PCG articles Links and Discussion March 2024

[Pifanjr]

Path of Achra is a bite-size, old-school, dungeon-crawling dark fantasy treat

Simple controls combine with broken builds in this roguelike RPG.

www.pcgamer.com

I tried out the demo in between working today and I think it's a great fit for playing for little bits at a time. I don't quite have the "broken build" part of the game down yet though.

I tried a summon build at first, which worked very well right up to the point where my summons got overwhelmed and I died.

Then I tried a build that focused on status effects, which also worked very well right up to the point where I got a ridiculous amount of poison stacked on me which seemed to also prevent all of my healing.

I didn't have much luck with the equipment I found because both builds were ranged based and most equipment seemed more suited for melee, so I suppose I'll try a melee build next time.

 

[Johnway]

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/nintendo-v-yuzu-switch-emulator-shut-down-settlement/

Grim news indeed. Nintendo has been seriously vicious with anyone emulating their content or even creating anything remotely linked to their ip even if its a fan project. here's hoping that it becomes a game of whack a mole and emulation development continues.

but the settlement of 2.4 million is an interesting point. Does yuzu have that kind of money? but we'll see what the future emulation of nintendo content goes. who knows, maybe the new console will have backwards compat and its a mute point and someone finds a way.

 

[ZedClampet]

Half-Life 2 patch tool Steam makes history for the 2nd time this year with a concurrent user count of nearly 35 million people

I think this thing is gonna take off.

www.pcgamer.com

In December, Sony announced they had sold 50 million consoles. Xbox Series X/S has sold 27 million. Meanwhile Steam has 135 million active users each month and is cruising around with 35 million people online at one time. (per Google)

I have nothing against consoles. I'm just putting the numbers in perspective. That's why almost every game is now coming to PC. And also why you may not want to take that low ball offer to be an Epic exclusive.

 

[DXCHASE]

Helldivers 2 just dropped a chunky balance patch that fixes heavy armour, adds meteor swarms, and deals a blow to eradication mission farmers

For Super Earth!

www.pcgamer.com

This patch sucks

They took this op gun, the railgun, and nerfed it bad inside its "safe" mode. Unsafe mode deals more dmg, but you can die from using it if ur not careful. Safe mode used less dmg but you didnt die if you held it down. This patch made it where they should just delete the safe option. They also nerfed the breaker (the games shotgun).

They still haven't fixed disconnecting issues, guns disappearing mid game and other issues that have been there for a while. They were so eager to nerf guns people were crutching on that it seems they forgot to buff anything else to make anything feel good against bugs/robots, imo.

I understand trying to stop farmers and people crutching 1 gun for everything, but now these guns are just useless esp. at 7+ high levels and even if people used the railgun, so what, its PVE. It helped all of us, now its just a wasted option or a more tedious one if you want to use one in unsafe mode

Im all about nerfing OP guns if they affected me neagtively, like a pvp weapon, but again, this is all pve, im not upset at nerfs, i dont agree with all the white knighters of the patch either, but nerfing, imo, needs to be done in a certain way that helps in making other guns feel viable and, even with buffs to the flamethrower and ammo increases, is still unbalanced in what they the devs took.

 

[Pifanjr]

Helldivers 2 just dropped a chunky balance patch that fixes heavy armour, adds meteor swarms, and deals a blow to eradication mission farmers

For Super Earth!

www.pcgamer.com

This patch sucks

They took this op gun, the railgun, and nerfed it bad inside its "safe" mode. Unsafe mode deals more dmg, but you can die from using it if ur not careful. Safe mode used less dmg but you didnt die if you held it down. This patch made it where they should just delete the safe option. They also nerfed the breaker (the games shotgun).

They still haven't fixed disconnecting issues, guns disappearing mid game and other issues that have been there for a while. They were so eager to nerf guns people were crutching on that it seems they forgot to buff anything else to make anything feel good against bugs/robots, imo.

I understand trying to stop farmers and people crutching 1 gun for everything, but now these guns are just useless esp. at 7+ high levels and even if people used the railgun, so what, its PVE. It helped all of us, now its just a wasted option or a more tedious one if you want to use one in unsafe mode

Im all about nerfing OP guns if they affected me neagtively, like a pvp weapon, but again, this is all pve, im not upset at nerfs, i dont agree with all the white knighters of the patch either, but nerfing, imo, needs to be done in a certain way that helps in making other guns feel viable and, even with buffs to the flamethrower and ammo increases, is still unbalanced in what they the devs took.

What are your thoughts on the explanations on why these weapons were nerfed?

Helldivers 2 balancing guru explains why 'Don't Nerf, Only Buff' is a bad idea: 'I believe players are scared of nerfs because it will ruin the fantasy of a weapon, ruin their fun'

Arrowhead says the Railgun was meant to be an "anti-tank sniper rifle," not the best gun for every situation.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[ZedClampet]

Now we know why those four Command and Conquer games got a price slash: EA just dropped a bundle of old-time classics on Steam, including virtually every C&C game ever made

Populous, Sim City 3000, The Saboteur, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and Dungeon Keeper have also made the move to Steam.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Zloth]

Don't nerf, only buff is a TERRIBLE idea!

Way back at the dawn of City of Heroes, they messed up the tank classes pretty bad. As the name implies, tanks are supposed to be able to take a lot more damage than a typical superhero. They shouldn't be able to take on an entire spawn* meant for 8 players for very long without some help from other players, though. In Issue 3, not only could they do that, but they could also take on every other spawn in the mission!

It warped gameplay massively. Players would get a team of one tank, one blaster, and 6 others who could be anything. They would all go into the mission and the 6 "others" would just stand around by the door. The tank would run through he whole mission, getting as many enemies after him as possible, then call the blaster over. The blaster would hit all the enemies bunched up around the tank with powerful AoE attacks and everything in the mission would be dead. Everyone leaves and goes on to the next mission.

Buffing everything up to that level would have been grade-A stupid. The developers would have had to massively buff every single thing in the game other than tanks - and the effect would have been exactly the same.

Naturally, when the nerf bat hit, many people screamed about how the game was 'unplayable' now, how the developers were just trying to make the game take longer so they could make more money off of subscriptions, and so on. Then they stormed out. The game continued on and gained a lot of popularity afterward.

* a "spawn" being a group of enemies. Might be called a mob sometimes, too. A typical mission would have maybe a dozen spawns. The size of the spawn was larger when more players were on the team.

 

[DXCHASE]

What are your thoughts on the explanations on why these weapons were nerfed?

Developers are going to always have their own reasons and they wont always line up with how most of their players feel about it. I see where they are coming from in trying to get people to use other weapons and to "rely on stratagems" (even though support weapons are stratagems) to win but i dont think the nerfs were needed yet. I mean its still tough to take on 3 Bile Titans and 3 chargers at once, solo, even pre-patch.

I do disagree with the statement made by one of the Arrowheads devs that probably responded out of frustration of being attacked all day, something along the lines of that they wanted to get people to move away from 'meta' loadouts and that they were trash (i think theyve apologized since then) . They are absolutely not trash or crutching. Some players need that kind of loadout to play the likes of Helldivers and for a dev. to refer to them like that undermines the community and the game itself imo.

Like the one dev said, its only been 4 weeks we need to relax. Yes, i understand, but you nerfed a popular gun right out of being used. You couldve waited on THAT then.

Again, all the backlash and hate that the devs and discord mods have recieved is bs because its just 1 patch and things can be reversed, i wouldnt have responded like Arrowheads CEO because the devs that let some thoughts slip online were getting attacked out there. You could see it unfold in realtime on the discord.

Don't nerf, only buff is a TERRIBLE idea!

Way back at the dawn of City of Heroes, they messed up the tank classes pretty bad. As the name implies, tanks are supposed to be able to take a lot more damage than a typical superhero. They shouldn't be able to take on an entire spawn* meant for 8 players for very long without some help from other players, though. In Issue 3, not only could they do that, but they could also take on every other spawn in the mission!

It warped gameplay massively. Players would get a team of one tank, one blaster, and 6 others who could be anything. They would all go into the mission and the 6 "others" would just stand around by the door. The tank would run through he whole mission, getting as many enemies after him as possible, then call the blaster over. The blaster would hit all the enemies bunched up around the tank with powerful AoE attacks and everything in the mission would be dead. Everyone leaves and goes on to the next mission.

Buffing everything up to that level would have been grade-A stupid. The developers would have had to massively buff every single thing in the game other than tanks - and the effect would have been exactly the same.

Naturally, when the nerf bat hit, many people screamed about how the game was 'unplayable' now, how the developers were just trying to make the game take longer so they could make more money off of subscriptions, and so on. Then they stormed out. The game continued on and gained a lot of popularity afterward.

* a "spawn" being a group of enemies. Might be called a mob sometimes, too. A typical mission would have maybe a dozen spawns. The size of the spawn was larger when more players were on the team.

I agree to a point but it depends on exactly whats being buffed/nerfed though.

Like an op tank is one thing, but 1 weapon that just kinda helped deal with bigger boss enemies in an already difficult setting (massive amounts of bugs or bots on high difficulty level) to be deemed less useful, like not just only less, but non existent. I saw maybe 1 or 2 railguns in all the games i played yesterday.

Arrowhead shouldve started off with buffing weapons here imo. The ARs, Machineguns, lasers just all feel underwhelming (and still kinda do) compared to the railgun or breaker shotgun. Im not saying they couldnt stand using a nerf at some point but i dont think it shouldve been the first thing to do.

 

[ZedClampet]

Akira Toriyama, Dragon Ball creator and one of the most influential manga artists of all time, dies aged 68

Toriyama leaves a towering and impossibly influential body of work.

www.pcgamer.com

Time to gather the dragon balls.

Rest in peace, sir. You made my life better.

 

[ZedClampet]

Samsung does an Apple with its first Snapdragon X Elite laptop, suggesting the new Arm-based Windows machines aren't going to be a cheap alternative to x86

AMD and Intel can breathe easier for a little longer, it would seem.

www.pcgamer.com

And ARM arrives. Not cheaper yet, but will be eventually.

 

[BeardyHat]

https://www.pcgamer.com/software/nintendo-v-yuzu-switch-emulator-shut-down-settlement/

Grim news indeed. Nintendo has been seriously vicious with anyone emulating their content or even creating anything remotely linked to their ip even if its a fan project. here's hoping that it becomes a game of whack a mole and emulation development continues.

but the settlement of 2.4 million is an interesting point. Does yuzu have that kind of money? but we'll see what the future emulation of nintendo content goes. who knows, maybe the new console will have backwards compat and its a mute point and someone finds a way.

Typical Nintendo **** and all the more reason for me to continue my trend of not buying their stuff. I know they value their property, but there's no reason I should have to pay $60 for a 7 year old game on their hardware and then be locked in to paying for basic stuff like Cloud saves, in addition to paying for games I've already paid for many times over (Switch Online or whatever their emulation is called).

This is just a drop in the bucket. Emulation will continue apace, though it may be more difficult to do as more and more devs remove access to their emulators via the Play store. It's all fine, for the dedicated community, things will continue as usual and for myself, I'll happily continue emulating GBA on my PS Vita or using a flash cart on an actual GBA.

Half-Life 2 patch tool Steam makes history for the 2nd time this year with a concurrent user count of nearly 35 million people

I think this thing is gonna take off.

www.pcgamer.com

In December, Sony announced they had sold 50 million consoles. Xbox Series X/S has sold 27 million. Meanwhile Steam has 135 million active users each month and is cruising around with 35 million people online at one time. (per Google)

I have nothing against consoles. I'm just putting the numbers in perspective. That's why almost every game is now coming to PC. And also why you may not want to take that low ball offer to be an Epic exclusive.

It's lovely how PC Gaming has grown, especially considering the dark days of the late-2000's, when ever other article was "PC gaming is dead!"

That said, I am wary of Steam having such a huge install base. Much as I love Steam and have been using it for near 20-years now, GabeN is getting older and who knows who will next take over the business. Maybe Steam will be sold to Microsoft or the heir apparent will have no desire to continue running Steam and will instead decide to run it into the ground.

It's made all the more difficult for the fact that I like to play on my Deck, which inclines me to buy more stuff on Steam. I really would like to buy the Tomb Raider games that are on sale via GoG right now, but I'd want to play them on my Deck. This isn't difficult or even impossible, I've done it plenty now, but I'm a whore for stat tracking. Even though I don't care about Achievements, I want to see what ones I've gotten and more particularly, how many hours I've played the game (a metric that's super important to me for some idiotic reason), which won't track if I install and play on my Deck via GoG. So I'm sitting here, debating if it's worth spending the $4 on 3-games, because I could just wait until they're on sale via Steam and have everything I want, but then again, I'm investing deeper in Steam.

I just hope I'm still happily using it and it's largely the same in the next 20-years, but time will tell, I suppose. I could be dead by then anyway.

 

[BeardyHat]

Samsung does an Apple with its first Snapdragon X Elite laptop, suggesting the new Arm-based Windows machines aren't going to be a cheap alternative to x86

AMD and Intel can breathe easier for a little longer, it would seem.

www.pcgamer.com

And ARM arrives. Not cheaper yet, but will be eventually.

Forgot to quote this and I'm too lazy to edit my other post now...

I'm curious to see how ARM develops for Windows and PC gaming. As you're well familiar, I love gaming with integrated graphics and Apple's new silicon seems to be a massive hit in that regard. I can only see it as a good thing to give Intel and AMD more competition in the space and hopefully drive both to improve in both performance and power consumption; I'd love to buy a 2lb, 13-inch laptop that has graphics capability nearly on par with a dedicated laptop GPU.

 

[ZedClampet]

Former Xbox boss Peter Moore says Gen Z may reject new consoles in favor of smartphones and PCs

"Why do I need to spend four or 500 bucks on a bespoke piece of gaming hardware when I've got my smartphone, or I got my PC or my Mac?"

www.pcgamer.com

"Why do I need to spend four or 500 bucks on a bespoke piece of gaming hardware when I've got my smartphone, or I got my PC or my Mac?"

I doubt the PS will go away any time soon, but Xbox probably will. Why? Because they can't make compelling games. The only decent Xbox exclusive that I can think of for the last 5 years has been Pentiment, and that's hardly a console seller. They have Avowed coming, but that's whether Obsidian can pull off a must-play RPG in 2024/25 is yet to be seen. The only other "big" thing in the Xbox game world is the Clockwork game by InXile, who also hasn't made a big-time console selling type game.

Avowed and Clockwork could both be good, but are they going to be a The Last of Us type good? A God of War type good? Spiderman? Uncharted? Not likely. When Bethesda decided that Starfield was just going to be Skyrim in space instead of trying to innovate and wow gamers, Xbox missed it's only chance. None of their other studios are capable of making "the one". ID and MachineGames are probably goofing around with live service games even as we speak. It's just going to get ugly for Xbox. Better that they concentrate on Game Pass.

 

[Zloth]

Oh wow, Brain up-voted a post talking about a "must-play RPG"!

Consoles have a very strong niche: plug-and-play quality gaming. You can get better quality playing on PC, but it just isn't as simple as buying a console then buying games with that console's name on the cover. Phones just haven't got the power.

The point about what the next generation is supposed to give gamers that they haven't already got is real, though. It's slowing PC sales, too. If they make another console generation, I suggest building them to last.

Another thing that could really kill consoles is the client/server (aka thin client, aka cloud) model where your 'console' is little more than a dumb terminal that sends off your input and decodes your video stream from a game that's actually played on a server. Pinpoint timing doesn't work all that well in those games, but the consoles would be super cheap. We've seen a few attempts at it already - I think it will catch on eventually.

 

[ZedClampet]

Star Wars Jedi director who left Respawn in 2023 to 'pursue other adventures' reveals that his other adventure is a new game studio called Giant Skull

Stig Asmussen's Giant Skull is working on a "AAA single-player focused action adventure."

www.pcgamer.com

blah blah blah blah after kicking around some creative ideas we've decided to make a singleplayer shooter blah blah blah blah blah blah it will have a story that, for your convenience, you'll be able to predict within minutes of starting the game blah blah blah blah bang bang bang go the guns blah blah blah money doesn't grow on trees so we're releasing it early, broken and unfinished blah blah blah blah blah when this doesn't sell well, we'll quickly throw together a free live service game before going out of business blah blah blah blah blah.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Star Wars Jedi director who left Respawn in 2023 to 'pursue other adventures' reveals that his other adventure is a new game studio called Giant Skull

Stig Asmussen's Giant Skull is working on a "AAA single-player focused action adventure."

www.pcgamer.com

blah blah blah blah after kicking around some creative ideas we've decided to make a singleplayer shooter blah blah blah blah blah blah it will have a story that, for your convenience, you'll be able to predict within minutes of starting the game blah blah blah blah bang bang bang go the guns blah blah blah money doesn't grow on trees so we're releasing it early, broken and unfinished blah blah blah blah blah when this doesn't sell well, we'll quickly throw together a free live service game before going out of business blah blah blah blah blah.

Promise I'm not just being contrary but Im actually really interested in any new high fidelity single player bullet tosser. I liked Jedi Fallen Order and Titanfall 2 a lot, so if this has some of the same direction it could be fun.

 

[ZedClampet]

Promise I'm not just being contrary but Im actually really interested in any new high fidelity single player bullet tosser. I liked Jedi Fallen Order and Titanfall 2 a lot, so if this has some of the same direction it could be fun.

Titanfall 2 is one of my all-time favorites. Was thinking about playing it again recently. Just not sure I can endure all the wall-running again.

I haven't played Jedi Fallen Order.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Titanfall 2 is great, mean to replay it one day as well.

I haven't played Jedi Fallen Order.

Also has wall running. Fun combat, vaguely Sekiro like with parries and meditation points (bonfires), decent story and characters. Not up there with Titanfall 2 but pretty good anyway.

 

[ZedClampet]

Titanfall 2 is great, mean to replay it one day as well.


Also has wall running. Fun combat, vaguely Sekiro like with parries and meditation points (bonfires), decent story and characters. Not up there with Titanfall 2 but pretty good anyway.

I have nothing against wall running except that, like parkour, I'm bad at it. It's actually fun when I get it right.

 

[Brian Boru]

blah blah blah blah

Finally you're making sense!

I have nothing against wall running except that, like parkour, I'm bad at it. It's actually fun when I get it right.

I don't like either, why I dropped Titanfall 2 after a few hours—and one other a long time ago… maybe a Prince of Persia, they got wall running?

Platforming, multi-swings with grappling hooks, skateboarding, driving etc—any traversal method which requires sustained multi-finger activity just doesn't do it for me.

high fidelity

What's that mean, refers to graphics I assume?

 

[ZedClampet]

The US House passes a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok

The bill will now head to the Senate.

www.pcgamer.com

Oh no, what will I do without 5 second clips of someone lip syncing while taking the bathtub/electrical outlet challenge?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

What's that mean, refers to graphics I assume?

Guess I misused the term, its pretty common to use it related to quality of graphics. I meant high level of all production values, doesnt need to have a AAA budget to look great and have a fun story as long as they dont try to make it a huge open world.

 

[Pifanjr]

Helldivers 2 players are dousing planets in poison gas that Super Earth says will 'permanently' destroy the bugs, but we all know what Joel's really up to

Round up your co-op buddies and spray planet-wide insecticide to defend Super Earth's way of life.

www.pcgamer.com

I feel like Helldivers 2 is doing exactly what I would want out of a live service game: actually making players feel like they're part of an evolving world. I'm not sure if it feels like that when you're playing the game, but it looks like it from the news articles I see about it.

Fortnite on the other hand just seems like it changes its maps and weapons every few weeks/months. I played some matches with my wife yesterday and did a few of the "story" quests, but I didn't actually have time to read any of the text in-game because there's at least 4 other people swarming the same place trying to shoot you. Not that it seems like the text gives much story at all and it definitely doesn't feel like the players are actually part of a shared world.

That being said, the new locations, mechanics and weapons do look good and their strategy is successful in keeping the game alive for almost 7 years now, while I'm not sure whether Helldivers 2 will have that kind of staying power.

 

[Pifanjr]

Google develops an AI that will actually play games with you

Hey Google, kill that sucker.

www.pcgamer.com

This seems pretty cool, but I think it's ridiculous to call it a "human-like gaming companion". It's not like it'll be a replacement for the social connection you get from playing with other people, it'll be like a robot butler you can order around.

 

[ZedClampet]

Helldivers 2 players are dousing planets in poison gas that Super Earth says will 'permanently' destroy the bugs, but we all know what Joel's really up to

Round up your co-op buddies and spray planet-wide insecticide to defend Super Earth's way of life.

www.pcgamer.com

I feel like Helldivers 2 is doing exactly what I would want out of a live service game: actually making players feel like they're part of an evolving world. I'm not sure if it feels like that when you're playing the game, but it looks like it from the news articles I see about it.

Fortnite on the other hand just seems like it changes its maps and weapons every few weeks/months. I played some matches with my wife yesterday and did a few of the "story" quests, but I didn't actually have time to read any of the text in-game because there's at least 4 other people swarming the same place trying to shoot you. Not that it seems like the text gives much story at all and it definitely doesn't feel like the players are actually part of a shared world.

That being said, the new locations, mechanics and weapons do look good and their strategy is successful in keeping the game alive for almost 7 years now, while I'm not sure whether Helldivers 2 will have that kind of staying power.

Helldivers 2 definitely feels like a shared universe where your actions change things. Their "DM" does a great job of seeing to it that the game reacts/changes based on the efforts of the players.

As for how long it will last, IDK, but it feels a lot like Warframe, which has been going strong for 11 years. It doesn't have the depth of Warframe, but few games do, and Warframe didn't have a fraction of its content when it first launched. So what they need to do is just keep going, adding content, etc. They have a great base to work on.