I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
No Man’s Sky. Close to 300 hours across pc and ps4. I sunk a lot of hours into it when it was relatively new and still very sparse (well before the nexus). I end up playing every 4-5 updates, just to see what they added. Everything is a slog. I have been trying to hatch my living ship for what feels like literal years now. I always seem to be one resource shy of whatever tasks I chose for myself, yet I have billions and billions of spacedollars. I have half-finished bases across the galaxy. I never feel like I accomplish anything in this game, and feel like my time is always wasted playing it. According to steam I haven’t played in over a year.
Eh, I didn’t hate it, I just found it rather disappointing. A huge amount of buildup, and even in-game— a lot of effort… Just for very little delivery.
This is a game and a game engine with nearly infinite potential, but once he got into it, once he started playing it, it just falls completely flat. Beyond a few initial and rather novel game mechanics, it just goes nowhere. Immedately
Like, the game devs produced this incredible game engine, and then just expected it to produce the game for them, and it didn’t. You have this incredible, infinitely generated open world, but there’s no game to play. No story.
It’s just… there.
I’m relatively late to no man sky, the original scandal burnt the bridge and I didn’t bother trying to fix it until about 5 years ago when it came up as an option for a space game to play with my brother. He ended up a bigger fanboy space engineer and NMS stayed the only unplayed game in my library until last year.
I genuinely feel like it’s a great sandbox. That is to say, the fun comes more from the people you play with and your imagination than the sand itself. I genuinely feel that it would be my favorite game if I still had 2 or 3 friends to play it with. RPing as the haywired droid pilot of the Vagabond Moon as it smuggles goods to and from free space just doesn’t hit without a captain and crew.
See, I like my own private world. I can just build it and run around and discover stuff. That’s why I loved fallout 4 so much. No man’s sky is great for that because it’s infinitely generative. But that’s kind of all there is in that game. It’s just a big open world. There’s no real “game” to that game beyond the first 30 or 40 hours of gameplay.
Unlike you, however, the one thing I hate the most in any game is other people. I wanna be alone and do my own thing. I never ever encountered another game player who has done anything than just fuck up my gameplay experience. maybe I’ve just had bad luck, I don’t know. But co-op playing has never been anything other than an extremely negative experience for me. other people are assholes.
So, when left on my own in no man’s sky, it’s fine in small doses, but it’s easy to get bored. Because there are no Ongoing gameplay objectives. It really wouldn’t be difficult to build into the game, constant ongoing objectives and achievements that a single person could achieve on their own. Repetitive missions, etc. Star Trek online managers to do it. And it doesn’t have to be combat (although, combat in no man’s sky is actually very well done and quite fun). No man sky has ongoing rewards for discovery and exploration stuff, but it isn’t really structured very well and the rewards are really rather small.
No man’s sky feels like a really fancy version of Second Life, but in space, where you can have a bunch of your own planets and build bases and whatever. And have entire fleets of ships. But to what ultimate end? It doesn’t seem like there’s any purpose to any of it. That’s what’s missing from the game.
I don’t like Star Trek online because it’s got too much combat. Star Trek is about philosophy and science, not phasers and proton torpedoes.
It’s easier to create a game around combat than science and philosophy though
Then I guess I’ll have to keep playing Fallen London instead
Oh wow a fallen London reference in the wild. I played that like ten years ago, and picked it up fresh this year as something to do during the workday.
The current festival is interesting. I missed the “hell is missing” story when it was new. Turns out climbing into the furnace is a bad idea, even in a dream!
Currently annoyed that I didn’t bring the right thing into the waswood to get a particular item, and I can’t draw the dream card to get one of those pearls. But it’s a very interesting game.
It could also descend into total “pay for power” nonsense, but I have resisted.
Here, I have a present for you!
The following items can be spent in Estival Waswood Runs to acquire equipment: **GCO** -one of a variety of T8s - A Reverie of Heroism + Singed and Stained Work Gloves -free - Sturdy Pick, Prelapsarian Speaking-Tube, that book with all the Underscores, Polythreme Drinking-Vessel, Poisoned Pen, Wax-Hardened Boots **Starved War** -3 Parabolan Orange-Apples - London Horticultural Society -free - Strange Aeronaut, Hard-Earned Knack for Repair -an Oneiric Pearl - Rank of Flight-Captain **Coilheart Games** -a Parabolan Parable - Distinction of Waking Fire -Vital Intelligence and 2 Blackmail Material - Huffam's Good Graces -an Oneiromantic Revelation - Coilbreaker's Prints -free - A Fierce and Terrible Warmth **Museum** -a Vitreous Almanac, 75 Sightings of Parabolan Landmarks and 10 Memories of Light - Miniature Museum -a Viric-Filled Mirrorcatch Box, 3 Emetic Revelations and 250 Venom-Rubies - Perfumer's Arts -another Oneiric Pearl - Gebrandt's Address Book **Hell is Missing** **Presumably this is all, possibly not though:** -1 Searing Enigma + 1 Oneiromantic Revelation - Gang of Outlaws -Climbing into the Law-Furnace when offered - Dream of Law-Glass -Oneiric Pearl + Baited Riddle - Urchin formerly known as Mister Dinners -Free - Elephant to be Refuted
I haven’t spent as much time as you did in NMS but I have the same feeling. It feels like I should be loving this game but everytime I try to play it for more than a few hours I end up hating it for the same reasons you listed
I heard all about how bad NMS was. Also overwatch. Then I went to university and one of the first friends I made was like “Those are my favourite games!” And I practically bit my lips to avoid blurting out “…um aren’t they crap??”
Obviously it’s not a big deal. I squeeze enjoyment out of shitty games myself. I found it jarring at the time because there was so much Internet discourse about both those games being not worthwhile.
WoW. I sank hundreds of hours in vanilla. Spent forever getting tier 3 armor completed and most end game content completed and then Burning Crusade was launched. I was so excited that myself and about 15 guildmates road tripped from across the country to meet up and play in person for launch.
I remember crossing the portal and within 15 minutes a common mob dropped an item that was better than one of my tier 3 armor pieces. Pieces I had spent weeks farming for. I was so frustrated that I couldn’t enjoy the next 2 days playing, even with everyone there. I got home, played a few more days, and had already replaced half my armor. I quit WoW cold turkey and since then have only logged in once in all these years.
I wasn’t even that mad that my armor was replaced, I was mad that it was replaced so quickly, and not even at boss fights. It was normal mobs dropping rares.
As someone who joined late in Vanilla, I think the fact that tier 3 armour became meaningless a few days into Burning Crusade was a great move, and necessary for the game.
In Vanilla, if you were late joining, you could never catch up unless someone was really nice and basically carried you for a few weeks. I spent months hearing tales about all the fun that my friends were having, but I couldn’t join them because farming the gear to catch up to them was essentially impossible on my own, and would have taken them a lot of time to level me up.
The game needed a reset so that people who hadn’t been playing for over a year could catch up. When BC came out, the Tier 3 stuff helped people for the first 2-3 levels, but by the time everyone hit 70, all the gear was reset and everyone was on the same footing again.
That was really healthy for guilds and for the game. If you already had a bunch of people who you liked playing with, you could start on the harder dungeons and then the raids immediately. Everybody started out in crap gear that kept those initial things challenging, and then everyone slowly got better gear. If you had just joined the game, you could catch up to those groups, and either join them, or form your own new group and you weren’t behind.
What killed WoW for me was all the borrowed power stuff, where you got new abilities and learned a new way to play, which they’d then just reset with the next expansion. There was also ridiculous button creep, where in the early days (ignoring downranked spells) you’d have maybe two dozen abilities, half of which could be used in combat, and a third of those were rare and situational. By the time I quit, you might need two full bars worth of abilities in combat, your typical “rotation” would use 8 or more, and so-on. On some characters, I had so many buttons that even with maxed out button bars, there were some that had to remain in the spellbook.
The story also got stupider. In the beginning, your character wasn’t the centre of the story. You could earn personal achievements, or group achievements, but it was clear that it was a game being played by millions of people, half of whom had also done those same achievements. In later expansions, they tried to pretend that you were the unique person. You weren’t an archdruid, you were the archdruid… and so were the other 100 people on your screen. Or you were the maw-walker, but so were the other 1000 people in the maw. And, of course, the lore got more and more incoherent as they kept trying to find corners of the lore that they hadn’t yet exploited.
The other major issue with WoW is that both time and the advance of technology, but also Blizzard’s choices, killed the social aspect of the game. In the beginning, there weren’t good resources to learn how to play, what kinds of equipment were out there, that sort of thing. That meant that one of the best ways to find that out was chatting with other players. That was great. Even if other players were sometimes obnoxious, the fact that you had to chat with them meant that the game felt alive. The only way to join a group for something was to send messages to other people in the game. And, since servers were isolated, people got reputations. If someone was nice to other people, they’d be known for that. If someone was a jerk, or tried to cheat other people, they’d get known for that too.
These days, people use communications not tied to the game at all. There are amazing resources to learn about the game and optimize how you play outside the game, which means there’s no need to chat with people in-game. They added a group finder and raid finder so you could join a group for something without ever talking to anyone, which also killed socialization. They merged servers and made cross-realm events so that there was always someone to play with you… but now everyone was effectively anonymous to everyone they played with, so being nice wasn’t something that gave you a good reputation, and being a jerk carried no long-term penalties.
Combine all the technological changes with all the lore / storytelling changes and you get a very good, very polished single-player online game, where other people happen to be there sometimes. These days you can be doing a 25-man raid and feel lonely because you’re not actually interacting with any of the other players in any meaningful way.
I really wish another MMO would come out that would add back all the social things that Blizzard broke. But, even if someone did everything right, I don’t think you could ever capture the magic of that early Vanilla / BC experience because the world has changed.
Similar experience here. You missed the biggest turd though, flying!
So cool eh, no more need to walk eh!
What happened was that instead of roaming about with everyone else, you flew everywhere all alone (just point the “fly” in the right direction and wait … Soo funny).
And to alleviate this they tried to make it so you “had” to walk everywhere first, before getting your “fly”, but that just made it worse because now you’d be as slow as before but also alone, everyone else were flying.
Then it became a sort of dungeon-run slot machine, argh.
Vanilla was truly amazing though, what a game…
It’s one of those great ironies, because flight was a requested feature since the beginning and being locked into fixed flight paths left people wanting free flight even more. Back in 2006-7, I don’t think most people, or even Blizzard, could predict how much it’d hurt the social aspect of the game.
That was an integral part of the game design.
Those things, like underpowered weapons for example, is something “gamers” pester about and want changed, but any good gamedesigner knows better than to listen to them, it breaks the gameplay.
Today it’s worse in many games because the “annoying” things still exist but you have to pay to get around them, and it just makes the gameplay suck. IMO.
TBC was the worst for that. Modern expansions let you keep your high end gear for most of the leveling process.
It was also the first time it happened, so people were more put off by it.
Anybody who plays now knows that their gear is only going to be useful for the current expansion and that they’ll have to start from scratch again if they play the next one.
This is one of the reasons I liked guild wars (1 and 2). They didn’t do the gear grind. They added one tiny equipment tier early on in the game’s life, and never again in ten years. They add different stat spreads, but that’s it. (Ok, and infusions, which are like a single percentage point of stats.)
Yeah I love that GW2 doesn’t do vertical progression. I’m a casual player and kitted out my characters many years ago, and since then - unless I want to try out a new build - I don’t have to touch them again.
WoW is a tough one for me because I played it for years and some of my all-time favorite moments in my life as a gamer are associated with WoW. But also those moments are extremely socially-dependent. Hard to extract from the experience what was the game and what was the joy of hanging out with like-minded friends.
And it’s extremely difficult for me to judge now because frankly I think that WoW today is still an incredibly good game, especially as a solo player today, but it is impossible for me when playing it not to get sad longing for the absolute peak moments I’ve had with the game.
For me it’s kind of like if you love cheesecake but can’t buy the grocery store frozen kind because every bite makes you think of the perfect $200 gourmet restaurant version you ate once 8 years ago but will never get to have again because the restaurant closed.
I am completely turned off by mmo rpgs. I like my videogames to convince me that I’m not wasting time playing them; things with short levels or engaging gameplay loops…
Rpgs just take so long, and so little progress is made.
Now I haven’t play WoW specifically, but these mmo rpgs usually have this problem where people get insane loot and xp bonuses for playing in a party. But nowhere in the game does it say “please for the love of God join a guild and play with them all the time!!” No sir-ee, so when people play in a guild or a party for the first time, they notice this. And many completely lose interest in the game, seeing how much time they wasted. I’ve been the same way.
The only mmo I’ve really engaged with for more than a few months on one go is FFXIV which for me is more of a social game with stupid amounts of random side content and a fairly relaxed long story to chip away at. Wow was just a series of ever moving goalposts. I’ve played loads of MMOs and the best ones are good because you’re playing them with people tbh.
Lego: The Hobbit
I give this answer in every one of these threads to raise awareness. My wife and I used to get a little drunk and play Lego games. It’s a lot of fun, and a decent couch co-op.
We get into the Mountain, start screwing around with Smaug, and he flies off to burn Laketown. Roll credits. Game over. The 3rd movie flopped so hard they never finished the game. They don’t say it’s 2/3 of the story, and at that point it’s way too late to return it.
Fun game, terrible experience.
Among Us.
My friends kept suggesting it for game nights, but the social demands are just not compatible with actually hanging out with your friends.
When everyone’s out and about, doing their tasks and getting murdered, we’re all discouraged from actually talking with one another, for fear of revealing a dead body or whatever. Whenever there’s a meeting going on, sure, we’re “free” to talk again, but there’s not enough time to talk about anything but the game. When you’re dead, and thus finally relieved from the pressures of completing tasks or getting kills… there’s still no chit-chat allowed, because ghosts “can’t” talk.
It’s worse whenever random players are involved; having to coordinate between voice chat with friends, and text chat with randoms, or worse, when the randoms are in a voice chat of their own, coordinating to be assholes.
The moment that finally made me say “I don’t enjoy this game”, was a round with two random players in it: one of them spent the whole round watching security cameras, and the other was blocking the one doorway into the room, both players working with each other and refusing to do their tasks. No way for the lone impostor that round to kill them both. When we started calling them out on this, they flat-out said “we’re going to keep doing this just to spite you”. Timer ran out with unfinished tasks. Crewmates lost.
Elden Ring - Beautiful game, but without the context of other FromSoft Titles, I’m not sure how you are supposed to enjoy it. Most people would say “well you’re not supposed to enjoy it!” but it feels a bit like one of those restaurants where the gimmick is they are rude to you. The story is impenetrable, the “tutorial” pop ups lie, and quests are hidden behind specific actions that 90% of players would not organically try. That said, I completed it.
the “tutorial” pop ups lie
If you mean the messages you find throughout the game, almost all of those are written by other players. You can leave them behind too.
I tried it and didn’t like it. Maybe I was expecting it to be more like Elder Scrolls games and it’s not; I haven’t played other games in the genre either. The combat felt clunky to me, though I’ve heard that it’s better to think of it as a rhythm game. I like dark fantasy, but didn’t quite connect with the worldbuilding either, maybe because it felt like a zombie game dressed up as fantasy. It’s also a minor thing, but was also obviously made for console and ported to PC so felt a little weird.
Literally never played any other Souls game and found Elden Ring incredibly enjoyable. Idk how you think you need to experience the prior games when Elden Ring is a standalone title.
The story is impenetrable
actually thought the story was much more clear than in any of the souls games.
largely boils down to a bunch of cosmic forces trying to do their own thing or gain their own gains. we understand everything from the abandonment of metyr and her fingers, to the classic nobility/mythology relationship between the gods, lords, and extended family.
we know that gods can have two bodies, and that they can act against each-other. we see how the finger’s influence has affected all of this, and how ranni the witch is actually in a state of escaping that whole situation by killing the important half of her older brother, and less-important half of herself in order to escape the two fingers.
there’s way too much to even summarize succinctly, but i always find it baffling when people say the story is more vague than their other titles. lots of meat, and it all makes sense in the larger world they built, even if some questions are still left open.
also everything around radahn. what a tragic badass.
really love how scadu DLC resolved the family conflicts around ‘kindly’ miqella creating a sycophantic bubble that justifies his usurpation of other people’s autonomy, etc. actions of mohg and malenia making a lot more sense when you realize that, just like everyone else, are just tools for the cause.
the cause being fucking his really cool older brother who doesn’t seem interested.
i don’t remember a whole lot in the souls-verses resolving anywhere near as clearly as a lot of the stuff in elden ring.
also i think it’s much less “you’re supposed to suffer,” due to the RPG grow-as-you-explore vibe they went for, and many people complain about how you can make the game too easy, but i think it’s a good balance that makes sense with the world you’re exploring and how you explore it. except for the scadu DLC. the scadu DLC wants you to suffer.
It’s very pretty and evocative. That’s what kept me playing it. I even watched a two hour lore dump but I think I understand less now.
You’re making me question how much I missed haha. That was my first FromSoft game. I finished it with the extension and had fun.
There was an incredibly steep learning curve with Elden Ring. But once I got to the Midgame, I was having a good time.
I didn’t actually ever finish it, because I kept fucking off for 20 hours at a time just looking at all the pretty buildings and exploring dungeons. And I absolutely agree, it’s really hard to pick up on what even constitutes as “Quest” in the traditional RPG sense. You just kinda find stuff and talk to people and hope you’re moving in the right direction.
But I kinda consider that its charm. I feel like FromSoft can keep moving in this direction, shedding more and more of the interface, and eventually end up with a game where you’re just a fucking person in a world who gets to do things. And maybe one of those things is to save the world. Or maybe you’re just in this incredibly rich and deep sandbox, full of wonder and beauty, and you have a good time until you’re done.
You’re telling me you went through all of Elden Ring without having any moments like ‘Wow, that’s a fucking gorgeous view’ or ‘Holy fuck that boss is cool’?
Granted, I actually think Elden Ring is hot buttcheeks outside of the first playthrough - but at the very least the first playthrough has those moments.
I quit after the literal first enemy encounter you have in the game with I think a spider monster that is supposed to kill you?
That was really my bad, should have realized this is gonna be one of those games where you have to enemies with attack patterns that you waste time learning to overcome. Unfun gameplay imo
I just want to learn the lore which apparently grrm helped write. But then I suppose that’s just a YouTube video to watch
Rocket League and Rust have each taken thousands and thousands of hours.
I fell in love with RL the very first weekend and bought all the DLC as it came out because I wanted to support an indie developer. I was rewarded by having the thing I loved sold to a corporation who systematically used my love against me until I could no longer tolerate it.
Rust of course decided that I wasn’t worth having as a customer anymore and cut me off along with every other Linux user.
Didn’t hate it, but I just sort of slid off Baldur’s Gate 3.
I love Larian’s other games and even pre-ordered bg3 to play on vacation, but the combat just isn’t as fun as Divinity 2. I kept trying to avoid combat but then I walked into a new area and combat started automatically and I just groaned and turned off the game.
I got to act 2, which isn’t a lot of time, but it felt like it
I played a lot of bg3. Every so often I think about playing it again, and then I think about how DND 5e kind of stinks, so I don’t.
There are mods to convert it to Pathfinder 2e… But then I’d rather just go play one of Owlcat’s Pathfinder games
I tried one of them and either I don’t understand pathfinder, or it didn’t work right, or I didn’t enjoy it. My to-hit on my first attack of the round was like 65%. Missing is not fun.
I think I appreciate pathfinder2e more than 5e, but it’s still got a lot of DND-ness in it.
Pathfinder 2e ruleset will mean your chance to hit is usually lower than it would be in DnD 5e. It aims for a much more balanced system so most things scale similarly with each other. As an example, as a PC if you are taking all of the important abilities for your class, the difference between your AC wearing a leather bikini is going to be 1 less than the guy wearing full plate.
I am interested to see bg3 on the pf2e ruleset though… I might have to check this mod out. I didn’t hate the Owlcat pathfinder games, but they are on first edition which is basically just DnD 3.5 and really shows it’s age at this point. Also, none of them are co-op with friends.
BG3 was my first Larian game and I absolutely loathed getting into combat situations. It just took too long for the CPU to make decisions, I wish there was a fast-forward button for their turn. Overall, I didn’t feel BG3 respected my time and felt I was constantly under leveled on every encounter, even on easy. Even when I returned for a 3rd attempt at the game and tried to save scum my way through, I felt it was way too slow. Never made it past act 1. I don’t get the hype for it. I realize I’m in the minority with how well it scored and how much people praise it. I just don’t see it nor appreciate it.
Would I be right in guessing that you didn’t come to it from D&D? The computer taking 20 seconds to finish its move is positively frantic compared to the 30 minute waits I’ve had at some tables for everyone else to make their move…
My biggest gripe with BG3 was that a major point of praise for it was how polished it was, despite it still being quite buggy and the UI being very annoying very often. Love the voice acting, I think it’s good, great even, I just don’t think it was God’s gift to humanity or that it deserved game if the year.
What do you think makes the combat system of Divinity 2 better? I usually hear the opposite.
People hate to hear it, but dnd is awful. The lore of the main setting sucks and the systems are horrendous. Pathfinder, shadowrun, cyberpunk, an original system altogether, anything else would have been better! Larian also failed the multiplayer, making it feel tacked on rather than improving on divinity.
As much as I hate to say it, No Mans Sky probably. Has that same problem I get with playing Minecraft. Everything feels too empty and aimless for me.
I get that problem with MC too.
MC I never get that with, though I haven’t really played vanilla Minecraft in years so the sheer amount of stuff to do usually offsets that.
Terraria is the Minecraft that’s meant to be played. Actually has dungeon crawling and a world to experience. Minecraft is just 3D Microsoft Paint that decides to chase your cursor with a zombie every so often.
It’s way worse about that than Minecraft, imo. I find Minecraft to be exceptionally boring, but building is at least passably fun (or was before hytale completely blew it out of the water), but it feels like NMS doesn’t even give you a real creative outlet. From what I’ve seen even starfield is better than NMS for creativity, although i haven’t played starfield myself.
Starfield? I would argue it’s much worse than NMS, though I don’t know how the current game is. Back when I played, a couple of months before the first dlc dropped (before the buggy update, even), you were extremely limited in choices for base building. You had like 4 or 5 prefabs of a living quarter which came pre decorated.
Starfield offers good ship customization (and stupidly talent-locks a lot of it), unlike NMS, which only added a tiny bit of that in an update last year I think
Iv been wanting to back to no mans, iv read good things about the updates, but yeah. Last couple times i found myself wondering what the fuck i am doing.
Like he said, it’s like vanilla minecraft, so you have to make your own goals and your own fun. I spent hours just walking around collecting resources to build the things I decided I want that time. Hours more building my Corvette, Freighter and bases. If that’s not fun to you, that’s ok.
Pretty much any moba. cs, r6, overwatch, lol, dota
This is so true
I played DotA when it was a custom WC3 map (and Aoens of Strife in SC). Seeing it become this whole genre and esports phenomena was weird. I feel like I could never take any of them seriously.
I think DOTA2 came quite a long way from the cheese factory that was the original WC3 map packs.
I actually went with a friend to a tournament, and was genuinely impressed at how the game felt watchable in a way you’d hope for a football or basketball game to be entertainment. The gameplay was fast-paced and full of reversals. The announcers helped fill in what a newb wouldn’t immediately know about different builds and strategies. You got a steady buildup of excitement into those final minutes, when a timely save or kill could swing the match. Even the creep farming had a bit of tension, as you watch the teams race for the upper hand.
MOBAs were a natural fit for eSports. I get why it took off. Shame it hasn’t endured.
I used to screw around on the custom games and it’s crazy seeing mobas and tower defense games take off when it was originally just nerds screwing around. It was so fun griefing footman wars and the hobbit and uther party and just about every game was griefable. Backdooring in OG DOTA would also really piss people off. Anyway I swore off LoL when it became a battle of keeping up with the meta and the stupid mini games that you had to play. Dota started doing something kinda similar with meta creep and I just don’t want to watch hours of tutorials and follow the pro meta exactly to be at an elo where people aren’t screaming the n-word over voice chat.
The only moba mode I thought was consistently fun was Ability Draft. It was so categorically broken and silly, but DotA 2 killed it off I think.
Cities Skylines 2. I’ve got thousands of hours in the SimCity franchise. Over 500 hours in the original Cities Skylines. CS2 is a fucking mess of a game. It actually ran pretty decently on my PC when it first came out but you could tell it was an incomplete mess right away. The simulation was non-existent. The game looked like dog shit. The only way to get it to run decently was to turn everything down to low and medium. Somehow I squeaked out 75 hours in that first 3 month release window. For a working adult with responsibilities, that’s a lot of time for me now. I install it occasionally and see if it’s any better. It’s not. I did this last week and it actually runs worse on the same PC than it did at launch which is counter to what most people are experiencing.
Mods through the Paradox launcher is a necessary evil for the game to function. I can barely get it to run stable without mods, I don’t think tricking out the game is gonna help the situation. It’s such a sad case of a game killing a whole genre. Especially when it’s my genre. I love city building games and no game has hurt more than Sim City 2013. I didn’t even play SC2013. I watched my favorite franchise die and made probably the smartest decision of my gaming life by saying fuck no to that mess. Fucking Cities Skylines 2 is right there with it, but I made the opposite choice. I gave it a chance and it stings all the time.
What’s even worse is how such a staple of my childhood has turned into an almost impossible task to recreate. I’ll never understand how gaming went from being able to produce 4 generational city building titles in ~10 years to not being able to get one to function at the same level at all in 20. You can count CS1 sure, but even that game was missing something compared to SC4. CS1 is not even close to the same level of SC4. Even now when the game is hard to run on modern hardware.
What’s even more killer is we see other examples of Maxis era staples getting second life in new franchises all the time. Planet Zoo 1 and 2. Transport Fever for Transport Tycoon. Planet Coaster taking it’s place next to Roller Coaster Tycoon. Hell even the Jurassic World Evolution series fills a gap from the old Jurassic Park Genesis game. But the modern city building attempts are all backwards attempts.
They all focus on the wrong thing. Agents. They all want to be able to simulate every living being and everything they do. It never works. It’s why the newest Citystate is such an intriguing project. They’re not doing every individual agent. And the dev finally decided to focus on modernizing the engine to work with fully 3d spaces. There’s a couple contenders out there that are a year or two away. Citystate, Metro 1998 even though that’s more of a throwback. City Masterplan. If just one of these games hit, we’re back in business. Until then I’ve watched my favorite genre die twice. Hopefully the third time is the charm in terms of longevity.
Breath of the Wild and moreso Tears of the Kingdom.
Not bad games. But not Zelda games.
BoTW did not play into the metroidvania that I felt defined a Zelda game. Plus it lent on the “sim rpg” style of eating, cooking, durability, etc.
Then ToTK just felt like a gimmicky cash grab. Copy paste terrain, “gadget building” straight out of some steam early access game.
Ultimately, both games felt like a hodgepodge of stolen concepts, slapped together. And the adoration that they received just makes me hate them more.
Same here, I really did not enjoy BoTW for many of the same reasons. It just felt more like a typical open world sandbox RPG, but that had been done better elsewhere. The lack of true bosses and level and constantly breaking equipment just made it unfun.
I kind of enjoyed BotW, but once the awe factor of the landscape wore off it was just a load of mostly unrewarding traveling to too many shrines that were too small. Combine the 120 shrines into like 20 that were 6 times longer each and they would have been cool mini-dungeons that I would have happily done, but as it was I was so bored. The main dungeons were good and I still put 80 or so hours in, but unlike everything pre-Skyward Sword I’ll never revisit the game.
Then Tears of the Kingdom was like hey here it all is again but there’s three times as much and this time there’s no WiiU version to emulate so the performance will be so much worse. Nah.
I don’t think most people consider Zelda games to be metroidvanias, so we shouldn’t hold that against those two games.
While I haven’t played TotK, I did enjoy BotW, just less than other games in the series. I felt it was unique, had great atmosphere and music, was incredibly polished… but very shallow. The long, well-crafted dungeons were replaced with many mini-dungeons that only rewarded you with more stamina or more health. Every single time. I eventually stopped even stopped even checking out the shrines I found. Also, I understand why they implemented the weapon degradation mechanic, but it’s definitely not for me. And the missing story. All the cool events in the world have already happened. Which fits the atmosphere, but it’s less fun, and gives us less story-driven things to do…
I had a similar experience. Played through BotW and enjoyed the game, but it didn’t feel like a Zelda game to me.
I felt ambivalent about BotW mostly because I thought the destructible weapons were bullshit. I’m a completionist for Zelda games, and this one didn’t let me feel I’d completed it.
Still, I didn’t hate it. I guess the open world was impressive?
Then a few years later Elden Ring came out and I realized that BotW’s open world is actually garbage. In Elden Ring I see something that looks interesting in the distance. I go to it and find a new, unique dungeon. When I finish it, I get a reward, usually some kind of new weapon or spell. And even if that weapon or spell doesn’t fit my playstyle, I can totally imagine a scenario where it’s actually really great.
BotW I see something that looks interesting in the distance, and it’s just another fucking shrine or Korok seed or some other bullshit.
Sounds like I should try Elden Ring then. Though I loved BOTW.
There are a lot of things about Elden Ring that are great, but they’re just not for me. Like the whole gross aesthetic or the sweaty-rolly-dodgy combat. None of that works for me.
But in terms of creating an actual meaningfully open world, it’s a fucking masterpiece. I was constantly, constantly astounded at how full the world was. If that’s something you value, I can’t recommend it enough.
Expedition 33. I’m not a huge turn based fan anymore but gave it a shot because of the rave reviews. And initially I liked it a lot actually. It had the UE5 default realistic look I loathe but the combat was fun.
And then it became unfun. Severely so. I started to dread every major combat encounter.
But the reviews were so positive so I pushed thru, I hated playing the game but told myself I’ll see it through to the end, and I did.
I regret that. Having to keep playing despite disliking it probably soured my experience way more than if I had just stopped playing. On the other hand I now have the full picture of the game and know it doesn’t get better and it’s not worth finishing.
The worst combat encounters were the fights where the attack itself is a minute long cutscene, then without warning you get 150ms to time your party perfectly, or you die and restart. Unforgivable.Bah
Yes quick time based combat for that group fighting dynamic isn’t a good match. If a game asks you to command a whole group of people, like one after the other, it’s a good idea to make it more of a puzzle or “carefully select the right moves” experience. See: Occidental Heroes
Again, always seems to me that shiny new games which focus on aving great graphics are letting people down 🤔
Initially the parry and dodge mechanics are great. They’re presented like an option for higher skilled players who are used to tight timings to get an advantage in combat while people more accustomed to the traditional “trading blows” style can still enjoy combat that way.
But the game never tells you that perfect parrying and dodging are actually not an option but the required style of combat since taking any damage later on is basically instant death. You’re just not gonna be able to tank a full combo while ignoring the dodge and parry mechanics.
Oh and then the enemies do that Elden Ring delayed attack thing. I like ER but seriously fuck that game for introducing this style of attack pattern. Yeah let me just swing my giant sword but mid-swing take a coffee break… ER wanted to present a challenge to the absolute wizards who play Dark Souls SL1 no-hit, so why did E33 copy that?You can absolutely play without dodge, parry, and even attack triggers. You have to build you character for it obviously. I’m terrible at reaction your stuff and just tanked the whole game. I even learned that the telegraph was easier based on sound but still I’m so slow I just continued to build tanky.
I generally enjoyed the game, But found myself disappointed by the story.
Tap for spoiler
It’s bookends. At the beginning you see what terrible tragedy Lumiere is suffering, and wonder what sacrifice you must achieve to save them.
Ending: Oh, Lumiere is fucked either way, either today or very soon. Now it’s just a question of who you want to torment.
Yeah the story absolutely didn’t grab me. Spent most of the time confused and asking myself lots of questions, then the big twist happens n I’m like yeahnah this ain’t it chief. And the ending ugh.
spoiler
I wanted one outcome in the binary choice and accidentally chose the option which gives me the ending I didn’t want xD
Easily the most controversial comment in here. I don’t think e33 is considered very difficult unless you do the optional content which has ridiculous stuff. I loved the story and characters and think it’s one of the most enjoyable and memorable RPGs of all time.
I found parry difficult to learn (but once it’s down for an attack it’s muscle memory) and I play fighting games where people count frames, where you have to make 300ms reactions out of multiple incoming prompts, and where you have 2 frames parry windows as opposed to E33’s 16 frames (I believe).
The most frustrating thing is that the telegraphing is just not that clear. I actually wish they increased the FOV change so that it’s more apparent when it’s at its maximum.
the screen zooms a bit when you’re about to get hit. It helps a lot with learning timing
The telegraphing was a sound more than visual. Learning that made things much more manageable. But I’m terrible at even that so I just made no dodge/parry builds and just tanked it all.
Yeah, the two main cues are a sound (“swoosh” sfx) one and a visual (FOV rubber band) one.
… That’s smart, why didn’t I think of making a tank build, lol.
Because it’s not particularly encouraged by the game. Like you can, they give you the tools, but theres a bunch of stuff you can get earlier with perfect parrying, or is gated behind it entirely, so you feel like you should be doing it.
Personally I found a mod to make the parry and dodge windows a little longer so I could reliably hit them, after which it became much less frustrating.
Hades - I haven’t seen anyone list this one yet. It was the first roguelike/roguelite I ever played and it taught me that I don’t like roguelikes/roguelites. It tried to like it, but it’s just not for me. Luckily, son boy loves it so it’s not a total waste.
I can’t think of a single one. I stop playing games I don’t like.
yeah, I checked my list of games on Steam, and of the ones with 20+ hours playtime, the only I didn’t actively enjoy were some idle games, so they don’t really count. Everything else I liked. I stick with meh books more than with games :)
Destiny 2. Beat platform shooter I’ve ever seen. Worst everything else: monetization+FOMO, some really shitty loot tables, locking away paid content/sunsetting.
Kept going back because the core gameplay loop is solid. Kept leaving bc it inevitably got boring quickly.Yeah, Destiny 2 pretty much lived in the core gameplay loop. To this day I don’t think there’s another game that felt as good to play as Destiny. But without refreshing the core gameplay or giving some actually meaningful progression. I remember at one point I was doing a strike and those who have played the game will know what I’m about to talk about. After clearing the second wave of enemies and waiting for the third I realized that I was just going through the motion of threes. I was going to fight the third wave of the encounter so I could get to the second stage of the three stage strike and those strikes I have to do 3 times because that’s the weekly goal and that’s the entire 3 months of the season. It just started feeling like a treadmill where I’m running just for the sake of running. Just a carrot in front of the treadmill and if you get it then the next season the treadmill resets and the and carrot is put in front.
Once I saw that I could no longer get into Destiny. It just feel like I was there only to go through the motions. No emotion, no engagement, just doing the same thing over and over.
Good one. This is probably it for me as well. I tried so hard to like it, but the whole thing felt like it was punishing me for not being there day one. A convoluted mess of whatever was leftover from what I assume was all the fun.
I was there Day 1 and it punished those players too. See my long rant touching on but two or three of the 50 issues I had with it hahaha
This game was so good for a few years. On PS4, I got to play all the OG cut content, it was awesome. I think I played up to Forsaken. I really enjoyed the lore, and I usually skip that stuff. I even have a ghost statue on my bookshelf, one of my only gaming nicknacks (8 bucks at target). I went back to play on PC a few years ago and I didn’t have a good time. I was also pissed that I couldn’t transfer my PS4 character (or I lost my dlc loot or something).
Oh my god Destiny 2 is such a good example for me. I never played the first one, because I quit consoles with the PS4/XBox One generation. Got Destiny 2 for free with my video card, and was so excited to play, hearing so much about the first game. I bought the expansion pass and played immediately when it came out. I maxed out all three characters, did the raid, and played for a couple more hours, before realizing there was nothing to strive for.
The fuck is up with “We have a chat in the game, but nonono, you can’t actually use it to TYPE to people like, y’know, EVERY OTHER ONLINE GAME EVER—it doesn’t actually DO anything unless you’re in a party.” Also every weapon drop was exactly the same, no variance, no random rolls. Then they added in text chat, Woo!
…but made it OPT-IN, and nested the toggle in settings. Meaning NOBODY DID IT. Fuckin idiots on Reddit were defending the decision too, like “oh what if you don’t want to have that toxicity” THEN DISABLE IT IN OPT-OUT, don’t make it opt-in in the first place!
Then a few months after it came out, I told my partner “look I bet they put random rolls back in and fix a ton of QoL stuff WIIIITH the first full-priced DLC that isn’t included in the expansion pass so everyone has to buy it.”
Then Forsaken dropped, for full price. I don’t even care about the money, it’s the principle of it all.
I never bought Forsaken, never logged in again. Fuck you Destiny 2, I’m glad you’re dead. I wish you died harder, sooner, and less lucrative.
(Also more Reddit defenders were screaming “YOU DON’T HAVE TO BUY FORSAKEN, YOU CAN STILL PLAY” like fuckin EVERYTHING wasn’t locked behind the paywall now, and like I wanna support that shit by giving them more engagement to log for their investors…)
The moment I noticed they were docking xp back in the early days, I quit instantly. I enjoyed the game up to that point, but the way they had done that was just so dishonest that I have just never bothered with anything Bungie since.
Ooo I forgot about that one. And their horrible excuses like “oh we’re so sorry you think our algorithms are unfair, we’ll be more transparent about our great game mechanics so you don’t complain more”
