Vidya Games Thread

[John Vtuber👁️]

The funny bit about Bend Studios is that, being in Bend, Oregon, they well understand that the Zombies don't win in a Zombie Apocalypse. That area between the Cascades and the Rockies (Bend being on the rainshadow side of the Cascades) is so vast and the perfect escape space. Which is actually what happened when the Explorers reconnected the continents and 90% of the Americas population died off.

Another fun fact, they tried to pitch Days Gone 2 previously, only to be shot down, and set to work on a "The Last of Us" live service multiplayer game for years, and years, and years!

Oh, the game was unceremoniously cancelled, despite being deep in development, hence why I made the comparison to "The Last of Us" eternally re-releasing, because Sony has a brain disease telling them that only The Last of Us can be successful.

Speaking of the game industry being in an absolutely lovely place, ex-Ubisoft developers have just released their turn-based RPG to massive acclaim - and if my shilling of this game pre-release didn't sell it enough, give it a look:



Perhaps the problem with Ubisoft wasn't the developers, but Ubisoft themselves, as a collective? It's more likely that these are the developers that were fed up with the constant open-world live service slop released year after year, and at that, they should succeed! Show the game industry that people still want turn-based RPGs, if Baldur's Gate 3 was somehow not enough proof!

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

Remastered Oblivion has such awful difficulty levels. Adept is WAY too easy, I can one shot wolves, I bump it up to expert and suddenly wolves take like 10 hits.
View attachment 96154

Those values are actually correct, they just took out the mid points though by reducing the difficulty options. Skyrim was:

Difficulty: Player Damage Taken / NPC Damage Taken
Novice: x0.5 / x2
Apprentice: x0.75 / x1.5
Adept: 1x / 1x
Expert : x1.5 / x0.75
Master : x2 / x0.5
Legendary : x3 / x0.25

Meanwhile original Oblivion didn't have difficulty names, it just had a difficulty slider that went:

Original Oblivion	Remastered Oblivion	Damage Taken	Damage Dealt
0%	Novice	1/6	6
25%	Apprentice	2/7	3.5
40%	-Not Included-	1/2	2
45%	-Not Included-	2/3	1.5
50%	Adept	1	1
55%	-Not Included-	1.5	2/3
60%	-Not Included-	2	1/2
75%	Expert	3.5	2/7
100%	Master	6	1/6

There's two whole difficulty levels above and below Adept they didn't include. They either need to include them or at least bump Apprentice to the 40% values and take Expert down to the 60% value.

 

[PleaseCheckYourReceipts]

Another fun fact, they tried to pitch Days Gone 2 previously, only to be shot down, and set to work on a "The Last of Us" live service multiplayer game for years, and years, and years!

Oh, the game was unceremoniously cancelled, despite being deep in development, hence why I made the comparison to "The Last of Us" eternally re-releasing, because Sony has a brain disease telling them that only The Last of Us can be successful.

Speaking of the game industry being in an absolutely lovely place, ex-Ubisoft developers have just released their turn-based RPG to massive acclaim - and if my shilling of this game pre-release didn't sell it enough, give it a look:



Perhaps the problem with Ubisoft wasn't the developers, but Ubisoft themselves, as a collective? It's more likely that these are the developers that were fed up with the constant open-world live service slop released year after year, and at that, they should succeed! Show the game industry that people still want turn-based RPGs, if Baldur's Gate 3 was somehow not enough proof!

Shitty French Businessmen being terrible? sacre bleu!

The problem Days Gone ran into is they moved another game, and suddenly their technical budget for the game increased by 75 million from the marketing budget. It probably did nothing to help, but increased how much it "cost" to produce by about 50%. Then, of course, the sequel was cancelled by the guy that turned Concord into one of the greatest disaster in media history. Hermen, you don't messed up!

That said, the zombie genre was probably played out by the time they made the decision and they didn't think it'd be any better for a launch when it was done. That's probably correct, so I get the business case.


As for Expedition 33, I'm thinking of grabbing it this weekend. There's an absolute consensus it's a incredible, and sticking it to Ubisoft and SquareEnix at the same time sounds appealing as well.

 

[Smelliest007]

Those values are actually correct, they just took out the mid points though by reducing the difficulty options. Skyrim was:

Meanwhile original Oblivion didn't have difficulty names, it just had a difficulty slider that went:

Original Oblivion	Remastered Oblivion	Damage Taken	Damage Dealt
0%	Novice	1/6	6
25%	Apprentice	2/7	3.5
40%	-Not Included-	1/2	2
45%	-Not Included-	2/3	1.5
50%	Adept	1	1
55%	-Not Included-	1.5	2/3
60%	-Not Included-	2	1/2
75%	Expert	3.5	2/7
100%	Master	6	1/6

There's two whole difficulty levels above and below Adept they didn't include. They either need to include them or at least bump Apprentice to the 40% values and take Expert down to the 60% value.

I wonder how many playtesters raised this concern.

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

I wonder how many playtesters raised this concern.

They were probably told by the devs "no, those fucked numbers are accurate, that's how it was in the original, we're trying to be faithful". Someone clearly fucked up and tried to give the difficulty slider names like Skyrim because it's easier to communicate to people "I play on Expert" instead of "I play on this point on the difficulty slider". However they didn't realize there were less difficulty levels in Skyrim than there were in Oblivion and didn't think about appointing the expert and apprentice levels properly. This is a very obvious solution but they fucked it up.

 

[Smelliest007]

They were probably told by the devs "no, those fucked numbers are accurate, that's how it was in the original, we're trying to be faithful". Someone clearly fucked up and tried to give the difficulty slider names like Skyrim because it's easier to communicate to people "I play on Expert" instead of "I play on this point on the difficulty slider". However they didn't realize there were less difficulty levels in Skyrim than there were in Oblivion and didn't think about appointing the expert and apprentice levels properly. This is a very obvious solution but they fucked it up.

I just want a difficulty of higher dmg to me and higher dmg to enemy. Like a 2.0 to me and a 1.5 to them.

 

[reinigen]

Speaking of the game industry being in an absolutely lovely place, ex-Ubisoft developers have just released their turn-based RPG to massive acclaim - and if my shilling of this game pre-release didn't sell it enough, give it a look:



Perhaps the problem with Ubisoft wasn't the developers, but Ubisoft themselves, as a collective? It's more likely that these are the developers that were fed up with the constant open-world live service slop released year after year, and at that, they should succeed! Show the game industry that people still want turn-based RPGs, if Baldur's Gate 3 was somehow not enough proof!

Going to mirror what he's saying about Expedition 33. I'm nearing the end of Trails in the Sky SC, so I'm focusing on that. But I took the time to play the first 2 hours of Expedition and finish the prologue. And already the storytelling and presentation is blowing my mind. I cannot wait to start it once I'm done with SC.

 

[PleaseCheckYourReceipts]

Going to mirror what he's saying about Expedition 33. I'm nearing the end of Trails in the Sky SC, so I'm focusing on that. But I took the time to play the first 2 hours of Expedition and finish the prologue. And already the storytelling and presentation is blowing my mind. I cannot wait to start it once I'm done with SC.

I'm convinced, but thanks for the thoughts on E33.

Looking at the metacritic user scores, people have a hard time giving it at least not an 8. I'm guessing this is the Final Fantasy game people have been wanting for years.

 

[Saturnus]

I picked up SMT V Vengeance again because I've been in the mood for it after shelving my run last year and I kind of want to finish it before I play Raidou or Metaphor.
I've been spoiled on most of the game but, I haven't been spoiled on everything. So as I'm running around cleaning up Taito's map, getting all my demon abscesses cleared so I can get all skill slots unlocked on my demons to fuse some good skills onto a Namaah before I fight Zeus/Odin and Big Angry Fly. I run into something I was unaware of. A nice fight with the common mobs from the start of the game (Pixie, Onmoraki, Slime and Preta) but they're all fuckin' LEVEL 99 (I am mid-60s at this point) with EIGHT (I didn't count, might be more) Full Press turns.

Thanks Shin Megami Tensei.

 

[shipmate]

P.S.: Doesn't count gamepass, only retail numbers.

Expedition 33 proving once again that people are not fed with genres, they are fed with the way people at the top do stuff.
This game marketing was shoddy at the best, with one good reveal and short presence since, but word of mouth was so strong everyone jumped in.
This game is a love letter to real RPGs, you can see influence from Xenogears to Breath of Fire, Paper Mario, SaGa, SMT and a lot of french satire, I love every sour humor bit and dry smiles, coupled with touching moments and punches to the stomach, proving once again the french can do sick cinema and integrate you into it through gameplay.

It's been more than a decade that I ever felt this connected to a western game, ever since I don't know, Halo 3 and FarCry 3, where you felt the characters were alive. Seeing the newest Dragon Age against this is like comparing puddle water to a 30 year old wine.

The most impressive: 50 dollar drop. How in the hell is a game with this quality only 50 dollars?
They proved it can be done but gamers, being stupid fucks, are letting themselves be robbed on daylight by fat executives by accepting $70 and $80 titles.

 

[RestlessRain]

 

[UberSoldat]

At least they got free keys and Bethesda's blessing

 

[John Vtuber👁️]

Another thing to add about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, is that it's running on Unreal Engine 5, which means it has problems with freezing at random points before forcing you to hard-quit the game. It's up to the developers to fix this, but since auto-saves are frequent, it's not too much of a setback.

The difference between this and Monster Hunter: Wilds, is that I am significantly less angry of the game crashing, because it is just that good! Hopefully the developers address these issues, further optimize performance, and they have a long tail of sales ahead of them.

 

[JMForte]

More Oblivion Remaster info, apparently changing graphics while in game fucks your game up and makes it unstable, do it from the main menu. If you already have changed graphics while in game, and still have issues, you apparently have to reinstall the game. People have also found that deleting some nvidia dll that shipped with the game makes it run better.

 

[Smelliest007]

More Oblivion Remaster info, apparently changing graphics while in game fucks your game up and makes it unstable, do it from the main menu. If you already have changed graphics while in game, and still have issues, you apparently have to reinstall the game. People have also found that deleting some nvidia dll that shipped with the game makes it run better.

You have a link for this?

 

[Abomination]

P.S.: Doesn't count gamepass, only retail numbers.

Expedition 33 proving once again that people are not fed with genres, they are fed with the way people at the top do stuff.
This game marketing was shoddy at the best, with one good reveal and short presence since, but word of mouth was so strong everyone jumped in.
This game is a love letter to real RPGs, you can see influence from Xenogears to Breath of Fire, Paper Mario, SaGa, SMT and a lot of french satire, I love every sour humor bit and dry smiles, coupled with touching moments and punches to the stomach, proving once again the french can do sick cinema and integrate you into it through gameplay.

It's been more than a decade that I ever felt this connected to a western game, ever since I don't know, Halo 3 and FarCry 3, where you felt the characters were alive. Seeing the newest Dragon Age against this is like comparing puddle water to a 30 year old wine.

The most impressive: 50 dollar drop. How in the hell is a game with this quality only 50 dollars?
They proved it can be done but gamers, being stupid fucks, are letting themselves be robbed on daylight by fat executives by accepting $70 and $80 titles.

The game looked interesting before release, so good to hear this one came out actually good and done right. Definitely makes me more excited to play it.

I'm close to the end of Trails into Reverie, so I think I might take a break before diving into the next game and actually pick this up after I finish Reverie.

 

[JMForte]

You have a link for this?

Link
UE5 is so ass.

 

[shipmate]

Epic is a blight in this industry, now that UE is the standard we are forced to deal with shit geometry, shit lighting, terrible antialiasing technology (every game is blurry) and of couse, all the regular stutters and performance issues.
I wonder where we're going to be in 5 years because it doesn't seem engineers are all that common anymore.
Capcom made the REngine and it was great for a while but it's not made for big maps or open worlds as we can see how terrible Wilds and DD2 performs.

 

[JMForte]

Epic is a blight in this industry, now that UE is the standard we are forced to deal with shit geometry, shit lighting, terrible antialiasing technology (every game is blurry) and of couse, all the regular stutters and performance issues.
I wonder where we're going to be in 5 years because it doesn't seem engineers are all that common anymore.
Capcom made the REngine and it was great for a while but it's not made for big maps or open worlds as we can see how terrible Wilds and DD2 performs.

It's not because there aren't any engineers and all that, it's because it costs money to make and maintain, on top of that, you have to teach people to use engines properly. It's why Cryengine is hardly used it's really difficult to use, but when it is, and it's done by people who know how to use it, it's amazing, regardless of what anyone's thoughts on KCD2 are, that game runs amazing while looking good, far better than KCD1. UE5 is used because it's miles ahead in ease of use. The worst thing is that games CAN run well on UE5, if they don't try to shove every new graphic tech the engine allows them to have into the game.

I'll go as far to say that, outside of UE5, games were already going down the path of making everything look photorealistic. That's the biggest thing, the art direction games are going is just bad.

 

[Saturnus]

I wonder where we're going to be in 5 years because it doesn't seem engineers are all that common anymore.

I will add that the good software engineers are definitely not going into game development at big studios here in the west lol. Exceptions are Game devs like (ie: ) Valve who continue to build their own engines probably have some level of incentive to do their job and a generally better workplace. Whereas others using UE5 are subjected to crunch + shit hours + shit pay + everything else that is wrong in the games industry.
I'm pretty sure at that point most just get a humble job being a software engineer for like, a regional bank or something and be subjected to the complete opposite of the above.