Xbob42

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

More rule-breaking for a good cause:

 

 

 

 

I like how the top and bottom videos are normal, but the middle one is a Tiktok video and encapsulates how Tiktok is just fucking ruining videos. Postage stamp size, ultra low quality, Youtube poop levels of overly loud meme music kicking in with terrible comedic timing, abysmal. Worst video I've seen all week!

Also those ladies are hitting HARD. Should send them to kill the dragons!

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

In addition to that the side activities do have some sort of story attached to them with a payoff and also rewards for doing them. So if a person doesn't like doing the minigames they are actually missing out on some stuff.

Tough shit! Games should not be made with the idea that every gamer is going to see every scrap of content. That's such a tiring way to design games and doesn't leave any interesting stories to tell since everyone does every single thing.

There's so much weird hidden shit in OG FF7 that I'm still learning about because it involved you going to certain areas during specific points in the game when you might not have a reason to go there, it makes the game world and story feel so much bigger than it was because you never know what little scrap of content is left over, what little hints are out there.

Hell, if I recall correctly, the truth about Sephiroth is actually completely missable in the OG game.

Not quite the same as minigames having little story bits, since these were all basically cutscenes (though many did involve minigames like the submarine!) but coming off of Yakuza, let minigames have bits of story attached! It makes them that much more rewarding to do! And if someone hates them, Youtube it bitch! Stop forcing yourself to do everything when you're not enjoying it, don't treat everything like a checklist you're obligated to do you OCD motherfuckers! Grow a spine and say "no, I'm good" if you don't like it!

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

So it's available at 8am eastern time? 

It's available at 5PM PST on Steam, no idea when the PS5 version is available.

He's saying that most VRR, especially on TVs, operate within a certain range of viable framerates. Low framerate compensation can make up for this, but I don't know the specifics so I'm not sure it would apply here.

Further, he's saying that the stutters aren't just tiny thing you might get with general framerate variance, but actual big stutters that VRR can't compensate for. VRR isn't magic; if something stutters, it'll stutter in VRR. If something has BIG stutters, VRR won't even help dress it up in a skirt and cheap makeup.

9 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Yeah fuck that... I never thought there was such a thing as being TOO British.  I know he's speaking english but I'll be damned if I can make out what he's saying and I can watch Guy Ritchie movies without subtitles. Somebody summerize this shit.

Game is kind of a hot mess on every platform right now, mostly due to CPU overutilization with regards to "NPC state models and location tracking," which Capcom is investigating and hope to have a patch out.

Honestly the game is running way worse than it should for no apparent reason, as it's not much of a looker and there's not actually much happening in the world. This ain't even doing 1/100th the simulation work of a Tears of the Kingdom. In fact, it appears to be largely the same kind of CPU load you'd expect out of the first game. Hopefully they get it resolved quickly.

24 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

@best3444

 

 

Wow they even got a British guy to make it as similar to DF as possible!

It's amazing how little I think about this game until someone actually mentions it. It just came and went, left absolutely no impression on me whatsoever. Can't even bring myself to take a little dump on it anymore, it's just so thoroughly uninteresting.

16 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

It depends on the tv, but LFC can be used below 40fps, essentially doing the blank frames thing to make those dips below the vrr threshold still look okay.

Isn't low framerate compensation precisely where the PS5 fails when it comes to VRR? Or did they ever fix that?

55 minutes ago, Dre801 said:

Considering how disappointing the past several Alone in the Dark releases have been, I can't allow myself to feel hope.

Hey, 6/10 is like 8x better than the last Alone in the Dark I played.

4 hours ago, stepee said:

Sounds like it’s short with terrible combat (and a lot of it) but good atmosphere and puzzles.

If I'm being completely honest with myself, this is exactly how I would describe Silent Hill games and Resident Evil games (pre-RE4). And I still love those! It depends on how terrible the combat is, and in what way!

Oh, the plot is about to go to many, many places.

If you're not at the very beginning of chapter 10, and focus exclusively on just railroading that story, I think you can do it.

4 hours ago, best3444 said:

@Xbob42 @BloodyHell

 

I'm on chapter 10. If I play 8 more hours just focusing on the main quest, would I beat it by then? It reads I'm 20 hours in. 

I mean, it'd be a close call. Maybe?

Oh, much of it is speculation, but the base facts are pretty obviously telegraphed!

Worth noting that synergy skills don't just not spend ATB, they rapidly build it for both characters. Use them a lot!

32 minutes ago, BloodyHell said:

It’s done, and frankly I loved it.

 

Tears in my eyes. 
 

still so much for the finale, but im so glad they ended the way they did. 
 

Ending Spoilers:

  Hide contents

For a second I thought Cloud saved Aerith the fake lut of it was heart wrenching, but the correct decision.

 

few games have been more worth my money. 

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Actually in terms of improvements I would want to see. I never had any of Xbob's issues but things I'd like would be more practical like being able to see what time it is, as in like a watch or clock. Many times I would want to go out on a quest but I didn't want to be caught out at night time and you can't really tell what time it is so I would just rest and go out in the morning instead.

 

Other things I think I've mentioned before would be maybe more granular pawn commands and maybe be able to tell them what to pick up and stop them from just picking things up you would want to pick up yourself.

I already see that the sequel has a map on screen which is an improvement over the first game where you had to stop and check your map constantly.

Oh I just got a mod that puts the time on-screen, but yeah that'd be a big help. And maybe like... actually telling us what time things are happening instead of us having to intuit it.

Also no stupid fucking quests like the one where you escort the dude's kid around town and if you fuck up even a little bit you don't get the golden idol which unlocks a bunch of much better weapons at the smithy. She tells you to "run earnestly" in the race against her, but you're supposed to just jog near her and let her win. Just stupid horse shit designed to waste your time, especially with the single save slot and autosave nonsense. It's like it was designed by snickering middle schoolers.

On 3/17/2024 at 10:09 AM, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

As kind of an aside to Xbob’s impressions; I learned a long time ago not to play prior game in a series unless I need it for story reasons or I already really liked it. Two reasons:

 

the world or gameplay is likely dated and since I have no nostalgia for it I wont be able to get into it. Chances are there could be multiple little improvements to the new entry that everything I hate is gone or not that bad. 
 

burnout is the other one. Even if I didnt hate something, it could flip on me like a switch in the new game that I no longer tolerate something. Or I could just get bored with the whole formula and stop playing the newer game prematurely. 
 

at this point I can never go back and experience the last game like others did when it was new and at a certain time in the industry. 

For me it kind of works the other way, seeing all the improvements directly after playing the previous title makes me enjoy those improvements so much more. It's one of the weird reasons I sometimes like getting early access games. You get so many big improvements in such a short amount of time that it really helps me appreciate them in a way you can't if you just got the finished product. But with early access games that's only sometimes, since it's a gamble if things even improve at all.

I think I'm nearly done with the first game? I believe my save was further ahead than I thought when I started at it. Looked at a full main story quest list and I'm like 3 away from done, and I'm level 50ish. Not sure if I'm gonna do the DLC since I know you should be like level 100 for it, but we'll see what happens.

There's a couple critical points I hope are addressed in DD2:

- No built-in defensive moves is terrible in DD1. No dodge roll, no blocking. Some vocations get these, but only after you grind some currency to unlock them and eat up a skill slot. Terrible. It just makes the combat feel super bad without them. You can even see when your pawns are getting attacked, if they don't have those defensives unlocked just just repeatedly jump away from an enemy. It looks so dumb. It IS so dumb. (EDIT: Correction: you do unlock dodge and block, but they do not eat up skill slots, I was thinking of the Reset/Instant Reset skill which cancels out of animations, but it's kinda broken so I guess it can be worth a skill slot.)

- Climbing on enemies, despite being touted as this great thing, is jank as fuck and terrible. At least every time I've tried it. Enemies constantly try to shake you off, can often attack you while you're on them, and the controls, especially when trying to maneuver around the the head or limbs (you know, most of the places you want to be at) are ABYSMAL. Alright I'm on the head tilted downward towards the enemy's eyes. Which direction will move me closer to the eye? Well take a gamble motherfucker cause it ain't gonna be any direction that makes sense. Also having to spam stamina items to stay on the enemy feels weird.

- Spamming items from the pause menu for unlimited heals sucks. Terrible system. As much as I hate the 300 year long heal cast times (which as also a bad idea) the ability for unlimited heals with absolutely no danger to the player makes a lot of combat completely nonthreatening without you imposing your own limits on yourself. It just doesn't jive with the style or feel of the game. The game is almost like Monster Hunter, and Monster Hunter is quite strict about how many heals you can have and how you can use them. This doesn't have to be exactly like that (Since it's not Monster Hunter after all) but it should be closer to that than to BotW's silly healing system that's built for kids.

- A lot of abilities have you standing in one place for a long time both during and after activation, and only a few vocations get the "reset" skill (again, takes up a skill slot...) to cancel out of these faster. I think this is really boring for multiple reasons. Having some openings is fine, being completely helpless if an enemy comes from offscreen (which they often do) is just annoying. This might work better in co-op, but we don't have co-op, we've got the stupid pawn system.

- I dunno if it's just me but the default stamina regeneration sucks balls. You use up so much for any fun attack and then it takes 40 days and 40 night to regen to full. Again, making me spam stamina stuff from a pause menu to keep things fun.

Plenty of places to improve, and I hope they improve on all of them!

I thought it was fine. Wasn't any better or worse than the other Bioshock games to me -- but I never liked any of them as much as others seemed to.

Surprised the porn industry hasn't dabbled in payment processing itself yet to get around these virgin loser rules.

Yup! Haven't had a chance to play it as much over the last several months since there's a lot of new games coming out on the regular, but I still at the very least log in for the much reduced daily login bonus.

Yeah this shit ain't doing 8k @ 10 without massive reconstruction, and frankly it's still AMD, so save us all the blurry ghosting nightmare that completely fucking kills the point of high resolution and stick to 4k, or better yet 1440p.

A sensible and practical law made by sensible and practical people.

The idealism isn't the criticism, it's the part where all this is presented as though any of this is a meritocracy. The term "deserves" shouldn't even be in the conversation as it's been used because it's so far removed from the reality of the situation. My point was that nothing any of these companies are doing results in them "deserving" their cut. If we were to go down that route, then you "deserve" the cut you're able to carve in the market and demand of your clients. You "deserve" to get paid for what you bring to the table, and seeing as how everyone is willing to pay except Tim Epic, it seems to me that they "deserve" it.

Now, being a de facto monopoly may not be ideal, but no one's even making an effort to actually compete, even the most motivated competitor with loads of money and a deep personal interest, Epic Games, does not give half a shit to build up their storefront to compete and instead relies on lazily passing out free games of varying quality and hoping that'll hook ya.

It's not that I thing any of these things are good or fine, it's that I see no realistic solutions presented and if the "competition" can't even be assed to even pretend to compete, where does that leave us? If the hotblooded, hyper-invested, hyper-rich Steam hatin' Tim Sweeney can't muster up enough shits to make a functional storefront to compete against the assholes, what's the takeaway? It's not that he can't compete, it's that he won't.

Valve just sitting there taking their cut that they have been for 20 years while everyone acts like there's big some sea change. But as far as I can see, if I go on Steam I get massive unified input support and customizability, free cloud saves with every game, free online play (including Valve's own servers and workshop that devs are free to take advantage of), massive promotions and sales, and plenty more. They continually add value for both the consumer and the dev/publisher. Is it perfect? No. Is it worth the 30%? Well that's not for me to say, but I've yet to see anyone even attempt to do better. Alternatives like GOG and Humble have been chuggin' along just fine, .io seems to be thriving, it seems to me the competition is there taking on specialized fields where Valve is not delivering, while copycat shops like EGS can't even get their pants on.

Sounds like something for parents to worry about, not the government.