Vidya Games Thread

[Willemshaven]

Follow-up to my previous post about Men of War II. Steam positive review ratings have jumped to around 60%, but it's still in the "mixed" category.

Here's my issues with Men of War II from playing the betas that are confirmed to be still in the game, which can't be (completely) modded away:

Spoiler

• In an effort to simplify infantry squads by ditching squad leaders, they've ironically made them worse to play.
  • You can't group squads together other than what the game configures them as, requiring you to use control groups.
  • You can't direct control squads, only a individual soldier.
  • Resources no longer gets automatically distributed across a squad, making inventory management more clunky and time consuming.
    • This is compounded by small arms ammo stacks being much bigger, which makes distributing them across soldiers even harder. The inventory management system might as well not exist as units gets auto-resupplied from thin air when they run out of ammo.
• Ordering infantry to storm a building causes them to run into the building to... melee the enemies. The enemies can still use their weapons just fine so you will pretty much always lose units.
• If you use the traditional lobby, you will be sent back to the main menu after playing a game. Which means you have to re-configure the settings and re-invite people, unlike past games.
  • This issue was among the most upvoted in the Discord server during the open beta, yet nothing came out of it.
• If your unit is on hold fire mode, the ammo type still automatically switches when engaging an enemy. It's really annoying as ammo switching happens instantly unless you use the inventory interface.
• When you get auto-kicked out of the game for being AFK, you can't reconnect.
  • Another player testified that this issue existed since Men of War II: Arena.
• The unit icons over them aren't selectable unlike in Assault Squad 2 and Gates of Hell.
  • In addition to that, the infantry unit icons disappear when zooming out too much.
    • The irony is that one of the complaints for Gates of Hell is that the dark and gritty artstyle makes the infantry blend into the environment. Yet, this game is worse as you can't just look for a icon to look where the infantry are.
• The always-online requirement.
  • You can get auto-kicked out of singleplayer for being AFK.
    • A recent patch is supposed to fix this, but that patch also had bugs that caused crashes, so it was rolled back.
  • Patches require the game server to be shut down to get them deployed. If you're mid-game, sucks to be you.
  • Sometimes, you just don't get mission rewards for multiplayer at all.
    • It turns out that the singleplayer component is already technically offline. It just needs a constant internet connection to give you the mission rewards for multiplayer.
  • The devs and publishers recognized that many players don't want always online for singleplayer, yet they still decided to launch the game as is.
    
• Bonus issue that has been revealed post-launch: the standard multiplayer spawn system applies to singleplayer.
  • None of the missions during the open beta used that system, so no feedback about that could be given.
  • The system is something like this:
    • There are two logistic slots for spawning in units. They will be on a cooldown when used.
    • Aside from the starting echelon, there are two more that will unlock over time.
    • There's a unit limit that will increase over time.
      • This unit limit will stop you from manning your own and allied vehicles if having them goes over the limit. Enemy and neutral vehicles are exempt from this limit, but it's not like that will happen often as vehicles usually get irrecoverably destroyed.

There's a small roadmap, but it says nothing about new factions, such as adding the British and Japanese factions that were present in the previous main games. It's mainly about fixing issues with the game that existed all the way back in the betas and sometimes even in Arena. Also, there's this line in particular:

Your mod has to be deemed to be popular so it will be allowed to be used in the dedicated server mode in the lobby mode. Otherwise, you will have no choice but to play modded games through the local server mode, which is apparently as dysfunctional as the multiplayer system in the older games.

Two weeks in after launch, and MoWII player numbers are already down to around the level of MoWAS2, which is really only played for the massive backlog of mods everytime I peeked at the multiplayer lobby list (if there is one available at all). I've seen complaints that matchmaking outside of the PVP battalions mode and (maybe) combined arms mode takes a very long time. They definitely appealed to a wider audience.

We'll have to see what happens when the game goes on sale. By then, they surely should've patched singleplayer mode to be offline, right?

In conclusion, Men of War II is what happens when you stubbornly hang onto the effort sunk into a free-to-play live service game that flopped. It's not worth 45 bucks for players like me that don't touch multiplayer often.

 

[MrProcessor]

Finally beat Hanako (the first spirit) in Spirit Hunter: Death Mark 2. While the UI has been changed a lot, the way the stories work is similar to the first two games. I'm not sure why they changed the UI, though.

 

[UberSoldat]

Mandalore reviews Homeworld 3

 

[Bug Eater]

Pretty good sale on INFRA right now - highly recommended if you have mild autism* and like the idea of a walking simulator based around urban exploration and structural analysis/puzzle solving, with some crazy lore beneath the surface.



*should really be in the system requirements

 

[Abomination]

Soon....

 

[Dispirited Helmet]

I'm getting kind of tired of the whiplash between "indie video game that can't execute its ideas/gives up on them halfway" and "mod creators who have no sense of game balance".

Project Zomboid base game is ass without mods, and the devs have given up on stability/jank reduction because that's not flashy enough. Instead they're working on fucking farming. How many zombie games have dived headlong into the farm simulator loop and imploded I wonder? But when you try to mod it? Most mods on the workshop are just "GIVE MINIGUN CAR." "GIVE MEGAMACHINE GUN AT START". "ALL ZOMBIES TELEPORT TO YOU AND THE ROCK FACE APPEARS ON DEATH SCREEN LOLOL." And Zomboid's modding community is pretty fucking good by comparison to most games!

Oh, I want to mod Noita because alchemy is completely unfinished, with some materials that just don't interact with anything and no way to actually use the system most runs? Let me mod that! Except the mods that do that aren't just "make poison actually interact with other things," or "make glass more interesting," or "more magical fluids interact with fire." It's a hundred page manual of new materials, bullshit OP potions that explode into swords that auto home towards enemies and also heal you, and they STILL don't fix the materials that suck in base game!

And don't even get me started on PDX games, where 99% of mods are "what if the world was ruled by anime girls in 1694" and only work on a version of the game that came out 20 years ago. Or something like Don't Starve, where 99% of mods are "play as this anime character and win instantly lolol". I know most mods (and indie games for that matter) are made by little kids or manchildren but holy shit is it really that hard to use your brain and do a little QA?

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

And don't even get me started on PDX games, where 99% of mods are "what if the world was ruled by anime girls in 1694" and only work on a version of the game that came out 20 years ago.

I'm not even going to pretend like I didn't sink hundreds of hours into the WoW mod for CK2. Conquering Kalimdor as the Qiraji was peak fun. Then again, a lot of the CK fanbase doesn't care about the base game and were immediately in the "waiting room for the Game of Thrones mod" the moment CK3 came out.

 

[UberSoldat]

Huge W for the game

 

[I Wanna Die]

3 free months of Gamepass for anyone with a Nvidia 10 series or newer

GeForce Rewards: Get PC Game Pass Free For 3 Months, Starting June 4th

GeForce Experience and NVIDIA app beta users: play critically acclaimed games featuring DLSS, Reflex and ray tracing for free thanks to our newest GeForce Reward.

www.nvidia.com

 

[UberSoldat]

Twisted Metal but Warhammer, looks neat

 

[chihirogumi]

The Trails Through Daybreak demo is out now on PS4 and Switch. The PS4 demo apparently lets you play for multiple hours and then you can transfer your save file over when the game officially releases which is pretty cool. If you're new to Trails I say give it a shot since it's a new arc with new characters and storyline (although it's still in the same universe so if you want the full, optimal experience, start with Trails in the Sky FC after this demo).

 

[John Vtuber👁️]

Beat the campaign of Destiny 2's "The Final Shape", after 12 hours of connection errors and slowly making my way through constant server kicks, and would you like to know how it ends?

Spoiler: Destiny 2 "The Final Shape" Campaign Ending

it's a "To Be Continued", after dealing chip damage to The Witness in an overly-long final level/fight

we have gathered all of our strongest allies, and...now we wait. This wasn't the final battle, the REAL final battle's happening soon, promise! (In about 2 days and 7 hours from now, allegedly!)

Hope the 10-year story culmination was worth it for Bungie, and I'm sure the next year of content will restore faith from their playerbase after Lightfall, right

In other news, I'll start slowly bashing something together myself, but will keep that sort of thing into spoilered-threads at the end of posts so it doesn't clutter everything (and easy to skip entirely for the uninterested).

 

[UberSoldat]

Boomshoot sale

Indie FPS Summer Showcase

Welcome to the Indie FPS Summer Showcase Steam event! The event's goal is to help you elevate your FPS gaming experience to new heights! By discovering new high quality Indie games. Expect to see everything from Upcoming, sales, hidden gems and new demos.

store.steampowered.com

 

[Awoogers]

rat

 

[Thomas Talus]

Beat the campaign of Destiny 2's "The Final Shape", after 12 hours of connection errors and slowly making my way through constant server kicks, and would you like to know how it ends?

Spoiler: Destiny 2 "The Final Shape" Campaign Ending

View attachment 71171

it's a "To Be Continued", after dealing chip damage to The Witness in an overly-long final level/fight

we have gathered all of our strongest allies, and...now we wait. This wasn't the final battle, the REAL final battle's happening soon, promise! (In about 2 days and 7 hours from now, allegedly!)

Hope the 10-year story culmination was worth it for Bungie, and I'm sure the next year of content will restore faith from their playerbase after Lightfall, right

In other news, I'll start slowly bashing something together myself, but will keep that sort of thing into spoilered-threads at the end of posts so it doesn't clutter everything (and easy to skip entirely for the uninterested).

We've known for a while that the Witness would be defeated in the raid rather than the campaign.

 

[Nenélove]

rat

Relogic casually being a million times better than Mojang at basically everything? Color me unsurprised.

Seriously, how do you just find new ways to make the game fun and interesting? It starts with a furry mount accessory for red's daughter that turns you into a wolf, ok that's kinda weird and doesn't follow mount conventions but sure, a quirky little gimmick. Then they took that and said "why don't we... make a whole new category of mount accessories called transformations?" now you can become a dinosaur, or a vampire bat or a rat and fit through small holes and god knows how many more they have hidden away for the update, holy shit these people are creative.

 

[Awoogers]

Relogic casually being a million times better than Mojang at basically everything? Color me unsurprised.

Seriously, how do you just find new ways to make the game fun and interesting? It starts with a furry mount accessory for red's daughter that turns you into a wolf, ok that's kinda weird and doesn't follow mount conventions but sure, a quirky little gimmick. Then they took that and said "why don't we... make a whole new category of mount accessories called transformations?" now you can become a dinosaur, or a vampire bat or a rat and fit through small holes and god knows how many more they have hidden away for the update, holy shit these people are creative.

thats not even counting the seed specific ones that red is apparently gonna add as well

 

[Nenélove]

thats not even counting the seed specific ones that red is apparently gonna add as well

Meanwhile mojang... takes a billion years to add a fucking mob that looks WORSE than what modders have been doing for years and it adds NOTHING to the game and only spawns in quite rare biomes or circumstances.

The difference here really is the workflow:
Relogic is a bunch of guys who were passionate for old-school nintendo games and love what they do and add quirky strange shit with tons of depth to solve inconsequential issues and make the game less bullshitty (like shimmer!). They are super casual about development, frequently prodding the community's brains for ideas and adding seemingly silly shit just because it sounds FUN. Red literally had a flame war with his wife on the forums which ended up resulting in some VERY creative items like a boomerang that cuts trees down, making a tedious chore faster and more fun.

Mojang meanwhile goes through twenty phases of testing for everything they add and have to check that the new block doesn't offend people in MYANMAR so that it's more accessible or whatever the fuck. They dumb features down and introduce more issues trying to fix old ones, they struggle to add 3 mobs because each mob probably has to go through concept artists and then 20 board meetings to make sure it fits whatever corpo standard they use now, and they remove cool quirky features like the killer rabbit because NO FUN ALLOWED.

I like both games very much and have played more hours than I wanna admit but Mojang is fucking pathetic. They're also more corporate and less approachable than fucking Disney at this point, notch should've never sold it.

 

[Awoogers]

Meanwhile mojang... takes a billion years to add a fucking mob that looks WORSE than what modders have been doing for years and it adds NOTHING to the game and only spawns in quite rare biomes or circumstances.

The difference here really is the workflow:
Relogic is a bunch of guys who were passionate for old-school nintendo games and love what they do and add quirky strange shit with tons of depth to solve inconsequential issues and make the game less bullshitty (like shimmer!). They are super casual about development, frequently prodding the community's brains for ideas and adding seemingly silly shit just because it sounds FUN. Red literally had a flame war with his wife on the forums which ended up resulting in some VERY creative items like a boomerang that cuts trees down, making a tedious chore faster and more fun.

Mojang meanwhile goes through twenty phases of testing for everything they add and have to check that the new block doesn't offend people in MYANMAR so that it's more accessible or whatever the fuck. They dumb features down and introduce more issues trying to fix old ones, they struggle to add 3 mobs because each mob probably has to go through concept artists and then 20 board meetings to make sure it fits whatever corpo standard they use now, and they remove cool quirky features like the killer rabbit because NO FUN ALLOWED.

I like both games very much and have played more hours than I wanna admit but Mojang is fucking pathetic. They're also more corporate and less approachable than fucking Disney at this point, notch should've never sold it.

theres really a difference between people who geniunely love the things they make and the community around it vs people making something just for the sake of it with execs high up their asses that they see the community not as something to get inputs but just someone who consumes without thought

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

Meanwhile mojang... takes a billion years to add a fucking mob that looks WORSE than what modders have been doing for years and it adds NOTHING to the game and only spawns in quite rare biomes or circumstances.

The difference here really is the workflow:
Relogic is a bunch of guys who were passionate for old-school nintendo games and love what they do and add quirky strange shit with tons of depth to solve inconsequential issues and make the game less bullshitty (like shimmer!). They are super casual about development, frequently prodding the community's brains for ideas and adding seemingly silly shit just because it sounds FUN. Red literally had a flame war with his wife on the forums which ended up resulting in some VERY creative items like a boomerang that cuts trees down, making a tedious chore faster and more fun.

Mojang meanwhile goes through twenty phases of testing for everything they add and have to check that the new block doesn't offend people in MYANMAR so that it's more accessible or whatever the fuck. They dumb features down and introduce more issues trying to fix old ones, they struggle to add 3 mobs because each mob probably has to go through concept artists and then 20 board meetings to make sure it fits whatever corpo standard they use now, and they remove cool quirky features like the killer rabbit because NO FUN ALLOWED.

I like both games very much and have played more hours than I wanna admit but Mojang is fucking pathetic. They're also more corporate and less approachable than fucking Disney at this point, notch should've never sold it.

Swedish game devs have a reputation for being horrendously slow and lazy at game development. The running joke is that once a game gets released by a Swedish dev, don't look forward to significant updates because it will take years.