Fabricant451

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

Immortals Fenyx Rising is a really good podcast game both because of its structure as a big explorable BOTW-esque open world and because if I'm listening to a podcast I don't have to hear the fucking terrible dialog. Seriously the narration is like someone saw Seth McFarlane Rick and Morty and went "What if we did that but even worse"

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

Personally I like the RPG style of the current Creed but I know that makes me something of an outlier in the fandom but I like what I like. For me the biggest failings of the new games is Layla Hassan is undercooked but at least so far Valhalla seems to finally be having that aspect of the story matter whereas Odyssey had the coolest fucking reveal and did fuckall with it.

That said if they wanted to go back to smaller areas with more defined characters and assassination 'puzzles' like the older games I wouldn't complain.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>
Man, I didn't even want to leave Norway because the game was just so unimpressive to me from the get. I have to force myself to play that game and I couldn't peel myself away from Odyssey. Biggest disappointment of 2020... video games-wise... for me.

@TGM

I don't hate it so far but someone on the dev team really fucked up the stealth and that seems like something you shouldn't fuck up in Assassin's Creed. Like fuck I didn't know people in the old days could detect me from across the goddamn map.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

<Snipped quote by Fabricant451>
I've only 100%'d a few """modern""" games in recent memory. The Tomb Raider reboot (still trying to for it with their sequels), nearly Ghost of Tsushima (missing flags and fireflies iirc), and a few others. I tried to do a completionist run with Dragon Age: Inquisition and I still ended up missing stuff in my codex.

@TGM

I have a crippling problem with open world games where I have to, like, do everything I can in an area nd the main story be damned. Like it took me about 9 hours to get out of Norway in Valhalla because I had to get everything. I don't even go for 100 percent completion in most things but something about seeing shit on a map has me like 'Well I gotta do that, it's probably important' and it never is.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

What are some games you actively have enjoyed but after you've beaten it once you have no desire to return to it despite liking it a great deal?

@TGM

Breath of the Wild

Granted I did every shrine like a crazy person so that's probably why

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

<Snipped quote by Ammokkx>
And that defeats the entire purpose of a MMO which is to force you to socialize and than make said socialization fun.

@PPQ Purple

This is like saying the entire purpose of Call of Duty is shit talking minors just because it's an element of the game. You're never forced to socialize in an MMO. You're incentivized to join a guild be it for XP buffs or whatever is on offer but you're not forced to do so. You could queue for random dungeons and never say a goddamn word to the others you're running content with. MMOs have come a long way since the days when everything was obtuse and grindy to disguise the lack of shit to do at max level. Back then maybe yeah you'd have a point where the social interaction was a bit more vital, but these days? Not at all.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

You can have a movie that's billed as horror but isn't scary at all. And yet such a movie can make huge amounts of money. Does this mean that it's a good "horror" movie? NO. It makes it a good movie overall that did good as a movie but it still fails at its genre.

@PPQ Purple

I didn't find Midsommar particular scary but it's still a really fucking good horror movie.

What Are You Reading Right Now?

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

On a separate note, a question for everyone who makes FF14 their addiction. Just how much "I'm a final fantasy fan, I know the lore, I played the games" are you on a scale of one to ten?

@SleepingSilence

I've played every mainline FF game, a lot of the spinoffs, and have written far too many essays about various games in the franchise. Even if I wasn't a fan of them, 14 would still be appealing to me just as a narrative, though admittedly I like slow burn things and will freely admit it often takes too long for 14's plot to go anywhere other than meandering - especially in the early going before they figured it out. At best, being a fan of the franchise mostly lets you appreciate some of the less obvious references (like the Crystal Tower raid in 2.0 just being Final Fantasy 3 again) in the same way that Final Fantasy 9 works as a standalone but also is filled to the brim with references of the games prior to it.

I think the concern of FF14 not being exploration based is valid if that's what you enjoy out of the genre. For me, something like Tera is fun only in the smallest bursts because quest design in that game doesn't do anything to disguise its grind, meanwhile I've tried and failed to get into Guild Wars 2 like seven times and while I like the platformy viewpoint stuff, I hate the world quest shit that seemed to be the only way to really progress outside of story content. 14 is certainly an MMO that is focused heavily on its narrative but at the same time its held back by the fact that it has a console userbase in mind - and nothing against them, but there's also a reason why the console versions of STO and Tera are, like, basically dead. (Also because who wanted them anyway)

Exploration never really becomes its true focus but at least in the expansion zones they don't just hand you full map completion for entering the area the first time so it's...something.

As someone whose main MMO for years was SWTOR, I can tolerate a...mediocre MMO if I enjoy the narrative and fortunately 14 is above mediocre, even if it takes, for me anyway, way too long for a class to truly feel 'good' to play. And nothing is worse than when you're used to how a class feels at max and then oops now you're doing Sastasha again have fun idiot all your cool shit is unusable and it's like fuck I forgot.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

The true enjoyment of playing an MMO is when you know there is a cool goal just beyond that boring quest that has you grinding up 300 tigers or some such. So you go into a field and stand for two hours grinding on tigers. And it's as boring as this conversation. Only you aren't alone. There are tens of other players in that same field grinding those same tigers all being bored and yet all looking for that shiny goal in the end.

@PPQ Purple

Again, it's not the days of Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot anymore. The 'grind' in MMOs these days is either in getting to endgame (without just dumping cash on a level skip) or else the gear grind at endgame which has less to do with collecting tiger skins and bear asses and more to do with finding a consistent group to farm the current raid tier every week. What keeps someone playing at endgame is the other content that is fun or engaging for the individual. Players set their own goals that don't even have to do with socializing. Some players want to collect mounts, others want to play mini games, some might want to fuckin' fish all day, whatever it is the social aspect is an enhancement at best and certainly not a requirement.

Besides, in a true MMO most people just have bots or macro shit to farm what they need and then inflate the market prices while they watch The Office for the hundredth time or some shit.