Coelacanth

I guess it’s different for most people. When I’m huddling next to a group of S.T.A.L.K.E.Rs under a bridge in the exclusion zone, listening to their guitar playing as I maintain my crappy rifle and watch the animation of my character slowly eating a can of beans to stave off the hunger I feel like I’m doing way more roleplaying than I ever feel from picking option A, B or C in a multiple-choice dialogue tree.

Agreed completely. 5E is just not good, in my opinion.

The rest system is extremely clunky. With a human DM and a time sensitive story you can kind of get some good out of it. Without that, it’s just extra loading screens of wonky difficulty/balance.

Even then the balance is completely off, with the 5E developers assuming way too many encounters per rest, meaning Long Rest classes are almost strictly better since their drawback of limited resources so rarely becomes a problem. This is of course even more of a problem in BG3, where you’re almost encouraged to take a long rest after every fight, what with all the camp encounters that triggers off taking a long rest. I missed like half of them because I tried to play immersively.

Plus the character options are shallow. Not everything needs to be a crazy Path of Exile level of complexity, but D&D 5e surprisingly few meaningful options.

What, you don’t enjoy getting to choose to put a point into your primary attribute every four levels?

…putting microtransactions, paid character edit vouchers, Denuvo, and anti-cheat into a $70 single player only game

This reads like satire wtf

I don’t think it’s entirely right to compare it to Bethesda RPGs as those are predominantly about wandering around the handcrafted open world and stumbling onto interesting things, be it enemies or side quests or dungeons. CP2077 delivers a weaker experience in that particular regard, that kind of experience wasn’t really what they wanted to do. The open world is more kind of there as a backdrop.

However, I also the think the character building is better in CP2077 than a Bethesda game in terms of skills and customization (post 2.0 at least), and most of all the actual mechanics of combat is much more fun. The action combat part plays a bigger role in the overall enjoyment, at least for me.

The game really shines in the stories themselves, the interesting characters and especially the character and facial animations, which are incredibly well done and make dialogue feel really engaging.

This though, is definitely the main thrust of the game, and it is indeed excellent.

I am still holding out hope for a Definitive Edition that restores some of the cut stuff and further cleans up/revamps Act 3.

All the same, the game is just fine and I totally get the studio wanting to move on to new things.

Deus Ex is screaming for a remake. There is so much excellence there, but imagine it with modern high quality graphics and VAs, modernized implementations of the systems already in place… Maybe even actually implementing the UNATCO route that was scrapped due to time?

Immersion features are also important for roleplaying, it’s just a different kind of roleplaying really.

Interesting read. Really not sure how to feel about Remedy cooking up a free-to-play game for Tencent, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

It’s-a me, James Bond.

That’s about what I figured. I’m not that great with strangers, and English is my second language. I’ve tried other squad based games that rely on voice comms to be enjoyable, and I only really enjoy them when playing with a group of people I’m comfortable with.

How fun is this game without a friend group that also plays it? I’ve seen some clips, but most of the fun seems to lie in squad based gameplay.

What metric are we using? The developer whose games I like the most? The developer who treats their employees best? Or treats their customers best?

Valve has produced mostly bangers, seems to treat customers well and is by all accounts a great place to work. They’ve also been pushing development for gaming on Linux. Hard not to go with them, even though it’s debatable whether they could be classified as a game developer anymore. But that’s fine.

Remedy deserves a shout-out for sticking to their guns, and continuing to produce weird artistic games that push the envelope in the AAA space.

I’m not as high on BG3 as most people (though it’s obviously a great game), but Larian also belongs in the discussion surely. I only ever hear good things about them.

Finally, the developer who inspires me the most is probably Lucas Pope. I love his ability to think outside the box and find entertaining gameplay loops in seemingly mundane things, but moreover I am just so impressed by how multitalented he is. I still can’t believe Obra Dinn was a one-man production. I love his artstyle and the music he makes as much as the games themselves.

Same boat man. Tough call.

Anyone else quietly hyped for Black Myth Wukong? It looks really good from what I’ve seen of it. Apart from maybe the English voices. Looks like Chinese with subs will be the way to go.

You forgot deckbuilder!

Fallout 2 is one of my favourite games of all time, but it is OLD. By that I don’t mean its graphics are ugly but rather the design philosophy is old school (some might say outdated). The stats and skills and perks are not balanced (some really suck and it’s very possible to gimp yourself). There are some unintuitive puzzles and interactions you might need a guide for. Most of all though it’s HARD and unforgiving. Save constantly and be ready to reload. The start sucks. Be prepared to hate the first hour(s), when you have to walk through the desert with just a stick and fight off brutal random encounters.

It eventually opens up, especially when you get access to a certain Highwayman, and becomes fantastic. As for Fallout 1 or 2, it’s mostly a matter of preference. 1 is much shorter, smaller in scope, but also has a slightly more serious tone. It leans a little more into the whole harshness of the wasteland thing. 2 is much bigger, with so much more you can do in it, but it’s also goofier. It leans more into the Fallout humour, pop culture references and sometimes just absurdity.

Also, look for some mods. I always recommend Restoration Project, Updated at a minimum, it’s a combination unofficial patch and cut content restoration that is very unintrusive. I have a couple other suggestions if you’re not against a sprinkle of mods. Most are on Fallout 2 Nexus I think. Mainly convenience stuff. There is a FANTASTIC Talking Heads mod that perfectly captures the original artstyle, but it’s obviously not vanilla. Same for the fan made voice acting mod.

Lastly, you can’t talk your way out of the final fight in Fallout 2. I just want to save you from frustration, since you can talk your way out of most other situations. Don’t brick your save by investing nothing into combat stats.

Phew, sorry for the rant. I’m really passionate about this game.

Fallout 2 is basically a mediocre main story existing as an excuse for you to wander the desert and stumble onto all the phenomenal side quests. The murder investigation for the Wright crime family might be my favourite, but all the intrigue in New Reno is so good. And that’s not even getting into the crazy Scientologists and their space ship, a shotgun wedding, uncovering the origins of Jet, becoming a pornstar…

Well this is definitely about time. Simplification, job homogenisation and cut down difficulty has been a compounding issue over the past what, three or so expansion cycles? I still can’t believe they removed the iconic Hissatsu: Kaiten from Samurai.

I actually don’t like Kbin much personally, but yeah I have also noticed that. I wonder if there is still some wonky federation issues going on? Or maybe Lemmy users subconsciously gravitate to Lemmy communities, I don’t know.

I like this idea as a different slant compared to the existing gaming subs, I think there is a niche for it. There was already !truegaming@kbin.social but it never took off, I think.