun but has almost no meta progression and very little customization - hunger seems to have that addressed (or is planning to). Grey zone Warfare is very cool, hardcore, and slow but it’s got almost no gameplay considerations; it’s like barely a game in the traditional sense and had a terribly short shelf life for me for that reason. That’s where I’m curious if Hunger can pull it off - from what I’ve seen it’s too early to say.

  Thoughts?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Arc Raiders may be the most exciting PvPvE launch I’ve had in a long while. A lot of the comments in this thread seem negative, but I would bet money this game is going to be successful for at least the first 6 months. It’s just too good right out of the gate.

  As for 1 year+, depends on how well the company is at producing new material. I think they have something special with this game. If Hunger comes out, or Marathon (lol), and does something just as compelling I could see Arc having a hard time but I doubt Hunger will eat the same player base and I doubt Marathon will feel very good (they seem like they have too many problems at this point).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s the best extraction shooter I’ve played in the genre by like a country mile. Obviously we haven’t seen what the full economy looks like or endgame but there isn’t a single component that doesn’t outclass the competition in my opinion.

  Like the immersion is top tier with the sounds, the graphics, the feedback, the movement. It feels really good.

  The gameplay is also top notch and does things others in the genre don’t do. Namely:

  • variable game length that feels rewarding. I can do a 5-10 min run and get quick and dirty loot with a free load out or I can stay in the map for the full 45 and look for exactly what I want.
  • the items themselves are compelling game play pieces. Like the rare weapons are full on laser rifles and mini missile grenades - they’re cool and change how you play, not your power level. Like in Gray Zone Warfare nothing I get feels meaningful different or cool, other than the bullet spongy nature of higher level zones and even that’s not super noticeable. I had no reason to want to chase loot in that game.
  • the meta game is sick, probably comparable to Tarkov (although I didn’t play enough to actually compare this). Every match I feel like I’m working towards a goal of making the gear floor higher and gear ceiling easier to attain. Again, we need to see what the full game is like but collecting recipes, upgrading my workbenches, and collecting targeted materials feels good.

  I’m positive I’ll get 3+ months of good fun out of this before I might start mixing other things back in. If the end game is really good I’ll be able to make it 5+ months with no content additions I think. The real question for any multiplayer game is can they add material at a fast enough pace to keep it compelling long term. We’ll have to see, but they have dozens of levers to pull on compared to a traditional fps or PvE game. New ARC, new bosses, new map mods, new events, new maps, new guns, new gadgets, new subsystems, new modes. Lot of different angles they can add to in parallel.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Best Co-Op Games?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Crawl - technically pvp, arcade game Overcooked - try to manage a kitchen together Duck Game - completely pvp, ducks with guns, very fun

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV - Official Announce Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This looks kinda bad but I can’t place my finger on what it is. I think it’s the like clay like textures and mobile phone like graphics.

  This isn’t giving next gen to me and the trailer felt was less put together than they usually do. I guess I like the more realistic or hyper realistic style the cinematics have always pushed in my heads.

  That being said, I hope it slaps. I miss a solid dawn of war that my pals and I can play. Nothing like Dark Crusade LAN parties back in the day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Titan Quest II released in Early Access⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s on my to do list. It seems like it’s lacking the playstyle customization that I’m interested in but I look forward to playing through it.

  PoE2 promised engaging, methodical combat but as of right now has failed to reach that mark. The end game is that of PoE1 which the developers claim they don’t want but I’m not seeing the design choices to slow things down in a meaningful way. Let’s hope they figure it out, I have no doubt the first ARPG to figure this out will bring in larger numbers than most have seen to date.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Titan Quest II released in Early Access⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m arguing some of the developers know it’s broken (including arguably all PoE leads and No Rest for the Wicked leads)(I would extend this to an even larger group but I won’t to keep it verifiable).

  I don’t think all isometric ARPGs copy D2 because they think it’s not broken, I think they do it because it was an innovative genre defining game for its time, most of the devs look back to it with nostalgia, and it was a blockbuster hit. And I wouldn’t minimize the innovations in the scene to just QoL. I think what PoE1 and 2 and LE are doing around their systems is very innovative, including their financing model and tech. I would argue that they’re still fundamentally maintaining the moment to moment loop while expanding all the subsystems that give the game as a whole massive complexity and content - and that’s great but will inevitably pale in comparison to a game that innovates the moment to moment gameplay. I think most genres have innovated their core moment to moment gameplay compared to their genre defining counterparts 25 years ago, but that ARPGs haven’t.

  And I completely disagree on my expectations being “unrealistic, unknown to the genre, or incompatible”. That’s laughable imo and something only a player incapable of imagining change would say.

  • to be self-insert character or at least one of many characters as a form of self expression
    • Diablo 4, LE, and PoE2 (going forward “the big 3”) all do this well to extremely well. Diablos transmog system is peak, PoE2 has unbelievably good cosmetics and they’ve just started, LE is a small studio but I still feel like I’m playing my wizard when I play a wizard.
  • I want mechanical self expression ideally in the form of dozens or hundreds of skills and their customization along with a skill tree that enables further customization on how your character plays. My load out of 10 abilities should look and feel and play very differently than your load out of 10 abilities.
    • the big three all do this but do it poorly. Diablo has low variability in abilities, poor customization, and my load out consists of mostly number go up choices. But importantly the bones are there, this makes it neither non-compatible nor unknown to the genre, it just means these devs did a poor job implementing it. PoE has a ton of this but fails to provide a meaningful load out or mechanical skill expression because nearly all builds converge to press a single button to blow up the screen and a second button to move around the screen fast. Again, they have all of the bones and far more customization than I’d ever expect from a game, and yet a lot of it is meaningless the second you close Path builder and actually start playing because it trivializes the game.
  • I want to fight monsters and bosses that are varied, challenging, and uniquely rewarding ideally. Challenging and varied are putting in a lot of work in that sentence so I want to further expound and say combat should feel like a dance, a puzzle, high octane, and skill rewarding (not simply build skill or farming skill, but actual play skill).
    • the big three have varied down, and arguably uniquely rewarding down (D4 sucks at this imo) but they all falter on challenging or good moment to moment gameplay. I would argue PoE2 campaign is pretty good for this, but mid-end game is pretty awful and it really only ever shines in the boss arenas. They seem incapable of further innovating the mob combat because they seem to differentiate good combat in a boss arena (engaging) from good combat while mapping (mindless). LE’s Pinnacle boss is fantastic for this (and I like it better than all PoE bosses at this moment). Even as I heap praise in these areas, I’m rarely using reactive abilities, I’m rarely using multiple skills in a fight that aren’t just buff my one damage skill. Again, none of this is incompatible, none of this is unknown to the genre, all of this is achievable, and in a lot of places already in place just used poorly from a design perspective.
  • I want the pacing around playing to be focused on fighting and clearing encounters more so than exploration and discovery.
    • the big three do this perfectly, as that’s essentially one of the ARPG innovations - fight fight fight and then plan/craft/prepare then fight fight fight. I think poe has some work with their towers and LE has some work with the size and rewards of their maps, but it’s hard to tease out changes here when this is typically the most mindless portion of all the games. They keep me clicking blow up screen at the right pace, I just wish I didn’t have to. Again, this quality is completely inline with the genre and done well.
  • I want an additional system of collectibles that further modify the way I play and look, most consistently this looks like loot or crafting (this however should not be primarily satisfied with #'s go up).
    • again, the big 3 all do this well. I wish the qualities on items were more impactful and not just number go slightly up, but generally they’re doing okay. The uniques being added to PoE2 have been awesome to see, like the song crossbow and stuff, so I’m hopeful. Diablo let’s you collect transmogs. Again, totally typical of this genre.
  • I want to do this with friends in a multiplayer format, ideally at times requiring multiplayer because that opens up a lot of unused design space (looking at you remnant 2 which was awesome or only theoretically Diablo world bosses and black dungeon).
    • multiplayer is possible and rewarded in all of the big 3. Only Diablo has content designed for multiplayer. I think PoE has a ways to go on making this experience more multiplayer friendly, in fact it’s my least favorite to play with friends despite it being my favorite of the three by miles. I wish they’d design more multiplayer content but I understand why they don’t. If the combat wasn’t so screen explosion based it would probably be a decent enough experience. Again, another quality entirely a part of this genre already just not fully implemented well.

  So what exactly is incompatible here? I think the answer you’d give is engaging combat, because that’s what I always get when I have this conversation. “All changes that have already been made to the genre are great but no more changes to the genre would be good.” That’s the sentiment I always get. “I want to mindlessly grind mobs while watching a show I can only partially pay attention to on my second screen.” Is something I get a lot as well. Which just feels like a mobile game, an idle clicker, but not what most people want when they go to play a video game including in the ARPG genre. Even if we said there’s room for idle clickers in the genre, why are our stand out examples all idle clickers, that to me feels like a clear sign of stagnation in a genre. Dota, rainbow six, BG3, BioShock, portal 2 - none of these games would be better if they were less engaging such that we could watch TV on the side, so why is it okay when talking about the genre defining games of our Gen in isometric Diablo-like ARPGs?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Titan Quest II released in Early Access⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re getting the wrong impression.

  I absolutely like isometric ARPGs, I just like them exponentially more in theory. Most of them have barely innovated on Diablo 2’s core moment to moment loop and it’s something that seemingly everyone is aware of but no studio has yet to be able to fix. I’m looking for good combat, which was what PoE2 pitched in all of their videos, in most of their dev interviews (although as of late it feels like they’re pulling back on this), and has so far failed to deliver outside of the boss arena (and sometimes in the boss arena too).

  I want:

  • to be self-insert character or at least one of many characters as a form of self expression
  • I want mechanical self expression ideally in the form of dozens or hundreds of skills and their customization along with a skill tree that enables further customization on how your character plays. My load out of 10 abilities should look and feel and play very differently than your load out of 10 abilities.
  • I want to fight monsters and bosses that are varied, challenging, and uniquely rewarding ideally. Challenging and varied are putting in a lot of work in that sentence so I want to further expound and say combat should feel like a dance, a puzzle, high octane, and skill rewarding (not simply build skill or farming skill, but actual play skill).
  • I want the pacing around playing to be focused on fighting and clearing encounters more so than exploration and discovery. Elden Ring is fantastic but it’s slow between clearing mobs and escalating the stakes/rewards - relying on the underlying exploration to be meaningful (and it is and it’s a 10/10 but not what I’m talking about in this post).
  • I want an additional system of collectibles that further modify the way I play and look, most consistently this looks like loot or crafting (this however should not be primarily satisfied with #'s go up).
  • I want to do this with friends in a multiplayer format, ideally at times requiring multiplayer because that opens up a lot of unused design space (looking at you remnant 2 which was awesome or only theoretically Diablo world bosses and black dungeon).

  In theory this describes games like Diablo/LE/PoE as well as remnant 2/destiny/borderlands. But classic ARPG’s have so much of these needs theoretically covered that if they’d just tweak the moment to moment gameplay they’d have a perfect game for me. Where as games like Borderlands barely has a dozen skills in the entire game and they barely change how you play (coming from B3 and B4), the combat by the nature of being an fps is more engaging but it’s not much past that - it’s very repetitive and the number of mobs that are interesting or good is low imo. If each quality I’m looking for is scored 1-10 borderlands may have some of them but they score lower than most ARPGs. Remnant 2 was fantastic but it didn’t have the hundreds of hours of content and systems to do that wasn’t grinding story paths (I’d still rate this experience at 10/10). Hades and Enter the Gungeon and most roguelites have fantastic moment to moment gameplay but lack most of the other qualities I’m looking for. Wo Long and DS and all of those are fantastic games with good moment to moment gameplay but similarly lack multiple qualities I’m looking for.

  I honestly think I want an open world Diablo where it’s designed more like a Gauntlet and DND-esque groups in mind, with better combat and better loot and more skills. I want exactly what PoE2 was promising and delivers in their campaign (by and large, some things would still need to improve to score highly in my desired qualities) but which they completely abandon in the mid-to-late game. I want something in between No Rest for the Wicked or Hades or Remnant 2 and PoE 2 or LE or Diablo. And listening to the developers in this space on various podcasts and dev interviews, they know that is what’s missing but seem unable to get there quite yet. I think PoE2, if it doesn’t fix combat, will be an innovation on PoE1 but will be remembered as PoE1.5 and lumped into the age of ARPGS that were still Diablo 2 successors or the age after of innovators instead of the next generation of ARPGs i think we’re on the cusp of.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Titan Quest II released in Early Access⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think an ARPG without meaningful combat would require a significantly good story for it to be worth it for me. At least at the 20-25 hours of depth level. PoE 1/2 at thousands of hours of depth are struggling to hold me because their combat isn’t very good, and I really like the PoE2 campaign so far.

  I guess as someone who loved Titanquest when I was a kid, I’m a bit disappointed in Titanquest 2 as of right now. And there are other great slot machine ARPG’s and I don’t have much desire for them as is, so it’s hard to justify this games asking price when the reviews are saying a play through is 4 hours at act 1. Maybe when the story is complete I’ll pick it up, but can you imagine it being €50 instead of €30. I mean even €30 with no crafting and minimal legendaries… Idk, not trying to be a downer but ya - those are my honest thoughts.

  I generally agree with you, a fun short game is worth more money than a forever game to me right now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Titan Quest II released in Early Access⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It looks like it falls very short of the engaging combat I’m still looking for in an ARPG. €30 for less than 10 hours of an incomplete ARPG at that makes this a wait to buy if ever for me. I’m not certain I have the faith it’ll ever have 30 hours of content, this release feels like a “we’re running out of money” situation more than a “we’re confident in our product” scenario.

  I burned out of Last Epoch in their last patch I think for good, because the combat is so bad. And PoE2 is approaching that for me as well - at least they have an engaging story and a long guaranteed road ahead of content - so maybe this is the slot machine ARPG I keep on hand (but I wish they’d just fix their combat). And I’m waiting for multiplayer to play No Rest for the Wicked, but I suspect it’s not ARPG enough to be a long term game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it safe to assume the guy i went out on a date with, just wants to sleep with me?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Then you know what to do, what to be clear about, and what topics to avoid. I wish you luck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it safe to assume the guy i went out on a date with, just wants to sleep with me?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I would have taken the eye compliment as a yellow flag and appreciated it as a genuine compliment with no ulterior motives. I think the shoulder massage offer is where I’d draw the line and say, yes that’s clearly someone looking to escalate things physically with you rather quickly.

  At least in my culture that would be seen as strange between acquaintances and still pretty strange between friends. I don’t think Japan is different in this regard so I would recommend clarifying your intentions sooner rather than later.

  You originally brought up your virginity and your long term desires for sharing that with a long term partner. I would not bring that up with anyone you didn’t want to convince you out of that belief. That might not be anyone’s individual intention but that’s the worst case scenario so you should consider it. That means telling a best friend is probably great and would be recommended. Telling an acquaintance or a friend who is also sexually attracted to you - and therefore may not be the best councilor to you for purely your benefit - would probably be an unwise thing to do. Unless of course you want them to convince you out of that belief so that you can more casually have sex, which is fine as long as you’re being honest with yourself on who is really responsible for that change.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it safe to assume the guy i went out on a date with, just wants to sleep with me?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not certain you provided any signs that he viewed it as a date or even that he liked you. I’m not sure you characterized any motivation on his part that made me think he was into you, except for that part of your conversation was around marriage and it read like you brought that up not him which I guess would be a signal that material was on their mind (but that’s irrelevant if you brought it up I’d say).

  I generally assume all men want to sleep with all women regardless of any other concept or notion, simply because sex is fun and men in my experience seem on average far more willing to do that with just about anyone. That’s not really true, and it’s not really a fair assumption, but I don’t think it causes harm if you don’t act irrationally on it.

  It sounds like he:

  • likes talking to you because he invited you on two outings (both of which you assumed were dates)
  • is rich and therefore when he pays for the food it lessens the implication that it’s a date (although I think that’s fair to keep in mind. To provide a counter example, I pay for friends meals semi-frequently and have always paid for every 1v1 meal with a woman (and most of the men 1v1s among peers or younger) as a thank you for the company. This is not attached to romantic or sexual expectations or desires, it’s just how I was raised and have decided to maintain that practice because I like it).
  • is attractive (by your own admission)

  I’m not certain I can gleam any more information about him out of your text.

  Did he only want to talk to you about relationships and physicality? Was he physically distant or was he escalating touches? Did you catch him giving you signals like checking you out or anything else that might point to a purely carnal thinking?

  Otherwise I’d say right now, it’s safe to assume he wants to have sex with you. It’s also probably unfair to assume that’s all he wants and doubly unfair to assume that that’s his motive for hanging out with you.

  I believe men and women can have platonic relationships, which I think based on some comments you made in this thread you also believe.

  So I’d recommend a couple possibilities:

  • Your gut says he just wants to sleep with you, it’s heavy on your mind, or you just like being very communicative. In this case, communicate clearly and honestly something like "hey, just to get this off my chest I’m enjoying our conversations and 1v1s but as I explain to all men early on, I’m not interested in dating or anything physical right now. If that’s why you wanted to hangout, I understand and you’ve done nothing wrong, but that’s not why I was enjoying hanging out. If that’s not what you were looking for, and you’re okay with just being platonic friends, I can’t wait for our 1v1."
  • If you don’t think he was actually pursuing you, you feel like he was pretty normal hanging out with you, or you just don’t want to broach this subject until you’re certain you both have misaligned intentions I’d recommend continuing as normal, and mentally defining your boundaries while preparing to communicate them when you need to. This would look like (as a random kinda silly example) “he grabs your shoulder once while telling a story or something”, maybe no big deal for you and you move along, “he grabs your shoulder constantly and it’s now abnormal behavior”, you tell him you don’t like this and ask them to stop and then clarify your intentions with him (probably after that event/gathering).

  Please know this is coming from a man’s perspective and it’s as brief as I could make it. Please consider the normal woman wisdom (even if it sucks that it’s required) that you should focus on your immediate physical safety first and emotional/mental safety next at all times. If you get the feeling that clear communication would put you in danger, don’t do it until you’re safe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ARC Raiders | Release Date Reveal Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The technical alpha slapped and I’m fuckin dying to get back in. I was really hoping for them to open up a beta but now I’m just sad I have to wait till October to play this.

  I understand the delay to get things right, but there’s almost half a year where no game is satisfying this itch which is a shame. Marathon hasn’t been delayed yet and I know Hell Let Loose guys are making an extraction shooter that looks sick as hell that’s due to release this year as well.

  All I’m saying is I would have paid €40 for that alpha it was so good, October will be a slam dunk, but the genre will be more crowded by that time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Big Plans For ‘Love, Death & Robots’ Volume 5, But Viewership Drops 50% and Ratings Plummet⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We bought a month of Netflix just to support this and black mirror but we were disappointed in this season of LD+R. Upon finishing we sat on the couch and calculated the hit to miss ratio of previous seasons compared to this one and found that for us the average hit to miss was more than half, like 60%. But for this season it was like 25%.

  It feels especially bad when you’ve got multiple episodes that are just “wouldn’t celebrity cameos be cool” or literal music vids. The misses felt both like lower lows or more commercialized. I’ll continue to support LD+R for one more season but if they continue to slide I don’t think we’ll go through the hassle of resubscribing past that.

  That being said, we need more animation, so if they were able to produce 3x the episodes a year or something, even at the worst hit to miss ratio they’ve had, I’d pay more for that. I think largely because the misses tend to be very short compared to like a bad episode of TV and the hits tend to be on the medium to long side of their episodes (although rarely ever hitting the 30 min mark). If they’d sell the physical/digital copies I’d also happily pay for that. But my willingness to subscribe to things not almost exclusively applies to FOSS or individual artists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lies of P is getting difficulty options to make the Soulslike more accessible⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I appreciate difficulty options for other people and I think everyone should agree it’s a good thing to make games more accessible or more challenging depending on what a player is seeking.

  My only caution is maintaining the vision for the expected experience. I imagine we’ve all played games where the normal difficulty or the default experience feels bad or improperly tuned. Multiple difficulty options can, I imagine, lead to less tuning on the default experience. I have no doubt I disliked games I would have liked if they’d encouraged me to play at a different difficulty or spent more time tuning their preferred difficulty. I have no doubt I liked games that if they’d provided difficulty options I may have changed the default experience to my detriment without realizing it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ori Studio Head Says Review Bombing Might Force Studio Closure, Then Takes It All Back⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I assumed pretty immediately upon hearing him in a couple of interviews that he was exactly this right winger camoflaughing as a centralist. I gave the game the benefit of the doubt because I hadn’t seen any hard evidence but I’ll stop talking kindly about the game based on this info.

  Politics is how we organize our society. Most of everything is political. When society starts organizing movements against groups of people, stripping away rights, and generally being Nazis you have to get more political to stop them. Taking no position is taking a position. Join the rebellion or support the empire, there is no in-between.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ori studio in crisis: No Rest For The Wicked could be their final game⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunately, the snippet from the Wikipedia article you quoted exactly exemplifies my understanding of the genre tags and how I’ve seen them used since I was old enough to get on the Internet and read such things.

  Zelda has, for me, always been an action adventure game. I don’t think I’d called Zelda breath of the wild an RPG game or an ARPG game but that’s because the item portion of the game felt incomparable to a game like Witcher or Diablo where every piece of your character is an item that can be upgraded.

  That being said, I’m not exactly the biggest Zelda fan and BotW was like 10 years ago for me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ori studio in crisis: No Rest For The Wicked could be their final game⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess I haven’t heard Souls-Like or games like Zelda or Witcher 3 (what I’d call Action Adventure I guess or RPG) called an ARPG although they fit the name well enough that maybe I have and today I’m falling on the other side of a fuzzy line.

  Yes, I was referring to Diablo, PoE, Last Epoch, and the rest of the “looter” ARPG’s or what I’d just call ARPG’s. Maybe this is why the Diablo-like meme came up? To further drill in to the genre.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ori studio in crisis: No Rest For The Wicked could be their final game⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m waiting for their multiplayer patch to play the game in full but I enjoyed the combat in the first 10 minutes and an excited to play it. ARPGs need to evolve past the idle games most of the current popular ones devolve into.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marathon vs. Arc Raiders - Discussion of the games' opposite opinions⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m struggling a bit with what you’re asking for but here’s what I think you’re asking for. You brought up two worries with Arc

  • longterm gunplay
  • meta progression

  I think gunplay is at a really good point systems-wise in Arc. I think at this point the important long term factors are balance and variety. Balance is anyone’s guess in any single game or with any single company, sometimes they get close at the start and just make nothing but bad calls from then on like in Helldivers 2. So no comment on Arc’s long term balance but I’d give them no worse odds than Bungie to fuck that up - and based off the technical alpha feedback Arc is in a great place in terms of balance and Marathon is most definitely not.

  Variety is an easy solve with extraction shooters in my opinion because you can control so many variables. You can have a busted gun but it’s ammo or durability decay is so large you only use it one run per find, you can make it a legendary drop, you can make it only good against players or only good against bots, etc. There’s a lot of factors in what makes a gun good when an economy and RPG elements are brought in. I imagine if they released a new gun every season or every 6 months or released a set of consumables and legendaries the variety would be maintained for a decade. Again, because there’s a bigger PvE emphasis in Arc than in Marathon from what we’ve seen, I’d bet Arc is able to keep things fresh for longer. Imagine a Javelin in Arc - it sucks against players but it crippled the Queen, that’s cool as hell and reasonably feasible. Marathon screams Apex gun design and I think Apex didn’t do a good job with their gun pool - every expansion felt like it hurt the pool instead of making it more diverse IMHO but that could have also come down to balance - I suspect marathon will be the same.

  Meta progression is easy. Arc has a skill tree that I like (although it’s missing details which I think is important) and bench upgrades (and maybe vendor levels?). They also have battlepasses but this is actually a negative for me, I think current battlepass design sucks even if they’re going with the friendlier Helldivers style passes. They’re just boring. Still, more little “achievement” targets and rewards.

  Those have been very compelling. Marathon has quests for a half a dozen vendors. I believe that’s it. I don’t recall a skill system, I don’t recall bench upgrades, just quests. I like the aesthetic, and I don’t really mind it all being just quests but between the lack of personalization in meta progression AND the fact it’s a hero shooter the game lacks the golden itch of individuality that I love when games have. I think marathon has significantly worse meta progression today AND I don’t think they’ve promised to make it better. That’s super important to me. Hunt Showdown is a great game but it’s lack of meta progression has made it feel shallow for me. Marathon, I imagine, will feel the same way.

  Again, this comes down to Arc being good to go today with systems I can dream about them expanding. Marathon isn’t accessible outside the US right now and I imagine even if I could play it it wouldn’t feel even close to a finished project - and with a bunch of corpos making promises to the cameras my gut says if the game is good it’ll be in a year or two and even then it’ll be corporate good and not artist good.