Colif
Moderator
Brian Boru
Moderator
No reason unless it has spammy content. This should explain it:
Announcement - Limitations on New Forum Accounts
Hey folks, In an effort to combat spam on these forums, we've implemented some restrictions on new accounts that some of you may run into. While not being able to use every feature can be frustrating for new users, having a forum filled with spam is even worse, so we're doing our best to ride...
forums.pcgamer.com
Read a few threads to get a feel for what's acceptable, if you're still unclear, read these:
How to Build an Online Community for a Small Business
Online communities keep your target audience engaged with one another and your brand. Here's how to effectively build an online community.
Top Etiquette's for Forum Posting > Destiny | Forums | Bungie.net
Bungie.net is the Internet home for Bungie, the developer of Destiny, Halo, Myth, Oni, and Marathon, and the only place with official Bungie info straight from the developers.
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Colif
Moderator
Why are interfaces getting so cluttered? Why doesn't it let you just discover things without showing you where they are? there is no mystery if its all labelled.
Frindis
Moderator
Why is there so much purple in the interface? Is it for children? Smaller health bars look much cleaner, no idea what they would put in wider ones. Probably should have played some MMOs to get an understanding of how that works. I'm fine with the wheel for spells, but definitely should have been smaller and less centered on the screen. Hopefully, you can remove most of the handholding, like you often can with similar games. Makes you wonder why it looks like that in the first place though. Who thought that was a good idea?
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Colif
Moderator
They don't trust the people playing to learn how to play as they go, everything is labelled and explained. So yes, maybe it is for children... some of the themes in game probably aren't for children though.
you can hope there are options in settings to remove some. I have seen that in games before. You don't need the buttons you press to show on screen all the time. His idea of the alt key function is needed.
you can hope there are options in settings to remove some. I have seen that in games before. You don't need the buttons you press to show on screen all the time. His idea of the alt key function is needed.
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Colif
Moderator
How many icons would be on the screen if this was released today (obviously the graphics would be better, but still)
I didn't like it that much when I got it as back then it would be 3 or so months between games, and for ages I either had it or Mario 64 to play. Many of the N64 racing games sucked and I seem to have got all of them.
I didn't like it that much when I got it as back then it would be 3 or so months between games, and for ages I either had it or Mario 64 to play. Many of the N64 racing games sucked and I seem to have got all of them.
(Somehow this got posted in the August Monthly Game Competition thread, weird)
Played a small variety of games this past weekend. Started with AoE4, still playing skirmishes. I played a few multiplayer skirmishes, Players vs AI, but even if I put “noobs only” in the lobby title, people with 200+ hours in game still join me and wipe out all of the enemies. I’m not great at the game, I tend to take things a little too slow, that’s why I want only noob players to join me so we can all build up our armies and go destroy the enemies together. It’s still fun to play with other people but less so when they have an entire army capable of destroy all four enemy AI before you can even build walls around your city.
After that I played more Obenseur. Still barely scratched the surface of my tenement. I’ve been grinding out money by collecting bottles and helping the local greenhouse grow veggies. Learning how to beat addictions so I don’t have to worry about them as much. Right now in the game there doesn’t seem to be any consequence for letting your addiction grow without treating it. My character is addicted to cigarettes, alcohol and mushrooms. So far only beat the mushroom addiction, which took away some health when I finally overcame it but you heal easily by eating and sleeping. I’m not sure where the game expects you to sleep when you first start the game but luckily I found a room inside one of the apartments furnished with a toilet and shower so that’s all of my shelter needs right there. The bed always claims it’s unsafe to sleep there but I’ve yet to have anything bad happen to me while sleeping.
I also tried to play Frostpunk 2 on Game Pass, but after watching the intro cinematic I think I really need to go play the first one. I bet I could still have fun with it even by not playing the first but it would definitely make more sense to do so.
My girlfriend and I also started a new Minecraft run. I suppose this begins our annual Minecraft addiction phase. We’re just playing vanilla on Bedrock, no mods or anything. Her laptop can barely handle Minecraft so I bet mods would just make it worse unless there was one to make performance better. Also I’m not sure if Bedrock supports mods, apparently she doesn’t own Java. The first hour was spend search for the perfect place to build, and after flying around in creative mode we finally found a cute cherry blossom forest with a massive ravine nearby. She’s been doing a great job at building the house while I’ve been exploring mines.
Played a small variety of games this past weekend. Started with AoE4, still playing skirmishes. I played a few multiplayer skirmishes, Players vs AI, but even if I put “noobs only” in the lobby title, people with 200+ hours in game still join me and wipe out all of the enemies. I’m not great at the game, I tend to take things a little too slow, that’s why I want only noob players to join me so we can all build up our armies and go destroy the enemies together. It’s still fun to play with other people but less so when they have an entire army capable of destroy all four enemy AI before you can even build walls around your city.
After that I played more Obenseur. Still barely scratched the surface of my tenement. I’ve been grinding out money by collecting bottles and helping the local greenhouse grow veggies. Learning how to beat addictions so I don’t have to worry about them as much. Right now in the game there doesn’t seem to be any consequence for letting your addiction grow without treating it. My character is addicted to cigarettes, alcohol and mushrooms. So far only beat the mushroom addiction, which took away some health when I finally overcame it but you heal easily by eating and sleeping. I’m not sure where the game expects you to sleep when you first start the game but luckily I found a room inside one of the apartments furnished with a toilet and shower so that’s all of my shelter needs right there. The bed always claims it’s unsafe to sleep there but I’ve yet to have anything bad happen to me while sleeping.
I also tried to play Frostpunk 2 on Game Pass, but after watching the intro cinematic I think I really need to go play the first one. I bet I could still have fun with it even by not playing the first but it would definitely make more sense to do so.
My girlfriend and I also started a new Minecraft run. I suppose this begins our annual Minecraft addiction phase. We’re just playing vanilla on Bedrock, no mods or anything. Her laptop can barely handle Minecraft so I bet mods would just make it worse unless there was one to make performance better. Also I’m not sure if Bedrock supports mods, apparently she doesn’t own Java. The first hour was spend search for the perfect place to build, and after flying around in creative mode we finally found a cute cherry blossom forest with a massive ravine nearby. She’s been doing a great job at building the house while I’ve been exploring mines.
Ara: History Untold comes out tomorrow on Game Pass. I’ve been checking out reviews and it seems to be sitting around “okay/good” territory. Lots of 7’s and 8’s, IGN giving it a 6, but general consensus among reviewers seems that it’s a good game but may need some balancing patches in the future. It seems very interesting and I may dive into it tomorrow. I’m not huge in Civ/grand strategy games, but the addition of city building mechanics makes it interesting to me.
With costume quest finished, i've started yakuza 4. Nothing to report yet. i've only played 2 hours tops.
Still playing AOE2 and up until now, i have been able to hold my own in sp standard. most of it being a breeze but it looks like the difficulty of this one scenario is like slamming into a brick wall. 3 imperial factions, all of them aggressive, an extremely tight time limit makes for a horrific challenge. fair enough i did try once, but my god it was painful. I need to reconsider my strategy. Perhaps i will cheese it or i have to absolutely finish off the enemy so i can knock them out of the match. i can't blob and slowly grind my way across the map like i usually do, the enemy are just too numerous, resourceful and aggressive. But i've almost finished with AOE DE main campaigns. So expect a post about it probably before the end of the year. Probably.
on other news, i'm still playing around with Ultimate doom builder. I can build basic rooms with doors and locks and i suppose i can get a map to play to the end, but its a long way before we can create a map to release. So far i'm taking snap shots in doom wads and using that as practice material etc and trying to develop my skills.
Still need to play around with triggers, lighting, teleports, architecture, the sky etc. Don't get me started on making an exciting level to play, thats the least of my problems. I can plonk monsters down but whether it will be fun to play, now THAT takes skill.
Still playing AOE2 and up until now, i have been able to hold my own in sp standard. most of it being a breeze but it looks like the difficulty of this one scenario is like slamming into a brick wall. 3 imperial factions, all of them aggressive, an extremely tight time limit makes for a horrific challenge. fair enough i did try once, but my god it was painful. I need to reconsider my strategy. Perhaps i will cheese it or i have to absolutely finish off the enemy so i can knock them out of the match. i can't blob and slowly grind my way across the map like i usually do, the enemy are just too numerous, resourceful and aggressive. But i've almost finished with AOE DE main campaigns. So expect a post about it probably before the end of the year. Probably.
on other news, i'm still playing around with Ultimate doom builder. I can build basic rooms with doors and locks and i suppose i can get a map to play to the end, but its a long way before we can create a map to release. So far i'm taking snap shots in doom wads and using that as practice material etc and trying to develop my skills.
Still need to play around with triggers, lighting, teleports, architecture, the sky etc. Don't get me started on making an exciting level to play, thats the least of my problems. I can plonk monsters down but whether it will be fun to play, now THAT takes skill.
Brian Boru
Moderator
Traffic lights aren't for children, nor the aisles in a store.
Options are a Good Thing!
Poor UI and UX design skills—probably done by graphic artists without supervision by someone with a clue.
Agree, sounds like they designed for mobile and 'forgot' to fix it.
Should be avoided unless you have a specific need, which it seems you have—was a big attack vector for malware last decade. It'll work if you're careful—I've had it for ~20 years for a core biz app.
Download Java.
Colif
Moderator
Game needs play testing before release. Not jjust to make sure it works, but that its playable in finished state. It feels like anyone who actually played it would notice this.
Zloth
Community Contributor
I haven't seen people criticize Ubi just for being open world, they criticize it for following a certain formula too rigidly: you get to a new region, you climb some sort of tower, and POOF! Lots of icons all over your map. It isn't a bad game mechanic, it's just that Ubisoft has done it to death.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Getting? They've always been that way. AAAAALLLLWAAAAYYYSSSS!!! Not all games, of course. Some games aren't all that complex or have a slow enough pace that players have time to switch to another screen to do whatever-it-is. MMOs are the nastiest - highly complex, fast action, no way to pause at all, so you need a lot of info all the time. Which means:
(City of Heroes has an extremely dynamic GUI that lets you dock all sorts of windows all over the place. Meaning, I did this to myself. )
Size is tricky, too. If you know your customers are playing the game on a monitor 1m in front of their faces, you can get tiny. If they are on a couch 3m looking at a TV built in 1999, the items have to be big. Now'a'days, with even more people playing from the couch but a lot of them having TVs bigger than my entire desk, I don't know what they are supposed to aim for.
It also lets you completely miss the things, even when looking for them. Even when looking for them with instructions on how to find them! If you do that with required content, you're going to make nearly everyone VERY mad. The solution is to make quest markers optional - which gets done a lot. Then the people that think they don't want them can turn them off for the first couple of hours, then turn them back on again after spending half an hour just trying to find the entrance to some cave.
(That said, I love it when a few things don't get markers and need to be discovered. It has to be side content with rewards that won't mess up the game balance - maybe some extra viewpoint around the story line or something like that.)
Colif
Moderator
Yes. I get that but this is a single player game. Your party members can't take damage, so no need to track everyones health, it is redundant.
Colif remembers playing wow raids... age of conan raids as a healer/dps
When I played, that sort of interface was due to mods. Not built into game from launch. It was players choice to have so much. This is default.
I was a little sad to see yellow ladders in Titan Quest 2 but at least there is only shows if the item is highlighted. The highlight everything on screen thing would sure have mode point and click games a lot easier in the past.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Single player means there's a pause option, which helps a ton, but complexity and real-time still adds to the complexity of the interface. I'm not sure what you're talking about with respect to party management health bars?
I've really got to play the game to understand the GUI for sure.
Brian Boru
Moderator
Are they still doing that somewhere? AC maybe?
FC4 is the last Far Cry with that mechanic, which is from a decade ago—if I recall correctly, FC4's prehistoric spinoff Primal from 2016 also had it, almost definitely since it's the same map repurposed.
2018's FC5 and later don't have it. There was a dig at the mechanic in FC5's opening island when you did need to climb a tower via ladders and Dutch tells you "Don't worry, I'm not going to have you climbing towers all over the county"
In FC5+ you discover stuff via going out and about, doing things, talking to NPCs or just exploring and stumbling. As you do this, those individual items are added to your map and if I recall correctly, they disappear when you 'do' them.
I always thought it was a horrible mechanic—I could put up with a few, but 15-20… no thanks. If I wanted that rubbish I'd buy a platformer game to begin with. Dev hubris again, mixing genres just cos they can—no regard for their customers who don't like or want the unadvertised compulsory sideshows.
Brian Boru
Moderator
Solely a guess here but I doubt if play testers have any training in UI or UX. I looked into it idly to see if it might interest me some years ago, and there was no mention of either in the requirements.
Iow UI and UX weren't a factor for game companies then, so they didn't want anyone with the skills—I doubt much has changed in ~5 years.
Maybe because Adventure games got roundly panned for that practice—it was called 'pixel hunting' and was really tedious especially if you didn't know if you'd found all the essentials in an area.
Even with them on it can be 'challenging' to find stuff sometimes, especially in very vertical environments with high mountains and deep caves. Unclimbable cliffs are a pain, where you have to go all the way to a neighboring higher one and wingsuit + chute to the target summit. And if you sneeze just when you were supposed to deploy the chute… well, Bless You!
Doesn't scale to resolution cover that?
Yeah, and pretty much the same can be said about the CP2077 open world, maybe bar the tower climbing. It's a "checklist" open world.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I'm someone who liked Cyberpunk well enough and dislikes the UBI style in general. You could also point that finger at Witcher 3 and people dont seem to mind that game.
I really dont like checklist open world games. Maybe I just liked the Cyberpunk 2077 setting and story enough that I didnt mind following the side quest chains that interested me most as well as the main quest. I pretty much played it as a linear story. Took me about 45 hours I think, didnt overstay its welcome. I barely touched any of the radiant events unless they happened to spawn under my nose as far as I remember.
I tried to play Far Cry 5 a couple years ago, and the open world got in the way of the game. You cant move an inch without an angry Honey Badger overturning a car full of Rednecks in front of you or some other nonsense which gets boring, and the setting and story wasnt interesting enough to make me want to find the next story beat after a few hours.
I think for me and maybe others the difference is, if UBI had made Witcher 3 exactly the same as CD Projeckt Red did, we would be up to Witcher 7 by now and the formula would still be similar. Instead they created a whole new setting in a different genre essentially and tried something different. I get why UBI does what it does, but by doing so theyre also slowly killing their own cash cows. Feels to me theyve locked themselves into a downward spiral with the way they have tried to do things, time for them to change things up a bit if its not too late already.
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Recently I reinstalled Assassin's Creed Valhalla to pick up where I left off. I'm still using the Twilight armor and Fafnir spear, and decided it was about time to try to take on the 3 witches that unlock the Thor armor set once you beat them. The first, which uses poison attacks, was not terribly hard, as I was roughly twice her level. I was only about 3/4 the level of the 2nd one though, (whom uses fire attacks) which took a TON of running around the perimeter of the battle area to resupply arrows in between ranged attacks.
What makes these witches hard to fight is their enviro attacks are done via a doppelganger of themself, so it's like fighting two enemies at once. The 3rd witch, whom uses thunder attacks, or basically a lightning doppelganger, is a whopping level 340! So she's over 2 and a half times my current level.
That said, I now have level 2 Harpoon ability, and a skill that quickly builds adrenaline when using light attacks. Between that and the advanced assassination skill, I am pretty much unstoppable against regular and heavy enemies, but zealots and high level bosses are another thing all together.
There is a method I've seen though of fighting the 3rd witch Cordelia, where you use mainly the Rage of Helheim ability, in between blocking her light attacks. The problem is, I can't seem to block her light attacks, and when I manage to get her on the ground with Rage of Helheim, I cannot get in a flurry of hits, as she always blocks a lot of them.
So I will at some point go back and try to beat Cordelia again, but despite the added skills and ability buffs I didn't have the first times I fought her, I'm thinking I need to add more block and attack to my skill set. I just hope the problems with blocking and Rage of Helheim I've encountered aren't anything to do with the fact I'm using keyboard and mouse vs gamepad.
What makes these witches hard to fight is their enviro attacks are done via a doppelganger of themself, so it's like fighting two enemies at once. The 3rd witch, whom uses thunder attacks, or basically a lightning doppelganger, is a whopping level 340! So she's over 2 and a half times my current level.
That said, I now have level 2 Harpoon ability, and a skill that quickly builds adrenaline when using light attacks. Between that and the advanced assassination skill, I am pretty much unstoppable against regular and heavy enemies, but zealots and high level bosses are another thing all together.
There is a method I've seen though of fighting the 3rd witch Cordelia, where you use mainly the Rage of Helheim ability, in between blocking her light attacks. The problem is, I can't seem to block her light attacks, and when I manage to get her on the ground with Rage of Helheim, I cannot get in a flurry of hits, as she always blocks a lot of them.
So I will at some point go back and try to beat Cordelia again, but despite the added skills and ability buffs I didn't have the first times I fought her, I'm thinking I need to add more block and attack to my skill set. I just hope the problems with blocking and Rage of Helheim I've encountered aren't anything to do with the fact I'm using keyboard and mouse vs gamepad.
I picked up Slay the Spire again and I now remember why I dropped it. You either find a gimmick to build your deck around in the first few fights or you die before reaching the first boss.
If you don't find a gimmick, you're pretty much done. There is no amount of strategy that can overcome bad luck.
If you don't find a gimmick, you're pretty much done. There is no amount of strategy that can overcome bad luck.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
I love STS but also I suck at it. Watching people like Jorbs or Baalorlord play on ascension 20 is pretty amazing, the top players have over 50% win rates on all characters on the hardest difficulty, so its much less random than it seems when you know the game inside and out.
Me? Im at ascension 7 on Ironclad and 5 on Silent and Defect. My win rate is probably less than 5% on the lower difficulties
I played some more Minecraft, but I'm getting restless with how slow it is to progress in this modpack. I spend far too much time just standing in my base waiting for stuff to be done.
I'm considering switching to a different modpack and using cheats to speed up my progress to about the same level I'm at now in this modpack. Though I might also just pick up a different game.
I probably do just suck at it. I looked up some tips to see what I'm doing wrong and I think I tend to specialise too much, which causes problems against enemies that counter specific builds.
Which kind of sucks. I like creating decks with good synergies, but it seems that, especially on higher levels, you get punished for focusing on a specific synergy.
I'm considering switching to a different modpack and using cheats to speed up my progress to about the same level I'm at now in this modpack. Though I might also just pick up a different game.
I love STS but also I suck at it. Watching people like Jorbs or Baalorlord play on ascension 20 is pretty amazing, the top players have over 50% win rates on all characters on the hardest difficulty, so its much less random than it seems when you know the game inside and out.
Me? Im at ascension 7 on Ironclad and 5 on Silent and Defect. My win rate is probably less than 5% on the lower difficulties
I probably do just suck at it. I looked up some tips to see what I'm doing wrong and I think I tend to specialise too much, which causes problems against enemies that counter specific builds.
Which kind of sucks. I like creating decks with good synergies, but it seems that, especially on higher levels, you get punished for focusing on a specific synergy.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Horizon: Forbidden West does the tower-climb-to-see-lots-of-icons thing. The "towers" walk around in a big circle and, in Forbidden West, they start toying around with the concept a lot. For instance, one has nothing near it and can't be climbed. One is busted. Another is busted and underground.
Ubisoft's Watch Dogs series didn't, either. Legion got an Assassin's Creed DLC which tossed some AC-like gameplay into it, which tossed in a tower to climb for laughs.2018's FC5 and later don't have it. There was a dig at the mechanic in FC5's opening island when you did need to climb a tower via ladders and Dutch tells you "Don't worry, I'm not going to have you climbing towers all over the county"
15 to 20!?! Both Horizon games together only have about a dozen!
Hubris? There is only one genre here: action adventure. An action adventure game is a mix of all genres. Any mix! There could be any amount of shooting, including 0. There could be any amount of platforming, including 0. I haven't seen any 4X gameplay in an action-adventure yet, but it's probably just a matter of time.
Don't believe me? The Steam action-adventure category I'm looking at right now has Robocop, Elden Ring's DLC, Greedfall 2, Most Wanted, and Street Fighter in the top section with all the box art. The genre walls are falling! Prepare to go through a dating sim to open up new weapons in Far Cry 7! Muuuuahahahahaha... wait, what was I talking about?
Far too much of that stuff seems to just be artists going on about how other artists' work is trash.
The stuff that IS important (IMHO) tends to get forgotten. "Use color to emphasis, never as a sole means of information" is a big one. If you've got a red health potion and a green poison potion, you had better give people another indicator, like giving them different bottle shapes or putting bubbles in one. Assuming people who are red/green color blind even try to play games anymore - so many games ignore them that they might have given up by now.
Ah, the good old "icon shows you the X/Y but you're going to have to figure out the Z yourself" trick for quest markers!Even with them on it can be 'challenging' to find stuff sometimes, especially in very vertical environments with high mountains and deep caves. Unclimbable cliffs are a pain, where you have to go all the way to a neighboring higher one and wingsuit + chute to the target summit. And if you sneeze just when you were supposed to deploy the chute… well, Bless You!
Some of it. If you are playing at 4K resolution and the text you put on the screen is 100 pixels tall, it will go to 50 pixels tall if the vertical resolution is halved instead of becoming stupidly large. If you know the size of the screen, you can do even better and make the text 1cm tall no matter what resolution is used. But even then, if you don't know how far away the eyeball is. For a computer monitor, 1cm is pretty large. From back on the couch, not so much.
Seems like I've seen games with small/medium/large options (which are also great for people with vision issues), but not very often.
!? So... pretty much the same can be said about Cyberpunk, bar everything I said?? Huh? The paragraph you quoted was all about climbing towers to see icons on a map!
Colif
Moderator
Seems Ubisoft can't do anything right with AC Shadows.
Backdrop used to promote two characters was created 400 years after the game is set. They used a Tori Gate half destroyed by a Nuclear Bomb in WW2
en.wikipedia.org
Backdrop used to promote two characters was created 400 years after the game is set. They used a Tori Gate half destroyed by a Nuclear Bomb in WW2
Sannō Shrine - Wikipedia
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