Exploding heads probably doesn't have much material cost, so far as armor and weapons and such. Half sounds about right... 
Gaming thoughts, bite-size chewables - new orange flavor!
- Thread starter pauli
- Start date
In Stellaris, they use the "fleeing" mechanism in the game, and they're gone for a certain period of time. Overall it's not a bad mechanism, but it definitely can be abused/annoying sometimes.
You can actually now avoid this with cloaking. Cloaked fleets have a chance to stay in enemy territory when war is declared.
This was in I believe civ 4. I think they made that impossible in civ 5 and automatically moved all your units out of the enemy territory as soon as war was declared so you couldn't pull that stunt. Not sure how civ 6 works in this regard
I loved Marvel Snap, and played it a ton, but finally gave up on it a couple of weeks ago. The constant rebalancing meant that every time I had a deck I was happy with, it would suddenly get nerfed into oblivion. It pretty quickly stopped being a fun new challenge, and instead just pissed me off. Feh.
If they're having to constantly rebalance Snap it sounds like they don't have a solid handle on their Numbers Go Up game. Which, honestly, doesn't surprise me too much as there are only so many ways to make Numbers Go Up and they're not exactly scalable to each other.
That's one of the problems that I don't think they can solve. The way Magic and many of the other CCGs deal with it is sunsetting older card sets. But they can't do that with Marvel Snap. Can you imagine the furor if they retired Spider-Man, She-Hulk, or Captain America?
Without a way to retire overpowered cards and combos, they would have decks with notably higher than a ~55% win rate forever, even if they introduced cards that specifically countered it. So the only way they can really deal with it is regularly adjusting cards that overperform/underperform, and nerfing killer combos by rewriting the key components. Which is why, when they nerfed Wave, they reduced the cost of Death, making her easier to play without Wave.
With a monthly release plan, this month's killer decks should not be next month's killer decks. And regardless of that, today's killer decks should absolutely never be next year's killer decks.
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I tried a bit of civ6 again lately, and despite the (censored) hours I played it in the past it's clear I'm not very good at the game. I hate having to burn things down to get the whales on.
I'm dipping a toe back into Hades. I played a bit but looks like only 38 escape attempts, but they can stretch on for quite a while now. So I was better, now I'm rusty, and this is very much a game where part of the level-up is acquired skill.
I'm dipping a toe back into Hades. I played a bit but looks like only 38 escape attempts, but they can stretch on for quite a while now. So I was better, now I'm rusty, and this is very much a game where part of the level-up is acquired skill.
Metro Exodus is on sale.. worth it? I've never played any of the Metro games - curious how sandbox it is? Or do they claim that, but you end up getting funneled down narrow pathing? Does it get repetitive?
Never played it either but Metro: last night, complete edition is free to keep on steam right now. Though I don't know how much it compares against Exodus, the price is right.
View: https://store.steampowered.com/app/43160/Metro_Last_Light_Complete_Edition/
Stuck in the gaming doldrums right now. Couple of things I'm intersted in are stuck in "Release real soon now". Been half-heartedly doing runs in Hades and Into The Breach.
At least the weather has been nice, so I've been able to get some outdoors time
At least the weather has been nice, so I've been able to get some outdoors time
Division 2 is on sale cheap, we've got an ArsClan to help, and they've got a new game mode coming soon.
And Division 1 is still playable too. Been playing it on and off and have been enjoying it more now than when it first came out.
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
Metro Exodus is unlike earlier Metro games, in that it's more open, with only a few strictly linear segments. But it's not as open as a typical open world game either - so not a sandbox at all.
You can play it even if you haven't played earlier games. The premise is simple enough. And it doesn't feel repetitive because the locations are very different. All in all it's definitely worth playing.
Seconded.
It has some annoyances, a bit of jank, but is otherwise a good game. I personally prefer the tighter, more crafted experiences of the first and second games, but all three are pretty decent. And yeah, if you haven't played the first one you should absolutely go pick up the free copy from steam.
As to the "sandbox"? Using 'sandbox' to describe Metro Exodus is like using 'sandbox' to describe Borderlands. You have a big(ish) area you go to, lots of different things to do (including a main story line), and then you move on to the next area.
So no. Not really. There are connotations with that term that don't really apply to anything with a cohesive narrative structure. More, "here is the world and the tools, go nuts."
Minecraft, Valheim (going off videos and articles, haven't played it) and GTA Online? Sandboxes.
Borderlands, Breath of the Wild, Assassin's Creed games, Horizon, Fenyx, Metro Exodus? Varying degrees of 'open world', but not really a "sandbox".
In fact, Borderlands 1/2/3 and Metro Exodus are very similar in how they're built. They are what I've started calling "Cavern Shooters/RPGs/Insert subgenre here".
I should explain.
BIG areas with occasional small ones, with tight corridor interconnects (or cutscenes).
Big narrative throughline with occasional branches, along with individual/unrelated side quests in each 'cavern'. In the later Borderlands games, you'd experience different biomes as you went through each set of Caverns. Same with Metro Exodus.
Metro 1 and 2 are much tighter, linear experiences. To me, they are stronger on the narrative front AND on the level design front for it. I like the wide open nature of open world games (BotW, AssCreed, Fenyx, Horizon) that encourage a lot of exploration. I also can greatly enjoy tight linear experiences for how well they can craft and interlace the narrative and the level design. This is the HL2/traditional shooter model.
Then there are the hub spoke / psuedo hub-spoke games. These are harder to place, but often times are described as open world when they REALLY aren't. See 2018's God of War for a stellar example. Linear paths extending out from a central hub. Some of those paths will be 'caverns' some of them really tight narrative experiences. Control is kind of like this too. Everything comes back to that lobby area in the Executive section, and spokes off from there.
Cavern Shooters? Eh. To be honest, they don't hold nearly the appeal to me anymore. I feel like the compromises they make to be 'not quite' an open world game and 'not quite' a sandbox and 'not quite' a linear experience takes something away from them. Good at a lot of things, not really memorable for any of them.
... Yeah, this post got away from me a bit.
TL,DR: Metro Exodus is a pretty good game. It's not a sandbox.
Metro is also one of the first games in my memory to offer a scaling difficulty that is actually fair, i.e., higher difficulties make you easier to kill but also make enemies easier to kill. You just have less resources and health pool to do it. Makes for a refreshing experience that also fits in well with the bleak setting.
As someone who's never played the other Metro games and has basically fallen out of love with computer games in general, I loved (most) of Exodus. The locations in the game are really varied, and the four or five 'open' levels are pretty big and freely explorable, aside from a couple of spots locked behind missions. Definitely not sandbox though, as others have said.
It's also got some really great set-piece locations and missions, and most of the game absolutely nails the urbex/Chernobyl/Stalker vibe, which I'm a total sucker for. One thing that always bothered me about Fallout was that its constant whimsical sense of humour killed the otherwise stellar spooky vibes the world gave off, but that's not a problem with Metro Exodus!
It's also got some really great set-piece locations and missions, and most of the game absolutely nails the urbex/Chernobyl/Stalker vibe, which I'm a total sucker for. One thing that always bothered me about Fallout was that its constant whimsical sense of humour killed the otherwise stellar spooky vibes the world gave off, but that's not a problem with Metro Exodus!
Fallout is like an ogre*, it's got layers. There are lots of poignant, sometimes gut wrenching little stories in the games. But they also have that humour. Often subversive, sometimes silly or absurd. But then there are the creepy moments, or moments of dread as you anticipate something horrific about to happen.
*Or an onion, or parfait.
*Or an onion, or parfait.
Counter (and unpopular!) opinion: Fallout is poorly written and generally riddled with bugs. Like stale flower cut with dirt and infested with weevils. Being used to make Wonderbread.
<-Doesn’t like Fallout. I’ve tried 1, 2, 3, New Vegas. I’m done.
<-Doesn’t like Fallout. I’ve tried 1, 2, 3, New Vegas. I’m done.
It's far from perfect and not for everyone.
Granted, most of us mod the fuck out of them to make them more the game we envision.
It's why Microsoft is interested in them, they make platforms more than games.
The story in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games is really just a modder tutorial, not something everyone should play.
The story in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games is really just a modder tutorial, not something everyone should play.
Interview with Night Dive Studio's CEO and founder, Stephen Kick on the upcoming System Shock remake. May 30 is the release date.
GOG Interview: Learn More About System Shock’S Remake Straight From Its Creators
I never got around to playing much more than a few minutes... maybe an hour or two? of either game. And later when I tried things had changed for games and the lack of mouse look became an issue for me. The UI was always an issue. Even though the games coming out in those years were cutting edge I always felt like "there's gotta be a better way to do this". UI is a big issue for me in any game and will turn me off if it's egregious to me.
I don't know if I will play this. I like my story/character driven RPGs and Adventure types. I'll have to take a look at the gameplay for this remake to decide.
GOG Interview: Learn More About System Shock’S Remake Straight From Its Creators
I never got around to playing much more than a few minutes... maybe an hour or two? of either game. And later when I tried things had changed for games and the lack of mouse look became an issue for me. The UI was always an issue. Even though the games coming out in those years were cutting edge I always felt like "there's gotta be a better way to do this". UI is a big issue for me in any game and will turn me off if it's egregious to me.
I don't know if I will play this. I like my story/character driven RPGs and Adventure types. I'll have to take a look at the gameplay for this remake to decide.
I've played through the backer demo of the first level and it's definitely much better than the original version of the game. They've essentially done what some mods did in terms of adding mouselook and making the inventory window a more natural toggle than it originally was. Where they've stepped back a bit is in some of their puzzle design for the various wire puzzles. Those aren't as intuitive to understand as they could be but they're also, arguably, a small portion of the game.
It's definitely worth a look and, hopefully, they decide to have a demo of the medical level available.
They did make mouselook available in the remaster. Which I also did not play. But this is a remake, so I'm expecting significant differences in design, QoL improvements, and appearance. Appearance is another issue. As time went on, it became more difficult to go back and play the game regardless of UI. The look became an issue.
@Diabolical don't like no parfaits.
To be fair, I have also never finished a Fallout. I think I finished the original Wasteland on Apple II, maybe.
Another game that probably belongs on that list is The Outer Worlds (not Outer Wilds, a different game that also came out in 2019). Comparing them, Borderlands has a series of very small open world-ish areas with a bunch of linear dungeons that branch off, and allows backtracking; The Outer Worlds has a series of smallish open world areas with a few of them being more like dungeons, and allows backtracking, and Metro: Exodus has a series of smallish open world areas with occasional interstitial dungeons and no backtracking.
Of course, The Outer Worlds is Obsidian, so you probably won't like it. Which is totally fine, since it's a pretty forgettable game (I've forgotten most of it other than the cystypigs), and it has the typical Bethesda/Obsidian crapsack world and bugginess.
I was going to mention Outer Worlds but deliberately didn't because I bounced off that game hard and didn't want to put anyone off playing Metro Exodus. They both kinda fit the 'cavern shooter' mould but other than that they're incredibly different games.
Yeah, overall it's still one of my favourite games ever, although I basically ignored the story and just played it as an 'spooky urbex with guns' simulator.
Wonderbread specifically didn’t have dirt and weevils as opposed to the bread from your local baker. That’s why it’s still here today.
Fallout 1 & 2 were great for their time. I agree regarding the newer ones.
Revisited Dying Light this weekend. Still looks amazing but a pet peeve I have with the design is that they gate the grappling hook to Survival Level 12, then make you spend the skill point on it on top of that (well, the latter is an assumption---don't now if you get it automatically). Problem is, every time you die you lose survivor points, the very thing that you have to get a certain number of to hit the next level. I'm at Level 11 and was within 1000 points of the 55K threshold, only to lose about 1800 points from dying a couple of times, grrrr.
I've gotta find some exploit or other to get the necessary points. Killing zombies alone doesn't seem to do anything.
I've gotta find some exploit or other to get the necessary points. Killing zombies alone doesn't seem to do anything.
Just finish the missions. They give out enormous amounts of points compared to running around - even at night - and killing Zeds.
I really wanted to like DL2. They worked the parkour system to make it nearly flawless, and yet somehow made a deathly boring game out of it. Not that the first one was much to write home about, but at least I finished it!
Erol Otus opened an online store finally : https://baymerch.com/collections/erol-otus for those fans of his style.
Miasma Chronicles comes out today. Was on the fence about playing it since I thought I'd be busy enough with Redfall still and also getting ready to review LotR: Gollum, but things worked out (Redfall being a dumpster fire not worth waiting any longer for patches, and I'll be out of town over the weekend which will delay the Gollum review regardless). It looks to be a fun tactical turn-based game, and with any luck it won't have the mess of issues a lot of games have launched with lately.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_MOC13kuOE
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_MOC13kuOE
Sadly, no 'tall' sizes. Online shops are leaving money on the table, as always.
I "fixed" that issue by expanding to where 2x fits me better than my normal xlt. I really need to un-fix that... But yes for many years that's a big hassle with shirts, because most of them end up too short after washing.
The new Starship Troopers game is looking very promising. 16 player objective based co-op with some base building mechanics. I am holding off on buying it, as there isn’t much there at the moment, but I will follow it’s development with great interest.
Is this based off of Verhoven's butchery, or the original book?
Movie.
You are grunts in cloth with machine guns.
No power armor. Brainless tactics. You know, fun!
(That said, it doesn't look like a terrible homage to said movie.)